Trinity I couldn’t help it. I loved him. There was no escaping that fact anymore. I couldn’t even explain how much or why, just that I did. I pulled back to look up at him. There was something in his eyes that I couldn’t place, like a little flicker of knowledge that might mean the end of me. I shivered at the thought. The dream flashed behind my eyes. He nipped my lip. “It will be too dark to remain out here soon.”I nodded. “We should…”Go? Stay? I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say anymore, but I knew that I didn’t want to be apart from him. Not now when everything was changing. Not when everything had changed.“Stay the night with me,” he said against my lips.The heat in his voice and the desire in his eyes made my legs weak. I worried my lip. I wanted to hesitate, maybe to slow down, but I had lost so much already. I had hesitated before, so I shouldn’t hesitate now. He led me back to the shore, and we gathered our things. My heart was still racing as I followed him back
Lucianus It had been so easy to seduce her. So easy to push and prod her fragile human heart. I didn’t even have to use the blood-slave bond to make her willing. She’d been excited by the prospect of giving herself to me. Had I realized this back at the resort, I would have had her that night with her full knowledge of the event. It didn’t matter now. Hearing her say she loved me sent a thrill of triumph through me. She was gullible. So easy to manipulate just like all humans. The sound of her voice saying those words stirred up memories that warmed me, yet that feeling felt so far away. Unlike before, I knew she wasn’t my wife. I had full control of my mind, my powers, and my memories. She was a pretty little trinket. A human. A food source in a beautiful container. And just like all humans, she had been so easy to manipulate, so willing to give herself over to me for money and sex. I licked my lips as I walked away from the house towards the car. It wouldn’t take much longer be
TrinityAfter spending so many days with Lucian, I thought I should wait at least a day before trying to contact him since we last saw each other. But it had been three days. The car that came to take me to the lab the next time I was due to give blood was empty. The driver drove me there and back without a word, but I never saw Lucian. He didn’t call. He didn’t text. Was everything okay? Maybe something had happened to him. Maybe he was just busy. I knew he had feelings for me. I felt it in the way that he had sex with me over and over again, but he’d never said it. A pang of doubt went through me. I had been with guys before who had slept with me, pretended to like me, and then never contacted me again after they got what they wanted from me. I thought Lucian was different, given everything he’d done for me, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe he was just taking advantage of my feelings. Maybe he’d gotten exactly what he wanted out of me and now he was done. Or maybe he was just going
Lucianus I waited for a time, keeping track of Stella, and waiting for her to make her move. She may not be human, but she was just as stupid as many of them if she thought that I wasn’t going to keep a close watch on her and just trust that my threat was enough. My wife told me more often than not that once Stella had decided to do something, there was almost no stopping her, even if it was a bad idea. She turned and headed out of the park. I glided through the shadows, following her silently for the rest of the night as she went around the city. I followed her this way for three days. She wasn’t active during the day, but she moved her place of rest seemingly sporadically. There was a hotel, a few apartment buildings, and a few houses that she frequented, but most of the nights, she spent her time wandering around the city. For a while, I thought she was simply lost and looking to learn the layout. She captured someone to feed on and dumped their body carelessly in an alley. I a
TrinityI struggled to my feet and ran. I didn’t know where I was running or for how long I ran, but no matter how I ran, I couldn’t get the sight of him tearing into those men out of my mind. I could still smell the blood gushing out onto the sidewalk. I could still hear the crunching of bone. My chest felt tight as I panted, trying to get as far away as I possibly could. I reached a major street. Cars zipped by. People filled the streets. The lights of the streets and buildings filled my eyes. I was safe for now. But how long would that last? Mark had warned me, hadn’t he? And I hadn’t listened. He wasn’t human. More than that, he was likely the person who murdered the former dean. My stomach turned. He hadn’t looked human at all. He hadn’t looked like the man I’d kissed at the lake. He looked like a monster—a vampire. I shuddered. How could I have fallen in love with a vampire? A demon?More importantly, what was I going to do now? What could I do? Confront him? Pretend I didn
Lucianus I watched the hunter, who seemed far too interested in my prey, steal out the back door, chasing the shadow I had created. Then, I listened for her to move from the living room. I drifted inside, stealing through the shadows and stalking her down the hall to her room. She looked back and around with wide, terrified eyes as she crept down the hallway. Still, I was relieved. There were minor injuries from the crash and the people hired to kill her, but she was safe. She shuddered and crawled into bed, careful not to turn out the lights or get too close to the windows. It was amusing that she thought that would keep her from me. Her friend, the hunter, was right, at least. Trinity was safe from my wrath. I listened to her drift off to sleep before climbing into the bed beside her, simply to watch her for now. My appetite was mostly sated from draining those fools. The night was quiet around us as I listened to Mark chasing the shadows down the street and away from the house.
TrinityI dreamed that I was flying over an endless red desert. I was afraid, and my heart was hammering, but I was also struck by the beauty of the landscape. The air was warm. The sky was filled with blood-red light, and dark wings carried me across it towards a towering dark castle that looked something out of a fantasy movie. Then, I was falling into darkness. I saw the swirl of a skirt trimmed in red-gold. I tasted something coppery in my mouth. My stomach lurched. Then, I fell hard onto a cold stone floor, and pain shot through me. I heard someone screaming for help and mercy. Someone’s eyes stared at me as tears rolled down their face, and the expression went vacant. I realized, with horror, that the person was dead. Then, the person vanished. Beautifully decorated walls and a shadow-covered portrait rose up around me. I smelled perfume. Something, some animal, growled at me, and I was shoved back. I felt my clothes being ripped from my body. I heard myself screaming. Pain s
TrinityI was speechless. I couldn’t believe that he was here. How could he be here as the new dean of my school? He was dressed so handsomely in a nice suit. He smiled at the group and spoke quietly with the assistant dean as he took the microphone. I was… a bit happy to see him, confused and scared too. He was a murderer. I knew that. I could still smell the blood being spilled. I could still see the way his eyes glowed in the darkness. My heart started to speed up at the thought of him coming here to silence me. Was I putting the other people that worked here in danger simply by being here?I slipped behind one of the other students, hoping to hide from him. I didn’t know if it would work, but I had to try. Slowly, I worked my way toward the door, hoping not to be noticed by anyone. Most of the people I worked with and the students were still ignoring me because of what had happened to the previous dean and the way the police kept coming to talk to me. My stomach churned at the t