Disclaimer: All characters and places and groups belong to the wonderful mind of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, and come from (mostly) Midnight Predator.
Author's Note from Erkith: Having never before written a holiday themed fic, I've decided to expand my horizons for Valentine's Day… This is my first Atwater fic and I don't have access to the books, so please forgive misspelt names! Hope you like this one!
Enjoy!
Erkith
Valentine's Vampires
I still keep night hours. Late night classes to make up for all those years lost to Daryll and the hunt fill my evenings. My focus, dulled by the swirling words of lectures, is still sharp to the shadows. I know better than most what happens when you trust the darkness to guard your back.
I struggle to forget the past that dogs my footsteps – the cruelties, yes, but also the power. It's in my mind now. It's in my blood now. How do you forget the monsters under the bed are real? How can you lock that kind of knowledge away?
My hope to reclaim my humanity, to recoup what I'd lost to the world of vampires and shape-shifters, is doomed to failure. I can feel the jitters in my bones. I'm bored.
Catherine would have loved the bustle of university life with its parties and learning. Class would have been simple, an enjoyable chore, for her. Catherine would have flirted with her handsome lab partner and been part of numerous clubs, committees and study groups. If I were still that girl, I'd be having the time of my life.
But I'm not Catherine anymore.
It's all I can do to drag myself out of the house to go to class. The academia bores me. Science says that the figures in my nightmares don't exist. Science says they are mere fairy tales, but I've seen them with my own eyes. I've felt them drink from my throat. I've fought back and watched them bleed. Tell me they're not real.
Human men are downright pitiful. I could take any of them, and kill them several times over before they landed a blow. Besides, how could they – humans so ordinary – compare to the otherworldly, darkly beautiful vampires I've lived among these last years. It's like pitting the tame miniature poodle against the exquisitely violent wolf.
Their weakness – utter cluelessness – incites my disdain, and yet I find that I envy them their blissful ignorance, their innocence. To be human, I barely remember what that was like… nothing but fleeting memories, a lingering sweetness.
I let myself into the house I rented from Nathaniel, a mercenary like my former self, and sighed. Home, safe, where I didn't have to put up the mask of humanity that threatened to bend my sanity and steal my breath. I called out to Eric as I approached the kitchen, but figured he was probably out. He blends with the younger crowd better than I do.
I wasn't fit for human company tonight. The thrill of the hunt, that special adrenaline, punched through my system viciously this evening. February 14th, Valentine's Day was one of the flushest feeding nights of the year. Hunters everywhere would be on guard. Locking myself away from the temptation of the night, I retrieved leftovers from the fridge.
The bouquet, a dozen roses on the kitchen table, gave me pause. I frowned at the tag, but couldn't resist the desire to touch the lush, silken petals that mimicked the colour of blood. The taste of it – phantom copper in my mouth – was decadent. I licked my lips as I considered the sender. Had the roses come from any other vampire, I would have considered it a challenge or a deliberate temptation, but Jaguar was trying to be supportive. He truly hoped that I would win this battle, and prove that sometimes you can go back. Provoking blood lust had not been his intent.
A dozen roses on Valentine's Day was traditional. Jaguar had meant no more than that, or at least no more than the average man. The gesture was so innocently human.
But there are things that time cannot erase.
My instincts seem to be one of them because I abruptly felt another presence in the house. I was not as alone as I thought. Unsheathing one of my knives, I entered the living room cautiously. A figure sat in the far chair, cloaked in shadow, but I knew his profile. I regarded the room's occupant with a raised eyebrow and relaxed a little.
"Nathaniel," I said evenly. The house was technically still his. I was renting… "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Curiosity." The word filled the room with his very typically entrancing vampire voice.
Curiosity had brought him, a mercenary, to my doorstep – pardon me, armchair – in the dead of night? I doubted it! I didn't exactly sense a lie. It was probably at least a part truth, but an ex-hunter shouldn't be interesting enough to drag a vamp of his tendencies from one of the best feeding nights of the year unless money was involved.
"Curiosity?" I asked. "Curiosity about what?"
He was silent for a long moment before he answered me with a question. "How are you?"
"I'm excellent."
"Turquoise…" His tone said he didn't even think about believing me. Apparently I'm not sufficiently convincing to fool the vampire who'd given me that name. A new name for a new person – a new era of my life, it was one of strength. I'd kept it.
Turquoise suited me better than Catherine.
"Not well," I admitted, clenching my fists, hating that I felt like a failure for not succeeding against insurmountable odds.
Nathaniel stood, his face solemn. "The hunt is in your blood." Sighing he continued, "There's no going back now."
I shook my head sadly, feeling lost. Impossible dreams are what get me through to next day and give me direction, without them I felt adrift at sea.
"What will you do?"
I shrugged, rubbing my arms against a sudden chill. "I don't know. Bruja won't take me back, not with Raven as its head."
He approached me slowly, almost carefully. His expression was paper blank. "Jaguar would take you back at Midnight."
"Probably," but he'd feel compelled to protect me from his world… And I wanted to be free of that. I was not Catherine. I was Turquoise, a hunter, a midnight predator. "But that's not what I had in mind."
The mercenary cleared his throat in a strange gesture that on a human I would have contributed to nerves. "I came tonight to offer you another option…"
"Really? And what would that be?"
"I called in a favour from an admirer of yours."
"Who would that be?" I asked, intrigued both by the statement and the fact that the inestimable Nathaniel looked faintly uncomfortable.
He smiled ruefully, "The creator of the original Bruja."
You could have knocked me over with a good breeze. Surely he was joking! I looked up at him just to check, because the mercenary I knew never joked… He'd gotten awfully close during our conversation, so that he stood directly in front of me. My heart pounded in my chest. I swallowed against the constricting tightness in my throat before speaking.
"What did you ask her for?"
Nathaniel looked down at me, unreadable. His cold eyes studied mine and then dropped to my mouth. My breath caught. Cradling my face in loose grip, he leaned down to me. Theoretically I had plenty of time to escape if I'd wanted to, but practically I was rooted to the spot – enthralled.
His lips pressed against mine. The kiss was a touch hesitant at first, checking for my reaction, then swiftly became more – hard enough to feel the pressure of fangs. I gasped a breath, and he took full advantage to plunder my mouth with his tongue. My blood rushed through my ears with all the delicacy of white-water rapids.
I joined him in that tongue-tangling dance, stroking the inside of his extended, sensitive canines. My hands lifted to his chest, absorbing the warm strength of him into my palms through his shirt.
Nathaniel broke the kiss with a gasp of air he didn't need. His body still fooled after all these years of being undead. He looked me dead in the eye as he stepped away.
"Happy Valentine's Day," he said and vanished.
A single black rose – his gift – lay in his wake…
A/N: I love Midnight Predator… Anyway, I'd really appreciate feedback of any sort – even just letting me know if you enjoyed it or not is helpful.
Thanks for reading! And Happy Valentine's Day!
Erkith