I burst onto the street and take in another breath of her.
Then I duck my head and run, the lights of the city becoming blurred conflagrations all around me. I stick mainly to the road, ducking between cars like a motorcycle. I move far too quickly for anybody to know I’m there. If they see anything, it’s a shimmer in the light, passing like a mirage and then I’m gone.
The closer I get, the fiercer her scent becomes, until it’s all around me, inside of me, filling me with a greater sense of purpose than I’ve felt since I was a mortal. I have to stop and lean against a wall, gritting my teeth, when I feel the blood-lust welling up from inside of me.
My seed. I need to put my seed inside of her.
But that’s impossible. My kind cannot mate, cannot procreate. We are dead.
But the amulet … the amulet can turn me into a mortal man.
Is she the one?
“So this is fun, isn’t it, Chipper?” her voice sings as she walks past me.
The street is quiet, lit with low street lamps.
The woman passes, shrouded in a big jacket with a little dog walking happily at her side. The dog is a Dachshund, one of those sausage dogs with a long body and short legs. Tan in color, it looks up at the woman with complete devotion.
My mouth falls open as I recede into the darkness of the doorway and watch her pass.
My fangs tingle and then spring into sharpness, something they haven’t done involuntarily in generations.
She has a curvy body, a beautiful thick voluptuous body that her shrouding clothes can do nothing to hide. Her legs are thick in her jeans and her hips push the bottom of her winter coat out. Her breasts are mounds I’d delight in sucking, rubbing her pink nipples, making them hard so that she sings out her pleasure. Her luxurious oaken hair spills out from a winter hat, over her shoulders, glistening in the eerie autumn light.
“A nice walk in the dark, eh?” she goes on, moving further away from me.
But it doesn’t matter.
I could hear every word if she was on the other side of the city now that I’ve heard her once.
“So what if the train was canceled? So what if there’s no bus? So what if it’s freaking freezing? This is an adventure, right?”
A note of anxiety rings in her voice.
I stalk out of the doorway and move slowly after her, my fangs roaring at me to taste those supple ass cheeks, to bend her over and palm the pink wetness of her pussy as I suck juicily on her bulbous ass.
I have to get myself under control.
But I don’t know if I can.
I follow.
I’m getting closer.
I can’t stop.
Chapter Two
Tammy
I talk to Chipper as I try and find the closest bus stop, mostly to keep myself from screaming in frustration. Today has been like a slap in the face.
First, my boss fired me when he found out I’d been letting Chipper stay in a little nook in the break room, which he loved.
And which is fair enough, I guess.
You can’t bring a dog to work, Tammy.
He didn’t care when I explained to him that there has been a spate of dog thefts in my crappy rundown neighborhood. Maybe he could smell the orphan on me. Maybe he could sense that I didn’t belong in the high-class restaurant. Whatever it was, it was the last thing I needed. And then the train broke down, and when I finally found the bus stop, I found out there were no buses.
No self-pity, I snap at myself.
I’m twenty years old, far too old to be throwing temper tantrums and throwing myself pity parties.
I broke the rules at work and my boss fired me. Fine.
Public transport is a nightmare. Fine.
I’ll deal with it. I just hope Chipper is going to be okay. He’s wearing his sweater and he’s smiling, but part of me thinks the smile is mostly for my benefit, and he’d like nothing more than to be wrapped in a warm blanket at home.
“Almost there,” I lie, teeth chattering slightly. “Not long now.”
It doesn’t help that Halloween is a week away and several of the storefronts I pass have decorations hanging outside. One has dressed their mannequins as vampires and ghosts, their eyes lighting up luminous green in the darkness, watching me as I pass. I laugh at myself, telling myself not to be an idiot.
But that doesn’t help. It’s spooky, that’s the truth.
I turn onto the street where the bus stop is supposed to be to find that there is no bus stop. Just another street with closed storefronts and the sound of the city in the background, humming, always humming.
It’s gone midnight now and I’m stranded on the other side of the city, and if I call a freaking cab I can say goodbye to paying my rent.
I stop, a shiver moving up my spine when I see that Chipper has stopped and turned to face the darkness.
“What is it, boy?” I whisper.
He bares his teeth at a nearby alleyway and lets out a growl far deeper than his size would suggest. I bend down and run my hand across his head, tickling in the way that normally calms him. But his growls only get deeper and longer.
“What is it?” I say, heart hammering now, every instinct I have roaring at me to get the hell out of here.
But where?
Just as I’m bending down to scoop Chipper up – I’ll feel safer with him cradled to my chest – a man steps from the shadows.
A scream punches from my throat against my will, filling the night air.
And then I feel a strange whirring inside of me, deep inside of me, a place I’ve never felt anything before, let along this primal pulsing captivation.
The man is six and a half feet tall, I’d guess, with eyes so blue they seem to emit their own light. His face is strong and yet somehow sophisticated at the same time, clean-shaven with a jawline that could cut diamonds. His hair is silver and swept back, and his body bulges muscularly at the seams of his tight-fitting gray suit. He wears a smirk as he steps forward.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” the man says, his voice deep and shaky, as though he’s trying not to let out a carnal roar. He seems angry. No, enraged. But why? “Or him.”
Chipper squirms and growls in my arms, trying to leap down so that he can sprint at this suited man in the dark.
“Sneaking around in alleyways is a weird way not to scare somebody, don’t you think?” I snap.
His smirk twitches and his eyes glimmer. “Fair point,” he says. “May I?”
“May you what?”
He raises his hand, stepping forward slowly.
“What, Chipper?” I say. “You can clearly see he’s going crazy, can’t you? He might bite.”
He laughs grimly. “I’ve got no problem with biting.”
“Well, that’s pretty weird,” I say, heart still hammering in my ears.
But there’s something about this man, about the way he looks at me. It’s probably the last thing that should be on my mind, but when I stare at him I feel like my freaking womb or something is screaming at me to leap at him, to wrap my legs around him and grind against him. I’ve never done anything that forward, ever. Nor would I. And yet the confusing urge is there.
“Because most people have a problem with biting,” I whisper, staring, enthralled, as he steps closer and closer.
“It’s okay, boy,” the man says quietly, so close now he could attack me if he wanted to. He reaches down and softly strokes Chipper, smoothing his ears. “I’m not going to hurt her. It’s okay. I know. But you don’t have to fight now. You’re safe. You’re safe.”