“We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language.”
Joyce Carol Oates
Sitting bolt upright, my eyes fly open, adjusting to the utter darkness surrounding me. I reach out to either side with my hands, feeling along the wood around me, but pull my fingers back with a frown. Really, a coffin? How cliché. Rolling my eyes, I lie back, getting comfortable. I can feel the pressing weight of the earth encompassing me, so they clearly buried me deeply, never wanting anyone to find me. You sleep and feed on one little priest’s wife and you end up in a coffin. Really, she begged me to, so you can’t blame me for simply granting the woman’s wishes. If anything was going to get me killed or buried, I figured it would have been by the queen’s orders or the blood orgies I held. Ever since I left my brothers’ sides, I have carved a blood-filled path across the world, searching for something...something I can feel just out of reach every time. Maybe I’ve finally gone crazy, the years crushing my mind, because there can’t be anything out there for me...just endless years spent alone. Maybe I should go and find one of my brothers, not that they would want me to, but it has to be better than this debilitating loneliness. Either way, I need to get out of this coffin first.
Closing my eyes again, I stretch out my senses, looking for signs of life. Ignoring the bushes, trees, plants, and animals above ground that ping on my radar, I spread the net wider. There must be someone out there who can help me. I refuse to spend years down here in a coffin. It would serve me right, but I need to be above ground, I need to find whatever this...thing is that has been calling to me these past twenty years or so.
There!
On the edge of my net, I sense a pulse of something alive—something strong as well, really strong. Not human, that is for sure, but it doesn’t matter. Everyone can be bribed, even our kind. It has to be one of my brethren’s lines. If it was mine, I would sense it straightaway, but I’m betting wolf. Those bastards breed like bunnies. Howling at the moon and fucking in fur, no thank you. I’ll take a suite with a bottle of their finest wine and a hot woman any day.
A sardonic smile curls my lips as I cast out my mind, reaching for the stranger, and pushing past their natural mind defences until I sink inside, free to explore and play, even wipe them out if I wanted to.
Hello? I push the thought, whispering it softly through their head so as not to startle them. It wouldn’t do me any good if they tried to shut their mind to me and I had to force it open again, it makes people less compliant.
I sense the person’s panic and confusion as they whirl from side to side, thinking I’m speaking to them in person. I get a sense of long red hair…a woman. Interesting. Instantly, I turn on the charm, knowing she will be helpless to resist me, none ever can.
“I am afraid I’m not there in person, love, but I would very much like to be and that is where you come in. What will it take for you to come and dig me free? You can have anything—money, status, death. Take your pick, beautiful.”
I wait in the background of the woman’s thoughts, trying not to intrude as she thinks over my offer. She isn’t as shocked by my talking internally as someone should be, so I am guessing it has happened to her before…why does that thought annoy me? Maybe I’ve spent too long in isolation.
You’re a nightwalker? Her soft, silky voice floats into my head, wrapping me in satin sheets and warm bodies. Fuck, even my cock goes rock-hard. Definitely too long in isolation if a mere thought from a woman can send me into such a fit.
Yes, love, how did you know?
I find myself curious, what is she? How could she sense what I am?
A woman has to have some surprises. I’ll set you free, but I do want something.
Anything, I promise, my voice husky, even in my head as my fangs drop with a throb, aching to be buried in this woman’s throat or thigh, I’m not picky. I bet she would taste delicious.
I need you to find someone for me and I want them alive.
She seems to be ignoring my charm altogether, causing a frown to curl my lips, maybe I’m rusty or she is simply hiding her reaction to it. Find someone, a boyfriend, a husband, a mate? Perhaps, but I don’t ask, it shouldn’t matter to me. She is a means to an end, but a nightwalker always keeps his promises and oaths.
Of course, love. Here is how you can find me. Dig me up and I swear to you on the blood burning through me that I shall find this person for you. So, it is willed, so it will be, I finish, knowing the universe will take that oath seriously.
She sucks in a breath, recognising that. I will be there tonight. If you try to kill me or go on a massacre, I’ll stake you back into the ground, she warns, her voice as threatening as a puppy’s.
Of course, love. I would bring someone for me to feed on though, since it has been… I would guess around two hundred years.
I pull from her head with a laugh, sitting back in my coffin and waiting for the mysterious woman to come and save me. If only my brothers could see me now, I would never live it down. Being rescued like some damsel in distress—some god I am.
So why does my heart beat faster, my cock beg for her, and my fangs crave her blood? It is clear I want this woman just from her voice. Maybe I can have some fun with her while I find this person she hunts, satisfy my hunger between her legs and at her veins. It would be easy to seduce her and once I am done, I can move on and carry on searching.
Almost laughing with glee, I settle myself and wait.
She thinks she is a hunter, but the hunter just became the hunted, and I can almost taste my prey.
Bella
Fucking nightwalker. If I didn’t need his help so badly to track down that asshole, I would have left his ass to rot in the ground. There’s a reason someone put him down there, he probably drank from the wrong person or pissed off a wolf—they are always at each other’s throats. I tend to stay clear from all of them, all other races, to protect myself and my secret.
They can never know. It’s easier this way, even if it does get lonely, but Raph told me time and time again why this was so important…and I broke that rule once and look where it landed me. Never trust anyone, I learned that early on. I can only rely on me and…well, it used to be Raph. Pain slashes through me at the reminder of what I’ve lost all because I couldn’t keep my stupid mouth shut.
Yet here I am, trusting another supe, but I won’t let him know. I’ll guard my secrets and take them to the grave. I will use him, track the bastard who betrayed me—us—and then we’ll go our separate ways, all without him ever knowing…it will be easy, right?
Sighing out loud, I toss the shovel into the trunk of my car. I had stopped at a shitty hotel, trying to get some rest and figure out my next move when the bastard slipped right into my head like he owned the joint.
Nightwalkers, they are all the same, cocky little pretty boys who think everyone and everything should do as they please. It physically pained me to accept his deal, but they are some of the best trackers, below wolves of course, but no fucking way am I letting a furball sniff around me for that long. They have a way of seeing the truth. So nightwalker it is, but that doesn’t mean I won’t stake his ass if he annoys me. Raph once told me I have the patience of a fat kid in a sweet shop…that man got stranger and stranger every day.