As a creature with a duel nature, to deny one risked the other. Several shifters had chosen one side, human or wolf. Most of them had driven themselves into madness. The balance in-between was often hard to find, but it was always worth it.
I sighed with contentment and allowed all human thought to blow away on the gentle breeze. Human worry had no place here, among the forest and its occupants. I was wolf and comfortably so.
Chapter Four
Friday night was the hottest night at Lucy’s Lounge. I figured I would stop by for a bite to eat before making the short highway trek to Edmonton. The lounge kitchen made a to-die-for sirloin steak.
I touched up my smoky, dark eyeliner in the car. No lipstick, I rarely wore any. Tonight I’d decided to exchange my casual attire for basic black dress pants and a snug, corset-style, black top. My hair flowed long and loose down my back.
I preferred to park near the back of the lot. I didn’t see the point in fighting for the closest space. By parking in the back, I had to walk past the alley that ran behind the building. No sooner had I approached it than I felt that cool, undead presence. Arys was down there.
I debated leaving the brightly lit lot and entering the darkened alley. Two guys whistled at me as they walked to their car, but I paid them little attention. My mind focused only on that cold energy drawing me in. That centuries-old power seemed to beckon to me on the still night air.
I have a natural distrust of alleys. They’re not known for their safety. They are too dark with too many shadows to hide in. Anything, vampire or other, with any kind of psychic ability, can shield its energy. In effect, it can make as if it weren’t even there and leave its victim unaware. What a big bad wolf I was, afraid of the dark. However, Arys was down there, which assured me that nothing else was.
I moved silently forward. I could feel Arys in the blackness. I had gone halfway down when another alley intersected, and the scent of fresh blood pulled me to the left. I wasn’t surprised to find him draped in the shadows with a woman clutched tightly in his grasp.
Even in the dark, I could see the whites of her eyes as she struggled. He held her immobile, and my heart paused when her gaze landed on me. I was still yards away, but she saw me clearly as her vampire-induced disorientation loosened its hold. She gave a strangled cry, and Arys clamped a hand over her mouth. As she whimpered, I stood frozen, unable to come to her aid as she hoped. If anything, my presence only excited the vampire more.
Arys’s pupils were a drowning black. His mouth was smeared with blood as he drank from her jugular. I should have been sickened, but I wasn’t. Had becoming a supernatural creature made me immune to human suffering? Not entirely.
The fear in her wide-eyed stare bothered me more than her fading life. My own reaction to the scene bothered me more. Despite my own personal beliefs and born humanity, I am a predator, and in that moment, I enjoyed what I saw. The scent of spilt human blood tantalized my senses. The sight of the crimson splashes stirred things low inside me.
As the light began to fade from his victim’s eyes, she ceased struggling and hung loose in his embrace like a forgotten rag doll. I watched in complete silence until she was nothing but an empty husk, and her vacant, dead gaze stared over his shoulder at me.
Arys stepped back and let her hit the ground with a thud that dropped my stomach to my knees. “Did you enjoy the show?” He wiped a hand across his full lips, and his tongue flicked over his crimson-smeared fang-teeth. “I always appreciate an audience.” The predatory glow in his eyes began to fade as he came towards me.
“I see you’ve been a busy boy tonight,” I commented casually, though I couldn’t deny the rapid beat of my heart.
“Yeah, well, they’re good for more than just one thing.” He cast a glance back at the body, and I got an unwelcome visual of the vampire making love to the woman that now lie dead. He’d taken her to his bed, possessed her body, and enjoyed her heat, but intended all along to take it away.
The human side of me was shocked that I wasn’t more appalled at Arys’s nonchalance. He spoke like those guys in high school, the ones that most girls fall for before they realize their mistake. Though the wolf in me did not take life from its lovers, it did, however, appreciate his predator logic.
I swallowed heavily, suddenly apprehensive and too aware of the sweet scent of blood drying on the corpse. I’d never thought that I’d feel threatened by Arys, but I decided that maybe I should.
I knew that Arys killed with discretion. Vampires do not have to kill to survive. However, feeding without the kill was like sex without the orgasm, according to my colleague, Kale Sinclair. It explained why some vampires just quit giving a damn.