“When it was Heikkinen’s turn to go into the tent, he pretended to be willing.Leaving the seven of us shivering in the snow outside, he made us promise we would run once he killed the queen.”
“Seven?I thought there were only five of you?”
I’m in heaven as one of Theron’s fingers lightly strokes my arm.
“Heikkinen, he was the last to go in.Rundas, Shadow, and me were already changed.And the queen had four other captives she had already enthralled.I don’t think Luna introduced you to Rundas, but you know two of them already.Artim and Jaecar.”
“Um, remind me which one of the Midnight Riders are they again?”
“Artim looks like that dude from The Witcher.Jaecar is the one with short black hair and what looks like a permanent snarl on his face.”
“Got it.They don’t look very friendly.And what about the other two?Where are they?”
“Artim and Jaecar are regular rays of sunshine compared to some of the other Riders, Aila.But try not to get on their bad side, y’know what I’m saying.The other two Riders chose to go nomad.The female population around Landslide could never support all seven of us.Don’t feel sorry for them.It’s in our blood to roam.”
“How did Heikkinen manage to kill the witch queen?”I have so many questions.This little ecosystem of bloodsuckers has been living under our modern noses for hundreds of years, and no one ever came close to suspecting it.That’s the problem with drawing such a definitive line between superstitious legends and reality.No one takes the blurred lines into consideration.
“The creature was so smugly satisfied with her power and beauty that she could not imagine any man fighting back.That was her downfall.As for how Heikkinen managed to pull it off, I have no idea.The moment we heard her scream, we ran.”
I can’t stop trembling when I think of how awful it would have been had the Red Queen managed to catch them.“Didn’t her soldiers try to stop you?”
Theron pauses as he thinks back to the day so long ago.“You have no idea how loud her scream was.Stabbing a dragon through the heart would have sounded less dreadful.All the humans could do was fall to the ground and block their ears.”
“Metal rock concert loud?”
I’m joking, but Theron gets it.“Louder.Like a skyquake shaking the demons out of hell.”
Wincing, I shut my eyes.“That’s a mental picture I’m going to try hard to forget.”
Why does it feel so good when he leans over to brush his icicle-cold mouth over my cheek?
“You know, Aila, even then I hadn’t realized what I had become.With dawn lurking under the horizon, certain parts of my body were sounding the alarm bells.We knew we must run as far away as we could before the red sun rose over the mountain.The snow was still fairly thick on the ground in parts of the forest.That’s where we were headed, to burrow under the snow and hide from the sun.But do you want to know the real kicker?”
I’m fascinated with the Midnight Riders’ warped history.If Theron stopped explaining the MC’s origins to me now, I might be tempted to go and ask one of the other scary-ass vampires.
“As starving and frozen as we were, we were not tempted to drink the blood of men.”
I am so confused right now.
“B-but… I thought you said you were vampires?”
Bursting out laughing, Theron enjoys my astonishment.“The appetites of our human flesh carried over into our undead lives.I find only women desirable, darlin’.If I don’t want to hit that, then I’m certainly not going to feed on it!”
“A fussy vampire?Or would you say it’s more like a diet?”The craziness of that makes me wriggle as I laugh, because it’s so bizarre.“So, only hot girls need apply if they want to feel the vampire’s deep kiss?”
Theron is earnest when he replies.
“Taste in all things is subjective.How do I explain it?Okay, take Rundas for example.He prefers to feed off women with a bit of meat on their bones.In his eyes, the women you call slim today are too puny and weak for him.And don’t get me started on how wretched artificial enhancements smell to a vampire.All those chemicals and plastics under the skin?Satanas perkele!Toxic.”
He’s talking about cosmetic surgery.I don’t suppose a biker gang of ancient vampires understands the social pressures we women feel about our bodies.But it’s comforting to know natural is nice.
“Drugs in the bloodstream are different.We really got to enjoy prowling the city streets at midnight, because drug-blood makes us high without the addiction.Win-win.”
Hilarious.
“Enough about your taste in women, Theron.Get back to what happened next.”
“We never saw Heikkinen or the witch queen again.Only later on did we find out her army had broken up and returned to their own lands.The devastation they left behind was incalculable.The following night, we dug ourselves out of the snow and returned to what was left of our village, taking our four new brethren with us.Finally, we could feed.”
