1
Maxwell
Of all the crazy things to possibly happen in someone’s life, getting kidnapped by vampires wasn’t one that made my list.
Neither was delivering not one, buttwohalf-human, half-vampire babies within the past year.
My life was supposed to be straightforward. After all, I’d planned every moment of it ahead of time when I mapped out my whole life when I was ten. The plan was to grow up, go to university, get the eight years of education required to be a doctor, graduate, open a clinic, practice medicine for the rest of my life. Done. I’d accomplished every part of my roadmap to success. I was set for life, doing what I’d always wanted to do since I was a child.
At least, that’s what I thought until the night my life changed forever.
It happened on a night like tonight. I raised my head, getting lost in the memory. The moon hung low in the sky, next to millions of stars that were obscured by the city’s light pollution. Dark clouds shuffled by, momentarily blocking the light of the moon and plunging the sky into total blackness. Cold wind brushed against my skin, crisp and clear in comparison to the sterile, recycled air of the clinic.
I remembered it like it happened yesterday. I shut my eyes as the memory washed over me.
After closing up the clinic, I was the last one to leave except for custodial staff. I had nothing better to do at home, so I always enjoyed staying behind to finish up necessary paperwork and poring over cases. With no close family, no mate or children, and barely a handful of friends, I could afford to spend time on things other people might consider unnecessary or frivolous.
But they weren’t frivolous to me. In my eyes, being a good doctor was everything. It was everything I’d worked so hard to accomplish, and I’d done so at a young age. Omega doctors were uncommon, sure, but we still existed. Other people’s opinions about me didn’t matter. Growing up, I was always considered weird anyway. Apparently, being an adult wasn’t so different.
After leaving the clinic that night, I continued on my way home to my quaint and simple one-bedroom apartment a few blocks away, happily oblivious to how my life was about to change forever.
Oblivious to the pair of red eyes watching me from above.
Maybe taking a shortcut through an alley was a bad idea, like it always was in the movies, but I wasn’t thinking about that at the time. My mind was focused on the raccoon family squabbling over a greasy half-eaten bag of fast food in the dumpster. I’d paused to watch them, intrigued by their strange biology - especially their human-like hands and family dynamics.
Maybe I should have noticed when the raccoons scattered.
She swooped down like an owl, a silent and deadly predator, barely stirring a stream of air in her wake. I didn’t realize she was behind me until my face had slammed into the alley’s brick wall, almost breaking my glasses.
I wanted to cry out for help - but who would save me? In the back of my mind, logic and emotions battled for supremacy. I already knew about multiple studies in which bystanders ignored a person in danger if multiple people were around, and this was a city populated by millions. Realistically, I’d have better luck asking the raccoons for help.
But that was silly. No raccoons and no people were coming to help me, and I knew it.
I grunted as the unknown figure behind me pushed me deeper into the brick facade.
“What do you want?” I’d managed to ask.
The voice of an older woman hissed in my ear. “Quiet. Do as I say or your life is over.”
There wasn’t much arguing with that.
I remember nodding, then having a gag stuffed into my mouth. After that, my memory was a blur. My brain probably stopped processing due to fear.
When I came to, I was in a sterile delivery room I’d never seen before, surrounded by people I didn’t know.
By now, emotions had fully overruled the war in my mind, leaving logic in the dust. My heart raced as the familiar feeling of anxiety washed over me. Sweat trickled down my temples and turned my palms clammy, and my body trembled with every thickthumpof my terrified heart.
I managed to get a quick look at everybody in the room. There were two adult men, one of whom must have been an omega, judging by the fact that he was heavily pregnant. The tall, incredibly handsome man beside him appeared to be his mate. Finally, there was an older woman, who - judging by her voice - seemed to be the one who abducted me.
But how could that have been possible? How could an elderly woman kidnap a grown man? Sure, I may have been an omega, but that didn’t make me weak. I should have been able to fight her off somehow. My brain struggled to come up with a response that made sense, and settled on drugs. Had to be drugs.
But that theory quickly died when I learned the truth.
I’d been abducted into a coven of vampires, and other than the pregnant omega, I was the only human there.
I wrenched myself out of the memory and opened my eyes. The familiar Shadowcity streets greeted me. This time, there was no vampire to kidnap me.
The woman who abducted me - Margaret - she was long gone now. And though I wasn’t a vindictive person, I still wasn’t sad to see her go. After she attempted to kill the newborn half-vampire baby that I personally delivered… Well, the rest of the coven wasn’t going to let that slide.
