“Wait. Are you into the scare actor? Lydia! You little slut,” she shrieks.
“What? No. No!” I shake my head and then fumble my step, feeling my ankle twist in a dip in the path that I didn’t see.
“Shit. Lydia, you good?”
“Yeah. Fine,” I say tightly, just wanting to get through this week, and tired of tripping. My body is going to be full of bruises with how I’m going. I’ve never been coordinated, though. Blame it on the ADHD. Me and depth perception aren’t exactly buddies. It’s typical that I’ll find a random bruise or two with no recollection of how it got there.
Another actor pops out from behind the trees, blood pouring from their open mouth. It’s enough to make me want to vomit. We’re one night in, and I’m ready to hitchhike home to Holland. But I know how much this trip means to my friends. They worked so hard for us to get here. Leaving now isn’t an option.
“Let’s find where they’re really keeping the food. I might like camping, but I draw the line at worms for breakfast. Still, I’m glad we came. We’ve been needing this trip with how crazy the world’s been getting,” she says with a soft smile, and I feel bad for wanting to leave.
Everyone’s been feeling the recent hardships, and I know how much my friends have been looking forward to coming here.
The dull throb in my ankle subsides as we walk linked arm in arm together in search of food. With wind in my hair and fear coating my skin, I decide that I can muster my way through the week, for my friends. I just need to take it one moment at a time.
Looking over my shoulder, I see a large form outlined in the door frame from the mess hall we’d just come from. I don’t know why, but my stomach flips feeling his eyes on me. Objectively, if he wasn’t sporting those fangs, I would have thought he was hot. Okay, that’s a lie. Even with the fangs he’s ridiculously good looking. My brain shifts to the murky dream that I’d had and a prickle of familiarity skirts just out of reach.
It was just a stupid dream, I tell myself, finding my fingers palpating my neck once again. Reassuring myself that I’m currently rooted in reality. At least that’s what I tell myself.
Chapter 10
Maverick
Iwatch as she leaves with her friend, remembering just how good she felt writhing beneath me, chocking my cock like it belongs to her. I’m half regretting wiping her memory last night as she slept, knowing that eventually she’ll remember, but her jumbled thoughts on the way back to her cabin let me know she’s not ready. She will be— soon. With a little more coaxing from myself, Hendricks, and Jack, she’ll come around.
“Any slop for you?” The old crone asks, holding up a spoonful of whatever concoction she’s put together today. The sight of it turns my stomach sour. Something about worms just doesn’t sit right with me.
“Nah, I prefer my meals warm blooded,” I say, lifting the trap door I’d come from up. Its hinges are silent. Perfect for jumping out and catching someone unawares. Whenever we want to travel between buildings during the daylight, we’re forced to go underground in the tunnels so that us vampires don’t burn to death. But the witches like to use them too. They’ve carved sigils on the walls of the tunnels and on all the doors. I have no idea what they stand for, but I want to assume it’s a protection of some sort. Though I have my doubts. There’s an amalgamation of junk that’s accumulated down here over the years. Frombroken bikes, balls, and jars full of who knows what. If you can think of it, it’s probably stored down here, gathering dust and cobwebs.
A sudden burst of wind shoots past me and I know without even having to look that it’s Hendricks. He tries and fails to tackle me, ending up on his back with a shit-eating grin on his face and an ass full of dirt.
“Fucking asshole,” he says with a chuckle.
I shake my head at him and offer him a hand up. “When are you going to learn, I’m just too fast for you?”
“One of these days, I’m going to take you by surprise.”
“That’ll be a cold day in hell,” I say, slapping him on the back.
He takes a deep inhale as we walk together. “You dick. You saw her without me.”
I put my arms up in mock surrender. “Not my fault someone decided to get some beauty rest. You know what you’re like when you don’t get a solid two hours.”
“Not everyone has the same stamina as you, old man,” Hendricks says back, bumping his muscular arm into mine.
As an older vampire, I’m gifted with strength and endurance that he can only dream about. At most, I can go a few months without needing to recharge like a younger vampire has to. But with Hendricks being newer, he still has to rest nightly in order to keep up.
“How many do you think we caught?” He asks as we round the corner. We’re getting close, and I can smell that blood calling to me.
“I’d wager the whole frat party. They didn’t seem long for this world.”
“I’ll take that bet. I think we caught only a handful. Wouldn’t want to spoil all our fun at once. I like to spread it out over the week.”
I open the door to where our captives have fallen into and am immediately greeted with the Australian couple’s bare asses. They’re naked and covered in grime from head to toe. Both laying supine as if they haven’t been able to get up from where they fell.
Cracking my knuckles, I feel my fangs lengthen on instinct. The woman’s arm is bent at an odd angle, and the man has a deep gash in his thigh that’s still bleeding.
“What do you say to some breakfast, Hen?”
