Taint (Formerly Claimed) Dark Midnight 1

Chapter 12

She was a tricky one, that Alazzdria, Eliot thought, annoyed. 

She might have been batshit crazy and annoying as hell, but the old witch certainly had a sense of humor. 

He had to give her that much, he admitted as he glanced around the dusty manor she’d bought on a whim.

A sick, twisted sense of humor. 

  “I just don’t understand why, in the world, we have to live here,” Hazel declared.  She glanced around the dusty entryway with a sniff of disgust.  “It’s revolting, Eliot…”

He tried not to shudder as she glanced up at him with those soulless, black eyes, all the while twirling a black ringlet around her pinky finger.  Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders like twisting shadow. 

“What on earth possessed you to buy it?”

“Shut up, Hazel,” he growled, shrugging off her whine by turning his back on her.  “I told you not to ask me that.”

“But, I liked France,” she pouted.  “I hate it here!”  She kicked her feet so that the billowing hem of her black dress swished at the air.   “It’s so God-awful boring.  I shall go mad—”

“But you’re already mad, Haz.”  The mocking voice came from the doorway where a pale figure stood holding two wine glasses in a pale hand.   “We both are,” he added, before stalking across the dusty floor.

The falling snow had slicked back his dark hair into a wet cap, and his boots left wet marks against the wooden floor. 

Before Hazel, he paused and shook his two glasses so that the liquid contents swished around noisily. 

“I brought breakfast,” he announced with a dazzling grin that revealed the two sharp fangs protruding from a row of pearly white teeth. 

Eliot turned to catch Hazel rolling her eyes as she glared at her brother with a frown.  Her pale fingers reached down to smooth the front of her dark gown. 

“What is the menu tonight, Sage?” She asked morosely.  “A blond bimbo?  A busty red-head?  You have horrible taste in meals, you know…”

“Brunette,” Sage announced with a chilling smile.  “Young and lovely…if I do say so myself.”

“You do say so,” Hazel scoffed, but slowly she pulled herself upright and reached for a glass.  Her button nose wrinkled as she sniffed the dark liquid that almost overflowed from the top.  “Ugh.” 

With two slim fingers, she pinched the bridge of her nose and took a dainty sip.

From the look twisting her beautiful face, Eliot was surprised when she didn’t spit the liquid back out again. 

“I can almost taste the whore’s perfume,” she choked, disgusted.  But Eliot noticed that she took another sip anyway. 

A deep swig that made her pale throat lurch as she gulped. 

“Liar,” Sage accused mockingly.  “She tastes delicious—and you know it.  For being the middle of damn nowhere, this place doesn’t have that bad of a menu choice, eh Eliot?” 

The dark gleam in his eyes gave the words made Eliot wonder, with a twist in his gut, just what poor girl had fallen across the vampire’s path. 

While Sage knew better than to kill his feeds—and break one of their few, if only, laws—he did have the tendency to be a discriminate feeder.