The Crimson Mark (Vamp)

chapter 1

Shen Wenlang woke with a dull throb behind his eyes.

The spare bedroom was a mess. Black and red walls, the usual high-tech systems humming quietly in the background, none of it registering. Crumpled sheets tangled at the foot of the bed. A torn foil packet of protection lay near the edge of the mattress. Spilled alcohol had soaked into the carpet, the sharp scent mixing with the faint, sour trace of unfinished sex. He hated that smell.

The sheet barely covered his waist. His body was bare, unmarked. That part settled something tight in his chest. No bites. No scratches. No claims left behind. He had rules for a reason. Sex was one thing. Marks were another. He refused both emotional attachments and permanent evidence.

Yesterday's omega had been a vampire who once worked the private gardens. Shen Yu had sent him, just like he sent someone every 14 days now. Wenlang had stopped fighting the ritual two years ago. Fighting only made his father more creative. Better to play along, stay sober, use protection, and let Shen Yu believe the problem was fertility rather than deliberate sabotage.

He sat up, the headache pulsing harder. The room looked like a battlefield after a particularly pointless skirmish. Heavy sex drive or not, no one ever lasted. They cried. They sobbed. Sometimes they simply curled into a corner and waited for morning in silence, too terrified of his temper to move. He never forced them to stay in the bed once they broke. He just sat there, cold and unfinished, until dawn.

Beautiful face. Black hair. Black eyes. One hundred ninety-two centimeters of clean muscle and fair skin. Thin lips that rarely curved into anything soft. People called him striking until he opened his mouth in anger. Then the beauty became something else entirely.

Wenlang threw the sheet aside and stood. The air was cool against bare skin. He pulled on the clothes left folded on the chair--black trousers, a dark shirt--without looking at the wreckage again. The door opened the moment he stepped into the hallway. Two maids slipped past him without a word, already reaching for gloves and cleaning supplies. They knew the routine.

His real bedroom was on the other side of the suite. Clean. Silent. No foreign scent clinging to the sheets or the air. He walked straight into the bathroom, turned the shower on hot, and stepped under the spray.

Last night had not been sex. It had been a workout. Nothing more. No one had ever matched his stamina, and he had long stopped expecting them to.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

The Gao house was a neat two-storey place, the kind that sat comfortably in the middle-upper range without pretending to be more. At the dining table, Gao Tu shoveled rice into his mouth like someone late for a train.

Gao Fei watched him with a small smile. "Slow down. You'll choke, and then Ma Tang will have to take a dead omega to the movies."

Gao Tu's ears went red. He pouted around the next mouthful. "Ma Heng's coming too. It's three friends. Not a date."

Gao Ming chuckled under his breath. "Call it whatever you want, Tu."

Across the table, Gao Qing kept her expression polite. She was an A-class Alpha like their father, sharp-featured and beautiful, and she loved her brother more than she loved almost anything else. The idea of him chasing after Ma Tang sat wrong with her, but she wasn't about to sour his mood. She offered a thin, practiced smile and said nothing.

Gao Tu finished the last of his food, wiped his mouth, and slung a bag over one shoulder. Outside, a car horn blared. Ma Heng's voice followed, loud and impatient.