Red BxB ~ Rewritten

Chapter 12

My eyes shoot open as I jolt into a sitting position.

Not my greatest decision due to the fact that the sudden movement makes me lightheaded. I blink a multitude of times and press the tips of my fingers to my forehead in an effort to gain some sort of balance.

After a few moments, I'm able to shake it off, so I lower my hand and glance around the room.

Empty.

The sides of my lips tug a little down at the corners. With a small shake of my head, I calmly tuck my bookmark back into the open book in my lap, before placing it back onto my nightstand. My joints feel stiff as I haul myself out of bed. The pops of joints as I stretch prompts a soft groan to pass my lips.

I glance at the digital clock on my nightstand, only to find it to be about three hours from dawn. Taking notice of the beast's gnawing at the corner of my mind, I exit the room.

Every vampire, turned or Pureblood, has a beast within them. When fed properly, the beast sleeps soundly for months. When neglected, the beast becomes angered and rampages throughout the body. But when the host's will breaks or subsides for any reason, the beast takes over and satisfies itself by any means necessary.

The beast is called bloodlust.

Heading to the blood room, I walk quickly. My beast's eating schedule has been screwed up since Alexus. Sometimes I'm not hungry for weeks; other times for merely days. The only constant is how quickly the faint gnawing can become an uncontrollable urge to kill and drink from anything with blood.

The blood room has three refrigerators all constantly being refilled with blood from our nearby blood bank. It isn't the most humane, but it's either that or we grab random people off the street. The most prominent con of that plan is how the newly turned don't have control and will drink the human dry.

A few years back, there was research done to see if it was possible for us to drink from animals instead. And we could. However, the beast would return every week or two instead of after a few months.

The beast can also have unexpected outbursts where if the vampire isn't old enough to have the needed control, the beast will take over seemingly out of nowhere. The cost of the research was so terrible that the prospect of drinking animal blood was outlawed until the problems could be fixed.

I grab a bottle of blood and walk into the smaller of the two living rooms, which unfortunately isn't as empty as I hoped. I first notice the Alpha standing by the fireplace, talking to Leön. Then two male turned vampires in between some covered windows. And Harlow, who seems perfectly fine drinking her O negative alone.

I take the seat across from Harlow and give her a short, respectful nod when she glances up. Harlow nods back and we drink in comfortable silence. Silence that lasts until Leön takes a seat next to me.

"I have a plan for a raid to go over with you." He starts. Out of the corner of my eye I watch Harlow stand and walk out of the room before giving Leön an expectant stare. Leön nods more to himself before beginning to speak.

"Okay, so the goal of this particular raid is to obtain information from the royal computer system on King Rolan's whereabouts." Leön says. Ever since the first of our rebel raids Rolan has been in hiding. None of our spies have been able to pinpoint a location.

"And how exactly is this raid supposed to do that?" I ask drily. Leön grins as if he were expecting that question. I'm sure he was.

"We're going to hit the Pod." He says. I frown. The Pod is an important supernatural meeting center. It was last used in the Magic Crusade, where magic users seemed to drop dead for no obvious reason. Some blamed a figure in a clock, most blamed disease.

The center was used as a planning center for the Supernatural species. It also was one of the last places the warlock Merlin was seen before he vanished along with the rest of the witch and warlock population.

The Pod is mostly a museum now, and, like many other museums, has equipment designed to keep thieves out and guards to patrol the corridors.

"Hear me out before you criticize." Leön says, seeing my expression. I purse my lips, but gesture for him to continue. He smirks.

"Well, it's just a rough draft of a plan, but I'm thinking two groups of two enter as custodians or something and one as your everyday tourist. The one group takes care of the security office while the tourist creates a scene. The other group takes care of the cameras and all of that. Then one group and the tourist subdue the guards and put the hostages in a room. One person watches the hostages while the others either patrol a bit or get the info from the main computer. And after all is done, lock the hostages in the room before using the secret passageways." Leön finishes. I raise an eyebrow.

"Who told you about the secret passages?" I ask, generally curious. Leön grins.

"No one. I heard it as a myth, but judging by your reaction you know of them. Can you guide people through them?" He asks. I sigh.

"I suppose." When I was younger, I used to play in those secret tunnels and use them to spy on the tourists.

"Cool." Leön beams. He stands. "And don't forget to talk to your lover over there." He nods in the direction of the Alpha. I roll my eyes.

"He isn't my lover." I state.

"Maybe not, but you knew exactly who I was talking about without even looking. For all you know I could have been talking about that vampire who's flirting with him." A slight pause before I turn to look at the vampire who decided to ignore the fact that the shifter still carries my scent.

You would think they'd be a little more cautious before acting in a way that may make me upset. But watching the turned vampire obviously trying to seduce my shifter, I figure another display of my temperament is in order.

I stand and saunter away from Leön without so much as an acknowledgement. I hear him chuckle behind me, but I focus on the vampire trying to press himself against the Alpha.

As I get closer, my eyes narrow. "What are you doing, new-blood?" I practically hiss. The new-blood was probably in his fifties and was still a fool enough to think he could take any being on. The new-blood glances at me before stepping away from the shifter, who takes a step closer to me.

The little sh*t glares at me. I gesture for him to shoo and he, angered by this, bares his fangs at me. Before he can pull away, I grab him by the throat and jerk him towards me before flashing my much bigger fangs in warning.

"Respect your elders, kid. Or someone's going to decide to beat it out of you." I advise lowly before tossing his body away from my own. He falls in a heap on the ground. I turn to the shifter who looks from the new-blood to me. "Why didn't you get him to leave?"

The Alpha looks a little sheepish. "There wasn't a way he would've left without causing a scene, and I didn't want to cause a scene." I shrug.

"Well, if I see another person rub up on you, this scene," I gestured around us, "will be nothing compared to how I'm going to react."

~~~

I don't really have an excuse for the long wait. Except for a loss of inspiration. But no worries, because the Red that resides within my mine is very helpful in those kind of things.😉

Until next time,
BeAuthentic