The noise of students already bursting from the heavy doors of the college surrounded Millie when at nine-thirty she was seated in ugly, green, fabric covered chairs at the admissions office. The brightly shining sun did nothing to chase away the cold, but it did reflect beautifully off the snow, blue skies a backdrop to the naked trees. Millie’s watchful violet eyes studied the beautiful gray stone and marble floors of the gothic building, with the shingled stone roof and towers that reminded her of some kind of castle.
She nervously—though she didn’t know why—tapped her booted feet on the floors studying the movement of every person that entered and exited the room. From where she was seated she could see most of the movements of the other students. It was a habit formed from years of being cautious, one she found that she couldn’t—nor did she want to—easily break. Added to it was the fact that he’d been in her dreams, so she’d barely slept, though the tiredness did not reflect in her features.
“Miss James?” Millie rose and walked towards the counter where she was addressed from. The woman standing there could have been a great beauty, if her tired eyes weren’t quite so hollowed out or her red painted lips so unsmiling. “Now here are your classes and scheduling,” she slid a paper towards Millie’s waiting hands. It was warm and smelt like ink— like it had just come out of the printer—before she rounded the counter “I’ll show you to your first class.”
She didn’t seem to happy to be doing it, but it must have been a mandatory service. Millie followed the woman through the crowded halls, her heels clicking rhythmically in her wake. “Professor Raymond is a little out there,” she said maneuvering around bodies bundled against the cold “But his class is one of the most popular on campus. Occult Studies,” she added with a little shake of her head, as if trying to figure out how something so macabre could be so popular.
She left Millie standing at a double door staring after her as she walked away.
Inhaling deeply she pushed open the doors drawing curious eyes to her. She stood with the doors to her back frozen for a second before she breathed out her nerves slowly, moving towards an empty space on the sloped seating that ended with the teacher’s desk at the bottom. No one had said anything, not even the professor—a middle aged man that wore quite a bit of leather and had long hair brushing his shoulders—but she did feel his gaze on her until she sat.
Slowly unwrapping the maroon scarf from around her neck that trapped heat to her body, she draped it along with her bag on the back of her chair as the lecture resumed, her late entrance forgotten.
Eyes were glued to her again, but she ignored it like other times dismissing it as curiosity, until an unsettling feeling blossomed in the pit of her stomach making goose bumps raise on her skin. Those eyes did not belong to anything human. The gaze that was so thoroughly assessing her wasn’t merely one of passing curiosity. Her internal radar was warning her, whispering one word to her over and over again.
Vampire.
With a silent, sharp intake of breath, she angled her head and turned to the source of the gaze, her hands moving to the holster she had strapped to her torso hidden from view by the layers of her clothing. Her fingers brushed against the hard metal of her throwing daggers giving her an ounce of calm. she was always armed. The holster strapped to her chest, daggers tucked into her boots, more knives strapped to her thighs, but she could use none of it, not in a room full of humans.
He was handsome, but then they usually were—flawless in their physical appearance—all part of their glamour to entice the unsuspecting to build a false trust.
This one had spiky blonde hair and finely sculpted, aristocratic features that garnered him figurative glances from the other people in the room, attention he no doubt enjoyed getting. He was lean and looked tall, even when sitting. His eyes were a screaming vivid blue, his lips titling into a knowing smirk and his arm was lazily thrown across the back of an empty chair next to him.
It was rare that a vampire would be out in daylight hours; in fact she had only ever met one Daylight Walker in her life, so some part of her was worried about it. He didn’t feel old and she could usually tell, but something about him, in him felt powerful.
With a scowl she turned away from his unnatural beauty. Of all the towns in the world, how in the world did a vampire end up in this small one? She had a job to do here and she wasn’t going to leave until it was done and having a vampire occupying the same space could prove to be problematic. She would have to avoid him, and whoever else he was with because vampires rarely lived alone, until her search was done.
Millie could feel him as he unashamedly stared at her for the remainder of the class and she ground her teeth together in annoyance. She knew what he saw when he looked at her—it was what most people saw—innocent and unassuming, a person that would be easy prey. But hers was a glamour of course, much like his was.
She hated most vampires with a fierce passion. They were the ones who had ruined her life. Most of the ones that she had met consumed with an insatiable hunger, they just took without remorse or care, only leaving pain in their wake.
She’d had an innocent existence once. A time when she knew nothing of this world and was genuinely happy, but that time was long gone, she was now buried so deep in it all that it was difficult sometimes to keep her head above the ground.
Agitated and in a considerably darker mood, she barely listened to the rest of the lecture before the bell rang.
She hastily gathered her things and left the room, escaping into the bathroom. She exhaled deeply, running her fingers through her hair, and holding on to the edge of the sink. She studied her reflection in the mirror. She bore no signs of the tiredness that she felt, but it weighed heavily on her. Wariness settling in her chest adding further strain to her loneliness.
Opening the tap she splashed some water on her face, it was a problem that she would just have to deal with.
She was being followed.
It was close to the end of her academic day, and she could sense him for most of it. He wasn’t following behind her outright but he was there lingering at the corners of her vision.
“Hello.”
Millie turned to the sound of the voice and bit back a resigned sigh, her eyes hardening. So much for avoiding the vampire. She didn’t answer him, but that didn’t seem to deter him. He wore a sweet smile on his face, standing almost a head taller than she was. He was in expensive designer clothing and he moved with easy confidence, an air of innocence about him, everything about him meant to put you at ease. It only made Millie feel uneasy, she never trusted appearances. Especially the appearance of a vampire.
“Are you new here?” Was that really his opening line? She thought arching an eyebrow at him. “It’s just that I haven’t seen you around before.”
He flashed a small nervous smile and seemed to have blushed, but she knew better. This was all an act. An act to make her trust him. But she knew what he was and it would be a cold day in hell when she would willingly put her trust in a vampire like him.
“I am,” she answered briskly “Excuse me.” She went around him, but he apparently took that as encouragement because he soon fell into step beside her.
“Why don’t you join me for dinner tonight? I know a great place in town that very romantic. We can get to know each other,” his voice was even but in his eyes Millie saw raw hunger, her scent beckoning him to taste. Tempting him like a sirens song.
She wanted to scream ‘Hell No!’ but had to dance the fine line of polite refusal; it wouldn't serve her well to antagonize him in any way. “I don’t think so,” she answered.
“Well how about—”
She stopped and inhaled deeply, turning to face him, “Look I’m not interested okay.”
He seemed stunned by her admission and Millie took that as her cue to leave. She wasn’t fooled by his glamour and she didn’t need the added complication of a vampire chasing after her. He didn’t follow her and she was mildly thankful, but she still couldn’t help but wonder why the vampire was in this town in the first place.
* * * * *
Night had blanketed the town giving rise to twinkling lights that gave the place a magical feel. She pulled her coat closer to her body, breath puffing from her lips. A couple passed by, arm in arm, laughing together and sadness tugged at Millie as she studied them. She wondered if things weren’t how they were now if she could've had that. If she could have been as happy as they were. In a different life, she thought, maybe she could have been, too bad that this was the one she got.
Her shoes echoed on the concrete sidewalk. It was quiet. A little too quiet and the hairs on the back of her neck rose. Someone was following her. She didn’t slow or speed her steps, giving no indication that she knew that he was behind her. She had to play this out as a human. She couldn’t afford to risk exposure and leave here, not yet.
He was herding her into an alleyway and Millie wondered if she had made the right decisionin allowing him the upper hand—but it seemed a little too late to change her mind now.
“Hello again,” his voice was a musical note that held playful teasing.
He stepped out from the darkness that he’d blended into so well. He wasn’t bundled against the cold like she was—wearing just a light leather jacket over a t-shirt, and a pair of jeans—but he gave no indication that he felt the low temperatures. She took a step back in retreat. He advanced closer, slowly and graceful, stalking her. Millie never took her eyes off him, watching every nuance in his gait very closely. She retreated from him, her eyes holding a certain amount of trepidation, innocence in her expression.
Suddenly, and faster than Millie’s eyes could track, he was on her, his fingers closing tightly around her throat. She felt the bite of the cold hard concrete against her back, her feet hovering just above the ground. A whimper breathed from her lips and she struggled for air. Her fingernailS scraped against his hand trying to get him to let go, but he was unusually strong for a male so young.
He leaned closer to her and inhaled deeply, his eyes closing as he savored her scent. “Do you have any idea how sweet you smell?” he asked obviously not expecting a response from her “I wanted you since you showed that pretty little face in class, teasing me. Tempting me, ah the way your blood calls to me."
“What do you want?” she choked out, finding it hard to breathe.
“You,” he answered simply, a low hiss sounding from him as he bared his fangs. His mouth curled into a smile, his lips stretching over the elongated teeth. “I knew you were special. How did you know what I was?”
“What do you mean?” she feigned, the quiver in her voice all too real, and she hated that.
“Who are you?” he demanded is fingers tightened around her throat making Millie cough harshly “No human blood smells as sweet as yours does. Now tell me who you are.”
“I attend the college—”
“Don’t lie to me!” he shouted bringing her forward slightly, only to slam her back into the wall, hissing low in his throat “Who are you?”
“I—”
He squeezed harder, his fingers digging into her flesh, his eyes flashing with impatience. She contemplated not doing anything, but in less than a minute her oxygen would cut off and he would try to kill her. She could do nothing, she reasoned, knowing that he couldn't really kill her, but she could still get hurt.
Sucking in a deep breath she shoved the heel of her hand into his nose, the force of it startling him, his head snapping back. His grip loosened and she dropped, landing with a soft thud. The vampire’s eyes flashed with surprise and with a speed that rivaled his own Millie grabbed him by his throat, so that now their positions were reversed.
With the inhuman strength gifted to a vampire, she held him in place, but because he was considerably taller than she was his feet were still planted on the floor. So she compensated by applying more pressure, squeezing her fingers around his throat. His eyes still reflecting his surprise and his breath wheezed past his lips. Gone was his confident air, replaced by something close to fear.
“Wha—” he tried but one chastising look from Millie silenced him.
She wasn’t a vampire, she was something else. Something she herself didn’t quite understand. In essence she was still a human, one with abnormally long life and inhuman strength and speed.
“I wanted to be left alone,” she sighed. He struggled against her but she was older and stronger, the irony of their role reversal not lost on her. “I told you once vampire, I’m not interested. Now I don’t care who you are, or why you’re here, but the next time you come around me I will kill you. Do you understand me?”
He remained immobilized wondering how it was that this tiny person, this innocent looking girl was the one who was the more dangerous of the two. Impatience flashed in her gaze and her fingers closed tighter around his throat.
“Just nod if you understand,” He struggled to do so, but the jerky shake of his head told her he understood. “Good.”
She released him and he dropped down unto his knees coughing wildly, massaging his no doubt sore throat. He stared up at her, his blue eyes swimming in confusion. “Who are you?” his asked again, this time there was no force to is words.
“Again with the questions?” she leaned forward and he shrank back shaking his head in panic. A small, satisfied, mildly nasty smile graced her lips. “And a word of advice buddy. The next time someone says no, they mean it.”
She turned away with a last glance over her shoulder at him. He was still on his knees his eyes cautiously tracking her as she left.
This was going to be a problem.