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"I don't understand why we're meditating at a time like this," Anna whispered, popping one of her eyes open. "I didn't know that I had to say it out loud, but yes, I prefer my head on my freaking neck!"
Anna and I sat cross legged in the middle of the large, obnoxious purple fuzzy carpet in my bedroom that she had insisted on buying for me. It was still Valentine's Day. The roses, chocolate, and card were all exposed on top my dresser. My uniform was still on. Had Gram been awake when Anna and I got home, I would have made up a lie about the gifts. She had thankfully fallen asleep on her favorite recliner.
"You interrupted my breathing exercises," I huffed out. "Again."
I shut my eyes, getting back into my zone.
Meditating before and after a hunt increased my control in high level stress situations and reduced my anxiety in general. I had started having minor anxiety attacks after my parents had disappeared. That's right, disappeared. I couldn't just have the cliché, 'they're dead, Violet', like everyone else. Gram and I both agreed that whatever the reason was that they vanished, they knew they were going to disappear, before they disappeared. The day before their disappearance, (a few months after my seventieth birthday) my father had sat me down at the dining room table and discussed with me taking over the business if anything were to happen to them.
I had idolized my parents. To me, they were indestructible. But the next day, both of them were gone, and I had the awful feeling in my gut that I would never see them again.
Anyways, enough of that drama. Taking over the hunting business was a lot of stress for an eighteen year old. I risked my life for my clients every single day. Hunting was stressful, and with stress, came anxiety. Thus, the meditation with Anna.
Anxiety was a human weakness that a vampire could quickly take advantage of.
"On behalf of my lovely head remaining on my neck, your lack of sexual and emotional activity with a male in eighteen long ass years, and me wanting to live vicariously through you, whilst you do the horizontal tango with this hot client, I command you to call V!"
I let out a long, aggravated exhale, then ignored her again.
I relished in the fact that I was homeschooled and didn't have to deal with my high school's hormonal, annoying, and alcoholic teenagers (Anna only hormonal and a teenager), but it would have been nice to be able to do something that normal people my age did, like go on a date with a guy and maybe see a movie, without being concerned that my date had fangs, or that someone in the theater was sucking a human's neck dry as soon as the lights went out.
Do teenagers even go on dates anymore?
God, now I was thinking like an old person.
The floor boards creaked. I slowly pried one of my eyes open, to find Anna centimeters from my face with my cell phone in her hand. "CALL. HIM!"
"He's bluffing," I said, smacking the phone away from me.
She pushed the phone back into my face. "You're assuming."
"When the hour is over, he'll call me himself. He's testing me, Anna. This is another test. You're falling for one of his games."
"To test what? Not everything is about a test, Violet. I think he wants to talk to you, because you're a badass, hot babe!"
I gripped Anna by the shoulders. "This isn't a Hallmark movie. This is real life."
Anna threw her hands up and clasped them together in prayer. " Violet. Lord, please knock some sense into the sexually deprived, sexually aggressive, Violet Florentina! Also, I'm sorry...about, well, everything. I'm pretty sure I've broken all of the Fifty Six Commandments. And that one time I touched that thing that I shouldn't have--"
"Ten," I corrected, squeezing the bridge of my nose. "It's The Ten Commandments. When did this prayer to help me, become a confession?"
"Hey, I have to put a word in about myself, too. I like my afterlife slightly warm and sunny, and not rain made of molted lava and fire everywhere you walk." Anna paused, deep in thought. "Although, that lava might finally get rid of my athlete's foot." She snorted. "But seriously, Violet, what if Hottie is really going to rip my head off, if you don't call him within the hour?"
"He doesn't seem like the type," I lied, and when I lied, it was as straight faced as the truth. I snatched the phone from her and silently jumped up onto my feet, like the killer I was. "You know where to go." I jabbed a finger at the bathroom and Anna groaned. "Sink on. Shower on. I'm making an important phone call and you can't be in the room for this. You'll comment on everything I say."
She didn't disagree. "Can I try and listen in on the other side of the door?"
I gave her a flat look. "Whether I say yes or no, you'll do it anyways."
She grinned lopsidedly. "True." The bathroom door slammed behind her and the sink and shower both went on.
When the time actually came to call him, I stared down at my cell phone with my heart lodged in my throat. I pressed call, pressed my cell phone to my ear, dreading the fact that I was getting closer and closer to talking to this mysterious 'V'. I don't think I had ever been so nervous in my life as I was right then and there. And believe me, that was pathetic, being what I was.
I listened to the last ring before voicemail, about to hang up, when the line picked up, and my life took a turn for the worse."You never did answer that question, Violet," a deep, delicious voice purred from my cell phone, nearly making my cell phone slip right between my fingers and clatter to the ground. My instant reaction to his voice alone, set off warning bells in my head.
I had been right.
V was an extremely powerful vampire.
For a moment, I was stunned; part of me had been hoping he sounded nasally and ugly, but then I gained control of the situation and spoke up. "And what irrelevant question might that be, V?"
His laughter would have made any other human's eyes roll back, it was so beautiful. "Have you ever been bit? That was my question." He spoke at a low, almost intimate volume, as if he was talking about my first time with a man. His voice alone gave me the comparable sensation of a lover's caress, heating every inch of my body.
"That's none of your god damn business, V, nor is it relevant." A vampire asking a human if they had ever been bitten, was equivalent to a man asking a woman how far she had "gone" with another guy.
"It's perfectly relevant, kitten," V argued, and that nickname, I swear, made me see red for a minute or so, it provoked me so much.
"Are you...offering...?" My nails were drawing blood in my left palm, my hand was in such a tight fist. "Are you offering to utilize me as your freaking blood bag? As if I would ever--!"
"No offense, but you'd be more than willing to feed me. I can hear it in your voice and your breathing that you're attracted to me. Would only take a 'please' for you to give into me and let me feed from you, really, but that's no fun. It always amuses me when an hostile hunter like yourself, of all people, finds me unbearably attractive."
My jaw dropped. "You wish--!"
"You can lie to yourself, kitten," the beautiful voice continued, "but we both know how hard you're rubbing your thighs together right now. Embarrassing that I know that, isn't it? Have you ever even been with a man?"
A furious flush lit up my cheeks. I loosened my legs. "You have some nerve--!"
"I need to know if you're a interested in being a blood wh*re, like your mother was, before we further converse with one another. Your priorities need to be straight with me, if I'm going to be your new employer."
"Listen to me, you manipulating leach." I held onto the phone in a death grip with my sweaty hands. "I have clients who I choose to help. Not a nosy, abrasive, jerk. How dare you look into my personal life! Who the hell do you think you are?"
"Your benefactor," he answered easily. But in a second flat, his voice had changed entirely to something empty and cold. " I'm in control of this conversation, whether you believe it or not."
"You're not in control of anything, here, Fang Face."
"Anger won't get you anywhere with me. I suggest you do whatever I say, Violet, and watch yourself." There was an iciness in his voice that made me clamp my lips shut. "I don't take rejection, nor disrespect very well."
"That's unfortunate, because this is me rejecting you." I spoke slowly and clearly into the phone. "No."
"Very well, then," he clipped. "I'm sorry it has to be this way..."
"This is between you and me. Threatening my family and my friends anymore than you already have, is...is...uncivilized." A weak come back, I know. But if this vampire was as old as I thought he was, he actually would have agreed with me.
"I agree, although I wasn't planning on threatening Blondie, or your family. I was planning on threatening you, but only if you reject me, which you won't, unless you're thicker in the head than most humans are." He let that sink in and I silently blew a fuse. "If you seek an immense reward, you will complete the next task I am giving you. Not that you'll have any other option but to complete it. I'm willing to offer you 10k, for the completion of this one, plus another tip."
My heart caught in my throat. Ten thousand dollars? Had I heard that last part right? My inner hunter shoved my emotions to aside, letting the thrill of a next kill, and my reward, take control. "Email me the details," I finally said, after a millennium of silence, where V politely let me think about his words. "I'll think about it."
"The soul that has conceived one wickedness can nurse no good thereafter. You're addicted to this. Killing. You and I both know you can't say no." He let out a low, sultry laugh that gave me a violent chill. "By the way, if you'd let me, I'll be your first. Every hunter should know what it feels like. Get rid of that initial shock, so if it happens on the job, you know how to handle yourself." We both knew what he was talking about. All along, V had known I had never been bitten by a vampire.
Before I could respond, the call ended, leaving me speechless. He wanted to bite me.
He wanted to bite me! Me!
Why did I feel kind of...complimented by that?
And on cue, Anna threw open the bathroom door, letting it hit the wall with a loud crack. She had a green facemask on and had clearly taken a shower. "I couldn't hear a dang thing because you were practically whispering, so I took a shower." She sat down on my bed, and her light blue eyes quickly scanned my face. "So... I'm guessing by that vacant expression and pale skin of yours, that you guys didn't have phone sex?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it when nothing came out.
Buzz.
Emilia Fane is your next target. I attached the address to a cafe she frequently dines at. Dress kind of...fancy, for this one. She has blonde hair and blue eyes. You can't miss her. Get her to invite you to her favorite club, then text me once you're inside. Sweet dreams, kitten, and remember, 10k, plus a tip. ;) -V
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