“I hate these trips,” Aaron grumbled. “They make me feel like a little errand boy.”

Gavin, Aaron’s best friend, reached over to the car’s passenger side and clapped his hand on his buddy’s shoulder. Technically they were errand boys, but Aaron didn’t appreciate the comparison.

“I know man,” he sighed. “But we’re new to the clan. It’s just the pecking order of things.”

“It’s been seventy-six years,” Aaron snarled, not in the mood to be placated, even by his best friend. “ How ‘new’ can we still be? I’m tired of this Macrin. This was fun at first, but I don’t want it anymore.”

“Then we’ll ask for a job change,” his friend replied easily.

Aaron’s eyes slid from the road to his friend in the driver’s seat and looked at him pointedly.

“That’s not the ‘it’ I was talking about, and you know it. I’m tired of this. Living with this thirst for an eternity to do what? Be a little errand boy for crotchety old men who don’t give a damned about me? We barely get paid, and our freedoms are so limited that it’s like involuntary servitude.” He sighed, and shook his head once more.

“I can’t keep doing this man. This life…it needs something more than blood and orders.”

Gavin said nothing, only flicking his eyes from the road over at his friend for a brief moment before he refocused on his driving. He knew Declan was struggling. He had always had trouble adjusting to vampiric living, but the last few months his mood swings and depression had gotten worse. Macrin was starting to worry that his one and and only friend in the coven was considering meeting the sun.

For Gavin, or Macrin, when he was allowed to use his real name, being turned into a vampire had been a saving grace. He had been a star rugby player for Harvard back in 1892. He and his team had just won the league’s championship, and they had all ran out to the field to celebrate. Macrin was cheering with his friends and pouring water of their heads when he suddenly lost his breath on the field and passed out cold.

The tumor they found in his lungs was so large that none of the doctors had understood how he hadn’t displayed symptoms before that moment. It took them less than twenty minutes, even back then, to issue him less than two days left to live. He had planned on spending those two days drinking with his teammates, but the woman that turned him gave him had other ideas. Instead of giving him death, the woman gifted him eternity with her blood kiss.

He had never really been sure if it had been pity or selfishness that had made her choose to turn him, kidnap him, and after a decade abruptly dump him after being her suck and fuck play boy. But she had done it regardless, and in a foreign country no less. Luckily for him, he knew how to seduce women, and landed himself a ticket on a steamboat back to America.

He had barely any idea how to maintain as a vampire when she had turned him out on the streets, but it was her cruelness that had brought him to Aaron. Aaron, or Declan, had not been turned, but left for dead by a group of vamps that had attacked his fraternity’s house up near Yale. He was barely conscious when Macrin found him, but was still lucid enough to beg for his life. Understanding and familiarity brought him to save the young man’s life by turning him, but he made it no secret that he disliked their lifestyle.

They had been left all on their own for nearly thirty years before another vampire made themselves known to them and brought them to the House Annath to be taken in. It was then that they learned about the power of the houses.

Living in a coven of vampires, some so old that they couldn’t feel their emotions anymore, was why the younger members always had to go out and do the spying against rival houses. They had to appear human, which was hard to do when you became so void of feeling.

But Declan was getting closer to that void, and fast. He was losing his temper more often, even getting into public fights with known killers. His life had been ripped away at its most prime time. As a freshman quarterback for the Yale team he had already been considered a legend. He’d had dreams of playing pro ball, marrying a drop dead gorgeous, knock your socks off kind of gal who could give him a litter of kids, and having endless money to spend on his life and perfect family.

Of course he was angry. But angry and thirsty, especially for blood, was never a good combination. Macrin looked at down at the dash of the new black Mercedes-Benz AMG GLE 43, and saw that it had been several hours since they’d last fed, and even then they’d only taken a mouthful each. Their trip had been successful, and they were actually running early. There was nothing keeping them from making a pit stop at the next town and grabbing a little someone to eat before they went back to their house.

Less than three miles later, Macrin spotted a sign and he felt a tingle of relief. Selkie Cove, next exit, it said in bright white letters.

“Where are we going?” Aaron asked, his voice laced with annoyance.

“To get your grumpy ass someone to snack on,” Macrin shot back, making the turn. “You’re getting hangry again.”

The moment Macrin pulled the car up to the illuminated, diner he knew something wasn’t right. They’d never been in Selkie’s Cove before, but the moment their car hit the parking lot both of them caught a whiff of something putrid. Though the lights were on in the dining area, there wasn’t anyone in there but a dirty figure rummaging through the register and another one squatting over something on the floor.

As soon as they were out of the car they could smell the freshly spilled blood, and they raced over to the diner’s entrance. Sure enough, the guy squatting over the floor was leaning over an unconscious young woman as he was angling the knife at her throat. Declan could tell immediately that the two riffraff were human, and working for House Gormeth. It was the one of the oldest houses that stuck to the more…vicious ways of the past. The two boys would kill victims for the vampires, bring back their blood, and be rewarded with an incredibly long, painful conversion.

Macrin burst through the broken entrance, punting the guy’s head like a football as Declan came in right behind him. His body moved like a freight train, hard and heavy to take the guy at the register out. The two young men went down like toy soldiers, falling in surrender the moment something bigger and badder was in the room.

“Easy man!” The one guy said, holding his arms up to his face to block further kicks to the head. He had blood gushing from a gash on his temple, and another on his cheek, but Macrin kept kicking anyway.

“If you want her take her!” The other cried, throwing fistfuls of money at Declan. “Here take the cash too, just leave us alone!”

Furious, he grabbed a fistful of the kid’s greasy hair and yanked him back. His friend was struggling with the same predicament as Declan lifted him up by the neck. The filthy young man had a mouth full of blood, and was still spitting teeth out from when he got steamrolled like a tube of toothpaste earlier.

“What are you little fuckss so far off the beaten path for huh?” Macrin asked, jerking his guy’s head violently. Just by the smell of them Declan and Macrin knew they were delivery boys for vampires. They had come to the diner for the girl, but got greedy with the money. “You think it’s fun hurting innocent women?”

“Why can’t you listen to the rules?” Declan growled, his eyes glowing with hatred for the guys. “We feed from humans, we don’t kill them!”

“You’re just jealous of our house,” the boy in Macrin’s grasp chuckled. “Don’t be mad at us because we found a loophole you didn’t.” The we he was referring to was the House of Gormeth’s foul practice of taking on murdering humans as pets. As long as humans did the killing of other humans, the vampires were technically not breaking any of their laws.

“You’re right,” Declan replied, his tone far too calm. His grip around the boy’s throat tightened painfully, cutting off his breath.

“You didn’t break any rules, you just broke an innocent woman’s skull open.’ He squeezed tighter, feeling a rush of adrenaline at holding a man’s life in his literal hands. “Maybe we should crack yours open too. You know, an eye for an eye and all that.”

“Declan,” Macrin called, his voice a low warning. His friend ignored him.

“But you know what else is right?” Declan went on, watching the guy struggle in his grasp as he turned various shades of red and purple.

“What’s right is when a price is paid for a crime.”

“We…didn’t…kill…her…” the boy gasped, his hands clawing at Declan’s.

“You may not have gotten to your intended task,” he said, his grin wicked. “But look at her. She’s unconscious. And bleeding. Justice would see to it that you end up the same way. And what are we if we are not defenders of justice in this hate-filled world?”

Macrin, having had enough of the stench of their filth and seeing his best friend continue traveling down a dark road, moved with lightning speed to stop the situation. He snatched the boy out of Declan’s grasp and with one in each hand, zoomed outside to where the parking lot bled into the woodland’s.

“Get the hell out of here!” He roared, watching them struggle to their feet. “If you’re smart you’ll tell your masters nothing of this.” For a moment, Macrin stayed at the edge of the parking lot, and watched as the boys limped off in the darkness to try and find their next victim. He knew Declan had a point, but they were ambassadors, not executioners. If Declan wanted them, he would have retrieve special permission from their house. Which of course they would never be willing to do.

Macrin’s rage trembled through him with such force he feared to move. He hated, hated how Declan was willing to push boundaries on an almost daily basis now. He was a good guy at heart, he really was. But if he didn’t work on letting his anger go, he would end up as one of the Gormeth vampires. If that happened, he would soon be battling his own best friend, and he knew his soul was already too weary to do that.

When he felt he was calm enough, he turned away from the boys-now long gone- and headed back to the restaurant. To his surprise, he found Declan cradling the unconscious woman to his chest; her head resting safely on his shoulder. It was impossible to miss the dark red river of blood that flowed over Declan’s plain white V-neck t-shirt, and the sight of it both sickened and hungered him.

“What’s her status?” Macrin asked, walking up to them. Taking a closer look, he saw that the bleeding was coming from the back of her skull. She also had a small wound at her throat, where they had held the knife, but it was no longer bleeding. Aside from that, the rest of her body appeared to be in fair condition.

Her face, beautiful with small features, was pale beyond a healthy complexion, and she was taking her breaths in shallow inhales. Though she was wearing a baggy t-shirt and what appeared to be men’s cargo shorts, it was way too easy to see that she was too thin. Even without the wounds, something about the way the woman made him feel as if she had suffered much more than a head wound.

An uncomfortableness settled in his gut, and despite knowing better, he reached out to stroke a gentle knuckle across the small expanse of her jawline. She really is beautiful, he thought, suddenly feeling as if she should be familiar to him somehow.

In his head, he mulled over their few options. They could turn her, or feed her enough blood to heal herself. If they did that though, there would be no guarantee that she would come back normal, not with a head wound like that. He’d seen enough injuries to know that even if they got her to a hospital at that very moment, she would be declared braindead by the end of the night. The very thought of it saddened him, which in itself surprised him.

“We should go,” Macrin said, his tone soft. “There’s nothing we can do for her except make her comfortable.”

“Okay then,” Declan replied, walking with the girl towards the car. “Let’s make her comfortable in our house.”

“What?” Macrin asked, flabbergasted. “No, that’s not what I meant. She’ll die before we even get there, I really don’t”-

“She’s an innocent, Mac,” Declan implored, his deep brown eyes staring into Macrin’s hazel ones. “Just touch her, you can feel it. She doesn’t deserve to die like this.”

Macrin stared at his friend for a sorrow-filled moment. His friend looked not quite like a man, but a boy pleading for the life of his kitten. Feeling out of options, he moved back down to Aggie’s face, and smiled softly when he did so.

“Hey little one,” he said softly. Her breath had slowed considerably; she was close to her time. Maybe Declan’s right. She shouldn’t die alone and afraid. The least we could is make her comfortable.

“We can save her,” Declan pushed, “I know we can.”

“Shit,” Macrin cursed. He ran a hand through his roughly cut brown hair and looked around a final time to see that no one else was there.

“This is against protocol,” he added, pointing at his friend.

“I know,” Declan replied, looking excited. “I’ll take full responsibility I swear.”

The hour was growing late, and he knew they needed to be heading back.

“Fine,” he sighed at last. “Here, give her to me. Get in the back and I’ll hand her to you.”

Declan gave him a surprisingly dirty look, then after a moment of pause, handed the young woman over to him. The moment she was in his arms he understood why his friend wanted to rescue her. Something clicked inside of him, like a bo-jangled vertebrae finally sliding back into place after endless amounts of pain.

“Oh my God,” he whispered, looking down at her. A small smile touched his lips as he studied her face. “So this is what finding you is like.”

She was a thin little thing, and short too. Probably not more than 5’3”. Her nose was straight and turned up, and she had the type of lips that would showcase her face when she smiled. Her hair, short and blonde, was cut oddly, but it worked well on her. Two little rhinestones, one in each ear, glittered in the parking lot overhead light. Judging by the redness behind them, they were new.

Moving up to her eyes, he saw the tiny blue veins that laced through her eyelids and up her forehead. Her time was running out. They needed to move if they wanted a chance to save her.

“Hang on to her,” he whispered, handing her gently through the door and into Declan’s embrace. “Move her as little as possible, understand? We have to perform the ritual.”

“Ritual?” Declan asked, caught off guard. “What ritual? What are you talking about? Do you know her, Macrin?”

Macrin let out a growl, but said nothing as he slammed the door and got into the driver’s seat. The moment they were all in car Macrin hit the gas and got them back on the highway in no time. He had the pedal to the metal with no fear of cops. Hypnotism was incredibly easy for him, he could even use it through air waves. A useful trick when you didn’t want to be picked up on a police scanner.

“What?” Macrin asked, his eyes not leaving road. “What’d you say?”

“I asked if you knew her,” Declan replied. “She just…she looks so familiar. You looked like you knew her too.”

“I’ve never met her before,” He murmured, “but I think I know why we…why we are feeling like this.”

“Like what?”

With his eyes still glued to the road and their car still barreling down the highway, Macrin reached back into his memories from nearly sixty years ago, when he’d fallen under grace of a vampire that fed not off of chaos, but academia and peace. He had found Macrin after he’d nearly eaten a child and had taken him under his wing.

Giocomo had moved from Italy to the Bronx in the 1800’s, and had barely made it out of boyhood before a werewolf tore him to shreds. His older brother had been with him, but left him for dead in the wilderness. He should have died, but was instead found by a nightwalker- an Iroquois medicine man who’d been turned.

Giocomo left the dirty streets of the city and never returned. He spent his immortality learning anything he could about the great spirit, and the many gifts that were left on the earth not just humans, but for everyone.

The dog was the great spirit’s gift to man. The beloved was the great spirit’s gift to vampire. Man or woman it didn’t matter. But once a beloved was awakened, they could do incredible things, and make their vampiric loved ones do incredible things too, like feel love and happiness, heal their deepest wounds, and even amplify their powers. They were guardians of the fallen, but in turn they needed to be guarded as well. For if the wrong vampire found a beloved, only death and destruction was to be had.