Maddox swirled the blood in his wineglass, inhaled the sweet contents, and took another leisured sip. When he peeked at Vincent slouched at the other end of the table, there was a cold perusal in the hunter’s eyes.
So disappointing, and yet…strangely arousing.
Never had Maddox been assaulted in his home before. Of course, he was perfectly capable of defending himself, but his men—even his enemies—hadn’t the nerve to strike him in his own domain. Cowards waited until their foes shed a moment of weakness, then they went in for the kill.
But not Vincent Hudson. The brute hunter evidently had other ideas: tackle Maddox head-on when he least expected it.
Naturally, he had anticipated some kind of resistance. The hunter was, after all, only human, and they were ever so deplorable. However, to refuse his hospitality and assault him in his own home? Impressive and foolish.
“Do you know why I accepted your application?” Why I even spared your document a glance?
The hunter held his tongue, his bronzed face wiped clean of emotion. Apart from those incinerating, cobalt eyes. They were latched on to Maddox like a wild predator. He hadn’t touched any of his meal.
“I oversee every application submitted into my program. Some, mostly all, never surprise me. Humans so often want for one thing in this world: power. With power they feel they are able to survive, and in this day and age, survival is all that matters. But yours… You didn’t want to survive, did you?”
At last, the hunter’s mouth parted, and hoarse words tumbled from his bowed lips. “You know why I entered your suicide program.”
“You wanted to die,” Maddox stated matter-of-factly.
“I wanted hope.”
“For your group? Yes, yes you did. But you—you wanted nothing for yourself. A human trait I admire but rarely witness these days.”
“What’s your fucking point?”
Maddox sipped his glass. He poked his tongue out viper-like and licked the seam of his lips.
“You surprise me, Vincent. I know your terms and they are achievable still. My own, however, may demand of you something that’s beyond your imagination. Do you think you can give it to me?”
The thick lines embedded into Vincent’s temple deepened. A strand of long, wavy dark hair dropped into his eyes. “Give. What?”
He smiled at him. “To begin with, your submission. Agree to obey me, and your terms will be met. I am even willing to disregard your earlier debacle. I am a patient and understanding vampire. But I can also be cruel and unjust. Are you following me, Vincent?”
Another silence.
Maddox pressed on. “First of all, we will have to do something about how you are dressed. How you present yourself is most unsuitable for my…reputation.”
When he rose from his chair, Vincent straightened also, but not as a form of respect. He was preparing to attack.
My, my, my. You are such a skittish little kitten, aren’t you?
Maddox would have to go easy on his hunter, or else the wolf and fox would never learn to play.
“I want you to step out of your clothes.” Maddox signalled to his freshly pressed suit, which was an inch too small for him and the hems flashed his socks. “And leave not a single item or you will see exactly how cruel I can be.”
A hint of hesitation, a moment of weakness, then Vincent unfastened his pants, coat, shirt, and dropped them to the floor. His socks and shoes followed, albeit slowly. Now fully naked before his eyes, Maddox drank in every crevice of the hunter’s muscular body—every scar, every well-defined muscle that flexed around his taut, golden flesh. The Herculean physique made his mouth water with anticipation.
“Spread your legs wide for me.” The instruction a breathy whisper, Maddox added, “Or would you rather I fetched my secretary to do it for you?”
The proposal had Vincent moving quicker than expected. He spread his ankles apart, puffed out his chest, clenched his jaw, and gazed forward. Maddox approached him with slow, steady steps, and retrieved a box from his inner suit pocket. He popped open the lid and claimed the object from inside.
“A pet must always be dressed appropriately in their Master’s presence.” His snaked his gloved fingertips down Vincent’s chest, abdomen, then around his flaccid cock.
The hunter seethed a protest but did not move.
He gripped Vincent’s cock “This will not only let me control you but tells me where you are at any moment. I like to keep a close watch on my belongings.”
Maddox snapped the cock ring into place, then slithered a hand up and down Vincent’s shaft. He brushed a thumb lightly over the slit and grinned when Vincent sucked in a breath.
“So that’s what I am in all this? A possession to you?”
“And what a beautiful possession indeed, Vincent. Obeying my orders will soon be all you can think about. You will learn to worship them. Crave them.”
The hunter seized Maddox’s arm into an iron-like hold. “Like fucking hell I will.”
Maddox smiled and continued fondling Vincent’s cock with his spare hand. “You truly believe that? That you will win here, even when it is you, not I, who has everything to lose?”
Their faces nearly touching, Ezra announced himself quietly. “You summoned me, sir.”
“Yes.” Maddox yanked his arm from Vincent’s grip, released his dick, and pivoted on his heel. “Just on time, Ezra.”
The hunter bent down to gather his clothes, then thought better and straightened again. He puffed out his chest to accentuate a ridiculous superiority that he no longer possessed.
If need be, Maddox would break that spirit of his.
“Take the volunteer to his room. Until he is willing to obey me, he shall remain in isolation. No food or water until I say so. You know my rules.”
“Yes, sir.” Ezra inclined his head with a smile. “I do.”
Rain gushed down from the heavens, an artificial function gone wrong with Hope’s protective ceiling. The intensity of the downpour had ravaged the city for the best part of two hours, and no one, so far, had managed to figure out why.
Maddox knew why, and he also knew who was behind it. He would endure the joke until the minor glitch was amended. While the ceiling hadn’t been punctured in any way, and thus would prevent his kin from roaming in daylight, he found the presence of rain to be irksome. Especially on a full moon.
Maddox’s gaze strayed over the empty, immaculate sidewalks. The rain clung to his sodden fur, and his white paws soaked in a rippling puddle. Fortunately, he could see through the droplets and to the row of bars lined neatly across the road. And soon, those doors would open.
He had concealed himself under the shadow of a tree, waiting until one nightclub, in particular, closed upon midnight. With a curfew set for ten o’ clock on weekdays, Maddox had allowed his residents an extra two and a half hours at the weekends. He found the curfew helped sustain the orderly nature of Sanctuary Hope and those who lived there.
The clock above the artisan coffee shop struck midnight exactly. Maddox pricked his ears and, right on cue, the night club’s doors were thrown open and humans rushed out. The first to appear was a group of young academics, all laughing and pushing each other playfully into the puddles. They were followed by a middle-aged couple who strolled hand in hand, their umbrellas popped open. Lastly, a security guard who, much to Maddox’s delight, did not appear empty-handed.
“Come back here again and I’ll get the City Council on you.”
“Go fuck yourself, asshole!”
The guard lugged a misshapen figure into the middle of the road. Maddox lifted his snout and inhaled. A virgin. One who had consumed far above the city’s acceptable alcohol intake.
He watched the young man drag himself out of the puddle, half-assedly adjust an upturned coat over his shoulders, and stagger onto the sidewalk. After waving two eager middle fingers at the guard, he stumbled down the street, using the buildings to steady his walk. He just barely reached the second coffee shop when he paused, leaned over, and vomited down his front.
Maddox’s hackles rose. Had the fool any idea of how persistently Project Caine strived to keep Hope a safe, clean, and perfect city?
Paws moved along with the man, remaining deep within the shadows. He continued to swagger down the street, often cursing under his breath and pointing randomly into the air. Maddox’s breath rushed out in puffs. He had chosen the hound as his preferable form for hunting because people rarely suspected a stray dog as a predator. That way, past curfew on a full moon, he was able to keep a close watch on his people—on those who sullied his rules. And while he could shapeshift at any given time, into any desired form, he particularly enjoyed his hound on a full moon.
His prey pausing to urinate on the side of an alleyway, Maddox sat back and waited. The cloying stench of cheap perfume, mingled with the wet concrete and agriculture around him, crawled into Maddox’s nostrils. Two young girls in worryingly short cocktail dresses, with long, furry cloaks tied at their necks, hurried under the canopy of a nearby shop.
“Shhh, quiet! And don’t forget to call me once you get home.”
“I always do, Abigail.”
“You say that, but I usually have to call first to make sure you didn’t get lost. Again.”
The younger girl laughed and opened an umbrella. “Here, take this. Just take it. I’m only a block away. You still need to cross the courtyard, and it’s, well, dark and raining.”
“True, Summer, but it’s not like anything bad ever happens here, does it? Except rain. Oh, God… It’s past midnight already? We’d better go before we get caught past curfew again.”
After a giggling exchange and European kissing, the girls parted ways, the tall brunette over the crossroad, and the blonde Summer, popping up her furry hood, toward the block of houses at the corner.
The guttural presence of the man expelling more waste caught Summer off-guard. She stopped, peered into the alleyway, and did the one thing Maddox dreaded—and secretly hoped—for.
She asked if he required any help.
“Yeah, you can help me… You can start by comin’ in here, lil’ cutie. What’s yer name? You were in the club, am I right?”
“I-I was just checking you were okay. Goodbye now.”
Oh, my sweet child.
Maddox could smell the boy’s intentions like a dog on heat.
The rain lashed down the concrete buildings and streamed into the gutters. He padded over to them, not close enough to be seen, but enough to intervene should he have to.
“Hey, wait! I was jus’ askin’ yer name, dumb bitch. Where ya goin’ so soon?”
Summer stepped out of the alleyway, tightened her hood, and prepared to walk away. That was where she had gone wrong—turning her back on a predator. The man seized her by the throat, clamped a hand over her lips, and dragged her into darkness.
“Rude little bitch won’t even tell me yer name, eh? Fine then. Don’t—don’t bloomin’ need it.” Calloused fingers reached for his belt and his other hand for the girl’s coat. “I just wanna show ya a good time, cutie. Shh, shhh. Yer gonna feel real good soon. Trust me. Stop wrigglin’ already!”
The buttons popped from Summer’s coat and spat onto the ground.
A primal, animalistic rage surged through Maddox, and he shifted into his natural form.
Claws sliced through the man’s flesh in one effortless strike.
A breathless cry, a splatter of blood, and someone dropped to their knees.
Maddox smiled and clamped onto the man’s shoulder, scrawny and shorn of his bravado. With a heave, he picked him up from the ground, lunged over several dumpsters, and dumped him like a deceased stray.
He locked eyes with Summer, who had turned into a trembling ball of infrared radiation.
“You saw nothing. Heard nothing. Return home and go to sleep.”
Summer hesitated, then calmly stepped out of the alleyway and disappeared into the night.
Maddox turned to the brute quivering underneath him. “Your name?”
“What the fu—”
His tightened his claws around the sumptuous throat and squeezed.
“Gabe… It’s Gabriel…. What are you?”
“Oh, don’t worry. I plan on showing you, Gabriel.”
Such a fitting name for a precious meal.
Maddox hauled the creature onto his shoulder and vanished over the rooftop.
Unlike his kin, he regenerated on a full moon. First Borns, and those who were blessed with their venom, had grown an immunity to the sun and other mortal ailments. But the closer Maddox approached his one day of rest, the more his strength waned and the telepathic links that connected to his siblings weakened.
The full moon had risen high in the beautiful—fortunately, now rain-free—sky, and Maddox had ensnared his prey.
Emerging from his bedroom en suite, he unlaced the satin robe from his body and dropped the material to the floor. Water trickled down his ecru skin, highlighted by the moon that bled through the high windows. His silver eyes fixed on the cage dangling above an enormous water tank, filled with ice-cold holy water. Inside the iron confinement, Gabriel shook the bars.
“I said I was wasted, man, but I’m sober now.” More rattling, a sob thickening his throat. “I know what I did was wrong. Just let me go and I won’t never do it again. I’ll never drink another sip of that bullshit whisky… Please, man, I’m really begging you this time. I’m sorry.”
Maddox circled the cage slowly, silent and predatory. His skimmed his fingers over the cold surface, tapping, and the metal hissed against his flesh. He had no intentions of letting Gabriel go. If he released him now, even wiped his pathetic memory, his instincts would still have him preying on innocent people.
And Hope had no place for those who wished to sully it.
Maddox felt for the button latched on to the base of the cage and pressed. A deafening cry shrilled through the air, followed by gurgling suffocation.
Blood leaked from Gabriel’s puncture wounds—his throat, his wrists, his ankles—and spilled between the bars and into the water tank.
The mesmerizing glow of blood diluted the water beautifully, almost artistically.
Maddox climbed onto the edge of the tank, and as he had done since the beginning of time, he dropped into the pool of delicious, untainted, virgin blood, and closed his eyes.
The feeding tubes that had punctured Gabriel snaked through the water toward Maddox. They slithered around his wrists, down his throat, and injected into his veins. Maddox floated there, alone, crucified, vulnerable, and fell into an instant, dreamless sleep.