As they closed in on him, he had no space left to dodge their strikes, and two of them grabbed at his arms. His frustration mounted as he was struck in the head from behind. His desire to lash out and smash these frail meatsacks caught hold, and he roared in rage whipping in a full circle. He momentarily broke their holds which pulled two of them completely off balance. They flew through the air, then scraped and tumbled across the ground.

Cool. He took a moment to watch their bodies roll to a complete stop.

He instinctively sensed the others coming back at him from all directions. He spun again and lashed out with his fists in wild haymaker swings, connecting with three of them in a split second. His blows seemed to have an exaggerated effect. Each thug was sent tumbling away, one flipping end over end through the air. They were rag dolls, and he tossed them around with no real effort.

The two remaining thugs who had escaped his spin move came in from the front and right simultaneously. The man to his right reached him first. With an open-handed shove, Aaron sent him flying back through the air. The man landed sprawled on his back, his skull cracked on the asphalt beneath him. He isn’t getting up any time soon.

Aaron stared in fascination at the powerful effect of a simple one-handed push. As he gawked, the man in front of him dropped low and hit Aaron squarely in a wrestler’s tackle. His attention snapped into focus. He instinctively twisted with his legs splayed out wide for balance. Then he flung the attacker out to his side with an instantaneous pivot and shoved hard with both hands.

His maneuver spun them around completely, his attacker’s momentum flowing past and out the other direction. The thug went flying through the air to land on the pavement face first with a crunchy thud. Aaron stood solidly on his feet, facing the opposite direction. The graceful redirect had turned him around a hundred eighty degrees.

All five men were down on the pavement hurting. He instinctively wanted to fight to the death, to crush and slice their feeble bodies to pieces as he drank them dry. He tasted the scents of their blood, fear, and adrenaline. They smelled like food.

He shook his head in attempt to break the powerful bloodlust desire surging through his body. His fangs extended fully, mouth wet with venom, ready to feast upon their flesh. He could kill them right now. Drain them of liters of blood in mere seconds. He’d be gone before one of the punk-ass thugs at the liquor store across the street could finish calling 911. It was so tempting. And it would be so easy. No one would ever know it was him. No one could identify him in this dark setting. The bystanders were too far away to see anything but a white guy dressed in jeans and dark shirt. They couldn’t even see his face. The perfect moment for a couple quick kills.

He fought with himself, an internal battle of wills against an urge so powerful he could barely contain it. He growled and snarled, looking back and forth at these slug-like, slow moving cattle, struggling with the compulsion to rend and tear flesh. He finally made the snap decision. He redirected his energy into flight, racing back down the alley he had emerged from earlier. In his hurry to escape before he killed someone, he knocked down the man in his path who’d just regained his feet. As he bowled the man over, he heard the crackle-snap of bones breaking. The thug was nothing more than limp flesh against Aaron’s charging force. Five of them had been no match for him. The outcome was determined before the confrontation ever began.

He sped down the streets, heading in the direction of home. His powerful bloodlust burned, calling him to smash, tear and rend flesh. He began seeking out new prey. Several heartbeats thumped nearby, ripe for tapping. He sensed all that wonderful juicy goodness just begging to be slurped down. Reason reasserted in his mind, and he realized what he was doing as he snuck up on a man and woman crouched in the alley with their smoking crack pipe. He barely stopped himself at the last moment, running off down the alley in the other direction.

Though he wanted to go home, get off the streets for a few minutes, away from the food stench of people, he couldn’t return to Michelle with all this tension singing through his body. He stopped in the alley two blocks from home seeking a target for his aggression. The only thing available that wouldn’t result in death and mutilation was a steel dumpster sitting against the concrete wall of the alley.

He glanced around to verify there were no witnesses. Having finally found an outlet for his aggression, he funneled it all into that ugly, squatting steel dumpster. He hit it full bore, holding nothing back. He smashed it over and over with his fists, screaming in rage, frustration, and unfulfilled hunger. Each strike left behind a crumpled mess of indentations. As he collapsed the front side of the dumpster, he moved to the left, smashing inward with a barrage of hook punches on each side of the ninety degree corner until it was so misshapen it no longer resembled a rectangle. The lid popped up at a twisted angle, never again to fit down on the mangled receptacle. The front and side of the poor thing had caved inward like a crushed beer can. The irreparable condition of the dumpster testified to the intensity of his frustration. The green-painted steel had absorbed Aaron’s crushing force far better than those unfortunate gang members.

Knuckles abraded and raw, sliced open, he watched the damage knit back together right before his eyes. He stared in creeped-out fascination as his knuckles healed up to little pink welts in a matter of minutes. A few minutes and the flesh had completely rejoined over the cuts, leaving only a slight raw spot as evidence of his tantrum. The miracle of vampiric regeneration captured his attention long enough to calm him down. He regained some badly needed serenity. Finally, he could go home and spend another night beneath the yoke of his master.

The dumpster workout session had mostly satisfied his desire to lash out at something. He no longer felt the overwhelming need for violence. The incident proved a nice little distraction. His new concern was that Michelle might learn of his misadventures in the street, causing another point of contention between them. He focused on slowing down his breathing and closed his mind securely within the vault prior to entering the apartment.

He knew she sensed his tension, but wasn’t aware of the new source for it. She attempted to make an opening. “Are you ready to talk about this problème?”

He clammed up, not wanting to betray his actions to her inadvertently, but a sliver of irritation slipped through the vault door. Bullshit, she knew exactly what was wrong … her. Despite this spike of emotion he answered coldly, “I’m fine. Eerything is fine … Are we going to feed soon?”

He was hungry for blood. The sooner they fed the better.

He monitored her thoughts closely as Michelle considered pressuring him to draw out the unspoken issues between them. He read her concern, she worried he was a little too edgy, volatile. She let it go, for now. “Oui, another night club. You need more practice with control. Get dressed. I will be ready soon.”

He didn’t respond. He changed quickly and stood at the door waiting unobtrusively. Beyond the need to feed, he had no excitement or anticipation for their outing. Another evening of nightlife, tethered to his master.

* * * *

CHAPTER 17

Michelle watched Aaron as he kept his distance from her, cold and sterile, going along to get along. After three nights like this, she reached the limit of her patience for his brooding silence. She had attempted to engage him in conversation but he blocked her, refusing to speak unless asked a direct question. His mind remained closed off, not a hint of his thoughts. Only the slightest taint slipped past his barrier once in a while. These small glimpses of his thoughts never contained anything positive.

He was going sour fast.

Something needed to change soon before they reached an impasse where she might be forced to take action. She might have to kill him.

She learned more from his aura than from their psychic bond. It was streaked with bold colors of anger and resentment. She’d never seen this side of him before. His cold negativity saturated everything. Their time together had become mechanical, holding no elements of friendliness. They went through the motions of meeting their basic feeding impulse then returned to Michelle’s apartment in silence.

Michelle briefly considered ending it now. She’d done it before. It wasn’t impossible to kill a vampire. Maybe difficult, but not impossible. With her authority of compulsion she held the advantage despite his superior strength and speed. It would be quick, painless. He wouldn’t suffer. Perhaps that was the humane thing to do. He obviously wasn’t happy living under her domination. He looked like he was ready to take her head off at any moment. Maybe it was wise to strike first before he turned on her.

He sat at the kitchen table in front of her laptop, his attention absorbed by the Internet. She flexed her razor sharp claws and reached for him. He had his back turned, his beautiful shirtless torso exposed to her attack. She could do it so quick he’d never see it coming. She envisioned the move in her mind’s eye, marshaling her nerve to do it. Then he sensed her there right behind him, his breathing quickened, his heart rate elevated. His aura bled through with colors of anxiety, angst, frustration, lust, and there it was, faint but still recognizable, love. He was fighting with the fact that he still loved her despite everything she’d done to him. His internal battle slipped past the crack in his mental vault. It confirmed what she saw in his aura. He loved her, and resented the fact.

And he was hurting.

It occurred to her that she had become the cruel master, abusing her power over him. She remembered being in the same position, enslaved by a sadist. And what was the difference? She had turned sex into a torturous form of punishment. What made her any better than her former master?

She realized she was the one to blame for the situation between them. She would need to make the effort to repair the breach. It was her responsibility. She owed him an apology.

But what if he remained cold and aloof? Had she created a monster? Was it too late already? What if she’d led him too far down the path of cruelty?

She wanted the old Aaron back. The one who looked at her with such adoration, not the cold resentful bastard he’d become. She enjoyed him in her life. They were good together. The few nights they had spent in her bed were fantastic. The most invigorating moments of the past five decades. She decided to take the initiative to break through to him.