I was. It wasn't her words that bothered me. It was her attempt to slander my name that rattled me. I stood up slowly and that was when she stopped laughing. "Did you...?" She was afraid, terrified, and I felt it.
"Why are you afraid? She can't kill a vampire." Katie's male companion told her. I half smiled.
"How misinformed you have been..." I told him as I took steps forward. My heels were the only sound coming from the dining hall.
I was shorter than he was, but it didn't change how much he was shaking from terror. "Has anyone ever told you to respect the elders?" I asked. My face was like stone, and my eyes must have scared him further.
"No..." he gulped.
"I guess no one ever told you much of anything." I looked at Katie. She had dyed her hair brown. I could tell from the smell. "You're aware of my favorite dessert?" I asked. She nodded. I smiled and snatched Katie's beau from where he stood. I drank while watching the pain in Katie's eyes. After I was happy with what I had, I threw him hard enough to rupture and break the contents of his body. He was still alive.
"And then there were two." I smiled at Katie still in front of me. "My name is to never be slandered. Remember that when you're reborn." I kissed her cheek as my hand stopped on her chest. "NO!!!" An ear shattering scream came through the dinning hall the moment my hand broke through her rib cage. I squeezed Katie's heart until it busted inside of her. She fell to the floor dead. The man sat on the floor, crying in his suit.
"I guess someone should have told her that she wasn't as immortal as she thought. Maybe then she wouldn't have been so stupid with her mouth," I told the man as I glided back to my seat at the dining table. "There's everyone's entertainment for tonight. Enjoy the blood." I smiled and the room started to talk again. He ran out the front door, away from the mansion-like house.
Natalie leaned in. "In her defense, you did step down from leadership. Many don't know you're an elder." She sat up again.
"She was too cocky... she could have still been alive," I whispered to Natalie.
The night ended. The help cleaned the house as they did after every party and went back to the house just beyond the trees that they lived in.
The days passed and people expected me to top my last performance. It was all old to me. Killing was more entertaining back in the 1400s. It was a good thing I wasn't trying to entertain my peers. If I wanted to fit in, I would have kept my status as elder. Then I could have ordered them all to like me. With or without an order, they still respected me.
The bodies were easy to be rid of since I had them turned into dog food or horse feed. We made a few thousand euros from shipping our animal feed overseas. Good business since it cleaned up the mess. We didn't attack every night as we wanted. There were too many of us with limited populations surrounding the mansion.
I specifically picked a house on the outskirts of a small town in Colorado. It was a nice place to live and a beautiful home for me and my companions.
Visitors were only to drink what was allowed by us. Vampires, by nature, were solitary and loved to travel, but we liked having a place to call home. Our coven was our family. Other covens weren't like our own. We had our problems, but show me a perfect family and I'll show you where their skeletons are hidden.
I wanted blood. There was no simple way to avoid the fact. The daylight wasn't an instant kill. It was like any other allergy; if you're around it too much, it gets worse. Ever been allergic to cats? You know when one is around before you see it or smell it, because you can feel it. Same with the sun. It felt like fire on our skin, but we could run through it for at least an hour before dying. Not the ideal death for an immortal. Why was I telling you that? Oh, yeah. I wanted blood.
I couldn't avoid it. I left the mansion and took the keys from my valet. I drove off. The sun was setting and I was on my way to walk through the late day. No burns meant normality. Normality meant more assholes to kill.
On this particular night, so many things were happening at once. I drove into the city, parked my car, and got out slowly. I heard a robbery a few blocks down. A man yelling at his wife in the building to the left. A woman abusing her child three streets away. But every one of those people would get what they deserved soon enough. It was the rapists that couldn't be found, and the murderers that had enough balls to do it again that I was interested in.
I walked through the alleyways and found homeless men looking for warmth. I walked until I felt 'him' looking at me. None of my other senses caught him before that moment. I looked up and he stood there looking back. A beautiful perfume filled my nose. What cologne was he wearing?! I could have pounced him there, but I didn't. I had morals and shit.
His tan skin, his dark, chocolate-colored hair and his radiant, almost glowing, golden-green eyes, he was beautiful with very strong masculine features. He was like a modern day Spartan, and I always did have a thing for Spartans. I almost left him alive... almost.
As I passed him, his eyes locked and his body started to react to his heart beating faster. Something was off about him, something that I had never encountered before. He wasn't guilty, but he damn sure wasn't innocent either. I wanted him. Can you say 'Dinner?' One more step past him and I felt his hand before he knew he was going to do it.
In the moment his hand reached for me, I grabbed it, broke it, and spun him away from me. I slammed him into the wall and started to drink- all before the second was over. His dark jeans and long sleeve, white tunic were dirty from being thrown into the wall. When I was done drinking, I dropped him on the floor carelessly, like a child would throw down a rag doll after she was bored, and walked down the alley, wiping my mouth.
"That was rude..." A very low, attractive voice spoke. I stopped and turned, but no one was there. I heard snapping as if bones were being broken. I looked down at the body on the ground and saw the man was moving. I smiled and stepped closer. "I'm going to guess... You're not gonna help me," he stated. I smiled wider. He sat up and snapped his arm back in place. He rolled his shoulders and popped his neck. The man stood up. I was officially interested. Good for me, bad for him.
"What are you?" I asked. He stood up as if he weren't dead two seconds before.
"I don't know. But what was that all about?" He was questioning me? I stepped closer and took his arm, shattering it from the hand up. As anyone else, he yelled out in pain. He started to readjust his arm. A moment later, he was in full use of his arm.
"Interesting..." I took his other arm and broke it in the same fashion. He screamed, readjusted the arm and was fine again.
"Will you stop doing that?!!" he growled through his teeth.
"...Very interesting..." I whispered to myself.
I threw him into my car and raced home. I had a new toy to play with.
Miranda
(Chapter 2)
I hated my job. I hated my job. I hated my job. Could I be any clearer? I get home from The Burger Factory every night, smelling like old, stale fries. I get home everyday and look around my third-hand apartment. From my tiny kitchen to the living room that fit one cat-scratched couch, a small, busted TV, and a coffee table that was falling apart. My room wasn't much better. My hard, lumpy, stained bed; my ruined, rain-warped desk, and a small closet that held my second-hand clothing. I made it all look half acceptable. Nothing about my life was what I saw myself having when I grew up.
In
