Chapter One

“God dammit, Amon,” Slate said as she came in through the window. Her black knee high boots struck the wood flooring of the apartment as she moved through the bedroom. Amontague stood, buttoning back his black shirt. He gave her a dazzling smile that would penetrate any woman’s defense but she just sneered, disgusted. She studied the red head on the bed, covered in slick blood, naked. Her skin was pale; her lips tinged a bit blue. Her blue eyes were open in a vacant stare. Slate leveled an ice-blue eyed gaze at Amontague and continued ranting, “It wouldn’t be so disgusting if you didn’t sex them up first.”

“Oh come on Slate,” Amontague moaned as he followed her out of the bedroom into the kitchen, “It’s no fun if I don’t.”

Wheeling on him when he didn’t expect it caused him to slam into her. He stepped back looking up at her with hazel eyes, blinking from being whipped in the face by her blonde ponytail. She always did this when she found him like that. He wondered if she really thought terribly of him. She sighed and reached towards the sink, picking up a washcloth and tossed it at him, “For Christ’s sake, Amon. You’ve got her all over your face.”

Amon reached up to wipe his face but paused a moment to run his tongue across his bottom lip. The fiery taste of the blood warmed his tongue and the inside of his mouth. He unconsciously let a soft moan escape his now closed lips, his eyes nearly shut. Slate rolled her eyes and waited. She ached to dive headlong into the mess that Amontague had left in the bedroom, but Slate preferred hers fresh and rarely took seconds. The smell was near intoxicating and she was a bit jealous as she watched him. She leaned against the counter, folding her arms across her chest, “Did you learn anything while you were busy playing?”

He was about to respond when she started for the window, “I’ve got to get out of here. That smell will drive me crazy.”

Amon followed suit, eyeing the girl on the bed. His teeth marks near sang to him as he walked by. But he knew that he wouldn’t be able to finish with Slate there so he begrudgingly stepped to the window. The sweltering heat from earlier was still present, but the night had brought clouds and storms. Large dark clouds covered the star filled sky with an ominous warning that soon the city would be drenched. Stepping out onto the fire escape he looked down, Slate impatiently waited for him on the ground, three stories below. With a lopsided grin Amon jumped from the railing of the escape and landed in a crouched position. He watched as Slate started out of the alleyway, towards the lamp lit street. He moved to catch up to her. Her blonde hair contrasted deeply with her milky white, porcelain skin and her nearly blue-black leather outfit. Form fitting it hung to her curves with deadly precision. Amon chuckled. She was quite deadly. He was busy studying her when he realized that she had spoken.

“Huh? What?”

Slate turned to look at Amontague as they continued down the sidewalk, “I wish you’d pay attention. Start from the beginning, tell me everything.”

“Everything?” he asked with another grin. She gritted her teeth a bit before turning away, “Everything of import. Keep your sexual escapades to yourself.”

“If you say so,” he laughed.



FIVE HOURS BEFORE



Amontague pulled his burnt orange Murciélago LP 670-4 SV Lamborghini to the front of La Rouge near the middle of Manhattan at around midnight. He saw the long line waiting outside of the dance club and smiled as he stepped out; the door nearly opening at his very touch. A valet stood anxiously by to take his keys, a boy he didn’t recognize. He had been watching them as he had approached, each talking about who was going to take the car to the parking. A small teenager, probably only eighteen or so was the lucky contender and Amon handed him the key. Jason, his shirt read. When Jason took it into his hands, Amon quickly wrapped his hand around his, nearly breaking Jason’s finger bones together on themselves. He winced and looked up, “I don’t care if you take it for a spin.”

Jason looked guiltily as Amon continued, “But if it comes back with a single scratch…”

He leaned down to breathe in Jason’s ear, “I’ll kill you.”

Releasing his hand he moved to door, nodding to the bouncer. Women of all colors stood in line. Some as dark as night, others pale skinned, some overly tanned. All wore shiny, sparkly dresses that were hardly long enough to wear in public. Blondes, brunettes, and some in between. They all stood, waiting for entrance. They smiled at him as he moved down the velvet rope. He ran his fingers along the softness of it as he perused the women. He could hear the thump-thump of the music inside and ached to be within. Patience, he told himself, he was here for a reason. He spotted her, near the middle of the line. Fiery red, auburn hair, neatly kept in tight waves about her face. Ice blue eyes just like Slate’s. Her skin was milky white, blemish free, and soft he realized when she took his hand. Her manicured nails were kept neat and almost too short, but she wore a stunning red dress.

As he lifted the velvet rope to allow her to join him he casually looked over her. The dress cut low in the front, exposing a beautiful collar bone and perfect, perky breasts. It laced up in the front from just above her pelvis upwards, keeping together only by a tight bow tied between her breasts. Amon’s fingers itched to reach out and pull at the string to see the rest of her. But he refrained; there would be plenty of time for that later. As she smiled at him, dark red lipstick on her lips, he caught sight of the back of the dress which hugged her tightly and led him to believe that she would be a wild ride. A small tattoo was etched across her lower back, birds of some sort with swirls and fancy words.

“Amontague,” he said.

“Lara,” was her reply.

And with a smile he led her past the bouncer at the door to the darkness within. Inside the lights flitted across the floor, sparkles and smoke seemed to appear from every where and no where. The music pounded, electronica blared from the speakers as couples and women danced on the smooth floor, moving in an ocean of bending tension. Spotting some that he knew on the floor he smiled at them as he escorted Lara to the bar. The mahogany bar stretched the length of the club, several tenders moved back and forth to care for customers. He pulled a stool for Lara and she sat, crossing her legs, red dress crawling up her hip. He moistened his lips at the movement and sat next to her, close and ordered two decanters of Herradura Tequila Seleccion Suprema 80. Lara raised a brow at the order and took her decanter, sipping softly at the tequila, letting the smooth taste burn the inside of her mouth and her throat. Amon followed suit. Looking across the bar he spotted Slate sitting by herself, watching the two of them. He didn’t smile at her, didn’t want Lara to think he was interested in someone else.

“You must be a regular.”

Amontague turned his head to her and laughed softly, placing his hand on her thigh, his fingers moving in soft circles as he moved close to whisper in her ear, “I’m better be more than just a regular, it is my place after all.”

Lara leaned back some to study him, taking in his dirty blonde hair, his hazel eyes. When he smiled at her she spotted his teeth. It amazed her that she hadn’t spotted them first, but he had definitely surprised her by picking her from the crowd. She leaned back to him, feeling the warmth of the tequila sinking into her veins, “I heard rumor that this place was owned by a vampyre.”

Opening his mouth a bit he rubbed his tongue against his top left fang and she smiled a full smile, showing hers as well and he said, “I chose more than well this evening then.”

“You may have.”

Playful banter came easy for Amontague. It was only the feeling of Slates’ eyes on him that bothered him. It wasn’t as if he would fail, it was just that he could work better when he didn’t feel that every move he made was being scrutinized. After some mindless chatter of whom Lara was and how he liked her, he asked her to the dance floor, their decanters empty. When she accepted and moved to make their way to the floor Amon shot Slate a dirty look and the finger. Slate raised a blonde eyebrow and shrugged her shoulders. She finally stood and left the bar area, heading for the steps that led up to the VIP rooms. Feeling a bit better, Amontague moved into the crowd on the dance floor and pulled Lara to him, her backside to his front. They moved to the rhythm and his hands roamed. Her arms came up to place her hand on the back of his neck the other moving in his hair. His left hand lay on her hip, the other on her midsection, creeping upwards.

She danced expertly, her backside pressed to his pelvis, the movement almost too much for him. As the music beat he could hear the pulse of blood from the occupants within the club that were still human. They almost kept time together. As Lara leaned down to touch her toes and run her hands up her legs, Amon’s hand reached down, touching her neck his hand caressing down her back. He leaned back a bit, his head leaning backwards as he looked up towards the ceiling beams and lights. His eyes closed. 

They stayed on the dance floor for some time. Teasing, touching, petting, hardly any talking. Grinding and nipping.  It was almost more than Amontague could handle and he had her in his car before he could think, racing to her place. As he drove through the streets of Manhattan, her hand moved across his crouch, her fingers delicately undoing the buttons of his jeans, unzipping them, reaching into the slit in his boxers, touching bare flesh. He moaned as he whipped through a yellow light, going far faster than the speed limit. The cop sitting at the light ignored him, they always did. Her mouth covered his phallus; warm moisture assaulted him as he took one hand from the wheel for a moment to dig his fingers into her hair.

“Here,” she said. And he stopped. Pulling his car over before an apartment complex in SoHo. He leaned his head back, his teeth gritted together as her tongue and teeth worked magic. It wasn’t long before he groaned with his climax and she delicately scooped up his seed and swallowed it soundly before sitting upright to place a soft kiss on his lips, “Come.”

He followed her up the stairs outside of the apartment and spotted a beautiful red and black Honda CBR 1000 roll up to the curb behind his car. Lara fiddled with her keys and pushed open the door to head upstairs, pulling at his hand. Amontague knew that Slate was dropping someone off to take his car away. She then drove off when the car was away. Inside the quaint apartment Amon noted that the floors were a dark cherry. A kitchen island with marble stood as the centerpiece of the kitchen, a sofa and some chairs lined the living room. The bed in the backroom. He sniffed at the air lightly, taking in the scents of the place. Some vanilla candles, sat unlit somewhere in the bathroom, cleaning supplies in the kitchen. He heard the pulses of the neighbors, but all seemed relatively normal. Not what he was looking for.

Lara pulled him towards the bedroom where she stopped before the bed and propped her hands on her hips. Focusing on her once more Amontague smiled a lopsided grin as his fingers reached up to pull the string. The string slithered loose and the dress fell open a bit revealing pink, taunt nipples. He rubbed his thumb across one of them as he pushed the dress off of her. He chuckled to see she wore no panties. Should have known, he thought to himself, the wild ones don’t. Using her other hand she deftly undid the buttons of his black shirt. He let it fall to the floor. He then reached down, taking her wrist in his hand and brought it to his mouth.  He felt the tingling sensation on his tongue, as if he’d already tasted her. She nodded her head in permission and he sank his fangs into the skin of her wrist. They entered easily and the explosion of fire in his mouth made his body shiver a bit. The burning sensation filled him as he sucked at her now opened wrist.

She moaned softly in pleasure. He knew that she enjoyed it nearly as much as he did. Giving and taking of blood from another vampyre was a very sexual experience and sometimes used in keeping hunger at bay. She fell back onto the bed, pulling him with her. Once again her fingers moved at his pants. Amontague kicked his shoes off; his pants were off soon after. She lay back on the bed, beckoning with a finger. He grinned and moved to straddle her, quickly sinking himself into her. She moaned and nipped at his ears, his skin prickled from the sensation. She raked her nails down his back, but they were short and didn’t draw blood like he was used to. He decided he liked that instead. He didn’t much care for marks on his skin. Always made the girl after feel, well, like sloppy seconds.

Their positions changed, his pace changed, but he knew it was near and he flipped her onto her back. His second climax was stronger than the first. Having been built up and he felt her tighten around him as her eyes rolled back in her head and she let out his name, “Amontague.”

He gave her props. A wonderful actor, though he knew her climax was real. He hated over actresses, preferred to have his girl just make the noises that came to her naturally. But it was at that moment, when her eyes were half lidded, lips parted, satiated and vulnerable that he gripped her wrists with unimaginable force and slammed them back into the bed. He tightened his thighs on hers. Her eyes came open as she looked up, but it was too late by then. His hazel eyes were ice blue, determination writ on his face. She opened her mouth to scream but he laid his teeth into her skin, below her collar bone, just above her heart. His fangs boring into the gaps in her ribs and he sucked. Blood began pouring from her wounds. Her scream died in her throat and she began to fight for her immortal life, but Amontague was strong and he had done this countless times before. It was his job after all. Not to seduce them, but to obtain their memories and the only way to do that was to take them directly. As he sucked, his ice blue eyes faded to white. He could feel her fighting, kicking at him, but his mind raced with her memories.

A child, before becoming a vampyre. A birthday party. Losing her virginity. They raced through his mind like a movie, flickering from each scene to the next. As he drained her she became weaker. As her blood life lessened, Amon’s grew. It hurt sometimes, to take them, it wasn’t pleasurable to do it for it felt like his very, soulless being would split at the seems, being filled so full. A new car. The change. Romance bloomed. Love. Betrayal. And then the memories he was looking for. The kidnap. The girl. He inhaled them all, storing them until she was gone. He even kept the connection for the fear of dying. He always kept that near to him; always felt some remorse for their lost souls. But he never shared that with Slate.



“So the girl is still alive then,” Slate contemplated as they continued walking. It was near dawn, the peaks of sunlight starting to turn the city dark into a grayish fog. It was always so ugly here, Slate thought. What she wouldn’t give to be back in the country. To be back to before. She shook her head and tried to concentrate on the information that she had just been given, “It’s too bad that she didn’t know where she was taken. It would have made life much easier.”

They approached the Lamborghini that Slate had parked several blocks away and she pulled out the keys to hand them to Amontague but hesitated, “Would you prefer if I drove?”

Ever sensitive to Amontague’s health, Slate worried about him after each weaving. She didn’t envy his ability that only so few could claim. It gained him status though, but hardly any cared for the aftermath a weaving had on a vampyre. She had never experienced herself, but Kieran…he had always talked about it. Her heart seized a moment at the thought of him, but she steeled herself and waited for Amon’s answer. He seemed to debate it for a moment and when he vacillated she palmed the keys and dropped into the drivers’ seat. Amontague was thankful yet disappointed, but he knew that he needed recovery time and he didn’t need to be driving distracted with Lara’s memories swimming inside his brain.  If he was allowed to cry, he probably would. He knew that Slate wouldn’t breathe a word to the Covenant but he feared her opinion of him would be altered greatly. So instead he leaned his head back against he headrest and closed his eyes, allowing Slate to race towards Roosevelt Island. Shifting gears easily Slate drove across the lit bridge as the lights began to flicker off. It’d be light outside soon, even with the covered clouds. It was then that they started to leak, large droplets of water falling to the earth, spotting the windshield. Slate turned the wipers on, glancing over at Amontague who was now asleep in the seat. She smiled. Just like him to fall asleep when they were doing nearly ninety across the bridge.

She pulled up to the valet parking of River Walk Court, an eighteen story, luxurious condominium that the Covenant had purchased for all to live in. A truly beautiful building with individual spaces for all the vampyre’s of the Covenant. When the car was in park Amontague awoke from his short nap, his head throbbing a bit less. Slate stepped out, handing the keys to a male human whom she had recognized from before. He promptly stepped into the vehicle and wheeled it away. Entering the lobby she nodded her head at the two Vampyres at the door, they in turn saluted her by grabbing their right wrist, their right hand fisted above their heart. Heading to the elevator they rose to the sixteenth floor and Slate pushed Amon out of the elevator, “Go get some sleep. I’m going to the top floor to speak to Calantha. I’ll give her the information you’ve given me. I’ll be down in a little while.”

Amontague nodded in thanks and stumbled towards their apartment, pushing open the door. When he was out of sight Slate pressed the button for the eighteenth floor and rode it up to the top. Stepping out she stopped in the foyer as two vampyre’s moved towards her for frisking. She waited patiently as their hands roamed and felt for concealed weapons. Two other vampyres waited by the large door. The eighteenth floor had been redesigned to house only one vampyre, who was the matriarchal or patriarchal head of the Covenant at the time. Calantha ruled the Covenant for the time and all activities of import were reported directly to her. And Slate and Amontague’s doings were of great importance.

The French doors of deep ebony opened to reveal a large sitting area, some vampyre’s lounged around tables, talking, drinking from goblets filled with blood. Slate’s heart raced a bit at the smell and the yearning that opened within her but she ignored it, walking past the sitting room to another door, where she was again frisked before entering. Inside Calantha sat at an overlarge desk speaking harshly to another vampyre. He was covered in blood, bruised and beaten. She cringed to see him in that state. A vampyre could really only sustain injuries from other vampyres or lycaons. Lycaons were immortal enemies of vampires but the Covenant rarely had run-ins with them. Calantha’s voice sliced through the air, cold and calculating, “I don’t care how hungry you get. You do not prey on the humans. Especially a human on the enforcement of law.”

Slate’s eyes widened a bit to hear of such news. That would disrupt the uneasy truce they held with the law enforcement of New York City. Slate shifted her weight a moment studying the vampyre. He had definitely been beaten by other vampyres then as punishment and would probably be reduced to other tortures before gaining back his status in the Covenant. Such a large transgression wasn’t easily forgiven. Hunger was a driving force in a lot of human attacks, if one wasn’t easily self controlled or careful. There were plenty of humans who sacrificed blood for feeding, enjoying the pairing, and they survived. They were treated well and lived within the condominium, regaining strength and blood. Other times hunger was abated by drinking from another vampyre. From Calantha’s tone Slate gathered that the officer had unfortunately been killed. When Calantha was done the vampyre made his way from the room with his head hung in shame, escorted by another vampyre. 

“What news do you have for me?” Calantha’s voice was strained and a bit heavy as she motioned for Slate to sit. Slate stood though as Calantha sat back, shutting her eyes.

“The informant had no memories of Ayanna’s whereabouts,” Slate heard Calantha exhale softly, shaking a bit with anger, “However, her memories did lead to another group of rogue vampyres of which Amontague and I will be looking into tomorrow night.”

Calantha opened her eyes, tears filled them. Slate dropped her head to avoid them. Vampyre’s were a prideful race and hardly showed emotions that would be considered weak. But Slate knew how it was to cope with such loss, she had only cried once since becoming a vampyre. Her mind drifted back to Kieran. Lying in her arms, blood everywhere.

“Did you hear me?”

Slate jerked her head up to look into Calantha’s now cleared eyes. She shook her head.

“Take more than Amontague with you. I know he is quite capable, but after a weaving he will be weak and you don’t know how powerful the rogue vampyres are. I’d rather you not get killed,” Calantha made direct eye contact with Slate as she finished, “Ayanna might be my daughter, but you are my heir.”

And with that Slate was dismissed. The weight of responsibility shifted on her shoulders once more. As she made her way through the sitting room back through the French doors to the elevator her heart hung heavy. Kieran had crowned her as Calantha’s heir when he was the patriarch of the Covenant years ago. But no one had expected Calantha to come to power so quickly. Plenty had thought it would be centuries before Kieran handed the title over, but the incident had surprised them all and changed Slate’s life forever. Shaking a little in the elevator Slate moved towards the apartment when the doors slid open. Turning the knob she entered into the spacious living area. She smelled Amontague in his bedroom, could hear light snoring escaping from his mouth. She stood still, looking through the heavily tinted windows of the apartment at the rain. She reached up and pulled the black curtains closed. As she mindlessly made her way to her bedroom she stopped short when a naked human male lay on her bed. She shifted through her own memories and came up with his name.

“Derrek?”

He looked up from the television and smiled at her. He was relatively attractive and she had tasted his blood before. Had spent several long hours tasting him as she recalled but she didn’t feel like it now, though her hunger roared within her. She shook her head and sighed as she moved towards the closet, “I’m not that hungry right now Derrek. Perhaps tomorrow. I’ll let them know not to let you get passed to another vamp.”

Derrek’s almost disappointment disappeared at her last statement. Most of the males that she didn’t drink from got rotated down the list, but she appreciated Derrek’s sense of humor and his touch. Just…not today. Not with Kieran on her mind. Derrek dressed quickly and came up behind her as she stood, waiting for him to leave. He wrapped his arms around her, laying his head against her shoulders in a hug. Who hugged a vampyre she asked herself. But his simple gesture nearly brought her to tears and she trembled with them. With that Derrek took his leave and Slate undressed quickly dropping clothes onto the floor and fell into the bed, exhausted. Her body still shook but from memories not the cold. Rain pelted the windows of her room and she reached up, pulling a string to draw the curtains closed. Slate allowed herself to slip away into the darkness. Tired. Sad. And oh, so hungry.