Music thumped in time to the heartbeats around him.
He could smell sweat and perfume.
Want and need vying with each other in equal measure.
Men looked at the women with predatory eyes. For their part…they stare back just as brazenly.
One over the other side of the room caught his own look.
She was phenomenal.
Beautiful, curvaceous. The clothing she wore was just barely enough to conceal her modesty. She danced along with her friends; equally as wanton.
He watched as she gyrated and turned.
One moment her front was towards him; her breasts straining at the strip she had affected as a top.
The next she was turned around, the firm globes of her ass checks staring straight at him, straining against the material of her short dress…barely deserving such a title.
She smiled when she caught him staring.
If his heart still beat, it would have been doing a rumba in the cage of his ribs.
But, he was past that base of bodily functions now.
Had been for many decades.
Still, he would love to know her better.
Her hair was black as a cloudless, moonless night. Her eyes, from this distance, the same. He couldn't tell their natural color, but found he didn't want to know; black had always been his favourite color.
He concentrated and the beats of myriad heartbeats flowed away until just the one remained.
A steady, ferocious rhythm.
Thump…ka-thump.
He focused on it, diverted all his attention to that one task. He was aware of other females staring at him, becoming attuned to the aura he was projecting; something that he and others of his kind could do. Just one of his many ‘talents’. But he ignored all except the one that danced across from him.
Hands touched him.
Across his chest, up and down his arms. But he only had eyes for her.
Across his broad shoulders, nails dragging softly against fabric.
But, there was only her.
He had the body of a man; lasts and desires as well as the baser needs. That of warm, red blood on his lips… cascading down his throat.
Yes, he would have this one.
Maybe keep her alive so he could play with her again and again, the same as a cat would with its favourite toy…
Or its plumpest mouse.
He moved towards her, the hands that still lingered on his body gently pulling with reluctant fingers, unwilling to let him go.
But eventually, they all fell to the side, as he knew they would.
The women who owned those grasping digits would go home with partners with a lingering image of a dark figure they couldn't quite place in their minds.
It would be the best night a lot of them would have.
Closer he got, striding through the dancing figures like a swimmer through a river, with but one target in his mind.
Others around him had dimmed in his sight; losing definition.
Some of the people moved, more stopped and stared, not really knowing why, as he passed.
Men; young bucks in cut-off shirts and tight jeans; strutting would-be alphas, scowled and opened their mouths to call him out…to prove they were worthy of the female attention they had. But one look at his face made their mouths close.
Caused them to back away a step.
Something warned them this was a man with whom fucking with, would be a dire mistake.
He got closer.
He hadn't felt this pull for the longest time. For years, his only constant had been hunger. The need to rend flesh; to tear and devour.
Yes, the blood sustained him, but death and the many ways he could visit it on a victim, was also part of his unlife.
He faltered.
Him…of all the things that walked, crawled or flew upon the earth.
Yes…he paused.
In the lights from the club, the woman's eyes seemed to shine ; reflecting silver. Flashes of light that almost had a weight of their own.
And a thought came to him.
Maybe he should walk away?
Find another, he didn't want to use the word, but, less intimidating target?
What the hell was wrong with him?
He had walked and killed for the last 300 hundred years. He was afraid of no man…no beast. Yet this woman, hell, this girl got to him like no other had ever done before.
He squared his shoulders and walked up to her.
She stopped dancing and turned to face him.
That was when he smelled it; musk. A deep, forest animal.smell that was coming from her.
She smiled and he could see eye-teeth that were almost as long as his barely concealed behind crimson-painted full lips. Using one hand she swept hair from her face and slowly, deliberately looked him up and down.
Her friends moved to either side but he knew that they too would be sizing him up.
Measuring him.
She leaned in and her warm breath stroked his cheek.
He detected an almost acidic odour as well as the ghost of raw meat. She sniffed his neck, adopting an affectation of his own mannerisms. Slowly she moved upwards until they looked each other in the eye.
At that moment her eyes flashed again, like road markers hit by car lights on a dark highway.
And she smiled.
“Looks like you're out of luck handsome,” she breathed.
Her voice was as soft as gossamer silk, but he could detect a power underneath it. One long-nailed hand ran sensuously up and down his arm. It was a light touch but he knew, just knew, that if she gripped his arm it would be as a band of iron.
Her lips moved next to his ear, and he heard words he had never before experienced…
“I'm not one of you, night-thing. I'm not one of your type.”
She squeezed his arm and turned away.
He stood open-mouthed and watched as she walked away with others from her pack.
Animals