Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Also by Damon Kinney
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Other First Times Books
The Bite Club
About the Author
Terrance
I dragged my tired ass into The Moirai, still jet-lagged but starving and not willing to go back to Blackthorne Burgers for another greasy cheeseburger like the previous night. If I had groceries in the house I was renting, I’d have made something there, but I hadn’t gone shopping yet. I arrived late two nights earlier after a twelve-hour flight from Paris, followed by a two-hour limo ride.
So The Moirai seemed like a pretty good bet. After the greasy burger, I had gone to the El Diablo Bar for a drink. I asked Dante, the bar’s owner and a fellow vampire, where I should take a date for dinner if I wanted to impress her. I figured a classy, expensive restaurant would likely have good food. He told me about The Moirai, then winked as he casually mentioned that the honeymoon suite at the Lucky Devil Motel had a Jacuzzi tub and a mirrored ceiling over the bed.
Sometimes I had to wonder about my bloodsuckers brothers. The Kindred, as they’re fond of calling themselves. I guess you can’t account for taste, even among vampires.
Maybe especially among vampires.
The Moirai was on the outskirts of Diablo Falls, and it turned out to be the perfect place to take a date—a date who likes pretentious hipster nonsense, that is. A menu they proudly referred to as “Re-Imagined Americana” had all the typical restaurant code words you’d expect to see in a bigger city: farm-to-table this, locally sourced that, curated blah, foraged blech, deconstructed whatever. Anywhere else, it would be annoying, but in this out-of-the-way town, it felt downright bizarre. I suppose the hipster foodies have infiltrated the boonies by now.
Perfect, I thought as I sat by myself in a corner table. A greaseburger was starting to sound pretty good. What I was really in the mood for was something thicker, redder, with a tinge of iron. My body had been aching for sustenance for the last few days, but I had to be careful in a new town. Stranger comes in, somebody dies, and the next thing I know I’m in a courtroom. Sure, it’s happened before, but detention technology has improved substantially over the last couple of centuries. No, I would take my time and not risk my freedom.
It’s not like when I was younger, and the urge was impossible to control. I trained myself to rein in the impulse after learning my lesson the hardest way imaginable.
So something undercooked would have to do tonight. And maybe a few vegetables on the side.
After perusing the menu for a few minutes while simultaneously trying not to laugh out loud, I opted for three dishes: Artisanal Watermelon Frittata with Scraped Beanshell Bruschetta, Homespun Artichoke with Hand-Massaged Fennel on a Crafted Pulled-Fig Shortcake, and an IPA-Brined Bison Ribeye with a Panko-Tempura Eggplant Slider. I figured one of those was likely to be edible, and if I got really lucky, I was hungry enough to eat them all.
I ordered, stressing that the bison steak be cooked “on the bloody side.” As I sat drinking a glass of wine while waiting for my food, I tried to figure out what the hell I was doing in this town out in the middle of nowhere. Why was I compelled to travel halfway around the world to stay at a rental when I could be back in Paris, staying comfortably in the home I’ve owned for nearly two centuries? And how the fuck would I even begin to find the answer to that question?
It was all pretty baffling and made my brain hurt just thinking about it. At least the place had a decent wine menu, so maybe I could just drink myself into a stupor instead.
Suddenly the fine hairs on the back of my neck stood up and a chill traveled down my spine. It was a feeling I rarely got, and my head swiveled instinctively to see a couple entering the restaurant. The guy was tall and confident, and something told me he was a werewolf, though I was never too sure about my ability to discern supernaturals from humans. Over the centuries, I’d gotten better at it, for sure, but that instinct was still untrustworthy.
Then I saw her.
She was breathtakingly beautiful, at least by human standards. Shoulder-length thick blonde hair with a bit of highlighting. Maybe five-four and probably didn’t weigh one-twenty sopping wet. Lovely little black dress that showed off both her delicious legs and more than a hint of cleavage. And a smile that seemed to light up the entire room.
This wasn’t about him after all.
That was confirmed when he approached the hostess station and she looked up, turning her head directly at me as if drawn by my staring. I saw two stunning blue orbs, the kind of eyes that painters try their entire lives to properly capture.
Our gazes locked in, the world momentarily standing still for both of us.
I set my wine glass down, my body having decided to get up from the table without first consulting my brain. That little movement broke the spell—or whatever it was—and she quickly averted her gaze as the man offered his hand to her and the hostess showed them to their table.
I could still see them from where I sat, the back of his head and about half of her face. She never looked back over at me, so I eventually went back to my wine, and a few minutes later my food arrived to further distract me.
The problem with being a vampire, though—or at least it can be a problem—is that our hearing is quite sensitive. To be honest, it doesn’t happen with all of us; some of the Kindred can only hear slightly better than humans. I was not one of those. My hearing was distractingly sensitive all the time, and if I focused, it was hyper-acute.
As I dug into my artichoke-fennel-fig shortcake, I tried not to look in their direction, but couldn’t help but eavesdrop. That’s what happens when someone gets your attention and you have the ability to hear her from across the room.
From what I could gather, they weren’t a couple. Not yet, anyway. They were still feeling each other out, a little awkwardly at times, though they both obviously liked each other quite a lot. I began to wonder what her story was and what she did for a living. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-five at the most.
The man looked closer thirty, although if he really was a werewolf, I could be off by a decade or more. I don’t like werewolves. Hell, I don’t like were-anythings; they creep me out. When I was younger, before the turn of the first millennium, I saw a badly bleeding wolf in an alley a few meters ahead of me. I was about to turn and flee when it howled in pain. I stood riveted as its shape slowly bent and twisted and became more human-like in form. When the transformation was finally complete, I was looking at a naked adult man, bleeding profusely from a wound in his abdomen. He turned and stared at me, blood pouring downward and dripping off the tip of his particularly large penis.
I ran as fast as my frightened young feet could carry me.
Although the whole thing might have lasted a minute, it was terrifying, and I could still vividly picture it all those centuries later.
Since that day, I’ve always kept my distance from shifters and were-folk. Witches, warlocks, and demons, too. Hell, even angels made my skin crawl.
I may be a supernatural myself, but I’ve never felt a part of that community. Fuck ‘em all, and fuck humans, too. I’ve been a loner most of my life and prefer it that way. I interact with humans to feed and for quick, meaningless sex. I don’t need them for anything more.
There are no morning-afters in my world, and consequently, no p
otential for emotional attachment.
As I take a bite of my bison slider, which was surprisingly tasty, my eyes were jolted back to the couple’s table.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I heard the man say. His tone betrayed both surprise and no small degree of disgust.
The woman just stared at him from across the table, her eyes revealing a growing hurt. She shook her head. “Is that a problem?” she asked timidly, unaware that someone across the room could hear every syllable of their quiet conversation.
“A virgin? I’d say it’s a fucking problem. Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “It’s not something that comes up on the first date or two.”
“Well, it should be. I know lots of guys would be fine with that, but I’m not one of them. I want someone who can keep up with me in bed, not… not a trainee.”
I heard a gulp as she swallowed down the pain, trying not to cry. “I wasn’t asking you to train me. All I said was I’d love to come back to your place, but I’m not ready to sleep with you.”
He remained silent for a few seconds, then pushed back his chair and stood.
“What the fuck? Why would you waste my time and lead me on like that?”
His voice was loud and angry, and other diners’ heads turned to see what the commotion was all about. The asshole slung his napkin onto his plate and walked out, the ire practically oozing from his pores.
Like I said, shifters are creeps. I’ve never liked them.
The woman lowered her head and I heard a sniffle. I felt horrible for her and briefly considered trying to console her.
Then I got a better idea.
I could bite her. Neck-nosh her.
If I drained her, I could get the nourishment my body was starting to ache for. And if I was smart about it, I could shred her neck enough afterward to make it look like an animal attack. The Diablo Falls cops would immediately look for a shifter to blame, and the one who’d had a public spat with her the previous night.
Win-win, baby.
Hey, it may seem cruel, but a beautiful human is like any other food source. Vampire women are a different matter, and I treat them with respect, though I rarely date them. Humans, though? I have no qualms against using them to feed, then disposing of them. Does a wolf think he’s doing something wrong when he eats a helpless sheep?
The woman sat there, not eating, while people continued to glance over. Eventually, the waiter came by and said something, apparently telling her not to worry about the bill, because she got up and walked toward the door, not looking at anyone. Even without her mesmerizing smile, she was still quite beautiful.
I pulled out my wallet and dropped a hundred-dollar bill on the counter. I didn’t care that I was leaving almost all of my food uneaten, this would be so much tastier than a bison steak. When I was certain everyone had turned back towards their dinners, I slipped out of the restaurant as facelessly as I could—no easy trick when you’re six-foot-five.
My intention was to follow her home, but I got lucky because she was standing in the parking lot, looking at her phone.
“Are you okay?” I said softly as I slowly approached her. “I don’t mean to be nosy, but I saw that guy was pretty mad about something.”
She looked up at me and I got that same damned feeling all over again. Shivers, chills, the works.
Human women never had this kind of effect on me. It would be a treat to siphon the life from her. If she weren’t a virgin, I’d fuck her first, but I don’t care to seduce her over time. I could use my vampire charm to convince any other woman, but the idea of giving up her virginity would cause her to resist. And for the record, I know most vampires call it Compulsion or Glamour, but I prefer to think of my hypnotizing voice and deeply erotic gaze as charm.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m getting an Uber.”
“You shouldn’t be standing alone in a parking lot at night, so far from town. Let me wait here with you to keep you safe.”
She looked at me for a few seconds, apparently trying to ascertain my trustworthiness, then nodded and completed her Uber request.
“Thank you,” she finally said. “I appreciate it.”
“Hey, I’d hate for your night to get worse. It’s bad enough being treated like that by your… boyfriend? Husband?”
“Neither. Just a typical man. They’re all assholes.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry,” she said. “Maybe not all. But in my experience, most of them.”
“It’s all right. Your assessment of my gender is pretty accurate.”
She’d find out soon enough just how much of an asshole I could be as her life ebbed from her body. I’d leave just before the Uber driver pulled up so he wouldn’t see me, then I could follow them. Once he dropped her off, the rest would be a piece of cake. There wouldn’t even be signs of a struggle because I’m at least a foot taller and could overpower her with ease. The cops would find her tomorrow and be knocking on Mr. Asshole’s door within hours.
I smiled in as much of a gentle, friendly way as my growing hunger would allow. “So would you like to hear what a friend once told me to do immediately after a bad situation? It’s pretty magical, actually.”
The blonde goddess merely nodded.
“Okay, right after something bad happens, you have to find at least one funny aspect to it.”
“Yeah, not this time,” she said.
“Oh, come on.”
She sighed audibly and gave me a wary eye. “I’m thinking…”
“There’s always something.”
The expression on her face as she tried to think was priceless. Then she broke into a little half-smile that intrigued me.
“Well, I guess it’s kind of funny that I’ve wanted to eat here for the longest time, and I took exactly one bite before the whole date felt apart. That’s sad and disappointing, but also a little funny.”
“There you go. Trust me, the food wasn’t great. You didn’t miss anything.”
“And I’m still really hungry.”
I was surprised—stunned, even—by the way I suddenly felt.
In the span of a few seconds, I’d gone from wanting to feast on her to wanting to… well, feast on her in a less lethal way. Out of nowhere, I wanted to seduce her, the traditional way; no vampire charm, just using my own personality. To make her mine, little by little, till she willingly gave up that tight little virgin pussy.
Hopefully by then I had learned why the fuck I was in this god-forsaken town. Then I could go ahead and suck every drop of blood from her young body and get the hell back to Paris. I was an expert at planting evidence that pointed away from me and at someone else. That fuckwad werewolf could easily be set up as a likely suspect months from now.
“I’m Terrance, by the way.”
“I’m Sagan,” she said. “Thanks for keeping me company.”
“I couldn’t very well walk away from a damsel in distress, could I?”
“Are you trying to say you’re a knight in shining armor?”
I gave her my patented soft smirk. “A knight in shining Armani, maybe.”
Her little laugh was as unexpected as it was beautiful.
“Hey, I have an idea,” I said. “I barely ate any of that pretentious hipster food, so I’m starving. Want to grab a beer and some bar food with me? I’ll do my best to distract you from what happened back there.”
The question hung between us for what seemed like forever as she probed my eyes, searching for trust.
Of course, I’m very good at faking trust.
“Okay,” she finally said. “I think I could use a distraction."
Sagan
Whoa, who was this guy?
Terrance had just explained that he had arrived in Diablo Falls yesterday and hadn’t rented a car yet. That was perfect, as I was a little leery of getting in the car of a man I’d just met, even if he was handsome and seemingly harmless.
You know who else
was handsome and seemingly harmless?
Ted Bundy.
The Uber car pulled into the parking lot, and Terrance opened the door for me. I settled into the back seat and watched on the sly as he went around and climbed in on the opposite side. He was tall and well-built, with broad shoulders and a thin waist. His strong jaw and nose made him look distinguished, as did the tinge of gray in his dark brown hair.
And I wouldn’t have be surprised if those actually were Armani clothes; he certainly dressed better than the men in Diablo Falls and is going to have some trouble fitting in here.
I had never before been attracted to older men. I didn’t find them unattractive, but with the exception of family members, never really considered hanging out with one in a social setting. But there’s older and there’s holy-shit-he’s-hot older, and Terrance definitely belonged in that second group.
“Change of destination,” I told the driver. “We’re going… um…” I looked at Terrance.
“The El Diablo Bar,” he said. Then to me, he added, “I hope you’re okay with a dive.”
“I love the El Diablo. As far as dives go, it’s top notch.”
As we headed back into town, Terrance said, “I hope you think this was a good idea. I really didn’t mean to intrude on your night.”
I shook my head. “My date was over, as was my two-week relationship with Brian. Like you said, I needed a distraction.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said.
His voice had a sense of authority. It was rich with strength in a way that turned me on. I was beginning to think that Brian had done me a favor by bailing on me.
Within minutes we were seated at the bar in the El Diablo. Dante, the owner, was off that night and a woman was tending bar. I didn’t recognize her, but then I’d only been her a few times since I turned twenty-one during my senior year of college, and that wasn’t long ago.
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