The Man Behind the Vampire (The Silver Series)

by Samantha Bates

  Chapter 1

  The night was dark, the animals had scurried to their homes sensing the danger he posed to them. Alone in the darkness the solitude was comforting, secure, his friend. He watched as the wolves, vampires and townspeople celebrated their victory. It was a well won victory for the village; he could sense their relief even though he was far away from them. He had followed the mad woman here, she had upset the wrong people and there was a price on her head. A price he had planned to reap had he arrived soon enough. Although, the reward he was watching now would be even greater. There was no monetary value in this one but the personal satisfaction was huge.

  Camouflaged by the blackness of the night he stayed in the trees, indistinguishable by his dark clothing and woollen hat. Sat at the top of the hills, his vampire hearing and sharp vision allowed him to see and hear everything undetected. Three days ago he had thought he was having delusions, after following the vampires to this spot, then seeing him. Watching the chaos had initially been amusing until he saw him come out of the shadows. Thinking his eyes had deceived him, he blinked several times, but no, even centuries later he still recognised him.

  It was then that his mission changed. The initial plan had remained the same, take out the woman, end her reign of terror but he had now added follow his new prey. What he hadn’t banked on was this group of warriors bringing together the villagers to remove the first target. Now he had time to watch his second target, this one would be harder, watching him he could see that he was just as strong as he remembered. But that wasn’t a problem he would watch and find his weakness; after all he had waited centuries. He was palming the knife in his hand as he imagined plunging it into his chest, the blood pouring, him smiling on as his prey begged for life. He continued watching in amazement as a woman appeared, one who emanated such power he felt humbled.

  Chapter 2

  Darius was at a loose end he had been wandering the house for the last two hours, it seemed that his days off felt endless. He had spent the last two hours working his body in the home gym. He had no police reports outstanding and frankly nothing to do. Looking out of the window he felt the need to get outside and do something. The sun was high which meant he needed to cover up.

  He wouldn’t burn and poof away in the sun, well not unless he sat out there naked for a lengthy period of time, but there were always consequences for everything. A vampire going out into the sun was easy but also a matter of safety, if you were covered and limited the time you would live. For Darius, he was pretty old even for a vampire so his tolerance to the sun was pretty good. But if he was to stand in the sun naked for too long, he would burn to a crisp or be staked by some insulted passer-by. The age of a vampire pretty much determined how severe the burns would be.

  That being said Darius had noticed that since the Goddess of War had granted him short term immunity to the sun, his tolerance was now much greater. Thinking back to that day a couple of years ago made him smile, even though he and his friends had to fight against Theo's mother's to stop her reign of terror. In return for helping the Goddess of War had granted him immunity from the sun during the time of fighting. Even though he had known it was a temporary reprieve he took it, to feel the sun after so many centuries was a boon he couldn’t turn down. One he now missed.

  He could still feel the heat of the sun on his skin, the pleasure in wallowing in the brightness, his skin still held some slight tanning from all of the exposure. In fact Darius had spent most of the time in Spain in only a pair of shorts; he had wanted to make the most of it, savour every second. Those feelings would stay with him for a long time to come.

  With a decision made, he slid on a light weight long sleeved jacket and baseball cap before he ran to the car. Falling into the black leather seat, he drove out of through the gates waving at the two wolf shifters on the gates. For the last two hundred or so years he had lived with the wolf shifters as an unconventional member of the Silver Wolf Pack.

  Without doubt this would be seen as a somewhat bizarre set up, a vampire living with the wolves but he loved it, the people in this pack were his family and he would without question lay down his life for them as they would him. So when Theo needed help to deal with the mother who had abused and tried to burn him to death as a child, Darius was there by his side. Silver's had been a safe haven for him for a long time now he wanted it to remain a safe haven for others.

  Driving into the heart of New York City crawling through the traffic, he was assailed by the smells and sounds of the city, the pollution, and scents of the food from the restaurants, flowers and trees in the park. The dark tinted windows of the car protected him from the sun; but with his window down about an inch, he could take everything in. Slowing at the traffic lights he watched a woman walk past, her head was bent low as she talked on the phone. First noticing the curvaceous figure he continued watching, she was wearing a light blue tank and jacket twin set, the white linen trousers accentuated her lush bottom. He noticed the way her shoulder length chestnut brown hair fell forward over her face, as she lifted her head he did a double take. Even with glasses on there was no doubt it was Mary he was ogling, he had never seen her in glasses but man did he like it.

  The sumptuous Mary was one of Lucky’s friends. Lucky had been his partner in the Paranormal Task Force otherwise known as the PTF. Basically the PTF was a police department set up to deal with the crimes involving the different species in society.

  It was unusual to have a human on active duty in the PTF, but even though Lucky was a human she was one with immense capabilities. She was stronger than most humans and had the ability to feel another person's emotions. When she had been brought into the PTF Darius had partnered with her, they had made a great team until she met Ben. As the Alpha of Silver Pack and one of Darius' good friends, they were really close. Then Ben and Lucky had done the usual thing, met, fallen in love, mated, then married, had children (although Lucky already had four daughters from her previous marriage) and lived life completely devoted to each other and their family. He didn’t begrudge them this, he was happy for them, he just couldn’t watch the closeness of their love for too long without pangs of loneliness.

  Whilst they were partnered Darius had developed a great respect and friendship with Lucky both as person and a colleague. A colleague who just happened to have some pretty hot friends, well one in particular and she had just walked past him. Watching her, Darius saw her duck into a shop and looked at the small bookstore. Ah so this is THE bookstore, Mary ran her family bookstore and now he knew where. He didn’t know Mary that well, but when he saw her Darius always enjoyed flirting with her and watching her blush in response. Unfortunately Mary was terrified of other species and although she spoke to him, he could see and smell her anxiety. On occasions though he was pretty certain there was a very subtle hint of arousal.

  Parking he doubled back and found himself looking in the window of the store. There she was, smiling, and happily chatting with a customer. Darius loved to read, well when you are pretty much immortal you have to have a wide range of interests, he was actually running low on books. Maybe she could recommend some.

  Opening the door he let the customer out as he went in. Concealing his surprise at how large the store was he looked around, it was somewhat deceiving from the outside. He noted some chairs and tables to one side, a couple of people were sat reading, while drinking coffee from the machine behind them. Coloured in a cappuccino colour the walls were brightened with large paintings.

  Mary was no longer at the cash register; he couldn’t see her, high bookshelves hindering the view of her luscious body. Moving through the aisles, he heard a door to
the right of him slam. Following the sound he saw that Mary was clearly behind a large and seemingly heavy box, moving to intercept her Darius smiled at how petite she was,

  "Here let me" he took the box as she saw him, he registered her surprise,

  "Oh, hey Darius, umm thank you" and there was the anxiety, the slightly widened eyes, the smoothing of her hair, straightening her tank top, the slight scent of fear emanating from her body. His imagination kicked in as he imagined her naked, those curves looking at him, inviting him in. Kicking the image out before he embarrassed himself as well as her he looked around,

  "Where do you want these?" she pointed to the aisle behind the cash register

  "Don’t you have someone else who can do the heavy lifting for you?" although not heavy for him, a large box of books would be cumbersome to a human especially one a tiny as Mary,

  "Not really, it's not a big problem, but thank you. Anyway what are you doing here?" What to say, should he lie and say he just happened to walk into this particular store, or, you looked hot and I thought I’d come get a Mary fix. Not believing either would help his cause, he decided to take the middle road.

  "I saw you walking into here and realised this was your store, so I thought I would take a look around and see what books you’d recommend for me" surely that was tame enough,

  "Really? I didn’t know you liked to read" she smiled; it made her big brown eyes light up.

  "Well when you have a lot of time on your hands you build up a fairly good collection. Although as I am sure you know reading is even better sat in front of a roaring fire with a beautiful woman" he couldn’t help himself, every time he saw her he had to say something cute to make her blush. He watched her cheeks turn a slight shade of pink before she decided to ignore his statement.

  "Well why don’t you take a look around, if you see anything that you like take a seat and have a flick through, there's coffee over…damn I forgot, coffees not really your thing. Anyway have a look around." Darius laughed as he wandered around, she was so nervous around him; it was so cute, no not cute endearing.

  As she watched him wander away, Mary took a deep breath, her legs felt like jelly. The man always made her feel like a quivering wreck. Determined not to turn around as he walked away and embarrass herself she tried to busy herself emptying the box.

  It didn’t last; she turned just as he rounded the corner. It gave her enough time to see those tight buttocks holding up a pair of black jeans so snug and firm, she wanted to take a bite out of each cheek, would it taste like a firm round peach? Shaking herself she turned away, she needed to get her mind out of the gutter, again this didn’t last. How could her mind get out of the gutter when a little slice of heaven was in her presence? At just over six foot with the broadest shoulders she had ever seen (maybe a slight exaggeration) the man was the finest specimen of anything she had even seen.

  With his dirty blond hair, always kept that couple of inches longer than most men, he always looked like he had just got out of bed. Now she was thinking of him getting out of bed or just getting in with her. He just looked so hot, volcano hot! She wanted to run her hands through his hair, down his broad chest down and right down to where she would find his long, hard cock. God she needed to stop thinking of him like this, he was dangerous. But his blue eyes made her feel like she was drowning in the sea, and his body, well she had only seen it clothed obviously, but even she could see how ripped and muscular he was. What she wouldn’t give to run her hands down his body.

  Standing tall she stretched her back; she had to concede the boxes were heavy. It hadn’t been so bad when her dad was here, but since he had retired she was finding it more physically strenuous. Financially the bookstore did relatively well, she lived in the flat upstairs and it provided enough of an income for her to get by, but it didn’t leave much for too many luxuries. To be honest Mary didn’t need much, she loved working here and had over the years built up a fairly steady stream of customers.

  Thankfully even though the digital age had changed the need to buy book there would always be those who wanted to hold a book in their hands. For those people, Mary would continue to provide books, however she had also embraced the e-book era. Mary now made a fairly good profit from hiring kindles and other e-book readers out by the hour. Customers could come in, rent it by the hour and sit in the store with their chosen e-book.

  Now that her legs were solid again, she moved to one of the aisles to add the new books. She was so focussed on looking busy she failed to really notice what books she was adding until,

  "The pleasures of a high class escort. Mmm would this be a personal recommendation?" looking at the openly erotic picture in her hands and looking at the shelves in front of her Mary bypassed pink cheeks and went straight to red,

  "What, I uh, yes, no." Mary heard the groan inside her own head and the shouting of a voice screaming speak woman! Marys head had gone all fuzzy, she no longer held any thoughts in there, and they were lost from the minute she looked up into those big blue eyes,

  "I'm joking Mary, although I would happily read this one with you, layed out in front of a roaring fire, hopefully while we were both naked." Why couldn't she turn her eyes away from him?

  When a third voice joined them she found the ability to move, "hey Mary, listen just to let you know I am going to be late. So I was thinking how about I’d meet you across at the pasta place?" startled she turned her confused gaze towards the new voice suddenly realising she had been that focused on Darius that she hadn’t even heard the bell go.

  Darius turned to look at the slightly overweight man sporting a receding hairline. Obviously he knew Mary, but his manners were clearly somewhat lacking. How rude, the man had just interrupted them without any thought to saying excuse me,

  "What oh, wait a minute, excuse me Darius."

  She rushed off to talk to the man she obviously knew. He had no intention of listening in but it wasn’t his fault he had super hearing. Darius listened as Mary reminded this man, named Adam, of his promise to take her to the movies. She also reminded him that their last 3 dates had been to the pasta place during happy hour. Darius had then listened in annoyance at the man completely dismiss Mary, who added that his busy schedule didn’t give him much time. The jerk had the nerve to say that, if she wanted to go to other places he was more than happy for her to pay. Oh my god he was unreal, in his opinion after dating someone for three months, there was no longer a need to continue wasting money on expensive dates.

  Darius waited for Mary to blast him, and nearly fell over when she accepted it. What the hell, he knew Marys friends would go ballistic if they heard the way he spoke to Mary. It took everything in him to refrain from moving forward to put the man in his place. Why would she let him disregard her feelings like that?

  He was still pondering this when he heard the bell over the door go, he listened to Mary serving another customer but her tone had lost that little edge of happiness. He loved the sweet tone that he had always associated with her. Grabbing the first book he found he sat at one of the tables as he pretended to immerse himself in it. The truth was he didn’t even notice the words, he just kept running the conversation through his head, thankfully there were only a couple of others sat down so it was pretty quiet which provided him the time to think.

  "What did you decide on in the end?" Mary had poured herself a coffee and joined him at the table,

  "Closing the book he glanced at the front page before quickly opening the front cover before answering. It just screamed out at me, mmm, the secrets of the sexy librarian. Any thoughts on it?" again she blushed before her eyebrows creased.

  "I don’t think I stock that book" smiling she leaned forward and pulled it out of his hands while listening to Darius groaning, she turned to the cover and burst out laughing,

  "Mm what's this?” ‘How to please a woman, don’t worry every ones a failure sometimes'. Really Darius I didn’t think this was an area where you needed help." The amusement in her voice was a wel
come sound to his ears.

  "Oh I don’t, and I would be happy to prove it to you."

  "I think maybe you should stay out of the over 18 section, for some reason I don’t think you need any ideas," oh he had ideas, but Darius didn’t think Mary was ready for them.

  Darius saw another customer head to the register, resulting in him loosing Mary's attention. By mid-afternoon there was a stream of customers coming in and out. He was pleased to see she had an assistant during the afternoon. By the looks of her she was student and a slightly eccentric one at that, her whole look, made you look again just to make sure you had seen what you thought you saw. Her name tag said Shania, she couldn’t have been more than 18. Wearing a bright pink tutu and leggings, with a blue silk shirt that matched her short blue hair, and she had multiple piercings topped off with a quirky smile. Actually she was the complete opposite of Mary. This slip of a girl ran his book through the till taking a moment to give him a lingering smile when he paid and left.

  Mary breathed a sigh of relief when Darius left, now she could relax. She had been livid when Pete turned up at the store; he worked a couple of blocks away in an accountancy firm. He wasn’t a great catch but at the start he had seemed nice enough, maybe a bit boring but at 36 she was realistic. She knew she wasn’t gorgeous and sexy like her friend Sarah, nor was she strong and vibrant like Lucky or smart and powerful like Amelia. In comparison to them she was plain, conservative and slightly over-weight. She had stopped expecting to meet a gorgeous man like Darius, who would sweep her off her feet. Except in her dreams which protested this reality by sending sexy, hot men to tempt her into oblivion and beyond. Maybe Pete had a point she expected too much from her dates. Inside she knew she would cancel tonight's date and the rest of them, he just wasn’t working for her.