by J. J. McAvoy
MY MIDNIGHT MOONLIGHT VALENTINE
Copyright © 2020 J.J. McAvoy
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form. This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations and products depicted herein are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Book design by Inkstain Design Studio
Cover design by J.J. McAvoy
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
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Follow J.J. McAvoy
Dedicated to
the person who told me to write even when I didn’t want to, who helped Sme push past the fear and the doubt, who kept me going even when no one supported or cared:
ME.
I do not know where I would be now without myself.
“Monster, monster,
stay longer, stay longer,
shine bright all night,
like the moonlight at midnight
for a witch’s sight.”
PART I:
AMERICA
Chapter 1
I was a romance novel junkie. I’d been one since I was fourteen and forced to read Pride & Prejudice for my Introduction to Great Literature class, during freshmen year. I’m not sure why it clicked then; I’d read Romeo + Juliet in middle school. Well…I mean I’d seen the movie, but all I ended up thinking afterward was how stupid both of the characters were and how young Leonardo DiCaprio was cute. It wasn’t really until high school that my heart ached for them, two fictional characters who may or may not have existed hundreds of years ago. And not just them, I’d gotten attached to Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, Emma and Mr. Knightley, Margaret Hale and Mr. Thornton. It wasn’t all classic literature, either. I enjoyed Wesley and Buttercup, Claire and Jamie, heck even Peeta & Katniss…though some would argue The Hunger Games was not a romance novel. With each book I read, with each couple I was introduced to, I couldn’t help but wonder, how would my love story begin? Would I hate the guy and then slowly fall in love with him over time, because those secretly were my favorite type of stories. Who didn’t enjoy witty banter and stolen glances?
I wanted to know. I so badly wanted to know. And yet, every guy I’d ever met seemed to fail to spark anything in me. It was wrong to compare them to romance heroes. I knew that, and I should try to get to know people first before writing them off because there weren’t any fireworks. However, it didn’t change how I felt or the disappointments I’d gone through in the past.
A friend of mine in college told me once, “The moment you stop looking, you’re going to run smack into the man of your dreams.”
I wanted to tell her I read that in a book, too, but I let it go. So long as I kept living, I was going to keep thinking about it. I couldn’t help it; it was just how my brain worked. I saw romantic plots everywhere. So, nothing romantic ever touched me. It made me colder toward real love. I called it the romance reader’s curse. Nothing was stronger…expect death.
And man, did I die.
And with death, I became a junkie for something else.
Blood.
It was all I could think about today. I’d waited for hours for the sun to go down and for the humans to go to sleep so I could finally, desperately sink my teeth into something and drink. I’d driven to my favorite forest and parked my car on the edge of the road before running as fast and far as my feet could take me, enjoying the rush as I hunted, the sound of deer as they ran from me, feeling my presence. That was supposed to be my dinner…deer. When I smelled it, the honey-like scent of human blood—a lot of it—without even a second thought, I turned so quickly that I heard something snap under me. But I didn’t care to see what. I ran toward the smell only to stop at the sight of grey, not blue, but grey wolf-like eyes staring back at me. His white face and dark black, wavy hair caught in the moonlight.
He stood there as naked as the day he was born, staring back at me, as he drank from a blond-haired woman, who had gone limp in his arms. All around him, the bodies of other humans—seven total, five women and two men—lain like broken dolls upon the ground. He released the woman he currently drank from, and with one swift and easy motion tossed her at my feet. Unlike the rest, she was not bled dry, and I could hear the faint beating of her heart, fighting against hope to survive.
The aching need at the back of my throat burned, the smell of her sent tingles down my body, and I so badly wanted to taste her blood, but I stepped back and stopped when I heard a growl.
“Were you not taught manners, young one?” A deep, husky voice spoke with an accent I couldn’t place. And when I looked at the man, the vampire, stood only inches from me. His smooth bare muscular chest at my eye level forced me to look up. He had a slight 5 o’clock shadow across his defined jaw. “It is rude to waste food given to you.”
I took a moment to speak, too stunned by what I’d seen. “I—I don’t drink from humans.”
His eyebrow raised slightly. “What else is there to drink from? Rats?”
I shook my head. “Deer, and there are some bears—”
He growled and turned his head from me. “Such a fate repulses me.”
“Excuse me?” I gasped, but he ignored me, lifting the woman back up, tilting her body from side to side as he examined her. I thought he’d drink from her again, but he just crushed her neck with one hand before letting her drop back down.
“What land is this?” he questioned, looking upon the treetops and the forest he was in the middle of.
“We’re at Great Falls Park,” I said gently, not sure why I wasn’t running. Even though I was a vampire, too, it didn’t mean he wouldn’t attack me. Not all vampires were found of one another and even fought over territory.
“I do not mean the name of the forest,” he whispered again slowly. “What land? What nation is this?”
“Oh…America. Northern Virginia, specifically. We’re about twenty-five minutes from the capital.” I wondered why he didn’t know that. What had he been doing, swimming through the Atlantic and just happened to get out here?
“America?” he voiced in disgust before looking back to me, surprised.
“Yes, America,” I said, doing my best to look at him from the waist up. “Do you have a problem with Americans?”
“Many,” he grumbled. “They are loud and rude.”
I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. “Just because the British say everything in a flat tone and with an accent doesn’t mean they aren’t equally rude.”
“You think I’m British?” He frowned deeply as if I had truly insulted him. “Americans are just loud British people with a new inflection.”
“I may be an Ameri
can, but I’m positive my people did not come from Britain,” I said, lifting my brown arm for him to see.
He glanced at me. “Long before the land was called Britannia, there were travelers upon it as well. Though wherever your people once hailed from, I’m sure the current ways of those who called themselves British or American have affected you as well.”
Asshole!
“Where do you hail from? And do they wear clothes there? Or do they prefer flashing their bodies in front of others?”
At the mention of his nakedness, he glanced down but didn’t seem bothered. “Long ago, I came from Greece. Nakedness, especially in the woods, was not abnormal.”
“Well it is very abnormal here, vampire or not,” I said, hoping he would get the hint.
“I do not know where my clothes are,” he said, looking around the bloody ground. “I do not remember how it is I came upon this land, either.”
“What?”
He moved toward the males he had killed and drank from touching the material of their clothes. “What year is it, young one?”
What in the hell?
“It’s 2020. Why?”
He began taking off the shoes and clothes from the body. “I thought I might have been dead and wished to know how long I may have been gone.”
My brain tried to understand. If he were just changed, he would have known how long he had been dead for. And he wouldn’t be calling me young one. I’d be older than him in vampire terms.
“I can sense your confusion.” He said as he stepped into the man’s jeans. They were too short, stopping at his ankles, but they did fit in the waist. “I am unlike others of our kind.”
“That I can see clearly,” I muttered under my breath, though for our hearing it was pointless.
When he put on the other man’s jacket and zipped it up, covering his abs, and he finally looked back at me. “I shall tell you more if you agree to help me, young one.”
“First of all, my name is Druella. Druella Zirie Monroe, not young one. Secondly, you can’t just steal their clothes!”
“Firstly, I am Theseus Christian Apollo de Thorbørn.” He bowed his head slightly before walking barefoot across the forest floor through the maze of bodies toward me. “Secondly, you were uncomfortable with my nakedness, so I sought clothing. Now, what is the complaint? For what good are clothes to the dead?”
“What is going to happen when the police stumble in on this in the morning?” I questioned, but he was unbothered or just slow. “They’re going to wonder where their clothes were, and after that, they will try to track them down. You’re wearing evidence.”
“Or we could destroy the bodies—”
“We? Why we?” I questioned quickly. “There is no we. I’m an innocent bystander.”
“Now that we’ve been introduced, Ms. Monroe, you would not be opposed to helping an old vampire find his way. Would you?”
There was nothing old about him. He looked like he’d just hit his thirties. Before I could ask, a twig snapped in the distance, and the rustle of leaves alerted me to a deer running deep into the forest.
“I can wait until after you finish your giant rat.” He smirked, and I felt like he was teasing me.
“I don’t know if I want to help you, Mr. Thorbørn. You are strange…even for a vampire.” I stepped back from him.
He looked unbothered by my words. “I see, then I shall not force you. Enjoy your hunt, Ms. Monroe.”
I nodded, stepping away again, not wanting to turn my back on him. He stood tall, straight, and completely calm, his grey eyes never leaving me. When there was enough space between us, I turned and ran as fast as my feet would take me, bewildered by whatever I had just witnessed. I hadn’t met many vampires. In truth, I’d only met and spoken with one other. But if I had seen or felt them in passing, they kept their distance, and none of them had been naked as far as I knew.
His body flashed through my mind again, how perfectly sculpted everyone one of his muscles were as if he were a Greek god. I wanted to laugh. That was how men were described in romance novels, but he actually was Greek, so then was he just a god? I was so lost in the thought that I didn’t hear or feel the heat until it was too late.
“Get down!”
I heard his husky voice before I felt as though twelve semi-trucks smashed into my waist. In the briefest of milliseconds, all I saw was fire before my body collided with the base of a tree. It shattered against me, and I fell to the ground with a thud.
“Are you so young you cannot even smell a witch?” he snapped.
When I looked up, my thick, curly hair was all over my face with leaves stuck in it. He stood on top of the broken base of the tree, blood dripping from his hands. His grey gaze narrowed on the freckled-face, red-haired man now on the ground, holding on to his bleeding side.
“If you could not smell him, you should have at least known, within a big coven, there are circles, and they move in groups of nine.” He licked the blood from his mouth and then wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
It was only then that I remembered the bodies from which he drank. There had been seven on the ground, plus the one he’d had in his hands—eight. My eyes shifted to the man as Theseus picked him up from the ground. His hazel eyes narrowed as he looked at the clothes Theseus wore.
“You damned sick beasts!” he hissed, and his hands exploded with fire. The witch threw a bolt of fire toward Theseus, but he was faster. Before I could see, he was behind the witch, gripping the man’s neck.
“Unfortunately, I cannot tell you that your friends put up a fight. They were all far too weak and young to be roaming alone. Then again, maybe you thought you’d only meet an uneducated vampire such as her.” He referred to me as he slowly crushed the guy’s neck. The man struggled, his hands sparking, but Theseus just bit the man. As he drank more, Theseus’s eyes glazed over as the blood rushed into his mouth. It was only when the man went limp again that he stopped and released him, shivering with pleasure before he looked back at me.
“Your rat is gone, drink.”
“I don’t—”
“I have saved your life, young one; you owe me a debt. I do not have time to wait for you to find your dinner, nor do I know how many others may be in this forest. Drink, so we may leave.” He held up the body for me.
I knew very little about vampire society, but from what I did know, I had to drink. Debts, especially those of life and death, were honor-bound. Not doing so would haunt me for the rest of eternity. Rising from the ground, I brushed off the dirt and leaves before moving over to him. He once more lifted the neck to me. I tried not to look at his face and exhaled a breath I didn’t need to hold, before sinking my teeth between his shoulder and ear.
Oh God. I moaned as the liquid entered my mouth. Hugging the body to me, I drank even more, shivering happily as the pain disappeared, and I came alive once again. It was so warm, so delicious. Then I saw it: his memories, a baby’s face I didn’t know but had meant something to this human.
When my eyes snapped open, Theseus was watching me. I let go of the body, and he fell to my feet. I wipe my mouth, looking away.
“Why the guilt?” Theseus questioned. “He was going to kill you. The stronger creature survived as is the way of the world.”
“And their family? Their loved ones—”
“Is he your loved one?”
I shook my head. “No, but someone out there will miss all of them.”
“That is someone else’s concern, not ours. Should we die because of people we do not know?” he questioned.
“We can survive off other things.”
He leaned in and smirked. “I do not want to survive, Ms. Monroe; I want to live as should you. Your maker should have thought you better.”
“I don’t know my maker,” I whispered, looking away from him; he was so damn close.
; He placed his cold finger on my skin, and turned my face to meet his. The smirk gone, he was very serious instead. “You were abandoned?”
“I don’t like that word,” I muttered, releasing my chin from his hands. “But I guess since I don’t know who my maker was or where that person is currently, that might be the only word to use.”
“My apologies,” he said sincerely which was a bit odd since he’d just killed nine people—well eight, I’d killed the ninth one. “Had I known, I would not have let you run toward the witch.”
My gaze snapped to him and widened. “You knew he was there?”
“Witches smell like nature and blend in with the forest, but you can still hear them if you listen closely.” His dark brows knitted together. “How long have you been a vampire and managed to avoid them while hunting here?”
“A year, and how do you know I hunt here?” I said, not wanting him to know I was from the area.
“You are comfortable here.” He said and nodded down to my waist. “That and the chain at your waist.”
I glanced down at the keychain—Washington D.C.—hooked onto my jeans. Damn. I never wanted to leave them in my car so I always carried them with me. I also had blood all over me.
“You are not trained in our ways.” He wiped the blood from my mouth, and this time, I didn’t pull away. “And in the way you feed, how have you made it a whole year without exposing yourself to mortals?”
“Well, maybe I’m just lucky,” I gently said as he stroked my face. But I didn’t want to give into whatever charm he was trying to use on me. I wasn’t human anymore. “How old are you, oh great one?”
His eyebrow raised a bit once more, and his lips turned up into a quirky grin. “As you have said, it is 2020; then I am 1,146 years of now.”
He was over a freaking thousand years old?
Wait.
“Why do you keep talking like you’ve lost track of time?” I asked him, taking off my jacket as I’d spilled blood on it.
“Because I have.” He nodded. “The last memory I can recall is from 1920.”
“What?”