As a pacifist demon, Arkemoz is ostracized by his society. Wanting a fresh start, he comes to Earth. However, things go horribly wrong when he is captured by vampires who thirst for his demonic blood.
It seems his luck improves, however, when he is...
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Denise was getting very fed up with this person. She had expected him to torture her when she woke up tied to a chair in the middle of some run-down dive bar, but she hadn't thought it would be using a string of constant complains and whining about James.
If the somehow still functioning clock on the wall worked right, she'd been awake for almost an hour now, and she could really use a drink. She'd never heard this much angst in her thirty years of being alive combined.
She wishfully eyed the alcohol bottles on the counter a few feet away from her. She wasn't sure if there was anything in them, but she could really use a glass right now. The only thing she had to distract herself from the vampire's droning was her attempts at slipping the chains binding her arms behind her back to the chair. But she hadn't made much progress, unfortunately.
"And then Aegis just drops by and makes him a...a...." The guy paused his ranting, but continued to pace around as he looked for the right word. "One of you. It's disgraceful. They've gone too far this time."
Denise groaned, letting her head fall back as he kept going. "Dude, I get it. You don't like Aegis. It's not exactly an unpopular opinion."
The vampire stopped, tilting her head at her, intrigued. "Oh, do you dislike them as well? Did they do to you something as equally abhorrent as separating you from your one true love?"
Denise snorted out a laugh. She couldn't help herself. This guy was just so dramatic, but on top of that, someone referring to James as their one true love was just funny. She had a hard time imagining him and James together, though, not that she particularly wanted to. What had James been like when he still drank blood? Surely not that different, which meant that he and this vampire must have been like day and night.
"Excuse me, how is that cause for amusement?" he asked, his voice suddenly dark and cold. He switched very quickly, but Denise knew by now that she didn't need to be too concerned about that. She'd managed to offend him several times already, and he'd done nothing except talk more.
Actually, that was about the worst torture he seemed to have in store, so maybe there was a reason to worry. When was Aegis going to get here?
"Adley never mentioned you," Denise replied, wondering what kind of reaction that would cause. But it turned out to be shockingly mild.
The vampire just waved his hand. "James is a reserved person when it comes to personal things. I don't imagine he would tell you."
So this was what absolute denial and self-delusion looked like. Denise hoped she would get there eventually too.
"Besides, I'm not completely convinced that powder your kind consumes doesn't cause some kind of damage."
The matter-of-fact tone could have made it seem like the vampire had meant that in a neutral way, but Denise had no doubts that this had been an attempt at a taunt. And she wasn't in the mood to just let him do that.
