After Hours (VAMPIRES PART 1)

Chapter 1

ROSEANNE

There's never enough blood.

A man bleeds rivers of claret over my rug.

It's not enough.

Never enough.

Even if I drink the city dry, it wouldn't be sufficient. I want more. Need more. There's an aching desire between my ribs, something missing, something lost. I know what it is, but I don't want to think about it. I had my chance and lost it. Well, I'm done with it... with her.

I knead my temples.

Fuck, I'm tired.

I shift in my seat and the staff boy leaning against the wall flinches. Pathetic. I can't even remember his name- Leo? Lucas? Let's go with Lucas.

"Clean this up. He stinks like piss and fermented fish," I say, pointing at the bleeding man.

"B-but, Lady Park," the staff boy stutters.

I snap my gaze to his and go still. The kind of still that makes death look like the frenzy of birth. The kind of stillness that gnaws agitation into a human's bones. The vacant, fathomless void twists in Lucas's mind until he trembles. I push further. Every cell in my ancient body freezes as if time never existed.

I must say, it's quite the feat of control not to smile at the way Lucas shivers. There are very few things I find amusing anymore, but the fragility of humans is one of them. I wait a beat. Two. Then two more. Just long enough for him to drop his mouth and utter a breathy plea.

I shouldn't play, Jungkook tells me it's cruel. But I'm not as cruel as our dear sister Irene.

Lucas twitches. "I⁠—"

"Do I need to repeat myself?" I say every word as slow as it is sharp, my voice a snap and whisper in the air. Movement filters into my limbs again and his shaking eases.

"N-No. I'll get a donor instead," he says and stumbles his way forward to grab the dying man under the armpits.

It's meant to be our strength—blood. Really, I think it makes us feeble.

"Stop, did I say take him?" I rise from my chair. Lucas drops the man on the floor with a thud and a gargled moan and then backs away, confusion rippling his brow. It used to bother me—the way they look at me. The way everyone in this fucking city looks at me. Doesn't matter that there are thousands of turned vampires. I am the only one born this way. The only one they fear and all because I wasn't made like the other vampire lines. That, and perhaps my behaviour over the years, hasn't exactly warmed the city to me.

Born to a mother who abandoned her. A freak with eyes the colour of drying blood. I haunt their nightmares. I've tried to embrace it, revel in it, shy away from it. Even mourned the way they treated me for a few decades. But nothing changes.

Humans shrink away from me, hunters hate me, and vampires... well, they don't fear me, but most pander to and revere me. It's sickening. That's why I like to fuck with everyone, because no one ever looks at me for me.

The man bleeding on my rug is fading fast. I grip him by the throat and haul him to his feet.

"You get one chance. Who were you stealing for?" I snarl. Joan, my chief of security, caught him trying to swipe books and grimoires from one of the market sellers on her way into work.

He gurgles under my grip, and I realise I'm crushing his vocal cords. I loosen my fingers a fraction.

"I don't know. Handler. Wanted a book about dhampirs. Said..." he fades further, his skin growing pale.