Xander's Chance (#1, Damian Eternal)

Chapter One

Chapter One

Present Day

Los Angeles

Xander made his way through the rave. Multi-colored strobe lights pulsed around the overcrowded, vampire-themed club while electronica drowned out most attempts at conversation. The air was filled with marijuana smoke and the scent of bodies sweating as people danced, drank or huddled with friends. His glowing red eyes didn’t draw attention in a club where everyone was pretending to be a vampire. It was his size – combined with a prey’s instinctive sixth sense warning it of a predator – that caused people to move away from him.

He always fed at night, and hunger made his senses sharper, especially when he was surrounded by so many potential sources of dinner. His fangs were out in anticipation. With his choice of prey, he narrowed in on a gorgeous blonde who seemed out of place, one of the few not wearing fangs or dressed from head-to-foot in black. She wore a tight red dress and sky-high heels that would put her at his chin, no small feat given he was seven feet tall. She was just the way he liked them: sexy, sleazy, experienced. '

He lost her somewhere around the bar and enjoyed the idea of hunting his next meal-toy. He’d give her the same offer he gave every woman: fuck him or not. None had yet to refuse, and all consented to the orgasmic night of sex and blood. He didn’t turn them into vamps or kill them; he had an agreement with the local Guardians – charged with protecting humans from vampires like him – that he’d let them go. In exchange, they left him alone.

“X!” a gleeful voice pulled his roving eyes from the club to the small woman in black waving at him.

He waved her away. Ingrid, his assistant by day, ignored him and was soon hanging on his arm, accompanied by a few more fawning wannabe vampires. Her heavy boots trampled one of his feet, and he pried his from beneath hers.

“Didn’t I tell you?” she shouted over the music.

Xander spotted the woman he was tracking.

“Isn’t this perfect?” she prompted.

“Yeah,” he said, sensing she wasn’t going to stop until he responded.

His dinner was searching the crowd for someone. Xander pushed into the mind of Ingrid to plant thoughts that would leave him free of her.

“Okay, I’ll see you at work tomorrow!” she said.

He nodded to show he heard. His little human assistant was good for a few things, one of which was finding places like this for him to hunt. She and her friends fell away as he moved into the crowd, towards the blonde. His gaze went over the blonde’s body in satisfaction: tall, slender, flat stomach, large breasts. They probably weren’t real, but he didn’t care, as long as they filled his hands.

She was staring at him when his visual exploration was over. Xander knew the effect he had on women; they tended to be compelled towards him then melted when he touched them. He peeked into her mind to make sure he had her complete attention. She planned on telling him her name was Kelli, and that she was a model.

She wasn’t. She was an escort waiting for her client.

Her eyes widened and her chest moved up and down faster as her breath quickened. She licked her lips as he paused before her. He listened to her unguarded thoughts.

“You got plans tonight, Anna?” he asked.

“I, um, am waiting for someone,” she replied.

“The type of men who require an escort for a club like this can’t afford someone like you,” he said, amused by the idea. Only a handful of people in the club were above college-aged, and it was in the wrong side of town for the trust-fund kids from Beverly Hills to stop in. She wouldn’t know that, though, because she was new in town.