Lover Redeemed

Chapter 1

 Chapter 1

Heavy combat boots thumped on the wet pavement as Dhurge chased after the fleeing lesser.  The sticky sweet smell was trail enough for him to follow especially since Dhurge had been able to take a slice out of the undead. Unfortunately, the lesser wasn't moving away from populated areas but into them. Perhaps he thought that Dhurge wouldn't follow. The one tenant of the centuries-long war was that humans not know about it. 

Someone must not have read the manual, Dhurge thought as he rounded the corner of a cinderblock building in time to see the lesser swing through a set of double doors and cut right. 

Dhurge cursed in the Old Language and charged after him. With any luck, Dhurge could send the poor fool back to the Omega before any humans were the wiser. If Xcor ever found out that he'd come close to being seen, though, he'd be in trouble. Xcor was trying to keep the Band of Bastards under the radar while he maneuvered the glymera, those aristocratic pricks, into helping dethrone Wrath, son of Wrath,  king of the vampire race. 

Dhurge slowed down as he swung through the doors and surveyed the building. To the left were barred arched windows with the remaining space taken up by long rows of modeled plastic chairs that had probably been installed in the 70s. Faded and graffitied posters extolling the virtues of seeing the country by bus were spaced around the institutional tile walls. It was past midnight, so the place was empty except for the bored clerk at the only open window. 

Dhurge sniffed once to confirm where the lesser had gone and then made his way right. He smiled grimly and felt his body fall into a natural rhythm as he readied to kill.

This was what his life was all about. The hunt, occasional chase, and inevitable take down of the Omega's lessers. He'd been a soldier for longer than he'd been in the Bloodletter's camp, which, thankfully, was a distant memory. Now, he was a member of the Band of Bastards, who were just that -  outcasts, disavowed, flawed. They had no real place in vampire society. Of aristocratic parentage but unaligned to the glymera or the Black Dagger Brotherhood, they'd had to make due with fighting on their own terms. In the old country, lessers had been nearly wiped out between the Band of Bastards and the immigration of vampires to the New World. So, they'd come to the New World looking to continue their trade.

And what a new world it was. The sights Dhurge had seen, the technology from tiny screens that displayed moving images to machines that spit out refreshing beverages. It was truly wondrous. He'd been soaking up the changes between the old country and new, wanting to see more, teaching himself about what humans in this country took for granted - knowledge available at your fingertips 24 hours a day. Without Xcor's approval, Dhurge had been spending time in cafes, following the rabbit hole that was called the Internet. He'd even made himself a social media account. Throe wasn't the only one who could read, after all. He was just the one Xcor had always relied on. Xcor was a technophobe - a word Dhurge had learned on the Internet.  The hypocrisy was that Xcor criticized the glymera for being old-fashioned and clinging to outmoded traditions when Xcor himself abhorred anything new, specifically anything he didn't understand. It could cost the Bastards their lives in Xcor's gamble to take the throne from Wrath.

Dhurge shook off his wandering thoughts and focused on the door in front of him. The blue sign declaring it a men's restroom was etched with graffiti but the tell-tale black smudge of lesser blood was proof that his prey had ducked inside. Gripping a blade in each hand, Dhurge prepared to shoulder open the door.

And that's when he heard the crash and ear-splitting scream.

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