Avriel Kaplan: Well dressed, well groomed, beautifully handsome, quiet and brooding and exactly the kind of man Ariel Declan doesn't need to know. But, that is not for her to decide.
Alexander Kirk: wickedly handsome, well known and well liked, egot...
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Avriel walked out of the club without making eye contact with a single soul. His anger was threatening to rage out of control and he needed desperately to be away from all people before he lost it. It took all his will not too look at the fool and not to send out a targeted wave of fear causing energy towards him. It would have been amusing to see him wet himself, but he imagined Ariel or one of the others that she worked with would be required to clean up his mess. Besides, how could he disrespect his brother like that by making someone foul himself in his club? He would not do that.
He walked on. All barriers up, isolating and protecting not only himself but every other person in the place. His determined and powerful step did not betray the war that was raging inside him. He passed close to Sean and let slip his anger anyway. Sean tumbled out of his chair clutching at his head. Then laughed uncontrollably as his friends erupted into laughter and the sharp pain he felt disappeared just as quickly as it hit.
Avriel's eyes were dark and cold. His shoulders square. He looked at the bouncer and smiled a slow smooth and practiced smile. Masking his emotions and controlling his expressions hadn't come to him naturally. He spent years perfecting them. He struggled for a long time, worked at controlling his every emotion and every expression. He eventually learned to hide even the strongest of his emotions so long as he knew what they were.
Avriel thought he had them all under control. But he was a little more than off balance where Ariel was concerned. Just thoughts of her and how his actions affected her was enough to temper his anger and cull his desire for blood. That didn't spike often at all, but it had been so long since any of his emotions had been stirred. Ariel stirred them all, maybe even that one too. She tempted him in ways that he had never before been tempted. He wanted to let her in, let her see who and what he was. He wanted that level of trust and honesty, just once. Just once in his long life, he wanted to honestly love and be honestly loved in return. But such things as truth were, quite frankly against the rules and therefore beyond him. He breezed out the door and into the warm night air.
Thoughts of Ariel flooded his mind and worked to calm him because there was no room in his heart for both anger and confusion. He was confused when it came down to women in general. Except for Esther. He understood her perfectly. But he had kissed Ariel without provocation or thought. He wasn't sure about that. He had only kissed her cheek, actually leaned in and gently kissed her cheek as if he had the right to do that. He skipped past gently kissing her hand and went straight to kissing her on the cheek. Since when did he do that? Hell. She would be his undoing. He was content to let her be.
He walked around the club turned down a side street and kept on walking. He walked quietly with his head down and his hands in his pockets. To the unwise and unaware, he looked vulnerable with his smaller frame and careless demeanor, shuffling his feet along the sidewalk as he walked. He wasn't even aware that he was hunting, he just was.
He was trapped in his own head so deep that his autopilot clicked on. He hadn't noticed the change in the sidewalk or the neighborhood until he heard, smelled and felt them moving around him. They were like a pack of wolves, trying to surround him. He was no longer in the safe zone around the club. He could have easily thinned the pack from where he was. He considered it, then effortlessly did so. Avriel was well versed in this game. It took so little energy from him anymore to send out a pulse of fear powerful enough to frighten away most people. Energy that he usually regained the moment someone lacked the intelligence to stay away from him and confronted him instead of running.
He could be merciless if his life was in danger. It wasn't so he was far less than ruthless when he was confronted by the handful of thugs that stuck around. To scare them away would have taken a lot more energy than he cared to expend on them, then he would need to replenish it before returning to the club.
"Yo! I like your jacket." The leader of the small group that he allowed to surround him said. The expression on his face would have been comical in a different situation. He raised the worn wooden bat he held in his right hand and pointed at Avriel. The boy shrugged his shoulders up while curling his lip as he did so. Avriel easily identified the young man as the leader of the gang. He decided to focus on him without consciously making the decision.
The remnants of the small gang that surrounded him were all Hispanic and dressed in your stereotypical gang-style clothing. He wondered if their mothers were worried about them or if they too had been tainted by the crushing weight of society's limited expectations for them. He slowly looked at each one, thinking. He wondered what they would look like wearing clean shirts and nice jeans. Would they look like everyone else if they didn't have those ridiculous rags tied around their heads, tattoos on their necks, chains hanging from jeans that were way too big for them and unwashed looking greasy hair. He could smell their cologne. It was a toxic concoction that made him want to vomit. He could taste the fear and feel it washing over him wave after wave. He opened and let it recharge him.
He hadn't looked up at them yet. When Avriel raised his eyes to meet the leader of the pack's eyes, they locked and held. As his shoulders rolled back and his head came up Avriel seemed to grow to three times his height. Where the boy's eyes were brown, Avriel's had gone from green to crimson and gold. The leader was visibly shaken. "So, do I." His voice was a soft and low growl, but it carried well enough to be heard clearly by each. "What are you thinking to do with that?" He indicated the baseball bat the leader held in his hands then focused his will on him. Their eyes met and held. Avriel felt the boy's fear hit him hard. "What is your name kid?"
"Pablo." Avriel raised a brow. The boy answered the prompt. "Pablo Valdez."
"Well, Pablo Valdez. If you must." He looked at him pointedly. The boy was positively shaking. Was that human urine that Avriel smelt behind him? One of them wet themselves. Avriel hid his amusement.
"Come on man." Someone called out and started a charge. Avriel pushed a charged wave of fear behind him and the assault skidded to a halt before it truly began. "Let's just go Pablo."
"That seems like a good idea." Avriel's crimson eyes blazed. His smile was one of pure evil and mischief.
"It looks better on you," Pablo said backing slowly away. "You can keep it." He said bravely as his courage slowly returned. Fear still held him, but Avriel had let up a little to allow the fool to save face in front of his gang. He had to maintain the status quo.
"This time. Next time--"
"There will not be a next time." Avriel looked Pablo dead in the eyes and pushed.
"Let's go." Pablo motioned with his bat for his gang to follow him. The gang dissipated into their surroundings like wraiths into the mist. Avriel smiled lightly to himself, recharged, and turned about to return to the club.
