#polyish

-

Where the fuck she at?”

Fontaine threw a chair and Yo-yo ducked, it smattered into pieces upon impact. Not satisfied, he flipped the coffee table and attempted to kick a hole in the couch, but she stopped that shit quick.

“Taine, Nock it the fuck off! I know you mad and all, but we still live here, and we ain’t got nowhere else to go!”

His breaths were rabid and heavy. His eyes glowing hard.

“Where. The fuck. Is. She?” He huffed.

Yo-yo licked her lips.

“It’s bad, real bad. You need to get to her fast,” he opened his mouth, probably to ask her the same fucking question again, but she stopped him with a raised hand, daring him to say something, “I tracked her like you told me, but she’s smart.. real smart.”

“That ain’t nothing we don’t already know. Yo-—“

“—interrupt me one more time.”

He sighed, shaking his head before sitting.

Good, God… finally.

“So boom!” She smacked her fist unity the palm of her other hand. “She only stops to feed in small towns, usually a racist or someone who tried to put his hands on her or other woman, all untraceable to the cops n’ shit.”

His face goes blank. The attitude he once had gone. She could feel the power radiating off of him in waves.

He’s putting the pieces together.

“She’s in New York.” Her lips formed into a line, waiting for his response.

“How many body’s?”

“It’s more than 50.”

Fuck.

Tyrone knew she’d be pissed with him for the first few years, but not like this.

He didn’t think she’d actually run away from him.

He looked at the antique book he brought you.

What is was about? He didn’t have a fucking clue. This was a book published before summaries on the back were a thing. It was so old it barely had a title.

You loved reading, like Yo-yo, and history and shit.

It was the perfect gift.

But now.. he might not even get the chance to give it to you.

“Call Slick.”

-

“Are you alright little one?” A voice from somewhere asked you.

It was so rich. He kept talking and talking.

You hummed.

He should talk more.

You could barely feel the blood covering your body. The fresh dark flood of it was dripping from your mouth, falling down a similar path as the last stickier dried up drops.

You looked up and saw his glowing eyes.

They were golden, but not like the harsh metallic gold that matched Fontaine’s grills. They were an old gold like the moon. An old golden hued moon that connected every ancient moment to the present. Witnessing the tragedy that had befallen what used to be her life that had now become the eternal damnation she didn’t deserve…. That she didn’t ask for.

You might hate Fontaine and what he did to you, but you weren’t stupid.

Vampires don’t pop up out of nowhere and for no reason.

Fear clings to you, but you fight it back down your throat, swallowing it before licking your lips.

“I’m.. I'm sorry,” you started. Your voice sounded foreign to you. It was hoarse, croaky, and broken, “I don’t know all the rules to everything. I won’t make any trouble.” Your heart sank, “I just needed to rest for a moment. I can le—“

“Nonsense.” He doesn’t raise his voice or yell. It was just as rich and calm as the first time you heard it. You lick your lips once more. “What makes you think I want you to leave?”

His mouth wasn’t moving…

“Maybe I saw someone in distress and wanted to help.” He was smiling now. It was poised, polite.

If you didn’t know any better, right now felt like meeting a person on any other day. Like taking a stroll on a random Thursday . . . in the daylight. Just like you used to.

You’d be walking towards campus for class only to bump into a handsome mysterious stranger, he’d be nice and help you up. Insisting he won’t leave until he knows you're alright. He takes you to lunch.

Leading you to no longer care how late you would be to class, just wishing the day won’t end, so your new found stranger wouldn’t leave you.

Were you in distress?

You won’t play the fool and deny it. But you didn’t like the sound of it either. You didn’t know this stranger. Only his voice in your head and his old eyes.

What do you do now?

Barely blinking, he was closer to you.

You registered the fact that you were sitting on the ground. Your legs curled up, bending at the knee and strown casually to your side. A body is strown on the opposite side of you. Brutally mutilated beyond recognition, his chest split in the center, his flesh and guts spilling out like a wild animal taken down by a predator.

He kneeled behind you, holding your back to his chest with one hand as he caressed your cheek with the other.

“Did you do this?” He asked aloud, the breath of his voice falling softly on your forehead, tickling gently at your eyelashes.

His eyes were even prettier up close.

He was prettier than Fontaine.

You cursed whatever foreign power within you that led you to think of him, even now.

“No….” You answered, your voice still hoarse, “It was a werewolf.”

He pulled you tighter against him. Firmly, but gently holding your head to the side by a handful of your hair.

His mouth danced softly on the skin of your jaw to your neck. Worshiping the area with such devotion, it felt sinful. It felt wrong. It felt worse than the curse of being a monster forever.

His teeth sank into your flesh, filling you with as much bliss as he was taking, he wanted to be full of nothing but you. He wanted to consume you.

“Who do you belong to?” You heard his warm amber voice in your head.

“No one.” You silently answered back.

—

It’s been weeks, Slick.”

“I said I wasn’t no miracle worker,” Charles huffed. “I said, I’d see what I could do and as we seeing, it ain’t a whole lot.”

“Fontaine kicked his chair behind him as he stood up and Yo-yo stepped between them.

“Uh-uh, none of that! You remember what happened last time you killed a witch?” She hissed. “Your not putting me through that again, Nigga! I won’t let you!”

Fontaine smacked his teeth before turning around towards the window.

“You sure you can’t feel her?” He placed his hand under his shirt one more time before reaching out into the bond. He didn’t need to touch his chest in any way when reaching out to feel you in the bond that made you all a clan. It was more to calm himself down.

“Nothing.” Yo-yo sighed.

He had everyone in their clan reaching out in the bond daily to feel you, for someone to be able to either feel your emotions, dream about you, or see visions on where you were or what you might be doing.

And it was all failing.

Your connection was growing weaker to everyone everyday.

The only thing your bond was putting out was an insane amount of power. It could knock out weaker members into walls or send them flying if they touched it. For someone of your status, it shouldn’t be possible.

The only times vampires tell stories of fledglings growing insanely strong in a short amount of time was before they tried to overthrow clans from their masters, usurping the line before executing them in front of everyone.

What Fontaine did after he was turned…

“At least she stopped feeding everyday all the time.”

“But she’s been learning things.”

Fontaine’s eyebrows rose together in confusion.

“What you mean? How can you tell?”

“I don’t know.. I just can.” She shook her head with a heavy emotion everyone in the clan was starting to feel. “Something’s different about her. I felt this new person in the clan and I know you haven’t turned anyone since her.”

“She’s in the middle!” Slick slammed his hand on the table. “That’s why I say give me all the details! Every single time!” He shook his head. “ there wouldn’t been no need, to pull out my whole crystal ball and shit!”

“Will you quit whining!” Fontaine huffed, “and can someone tell me what the fuck is going on?”

“Yo-yo said she feels a new energy in the bond she can’t explain.” Slick fiddled with the hem of his sleeves, “that means she’s found someone else to pledge allegiance to.”

The air went cold.

Fontaine usually has a better grip on his influence and how it can affect the air around him, but when he was upset it came off fast and hard, filling up the room with fear and trepidation that only made it worse.

“No.” He shook his head. “That’s not it.”

“Fontaine, calm down. No one’s saying she betrayed you. We’re just weighing all the possibilities th—“

“I said, no.”

The intonation of his voice changed to something dark and layered with a power that made Yo-yo and Slick unwilling still and silent.

“She would never.” Fontaine punched the wall.

“She would never drink another vampire's blood.”

—

Abel, cupped water into his hands and poured it over your shoulders, letting it cascade down your chest and your back. The water was scalding, but his hands were warmer.

His hands were gliding over your skin as if he were attempting to create you himself, or he was worshiping the expanse of your skin, committing every curve, bump, stretch mark, and stray mole into his memory. Basking at the feel of you and cherishing each millisecond in fear he wouldn't get another chance.

“What.. happened to me?” You asked, “every moment before now feels like a hazy fever dream I can barely remember.”

“Bloodlust.”

“Bloodlust? I went on some crazy murder spree?!”

“No,” he smiled at your shock and you somewhat relaxed.

However, you were still displeased with what had become of you.

“You drank quite a large amount of blood in a short amount of time,” he said. “ and instinctively once you're in that state your body will only crave more and more in want of being more powerful.”

“I don’t wish to be more powerful. I don’t wish to be anything.”

Abel frowned at you, but ignored your statement.

You were a little disappointed, but you understood.

You didn’t have any friends to confide in anymore, no one to share your experience of existence with. You had no connection with anything anymore, human or creature, nothing else made you feel like more of a monster than that.

“How do you feel?”

“Better, I suppose.”

“No,” he tsked, “how do you feel?” His eyes flashed down at you, and you felt his energy quickly fill the room washing over you in a cocoon of warmth, rivaling the bath water.

You sighed.

There’s nothing more you hated then actively practicing and learning about what you now were.

At least, that’s how it was with Fontaine.

You reached deep within yourself. At your spirit or aura.. perhaps something deep within your mind until you felt this new magical essence that now lived within you.

It was bigger, louder.. but it still bore no color.

“I think I’m stronger in some way, but I still don’t know what color I’m supposed to see.”

“You are,” he gently grasped at your sides and lifted you up out of the water, immediately ushering you into a towel, “much stronger that is.” He patted your skin dry , before grabbing a glass jar with oil in it.

“Smell.” He lifted it to your nose.

“Hmmm.” It was a warm boozy vanilla with a hint of something spicy. “I like it.”

“Me too.”

The silence was comforting as you let him cover you with the oil and knead it into your skin.

You can’t remember the last time you had felt so at ease.

He gave you a white sweater that had to be one of his and wrapped you in a blanket as you laid on your side next to him.

He kept his hands to himself and you hated it.

You longed to curl up closer into him and let him absentmindedly play with the locs of your hair. Much longer now that they’ve grown since you’ve died. With plenty of time spent avoiding Fontaine in isolation from him and his goonies, you learned to retwist them yourself.

“How were you turned?” He looked at you with such somber eyes. They were brown just as Fontaine’s but they were much much warmer. Soft things they were, almost wet.

Was she such a sad site? Did he pity her that much?

Was she something to be pitied?

“I’m not sure. I woke up like this one morning in a random bed away from my home and my family.”

His face scrunched together, not just in confusion but sadness.

“No,” he paused, searching for the right words.”Did you consent?”

“What?” You were offended.

Who would ask for this? Only a psychopath would ask for something like this.

“No!” You both winced at how harsh you sounded.

“I did.” He gazed into the distance, looking more somber.

“Why?” You hope you didn’t sound as in disbelief and rude as you felt.

“My… my wife was turned by some random vampire, and once she finally put the pieces together and figured out what happened to her and by whom, she told me, and I asked her to turn me.”

“Oh.”

“Once she did,” he glared at the wall, …

“I had a vision. A plan for our future. . . our family,” he quickly smiled before his face fell into something dark you couldn’t describe. “Generational wealth.” He turned to you with an indescribably smile. His teeth flashed, charmingly so, but his eyes were something else that did not match, “but this. I couldn’t even imagine anything like this getting in my way. Our way.”

“What happened to her?”

“She.. passed.” He lifted his hand to brush your cheek. “She wanted to, and I didn’t hold it against her. We’d been alive for so long.”

“Why didn’t you. . . pass with her?”

“You ask so many questions.”

Had you been alive you swore your face would have burned.

You averted your gaze and focused on his hand on your face.

“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s endearing,” he pulled you closer, nestling his head on top of yours. You now felt embarrassed for an entirely different reason. “It makes you seem so. . . human.”

You sobbed.

“I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for any of it.”

“I know,” he placed his hand on the back of your head, suffocating you against his chest and you welcomed it. “I know.”

You will yourself to stop crying. You were done crying.

“I’m sorry this happened to you. When someone is turned it must be with consent. It’s a relationship built on trust. Without it, the bond between master and fledgling is painful for everyone involved.”

“I have no master!” You argued. “Fontaine. . . doesn’t do that.”

“Then how does it work between him and everyone he’s turned.”

You sighed.

“I.. don’t really know. He and everyone in town was somehow turned by this old vampire and he compelled everyone to forget it and to be his slaves or test puppets or something,” you squeezed Abel’s back, holding him closer to you, burying your face drier into his chest, “Fontaine killed him even though he was begged not to, and somehow, they all lived and he was the new leader.”

Abel froze and you looked up at him.

“Is that bad?”

“N.. no.” He pursed his lips. “It’s just unheard of, impossible even.”

He pulled back from you for just a second, looking into your eyes. He moved his hand from your back to the temple of your forehead.

He was looking into your mind.

Fontaine used to try it all the time and you always forced him out somehow.

When he was done he held you even tighter than before. Staying silent.

You thought perhaps he was done talking and just wanted to spend time tucked against you, deciding to sleep and talk about the rest of it in the morning, but you felt his tears fall into your hairline.

You forgot just how horrific what happened to you was. You didn’t always hate him, but now you do. Not just him, but how you used to feel about him.

You’ll never forget that night, and you’ll never forgive him for what he did to you.

Another person, well, vampire, had experienced the story of how you came to die, and they wept just like you did.

You pushed your feelings deep down into the colorless energy within as you’ve always done, and you willed yourself to sleep, wishing for the chance to make Fontaine hurt as you now did.

“Uh oh, someone’s getting a little too turnt!”

“Leave me alone!” You laughed at your friend. “Finals are over, and I can now let loose!”

You might take school a little too seriously, but you came from a home where education was what saved your parents from poverty and they passed that same lesson on to you.

It might be strict to some, but as you grew older you only grew to believe it just as much as they did.

You wouldn’t have anything if this school shit didn’t work.

You weren’t raised to hustle, you were raised to study, so that’s what you did.

But now it was time to party!

You didn’t always go out with your friends, so the nights you did, were always special. Your favorite food and drinks were always there when you were, and all your favorite people.

Usually you were really shy and reserved, but one or two drinks and the edge is off. You can let loose and maybe even dance. Who cares what anyone else thinks? You're having fun with the people you love and the people that love you.

You're making memories and forming your circle. You dreamed of the big fancy job you’d get one day to finally be able to take care of yourself and live in your own place!

“Uhhh.” Your friend called your name with a badly contained smile.

“Yeah?” You smiled back.

She smirked and then threw her arms around you with a laugh.

“Omg, what is it? Just spit it out already,” you laughed back.

“What would you say, if I told you there’s a guy here with a crush on you?” You blinked.

A crush? On you?

You believed you were pretty. You weren’t that insecure in yourself, people just tend to make it very clear that you aren’t their type.

But this was new.

Your stomach fluttered at the possibility.

“I don’t know!” You laughed again. “But whatever happens, happens!”

Your friend squeaked again and wrapped her arms around you once more.

She was so drunk.M, you laughed to yourself.

“Do you mind if I sit?”

You looked up to see cool dark skin, and a yellow gold smirk looking down at you.

“No, it’s okay.” You politely smiled back.

He was everything.

He liked that you listened. That you didn’t judge him off his looks. You like that he didn’t assume you were stuck up just because of how shy and introverted you could be.

Conversation was easy, blissfully easy.

You both probably talked about anything and everything. The big personal life stuff to every miniscule thought and hobby.

He’d never seen Star Wars before.

You are a basic gym person at best.

Some music you both liked, some music he liked you never heard of and vice versa.

“How come you're not scared?”

“Scared of what?” You almost wanted to laugh but you held it in. You weren’t sure how he’d react if you did.

“Of me, or like,” he smacked his teeth, “you don’t act weird and stuff when I talk about what trips me up as a drug dealer or get that silent judgy look. People think that by not saying anything they're being polite, but they don’t know it shows on their face.”

“I don’t judge people based on their life or choices. Just by what’s on the inside. Not everyone has the same chances or choices. We’re all just trying to make it. No matter where we start in life, it’s all toward the same thing.” You stopped and pondered for a bit, searching for the right words. “It’s the government and shit they’ve gotten away with they have us all over the place. Until we can change the system or something like that. . . and yeah.” You ended dumbly.

“Yeah?” Fontaine was practically cackling at you. He laughed loudly. The sound coming from his belly, his low baritone sounds of joy flooded your senses. His yellow gold grillz shining in the low light of the room.

“Just, yeah?”

“Well excuse me for not being able to break down capitalism and its effects on the wealth gap and disparity in America and how it relates to race in one sentence. I've done it enough in school. Which is over now, and I'm tryna take a break from it all.”

You’d never felt so seen, so understood. You could see yourself in him, and he saw himself in you. You both had completely different lives, you had different ideas for almost everything except where it counts. Aside from the basic black experience and the trauma associated with that, or little quirks and social similarities they’ve grown fond of as a collective. There was something more.

A genuineness. A mirroring of the part of yourself that you couldn’t put into words. Tyrone was your person.

That’s why it was so easy to let him take you upstairs. To let his hands roam across the expense of your skin. His mouth was so warm. He lathes at your neck. Dragging his mouth down towards your chest. He sucks hard at your breast until your panting and writhing. He moves towards the next one, doing the same.

You can’t tell where your body ends or his mouth begins.

“You like that?” He looked down at you with half a pearly white smirk. When did he take his grills off? You didn’t know.

He was so calming. He crashed into you like a wave. When you first met on that couch you could feel him pulling you in towards him. The waters of his soul were cool and tranquil, and you’d happily float in the body of it all night. Now as things grew more intense as he mouthed at you, and you clutched at him just as desperately.

“Fontaine.” You moaned his name like a prayer.

He responded with a similar prayer of your name on his lips.

You were drowning in him. The wave of his entire being crashed against you, suffocating you as it flooded over and over your head until you were so far gone underneath the very waters of his essence, of him, you couldn’t breath.

“Who knew such a fat pussy could be so tight?” He lapped and lathed at your skin.

The slow growing ache within you was getting stronger and stronger. Your own desire was eating you alive, burning and festering within you. It was too much. Everything felt so good it hurt, so when he decided to bite down into your flesh, everything within you seized. Tightening in response, screaming for more.

“You like that,” he praised slowly into your neck, “i’an know you was like that.”

He pushed your legs up by your thighs. His hand sliding along your skin as if he was remolding you, reshaping you in his image before he destroys you with the very hands he pulled you out of the dirt with.

You whined, tears brimming in your eyes, but you couldn’t feel them. Fontain didn’t acknowledge them.

You wanted him to feel good. That’s all you wanted. You wanted to make him feel good so he didn’t leave you.

“—wanna be yours.” You mewled as he sucked harder at your neck once more until you made that sound again. He did it over and over again until you whined and panted for more, and he responded with another bite, much harder this time. His mouth staying on your skin much longer.

Waves and waves of pleasure flooded your senses. You arched your back to chase the feeling of his motuh, pressing yourself into him.

He released you with a wet slurp.

“You’on needa worry ‘bout that.” He pressed his dick against you, letting the head bump against your clit as he slid it along your folds. With each lazy movement, your hips chased the feeling of his.

Fontaine responded by pulling his hips back, letting you feel every thick inch as he slowly pulled back until only the tip was inside of you before thrusting back into you. He set a slow enduring pace. Each heavy thrust of his hips caused a moan to fall from your mouth.

He was branding you. With every thrust of his body into yours, with his hands on your body, with his mouth biting into you.

The sounds of his mouth on you matched the wet sounds of his slips slamming into yours.

He wasn’t just consuming you, burning you, he was molding you. Reshaping you not only into a new being but combining your souls. Molting them into one another, you didn’t know where he began and you ended, and you wanted more. No, you needed more. You needed him. You wanted to live for him. Exist only for him.

So you chased every feeling of his body, matching each and every movement of his hips, arched your back further to get that much closer.

It was a night you never forgot. A night you couldn’t forget.

Each moment of bliss was now remembered with a matching thought of pain. With every new height of pleasure you didn’t know was humanly possible was now replaced with the thought that every single peak of pleasure was once step close to your death, away from your life, your family, and who you used to be to your very core.

A robbery of your humanity.

But you didn’t know that when you woke up in a bed that wasn’t yours. Your phone nowhere to be found.

You were scared and alone.

But you remembered your night with Fontaine.

He took you away from everything, and you didn’t even get the chance to confront him about it while you threw up day and night. While you tossed and turned every waking moment with a headache that wouldn’t go away. While your stomach started to gnaw at your flesh from the inside out caving in on itself. You were hot and cold at the same time and always sweating. Everything started to blur and the sun hurt.

It didn’t help that the room was full of windows.

You had to resort to burying yourself in a hoard of blankets.

But when the moon rose high, you took your chance.

In your feeble weak state, you managed to travel around the foreign town you learned was called the Glenn. Hundred and thousands of miles away from your home.

You managed to find someone nice enough to talk to you.

“You a’right? You need to sit down? You wanta glass a’ water?”

“Please.” Your voice was horse and meak. You didn’t want to be so trusting of all these people you didn’t know, but they had to be better than Fontain or whoever the fuck he was.

You cleared your throat.

“Can I borrow your phone?”

You looked at the date, it could not be right. A chill ran down your spine and filled your entire body.

It’s been 10 years.

You couldn’t have been asleep for ten years! Were you somehow drugged out of your mind? Is that how? What has that sick fuck been doing to your body while you’ve been out of conscience for ten fucking years?

Fear and bile rose in your body and you threw up.

“Aye what the fuck!” You didn’t see what happened next as black clouded the corners of your vision and the world went dark.

However, you were still there.

And in a bath of darkness you focused on your grief and your anger.

You don’t know what has happened to you, but you do know one thing. Fontaine was going to die by your hands, and that thought of comfort let you slip into your first slumber of peace.

-

Yoyo treaded lightly around the corner. She stood still not to draw attention to herself. She watched as the slick black ornate car pulled up to the side of the restaurant. She watched as a man with heavily styled black hair and tan skin stepped out and handed off his keys. Impeccably dressed with a heavy wool coat too match.

“Shoulda went for a black one. Would have been real fresh too.”

Yo-yo bit the inside of her cheek.

“I mean the taupe beige isn’t that bad of a look. It kinda grows on you the more you look at it. But if he really wanted to ste—“

“Nigga, don’t nobody give a damn about his fucking coat!” She hissed.

Why Fontaine made her bring Slick along, she would never know.

“Slick opened his mouth to say something smart, but Yo-yo quickly cut him off.

“Shut up! There she is!”

They watched as he opened the door to the other side.

You stepped out in a gorgeous silk red number that had a leg slit and a low back. You had a white fur shawl that covered your shoulders. Gold dripping around your neck, ears, and a few of your fingers. There had to be some diamonds sprinkled about somewhere. With that type of money, there had to.

Situation aside, Yo-yo and Slick both let out sounds of approval.

“Shit, if I could get all that, I’d leave Fontaine sorry ass too.” Yo-yo murmured.

“As a man with certain avenues and multitudes, I can not hate another player. If you got it, you got it.”

Slick snapped his fingers, the rings on his hands clacking annoyingly so, and their clothes changed.

“What the fuck am I wearing?”

“What are you complaining for? He smacked his teeth. That’s what you usually wear.”

Yo-yo would have appreciated the little yellow thing she wore anywhere else, but not now.

“You saw what they were wearing! This place is classy! It’s nice as shit and they are not about to let a couple of raggedy asses in looking like this.”

“You see that’s your problem!” He raised a finger and Yo-yo had to interrupt him.

“Nigga, I know you not putting a finger in my face!”

“Will you calm yo’ ass down! All I’m tryna say is,” he dusted off his clothes, letting a harsh breath through his nose, “Fontaine made me come with you for a reason. It don’t matter what we wear, I can get us in.”

“Mhmm, you better.”

-

“Abel.” You warily said his name.

He guided you through a crowd with a hand tentatively placed on your lower back. Plush and luxurious with low thundering music. People were everywhere. But if you really focused and stilled your mind a bit, you could tell who was a vampire, and there were many, and who was not.

Abel was about to answer you, but a young light skinned man had interrupted the steady pace Abel and you were making through the crowd.

“H-hi.” He said softly and sweetly before cupping your face with a hand. He had to be around your age if you were human, boyish features made it too hard to tell, even if he had a beard. Close shaven and shaped well to match his face. . His eyes were a large bright brown as he battered them shyly at you. He had full lips that looked so soft and his lashes were so long.

“Um, hi?” You blinked, not sure what to do. Too many people were crowded around in their own world to care about what was transpiring between you.

You moved his hand from your cheek, and he took it as a sign to move his face closer to yours. You stiled. Even the slightest of movements would have made your lips touch.

“Can you bite me?” His voice was a sultry pant, almost a whine.

Blood rushed through your senses. You noticed it now.

The smell of it in the room. The humans straying around from vampire to vampire.

Something on your face must have changed. Maybe your eyes flashed because his lips parted just a tad more and his eyes almost rolled back.

You leaned in closer, your lips grazing his neck before you felt Abel’s hand slide from your back to your arm, roughly pulling you back.

“She’s on a diet.” He didn’t yell or raise his voice, but his tone was clear cut and dry with plenty of bite.

He raised your hand to reveal the glowing purple glow stick bracelet.

“Oh.” The stranger pouted his lips, causing a rush of something to burn deeply within you, “well,” he fiddled with his fingers, “when you're not on a diet can you come back? I’m here almost every night.”

You turned to Abel, not sure what was happening.

“She’ll think about it.” He patted him on the shoulder before placing his hand at your back once more and led you through the crowd.

Going up steps, he let his hand fall from you, but you couldn’t find it in you to step away from him.

“This is a nightclub for vampires?”

“And humans.” Abel said casually before stopping someone and ordering a few drinks.

“Wristbands are color coded.” He led you to a cornered booth before guiding you in and sliding after you.

“Red for feeding vampires, green for those willing to be bitten, yellow for humans who don’t, and purple for vampires who are on a diet.”

You looked at your purple wristband with a frown. A gnawing sensation swelling within you.

“But I—“

“— have had more than enough.” He sighed as he saw your face fall, “look. Bloodlust is a hard thing to come back from but enough time has passed where you aren’t jumping on any and everything with a pulse.”

You nodded at the reason in his words.

“Who are we here to meet anyway?”

Abel twisted the ring around his finger and crossed one of his legs over the other one.

“The vampire who helped me after me and my wife were turned.”

As the waiter placed down your drinks, a figure appeared out of nowhere. Eerily still and quiet as people bustled to and fro around him. His gaze fixed on you and Abel.

His hollow black eyes reflected the light and surrounding colors in a strange effect you could barely understand. His equally dark and plain clothing was just as off putting.

“He is ready for you.”

Abel took a quick swig of his drink and ushered you out of the booth.

He held you close to him as you both followed the strange man.

“Let me do the talking.” Abel whispered in your ear. “If he tells you to do something, just do it and don’t protest too much.”

You opened your mouth to say something, but Abel rose an eyebrow at you as his mouth twisted into a tight thin line.

“Most importantly,” he whispered in your face as you both climbed the steps to an intricate door to a room that looked over everything, “follow my lead.” His eyes flashed in the familiar old gold you’ve grown comfortable gazing at, but in this moment it made your veins run cold.

“Abel,” a man who looked strangely familiar to him, stood up from behind his desk to dutifully shake Abel’s hand with a formal and polite smile, “it’s been so long. To what do I owe this rare pleasure of a visit from you. Everything is well at the office?”

“Yes, everything is fine, but I have a request to ask of you.”

At that moment, the man looked at you and his eyebrows rose into his hairline.

“I see.” He corrected himself with another polite smile and motioned towards the chairs in front of his desk. “Let’s discuss this in a more comfortable manner.”

He and Abel looked alike, but they couldn’t appear more different.

This man’s hair was much curlier, but does this mean Abel’s hair could be equally as curly?

He was turned much later in life. The evidence in the salt and pepper of his hair and the thick beard that suited his features.

Despite their few differences there was so much they had in common. In the formal attire they both seemed to respect and their equally formal mannerisms, but it was clear this man held some sense of superiority.

Not only in how he moved and acted, but how Abel, the most powerful vampire you had recently met, treaded carefully around this one.

It would have caught you by surprise if you weren’t feeling suffocated by a strange yet powerful aura.

It had to be coming from him.

“Forgive my rudeness, let me introduce myself. I am Duke Leto Atreides although not quite a Duke anymore. That was quite some time ago.”

You cleared your throat and told him your name, introducing yourself just as politely.

“It’s no trouble at all.”

Leto looked at you a moment too long with an odd look, like you had shocked him somehow, before his face fell back into its usual demeanor.

You looked at Abel to see if you had done anything wrong, but he gave you a small nod to reassure you that you had not. However, his face seemed to hold a look of concern or wary at how the Duke was looking at you.

“What is it you came to ask for?” He cleared his throat before turning his attention back towards Abel.

“Well, it’s not so much a favor for me, but for her.” Abel crossed one leg over the other and corgilly clasped his hands together in his lap.

“She’s a fledgling.” He paused, licking his lips and dipping his head down momentarily. His eyes briefly glowed before he slightly shook his head, “she was unwillingly turned.”

The Duke’s head snapped towards you with a frown. His expression of formal politeness was no more. It was quickly succeeded by a cordial disdain, regarded with frown, on your behalf.

“Impossible.” He placed his chin in the knuckles of his hand. “Who would do such a thing? The event of someone unwillingly turned surviving is rare.”

You violently twisted in your chair to face Abel and he stilled you with a hard look and an arm across your body to keep you from speaking and moving more.

“That is exactly my understanding as well, but she is alive and well and recently recovering from a bout of bloodlust.”

Leto stood up with a look of thought, and Abel followed suit.

You rise with a glare, your eyes looking between them both. You tried to keep your composure, but you were failing on every level. You could feel your anger coursing through your veins. Whatever magic that had your heart thumping surged throughout your body. Your heart beating faster and faster until you couldn’t feel it in your chest. It was racing at such a speed you couldn’t hear and your vision started to blur.

Leto had two hands on the side of your face, looking into your eyes as you stood frozen in your rage. When did he start talking to you? When did he put his hands on you?

“W—“

“— calm down.” His eyes glowed into yours. An iridescent gray blue. Almost a dark indigo of sorts.

It made you think of the rain. A thunderstorm and how before its clouds burst, the lightning cracks. Seconds after, it’s followed by thunder pounding. How once it ends, there’s an eerily still that falls on everything. The dark clouds recede and a bright and sunny day materializes in a bath of melancholy of not knowing what had just happened and why.

It didn’t calm you down, but it slowed your heart in your chest, something within you was still seething at him.

He didn’t weep for you as Abel did.

His thumb softly brushed at your cheek as he studied your face. A calmness bloomed across his. His polite superiority was gone, revealing just a man— a vampire.

He looked like he found something he once longed for. Whatever it was, he now found in you.

You looked over to Abel. His expression is neutral, revealing nothing.

“Um, Duke…sir?” You cleared your throat.

He practically leapt back. Except it happened before you could blink and he kept his hands awkwardly in front of him.

“Ah, yes.” He dusted off himself and brushed his clothes. “Forgive me. I got carried away.”

He looked at you once more, but now as if he knew you.

“Is there anything you could do to help her?” Abel's voice was strained with a cordial air, clipped with an agitation.

You reached out to him. Brushing your hands through his hair to rest momentarily on his cheek.

He closed his eyes for a brief moment. His brow furrowing and his mouth twisting to one side before he moved away from your hand.

His face was back to normal, but a nagging feeling within you told him he wasn’t. It made you ache with a need to dissuade whatever it is. You wanted to repay him for all the moments he’s calmed you down and made you feel warm these last few days.

Being with Abel made you realize just how much distress Fontaine had you under. How rage got you out of bed in the morning and hatred got you through the day.

Being with Abel made you realize just how exhausting it was.

You were still learning how to exist in a calm state. How to let go of your thoughts and anger and take things one at a time.

“I can help break her tie.”

You shared a look with Abel. Your eyebrows rose into your hairline and your mouth agape. Leto’s words seemed to put Abel at ease. He unbuttoned one of the buttons of his suit jacket and held a fraction of a smile before he turned to face him.

“It will be very painful, but I—“

He paused. His ears tinging red as he cleared his throat and averted eye contact from you.

“May I,” he licked his lips, “may I have a taste of your blood?”

You looked into his eyes. It was a mistake.

They glowed with a dark unrelenting gaze. His bashfulness was no more, either way, heat rushed throughout all your senses. Your eyes fluttered as you looked anywhere but him.

“Yes.” You quickly stuttered out. “It’s—

“Are you sure?” He interrupted you and moved his head into your line of sight. Suddenly, filling up your personal space.

You blinked repeatedly and stared dumbly in response.

No one had ever asked.

You nodded silently and he only raised his eyebrows at you.

“Yes.” You said softly but with more determination than before.

With careful hands he moved your head to the side.

Burning, his mouth was burning you.

His mouth felt like hot coals being placed on your neck. He cradles your head towards his chest as if he had done it a million times. His mouth moves along your skin with the fury of a thunderstorm, swollen with the humidity of the summer air. Unrelenting and smothering, he finally bit down, something within you breaking. The evidence of its lightning touch was the thundering of your heart in your chest.

You don’t know what to do with your hands. You run them along his chest, his back. You push and pull at the fabric of his shirt, of him. All you could smell was him.

He was all you could feel.

Slowly raising his mouth from your skin, you both pant with heaving chests as you watch the small trail of blood that connects from his mouth to your skin.

Without missing a beat, he laps at the small holes left on your skin. You can’t help the moan that spills out of you, and he closes his eyes.

You slide your hands from his back into his hair.

Desperate to pull him in once more.

When he opens them, neither of you say a word. The glowing storm clouds of his eyes transform into something so dark it’s a wonder they still glow at all.

Without breaking eye contact, he swiped his tongue along his lips to taste more of your blood. Your eyes dart across his face, desperate to catch each movement.

He moved closer to you, mouthing along your neck and sniffed deeply at your skin, pushing his nose firmer against you. He breathed out of his mouth. The warmth of his breath searing into your pores.

You couldn’t take it.

“One more,” he panted into your neck. “Just one more.”

“Please.” You practically pant back into his mouth.

You aren’t aware of much of anything at this point. You're lost in tides of air and whirring winds and you aren’t sure you want it to end.

As he pulls up to you once more, you surge towards him in unison, unaware of just how much strength you were using.

He makes a small oomf sound as you thud into his chest. He puts his hands at your hips and holds you tentatively.

Your mouth clamps onto his neck with just as much fervor. You felt more desperate than he did. You felt like you weren’t as sensual. That you sucked and slurped at his skin like some rabid creature, but the sounds coming from you told you just how wrong you were.

His pants were growing short, sharper, almost transitioning into a low keening wine.

“Fuck.” He whimpered into your ear before pulling you off of him by your hair. An action you would have taken into offense if it was anyone else, but right now after what you both had done, you don’t know what the lines of inappropriate and appropriate were anymore.

“And here I thought I was the only woman for you.”

You both took a step away from each other. Leto straightened his posture and clasped his hands formally behind his back.

You stood wide eyed.

She had your face. Only a bit older in comparison, but you knew your own face when you saw it.

“I think it is past due time for Abel to have another lover.” A man had interrupted. And not just any man, but a man who was the spitting image of Fontaine, save for the African accent and no beard. His hair was much tamer in style, and he had an equal air of superiority that Leto carried, and he seems like the type to not play about it.

He was better than everyone, and he wanted anyone who crossed his path to know it. He barely made eye contact with anyone else in the room. The only reason he seemed interested in your existence was because of how you and Leto seemed lost in one another moments before.

“Forgive me, my love.” Leto cleared his throat and avoided eye contact with you as well. His ears tinging pink before he continued. “I assure you I have not taken up a lover of any kind.”

“No?'' She stepped closer to Leto and ran a hand through his hair.

His shoulders fell into a more casual posture, and his expression softened.

“She’s a fledgling.” Her eyes twinkled at you. Your eyes.

“I think it's time we made our leave.”

You turned towards Abel.

His voice did not reveal his feelings, but from the look in his eyes and the slight frown on his face, it was clear how he felt. A storm of guilt brewed in the pit of your stomach. You had only been with him for a short period of time, but you couldn't help the feeling that you committed some type of betrayal. However, not out of some loyalty, that he was some sort of only being you could be tied to, or that he was some sort of lover, but you felt some type of way about having that moment in front of him.

You still would have done it. You dont regret it in the slightest, but he shoulnd’t have been here to see it.

You sighed. Not caring to hide the agitation in your voice.

“I would love for someone to explain to me what that means instead of acting like I don't exist.”

Everyone turned to look at Abel for some reason, and that irritated you even further. The rage boiled over within you. You could no longer see who or what was in the room, only what you were feeling.

“I know, through the magic, it feels like she's been a vampire for ten years, but if you’ve heard her story, it's only been for a short amount of time .” Abel said through his teeth.

“Well. . .” the woman who looked like you started. She eyed you up and down hungrily, “If she currently doesn’t belong to anyone. . “

“No.” Abel grabbed your arm and moved you behind him.

“I only made an agreement with him, and I don't have any allegiance to you whatsoever.”

“I understand her position of not being taught the proper edicate for how things work amongst us, but for you Abel there is no excuse!” Leto raised his voice. His eyes a startling eerie glow of a stormy blue-grey.

A wave of energy would have knocked you off your feet if you didn't grab Abel’s arm in time. He was much stronger than you were, so he didn’t seem to be affected by whatever invisible wave was swirling around in the room. He uncharacteristically glared at Leto. His apparent disrespectful attitude unwavering.

The man who had the same face of Fontaine looked you and Abel down with apathetic disdain.

‘Where is the other one?” He asked as if he was offended that a copy of himself existed.

“What other one?” Abel spat. His eyes closing and his shoulders scrunching up as he waved his arms.

“What the fuck,” he yelled, his fangs bared and his eys glowing a dazzingly dangerous yet beatiful yellow, “is going on? What aren't you telling me?”

“Abel did you not tell them?” the woman with your face smacked her teeth and looked back at Abel with a glare.

“I was getting to it.” He looked much more sympathetic.

“It looked much more like you were about to put your tongue down another woman’s throat if you ask me.” The Fontaine look alike shrugged and began looking at his nail.

“Enough!’ she turned back to give the man a look. “Does it look like I care? If you can’t stand to be in the same room as Leto so badly, then you go find Jay!”

He smacked his teeth with a frown, and then suddenly looked over to you.

The sound and look on his face at that moment made him look so much like Fontaine. Anger rushed through your senses once more.

“Wipe that look off your face.’ He scoffed at you before making his way out the door, “I promise you, I hold no resemblance to whoever this other vampire may be.”

He spared one more look at Abel. This time with much less disgust.

“Follow me.”

Abel looked towards you instead.

“Go.” Leto commanded and Abel glared at him.

Silently, he followed. Not bothering to hide his frown.

You eyed him trepidly.

What was all this about?

-

Yo-yo didn’t like the sight of this.

A woman who looked just like you but at least ten years older walked in. Behind her, a man that looked just like Fontaine.

He kept his hair in a sizable fro on his head with a proper edge up that was faded at the temples. A smaller amount of facial hair that was way better groomed than Fontaine would ever attempt.

He was just as fancily clad as the other two men that looked alike.

“This is bad. She’s drunk that other vampire’s blood.” Slick whispered into her ear.

“Shut the fuck up before someone hears us in here!” She whisper-shouted at him.

They had snuck in, but whatever glamor Slick had placed on them had only lasted so long.

Yo-yo chewed on her lip as she watched you all sit down on a large couch. This vampire was just as strong as the one called Leto. Not only that, but she also had your face.

That meant big things. Things they couldn’t change.

A prophecy or some shit.

“Is that why you kept looking at me so strangly?” Yo-yo watched you ask. “Because you know. . .her?”

“He’s only ever met me like this.” The woman answered for him.

You nodded. Not really looking at either of them, making the woman frown in sympathy.

“My name is Shante.”

“Why do you all have our faces?”

Shante shared a look with Abel.

“Straight to the point I see.” She smiled. “I was the same way when it was my first time. I know it must have been hard and confusing.”

“Hard and confusing is an understatement.” You huffed bitterly.

She let out a short sigh, more out of nerves and not frustration.

You looked up at her oddly.

Yo-yo could only wonder why.

“I won’t hold you long or beat around the bush.”

“I think that’s best.” Abel clasped her hand in his.

“If you want to get technical, we are the originators of these faces and you all are our dopplegangers.”

You nodded, wringing your hands in your lap. “I think I know what those are.”

“You're always going to have a Leto and a Ghezo.”

Shante leveled at you with a serious tone.

This made you leap up with a hiss, baring your fangs.

“I don’t need Fontaine!”

“But you do.” Shante stood up and hissed back at you. “Without him you will never know peace. If you kill him, you might as well kill yourself too!”

“Good!” You screamed! Your voice sends a shock of power throughout the room making everyone still, even Yo-yo and Slick.

“What?” You broke the silence. “What’s so surprising about that after everything I’ve been through?”

“Forgive me,” Shante abruptly sat. “I didn’t know things were that bad between you.”

You sat with a self assured huff. Appearing more calm now that no one was about to tell you to get over your emotions.

“What makes you so sure, I need him?” You swallowed, looking straight ahead and not making eye contact with anyone. “What makes you think I could get over it?”

But everyone knew what you were really asking.

“I once was mad just as you were.” Shante said softly.

You looked at her with watery eyes.

“I was turned just like you.” Shante looked at her and Leto’s hands clasped together in her lap. “Ghezo had made a deal with someone. They promised him an eternity of power. . . But they also warned him about the cost. The people he would lose and now he’d never get close to anyone.”

She drew in a shaky breath and you cooled closer to her. She smiled softly. A tear falling down her cheek. Leto wiped at it with his thumb.

“He talked with all of us, his wives. Some said yes without thinking, but I said no.” She looked up at you, with a stream of tears falling down her face.

Yo-yo wiped a tear of her own as she watched you both cry. Slick put a hand on her shoulder, and she didn’t brush it away.

“I was in love with being human and the idea of cheating death didn’t sit right with me. Long story short, I woke up like this, against my will.”

“What did you do?” You whispered.

“I left him. I left my home. . . And then I found Leto.”

“So. . . You stayed with him and for some reason just forgave Ghezo?”

“I wish I could tell you more, but you and Abel have to find your own way. . . And Fontaine.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

Yo-yo couldn’t hear anymore.

“I think we got what we came for.”