Page 9 of Cryptic Dreams
HumanPurists. Vampire sympathizers.
I’ve met many of them right here in Plasma, and while I don’t fully understand it, I appreciate it all the same.
My plan was born in a VIP booth in the back in this club, humans and vampires alike sitting with me while I hatched my evil scheme. My numbers grew that very night, and I was able to create and unify a more solid group of Purists while listening to god awful techno and drinking gin and tonics long into the evening.
Purists have existed since the war in 1793, but we haven’t been organized like this, haven’t had so much warm-bodied support in years, if ever. The owner of the club is even a part of my group and he allows me to meet discreetly on the floor or hold more intense and pivotal meetings in the upstairs office.
Orion happens to be one of my biggest supporters, one of my closest allies, and I almost consider him a friend because of it.
If I were so inclined to make any.
He’s younger than I am, significantly younger, and despite being born during the world war that changed our lives completely, Orion is an enthusiastic supporter of the Purists and the Uprising. He calls himself an activist; avampire activist.He desires to see balance restored between species, to see the Great Counsel overthrown in favor of a king and queen like we used to have, a monarchy within our kind that would deal directly and openly with the human leaders and even sit on the UN as a representative of our unified people.
We are like-minded, Orion and I, and while he never experienced the way our kind operated before, he is helping me take steps to achieve that again, and make the necessary changes to keep our kind from dying out completely while living amongst the humans that are slowly making that happen.
I quietly wade through the plethora of sweaty and dancing bodies, and head toward my normal booth in the back that Orion keeps reserved for me. Originally it was because I’m a Descendant, one older than most who also holds a high position in our ranks, the would-beprince,if things were different. As time went on though, Orion started saving the booth for me because it gives me the best vantage point of the entire club, thus making it easy to find my next playthings without even standing, and it is secluded enough that when I meet with any Purists, no unwanted attention is drawn.
I nod toward the bartender and he holds up two fingers, his silent question heard loud and clear.
Two of the usual? those fingers ask, and I nod again before my eyes face forward and resume scanning the crowd while I continue toward my booth.
I see some familiar faces; some that will be meeting with me tomorrow night when I return here for a debriefing of what transpired today, some that I’ve fucked—literally—some that have propositioned me in one form or another with disappointing results.
And while the comfort of familiarity sets me at ease, the ache in my chest grows. Especially when I slide into my booth and take in all of the very unfamiliar faces.
Humans.
Vampires.
Old and new.
Tourist and local.
Many faces dance and drink around me tonight but when my analytical stare skims over a face I have never before seen yet somehow recognize immediately, my eyes snap back to this stranger with head spinning force.
A female sits alone at a VIP booth just a few over from mine, a female vampire judging by the mark on her neck and the very literal Bloody Mary sitting on her table. She’s of an Egyptian coven—ortribeas they used to be called—the obvious signs of her origin glaring in my face.
Her hair is the darkest brown, almost black but not quite, and pulled up into a messy knot on her head, the little wisps of silk framing her positively stunning face and all too enticing neck.
She has expressive dark brows that are drawn into a furrow, the crease between them something I’d like to smooth out with my thumb in an uncharacteristically tender gesture.
Her large, almond-shaped eyes are fixed on the table, the color no doubt brown but I cannot see from this angle despite the way I shift around in my seat in order to try.
She has a very regal, aquiline nose. A nose that belongs on a queen or pharaoh; slender, a tad pointed but no less lovely.
Her full lips are turned down into a frown but they are still so inviting, no less fantasy-inducing even, with the look of disapproval painted on them. Something I suddenly crave to replace with nothing but a smile full of pleasure while they’re wrapped around my cock.
Her skin is the lightest shade of caramel and it shimmers as if it were dusted with flecks of gold, illuminated even in the dim and flashing lights of the club, and it covers a body that is meant for sin. A body made for my hands and lips, my fangs, teeth and tongue—my cock that is flaring to life in my slacks while I continue to stare.
And while I’ve already decided that this female will be leaving here with me so that I may have her tonight—to where, I’m unsure because I do not allow anyone into my private home and returning to the nest is impossible—what has me even more perplexed and quite honestly, captivated, is the way she’s dressed and what she’s doing.
Noise canceling headphones sit over her ears, something I know only because I’m so focused I can hear her heartbeat, her breathing, and nothing more coming from her person. And she is dressed in an outfit that does not at all fit with a nightclub in the least.
A gray tank top over a sports bra, both of which have seen better days, a pair of baggy black sweatpants that are just as worn, and black flip flops that show her dainty navy blue painted toes. And the strangest part—though everything about this female is strange to me—are the black lace gloves on her hands.
And she looks as though she’s studying while she sits at the table based on the multiple notepads and text books carelessly placed all over the glossy wood.
Peculiar indeed.
