I nearly dropped my emergency stake as I tripped out of my Uber. I fumbled with the wooden weapon and slipped it back into my parka pocket while I grumbled to myself about the outfit my best friend had chosen for my blind date, which included a short, sleeveless black dress and a pair of high heels. The parka was not a part of the outfit, but I never went anywhere without it. It was an old, worn-out, no-longer-white thing, covered in faded glyphs and defensive runes that were so densely packed you’d be forgiven for thinking they were simply a neat pattern. Ammy tried to get me to leave the parka at home, since it made the outfit look silly, but I preferred the comfort of my “battle armor” to the vulnerability of walking around in a small dress all night, especially considering I was about to have dinner with a guy I’d never met before.  It was the first date I’d had in years, or since I’d become an adult, really. I never really liked dressing up; too much fuss and if shit hits the fan, you're going to trip all over your shitty high heels that are way too tall. Normally I wouldn’t be caught dead in them, but Ammy’d managed to convince me it’d help me make a good impression on my date, and well… She was the expert on dates, and I was never the kind of woman to turn down an expert opinion. This trait would turn out to be one of my greatest flaws. I fingered the wooden stake in my pocket – large enough to be dangerous, but small enough to be unnoticable.

My mystery date met me right outside the the restaurant he’d chosen. It was one of the few that weren’t owned by the local vampire crime family. He was tall, had a handsome enough face. Looked sorta like a skinny Viking with his long blonde hair and bushy beard. Had a suit that complimented his body perfectly. Ammy had shown me his picture earlier so I at least knew what to expect, but seeing him in person was different.

We exchanged hellos and a few pleasantries, and then he wrapped his arm around my shoulder to guide me inside. His arm felt heavy. Like a crushing weight around me. Is it supposed to feel like that? I wondered as I looked up at him. Only to catch him smiling down at me with this amused look, as if he could read my mind. I tried to relax as he led me into the building, but his hand squeezing my shoulder didn’t really do anything to help with that.

The restaurant was crowded. Packed. Like a swarm of bugs surrounding me on all sides, buzzing incessantly to themselves. Our table was right in the center of it all, too, which only made matters worse. Three separate exits and none of them were close enough to get away in a timely fashion.

And then there was the way he smiled at me. Was it predatory? Or was he just trying to be nice? I couldn't help but read something sinister in the casual way he commented on my hair or touched my arm. I tried to tell myself I was being paranoid, but I still couldn’t keep myself from watching the waiters as they ran about the restaurant, watching for patterns in their movement. Couldn’t stop myself from plotting out the quickest escape route if things went south.

Ugh. I hate dates. They aren’t supposed to be so stressful. Ammy dates all the damn time -- why couldn’t I?

“Tabitha?” My attention immediately got called away from my endless train of thoughts when my date -- Fuck, what was his name? -- raised his voice a bit, to catch my attention. “You alright? You’re zoning out.”

“Sorry,” I half-mumbled. “I’m just nervous.”

He smiled at me. It was a dashing smile; a sort of impossibly handsome, disarming thing that flashed all of his perfect teeth at me. “How do you think I feel? Sitting across from a woman as beautiful as you?”

I never knew how to handle compliments. They always made me feel weird. Like they were unearned. I didn’t feel beautiful. Or cute or pretty or whatever else people tried to tell me I was. I always read some sort of ulterior motive to compliments — because, surely, this guy I just met couldn’t actually think I’m beautiful, right? Ammy always told me to return it or just say thanks, but that felt insincere. Even if I meant it, it’s only being offered in exchange for their own compliment. Like some kind of weird, fucked up social transaction.

But fuck it. Ammy gets laid all the time. There’s gotta be something to meaningless pleasantries, right?

“Thanks. You’re handsome, yourself.” That sounded stupid.

He didn’t seem to mind, though, since he just kept smiling. “So what do you do? Amanda didn’t really tell me much about you.”

“Sounds like Ammy, alright. She just told you I was hot, right?”

He chuckled. He had a musical tone to his laugh, in an almost hypnotically attractive way. I couldn’t help but let my guard down a little bit. Something about it made him seem… More vulnerable, maybe?

“Not just that, but yeah, mostly.”

I returned his smile. Fuck, he was starting to grow on me. Maybe I was just being paranoid. “I do contract work.”

“Contract work? Like, what, construction? You don’t strike me as a construction kinda girl.”

“No, it’s...” I stumbled for an explanation. My job wasn’t really something I could talk about openly, and even if I could it gets ugly enough that it wouldn’t make for good date conversation, anyway. “Not really something I can talk about.”

“Ooh. Top-secret stuff? Are you a secret agent?” He leaned forward, peering into my eyes. As if he was searching for the truth inside them. His eyes were this gorgeous, vibrant and earthy brown that were difficult to look away from.

“No.”

“Hm… Assassin, then?”

I couldn’t help but laugh a bit. Maybe he really was genuine. “Not even a little.”

“So, some kind of top secret government stuff, then?”

“Sort of, actually. In a manner of speaking, I mean.”

“A woman of mystery. I like that.”

I was starting to get more into the conversation, and my date — Jesus, why can’t I remember his name? — than in scoping out emergency exits.

“So what about you?” I took a sip of the weirdly tasty water fancy restaurants always seem to have. “What do you do?”

“Professional bodyguard.”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“For anybody I’ve heard of?”

“Almost certainly not,” he chuckled again, “I have real exclusive clientele who pay  very well for keeping their anonymity.”

I looked around at the restaurant and then slowly back at him. “Obviously.”

He smiled again, and I felt myself getting drawn into him. His every feature. He was a beautiful man, and I was starting to see a future for the two of us. Was that weird? I’d barely known him. Maybe Ammy was just right that he’d be a perfect fit. Then he reached forward and took my hand in his, and my heart felt like it stopped for just a moment. An almost electric zap coursed from him into me and stole my breath away.

“So how’s a girl like you come to be single enough to date a guy like me?”

“Well, you know,” I stammered. It was getting harder to think. My whole body felt hot and flushed. He was so gorgeous. So perfect. Even his voice was sending tingles down my spine. My whole body reacted to the slightest twitch from him. “Bad luck, I guess.”

He leaned forward, over the table. “Or destiny, maybe?”

I laughed nervously. It was getting harder and harder to think about anything other than him. God, I wanted him so badly. I wanted to just tear his clothes off. I wanted to see him, in all his glory. Feel every curve of his arms, bury my face in his chest and just breathe him in. I couldn’t even respond.

And then he kissed me. It was like nothing else mattered. It was like a hunger took over me, like every last moment of the last ten years had overcome my every motion. My hands grasped his head and pulled him toward me, as if he were the oxygen I needed to live. I nearly forgot to breathe I was so focused on kissing him. Everything was a blur, and I was only vaguely aware of him pulling me to my feet, leading me out of the restaurant by the hand. My body was on fire and I was so desperate to feel his lips against mine again, to press myself against him that I didn’t care where he was taking me. I only wanted to feel his touch.

He pulled me out into an alley behind the restaurant, pushed my back against the building's wall and we resumed our makeout from before, but now in the privacy of the dirty alley we went at it much harder. I was grinding my hips into his, my hands were under his shirt, exploring his muscles as I tried so desperately to just sink into his frame, become one with him. No thoughts entered my head, just a desperate, animalistic need. And then he kissed my neck and immediately hissed, in pain, and jumped away from me.

I stared, in confusion and more hurt and betrayal than I’d ever felt in my life. I took a step toward him but he backed away, holding his smouldering lips. His literally smouldering lips. Why were they burning? My faculties started to come back to me, however, when he screamed at me.

“You fucking bitch!” Spittle flew from his smoking lips as he growled animalistically. His teeth distended, warped and shaped into rows of sharp, pointed fangs. “You cunt!”

I was still reeling from his touch earlier, but my hand reached up to touch the side of my neck. My head was becoming less foggy, the heat and need were starting to die down. And somewhere in my foggy head, an idea started to form. His teeth had grown out. He got burned when he kissed my neck.

Because of my cross tattoos. He must not have noticed them behind my parka’s hood. At that moment my every thought came crashing into my head once more under my full control in the form of a massive headache.

 “Motherfucker! You enthralled me?!” I felt sick to my stomach. I finally let myself be vulnerable for the first time in years and this cretin took advantage of me. I should have listened to my gut instincts that something was wrong. My “date” -- Fuck whatever his name is -- was a vampire.

He leapt at me with a snarl like a rabid animal, his fangs on full display now. I pulled my arm up as his fangs bit into the sleeve of my parka. The glyphs on it lit up, preventing his fangs from piercing the fabric. Then I slammed my fist into the side of his skull, which sent him stumbling back. I whipped my hand in the air, waving it as if to shake off the pain pulsing in it from the force of the punch.

He clocked me in the jaw and sent me reeling; I tried to catch my balance but my stupid heels caught on some loose trash on the ground and sent me barrelling all the way down to the ground, knocking over a trash can in the process. I heard the telltale quiet hiss and pop as the complex runes in my parka activated and magically dulled the force of my fall. Thankfully it left me only a little bit winded. Not-so-thankfully, I was caught in a pile of trash with a pissed-off vampire diving on top of me. He threw another punch toward my face, and I barely had time to raise my arm and block the blow with my sleeve. The runes on it glowed brightly at the point of impact, the light fading the further from his fist they got. He struck my arms once, twice, and then a third time before I realised he had put himself in an absolutely terrible position in his attempt to lean down and bite my face, and so I executed my super-secret battle technique:

I kneed him in the balls.

He fell off of me and grabbed his crotch with a shout of pain, which gave me more than enough time to try and stand up, trip over my heels a second time and fall over top of him, in a reversal of our previous position. He hissed at me, vampirically. I blew some hair out of my face and reached into the inside pocket of my parka to pull out my emergency stake I kept on my person for exactly this sort of emergency. I raised it high above his chest and gave him my meanest, most threatening glare.

“Cunt,” he hissed between his teeth.

“Creative insult, dude.”

“Bitch!”

He grabbed my shoulders and rolled us around, so that he was pinning me once again. I tried to use my super-secret technique again, but hit his thigh. I frowned, visibly upset that he’d adjusted his tactics. I didn’t like when my opponents did that. Thankfully, I had one final trick up my sleeve. As he pulled his face in close to bite mine, a favorite of his, I instead slammed my forehead into his skull.

Fun fact: Headbutts suck. For everyone involved.

He rolled off of me once again, holding his head in a daze, and I  held my own head as I rolled away from him, to get on my hands and push myself back to my feet. I shook the cobwebs from my poor, rattled brain and turned around just in time to spy the vampire swiping at me. I didn’t have enoug time to react, and his fingernails drew a deep cut into my cheek. I hissed, this time, and shoved the stake up against his chest. He backed away from the weapon until his back was against the wall, and I held him pinned there, without piercing his flesh with the wood.

“I swear to God,” I said, practically panting, “I will stake you to this fucking wall and leave you here til sunrise.”

“You’re insane,” he said, his eyes not on me but the wooden stake pressed threateningly to his chest.

“You’re the one trying to feed on unsuspecting civilians.” I reached my free hand into my parka and pulled out a shield-shaped pendant, no larger than my hand. It had the insignia of The Collective of Mages on it – an image of the Earth positioned atop a stand as if it were a crystal ball – and was attached to a long chain necklace I wasn’t wearing. “Need I remind you of the fucking ceasefire. No feeding. We provide you with blood bags.”

“Times are changing, Hunter. We won’t allow the hammer of oppression to–”

I cut him off by applying a little more pressure with the stake. “Go home.”

He stared into my eyes and I could tell he was trying to determine how serious I was. His common sense appeared to win out, though, and he swore and nodded at me. I gave him one last look and pulled the stake away. We stood there in the alley, for an awkward moment, until I pointed to the street with my stake. He turned and ran.

I sighed and turned to head toward the street, myself, but one of my heels caught in a grate and snapped off, sending me sprawling to the ground with a loud, angry, “FUCK.” I pushed myself to my feet, hobbling awkwardly on the uneven shoes, and planted my hand against one wall to pull the other one off. As I did, a door flew open and a chef peeked out.

“What was all that screaming?”

I looked between him, the pile of trash, and gave him a perfectly truthful response. “Cat.”

He stared at me. “Cat?”

“Cat,” I repeated. And then gave him a little nod to really drive home just how absolutely truthful my answer was.

“Cat,” he grumbled. Then he shook his head and returned back inside.

“Cat,” I sighed wiped my blood off on my dress, and did my best not to look at it as I carefully navigated the trash with my bare feet.