“You’re mine!”
Her eyes flashed brightly, before she tilted her head to the side, baring her pale neck. “Then make me yours.”
Without thinking, he drove his fangs into her neck, piercing her hot skin. Rich blood touched his fangs and filled his mouth. While the blood ran down his throat, coating it, farther down, his own blood pounded in his veins, filling his cock even more. And with every draw from her vein and every thrust into her pussy, the wildness in him grew.
For an instant, he removed his fangs, wanting to tell her what she meant to him. He parted his lips, wanting to speak, but her name didn’t roll over his lips. He tried again, but there was only emptiness. He stared into her eyes and saw confusion there.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
Disbelief colored her eyes, but before her lips gave him an answer, a sharp pain pierced his skull. Still inside her, he arrested his movements.
His vision darkened. Cain brought one hand to his face and felt the sticky, warm liquid that ran over his face. He smelled it, too. The metallic scent was unmistakable.
Blood. Blood coming from his skull. He brought his hand up and felt the hole there. Blood gushed from it.
“No!” she screamed. “No! Don’t leave me!”
He couldn’t see her face anymore, and suddenly his hands were gripping nothing, as if she had slipped from his grasp. He searched for her in the darkness, but all he felt was a void. Despair. Hopelessness.
Was he dead?
“Nooooooo!” Cain screamed.
But she didn’t answer him. She was gone.
Suddenly his vision cleared and a light source drew his attention. Something blinked in red. He focused his eyes. Numbers appeared before them. 07:24. He stared at the apparition. It took a second to realize that he was looking at a digital clock.
Cain shot up to a seated position.
Gone was the room he’d been in, replaced by a bedroom with little personal effects. No opulence. No luxury. Just a simple bedroom with a large bed, a dresser, and a chair with casual clothes somebody had tossed onto it. No tuxedo in sight.
Cain ran a shaky hand through his ultra-short hair and realized he was bathed in sweat.
Regret filled him. It had been a dream, all of it: the woman, the room, the blood.
Nothing was real. Just like Cain himself. Because how could he be real when he didn’t remember anything about his past?
For several months now he’d had these dreams. Different ones, but all involving the same woman, and all ending the same way: with blood gushing from his head. As if they were a warning somebody was trying to send him. Or a message from the past.
Cain swung his legs out of bed and shook his head. Wishful thinking! A little over a year ago he’d woken up one night without a memory. All he remembered was a male voice. Your name is Cain, the man had said. As much as he’d tried to find out about his past, he’d come up empty.
The dreams were haunting him, dangling pieces of information in front of him, yet never letting him get close enough to grab one and examine it. It had made him irritable and unpredictable. His colleagues at Scanguards, where he worked as a bodyguard, had started noticing and avoided him whenever he was in one of his dark moods.
And just now, one of those dark moods was washing over him, lashing despair and hopelessness at him like a torturer whipping him with a flogger. Pain crippled his body and made him want to inflict the same pain on others. But there was nobody on whom to let out his anger.
A ringing sound suddenly pierced the silence of his bedroom. He turned to the bedside table and reached for his cell phone.
“Yeah?”
“Where the fuck are you?” The deep, pissed-off voice belonged to Amaury, one of his superiors at Scanguards.
Rage boiled up in Cain. He didn’t like Amaury’s tone, nor did he like being questioned about his whereabouts. He hated being ordered around.
“What the fuck do you want?” Cain replied, raising his voice.
“You’re supposed to be patrolling tonight!” Amaury growled. “And don’t take that fucking attitude with me. I’m your boss!”
Cain jumped up and slammed his fist into the drywall, leaving a dent there. “I need no boss! I’m my own master!” The moment he said it, he knew it was true. He wasn’t used to having anybody tell him what to do. He was used to giving the orders.
On the other end of the line, Amaury breathed heavily before giving his response. “Fine! You wanna have it out, once and for all? I’m sick of your attitude lately. I think it’s time we had a chat so you understand who’s in charge here.”