Page 70 of King of Night

“Go home,” I tell Brian, one of my human employees.“We’ll take it from here.It’s late.”

“You sure?”Brian asks, looking up from the bar he’s wiping down.“I can stay.”

“We can close up faster,” I say with a smile.

Brian laughs.“Very true, and thanks.My girlfriend’s been texting me.Says she can’t sleep without me.”He laughs and shakes his head.“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Have a good night.”

We wait until he heads toward the back to get his stuff and leaves through the rear employee door.

“Shall we?”I take Eliza’s arms and she smiles.The protesters, knowing this is a vampire-owned business set up outside our doors a few times a year.Legally, they’re allowed to protest, and feeding off unwilling humans has recently been made illegal.The law can pose a threat to younger vampires who can’t hold humans spellbound, though it’s only illegal if you get caught.

I burst through the front doors moving with vampire speed.The little group gasps and jumps back but holds up their signs.

“Go back to hell!”one of them shouts, and the others murmur in agreeance, thinking they’re all tough shit.

“I would,” I start and step forward.The little group tenses.“But I wouldn’t want to miss out on all the fun here.”

“I want that one.”Eliza says, extending her hand and pointing a finger at the ringleader of the group.“He looks tasty.”

“Ladies first,” I tell her.She speeds forward, stopping not even a foot from the man.Another holds up a cross, as if that will do anything to stop us.Another pulls a wooden stake from his backpack.

I have it out of his hand and broken in pieces on the ground in two seconds flat.

“I thought murder goes against your religion.”I drop the broken pieces of the stake to the ground.“Or do you just pick and choose which teachings of the Bible you decide to follow?”

“You can’t kill what’s already dead!”another shouts and flicks his eyes to someone across the street.

“No, you can’t,” I say and follow his gaze.A woman is crouched down by a bench, holding her phone up.“We’re being filmed,” I tell Eliza, speaking in French again.“They want us to attack.”

“So fucking lame,” she huffs and steps back, and the man she was in front of makes the mistake of looking right into my eyes.In a split second, I have him held spellbound.

“You love vampires,” I tell him, and he nods, eyes glossing over.“You love vampires so much you want to be one.”

“Don’t look in his eyes!”The man who tried to stake Eliza warns and goes to cover his friend’s eyes.I hold out my hand, and the man freezes, afraid of me.

“You love vampires so much you’re going to find a costume store and buy plastic fangs to wear so you can pretend to be a vampire,” I keep going and Eliza lets out a snort of laugher.Fucking with the minds of hate-filled humans has always been a favorite pastime of mine.

“Don’t listen to him!”another one protests and the two others who stayed in the back like cowards are pulling more weapons out of their bags.One holds up a garlic-infused pepper spray, which does nothing more than irritate our eyes like a normal pepper spray would.

When vampires came out about ten years ago, scam-savvy humans made a killing selling bogus vampire-hunting kits.Garlic, holy water, and crosses do nothing to us.

We can be killed with a wooden stake to the heart, but one tipped with silver does the job faster.Most humans grossly underestimate how hard it is to shove a wooden stake through the sternum as well, resulting in a lot of failed murder attempts with a pissed off as fuck vampire on the other end of it.

“Let’s go,” I tell Eliza and we step away.

“Turn me into one of you!”the ringleader of the protesters begs.“Please!I want to be like you!”

Laughing, Eliza and I dart across the street.She hooks her arm through mine and rests her head on my shoulder.

“That was fun,” she says.

“It was.”I kiss the top of her head.“Are you still in the mood for virgin blood?”

She turns her head up, smiling “Always.”

ChapterSeven

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