Page 23 of Caller of Crows
He caught the scent of blood on the wind, but it didn't excite him. There was no hunting in a city ruled by paranormal creatures. The only blood he got these days was consensually harvested.
Most of it, anyway.
Sven was a special case. A warm body he could drink from and still feel the thrill of what it meant to be a predator.
He landed on the rooftop of a nearby building, looking out at the streets below. The crows circled him, their caws echoing in the night. They loved flying with him, and they wanted him to keep moving. All of them except for one bird who landed on his shoulder and nuzzled his ear with her beak. She had a message for Altair.
She'd found the mortal's family.
Altair petted the bird's soft feathers, grateful for the intel.
He plucked an image of Sven's mother from the bird's mind. The crow had sat on her windowsill and the sickly woman had offered some bread crumbs to the curious bird. Altair could see the pain etched on her face and the worry lines on her forehead.
People were going to start looking for Sven soon.
* * *
When Altair returned to the club a few hours later, his closest friends were gathered around a table to themselves in the back. Altair joined them and took the empty chair next to Keegan, sitting opposite Mordyn and Iskander.
"Quiet night?" he asked.
Mordyn shrugged. "Nothing too bad. Yesterday's rowdies didn't return, at least. They're probably still licking their wounds." He said this with a certain sense of pride.
Altair only nodded, though, his mind elsewhere.
"You look like you could use a drink or twenty," Mordyn commented. After he spoke, he nodded at a different group of people sitting two tables away from them. "We've got some incubi in the club tonight if you need to take your mind off things."
Altair gave the group a once-over. Most vampires looked good, but incubi were on a different level altogether. They had a way of seducing their prey that no other creature could match. Another night, Altair might have been tempted. Sex with incubi was rarely emotional for him but always fun.
Tonight, though, Altair wasn't in the mood for it. If he hopped into bed with an incubus now, he'd just wind up thinking of someone else, and that would quickly ruin the rest of the encounter for him.
"I'll pass," he said to Mordyn.
The other vampire raised an eyebrow at him. "Too bad. I'd hoped we could share the blonde. I bet she'd let us drink too. I'm hungry," he complained although he had a half-empty glass of blood in front of him.
Altair understood that his friend was talking about a different kind of hunger, though. Drinking from a glass or bottle could never fully sate the cravings of a vampire. It was the thrill of the hunt, the feel of warm blood pulsing beneath their lips that a real vampire needed to thrive.
Under the table, Altair's fists clenched as his thoughts turned to Sven once more. The way he'd tasted…
"Something bothering you?" Keegan asked, eyeing him from the side. "You've been out for a long time. Sheila's been looking for you. I think she wants to talk about some accounting issues."
Altair pinched the bridge of his nose. If there was one thing he hated more than dealing with his own emotions, it was dealing with mundane business matters. "I'll talk to her later."
"Don't let her wait too long," Keegan advised. "You know how she can get."
Altair waved his friend off. "I'm not scared of Sheila." He caught the eye of a waiter who walked by and ordered a serving of synthetic blood. Maybe if he drank his fill, he would be less susceptible to the manipulations of the mortal in his room.
"You're ordering synth?" Mordyn looked disgusted. "We just got a fresh shipment of real A-positive."
"Mage blood?" Altair asked with a wrinkle of his nose. "Too tangy."
Iskander and Mordyn exchanged a look, then Iskander said, "Never seen you choose synth over mage."
Altair shrugged and remained silent. He saw no reason to explain himself. The truth of the matter was, as fake as synthetic blood was, it still came closer to the taste of real mortal blood than mage blood, and tonight, that was what he wanted.
Mortal blood.
When the synthetic blood arrived, Altair sipped it slowly. A metallic taste lingered on his tongue, reminding him of the iron-rich blood he'd tasted last night. This wasn't anywhere near as satisfying.
