Hunt the hunter

Sophia Chen.

Her name tastes like destiny on my tongue, though I haven't spoken it aloud yet. Haven't let her know that I know everything about her—where she lives, where she works, what she eats for breakfast, the small scar on her left shoulder blade from a childhood fall.

I've been inside her apartment while she slept. Stood over her bed and watched her dream, my cock hardening as I imagined waking her with my hand around her throat. But I didn't. Not yet. The anticipation is its own exquisite ****.

She's been hunting me for six weeks now. A paranormal investigator with actual credentials—folklore doctorate, published papers on vampire mythology across cultures, a private practice that caters to the **** and delusional. Except Sophia isn't delusional. She's brilliant. And she's found something real.

Me.

I don't know exactly what tipped her off. Maybe the pattern of deaths in the city—bodies drained, ecstatic expressions frozen on their faces, always beautiful, always found in expensive hotel rooms or dark corners of exclusive venues. Maybe someone talked before they died, whispered my name in their final moments. Or maybe she's just that fucking good.

Either way, she's been following me. Photographing me from distance. Documenting my habits. And I've let her, because the game thrills me almost as much as the inevitable conclusion will.

I dress for her tonight. Black silk shirt that clings to my torso, left partially unbuttoned because I know she'll look. Black slacks tailored perfectly to my body. No underwear—my erection creates an obvious ridge in the expensive fabric, and I don't bother trying to hide it. Let her see what she does to me. Let her understand that her investigation has made her prey in ways she hasn't fully considered.

My reflection doesn't exist in mirrors anymore, but I know what I look like. I've seen myself through my victims' eyes in their final moments, watched myself in security cameras and phone screens. I'm devastating. Inhuman in my beauty. Every line of my face and body designed to lure mortals close enough to kill.

Tonight, it will work exactly as intended.

I know where she is. I can feel her heartbeat from here, forty stories down. It calls to me like a homing beacon, faster than it should be. Nervous. Excited. She's positioned herself at the coffee shop across the street from my building, the one with the view of the lobby entrance. She's been there for three hours, laptop open, pretending to work while she waits for me to emerge.

Such dedication. Such fearlessness.

Such stupidity.

I'm going to enjoy breaking her.

The elevator descends silently, and I check my phone—a text I composed an hour ago but haven't sent yet. To her number, which I acquired by hacking her service provider because technology has made hunting so much easier than it used to be.

*I know you're watching. The coffee shop. Blue sweater. Third table from the window. You've been very patient, Sophia. Would you like to stop pretending?*

My thumb hovers over send. My cock throbs against my thigh, and I palm it through my slacks, giving myself one slow stroke. The hunger coils tighter in my gut—both hungers, inseparable, demanding.

I send the text.

The elevator reaches the lobby, and I step out into marble and chrome opulence. Through the glass doors, across the street, I see her stiffen in her seat. She's looking at her phone. Her heart rate spikes—I can hear it even from here, that delicious thunder of fear and adrenaline.

She looks up. Looks directly at my building.

Can she see me through the glass? Probably not clearly, not with the distance and reflection. But I see her perfectly. Mid-thirties, Asian-American, shoulder-length black hair currently tied back, sharp features that speak of intelligence and determination. The blue sweater I mentioned. And yes, she's beautiful—not in the obvious way that usually attracts me, but in a way that suggests substance beneath the surface.

I want to crack that surface open. Want to see what spills out.

My phone buzzes. She's responded.

*Who is this?*

I smile, and it's not a kind expression. My fangs descend slightly, points pressing against my lip.

*You know who I am, Sophia. You've been researching me for weeks. Taken 247 photographs. Written 43 pages of notes. You're very thorough. It's one of the things I admire about you.*

I watch her across the distance. She's standing now, laptop forgotten, phone gripped in white-knuckled fingers. She's looking around the coffee shop like I might be among the other patrons. She hasn't considered that I might be watching from elsewhere.

Her phone buzzes again. My next text.

*Turn around. Look at my building. Top floor, east corner window.*

She turns. Looks up. And even though she can't possibly see me clearly from this distance, even though I'm just a silhouette against the interior lighting of my penthouse, our eyes meet.

The connection is electric.

Her phone nearly slips from her hand.

*Come up,* I text. *Or keep playing investigator from across the street. Your choice. But we both know you didn't come this far to stay safe.*

I don't wait for her response. I turn away from the window and move through the penthouse, preparing. The lights dim at my voice command. I pour two glasses of wine—a 1947 Château d'Yquem, worth more than her car. I won't drink mine, but the gesture matters. The seduction matters.

Even though we both know how this ends.

Fifteen minutes pass. I'm beginning to think she's chosen safety, chosen to run, and I'm calculating how quickly I can cross the street and catch her before she reaches her car when I hear it—the elevator ascending. The penthouse elevator. She's talked her way past building security, or hacked the system, or picked the lock. However she managed it, she's coming.

My cock stiffens further, pressing insistently against my slacks. I adjust myself, let my hand linger, stroking slowly through the fabric. The hunger sharpens. Soon. Very soon.

The elevator opens directly into my penthouse. She steps out, and I smell her immediately—fear and arousal in equal measure, her body betraying what her mind probably refuses to acknowledge. She's changed clothes since the coffee shop. Black jeans, black leather jacket over a white tank top. Practical boots. Her hand is in her jacket pocket, and I'd bet my considerable fortune she's holding a weapon.

Stake? Gun with wooden bullets? Holy water? Something she read about in her research that she thinks might protect her.

Nothing will protect her.

"Sophia." I step out of the shadows near the windows, letting the moonlight illuminate me. "I'm so pleased you accepted my invitation."

She freezes. Her eyes go wide, and I watch her take me in—the inhuman beauty, the predatory grace, the obvious erection straining against my slacks that I make no effort to conceal. Her gaze catches there, lingers, and her heartbeat stutters.

"You're real," she whispers.

"Did you doubt?" I move closer, slow and careful, like approaching a skittish animal. "After all your research? All those bodies you've connected to me?"

"Evidence and belief are different things." Her voice steadies, and I admire that. She's terrified—I can smell it, hear it in her pulse—but she's controlling it. "I needed to see for myself."

"And now you have." Another step closer. I'm ten feet away now. Close enough to cross the distance in less than a second. Close enough that she must know escape is impossible. "What do you think?"

Her hand tightens in her pocket. "I think you're a monster who's killed at least thirty people in this city alone."

"Thirty-seven," I correct. "In this city. This year. You're missing seven because they were ruled natural causes—which, in a way, they were. **** during sex is technically natural, even when facilitated by exsanguination."

She flinches. "You're admitting it."

"Why wouldn't I? You already know. You came here knowing." I take another step. Seven feet now. "The question isn't what I am, Sophia. The question is what you're going to do about it."

Her hand emerges from her pocket. She's holding a small spray bottle—holy water, probably—and a wooden stake. Both trembling slightly in her grip.

I laugh, and the sound fills the penthouse, dark and rich. "Is that what your research suggested? Holy water and wood through the heart?"

"The research is... contradictory." She's trying to sound academic, detached. It might work if her voice wasn't shaking. "Different cultures, different rules. I'm... testing hypotheses."

"How scientific." I move again, faster this time, and suddenly I'm right in front of her. Close enough to touch. She gasps and stumbles back, raising the stake between us.

The point presses against my chest, directly over my heart. Through the silk shirt, I feel the wood's pressure. My cock throbs at the contact, at her proximity, at the delicious cocktail of her fear and fascination.

"Do it," I whisper, looking down at her. She's shorter than me by nearly a foot, has to crane her neck to meet my eyes. "Drive it in. Test your hypothesis."

Her hand shakes harder. The stake wavers.

"You can't," I continue, my voice dropping lower, more intimate. "Not because you're weak. You're not—you're extraordinary. But because you don't want to. Because part of you has been fantasizing about this moment since you started hunting me. Part of you wants to know what it's like."

"What what's like?" She's breathless now.

"Being prey." I reach up slowly, wrap my hand around hers on the stake. My skin is cold against her warmth. "Being chosen. Being consumed."

The holy water drops from her other hand, the bottle hitting the floor with a plastic clatter. Her lips part, and I can see her pulse hammering in her throat, that beautiful **** vein calling to me.

"I've been watching you too," I tell her, my other hand coming up to trace her jaw. She shudders but doesn't pull away. "I've been in your apartment, Sophia. Stood over your bed. Watched you sleep. Watched you touch yourself."

Her eyes widen. "That's not—"

"Three nights ago. You were dreaming. Your hand slipped between your legs, and you moaned. I almost woke you then. Almost took you then. But I wanted you to come to me willingly." My thumb brushes her lower lip. "And here you are."

"I came to stop you," she whispers, but there's no conviction in it.

"No." I lean closer, my lips nearly touching her ear. "You came because you're brilliant enough to find me, and brave enough to face me, and honest enough to admit that **** has always fascinated you. The darkness has always called you. Why else would you spend your life studying monsters?"

My hand slides from her jaw to her throat, fingers wrapping gently around that pulsing vein. Not squeezing. Just holding. Claiming.

"I'm going to give you a choice," I murmur against her ear. "And I want you to understand something first: I always intended to feed on you tonight. From the moment you started following me, your fate was sealed. But how it happens—whether you fight or surrender, whether you die in terror or ecstasy—that's up to you."

I pull back enough to look into her eyes. They're dark, dilated, and I can smell her arousal now, mixing with the fear. Her body knows what it wants even if her mind is still catching up.

"Choice one," I say. "You fight. You run. You try to stake me or spray me or whatever cute little protections you've brought. I'll catch you—you won't make it to the elevator. And I'll take you anyway, but it will hurt. You'll die terrified and struggling, and while that has its own appeal, it seems like a waste of your remarkable mind."

My hand tightens slightly on her throat. Her breath hitches.

"Choice two." My other hand releases hers on the stake and trails down her arm, her side, coming to rest on her hip. "You surrender. You let me show you what you've been researching, what you've been dreaming about whether you admit it or not. You let me fuck you and feed on you, and I promise you'll die feeling more pleasure than you've experienced in your entire life. You'll understand, in those final moments, why my victims smile."

I press against her, let her feel my erection against her stomach. She gasps, and her free hand—the one no longer holding the stake—comes up reflexively to my chest. Not pushing away. Just touching.

"So choose, Sophia Chen. Investigator. Hunter. Brilliant, beautiful fool who got too close to the darkness."

For a long moment, she doesn't speak. I can hear her thoughts racing, her heart pounding, her breath coming in short gasps. The stake is still between us, still pressed to my chest, but her grip has loosened.

Then, slowly, her fingers uncurl.

The stake falls to the floor.

"I choose..." Her voice is barely a whisper. "I choose to understand."

Victory surges through me, dark and intoxicating. "Say it clearly."

She meets my eyes, and I see the moment she commits. The fear is still there, but underneath it is curiosity, desire, the academic need to know combined with something more primal.

"I surrender," she says. "Show me."

I smile, and this time I don't hide my fangs. They're fully descended now, sharp and ready, and I watch her eyes widen as she sees them. Real. Undeniable. Exactly what her research suggested but her rational mind struggled to accept.

"Good girl," I purr, and then I'm kissing her.

She makes a small sound of surprise against my mouth, but then she's kissing back, her hands fisting in my shirt. I taste her—coffee and fear and want—and my hunger roars. But not yet. Not yet. I'm going to savor this.

My hands slide under her jacket, pushing it off her shoulders. She helps, shrugging out of it, never breaking the kiss. Her body is warm against mine, alive in a way I haven't been for centuries, and the contrast makes me harder. I want to feel that warmth from the inside. Want to drink her life and make it mine.

I back her toward the bedroom, my lips moving from her mouth to her jaw, her neck. She tilts her head instinctively, offering me that beautiful throat, and I groan against her skin. The vein pulses beneath my lips. So close. So easy to just bite down now and—

No. Not yet.

In the bedroom, moonlight spills across the black satin sheets. I turn her, press her against one of the bed's posts, and pull her tank top over her head. She's wearing a simple black bra underneath, and I trace the edge of it with my fingers, watching her skin pebble at my cold touch.

"You're freezing," she breathes.

"I'm dead," I correct, unhooking her bra and sliding it off. Her breasts are perfect—small, firm, nipples already hard. I palm one, roll the nipple between my fingers, and she arches into the touch with a moan. "But you're going to warm me up, aren't you?"

My mouth finds her breast, tongue circling her nipple before I suck it between my lips. She gasps, her hands tangling in my hair, and I let my fangs graze the sensitive flesh. Not breaking skin. Just a promise.

"Oh god," she whimpers.

I release her nipple and look up at her. "No god here, Sophia. Just me."

My hands move to her jeans, unbuttoning them, sliding them down her hips along with her panties. She steps out of them, and then she's naked before me, exposed in the moonlight, her body trembling with a mixture of fear and arousal that makes my mouth water.

I step back, looking at her. Taking her in. She's beautiful in her vulnerability, in her courage, in the way she's chosen this even knowing what it means.

"Your turn," she says, her voice surprisingly steady.

I smile and begin unbuttoning my shirt. Slowly. Letting her watch. When I shrug it off, I see her eyes widen at my body—the pale perfection of it, the muscles that look carved from marble. I unbutton my slacks, slide them down, and my cock springs free, thick and hard and already leaking at the tip.

Her eyes go there, and her breath catches. "You're... you can still..."

"Get hard? Fuck? Come?" I stroke myself lazily, watching her watch me. "Yes. The body remembers what it enjoyed in life. And I enjoy this very, very much."

I move back to her, pressing her against the bedpost, and my hand slides between her legs. She's wet—gloriously, beautifully wet—and I groan as my fingers slip through her folds.

"You want this," I murmur, finding her clit and circling it with my thumb. She moans, her head falling back against the post. "Your body knows even if your mind hasn't fully accepted it yet. You want to be fucked by a monster."

"Yes," she gasps as I slide two fingers inside her. "God, yes."

I finger her slowly, deeply, my thumb working her clit while my other hand wraps around her throat again. Not squeezing, just holding, reminding her that I could kill her right now if I wanted. That I'm going to kill her eventually. That she's chosen this.

She comes apart on my hand, crying out, her body clenching around my fingers as her orgasm rolls through her. I watch her face—the ecstasy there, the abandon—and my hunger sharpens to a razor's edge.

Soon.

I withdraw my fingers and lift them to my mouth, licking her arousal from them. She tastes exquisite, alive, and I want more. Need more.

I lift her easily—she weighs nothing to me—and lay her on the black satin sheets. She sprawls there, flushed and panting, and I prowl over her, settling between her legs.

My cock presses against her entrance, and I pause. Look into her eyes.

"Last chance," I tell her. "I can still let you go. Make you forget. You'll wake up in your apartment thinking this was a dream."

She reaches up, cups my face. Her hands are warm against my cold skin.

"I don't want to forget," she whispers. "I want to know. All of it."

Something in my chest tightens—something I thought died centuries ago. But I push it aside. This is what I am. What I do.

I thrust into her in one smooth stroke, and we both groan. She's tight and hot and perfect around me, her body accepting mine like it was made for this. I begin to move, slow at first, savoring the sensation of her warmth, her life, the way she gasps and moans beneath me.

"Look at me," I command, and her eyes flutter open. I want her to see me when it happens. Want her to know exactly what's taking her.

I increase my pace, fucking her harder, deeper, and she matches me, her hips rising to meet each thrust. Her hands clutch at my back, nails digging in—not that they can hurt me, but the pressure is delicious.

"Please," she gasps, though I don't think she knows what she's begging for.

I lean down, my lips brushing her throat. I can feel her pulse against my mouth, hammering wildly, calling to me. My fangs ache. My hunger is a living thing now, demanding satisfaction.

"Are you ready?" I whisper against her skin.

"Yes," she breathes. "Yes, please, I need—"

I bite.

My fangs pierce her throat, sliding into that beautiful vein, and her blood floods my mouth. Hot. Sweet. Exquisite. It's been so long since I've tasted someone like this—someone who chose it, who wanted it, who's giving herself freely instead of struggling.

She screams, but not in pain. In pleasure. Her body arches beneath me, her pussy clenching around my cock as another orgasm crashes through her. I drink deeply, thrusting harder, and the combination is overwhelming—her blood in my mouth, her body around my cock, her life flowing into me.

I feel her heartbeat in my mouth, feel it beginning to slow as I take more. Her hands are still on me, but weakening now. Her gasps becoming softer.

And still I drink. Still I fuck her. Chasing my own release, feeling it building at the base of my spine.

When I come, it's with her blood on my tongue and her dying heartbeat against my lips. I empty myself inside her, groaning against her throat, and for a moment—just a moment—I feel alive again. Warm. Human.

Then it passes.

I pull my fangs from her throat and look down at her. Her eyes are glazed, unfocused, but there's a smile on her lips. That same ecstatic smile I've seen on all my victims.

"Thank you," she whispers, barely audible. "For showing me..."

Her eyes close. Her heartbeat stutters once, twice, and then stops.

She's gone.

I stay inside her for a long moment, my cock still hard, her body still warm around me. Then slowly, reluctantly, I withdraw. I lie beside her on the black satin sheets, one hand resting on her cooling skin.

The hunger is satisfied. Both hungers. My body is sated, my belly full of her blood, my cock finally softening.

And yet.

Something feels different this time. Wrong. Incomplete.

I look at her face—peaceful now, beautiful in ****—and for the first time in three centuries, I feel something that might be regret.

She was remarkable. Brilliant. Brave. And I killed her for a few moments of pleasure and a belly full of blood.

I've done this thousands of times. It's never bothered me before.

But Sophia Chen was different. Special. And now she's just another body I'll need to dispose of, another **** that will be ruled mysterious, another victim in my endless parade of them.

I sit up, running a hand through my hair. The moonlight bathes us both—the living dead and the dead dead. A perfect gothic tableau.

My phone buzzes on the nightstand. A text from my cleanup crew, the mortals I pay handsomely to handle these situations.

*Ready when you are.*

I look at Sophia one more time. At the smile still on her lips. At the two small puncture wounds on her throat.

I could call them. Have her body removed, erased, forgotten like all the others.

Or...

An idea forms. Terrible. Impossible. I've never done it before, never wanted to. The idea of creating another like me, of sharing this curse, has always seemed pointless. Vampires are solitary creatures. We don't need companions. Don't want them.

But looking at her, I wonder.

She chose this. Chose to understand. Chose to surrender.

What if I gave her the choice to continue?

It would require my blood. Just a few drops before her heart stopped completely—which means I'm too late now. She's gone.

Unless...

I've heard stories. Old stories, from before my time. That sometimes, if the body is fresh enough, if the vampire is strong enough, it can still work. A resurrection instead of a turning. Riskier. More painful for her. But possible.

I look at my wrist. At the vein there that still carries blood—her blood now, mixed with the blood of thousands of others I've consumed over centuries.

This is insane. I don't create progeny. I don't form attachments. I kill and move on. That's what I do. What I've always done.

But she was different.

Is different.

Fuck.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I bite my own wrist, tearing the vein open. Dark blood wells up, and I press it to her lips, prying her mouth open, letting the blood drip onto her tongue.

"Come on," I mutter. "Come on, Sophia. You wanted to understand. Let me show you everything."

Nothing happens.

Of course nothing happens. She's dead. I killed her. This is ridiculous, romantic nonsense, and I'm three hundred years too old for—

She gasps.

Her eyes fly open, and they're different—darker, the pupils blown wide, hints of red at the edges. Her body convulses, arching off the bed, and she screams. The transformation is agony; I remember that much from my own turning.

I hold her down as her body writhes, as the change takes hold. As she dies and is reborn as something new. Something like me.

It takes hours. By the time the sun threatens the horizon and the automated drapes begin to close, she's finally still. Breathing—unnecessary but habitual. Her heart beating slow and strong with stolen blood.

She opens her eyes and looks at me.

They're completely red now. Vampire eyes. Predator eyes.

"What did you do?" she whispers.

"I gave you a choice," I tell her. "Again. You can hate me for it. Try to destroy yourself, destroy me. Or you can embrace what you are now. What we are."

She sits up slowly, looking down at her hands. At her pale skin. At the way the moonlight seems to illuminate her from within.

"I can feel it," she breathes. "The hunger. God, the hunger."

"I know." I reach for her, cup her face. "I'll teach you. How to hunt. How to feed. How to survive."

"Why?" She looks at me, confused and angry and terrified. "Why didn't you just let me die?"

I don't have a good answer. Don't understand it myself. So I tell her the only truth I know.

"Because you were too remarkable to waste."

She stares at me for a long moment. Then, slowly, she leans in and kisses me. Her lips are cold now, like mine. Her tongue tastes of blood—my blood.

When she pulls back, there's a smile on her face. Different from the **** smile. This one is knowing. Dangerous.

"Teach me," she says. "Teach me everything."

And as the sun rises outside our sealed penthouse, as we lie together in the darkness, I realize that for the first time in three centuries, I'm not alone.

I've created a monster.

And God help this city, because we're both starving.