Pretty Bloody - K.A Knight
Also By K.A Knight
“We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language.”
Joyce Carol Oates
Sitting bolt upright, my eyes fly open, adjusting to the utter darkness surrounding me. I reach out to either side with my hands, feeling along the wood around me, but pull my fingers back with a frown. Really, a coffin? How cliché. Rolling my eyes, I lie back, getting comfortable. I can feel the pressing weight of the earth encompassing me, so they clearly buried me deeply, never wanting anyone to find me. You sleep and feed on one little priest’s wife and you end up in a coffin. Really, she begged me to, so you can’t blame me for simply granting the woman’s wishes. If anything was going to get me killed or buried, I figured it would have been by the queen’s orders or the blood orgies I held. Ever since I left my brothers’ sides, I have carved a blood-filled path across the world, searching for something...something I can feel just out of reach every time. Maybe I’ve finally gone crazy, the years crushing my mind, because there can’t be anything out there for me...just endless years spent alone. Maybe I should go and find one of my brothers, not that they would want me to, but it has to be better than this debilitating loneliness. Either way, I need to get out of this coffin first.
Closing my eyes again, I stretch out my senses, looking for signs of life. Ignoring the bushes, trees, plants, and animals above ground that ping on my radar, I spread the net wider. There must be someone out there who can help me. I refuse to spend years down here in a coffin. It would serve me right, but I need to be above ground, I need to find whatever this...thing is that has been calling to me these past twenty years or so.
There!
On the edge of my net, I sense a pulse of something alive—something strong as well, really strong. Not human, that is for sure, but it doesn’t matter. Everyone can be bribed, even our kind. It has to be one of my brethren’s lines. If it was mine, I would sense it straightaway, but I’m betting wolf. Those bastards breed like bunnies. Howling at the moon and fucking in fur, no thank you. I’ll take a suite with a bottle of their finest wine and a hot woman any day.
A sardonic smile curls my lips as I cast out my mind, reaching for the stranger, and pushing past their natural mind defences until I sink inside, free to explore and play, even wipe them out if I wanted to.
Hello? I push the thought, whispering it softly through their head so as not to startle them. It wouldn’t do me any good if they tried to shut their mind to me and I had to force it open again, it makes people less compliant.
I sense the person’s panic and confusion as they whirl from side to side, thinking I’m speaking to them in person. I get a sense of long red hair…a woman. Interesting. Instantly, I turn on the charm, knowing she will be helpless to resist me, none ever can.
“I am afraid I’m not there in person, love, but I would very much like to be and that is where you come in. What will it take for you to come and dig me free? You can have anything—money, status, death. Take your pick, beautiful.”
I wait in the background of the woman’s thoughts, trying not to intrude as she thinks over my offer. She isn’t as shocked by my talking internally as someone should be, so I am guessing it has happened to her before…why does that thought annoy me? Maybe I’ve spent too long in isolation.
You’re a nightwalker? Her soft, silky voice floats into my head, wrapping me in satin sheets and warm bodies. Fuck, even my cock goes rock-hard. Definitely too long in isolation if a mere thought from a woman can send me into such a fit.
Yes, love, how did you know?
I find myself curious, what is she? How could she sense what I am?
A woman has to have some surprises. I’ll set you free, but I do want something.
Anything, I promise, my voice husky, even in my head as my fangs drop with a throb, aching to be buried in this woman’s throat or thigh, I’m not picky. I bet she would taste delicious.
I need you to find someone for