Eve Langlais - Toxic

I shed my zip up sweater to reveal a skin tight tank top. I left my black yoga pants on. On occasion, I made my subordinates fight naked, because, as I liked to remind them, menace could arrive at any time and in any form. What I didn’t mention was how entertaining I found their swinging cocks. The females in my ranks used snickering as a means to throw the males off. I wondered if that tactic would work with the daemons who thus far appeared as only males.

I stretched my limbs as I sauntered towards the action. I didn’t make it to the mat when a change in the air currents made me whirl and knock a vampire aside. I grinned at Jerome after he lifted himself from the floor.

“You almost managed it,” I said with encouragement. “Keep trying and maybe one day you’ll catch me and win the prize.”

I’d challenged my soldiers a while back to sneak up on me. If they managed to take me down, I’d promised the winner a night with me. To my inner preening satisfaction, they’d been trying their damnedest to get me. And while none of them had yet succeeded, I could admit they’d gotten a lot better since we started.

My presence noted, my ranks of men and women stopped their sparring and cleared a circle for me amidst them.

“Looking good,” I encouraged them. “But, you need to practice more on working as teams. Your enemy might be bigger and stronger than you. Heck, they could be as nasty as me.”

Chuckles met my announcement. They knew I didn’t boast, but hard ass as I might be, I took care of my own, and they loved me for it.

A shift in their attention wasn’t needed for me to know Rafe approached. I’d never lost my awareness of him, a tickling radar that made me want to bang my head on the wall in incomprehension.

“This is Dr. Angelus,” I said gesturing in his direction without looking. “As most of you have heard, he’s been sent by the humans to examine us. I expect you to treat him with the utmost courtesy, in other words, please be reminded he is not to be hurt or used as a snack. And Jasmine,” I said turning to the petite vampiress who eyed Rafe with interest. “No playing with him.”

Jasmine’s full lips pouted, but given her taste for human men-she had a harem at home-I figured the extra warning was warranted. Besides, if anyone got to touch the doctor, it would be me. And only me. I never did acquire a knack for sharing.

“All right then,” I said clapping my hands. “Team up in groups of four. Let’s see how you do against me. And remember, do your best because-” I paused to smile coldly, “I’ll be doing my best to take you out.”

I saw Rafe stiffen from the corner of my eye, his mouth opening as if to protest. But I ignored him as the first squad came at me.

I spent the next few hours tossing, smacking, and in general hurting my soldiers, all the while offering a commentary on where they’d gone wrong. It worried me that even with all our training, they still couldn’t take me down in groups of four. Although, at least they now managed to land blows whereas six months ago I would have danced around them, unharmed. Of course, I did have the unfair advantage of being much more gifted than them in terms of speed and strength. But I didn’t have the centuries needed for them to grow older and more powerful. Thank goodness, these recruits, the greenest of all my soldiers, weren’t yet needed in the field.

But I dreaded their fate if called upon too soon.

Workout over, I grinned as I mopped my sweaty face and watched my soldiers limp off to the showers.

I’d almost managed to forget my silent observer. Okay, that was a total lie, but at least, I’d managed to distract myself.

“That was quite impressive,” he said as he tucked his notebook under his arm.

“Glad you enjoyed the show.”

“Can I ask why you’re training them so hard? It’s almost like you’re preparing them for something.”

Having not yet decided whether or not to let the doctor in on the secret of the world apocalypse arriving soon, I lied. “When you have an eternity to look forward to, you need something, a regime, to keep you from going mad. Since our kind tends to be attacked and persecuted by those who see our diet as monstrous instead of necessity, knowing how to defend ourselves is a skill all of my kind need to learn and it gives them something to do.”

His blue eyes narrowed behind his lenses. “Why do I get the impression, you’re not being a hundred percent truthful?”

I chuckled. “You’re being paranoid. Haven’t I cooperated fully with everything you’ve asked so far?”

I didn’t wait for his reply. I sauntered off to find my room and a shower. I looked once over my shoulder to see if he followed and stumbled as I caught Rafe staring at me with smoky eyes. A look he quickly shuttered. The man was like a robot who could turn it on or off at will. I unfortunately couldn’t. I raced away from him, suddenly hungry, a craving ache that wouldn’t dissipate no matter how many pints of blood I imbibed.

Sleep proved unattainable as I tossed and turned all day long, my body and mind restless. Just before sunset, I gave up and rose to prepare for the night. A really long shower later, I still felt like the dead. My attempt at humor with myself did nothing to improve my mood.

I breakfasted on Reginald who also doubled as my chauffeur, but as I sucked on his neck, much as I tried not to, I couldn’t help wishing I had a different neck at my mercy.

Disgruntled, I snarled at my staff, who, used to my mood swings, stayed well out of my way. An hour passed, then two, before I went looking for Rafe.

I found him-big surprise-in his lab-A.K.A, his medical torture chamber.

“Ah, there you are,” he said turning and greeting me with an absent smile. “I wondered when you’d show.”

I tried not to gnash my teeth. I’d assumed he’d come looking for me. It galled me that all this time he’d been waiting for me to cave and come to him.

Just like the previous day, he wore shapeless garments covered in a white lab coat. His blond hair was deliciously rumpled though as if he’d run his fingers through it.

“What’s on the agenda today?” I asked, perching myself on the bed.

“Some Q &A first if you don’t mind?” His eyes briefly met mine from behind his lenses.

“Ask away.”

“Garlic? Does it keep vampires away?”

I giggled. “Only if you have a sensitive nose that can’t stand it. Me, I love a little Italian flair in my blood.”

He shifted as he noted my response. “I already know you’re allergic to sunlight. What about crosses and holy water?”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “No matter what the religious institutions might want people to think, we are not evil, ungodly creatures. I can not only wear a cross without harm and gargle holy water, I can walk into a church, fuck a priest and not even sweat.” My crude claims didn’t even faze him.

“Does your kind believe in God?”

I was surprised at the intentness of his expression as he asked me this. “There is no God, not like the bible claims anyways. Although, I do have reason to believe there is a Satan.”

“How can you believe in one and not the other?”

“Let’s just say I have my sources and I have it on good authority that there is a realm out there that could aptly be named Hell, and it’s ruled by a creature whose title is Satan; I’ve never seen irrefutable proof of Heaven, however. It could exist, but in either case, I do know people’s souls don’t depart this planet for either damnation or eternal fields of sunshine.”

“What do you believe happens to the soul instead then?”

“When you die, your soul, the energy that animates a body is released to be reborn again in a new body.” Or absorbed by someone like me.

“You believe in souls, yet you don’t believe in religion.”

“Souls aren’t religious, they’re proven fact.” I frowned at him. “Why all these questions on religion? Are you like some closet fanatic who’s going to pull out a stake and scream death to the vampires?”

His lips quirked. “Just curious. I’ve noticed most humans have strong beliefs when it comes to the existence of God along with Heaven and Hell.”

Something about the way he said humans struck me as odd. But I ignored it in favor of a question that interested me more. “And what do you believe?”

“I believe in God, the one God, and I know in my heart Heaven exists.”

I laughed. “A man of science who believes in religion? How odd.”

“No odder than discovering vampires exist.”

“Touché,” I replied with a rueful grin. “On to the next question.”

“Can you turn into a bat?”

I almost fell off the bed I laughed so hard. “No,” I gasped.

“And I know you’re not a walking corpse,” he muttered scratching on his notepad.

Gee, I wonder if my having a heart beat gave that one away. I kicked my feet as I waited for him to ask his next myth related query.

“Can you turn into a mist and float through cracks?”

I grinned and shook my head. I didn’t mention I could cloak myself in shadows. Not all vampires could do it, and I reserved the right to keep certain things to myself.

“Levitation?”

“I can float above the ground for a few minutes, but if I try to go too high gravity grabs me with a vengeance.”

“What about hypnotizing people?”

I waggled my fingers at him and rounded my eyes. “Ooh, you will now cluck like a chicken.”

He tapped his pencil on his notebook. “Nice try, but I saw the press conference. I know you have some power to manipulate people.”

“Yes, yes I do. But not all my kind have the same ability. I’m a lot stronger than your average vamp and thus have more powers.”

“Can your mind control be fought?”

“Funny you should ask considering your mind keeps refusing my requests.”