With my fangs positioned directly over the human's humming artery, I am about to clamp down on the tender flesh of her neck right here in the middle of this bookstore and spill the blood that is begging me to take it when another human rounds the corner. It isn't just one human either. It's three—three adolescent female humans with their gazes on me as I have a girl pressed up against one of the bookshelves in the fantasy section.

The only way to silence the hungry growl of protest that wants to rip from my throat is to keep my mouth busy. I redirect the situation to the only plausible explanation that won't cause suspicion in a human's world.

Instead of sinking my fangs in, I let my body go slack and take the mother-loving frustration I'm experiencing out on her neck in a heated kiss. I can't afford to slow down or pause. If my lips stop for a moment, it will all be over. There isn't a force strong enough to stop me from demolishing this human with cinnamon spiced blood that is before me.

I grow restless as I nip, suck, and scrape my teeth against the flesh covering the artery I am beyond ready to tear into. The hyper annoying teenage humans squeal and burst out in hushed whispers they think I can't hear.

They need to hurry and leave. It is getting harder to keep this charade up.

Things take a dangerous turn when my taste buds detect the faintest hint of the red life force that flows through this human's veins. I become frantic as I try to lap up every trace of the substance driving me past the point of recklessness. I'm so desperate to have whatever I can get that I don't balk at sealing my mouth over the human's in my quest for the only blood I can harvest with an audience standing several feet away. I don't even give a damn about the fact this blood came from her nose.

If someone asked me to cut off my arm as payment, I would. My arm can grow back. This blood can't. It can only be ingested once it has been set free.

I become absorbed by the images that flood my mind, images of liquid fire tunneling through my veins toward my still heart. The intense temperature burns me from the inside out.

Heat pours into the chambers of my heart, the sensation a mixture of pain and pleasure that causes a groan to rumble in the rear of my throat. As the heat intensifies, so does my desire to devour this human. The pressure building tightens around my chest. The feeling extends downward when my chest can't get any tighter.

I can feel the human's erratic beating heart beneath my lips, yet I can also feel it in every part of me. I tear my mouth away from the human's when something inside of me is about to snap.

The human's mouth is raw, swollen, and bruised; my feverish and demanding attempt to make every morsel of blood that escaped more than her frailties could bear. Her body is still locked in fright, yet the tremble in her grows to monstrous proportions. She realizes it at the same time that I do. My fang caught the skin of her lip when I pulled away and ripped it open.

She shoves against me, her weak human constitution unable to move me. Clouds of frozen breath puff out, the warmth of her humanity being taken over by the icy energy that surrounds the dark soul I harbor.

Like a newborn seeking light, she squeezes out from between the bookshelf and me. I could have kept her from doing so, but I honestly don't want to.

I just kissed a human. The thought rolls in my stomach with a queasiness of disgust that lingers on my tongue.

The giggling teen humans bring my attention back to where it matters most. The human I am supposed to be ending is getting away.

I'm about to pursue when I'm stopped by the sound of my name.

"Tristan, are you in here?" Serena calls to me from the doorway of the bookstore.

I watch the human collide into my sister. She mutters an apology then dashes out into the bright light of day.

And then it happens, that click that every predator gets when it's prey tries to flee.

"Tristan!" Serena hollers as I slip past her without acknowledging her presence.

Go ahead, human, try to run but there is only one way this day is going to end for you.

"Tristan!" My other sister catches my arm, the loudness of her voice causing the human's head to turn back from her place in the crowd.

"What?" I snap at Sabrina, all ability to keep my tone remotely passable as human stripped from me. I am in full predator mode. She and Serena could not have worse timing.

"Don't you snap at me, mister. We have been searching the city everywhere for you."

"Whatever it is that sent you looking for me can wait."

"No, it can't. They are already here." Sabrina grabs my arm again, halting me from going after the human who is waiting anxiously for the bus that is a block away.

"It won't matter who is here if I don't finish this." I pull my arm away and am gone before my sister has a chance to delay me further.

"Tristan!" Sabrina shouts after me.

The human abandons the bus stop when she spots me heading toward her. If there weren't so many people around, I would already be beside her. One of the drawbacks to a tourist town, though I do find San Diego more tolerable than LA.

Scared, the human dashes out into the busy road. Cars screech against the pavement, horns blasting in impatient wails while several people yell obscenities and for her to get out of the way. A car almost clips the human before she makes it to the other side.

She doesn't look back to see if I am following. She darts into the nearest store with people in it. Not a bad plan, but a coffee shop isn't a store that offers much safety. People are usually too busy on their mobile devices to notice much else.

The doorbell chimes when I step over the threshold, the bombarding smells of coffee, herbal teas, and whatever other concoctions these humans are addicted to pungent to my senses. All color drains from the human's complexion as she sees me. She seems surprised to see me like she expected me to have already evaporated.

"Next?" The barista calls out. The human doesn't move a muscle.

"You going to order something or what?" The barista asks.

"Um, I..." The human glances over at me as I take a seat at the table closest to the door. She will have to get past me if she wishes to leave.

"Look, if you don't know what you want, step to the side. There is a line of customers behind you waiting to be served." The barista with pinked dyed hair huffs in annoyance.

"I'm sorry." The human steps to the side, but she doesn't stop there. She heads toward the bathrooms. The unmistakable sound of a sob caught in her windpipe.

I head after her, my mind already fictionalizing headlines of, young girl found dead in a local coffee shop bathroom, butchered to death by an unknown killer while others sip on their lattes only twelve feet away.

That might be a headline scandalous enough to convince some humans to pick up a copy of their local paper. Look at that. I could help the struggling economy of printed journalism with one well-placed bite. And, by well placed, I mean a bite that will tear the front of her neck wide open.

"Angela?" The human's voice sounds from the other side of the bathroom door. I can't go in yet because I can hear another human in there washing their hands.

Judging by the way the human I'm after's voice bounced off metal, and the faint, unfamiliar voice filtering through a phone, I bet she locked herself in a bathroom stall. The question is, who did she call?

"It's happening again. I don't think this new medication is working...I...I'm seeing things. Like, I mean, really seeing them. I can't go through this again." The pitiful distress in her voice comes in more like the screams of a rabbit that knows it is about to be caught by a wolf. That sound alone is enough to make any predator in the vicinity come running.

Too bad for her there is just me.

Of all the Vampires out there, I am not the one whose attention you want to be catching. I tend to indulge more often than my kind should. I can't help it. When I have been around to witness the days whole towns were bathed in blood, it's hard to abide by these new "encouragements" my kind are asked to follow.

"No. You don't understand. It's worse. How am I supposed to breathe deeply when I'm seeing things that aren't real!" The human shouts, agitation and fear making her words shake on their way out. "I know that the neighbor confessed. I know that you keep saying my mind made the demon up because it couldn't process what it saw, but the nightmares haven't changed. It's still the demon's face I see, not the face of my neighbor. The thing is he's different. He doesn't look the same, but I know it's him. How do you explain that? Why would my mind give the demon another face if he wasn't real to begin with?"

The bathroom door opens. The human who must have been washing her hands walks out. I take my chance and slip in before the door can shut.

Click. I turn the lock.

Sorry, humans, this bathroom is officially out of order.

"What do you mean, did someone else see him? I don't know. That isn't something you notice when you are staring a creature from hell in the face," the human continues her conversation with a person I am starting to think is her therapist based on the gentle tones and phrases the party on the other end of the line is using.

"Oh, God." There is a long pause, one the human's heartbeat begins to saturate as it quickens. "He followed me...He-he's in the bathroom." Her words fall from her like a fractured whisper that shatters upon impact with the air.

"Tell me this isn't real?" she pleads, backing away from the door where she can see men's shoes on the other side. "Tell me I am seeing things, Angela?"

"Is anyone else in the bathroom besides him?" I hear her therapist ask through the phone.

"No. No one else is in here but us."

"I want you to close your eyes, take a deep breath, clear your mind, and count to ten. I promise you, when you get to ten, he will be gone. I will stay on the line with you. We will count together, okay?"

Yep, this human is absolutely on the phone with her therapist. Only a shrink would advise a person to take deep breaths and count to ten as an effective means of solving a problem.

"Okay. I'll close my eyes."

"Are your eyes closed?"

"Yes," the human answers, her voice splitting with heightened nerves.

"Now, clear your mind. Don't think about that night, what you think you saw or what you think you see now. Go to a blank space. A place where there isn't anything but warmth and light," her therapist says, trying her best to soothe the client she thinks is on the verge of a complete psychotic break.

"I'm in the blank space." The human's voice trembles, revealing she is anything but in that blank space of "warmth" and "light". She can't get there because she can feel the darkness and cold that surrounds me, yet for the sake of her mental health, she tries.

"Here we go, count with me. One. Two. Three." The therapist starts them off.

"Four. Five. Six." The human begins to count along, her quivering voice sending shivers throughout me.

I love the sound of petrified prey. It is a sound I don't get to hear as often as I would like.

"Seven. Eight." The human's voice squeaks, her body shaking in tremors so hard she has to grip the phone tighter to keep it to her ear.

"Nine." is followed by a sharp intake of air before...

"Ten."

The last number comes out so unsteady it is arguable whether or not if it should count.

The human opens her eyes.

"Boo." I slam her against one of the walls of the bathroom stall before she has a chance to scream.

Sometimes I amaze myself. It was no easy feat getting in here without making a single sound. I had to time it just right.

What can I say? I have a soft spot for the dramatics.

"Kinley...Kinley? Are you there?" Her therapist's voice comes through the phone that is now on the tiled floor next to the toilet. I crush it beneath my heel, careful to keep my hand clamped around the human's mouth.

"It looks like you picked the wrong bookstore, Kinley."

I don't bother wrapping my voice in fake emotions. I let my bloodlust seep through, allowing her to hear the darkest part of me.

Her eyes widen.

Surprisingly, she doesn't try to pull away or fight back. It's as if my voice encased her in a thick sheet of ice. Her heart keeps moving though, each lud-dub it beats sending a twinge of hunger down into my already sensitive fangs.

Bloody angel, she smells good. I nuzzle my nose against her neck, bathing my senses with that cinnamon spiced blood of hers. I don't know if it's because this human knows what I am or if it's the fact I know her life will be over in a few short minutes. Whatever the case, I feel the need to make the most of our time together.

"Are you a virgin, human?" I lift my face from her neck, rubbing my thumb over the mark I left on her in the bookstore where I sucked a little too hard. Any longer and those specks of red I brought to the surface would have broken through her skin.

I don't need to remove my hand from the human's mouth to know the answer. I can tell by the way my question momentarily stole the breath from her the answer is yes. This would explain some of the potency of her blood.

"I realize how this must sound, a vampire yearning after the blood of a virgin. But, you see, virgin blood has a special place among my kind. It is one of the elements of the Blood Sacrifice that must be made if my kind wishes to have offspring. Do you want to know how many we sacrifice so that one of our kind can be brought into this world?" I lean in closer, letting my lips graze the outer rim of her ear.

"Seven." I nip the human's ear gently. Okay, maybe not so gently as she yelps in pain beneath my hand.

"Do you want to know what the other element of the blood sacrifice entails?" The human tries to shake her head no, but the pressure I am exerting over her face won't allow for movement of any kind.

"It's the firstborn," I continue. "The firstborn must be sacrificed. If this deed is not met, the bloodline of that family will be eternally frozen. But that isn't why I am bringing all this up. I'm bringing this up because I want you to know that my parents are the only ones who have ever been exempt from the blood sacrifice. Do you know why that is?" I press my body closer to the humans, smothering her with the weight of mine.

"It's because they never had to—I did it for them. I consumed my own flesh and blood when I was still in the womb. Almost killed my mother too. So you see, human, whatever vampire you met before, I can assure you I am much worse. It's time to say our goodbyes. I'd say it was a pleasure meeting you, but the only pleasure to be had from our meeting is when your lifeless body is in a bloody heap at my feet."

I stretch my mouth over the front of the human's throat. This is going to have to be messy if I want it to be believable that a human did this, a very sick, twisted human. They will try to call him the butcher or a jack-the-ripper copycat.

Either works for me.

The points of my fangs are about to puncture her skin when a splat lands on my cheek. My nostrils flare, the instant burning in my throat a sign that the warm substance that hit my cheek is most likely blood.

Her blood hits my cheek again, and again. The constant drip pulls my mouth away from her neck. I become magnetized to the freely flowing scarlet escaping from beneath the hand I still have clamped over the human's mouth.

I'm not sure what it is but, for whatever reason, I remove my hand so I can see all that precious red covering her face.

The blood is coming from her torn lip, the gash in it bigger now as I must have pulled it open with the way I was covering her mouth. It's mesmerizing watching the red drip, drip, drip, down her chin and run the length of my forearm.

Her blood snakes around the curve of my arm, twisting as it follows the contours of my sculpted muscles.

The sound of splattering liquid permeates the tiled space I share with the human. I look down to see copious amounts of blood spattered on the floor and my shoes. Funny thing is the blood isn't the human's—it's mine.

I raise my hand in disbelief, touching the distinctive texture of wood.

Did this human just stab me in the neck with a...pencil?

I pull the object from my neck, my fingers running over the eraser end of a number two pencil. Unfortunately, my attention gets drawn to the sting in my chest. The human's hand is wrapped around yet another yellow wooden writing utensil as she tries to drive it deeper toward the place she estimates my heart to lie.

When the pencil snaps, unable to penetrate my steel chest more than a half-inch, the human lets go of it and screams as I still have one of my arms barred across her sternum.

This is the part where I rip her vocal cords out to silence her. I don't. Instead, I slap a hand over her mouth even though I was more than ready to kill her five seconds ago. I don't know why I don't just kill her. Maybe it is because having a human try to kill me with a pencil is the most amusing thing that has happened to me in three decades.

Whatever my reason there is a knock at the door to the bathroom that I must deal with thanks to the human's cry for help.

"Is everything all right?" A man asks, the jingle of keys being flipped through audible through the door.

I bet someone needed to use the facilities. They must have gone to get the manager when they heard a scream.

Just when you need a human to mind their own business they go and do the exact opposite.

The female human's pupils dilate in terror with the sound of the door unlocking. I have two choices before me. The first is I can kill whoever is coming in here, which will undoubtedly cause a scene, and then I won't be able to savor every last drop of the human's cinnamon blood as I will be rushed. Or I can go with the second option, which involves me leaving so quickly that all the store manager will feel is a brisk current of air.

I guess I am going to have to let the human's virgin blood age like wine does for at least another day. The thought of a micro-drop going to waste is not something the ravenous part of me is willing to sacrifice. I want it all, her every last drop.

I lick the human's face clean up from the bottom of her chin to the tip of her nose, a parting taste that will have to tide me over until we meet again.

She shutters from the icy words I whisper in her ear, words she cannot understand. I repeat them, this time in her native tongue.

"I will have your blood before the half-moon rises."

With blinding speed, I leave. The half-moon rises in three days. I wager it will only be one before her cinnamon blood is flowing through these veins of mine instead of hers.