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When Haze steps out of the shadows of the Cursed Apple and slinks into the hideout her and the other followers of the Amber Hand have elected to use on the night before the ritual, there are three people waiting for her.
The first is The Doorman, who, somehow, Haze knows has been watching her through the streets. She can conceal herself in the shadows, fade into the backdrop of the city with the rats and the other vermin as easily as slipping a knife into the throat of a target in their sleep. Yet, there’s a prickling on her neck – a presence, like a laser pointer stuck on her back, all through her journey through the alleyways of Manhattan.
She’s only able to place the presence when she steps through the door of the hideout and is greeted by the Doorman’s beady, unearthly yellow eyes.
“Good evening, Miss Haze. I do hope you found the hideout comfortably.”
Haze nods at him as she suppresses a shiver. “Doorman.”
“Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to make your stay for the night as pleasurable as possible.”
“No need,” Haze growls. She steps past him as he bows his head.
The second person waiting for Haze is Paige. She’s sitting in one of the far too large comforters beside the fireplace, her book still open in her lap and her glasses askew, snoring softly while draped in moonlight.
Haze waves her hand through one of the ghosts sitting on a chair next to her. The spirit dissipates in a cold chill that passes through the hideout. Paige wakes with a start.
“No,” Paige groans, with her eyes struggling to stay open. “Please don’t tell me there’s ectoplasm on my sweater…”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Haze answers.
At Haze’s voice, Paige shoots up to awareness. “Oh, Haze! You’re here!”
Paige buries her face in her book, flipping through the pages with a deftness Haze feels dutybound to respect.
“I am,” Haze nods.
“That means everyone’s finally here. Grey Talon left me a note, let me see… here!” Paige holds out what looks like a corporate memo that had been tucked securely in the margins of her tome. “We should all be ready for a strategy meeting for the confrontation tomorrow morning. The Scarlet Flame have many combatants that can stay in fights for a long-“
Haze tunes her out. OSIC’s dossiers on the enemies – and allies – Haze could face are likely far more in depth than Grey Talon’s scouting reports. Not to disrespect him, but there’s a reason the Sandmen are feared.
There’s also the fact that Paige is barely keeping awake, making the information she’s reciting more than a little muddled.
“Bookworm,” Haze interrupts, jolting Paige to awareness from her sleepy reading. “You should get some sleep.”
“But I-“
“OSIC won’t be happy if I die tomorrow because somebody was too sleepy to shield me.”
Paige looks as if she’d like to argue. Then her eyes start to droop. With a tired sigh, Paige stands.
“Sure. I guess I’ll go find some little cranny to sleep in.” Then with a widening of her eyes, Paige seems to realise who she’s speaking to. “O-or maybe I’ll just go read. Don’t want to wake up too late, or-“
“Sleep well,” Haze growls in her most threatening tone.
Paige leaps off with a squeak.
There are plenty of things Haze would change about her job if she had the chance. The reputation that comes with it – the fear and recognition of her skill? That was something she’d always elect to keep.
Haze sinks into the chair next to Paige’s, giving her a proper view of the dark skyline of the Cursed Apple through the window. There are barely any lights on at this time of night, lest the attention of one of the more unsavoury kind of monsters be attracted, giving Haze a good look over tomorrow’s battleground.
Not that she needs it. OSIC have prepared her for anything, and Haze doesn’t do failure.
There’s a tapping on the window, on the balcony just below where Haze is staring out to. Billy’s nodding off to sleep in his seat on the balcony, his horns scratching on the glass as he leans back. Haze watches as his spiked bat – only one of them, Haze assumes, because things like him are always prepared for violence – rolls off the balcony and down into the streets below.
Above Billy, Grey Talon’s green eagle circles the cursed apple from high above, blending in with the canopy of stars above them.
Haze doesn’t typically work with others. She’s an asset of OSIC, and typically, an asset loses its value if it isn’t self-sufficient. Especially in her line of work. But the ritual demanded her presence, and with that comes a team.
She supposes mass murderers and mystical nerds aren’t the worst allies she could ask for. Even if the cosmic entity masquerading as a hotel worker for kicks is a bit much. They could’ve put her with Vyper.
Though, there’s still one ally who hasn’t revealed themselves.
Haze’s eyes turn back to the shadows. She scans for anything out of the ordinary – but it’s useless.
From the dark steps Mina, her umbrella clutched tightly to her chest. She flashes Haze a smile, the tips of her fangs glinting in the light of the moon.
“You don’t know how boring Paige really is until you’ve had to sit with her for a bit.”
Haze narrows her eyes. “You sat with her?”
“At least until it felt like self-harm. For as much as my parents ruined my life, I know for a fact they’d never let me out looking like that.”
“And yet you remained.”
Mina rolls her eyes. “Well, she kept going on about how we were working with a Sandman tomorrow. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”
“Does the fuss satisfy you, vampire?”
Mina grins. She sits on the chair opposite Haze slowly, a gloved finger tracing her own fang. Her eyes roam down Haze’s body, surveying like a predator, before coming back to Haze’s eyes. “You make the tie work.”
Haze scoffs. “There’s more to one in my line of work than a tie.”
“Ugh, obviously. The tie only works because of the uniform, and the styling-“
“Are you mocking me, vampire?”
Mina leans in closer, the smile on her face only growing wider. “If I were mocking you, you’d know. All I wanted to do was get to know you.”
The third person waiting for Haze in the hideout is Mina Ha, and Haze is certain the vampire is little more than a fish treading water in an ocean filled with sharks.
“Whatever power play you’re making here isn’t going to work.”
“God, please. Don’t patronise me,” Mina rolls her eyes. “Of course it’s going to work. That doesn’t mean it’s the only thing I’m after, though. I really do want to get to know you.”
“The government pays me to kill occult individuals deemed as a threat to the United States.”
Mina’s eye twitches. “Fine. It’d be boring if this was too easy. Why don’t you tell me why your job is the only thing you want to talk to me about?”
“I love my country. My job keeps the country safe.”
Mina lets out a high and haughty laugh. “Don’t tell me you’re some idiot redneck. I really don’t want to have to do all this again with someone else.”
“I am no redneck, and I have no idea why-“
“Don’t be stupid. You know what the kind of person who talks like that looks like.”
Haze is silent for a moment. “OSIC isn’t perfect. There are many things that could be better – that doesn’t change the fact that right now they’re the best thing for us.”
Mina smiles. She stands from her seat and moves to lean over Haze. “There we go. A little ambition never hurt anyone.”
“It isn’t ambition. The world doesn’t need six different flavours of psychopath remaking the world for whatever they believe in. OSIC keeps the country I love preserved – that’s all I’m concerned about.”
“And yet here you are,” Mina giggles.
“On behalf of OSIC.”
“But when we complete the ritual and our patron is asking for a wish, it’ll just be you talking, won’t it?”
Haze glares at Mina. “What’s your point?”
“Well,” Mina twirls her umbrella, “I just think that it’s a waste for someone like you to be putting so much stock in whatever a line of walking corpses told you is best for the country when you so clearly know they’re wrong.”
Haze stands, her chest flaring with anger. “I could have a report written on you tonight. OSIC doesn’t enjoy contracting vampire hunters, but we’re willing-“
“You need me for the ritual,” Mina waves her off with little more than a narrowing of her animalistic pupils. “Why don’t we save the performance for someone who cares? You aren’t getting a bonus for this, and you and I both know damn well OSIC hates killing protected species.”
“Even pampered, blasphemous ones, looking to overthrow New York?”
Mina bares her fangs. “I have vision! Something none of those bags of dust could ever-“ Mina cuts herself off. In a breath, she composes herself. “You have no idea what I’m capable of, Haze.”
“I could have you staked in an instant if I wished. You aren’t the only one to command the shadows, vampire.”
Mina smirks. She puts a gloved palm on Haze’s chest, just above Haze’s neckline. She fiddles with Haze’s tie, running it between her fingers. Despite herself – despite the righteous anger at the prodding of an annoying, insignificant gnat – Haze lets her. There’s something hypnotic about how Mina’s fingers play with the fabric.
“Surprisingly good quality,” Mina hums. “Not as good as what I could do, but that’s a given.”
When Haze looks up, Mina is smiling at her again. The sharp end of Mina’s fang draws her eye, an alluring temptation that seems to pull at Haze’s mind indelibly, like an owner pulling on the lead of their dog.
Abruptly, Mina tugs on the tie. She holds it tight in her fist.
“I should rip your arm off,” Haze growls, glaring into red eyes.
“Foreplay never sounded so fun,” Mina stares back. She releases the tie and pushes Haze back onto the chair. Then she places a boot on the chair, next to Haze’s leg. Haze’s skin heats, even as the venom remains in her voice.
“You’re a fool who knows nothing, vampire. OSIC knows what you’re up against – you are doomed to fail.”
“The Vampire Society knows nothing about me, because I’m something they haven’t seen in hundreds of years – competent.” Mina growls. “They’re all going to beg me for mercy when I’m at the top.”
“You’re delusional.”
Mina leans down. She leers at Haze, red eyes narrowed as she scans over Haze’s body, searching, examining. “Every vampire in this city has dull fangs. I’m going to show them what a little ambition can get us.”
Haze wants to bite back at Mina and tell her just how idiotic she is. Instead, her brain locks onto something else.
“Us?”
Mina bares her fangs. “If you ever get a little ambition, I’ll be waiting upstairs.” Then she performs one of the most obvious fake yawns Haze has ever seen. “I think it’s time for me to sleep. Skin doesn’t look this good on its own, you know.”
Then Mina disappears up the stairs and into one of the dark rooms in the hideout. Haze watches her skirt bounce with every step she takes, the sway of her hips a magnet to Haze’s searching eyes.
It takes Haze a moment to realise how fast her heart is beating.
There’s a banging at the window. Haze looks over to the balcony to see Billy using the blunt end of his bat – of course he has another one on him – to pound on the window.
Haze stalks over to him and opens the window.
“So, uh, I don’t know if you noticed, but that vampire’s making crazy fuck me eyes at you-“
Haze slams the window shut on him, doing her best to cut off a finger or two.
-
Haze isn’t an idiot. She knows vampires rarely sleep. It’s the core part of that wretched curse of undeath that plagues the vampire society; their bodies don’t run on things like water and sleep anymore. Blood powers them, far more than any of the more typical human persuasion.
Haze, and all other Sandmen are taught this, and told to avoid confrontations with vampires whenever possible. A vampire may sleep to heal an injury or to pass the day along, but they’re never vulnerable, even in rest. The only time they’re truly weak is in hibernation, and even then, Haze knows not to enter one of those dreams. There are few Dreamwalkers who can leave a dream that strong on their own, and Haze isn’t willing to test herself that far. Yet.
Finding Mina isn’t difficult. The room she’d picked to ‘rest’ in is open, with an umbrella leaning against the doorframe for good measure. Haze steps into the room, uncaring of discretion or subtlety, picking up the umbrella as she goes.
Mina is lying on the bed; her arms crossed over her body and her legs straight and stiff. She’s immobile as a corpse and would easily be mistaken for one if she didn’t still wear that grin that exposed her fangs.
Haze sighs. It was one thing to enter a vampire’s dream. It was another for said vampire to be so obviously beckoning her to.
She could do it – she could walk out of the room and not turn back, spend the rest of the night preparing for the ritual and schooling her mind against any distractions. She could return to OSIC with her head held high, having used her wish for the good of the USA. It would be so easy, and she’d never have to feel any guilt for writing up the entitled vampire set on using her wish to take over New York.
But Haze has never been one for the easy road. Something about Mina is vexing her – like a persistent ex resurfacing after a long time away, drawing her in closer despite knowing the risks. Was it her words, cursing Haze with the thoughts of using her wish for herself? Was it the idea of a New York free from the clutches of the weak and fading Vampire Society? Or was it simply the feel of her tie being pulled and a boot next to her leg?
Haze isn’t an idiot. She’ll tell herself this for as long as it takes to believe it.
Haze sinks to the floor and rests Mina’s umbrella in her lap. She focuses on the fixation building in Mina’s dream – a memory of a smoky visage stalking the night, the indelible presence of a haunted dream – and then she feels the path open. Mina is letting her in.
Haze sighs again. Like twisting a knife in her back, Haze enters Mina’s mind.
-
It isn’t dark in Mina’s dream. The moon lingers over the Cursed Apple, shining uncannily bright. The streets are crowded with people – hazy visages, barely coloured in, yet undeniably they’re people. They line up through the streets, murmuring to themselves about… something. The details in dreams are never filled out, Haze knows.
High in the sky in the shadow of the moon, a swarm of bats begins to form. From her spot in the shadows, Haze is the first to see it. Eventually, the crowd turns their gaze skyward. They point, and then as the swarm turns into a veritable army of bats, they start to cheer.
The bats fly straight for Haze. There are far too many of them to count, forming a canopy that blocks out the moon, right in front of Haze’s face. She readies her dagger and one of her guns-
Then the bats fade away. In their place, Mina stands in front of Haze, her umbrella fanned out and her boots clacking against the pavement.
“So glad you could make it,” Mina grins. Like clockwork, Haze’s gaze is drawn to the curve of her fangs.
“Most wouldn’t seek out a Sandman in their dreams,” Haze growls.
“You’re plenty scary, Haze,” Mina giggles. “But for as long as you need me for the ritual tomorrow, I know I’m safe.”
After a beat, Haze holsters her weapons. “Fine.”
“Come with me. I’m going to show you what ambition gets you in this world.”
Mina doesn’t hold out a hand. Instead, she simply points her head in the direction she wants to go, and then she walks off, expecting Haze to follow.
Haze trails behind Mina in the least pathetic way she can muster. Which isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing.
Mina walks through the crowds of faceless admirers deftly, not even pausing to nod at them. She keeps her head held high, looking above the crowd despite her height.
Haze is far more used to remaining on the outskirts. For her, Mina’s presence is sorely needed, if only so she doesn’t get lost in the crowd.
The crowd only grows denser the further Mina walks. They round a corner and come to a building Haze doesn’t recognise from all her time spent in Manhattan – though she does recognise the spot.
What was once the base of New York’s Vampire Society has been taken over and erased, replaced with a pop-up store of a fashion brand. Marble pillars and gargoyles have been sanded over and painted a sleek black with a red undertone, and the once threateningly bold letters emblazoned on the building identifying it as the Vampire Society – testament to the strength and longevity of vampires, that they would take it upon themselves to step from the shadows once the rest of the supernatural was unveiled to the wider world – has been chiselled away, replaced with Nuit Rouge 7 in red lettering.
“My fashion line, in case you’ve been living under a rock,” Mina whispers to Haze. “It’s a tacky location, sure, but that just makes it more insulting to the vampires I’m replacing. God, they’d hate it.”
The crowd only blooms the closer they get to the store. But Mina doesn’t lead them to the store; she chooses instead to guide Haze away, back into the streets. The crowd becomes thinner, weaning down to faceless individuals gazing at the building from a distance.
“Your dream is for the people to love you?” Haze asks. It’s a bit of an unexpected side to her, one that seems incongruent with the Mina she’s spoken to.
“Don’t be stupid. They’re grateful to me for ridding Manhattan of the decrepit and stringing them up for all to see. When the night comes, they’ll offer themselves up for me to feed on, and I’ll have the pick of the litter. I’m sure somebody out here isn’t disgusting.”
…Haze doesn’t know why she thought any differently, even for a moment.
The streets turn into an estate, with a towering mansion sitting in the shade of a great tree dominating the landscape. Mina’s skirt bounces as she walks, her boots clacking against the pavement to a hypnotising rhythm.
Haze doesn’t think she’s ever felt like this before. It must be something with the way it had felt when her tie was gripped – or more simply, perhaps it’s the chemicals in her brain going haywire at the idea of something forbidden occurring.
Protocol, OSIC, and the rational part of her brain be damned, all Haze knows is her eyes are glued to Mina’s lower half.
The gates open on their own for Mina. She walks through the long, perfectly maintained lawn, not even sparing a glance at Haze.
She stops at the front door and turns to Haze, twirling her umbrella expectantly.
“Well?” She asks.
Haze scowls. But she gets a glimpse at Mina’s eyes – taunting, alluring – and before she knows it, she’s opening the door for Mina.
“Good,” Mina giggles.
Haze doesn’t dignify her with a response. The rational part of her brain is screaming at her to release the fixation in Mina’s mind and exit the dream; return to everything she knows-
But she’s in too deep at this point.
Mina walks through a macabre but stylish mansion, clearly influenced by magazine spreads showing off Lady Geist’s various homes.
Mina climbs up a flight of stairs, the flesh of her thighs revealed by Haze’s position beneath her a pale, milky white.
Haze doesn’t avert her eyes.
Mina walks through the halls of the mansion deftly, manipulating her umbrella to block herself from the glare of the moon. She comes to a small sitting room where, high above, Haze sees countless little bats perched on ledges.
Mina sits on a regal chair and crosses her legs. There’s another chair across from her, simpler and smaller, and Mina’s eyes fall on it, beckoning Haze.
Haze chooses to stand.
Mina shrugs. She peels her jacket off, revealing a bodice lined with crimson and black. Haze’s eyes lock onto more of her deathly pale skin and the peaks of her breasts, only barely covered by netted fabric.
Mina smirks. Haze averts her eyes.
“Perfection like this takes real effort, you know. You’re allowed to look. I insist.”
Haze looks. She wets her lips, imagines the feeling of taking Mina’s breasts in her hands – and then she berates herself for it.
Mina’s red eyes seem to shimmer in the dark. She holds out her jacket for Haze to pick up.
“I have put up with a lot to hear you out, but this-“
“Not you, Haze.”
A door behind Mina opens.
“I’m not typically a pet person,” Mina whispers, her voice tauntingly high. “But now and then I make an exception.”
Haze watches as, from the dark, a version of herself steps forward. She’s clad in all black save for her red tie and, just above it, the collar fixed around her throat, and the crimson gemstone embedded into it.
Mina’s dream version of Haze walks forward and folds the jacket over her arms.
“Report,” Mina speaks, crimson eyes never leaving Haze’s.
“The OSIC sent another Sandman to dispose of you. I found him, neutralised him, and sent him back. They’ll return, but not for a long time.” The other Haze sounds just like her, gravelly and low, like a reaper in the night.
“And the vampire hunts?”
“Those loyal to the old Viscount won’t be in hiding for much longer. I’ve found a paper trail linking their Manhattan operations with Mendoza’s old cartel.”
“The trash does tend to stick together, I suppose. Can you find them?”
“They’re likely using the same hideouts Mendoza’s old crew used. It’ll be like squishing a bug beneath my feet.”
Mina bares her fangs. “This is why I like you, pet.”
Haze feels her body shiver at the nickname. There’s a horrible part of her that can’t tell what the shiver means.
Mina waves her hand. The other Haze leaves through the door she came from, taking Mina’s jacket with her.
“This is what you dream of me being?” Haze asks through a dry throat.
Mina hums. “If I could get your measurements, I’m sure I could improve the uniform. The collar’s staying, though.”
Haze can’t bare to look into crimson eyes for another moment.
“How long have you been planning this? Trying to manipulate me?”
Mina smirks. “Sucking up to the Viscount is like, the only thing I’ve done for the past few months. The Vampire Society may be old and destined for a burial, but they’ve got a lot of information. You’re the best of the best, and you don’t mind getting your hands dirty.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“I’m a visionary. The world is bleeding, and someone like me knows exactly what to do with that. Manhattan looks good in red, don’t you think?”
“You’re a petty child who can’t even conceive of the fact she’s out of her depth. OSIC aren’t the only things keeping this country in check – there’s a hellstorm of entities waiting to crush Manhattan with power you can’t even fathom.”
Mina’s eyes turn dark for only a moment. She uncrosses and crosses her legs over.
“There’s nobody who can stand against me. Not after I summon the patron. And especially not with someone like you in my corner.”
“Why would I ever work with you?” Haze scowls.
Mina stands from her chair, exposing herself fully to Haze’s wandering eyes. For a moment, she catches on an unhealed wound on the back of Mina’s neck – two puncture marks, and likely where Mina had been turned.
“OSIC has been running this place for 50 years. In the shadows, the Vampire Society has been there even longer. Where did their leadership get us?”
Haze narrows her eyes. “Safety.”
“Twelve degenerate psychopaths fighting to summon a god for untold power is safety to you?”
“OSIC has it handled.”
“And you’re so confident in them that you followed me into a dream.”
Haze is silent.
“Do me a favour, Haze. Save that wish for yourself. We’re going to butcher them tomorrow, but if I see you waste a once in a lifetime opportunity for the fucking government, I’ll kill you myself.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
“Oh, you’re going to see plenty.” Mina bares her fangs and stretches out her arms. Haze tries to avert her eyes, but the gravity in Mina’s body doesn’t let her. “No Fairfax name, no OSIC. We’ll rid the world of them all, until the only thing left is blood – enough to feast on for eternity.”
There’s a tense silence that falls, and behind it, a war in Haze’s mind. She ponders safety, vampires, and a world free from the OSIC and the Fairfax name in equal part.
Ultimately, Haze’s eyes drop down to Mina’s pale skin, just above her breasts.
Desire rears its ugly head. It spreads through Haze’s body like a virus, wrapping her in rope that smells of blood. Resistance is pointless, Haze knows.
“If I save that wish for myself,” Haze broaches carefully. “What would you do?”
Mina laughs haughtily – like a predator having caught their prey. “I’d start designing a collar for you, pet.”
-
God forgive me, Haze thinks, when her and Mina are free of the dream. Let nobody from the OSIC find out about this.
Mina sits up on the bed, the twinkle in her eyes more than a little sinister. “I have such big plans for us, Haze.”
“Don’t-“ Haze coughs. “Save it for after the ritual.”
“Why would I do that?” Mina scoffs. “There are so many outfits you could pull off. If you just let me take your measurements-“
“Stay away from me, vampire,” Haze growls.
Mina rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t get cold feet on me now, pet. You’re-“
The name sends a shockwave through Haze’s veins. “I’m no pet.”
“You are, and that’s perfectly fine! Difference is, now your leash is being held by somebody with a brain. OSIC had no idea what to do with you, but I’m different. I’m better than them all.”
Haze’s brain swirls, trapped in a maelstrom of indecision and regret, impulse and desire.
When she opens her eyes, Mina is leering down at her, a heady look dominating her eyes.
“You’re a wretch,” Haze chokes out.
Mina tsks. “The attitude could use a little improvement, but that’s fine. We’ve got all the time in the world. Now, pay attention, pet.”
Mina’s finger caresses Haze’s chin. “What are you-“
“Shut up. We’re going to spend the rest of the night fucking, because for an assassin, you can be very indiscreet.”
Haze’s eyes bulge in her skull. The rational part of her brain wants to protest – but it’s drowned out by the fire burning through the rest of her body, compelling her to wipe away Mina’s self-satisfied smirk with her own hands.
“Forget all those idiotic little doubts and regrets and relax. God knows you probably need it,” Mina continues. “Then, we’re going to complete the ritual in the morning. When we’re done, you’re coming with me to the Vampire Society. We’re going to clean that place free of the filth, and then Manhattan will be mine. Nobody is going to stop us.”
She says it all so matter of fact, so confidently, that Haze wants to believe. Even when she knows dreams rarely go so simply. Even when she knows that Mina’s plans are doomed to fail, that the world is begging for another egotistical socialite to tear down and burn.
Desire clouds her mind, renders her brain useless in the intoxicating scent of blood and expensive perfume emanating from Mina’s body.
“I don’t bottom,” is all Haze can growl out.
Mina smirks. “That’s fine. We both know who’s in charge anyway.”
Haze swallows her fears, her doubts, the idea that she could be throwing her life and career away for a dream and a crimson gemstone-embedded collar.
She wants to surge forward, rip Mina’s delicately assembled ensemble apart, make her feel anything that Haze is feeling – but then there’s a knock at the door.
“Oh, that’ll be the help,” Mina says.
“Miss Ha,” The Doorman bows his head when the door opens. “The candles you requested.”
“Finally,” Mina takes the offered candles from him and sets them on the dresser in the corner of the room. “We aren’t animals,” she whispers to Haze with a wink.
“Will that be all?” Doorman asks.
Mina dismisses him with a wave of her hand. “Yes, now get out. And keep the rest of the rabble away from here for the night.”
Doorman dips his head. “Very well. Miss Haze, if I may?”
Haze ignores the squeezing feeling of humiliation, like a vice around her ribcage. She meets his eyes, undaunted.
“Discretion is, and has always been, my most valued asset. Please rest assured that the OSIC won’t find out about any arrangements you’ve made until after the ritual is done.”
Haze opens her mouth. When the words don’t come, she closes it. She gives him a nod.
“Enjoy your stay,” he chuckles as he closes the door.
“God, I hate that thing,” Mina shakes her head.
“Mina,” Haze tries. The indecision about… everything must show in her tone, because Mina’s eyes turn harsh.
“Oh, quit it with the theatrics. Time to decide, pet. You’re a pair of guns and a dagger for me or for your precious little government, but only one of them is letting you fuck her tonight. It’s up to you, pet. Let the world rot away with the rest of the old, or put your faith in some new blood?”
Despite everything running through her brain, despite the doubts and the fear, Haze still stands and pushes Mina down onto the bed. If she fixates hard enough, blocks out every rational part of herself screaming, the only thing she can see is Mina, and the smug look in her eyes.
That heady desire overwhelms Haze, renders her nothing but a puppet with her strings held taut.
“Bold little pet, aren’t you?” Mina giggles lightly, her hair framing her primly on the bedsheets below. “I’ll permit this as long as you remember your place.”
Haze runs her hand over the vein in Mina’s neck. It never beats or even twitches, her cold skin reminding Haze of a long dead corpse.
Then Mina bares her fangs. She reaches up and pulls Haze down, burying her head in Haze’s neck and letting the sharp end of a fang trace Haze’s skin. All Haze feels is warmth; all-encompassing, like wildfire burning through her veins.
Mina falls back against the bed. She opens her mouth, the look in her eyes teasing-
“Shut up,” Haze growls, stopping Mina before she can even start.
Then Haze is on her, ripping Mina’s dress apart and biting at her with hungry lips, her mind drowning in an ocean of desire, unable to think of anything beyond pale flesh and crimson eyes beneath her, the scent of blood and fancy perfume drowning out everything else in the night.