The Highest Stakes

Julian looked to his side and smirked at Tyler. "Consider this the easiest part of your training here, Bübchen," he quipped. "Killing an unarmed, incredibly stupid human."

He stepped forward and bent down, then scooped the human up with one hand on his neck. He dangled above the ground, completely at Julian's mercy, his hands fighting against the leader's firm grip on his throat. He sneered at the human. "You do not scare me, child. None of you do. Why? Because I can crush you. I will crush you, along with any other human who thinks he can take me. You say your people are coming? Let them come. I'll redecorate this place with their fucking insides." His grip tightened, and the human's face went from red to white, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, nothing but strangled noises escaping his throat.

Julian brought the human closer until his lips were at his neck, his fangs elongated and ready for a bite. "Fuck with my people? I'll annihilate yours."

Without further ado, he released his grip on the human's neck only to replace his hand with his mouth, and sank his fangs deep into his throat. He drank way past his fill, drank until the human grew weak, and then the fingers of both hands were back around the man's throat, squeezing and wrenching, twisting, until the last drop of blood had been drained and the man's head was no longer connected to his body.

The head dropped to the ground first with a sickening thud, and Julian let the body fall along with it. He stepped back and wiped away the blood trailing from his mouth with the back of his hand, licking his lips of the last drop.

He grinned at Abel. "I needed that." He motioned toward the other vampires and pointed to the mutilated body at his feet. "Burn the body. Send the head back to the humans and attach a note. Something along the lines of, thanks for the free dinner."

Tyler watches, trying to hide his shock, when the human lays there dead. Part of him liked it, liked watching it and wanted to join in. It's that, what makes him feel scared. He didn't really know what to say, as he walks off.

He goes into his room and shuts the door, leaning against it. Trying to move on, accept what he is, it's easier said than done. The thought of staying here, he wasn't sure. Though the human deserved it...Tyler didn't know what to think.

Julian laced up his combat boots and rolled down the legs of his pants, then stood and slung the duffel bag of training tools over his shoulder. Kira lay across the bed watching him, bare but for the velvet-toned silk sheets that blanketed her lower half.

"Starting early on the training, are we?" she asked. "The look on his face last night..."

"Last night, exactly," Julian replied, setting his gray gaze on her. "There was disgust there, yes, but also lust. He's just like every newborn. He wants it, yet it terrifies him. I'm going to set that part of him straight."

Kira smirked. "Didn't take you long to come around."

Julian scoffed. "Before every woman is a very whipped man. To be honest, I see potential in the boy."

Kira lay back against the bed and closed her eyes. "Off you go then, babe. Before I crack my whip."

Julian moved forward and knelt next to her amidst the sea of sheets. He ducked his head down and darted his tongue out to tease her left nipple, his mouth capturing one supple breast and giving it a nip between his teeth. "That had better be a promise, sweetheart," he snarled against the warmth of her skin, and he laughed when Kira opened one eye narrowed it at him as he leaned above her.

"I always keep my promises," she whispered, and as quickly as the passion had come, she rested her head back against the pillows and shoved him away. "Now, go make a lion out of a kitten."

---

Julian stopped when he was mere inches away from the door to the training room. Not a sound was to be heard. Either the boy was getting excellent in his stealth routine or he just wasn't there, period. Julian was betting on the latter.

He dropped his duffel bag on the ground and caught Ivan as he was walking past.

"Have you seen the boy?"

Ivan shook his head. "No. Haven't seen him since last night's festivities." A slow grin spread across his face at the mention of it. "Actually, I heard him moving around a little after sundown. Figured he'd gotten up early for a snack. You know the little ones are the most ravenous."

Julian scowled. Of course. As soon as they took the child off of their watch, he escaped. Ivan's smile turned to disbelief in a matter of seconds. "Shit, Julian. You think the little shit took off?"

Instead of answering, Julian turned to see Kira standing in the hallway, her arms crossed. "He's fucking gone," she spat.

Julian glared back at her. "He's your goddamn project. You bring him back."

Kira's anger was as palpable as ever. She'd put her trust into Tyler and he'd split. As much as Julian understood, he couldn't help but place the blame on her for taking such a risk to begin with. He knew she felt it, too. "Dead or alive?" she seethed.

"Use your best judgment," he bit back. "That's done you pretty well lately."

The anger in her eyes turned to fury, but she said not a word. He was right. He knew he was right. It was why he was the fucking leader and she was, at best, second in command. He stood and watched as she spun on her heel and took off to track down Tyler.

Tyler left and had no intention on coming back. He could do this himself, all Julian saw was a soldier anyways. He never wanted him there in the first place and he also did not want to become someone who enjoys killing people.

He gets a room at a fabulous hotel, compelled of course and he spends his days there. He keeps the curtains shut during the day and at night, he goes out to get some blood from the hospital. He manages to get it.

For the next couple of days, he is successful. He drinks the blood bags and spends his evenings alone. It didn't take long for him to want some company, he went to a couple clubs and met a woman, he brought her back to his hotel and they spent the whole night together.

The next morning, Tyler was spread out on the bed and suddenly awoken when the woman opens the curtains. Tyler's skin starts to burn and he quickly closes them shut, the woman seeing this screams and heads to leave.

Tyler catches her, anger taking over him and he grabs her so roughly that he manages to break her spine and she dies. Just like that. He lets the body drop and looks at it, completely in shock at his strength and what he just did.

Kira should have known Tyler wouldn't last a week. To think she'd been spending her time before all this tracking down the waste of space bitch who'd turned him, and he'd gone and left as if they hadn't done anything of service to him. As if they hadn't taught him more than he could ever learn on his own.

Not but a few nights away of solitude, and that was all it took for him to kill a girl. She'd watched him carry her out in the dead of night, her lifeless body hanging limp in his arms, and followed him as he took her to a secluded area in a patch of grassland in Heidelberg. He'd dug her a grave, wrapped her body in a crisp white sheet, and set her down gently, almost lovingly, only letting go when the earth had swallowed her whole. She'd stared on as he ran a hand over his face, his shoulders slumped and his stance defeated, and quietly went about filling in her grave.

She'd looked away, her anger drifting away and morphing into that of profound momentary sadness, and left him be. He didn't need her fury that night. He had more than enough for himself in spades.

Three days had passed since that night. She was staying in a hotel herself, one not far from his, and every once in a while she'd come around to check in. He didn't leave often. He'd made trips to the hospital, he'd gone to pick up necessities, and surprisingly, the occasional one night stand. He didn't kill them. He enjoyed them for the night, took his fill of blood but never too much, he took care of their fares back to where they'd come from, and he sat alone on his bed after their parting, his eyes no longer light but dismal. Perhaps Tyler's pride kept him from admitting it even to himself, but it was clear that he wasn't going to make it alone, and Kira clearly wasn't going to let him.

Like clockwork, he ran out of blood and set out for another trip to the hospital. Kira easily persuaded the hotel staff to let her into his room and shut the door behind her, and then she simply sat in wait.

Not half an hour later, she heard his card sliding through the door and sat up at the edge of his bed, her arms outstretched behind her, her legs crossed as if she hadn't a care in the world. He didn't even see her there.

"Touching eulogy you gave the girl," she murmured, startling him where he stood, a stack of blood bags tumbling from his hands onto the floor. He met her gaze and she scowled in return. "How is solitary treating you?"

Tyler looks at her, "Big surprise you came looking for me...,why do you care? And yes, I do like being alone."

He picks up his blood and stashes it in his hiding spot, taking one and drinks it.

Kira leaned back on the bed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Well, since you've begun this quest, I've seen you compel anyone you see fit, expose yourself to a girl and kill her and steal your blood supply from the exact same hospital every time. In other words, you're asking to get caught. My job is to bring you back before you do something even more stupid."

Tyler looks at her, "Then teach me how to do this...you haven't. What am I supposed to do? Live in your mansion for the rest of my existence, listening to the extremely loud sex you have every night? I have had a few..hiccups but this is not me, I was a normal guy. I am not some macho egotistical, have to state this is my woman kind of guy either."

He finishes the blood and takes a seat in a chair, looks at her.

Kira rolled her eyes. "You don't have to be. Christ, you're like a defiant, spoiled teenager."

She stood and picked up the blood bag. "You don't have to settle for this, but you need to be smart about it. We have donors back home who'll gladly offer you their blood. You don't have to go out and risk getting tracked by the humans. What you did by running was not only reckless but selfish for your entire race. And for what? You couldn't take seeing a man killed before your eyes?"

She took a step closer and threw the bag down by her feet. "This is war, Tyler. You must never forget that."

Tyler looks at her, "Act like a teenager...that's because I am only 23!" He starts to say but then hears the rest of what she says. "This is not my war..., I am not a part of this. Fuck!"

He snaps, tossing a lamp at the wall. "You tell me what I should be doing with my existence, I will just bow down to your every command."

Kira stepped forward, sidestepping the broken pieces of porcelain scattered across the hotel carpet, until she reached Tyler. His eyes bored into hers, desperate for something, any word or assurance to make it all seem okay. She had nothing.

"This is not a power play, Tyler," she whispered. "This is survival. You can try to make it alone out here and fail, or you can be with us. We protect each other. We avenge each other. No one is above anyone. We can teach you how to be a vampire and to enjoy it, but this is neither." She motioned around her at the barren room and the blood bags on the floor. "Deep down, you know it."

He looks at her, "How long did it take you...to get over the first person you killed?"

Kira turned away. She wasn't discussing this now. "Pack your things," she ordered him, brushing past him toward the door. "Meet me on the street in five minutes."

He looks at her, knowing she would just trail him back regardless. He just nods in defeat, gets his stuff and gets into her car. She sits in the drivers seat.

"Alright, let's get back to Julian kicking my ass...I am super excited about it." He glances to her.

Kira put the car in gear and peeled away from the hotel. "He's certainly not happy with you. He's even more pissed at me."

He looks at her still,"Why..? I am the one who left. I am not your responsibility."

Kira shook her head. "I made you my responsibility, and thus his, when I convinced him to give you a chance," she argued. "You blew it. So did I."

She turned to meet his gaze. "If you escape again, I won't just come to bring you back," she added. "I'll kill you."

Tyler looks away, "You wouldn't kill me." Before she can say anything, he looks at her "Just like how you left out on telling him, when you kissed me...that we did a lot more than just that."

Kira grunted. "Right, you slobbered on my neck. What happened was nothing, just as I told Julian. Were he privy to more than the kiss, he'd have killed you in an instant. We need our numbers."

For such a depressed fool, Tyler certainly had his ego.

They finally make it back to the mansion and they walk inside, instantly Tyler is pinned to the wall by a very pissed Julian.

Tyler looks at him,"I get it...your second in command already gave me the lecture, I'm back." He says, with a bit of attitude behind it.

Julian narrowed his eyes and pushed Tyler even further back against the wall. Kira stood back, merely watching the exchange with her arms crossed, her expression bored.

"Try that shit you pulled again and I'll-"

"I covered that, too," Kira cut in. "Quit it with the dick measuring contest. It's almost sunrise."

Julian snarled in response, but as it was, he simply held on for a second more and then he released his hold on Tyler. He stepped back, his fangs extended and his eyes filled with fury, but didn't make another move to strike out. He shook his head. "Dead or alive, Kira, and this is what you wanted?" he asked, his glare cutting to her.

Kira stripped off her jacket and grimaced in response. "You never chose."

It had been a week since he was back, fighting back what he felt and accepting more how he was different.

Julian taught him more skills and how to handle certain others.

Tyler did have his cellphone, he never mentioned it but he also kept it on vibrate. It was one night, that his phone made a noise again, his dad was calling. He quietly goes into the washroom in his bedroom and turns on the water, he answers the phone.

"Hey Dad..." He says into it.

"Tyler! Where have you been son? Your mother and I have been worried sick!" His dad said, Tyler wished he could tell him more, "It's...a long story, I don't want you guys to worry. Just know I am fine."

"We want to visit you..." His dad started to say.

Kira should have known. Tyler acted as if turning on the water would be enough. What he hadn't counted on was the fact that she'd be watching him closely for things such as this.

Before he could do something as dumb as offer up their location, Kira busted through the door and tore the phone from his hand. In less than a second, it lay beneath the heel of her shoe, crushed into pieces on the bathroom floor.

"What the fuck was that?" she demanded.

Tyler looks at this, "You tell me that was and get me another fucking iphone! I wasn't going to tell them anything, they keep calling..I can't just ignore them. I know yours are probably long time dead but mine are still alive!"

Kira shoved him against the wall and curled her fist into the collar of his shirt. "They'd have done well to assume you were dead," she spat. "Your phone can be traced. What happens when they finally find you? Are you going to bring them into this mess? Do you plan on putting them in danger, too?"

Fucking modern technology big brother bullshit. She should have searched his things the moment he'd moved in the first time. Cursing herself for her stupidity, she kicked at the pieces of his broken iPhone and sent them scattering across the tile. "You refuse to get it. You refuse to let reality stick. You're dead, Tyler. You'll never age and they'll grow older. Do you plan on telling them you're a vampire? Do you plan on taking that risk?"