THE FIRST TIME she bit someone she was sixteen. The boy was a burly football player and she was the knockout highschool senior.
He had told her six ways to Sunday of his prowess in making women feel good. Arielle just wanted a swamping feeling to curb her crashing hormones.
It hurt. Bad. He took and took, and took, slamming desperately into her like she was one of his socks.
She held still and waited for him to finish. Eventually, her wolf had enough of his grunts and her fangs sank cleanly into his neck, missing his carotid by centimeters.
She turned him over and held on, riding him and taking her pleasure as he leaked red all over his shirt. By the time she called 911, the poor boy was pale as death. Luckily, he survived and has being avoiding her ever since.
This happened just a week before her parents died in a Yacht explosion—it was one of the many cruises they embarked on in order to escape their 'superhuman' daughter. She had loved them dearly. But they couldn't help her, and they had thought giving her space would help.
It did not.
Sometime before their deaths, she could tell she scared them; Her glowing eyes. Her lightning speed. Her pointy fangs. Frankly, she scared herself. Since then, her life had been nothing but Power and Sex.
A lot of it.
Scarlet leaves spiral down from the branches of the Fall tree overlooking her parents' graves. Arielle lays down a single white rose on each plaque and watches calmly as the tree sheds more leaves, adding a colourful trail to her lonely roses. The wind picks up and soon enough, her white roses lie on beds of orange foliage.
She blinks a few times and turns away, gliding with ease to a waiting black Limousine. Michael stands by the open door in a crisp black suit, his features solemn. Arielle is a few metres away from him when her Prada heels catch on something. She bends slightly and wriggles the heel free. Only then does she spot a horizontal crevice peeking from the otherwise smooth gravel of Thomas .B. Hiarton's gravestone.
Her father's tombstone was cut from Ballast, a sturdy concrete material so she is shocked to find the crevice gives as she pushes inwards.
She waits a moment and a smooth slab slowly slides forward.
A single red strip rests on the slab.
Arielle picks up the cloth. It's smooth and soft, like ancient embroidery. It bears no marks nor symbols. Only withered edges. Slowly, she brings it to her nose and inhales.
Her eyes fall closed and she shivers as liquid heat floods her system.
It's déjà vu. The twisted kind.
Somehow, she knows it's him.
Her faceless Adam.
The man in her dreams.
The ghostly Adonis who makes her see red.
Back in the lush interior of the limousine, Arielle stares straight ahead at nothing, the crimson strip secure in her Hermes bag.
"You want to tell me what's going on?" Michael asks, gauging her expression.
Arielle turns to him and resting her head on his broad shoulders, she says,
"I think I need a vacation."