Vanir

I walked into my office, the sunny weather contrasting with my mood. I hadn't slept well last night, I hadn't slept well in a while now and I'm pretty sure the black eyes I had used concealer was a visible greenlight on my appearance today.

Apparently I wasn't the only one with a surly mood as Claude didn't even spare me a glance as I sat on my desk beside his.

"Good morning", I said, inflecting false cheer into my voice as I powered on my laptop.

"What's good about it?", Claude mumbled, his ocean blue eyes dim.

"I don't know, the fact that you're not staked meat for the sun", I jibed and his lips tilted a little bit. Or I was just seeing things again.

"The sun has no effect on me darling, try harder next time", he countered, his eyes twinkling with suppressed mirth.

I googled the word bots, and read every single piece of article that G****e deemed worthy as an answer to my search.

My eyes scouring over pages and pages of artificial intelligence. My phone rang, diverting me from what I was reading. Lanie was calling.

"Hello", I answered, yawning a little, my neck tired from craning.

"Did you forget we have a meeting by 12?", Lanie whispered, her voice carrying over through the phone.

"Oh shit", I screamed, glancing at the clock, the time reading at 11:57am. I had been so carried away. "I'm on my way", I replied when I realized Lanie was still on the line, running on my ass to the elevator.

Tiptoeing into the conference room on floor 30, avoiding the eye jabs as I slid into the empty seat beside Lanie.

"Nice of you to grace us with your presence, Miss Paul", the assistant floor manager jeered at me.

"It won't happen again", I apologized, because technically he was still my boss even if he was a self absorbent piece of shit.

Facing the projector with a humph, my assistant floor manager continued from where he had stopped.

More pictures of the captured bot came up, the vampire mumbling on the headway progress they've made in disassembling the bot, his daylight ring glinting in the light as he waved his hands around in demonstration. Almost as if he was doing it on purpose.

As the meeting drew to a close, the agenda I was most looking forward to was about to be discussed. "Three teams have been given the task of finding out the how, the who and the why?", the assistant floor manager ordered, talking through his nose. "These teams are expected to report to me every two week with tangible findings. You are also expected to cooperate with your team partners on every level". Then I raised my hand, everyone's eyes on me.

"Yes, Miss Paul", the assistant floor manager answered, his eyes flicking over me, the way one looks at an insect. With disdain.

"What if one doesn't know their team partner?", I asked courageously, my mind eating at me.

"I suggest you ask that question on Tinder or whatever dating app is on trend", he replied, dismissing me.

"But, sir", I insisted.

"Meeting's over. Weekly feedback in two weeks", He announced again and stalked away.

Annoyed beyond measure, I stomped out after him, ignoring Lanie's shouts of protest, following him into his office, the door wide open.

"Sir if you could just deem an answer to my question", I prodded.

"I can't deem an answer to an unintelligent question", he bit back, his fangs visible. "You have two minutes to leave my office".

Muttering a curse under my breath, with my head hung low as I walked out of his office door and collided into a rock hard body.

My mouth already muttering apologies, I looked up into the eyes that plagued my dreams.

"Youu", I gasped.

Perfectly shaped brows quirked up, a smirk gracing a well structured, kissable mouth, "Me?"

Recollecting myself from my outburst, I realized I was still leaning on him, his hands smoothly rubbing my upper arms, my nipples perked up.

The dose of lust shooting through my body, alarming me and I scooted away, my eyes assessing the man in front of me.

His dark as midnight hair in glaring contrast to his beautiful ivory skin, his eyes an endless ocean of the night.

He flashed his fangs in another smirk, confirming my suspicions, his voice coming out like sweet velvet, "I believe I just rendered you speechless".

I scoffed, about replying to his shallow comment, when the scent of spicy chocolate drifted into my nose, coming from him. "It's you", my eyes wide in shock, convinced, when all too quickly the scent disappeared.

"Are you alright, darling?", The stranger inquired, looking at me like I had grown a third boob.

Mumbling something unintelligent, I left, my heels clicking as I willed my legs to not run.

Trembling, I splashed waters into my eyes, ruining my makeup and not caring, my sleep deprived eyes staring back at me in the mirror. I was starting to see things, I surmised, wondering what had made me react like that.

Lack of sleep, I thought as I made my way back to my office after fixing my face, it definitely had to be.

Claude flicked a glance at me when a knock sounded at our door, several minutes later. Nobody does that.

Perplexed, I opened the door, the place empty. I looked around, about to close the door, when my eyes caught on something on the floor. A rose and a note. Picking it and carrying the items to my desk, Claude glancing at the items speculatively.

The note read, "I smelt the rose and I smelt you~JV". My mind going gaga at the thought of a stalker.

"JV?", I thought out loud, the note vanishing from my hand. I glared at Claude who was trying to stifle a laugh as he perused the note, failing miserably as he burst out with gait.

"Someone has a secret admirer", Claude singsonged, his ocean blue eyes glowing.

"I don't know who it is", I said without thought.

"That's the idea, sweetheart", Claude retorted, placing the note back in my hands.

I walked with Lanie into the lab's second project room, in search of her assigned partners.

Claiming she hadn't met with any of the names she had seen next to hers on the list, she dragged me along with her going from people to people in the room and asking their names.

Finally meeting her team partners, she turned to me with worried eyes, "So what are you going to do now?"

"I'll do the project by myself until the ass shows up", I answered, reasonably of course.

Lanie laughed, "You can't do that. It's obviously not a one person job. That's why they assigned teams".

"No, they assigned teams because we're humans and they think we're weak", I responded truthfully, I had given more thought to the reason behind the assigned teams than I had given to my change.

Lanie stared at me, incredulously and I shrugged ,"There's no way you haven't thought about it too".

"Some of us are half vampires, smart-ass". Dismissing the entire matter entirely, she said, "Have you found out about your team project yet?"

I nodded, keeping my mouth shut from correcting her that there was no team, "The why".

"I got the how", she replied.

"I feel these all correlate. If you find the why, you can definitely find the how and the who ''. "Which leads me back to my former point, but you're not ready for that conversation".

Lanie nodded, whispering, "We can't do anything but follow orders".

The scent of chocolate wafted through the room, my nerves palpitating as the man I had bumped into earlier on walked into the room, his eyes scanning the room and landed softly on me.

My body shivered in excitement as he walked towards me, the others staring longingly as I was, his presence commanding total submission. He stopped in front of me, his eyes on me like I was the only one in the room.

"I've been looking all over for you", he said and smiled. My heart stopping at the sight.

Shaking my head clear of the lust haze, I pinched Lanie, signaling her to stop drooling and faced the man in front of me. Forcing neutrality into my expressions, I answered, a little haughtily, "Can I help you?"

The stranger laughed, somehow managing to hide the fangs I had spied before, even his laugh was perfect. I scowled, men like him and Claude surely had enough thongs flying in their faces and thought the world lived for them.

"Yes you can", he replied in velvet and I scowled even further, a retort forming on my lips as Lanie chimed in, pinching me to behave, "You must be new".

His attention turned to her, noticing her and my heart caved at the smile he gave her, and I mentally slapped the stupid organ to focus.

"You can say that", he replied, turning to me almost immediately, his eyes glinting, like a twinkling star in the middle of the dark night, "I'm Vanir".