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Chapter Twenty: The Night Shift
Last Updated:
2024-12-09 01:38:55
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Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Twenty-One: Lady of Snakes
HelaineIf I’d thought Cardinal Street was a sketchy place in the daylight, it was so much worse after dark.The yellow glow of the old street-lamps cast the worst of the shadows here, poorly illuminating macabre works of art that made walking down the road feel like starring in a production of Dante’s Inferno.I’d have given anything to be back in my apartment with Evan, to be back on the floor, paint on our bodies, his hands on my skin . . . before that photograph changed things.The atmosphere was different now as we walked this street. There was a desolation, a quiet fear hanging in the air that refused to be brushed aside.No one but us knew why, but it didn’t stop it from permeating their very beings.A man wept softly, kneeling on the dirty pavement below the painting of the dead dove I’d seen the last time I came to Evan’s apartment. Instead of the beautiful red ribbon that had bound the dove when I saw it before, the dove was wrapped in snakes, its blood dripping down over th
Last Updated : 2024-12-10Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Twenty-Two: Mother of Monsters
HelaineAurelia’s head snapped backward at an unnatural angle, causing me to take a few cautious steps back as I observed the black ooze leaking from her body like ink.My eyes were focused on her as they had a mind of their own. Even if I had wanted to look away, I wasn’t certain I could. The moment felt pivotal, like my entire self was staked into the now.“Fuck, Helaine, move!” Evan shouted as he returned Bacchus to his tank.I couldn’t move though. I couldn’t take another step—my feet may as well have been rooted to the floor as I watched Aurelia’s body contort, and the symbol of a moon and cross burned itself into Evan’s floor.A gasp ripped through me as Evan’s body collided into mine, scooping me up into his arms to rush me away from Aurelia, just in time for a ring of fire to erupt around her.The flames burned high and ominous, making the whole room feel like an oven, but somehow nothing in the apartment seemed to catch fire, making the whole situation feel so uncomfortably s
Last Updated : 2024-12-11Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Twenty-Three: Ruins
HelaineThe anti-christ.I was the goddamned anti-christ.When Evan untangled himself from my arms I sucked in a shuddering breath, trying to find some sense of stability before I had to speak.My whole identity had been irrevocably destroyed in one fell swoop. Everything I ever thought about who I was and who I would become was shattered, replaced by the image of a woman I barely recognized, sitting upon a throne of skulls at the end of all things.How could I be responsible for something like that? I could barely pay my own bills, let alone usher in the apocalypse.All I ever wanted was a normal life, and now this happened.Evan made a bee-line for the moon and cross symbol, dragging his foot through the soot and ruining the imagery before he looked back at me with a horrible look of pity. “Are you . . . okay?”“No.” What was the point in lying? My entire body was trembling, and my eyes filled with tears when he wrapped his arms around me, encouraging me to bury my face in his chest
Last Updated : 2024-12-12Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Twenty-Four: Laudanum for the Soul
EvanHelaine clung to me, her delicate fingers digging into my leather vest to pull me closer to her. Normally, such an open invitation would have been unquestionable.But I couldn’t be sure she was in her right mind—she certainly didn’t seem like she was in the right place to be making decisions like this.“Are you sure?” I asked, my hand moving to cup her cheek. “This is a lot to take in, and I don’t want to take advantage of you.”She scoffed, openly staring at me like I’d told her a particularly unfunny joke. “Evan, you were just inside me less than a few hours ago, and you think you’d be taking advantage of me now?”“It’s different—”“It’s not,” she interrupted me, sitting up a little straighter and fixing me with an intense gaze. “Not to me, anyway. If this changes things for you—”“It doesn’t.” It was my turn to cut her off. Resting my forehead against hers, I took in a deep breath. I didn’t need it, not to survive at any rate, but it helped to ground me. “Nothing could ever st
Last Updated : 2024-12-13Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Twenty-Five: Holy Water
HelaineTwisting on top of the coffin, my wrists bound in leather, I all but screamed his name. He couldn’t see my face, blindfolded by the fabric of my own shirt, but tears of sheer, overstimulated ecstasy were spilling down my eyes like twin rivers.It was agony, of the most exquisite variety.I choked out a sob when he slipped a fourth finger into my dripping cunt. It was too good, he was too good. Never before had any partner of mine had me so aching and desperate for them like this.Evan could have asked anything of me, and I’d have given it to him if only it meant he’d keep dominating my body and mind.But he asked for nothing—save for my trust.And I did trust him. He was perhaps the first person in my life that I’d ever been able to trust so implicitly. Before him, I didn’t believe in faith. I learned early on that faith in people only led to pain.But the pain Evan brought me was only a tool to bring us both to greater pleasure.“Evan!” I begged, writhing in my binds, arching
Last Updated : 2024-12-14Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Twenty-Six: Wide Awake
HelaineWhen my eyes fluttered open, I found my face buried in Evan’s chest. We were locked together in a tangle of limbs in the too-small sleeping space. Most coffins weren’t built for two, and his was no exception.But then, coffins weren’t built with the comfort of the living in mind.He carried me here last night after we got out of the bath. He said I could sleep on the couch if I’d be more comfortable, but I wanted to stay with him, so any aches I might’ve felt today on account of the cramped sleeping arrangements were my own fault.But it was worth it to fall asleep in his arms without having to question the way he felt about me.Carefully, I untangled myself from Evan’s embrace, climbing out of his coffin carefully so as not to wake him. I wasn’t sure if I even could wake him, considering I had no idea what time it was.Were vampires compelled to sleep through the day, or was it just about avoiding sunlight? There was so much I didn’t know. So much I would need to know if I wa
Last Updated : 2024-12-15Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Twenty-Seven: Days Gone By
Helaine“Just wanted to know if you were planning on coming by for Thanksgiving. I love you.”Sucking in a hissing breath, I whipped my phone across Evan’s apartment, where its fall was luckily broken by his plush red couch before clattering to the floor. Evan looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but I was beyond caring.If the fact that I was the anti-christ wasn’t enough to scare him off, I highly doubted that pacing around his apartment like a caged tiger was going to be the final straw.“How fucking dare he,” I snarled through gritted teeth. “What right does he have to sound so god damned normal after everything that’s happened?”Evan only watched me, having the curtesy to give me my space when I needed it. If he tried to hold me right now, I’d probably combust. I couldn’t stay still, not when I had this much furious energy burning through my veins like acid. “I take it he doesn’t call often.”“He calls on the same day every year.” I grimaced, looking at the phone in his grasp as t
Last Updated : 2024-12-16Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Twenty-Eight: Road Trip
EvanHelaine almost dropped the brown paper bag of takeout from The Night Shift when I opened the garage door to reveal what was once my pride and joy, a shiny red 1959 el camino I bought with my paycheck from the band’s first big American tour.The damn thing brought back memories—fond memories I didn’t deserve after what I’d done all those years ago. That was why I kept it in here. I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it, but I also couldn’t stomach looking at it.Even seeing it now, I could almost hear the laughter of my old friends—could almost feel the sun on my skin as we raised hell from Vegas to Reno . . . it was a whole other life.A life I didn’t deserve to daydream about.Now though, the el camino had a new purpose, and the look on Helaine’s face made all the discomfort I was feeling about seeing it again worth it.Her lips parted in a quiet gasp as she looked back at me. “Is this . . . ?”“The very same.” I nodded, the corner of my lips tugging into a smirk in spite of my
Last Updated : 2024-12-17
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Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Forty-Six: The Void
HelaineThe world felt different, up in the sky.Over the past few days I’d been doing what Valek said—training. I learned to use the wings that erupted from my back, learned to feel them and control them just the same as my arms and legs.But it wasn’t enough.How could it be?“You’re getting better at that,” Valek called from the ground, her cold black eyes following me as my wings beat the air. “It’s an amazing freedom, isn’t it?”“I did what you said.” My lips curved into a grimace as I landed in front of her. Logically, I knew I should still be afraid of her, but the more time I was forced to spend with this ancient monster the harder it was not to see her as a person. “I connected with my wings, but I still can’t hide them.”She let out a laugh, her eyes falling shut as she shook her head. “Your wings, yes. But you’re still fighting where they came from.” Her fingertips hovered over my heart as she leaned in, too close, but I was quickly learning that social boundaries weren’t s
Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Forty-Five: Full Moon Rising
EvanOne more fucking night of not finding Helaine.Snarling, I threw open the el camino’s bed cover, squinting under the light of the full moon. It was the closest I could get to the sun without burning to a crisp, and it was still a little too bright for my sensitive eyes.But it was just one more reason to be pissed off tonight.When I looked around, I could see that we were on a very rural stretch of the highway, moving west according to the rusty old road signs. There wasn’t another car around for miles as far as I could hear. Not even the kind of old truck I’d expect to hear out in these parts.Helaine wasn’t here either.My boots crunched against the abandoned gas station parking lot’s gravel as I stalked toward the driver’s side door, I slammed my hand down on the hood in a fit of frustration as Frank stepped out of my ride, lighting up a cigarette.I snatched it from his fingers, taking a long drag, hoping it would do something to take off the edge . . . but it didn’t. One of
Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Forty-Four: Nephilim
HelaineSitting naked on the wooden chair felt awkward, and I wrapped my wings around my body as I shivered in the air’s chill.Valek had no such issue, confidently striding naked through the room to stir the cauldron that emanated a delicious aroma that reminded me just how hungry I was. I couldn’t help feeling exposed, but there was something about the way that Valek wore her own skin that gave away just how ancient she was.Unbound by societal convention for the simple fact that she predated it. By a long shot.Her body was gorgeous, as though she was a work of art carved from pure snow, but I didn’t get the feeling that she was in any way trying to seduce me. Being naked was just natural to her—the leather scraps she wore as clothes before hastily thrown together almost as an afterthought.It probably helped that she was an undead creature, and most likely didn’t feel the chill in the air.The whole atmosphere held an eerie air of domesticity as she ladled stew into a wooden bowl
Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Forty-Three: Mortal Desperation
EvanThe moon was beginning to descend, and that meant that soon the sun would rise. Too soon for my liking as I followed Frank through the cemetery.“The Knights really had a cache here?” My brow arched in doubt, but he didn’t so much as look back as he blazed on ahead. “In a public cemetery?”“A mausoleum,” he specified. “Knights coming and going would’ve just seemed like family members of the departed, and no one but those with authorization would have access. Seemed pretty perfect at the time.”He gestured ahead, and sure enough there was an old mausoleum, overgrown with vines and half covered in moss.“So why do you think they abandoned it, if it was so perfect?” I watched him warily as he pulled a key from the chain around his neck and used it to unlock the tomb.It seemed . . . convenient, and I had to wonder if it was really abandoned, or if the Knights of Testament had their suspicions that Frank was hiding nearby, and they hoped they could draw him out.They had apparently t
Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Forty-Two: The Spring
HelaineA groan of protest left my body before my eyes deigned to flutter open. My head was pounding, and my mouth felt impossibly dry.A black spider with spindly legs skittered across my field of vision, but I was too exhausted to scramble away from it like I might’ve otherwise done if I were coherent enough to be afraid.My body felt unreasonably heavy when I tried to adjust myself into a sitting position, and it became clear exactly why when I looked over my shoulder to see the whitish feathers, sticky and flecked red, matted together with dried blood.Choking out a ragged sigh, I rolled my head back as I tried to rub the pain out of my aching throat. If the wings were real, then everything that happened to me last night was real.And Evan . . . well, I had no idea where he was, which meant that he probably had no idea where I was.Hell, I didn’t even know where I was.Getting to my feet was a struggle with the added weight of the extra limbs now protruding from my back, but it wa
Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Forty-One: Father in Law
Evan“I’m coming Helaine,” I whispered as I made my way down the porch steps. “I promise I’ll find you.”It was a promise I intended to keep. Valek didn’t strike me as one to keep a low profile—there’d probably be a trail of corpses once I got close enough to whatever den of horrors she was calling home these days.Only . . . I didn’t have a clue where to start looking, and there wasn’t time for me to go chasing my tail without any direction trying to find her.Whatever was happening to Helaine after she used her powers, it was obviously some kind of transformation. I didn’t know what I was going to find when I did finally catch up with her.But she was out there somewhere. I could feel it in what remained of my soul that she was still alive, but with her in Valek’s custody it was impossible to say for certain what to expect.What I didn’t expect was for Frank’s door to open behind me, creaking in protest when he followed me outside. “Kid,” he called after me, a desperate edge to his
Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Forty: Angel
HelaineWind whipped my face as Valek flew through the air, but I could hardly feel it.I hardly even remembered being taken from my childhood home. Everything after my body had erupted with that dark blast of energy felt unreal, like everything around me melted away in the inferno of the pain that racked my body.But in whatever conscious part of my mind that still struggled to hold on, I knew that Evan was still at my father’s house, left so far behind that there was no way he’d ever find me.What would he do? What would Frank do?Valek had frozen Evan and cast him off as easily as if she were flicking away an ant that had crawled onto her deathly pale skin. The only thin assurance I had that he was even alive was that in some strange way, I could feel him.Maybe it was like Lilith said—his damned soul was bound to me. I would feel it if he’d been killed.I hoped.There was precious little I could feel in this moment other than the searing torture my body was enduring.But he had to
Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Thirty-Nine: The First Vampire
Evan“Helaine . . . ” I could hardly hear my own voice in this moment, like my head was in a fish bowl, and my mouth had gone impossibly dry. I pawed weakly at Helaine, trying to pull her toward the door. “We need to leave. Now.”My whole body felt like there was ice in my veins when I saw her—Valek, the Mistress of Blood, with her cold, black eyes fixed squarely on the woman I loved.“Helaine,” I urged.She yanked her arm out of my grip, looking back at me with desperate eyes, still clouded with inky black tears as she protested, “I can’t let her kill my dad!”“He tried to kill you!” I pleaded, reaching for her again, but it was useless.Evan after all he’d put her through, Helaine still saw the man as her father. She was like a scared little girl right now, and I couldn’t blame her.She wasn’t the only one who felt small—helpless.It was impossible not to feel that way when an ancient horror beyond mortal comprehension made herself known.Frank Fairgrieve made a pathetic effort to p
Sanguine Inclinations Chapter Thirty-Eight: Sins of the Father
HelaineFrank’s brow furrowed as he openly stared at me, the shotgun clattering to the gravel below as it fell from his hand. No doubt, I was the last person he expected to see rolling up to his house tonight.“Helaine . . . ” His voice was barely above a whisper as his head shook slowly, side to side, like he knew this wasn’t just a social call.Like he knew all his lies would catch up to him eventually.Evan followed, climbing out of the driver’s seat and eyeing my father dangerously over the el camino’s hood.“Who’s he?” Dad asked, his eyes narrowed suspiciously as he gestured toward Evan.“Never mind who I am,” Evan spat without an ounce of hesitation, his eyes never leaving my dad as though if he stared hard enough his gaze would pierce through him. “Your business is with her, not me.”In some cases, I supposed that Evan’s gaze could do just that to a person’s mind, but he wasn’t using his ability now. He wouldn’t meddle like that when he knew how badly I needed this.“I think yo
