Smoke filled the air, but Karrina Winston didn't smell it. All she could smell was the overwhelming scent of her favorite denizen, sliced open and feeding someone somewhere in the den. Her fangs ached, venom swirling in her mouth and down her throat as she tried to control the hunger. She'd already been warned once by the owner that "such flagrant displays of possessive behavior toward someone she did not own" would not b...

Nearly twenty years of aging appeared on Samantha’s seventeen-year-old face and her blonde hair was turning gray, but she was oblivious. The only thing on her mind was how much Lori was a good friend sticking with her when her two other, shallow, scaredy-cat friends and classmates were screaming and backing away. Then again, Lori being the quiet girl didn’t have many friends anyway, so where would she go? So, Lori remaine...

Vampires. They're the lords of the night, the stalkers of the living. Each one was an irresistible pale beauty with powers far greater than any creature who lurked in the darkness. With one simple gaze they can trap you in their lustful spell and turn you into a mindless puppet. They held the strength of ten men and the speed of a cheetah. For countless Centuries, Vampires reigned dominion over lands, towns, and kingdoms....

I My name is Anna and this is my story... It was the night before Halloween and dinner was almost ready.  I had spent the afternoon with our nine-year-old Stan carving a jack o’lantern.  He was out on the porch cleaning up the innards while I fretted in the kitchen.   I was anxious, my stepdaughter Jenny was bringing a girlfriend home to eat with us. I was always nervous around her friends, the popular crowd.  They were g...

The rectory stood empty for decades, a for sale sign stuck into the soft ground outside the wrought iron gates. The attached church hadn't been used for worship since the end of the war. When the mill went out of business, the people in the small port town went with it. All that was left were the fisherman and dockworkers, who kept to themselves, mostly. The town was stagnant and full of hollow shells of places families o...

Two days later she was strong enough to sit up on her own. Four days, and she could walk to the picture window, allowing her to gaze out on the massive landscape. There was nothing like the mountains and valleys where she’d come from. The land had been flat, expressionless but familiar. This was new. Just like being waited on or being cooped up in this stuffy place. When she’d arrived, it seemed large. But once she paced...

She sat beneath the oak tree, staring out at the town. It was quaint, filled with all the small-town folk that were more superstitious than they had a right to be. No one had seen a ghost, but they believed. Maybe it lay in the way the wind whipped through the low buildings, bringing with it inhuman moans that spooked even the tough-skinned farmers. On rainy days, most of the villagers stayed inside, like today. It gave h...

I pulled myself from The Reverie.  The last time I went into the sleep of ages our kind call The Reverie, it was between the Renaissance and the Victorian era. I had stayed awake more than a dozen decades until that business with the big wars. Now I did not know how long I’d been under, I knew only that I was weak, I was hungry, and oh by the night I was horny.  I breathed in deep; it was smoggier than I remembered, and,...

The weight of sleep leaves my body, and I wake up feeling better than I have the last two weeks. Blinking in my bright room, I find myself alone. I sit up and rub my face, still stark naked, though now I’m under my covers. A replay of last night dances around my subconscious. I called out Alec’s name on a whim, and he showed up out of seemingly thin air. I accused him of taking advantage of me while undressing myself, the...

I remember the first time my sister Charlotte came to me and told me she was in love. The most shocking part of the news was when she said the man she loved was a vampire. My jaw was on the floor. I had no idea my older sister was in love, let alone with a vampire, let alone that vampires were real. It was a confusing time, but that was two years ago, and I’ve grown accustomed to it now. They live among us, always have, a...

It’s a dark and muggy night. Clouds cover this sky, the orangish glow of the city lights reflects upon the puddles in the street, only disturbed by the occasional droplet of water. A man driving around the seemingly empty yet busy streets. Busy with drug deals, scantily dressed woman walking around waiting for a car to pull over to them. The man scanning every one of them, looking them up and down slowly. He notices one s...