Novellas

Title: Faizel
Author: Harper Kinsgley
Genre: mm supernatural, vampire
Word count: 10,400
Rating: Adult

Available as KDP Select. If you’ve got an Amazon Prime membership, go read it for free.

EXCERPT:

He was a handsome stranger in painted on pants and Chuck Taylors. His dark brown hair curled around his ears in enticing tousled waves. He had rich olive skin and a straight nose with perfect nostrils. He was built in lean lines and looked like he should be an endearingly dorky guy, completely oblivious to his own good looks.

Except he walked like a predator. He tried not to, but his hips insisted on falling into their natural position when he didn’t concentrate. An arrogant, rolling walk that caught and held the eye, luring in his prey.

He’d always been so well-known that he couldn’t have pretended to be anyone other than himself. He was more easily recognizable than the Master. The name FAIZEL was synonymous with power and prestige. He was always near the top of every Most Wanted list the Resistance put out.

He’d always enjoyed playing with the Resistance. Hunting them down and spoiling their plans had been endlessly entertaining. It was why he’d never just completely exterminated them all the way the Master wanted.

The Master was talking synthetic blood and genocide. He had wanted a world completely devoid of normal human life. The Phageless would cease to exist and only the New Breed would remain. He wanted a world of rules and restrictions, a totalitarian empire with himself at the top.

Faizel enjoyed being powerful, but he wanted the thrill of the hunt. He was young and virile and he’d been Reborn without a soul. But he still remembered his human days and all that burning hate and rage was still there, bubbling under the surface of his skin.

He’d killed most of the people that had made his living life so miserable in one wild spree of blood and viscera. After that though… he’d spent enough time around the Master to realize that he didn’t want to live in that sterile, cruel world with only his own kind for company.

He hadn’t been able to stand it.

He had secretly begun to sabotage his own mission plans so there were weaknesses able to be exploited by a clever but desperate human. He’d sifted out the weakest of the Resistance to leave the best behind, separating the wheat from the chaff.

Then he had waited and enjoyed being able to toy with his new playmates. He was going to kill them, but he built them up first before he hunted them down. He loved that sweetest first sip of panicked blood, packed with all of that desperate will to survive. It made his heart sing.

He slid through the crowded club to one of the tables at the front. He sat down with such a charming smile that the women already there giggled and gave him flirty welcomes. He smiled but didn’t really interact, just nodding his head here and there when they spoke to him.

Faizel gazed up at the main stage and absorbed the sight of a supernatural cabaret show. It was like Rocky Horror Picture Show with even more garters and lace; there was a bit more skin showing, and both men and women wore short-shorts and a mixture of glitter and glamour.

Dancing and singing men and women, some entirely human while others stretched and bent with supernatural ease. Here and there one of the dancers would flash a mouthful of fangs as they playfully “menaced” their delighted audience. Their faces would twist and turn into a monstrous mask of bulging bone, glaring yellow eyes, and a double row of teeth that were nothing but jagged points.

Money was offered at the end of each set and a pretty girl with flaxen curls and a smattering of glitter on her cheeks went around with a cloth bag to collect the cash. She was wearing a flirty red skirt and a black crop top vest that revealed a toned stomach and a sparkling silver bead dangling at her navel. She wore high-heeled gladiator sandals that crisscrossed up her shins to just below her dimpled knees.

Faizel fumbled in his pocket for a few crumpled bills. He stuck them in the bag quickly so no one could get a good look at them in case money was different here.

Vampires sure were.

He was utterly fascinated by their monstrous faces and the claws he thought he’d spotted amongst them. They were like a mix of human and animal. Even when they weren’t trying to be frightening, their mouths easily shaped snarls.

He was utterly captivated, his eyes trailing up and down the beautiful bodies on display, but what he was really drawn to was the feral nature of them. They were apex predators, of that he had no doubt, though he had to wonder why they were so intent on living amongst the humans, working with them. The idea of it intrigued him.

Faizel had been suppressing his Allure from the minute he’d fallen out of the glowing portal and discovered that he was in a world not his own. The air had smelled different and there was the caressing vapor of distant, strange Power.

His first impulse was to ride in under the radar, to look around for himself and see what kind of world this was. And so far he had been very pleased.

There were vampires here, though a much different kind than he was used to. He could practically see the souls binding them to their bodies, and though their faces turned to those of monsters when they let their Hunger show… they were human on the inside. Beautiful, fragile humans.

He had never seen anything so entrancing. He wondered how hard it was to break them, these dancing, singing, oh-so-human vampires.