Dark Attraction [HOLD 2023]

4: Power Over Men

Power Over Men – Jamie T

**Vlad's THIRD PERSON POV CHAPTER. You'll get these every 4-5 chaps ;)

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There were four things on this earth that Vlad Tepes couldn't stand:

Bad listeners, selfishness, dishonesty...

And garlic. Hell, did he despise garlic.

Which, in Vlad's eyes, brought around the rumour that all vampire's hated garlic. It'd happened so long ago, the legend of a vampires weaknesses within folklore included garlic, silver and holy symbols. He'd refused garlic on so many occasions that once some of his people figured out he wasn't human, they connected garlic to a weakness.

Vlad shook his head lightly at the memory and shifted on his seat. It was a way for humans to feel safe, and he let the rumour manifest.

He glared around the busying bar and pushed his empty beer to the edge of the table.

The other three attributes he hated came from experience. He'd lived so long, he saw evil in so many people, it was hard not to hate what they were and how easily someone could change.

Human's were fickle. Vampires were fickle. Witches were more than fickle. And yet, he thought to himself, two of my closest confidants are witches.

Vlad had sailed through life on his own up until three pivotal points: when he'd met one of his closest friends, Christian Beaumont. When he'd met the two women responsible for vampires, and then just over fifteen years ago when he'd met Christian's now life partner and wife, Chelsea.

All bizarre coincidence, all of them interlocked in some way or the other. He didn't believe in fate. Fate was another human invention to explain how the earth sometimes brought people together.

He found that with the family he'd been unknowingly adopted into, "fate" was apparently the norm.

Vlad's thoughts strayed a moment when someone knocked his bottle onto the floor. The man above turned to apologise but paused when he caught eyes with him. Vlad raised a brow when he swallowed, muttered a croaky sorry and scurried off to the other side of the bar.

Another man, one with the bar logo on his shirt, cleared it quickly with a stiff smile before wandering back behind the bar. Vlad, as usual, didn't even flinch at the looks he received or the smiles he seemed to never get.

Coincidences are spiritual puns. He'd read that somewhere after he'd met Chelsea and her friends and now family.

Everyone in that family were connected by one vampire. One woman. Vlad included. But he never liked to think about her, she was a lesson in itself for not just him but for each and every one of them. Not as much as one for him as the rest of them, but it was still a lesson.

Vlad's eyes roamed over the bar once more before taking his phone out to check the time. It was barely eight o'clock on a Friday night. The bar was packed with mostly students. There weren't any vampires, he wasn't here on business, it was more so a break. It was pleasure.

And whatever willing human he found to feed on, would be even more of a pleasure.

It'd been a bizarre few weeks. There were things happening around New Orleans that he didn't have an explanation for yet but soon enough he will. He always did.

And then there was Anna.

He stuck his phone back into his pocket with a clenched jaw. None of her family or Chelsea or even Christian knew Vlad was in New Orleans, only his friend Erinna did – the witch that originated vampires. She was the one that had sent him here in the first place, no context, just: "Get to New Orleans, there's something fishy going on and my sister and I are too busy to go. Keep a very low profile but don't forget to bring us back a few beads."