Chapter One

It was a late August night. The full moon illuminated the hollowing streets of a small town known as Meadow Lake. The only people around at this hour were rebellious teenagers and adults looking for a drink at the local bar. Yet, one young man in his late 20's stood out from the rest. He walked with purpose as he made his way to the Lake's Edge bar. The familiar smell of smoke, spilled alcohol and body odor entered his nose as he walked in. The owner of the bar, a buff middle aged man named Keith, welcomed him as he walked in. The young man weaved his way through the crowd to the bar table, where he noticed the new bartender. The bartender was cleaning a glass as the young man took a seat on the bar stool with a smirk.

"A wee late for ye to be oyt, aye lassie?" he said mockingly in a gruff Irish accent. The bartender, who didn't even look old enough to work there, forced a smile. This came to no surprise to her; she had been getting weird looks all night.

"Hello sir, how may I help you?" she asked almost robotically.

"A Bloody Mary, if ye know wat oi mean," the young man said with a wink. The bartender nodded and walked to the back room behind the bar. The first thing Keith taught her about the drinks was that if anyone ever asked for a special Bloody Mary, there was some in the back fridge. She grabbed one of the vials and studied it. As far as she could tell, it was a green glass vial that was filled with some sort of alcoholic beverage. The bartender closed the fridge, handed the customer the drink and took his money. She waited for the young man to drink the liquid, curious as to what was so special about it but instead of sitting at his seat and drinking it, he went back off into the hoard of people. The bartender sighed in disappointment. Three other people that day had come asking for a Bloody Mary and not one of them sat down to drink it. Her curiosity was killing her, but it wasn't right to ask Keith. After her uncle Julius died, Keith had been nice enough to give her a job and her own apartment; she couldn't repay that kindness by sticking her nose where it clearly didn't belong.

Later that evening, a small bar fight began to stir. Although she was only a bartender, it was also her job to break up fights and throw people out of the bar. She had to do both because the old bouncer quit not too long ago.

"Alexandria," Keith, her boss called to her before eyeing two guys in the middle of the bar who were yelling profanity at each other. She rolled her eyes as small circle had formed around them. One guy was probably in his mid-30s with dark brown hair, tan skin and a muscular build with a scar on the curve of his chin. The other was younger, with a scrawny build and bleached blond hair. He seemed to walk the bar like he owned the place. Just as Alex broke up the circle to get to the two guys, the blond one pulled out a knife. Quickly, Alex stepped in front of the older man, and disarmed the blond guy before pinning him to the ground; she could feel a warm liquid running down her palm. With the blond kid unarmed, she let him go and looked up at both men with a stern look.

"Please leave the bar. And if you must, take your fight outside," she said, pointing to the door as politely as possible. The older one crossed his arms in protest.

"I did nothing wrong ma'am. I'm not leaving," he said, puffing out his chest in refusal.

"You can't kick me out! He's the one who insulted my sister!" the blond one complained, pointing at a girl in the crowd who also had bleached hair. The older guy glared at the blond young man with his intense forested green eyes and opened his mouth to argue. Before either of them could say another word, Alex pinned one arm behind both their backs and showed them both out the front doors.

When she got back inside, Keith was there waiting for her with a stern worried expression on his face and his arms crossed in disapproval.

"I thought you said you could handle this job," he said quietly before examining her bleeding hand.

"I did," Alex protested, trying to pull her hand back.

"Julius told me to take care of you and now look what..." Keith trailed off. Alex shook her head at his disapproval.

"It's just a cut Keith. I'm fine. If I didn't take care of it who knows who would have gotten hurt. Besides-", she pouted "-I thought you would be proud of me." Keith laughed a bit before leading Alex to the back room of the bar.

"I am. You did really well; you were stern and polite just like I taught you. I just don't want this kind of job for a girl like you. Look, I know you're strong. Heck, you're stronger than most guys I know. But you have a good head on your shoulders Alex, and a great future ahead of you," he said pulling out the bandages and wrapping up her hand nice and tight. "I don't want you to have to pull out of college because of an injury..." he said looking at his handy work. Alex took her hand back and looked at Keith in the eyes with a serious look on her face.

"I can't go to college unless I pay for it." She said as he looked back into her eyes, "I really need this Keith; it needs to be NHU or no college at all, and you know how expensive that college is. This job is the only one I can get around here that would even come close to saving up enough to go to NHU."

Keith sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, "Yeah, I know," he said, laughing a bit. "It's just that, if anything happened to you, Julius would haul his body out of the grave and beat me bloody." They both laughed lightly.

"Yeah, he would..." she said looking into the distance. For a minute there was an awkward silence.

"Anyway, your shift is up so you should pack up and head home," Keith said before pulling his bartender vest over his head.

Alexandria gathered her stuff from the office and headed out the back door. As she began to walk down the alley connecting Lake's Edge bar and Meadow Lake's strip club, The Rabbit Hole, Alex heard something.

"Please don't hurt me," a voice begged. The sound came from the next alley over. Carefully, Alex headed toward the voice. She leaned against a wall and peeked over to where the sound was coming from. There was a group of guys taking up the next alleyway.

The shadows from the dim light that lit up the alley, danced in the tangled blond hair of a scrawny boy who was about Alex's age, if not younger. He was being pinned to the wall by two strange and intimidating men. Terror filled his brown eyes as he stared helplessly at the man on his right. He was an older, tall man roughly in his 30's, with golden curly blond hair that framed his face. His honey-colored eyes glared at the boy he was pinning through golden framed glasses.

"We're not going to hurt ya Jer," said the man on the left pulling Alex's attention to a younger man. His voice was like as cold as ice and as edged as a knife, He was slightly shorter than the guy on the right, with Coal black hair that turned flame blue at the edges and was maybe in his 20's, closer to Alex's own age.

"Don't lie to him Xavier, Jeromy knows why we are here," Said the older man, with a gentle tone as a small smirk grew on his face.

"He'll only get hurt if he doesn't cooperate," Xavier said eyeing Jeromy. Alex briefly wondered what these two fairly different people had in common, when another man stepped out from the shadows. The glowing light lit up his fluffy dark cherry hair as he stood there, his arms crossed and a devilish grin on his face. Alex squinted and leaned closer as the man emerged. Something about him was strikingly familiar to her, but she couldn't place where she'd seen him before... until he spoke.

"Oi know yer there lassie," he said in an Irish accent as he turned toward where Alex had been hiding. Alex's heart froze in terror. He was the last guy who had ordered a Bloody Mary.

How did he even hear me? she thought to herself. Slowly, Alex came out from behind the wall, careful not to make any sudden moves.

"Ye didn't see anythin', got it? nigh run along," he said looking back at the kid pinned to the wall.

"No," Alex said sternly before taking a step toward them. It was too late to turn back now. She was already involved.

"Go. I'll be fine," the boy said in a shaky voice. The Irish guy laughed then opened his mouth to say something, but cut himself off with a sniff in Alex's direction. He slowly shook his head as a sadistic grin crept back on his face.

"Ye shuld 'ave run when ye 'ad the chance, lassie," he said as his eyes filled with desire. Alex suddenly felt something she hadn't felt in a long time. She felt vulnerable and scared. There was just something in his eyes that said he wasn't afraid to kill.

The next thing she knew, Alex was up against the wall with the other guy. The Irish man had thrown her across the alley and was about to pin her to the brick wall. After she caught her breath, Alex swung at her attacker, but her hand stopped mid-slap. The Irish man had caught her wrist. His smile widened as he used his body to crush hers against the wall. The thick brick was digging into her skin as the Irish man examined her left hand. Fresh blood was seeping through the bandage; probably from being thrown across the alley. The Irish man un-wrapped the bandage and licked the blood from her hand. Alex squirmed frantically in surprise. But the only result was him pressing his body harder against hers, digging her back harder against the brick wall behind her as he sucked the blood from her hand. Realization shot down Alex's spine. He was too strong for her. She was powerless and frozen in fear.

When the Irish man came away, Alex's hand was healed. The cut had just vanished with no scar or anything to indicate that it had ever even happened. Alex peered at her hand with her mouth agape. The Irish man shivered in pleasure as his grin grew. He turned toward the other two.

"She 'as the blood of the main branch," he said licking his lips. "You two can 'ave 'im," he said, turning back towards Alex. "I'll take the 'untor", he finished, stroking Alex's chin as if she were something precious to him. His goons let go of the kid in protest.

"Why do you get her blood?" Xavier challenged.

"Leon, we need to report this to the boss," the older one said, laying a hand on the Irish man's shoulder, trying to reason with him.

"Shut up Jonathan, this has nothing to do with him!" Leon, the Irish man argued back, turning toward Jonathan. Suddenly with the three guys distracted, the fear that had held Alex back diminished. Back to a more calm state, she turned to the blond kid who was now laying on the floor in terror and mouthed "run" to him. He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and ran down the alley as fast as he could. From what Alex gathered she was more important to the thugs than the boy was. So before the thugs could chase after him, Alex bolted in the other direction.

Alex didn't get far before they began to catch up. Xavier, who seemed to be the turbulent one of the group, appeared in front of her and she jumped back to avoid him. The other two were suddenly on either side of her. Xavier swung at her with almost blinding speed. Somehow Alex was able to block it, and then by grabbing his elbow, forcing it to bend she was able to pin it behind him with his back facing her. With his arm pinned behind him, Alex threw the boy at the older thug Jonathan, sending them both flying backward. Before Alex could do anything else, Leon picked her up by the throat as if it cost him no effort at all, and grinned sadistically.

"We don't need 'im, we 'ave 'er. Besides, she's jus' meh type," he said, looking at her. "Lassie, ye 'ave no idea wat ye've got yerself into." Alex squirmed, trying to claw his hands off her neck when suddenly she was on the ground, choking and gasping for air. When she finally caught her breath, she looked up and there was another guy, about her age fighting off Leon by himself. He turned his head slightly to look at her. "Go," he said. "I can take care of this guy. I'll catch up with you in a bit." At first Alex hesitated but in seeing that he could handle himself, she got up and ran. As she ran the clouds that engulfed the sky, poured down on her.

Author's Note

Hello~ My name is Camille Rowe! I'm just spreading my writing to get as much feedback as I can (if any). I have 6 chapters of this book ready and I will be posting them all at once, but after that, I will only be posting once or twice a month.Thanks for taking the time to read my story! Feel free to leave some feedback or just say hello in the comment section below~
Thanks again and see you next chapter!