Page 8 of Soren

What a bitchy thing to say. It was almost enough to make Soren like her.

He was tempted to tell her he was an immortal predator who sucked the blood out of humans for sustenance and thus his metabolism worked a little differently than hers, but it wasn’t worth the effort. She’d think he was kidding anyway.

He paid for his drink and took a seat at a table facing out toward the street. He kept his gaze firmly out that window, humming quietly to himself.

There was another reason Soren liked this particular coffee shop—besides the silly goth name and the caramel, chocolate, and whipped cream coffee creation he’d become addicted to—and that was the view.

The big front window looked out to the gym across the way. And while Soren liked to tell himself it was worth it just to ogle the various gym bros coming in and out of the place, the truth lay closer to the fact that it was the same gym a certain someone visited before his shifts at the hospital.

That certain someone, regular as fucking clockwork, exited the building just as the barista was placing Soren’s order on the table.

Ugh, the human was so predictable. It almost took the fun out of stalking him.

Soren smirked to himself. Almost but not quite. Because sweet Jesus, the man was unfairly good-looking.

It was incredibly annoying.

Gabe’s muscles were gleaming lightly with sweat from his workout, his dark curls held back with a headband. He looked like a European soccer player, not some small-town, all-American doctor.

Could Soren really be blamed for wanting to take a bite out of him?

Alicia followed his gaze out the window, smirking slightly at Soren. “Oh man, he’s hot, isn’t he? I went to high school with him. He’s a doctor too. Whole package.”

“Mm.” Soren chose to take a sip of his drink rather than answer with real words. He hadn’t considered that the workers here might have noticed the specific purpose of his favorite viewing spot, but maybe little Alicia had been paying closer attention than he’d thought.

Bliss washed through him, dimming his annoyance at having his ogling pointed out. Humans had come such a long way with their uses of sugar. It was one of Soren’s favorite things about the present day.

Alicia leaned in closer conspiratorially. “You know,” she whispered, “the new girl hooked up with him when he first moved back to town.” She pointed to her coworker, a pretty blonde girl Soren hadn’t seen before, manning the espresso machine. “Cammie said he rocked her world. She was a total mess when he ghosted her.”

Well. Howinteresting.

Something dark pulsed in Soren. He stared at little blonde Cammie, feeling a familiar manic grin gracing his lips, and he briefly wondered how terrible it would really be if he committed murder in this coffee shop.

Tempting. Super tempting. But it was probably a bad idea. Danny would inevitably be pissed when he heard about it. And a pissed-off Danny would lead to an absolutely murderous Roman.

Soren sighed into his coffee, uncaring that Alicia was waiting for a response from him.

It wasn’t worth the risk, really.

Especially considering Soren hadn’tactuallymurdered anyone since his first accidental killings in his early, bumbling days as a vampire.

Little Cammie would live to see another day.

Alicia, belatedly realizing he wasn’t the right audience for her gossip, returned to her post at the counter. Soren sipped his drink, trying not to sulk. She’d taken all the joy out of seeing a sweaty, tank-topped Gabe walking to his car.

Whatever. Soren sat up straighter in his seat, tossing his head back. He refused to be brought down by this. He wasn’t just another townie lusting after the local doctor. He was a dark, dangerous predator, doing what dangerous predators did best. He couldn’t help that his vampire instincts urged him to hunt and stalk his prey.

And that his stupid inner vamp was fixated on one prey in particular.

Sure, Soren still had to feed regularly, and Gabe wasn’t exactly on the menu—at least notyet—but that side of things was more about survival than fun lately.

And Soren lived for fun.

Or at least he used to, before he set foot in this stupid town.

The problem was that Gabe kept him at arm’s length. He made sure Soren wouldn’t be there when he came over to Danny’s for family dinners. He sat as far away from Soren as possible those few and far between times they had to be in the same room together. And he very pointedly ignored Soren’s various flirtatious comments, refusing to even look Soren in the eye. As if Soren would stoop so low as to compel him into bed.

And yes, maybe Sorenoccasionallyteased the human mercilessly just to get a rise out of him. But wasn’t that what everyone did when they had a crush?

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