She felt another one coming. This one more powerful than the last and would probably be enough to stop her heart. She halted in her footsteps towards her car, her mouth opened, her hand raised, her eyes were falling shut, and she...sneezed. Groaning and grimacing, her hand was now covered in germs, and her sneeze sounded more like a gunshot in the parking deck. Cersei Oluwaseyi searched through her leather satchel for a Kleenex.

Spring was typically her favorite time of year but she hated the pollen. It got everywhere, held a party inside her nose and invited its freeloading friends, mucus and phlegm along for the ride. Usually she was immune but this year, after battling a severe case of strep throat perhaps her immune system hadn't gotten back to being a hundred percent to fight the allergens in pollen.

In any case, she was ready to head home because there was a king waiting for her that she couldn't wait to sleep with. That king being her California sleigh bed.

Jiggling her keys in her hand, wiping her nose, and humming, Cersei made it to her 2008 Audi, hit the unlock mechanism on her remote keychain, and tossed her bag in the passenger seat.

The creaking of a door opening vaguely caught her attention, but when she heard someone whisper her name that's when she finally looked up and around.

It wasn't terribly late at night but that didn't really matter to predators that were always looking for an opportunity to strike. Being distracted in the grocery store parking lot, jogging a familiar path in the park, walking down the street after making a quick trip to the corner pharmacy-they were hot spots for human attack.

That's why Cersei carried with her a pair of brass knuckles and registered mace. Ever since being attacked at a party her sophomore year in high school, Cersei made it her business to watch her back. Fortunately, things hadn't gone too far that night, and someone had come to her rescue right when a sweaty hand reached up her skirt and tried to rip her panties away.  That ordeal stayed with her making it difficult for Cersei to believe any man when he showed an interest in her. She always silently questioned: what do you really want and if I don't give it you what then?

It took a while but she had gotten over it, but could anyone ever really get over being violated? The days might decease in number in terms of thinking about it, but you never really forgot or put it completely behind you.

Bearing all that in mind, Cersei wasn't going to ask who was there. She had said goodnight to her co-workers in the research room of the television station where she worked as the executive research assistant. She had waved to Harvey the floor manager. Tossed up the deuces to Pierre, their lone security guard. If she were needed for anything she'd get a phone call or an email and her phone hadn't made a single beep.

Maybe she was hearing things? Maybe that sneeze knocked her reasoning skills out of whack. Still, she remained where she was, holding on to her car door, ebony eyes sweeping across the parking deck and seeing nothing remiss.

The night was steamy for late April but that was all a product of the rain shower that happened around midday. So it didn't account for the muscles around her hair follicles tightening and raising those hairs, or why she got the sudden feeling she was being watched.

Laughing at herself because she had been watching one too many supernatural shows for her own good, Cersei climbed into her vehicle, locked the doors, started the engine, and backed out of her parking spot.

She turned on her radio and the crooning voice of Lana Del Rey poured from the speakers and filled up the interior like freshly brewed coffee awakening her senses. Cersei began singing along to the lyrics of "West Coast", meticulously handled her car, taking the turns with ease bobbing her head and then abruptly slammed on the brakes.

Jerking forward, the seatbelt cut into her shoulder as it prevented her from flying through the windshield. Her cinnamon curls blocked her vision but bounced back into place. Chest heaving up and down, Cersei shifted her car into park after taking a good look at the asshole standing in the middle of the gotdamn parking lot!

She couldn't believe it! Him!

Cersei scrambled for the lock, pulling it up, unbuckled her belt, and she got out of the car. "Steffen? What the hell are you doing here?" she hissed.

The last thing Cersei wanted to encounter was her traitor of an ex-boyfriend she hadn't seen since she came home to her apartment in the West Village with his things gone eight months ago. The sonofabitch didn't even have the decency to leave a ‘Dear John' letter explaining why he decided to take the coward's way out and split from their apartment from their life without giving her a single hint or notice.

Cersei didn't even want to think about the nights she cried herself to sleep, or the harassing phone calls she placed to his friends trying to hunt him down just so she could cuss him out. He had left a hole in her that was filled over time, but again his leaving was one of those things she never forgot.

Steffen didn't respond. He held his right arm close to his abdomen and his olive skin was ghostly pale. He was soaked. His dark clothes clung to him rudely reminding Cersei of what lied underneath them. His raven hair was plastered to his head and those malachite eyes which typically glowed like kryptonite...they were glowing but the color was all wrong.

Terror napalmed deep in her stomach and unconsciously Cersei walked toward Steffen when everything-mainly her common sense-was telling her to stay the hell away from him. Something wasn't right. Fatally not right.

"Steffen?" Cersei tried speaking in a more dulcet tone.

He swayed on his feet and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. All she saw was white and that had been the only warning given that he was losing consciousness.

Cersei cursed and tried to break Steffen's fall but she hadn't gotten there in time, and she wasn't exactly the strongest person in the world. She winced when his head smashed into the pavement and she expected it to explode like a cantaloupe being tossed at a brick wall.

Thankfully his head and brains remained intact, but he probably just gave himself a concussion.

Falling to her knees by his side, Cersei immediately checked for a pulse but drew back her hand as if it had been burned. He was ice cold, actually no scratch that, he was colder than ice if such a thing were possible. And upon closer inspection it wasn't rain that soaked him, but sweat.

"Jesus," Cersei breathed and swiped her fingers underneath his head doing her best not jostle him too much in case he injured his neck on his fall to the ground.

Her fingers came back clean. "Steffen," she placed her hand over his heart and noticed the beat was off.

Cersei frantically checked her pockets for her cell to call for an ambulance. Any number of things could be wrong with Steffen. He could have meningitis, swine flu, measles, mumps or rubella for all she knew and if he did...her face went green as she thought about cross contamination, but she forced all of that to the back of her mind. She finally found her phone.

Putting in her passcode, Cersei held the device up to ear waiting for the call to be patched through to 911, but Steffen's eyes snapped opened and he grabbed her wrist.

"Don't," he panted. "...just...get me some...where...safe."

"Are you nuts? You fell and cracked your head on cement and you feel like you've been napping in a morgue. You're going to the hospital, Steffen."

His hand squeezed her wrist causing Cersei to drop her phone and inaudibly cry out.

"...they're...after me."

Ebony eyes rolled and Cersei had a mind to leave his ass right there and let "them" find him. Steffen had some pretty close connections to some shady people during the time they dated, but he was wise enough to keep that part of his life separate from their relationship. Whatever he got himself involved with now he would deal with on his own. Just like he left her to deal with a fifteen hundred dollar a month rent, utilities not included.    

Snatching her wrist away and massaging the area, Cersei delivered her best glare and the bastard had the audacity to smirk at her revealing that dimple in his cheek that usually melted her resolve and made her wet. Her glare became stony and murderous and she swiftly rose to her feet resisting the urge to kick him.

"Screw you, I'm out."

"Cersei, please! I wouldn't have risked everything to see you if it wasn't important."

She swung back around, incredulous. "Risked what?!" Cersei yelled. "You're not making sense! You walk out on me and expect me to just help you because you have a little cold, and your mobster friends are after you? If I had your nerve I'd go toe to toe with a terrorist with a plastic knife..."

Steffen propped himself up, woodenly, on his elbow. His head was in a fog, thoughts muddled, and his vision swam. He didn't know how much time he had left of coherency, but he needed to make Cersei understand in as few words as possible that he was in some serious shit. People were after him. And if they didn't leave now, well he wouldn't exactly be dead. Death would be a vacation.

He had taken a big chance coming to her like this knowing he used premium gasoline to burn the bridge between them. But if there was one thing Steffen Darkholme had been betting on was Cersei's warm heart taking pity on him, and giving him a place to lay low until he kicked this...this thing out of his system.

Staring at her lean form in her painted on jeans, peplum top, and ankle boots was awakening the thing Steffen had spent the last seven hours trying to suppress. He looked away, swallowed his saliva hating the bitter aftertaste, and did his best to focus on anything else other than the fact he was alone with a female.

Cersei observed him and saw veins erupting along his pale neck as if he were lifting something heavy, which he wasn't, but that wasn't all. His skin was so translucent she could see the blueness of his veins. The color was darkening flirting with becoming purple.

She had never seen anything like it. He was infected with something.

"What's happening to you?" she questioned and took several steps back to her idling vehicle.

Keeping his eyes closed because he knew they were starting to change, Steffen shook his head. "I can explain."

The squealing of car tires interrupted his elucidation. "We need to get out of here."

"No," Cersei spat. "You disappear, leave me high and dry and I'm just supposed to forget that...fuc..."

Her expletive was cut short when Steffen opened his eyes.

"...me..." Cersei went stone still.

~||~

He was nervous and excited. He waited twenty-three years for this moment, waited for the right woman to come along, love him, and want to be with him. He was glad it had finally arrived.

Alex Fontaine rubbed his callous palms together. He rose from the bed and headed back over to the window where he had stood less than five minutes before. At the last second he thought he could have checked into a classier hotel, but she had told him what he selected was fine and it didn't really matter since the main purpose was them being together and alone.

Seeing that the same cars cluttered the parking lot he tried not to let his disappointment eat at him that she was running fifteen minutes late.

To bide his time, Alex stepped into the bathroom, and looked at his appearance. For this special occasional he splurged on a haircut, a new button down shirt not compliments of Wal-Mart but Macy's, ironed his best jeans, and got the lens repaired in his glasses so that pesky scratch that stretched from rim to rim was gone. Alex even went so far as to purchase a bouquet of red roses, a box of Godiva chocolate-now that really set him back, even if it were a small box, and a bottle of sparkling cider. Alcohol made him queasy, and he didn't want anything to ruin this night.

He might not be the best looking guy, the suavest, or the best with women, but he had a heart of gold and knew he'd treat any woman kind enough to give him a chance as if she were a queen. Being raised by a family of females, it had been hammered into his head on how to respect and treat women.

Unfortunately, Alex had had difficulty finding a woman who could see him beyond a friend. He wouldn't group all ladies together and say they only wanted muscled, disrespectful men who played mind games. Yet the female friends Alex had accumulated through the years, those had been their biggest complaints.

He won't listen. He never calls me back. He never answers his phone when I call. He's never where he says he'll be. He's cheating. I caught him cheating and he still denied he was fucking around. He yells. He won't clean. He's lazy. He keeps asking for money but when I stick my hand out, I'm the one who's irresponsible and can't manage money.

Alex had heard it all.

That's why he couldn't believe his luck, when one day sitting in the chain bookstore he frequented when he needed a break from his sister and her loud friends, the most beautiful woman sauntered down the magazine aisle toward the café. The highlighter in his hand dropped to the floor, and rolled in her direction and bumped into her peep toe stiletto.

"Sorry," he scrambled from the table nearly turning the thing over in his haste to retrieve the object. His russet cheeks probably an embarrassing shade of red.

A delicate hand with metallic green fingernails beat him to the punch, swiped his highlighter, and held it out to him.

Brown eyes connected with copper and Alex swallowed thickly, his Adam's apple bobbing. "T-thanks. Sorry," he stammered and rose to his feet.

The mysterious woman did the same never once breaking eye contact with him. With her standing at her full height she could look Alex right in the eye and he stood at six feet even.

Her full, mauve lips split into a smile that nearly knocked him unconscious. "You're welcome and you should be more careful. Those things are rare," she teased.

The peppermint scent of her breath made Alex shudder and he quickly looked down at his shoes telling himself to calm the hell down.

"What are you studying?"

He snapped his head back up surprised she still wanted to converse with him. By this point, he would have been written off as a dweeb and easily forgotten.

Alex had gripped and squeezed the back of his neck and searched his extensive vocabulary for something funny or deep to say, and couldn't find a damn thing to mutter.

He made a vague gesture to the table behind him. "Ancient Roman politics," he snapped his fingers together once the answer came to him.

The woman's arched eyebrows inched toward her hairline and interest flared in her marble-sized copper orbs. "Ancient Roman politics, hun? Are you a law student by any chance? Or PolySci?"

Alex beamed and puffed out his scrawny chest a bit. "Second year law student. I was just doing some recreational reading."

"May I?" the woman pointed at the empty chair at his table and Alex thought she wanted the table for herself.

"Oh, let me pack up and I'll be out of your..."

"No, no, no," she laughed softly, "I wanted to know if I could join you. I've always had a fascination with the law."

Nodding his head vigorously, Alex pulled out the vacant seat and then swiftly retook his own.

She had introduced herself as Mika Rivers originally from Boston which was basically law central of America, daughter of a foreman in a textile plant and a schoolteacher, and adviser to her two younger siblings. They had exchanged numbers and cooling his horses, Alex had waited an entire week before calling her, and from there they had been inseparable.

That chance encounter had taken place some nine weeks ago. Not a whole lot of time in Alex's personal estimation, but far too much to those who moved at warp speed when it came to romantic relationships.

The palms of his hands had turned clammy and Alex washed, dried, and reapplied lotion. He blew out a harsh breath and considered brushing his teeth again, but a knock at the door cancelled those plans.

"Coming!" he shouted and turned out the light in the bathroom.

In three strides he stood at the door, checked the peephole to make sure it was Mika.

Alex swung the door open with an ear-to-ear grin on his face. "You made it!"

"I'm sorry I'm late. There was a real bad accident right before my exit which made traffic crawl to a stop for a while," Mika entered the room and kissed Alex on the cheek as she breezed on by.

She scanned the room noting the bed with the cheap looking duvet on top, the ceiling with one or two water stains, the carpet, the flat screen television, but a smile did grace her face when she saw the setup on the table.

Pivoting in her strappy sandals, she beckoned Alex to come closer. Without question he did and wasted no time pulling her into his arms and slanting his mouth over hers.

She moaned and ran her French manicure fingers over his shoulders, across the nape of his neck, and his scalp eliciting mewling sounds from Alex. Upping the ante, she slithered her tongue through the seal of his mouth, barreling past his teeth until finally reaching Alex's tongue.

Her taste was saccharine and far more...potent than Alex could recall in the times they shared heated kisses. He also noticed that Mika was holding him tighter than usual. If he didn't know any better he'd say she literally wanted to crawl into him. This bolstered his ego that he could make her this hot, this crazy, this boiling with lust that she was barely holding herself together.

They tripped their way to the bed, and Alex laughed when the back of his legs bumped into it.

Mika ripped her lips away and ran her fingers over the soft cotton of Alex's button down. She smirked devilishly before pushing him backwards.

Caught off guard, Alex yelped, but gulped when Mika inched up her already short black dress and climbed over him. She straddled his waist, resting her mound right on top of his groin that was hardening by the millisecond.

He wanted to slow down, talk, ask about her day. Do what they usually did whenever they went out on a date although technically this wasn't a date. They were here to consummate their relationship; they were here, and this made Alex blush to his ears, but they were here to fuck.

He had waited twenty-three years for this and his heart felt like it was about to explode out of his chest.

Mika grabbed his face in both hands, studied his eyes, smiled, angled her head and began kissing him passionately and wildly all over again.

"M-Mika," Alex twisted his mouth away, "I know you want this as much as I do, but shouldn't we...talk first?"

"What's there to talk about?" she bit into his earlobe before ticking the shell of his ear with the tip of her tongue. "We both want this."

Alex hissed and the bands of restraint were loosening and he wanted Mika naked and writhing under him in a jiffy.

Mika pulled back and traced the shape of Alex's lips with her finger. "You're the one I want, Alex. I'm not going to have any regrets about this."

Nodding, Alex tentatively reached for the straps of Mika's dress, pulled them down her arms, and kept pulling until her bra was revealed.

He had kissed and suckled her breasts before-well through her clothing. He became immobile as Mika reached behind her and unclasped her bra.

Two round globes with chocolate nipples saluted him. His hands immediately cupped them, the pads of this thumbs caressed her puckered buds until they were rock hard.

Mika's head fell back and she moaned deeply in her throat. Lifting up slightly she made quick work of unbuckling and unzipping Alex's jeans. She freed his manhood from his plaid boxers and licked her lips.

He was thick but not very long, just about average, but it was enough to fill her.

Alex stared down feeling embarrassed. He knew he didn't have much to offer, but so far Mika wasn't making any complaints. He braced himself for mocking laughter and derision because what was that myth...all black men were hung like horses?

"Perfect."

Alex frowned and looked at Mika questionably. Was she calling his penis perfect or had she intended that perfect to be sarcastic?

She looked at him. "You're perfect, Alex."

He beamed again and met Mika halfway as she leaned forward to kiss him. When they pulled apart to catch their breath, she whispered in his ear.

"Welcome to the brotherhood."

"Hun?" Alex slightly pushed her away and he gasped sharply.

Her eyes...

~||~

Cersei gaped at Steffen disbelieving what she just saw. His eyes...

He had found the strength to climb to his feet and hobble toward her, but Cersei kept walking backwards. If she had her can of mace in her hand she'd blast him and make a run for it. She didn't know what drugs Steffen was on, but if he kept advancing forward she wouldn't feel too bad about hopping behind the wheel of her car and running him over.

Steffen easily spotted the repulsion, confusion, and the fear written plainly on Cersei's face. He had given her no reason to trust him, no reason to help him. His dumping her the way he did, notwithstanding. He was a danger to be around just not in the way she thought.

The hormone was rising again and taking affect. He was fighting it with everything that still made him, him, but he needed to get out of this cramped space, and it needed to happen now!

"Cersei..."

"Just stop!"

"I know this is a lot and you have no reason to help me, but I need your help. I'll tell you everything. We just need to get out of here right now. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Says the man with the freaky ass eyes. What the hell is wrong with you, Steffen? You know what? I don't even want to know. I'm out. Take your ass to the eye doctor."

Cersei bolted to her car, managed to slam the door and put her vehicle into reverse, but had to slam on the brakes when Steffen materialized right behind her.

Cursing, she shifted into drive and had to apply the brakes once more. He stood at the hood. She punched the steering wheel in frustration.

Steffen walked to the driver side door with that self-assured gait of his that always made his jeans look amazing.

She stared at him as he gazed right back at her. His eyes had returned to normal but there was no erasing what she had seen.

"I'll owe you my life, Cersei if you help me."

"I want money, not your life."

Steffen grinned and felt the hormone beating within his bloodstream again. He groaned as pain ransacked him and he almost buckled over. The pain convalesced and began heading in one specific direction. South. The more he denied it, the more painful things would get.

Cersei, worried, was conflicted. As much as he hurt her there was a tiny part of her that still cared about his loser ass. But she didn't trust Steffen. He was sick and she sure as hell didn't want to catch whatever he had. Leaving him here to fend for himself would be just as he deserved, but...

She must have taken too long to come to a decision because the next thing Cersei knew the passenger side door was opening and a hard body was falling into her leather seat.

"Get out!"

Steffen grinned frostily. "Unless you want me to start making out with you..."

Cersei would deny a flare of heat that speared through her lady parts. "You wouldn't."

 Steffen continued as if he hadn't been interrupted, "to throw your co-workers off I suggest you start to drive."

It took some effort because the bastard was still good-looking, Cersei peeled her eyes away and looked straight ahead. Sure enough two of her co-workers were staring boldly right back at them as they dragged their feet to their cars.

"I really despise you," she mumbled and stepped on the gas.

Steffen's head thudded against the head rest. "I missed you, too."  

"What's going on with you? What the hell did I just see a few minutes ago?" Cersei switched her attention between her unwanted passenger and the road.

Steffen let out a tired laugh. "I'm one of them. I'm one of the infected."

To be continued....