Chapter 5: Reflections

With a martini in front of her, Emilia sat at the bar in a high-end club full of elites. Most of the men were wearing suits and the women all had expensive dresses and stylish shoes. Emilia fit in perfectly.

She gently pinched the stem of her martini glass, slowly rotating it in a circle on the bar top.

No one had approached her or spoken to her yet, but she was giving off all the right signals.

It didn’t take long for a well-dressed businessman to slide into the barstool beside her and order himself a whiskey on the rocks.

“I’m wondering to myself, what a woman as beautiful as you is doing sitting alone at a bar,” he said, smirking at her.

“Beautiful?” she asked. “What do you see when you look at me?”

Roger’s lips turned down in a frown.

“Someone whose beauty would only be done a disservice if I tried to describe it with words,” he told her.

Emilia smiled, pushing her martini glass away.

“Again, I have to ask, what is it that a woman of your status is doing all alone here?” he prompted again.

“Maybe she’s lonely,” Emilia offered licking her lips.

The businessman’s jaw slackened slightly. “My name is Roger,” he said.

“Emilia,” she responded. She turned the rotating top of the barstool to angle herself towards him. Emilia reached out and gently placed her hand over his, brushing her fingertips along the veins on the back of his hand.

Roger chuckled lightly. “Perhaps I should offer my company for the evening,” he said, raising an eyebrow at Emilia.

Licking her lips again, Emilia looked up at Roger from under her eyelashes. It was a look she knew would draw in any man that was attracted to her.

“Do you think you think you’re up for that challenge?” she asked.

Roger scoffed and sipped his whiskey, using his free hand as Emilia continued to caress the veins in his other hand.

She liked how thick and bulging they were and she could feel the blood rushing through his veins just beneath the thin tissue.

“Oh, yes, I can handle it,” Roger assured.

Emilia nodded, sliding off the barstool. She put a little sway in her step as she walked a few paces away. When she looked back over her shoulder at Roger, his eyes were fixed on her backside.

“I’m waiting,” Emilia said, “Show me your place.”

Roger smirked. He quickly drank the rest of his whiskey, closed out his tab, and followed after Emilia.

Roger lived exactly as Emilia expected him to. Human men were so predictable. He lived in a penthouse apartment, the kind that only a corporate employee making six figures a year could afford.

Despite its luxurious furniture and the expensive décor, Emilia was certain that Roger hardly used the space himself. He struck her as the type of man who worked sixty to eighty hours a week and only brought entertainment home when he was feeling a specific need. A suspicion that was confirmed when she quickly scanned his mind.

The moment Roger closed his apartment door, he turned and grabbed Emilia’s hips. She spun in his grasp, putting her arms around his neck. Roger smirked, leaning in and kissing her lips.

Emilia smiled against his lips, pushing him back against the wall with more strength than she should have.

“Whoa, you like it rough, don’t you?” Roger asked.

Emilia didn’t respond with words. She pressed her hands against his shoulders, pinning him to the wall. Emilia kissed his lips hard, then moved her mouth to his neck. She nipped lightly at his skin, causing him to groan.

She pressed her body against his, increasing the heat on Roger’s skin, causing his heart to race faster, blood pumping delectably through his veins.

Opening her mouth wider, Emilia bit down, sinking her fangs into Roger’s jugular.

“O-ow!” he gasped. He struggled against her, but Emilia was too strong.

Growling, she pushed her hands harder into his chest, keeping him against the wall. She brought her knee to his groin, pressing against the sensitive flesh enough to cause Roger to groan in pain and stop struggling.

Emilia drank his blood to the rhythm of his heartbeat, her own skin heating with a pinkish glow as his blood filled her veins.

When she’d had enough, Emilia released Roger. He was weak, collapsing onto the floor, groaning as he raised a shaking hand to his bloodied neck.

Emilia licked her lips. She ran a finger around the outside of her mouth, catching stray drops of blood and sucking them off her own finger.

To her right, there was a mirror hanging on Roger’s wall.

Instinctively, Emilia looked towards it. There was nothing but Roger’s apartment reflected back at her. She lifted a hand to her cheek, swaying back and forth before the reflecting glass, but the image never changed. It was like looking at a stationary picture instead of a mirror.

“You bit me,” Roger complained from the floor, his strength returning as his blood cell count recovered. He wouldn’t be up to his full strength for a few hours, but he wouldn’t need a transfusion.

Emilia never took enough to cause permanent damage, her stomach always aching when she mustered the strength the pull back.

“Goodnight, Roger,” she said.

She let herself out of the apartment as he still floundered to recover.

Emilia went directly to Tommy Drix’s loft. He was there with some friends. They were laughing and talking over an open bottle of wine.

Emilia watched from the fire escape for a few moments before she let herself in through the open window. She was starting to think he left it open in expectation of her return.

“Emilia,” Tommy said, standing up abruptly when he saw her. The chatter among his friends stopped.

One of the women that was there was Abby, the one Tommy had blown off to talk to Emilia at the bar.

“I can’t tell you everything,” she said, ignoring his friends.

Tommy raised an eyebrow at her. He looked over at his friends.

“Maybe we should call it an early night?” he asked.

His friends mumbled things under their breath, but they gathered their belongings and headed out of the loft. Emilia received pointed, dagger filled glares from Abby, but she did not acknowledge the woman with a look.

“You can’t just keep showing up like this,” Tommy warned her. He started collecting the glasses his friends had left behind, bringing them to his kitchen sink.

“You may have noticed that I don’t follow society’s typical rules,” Emilia said with a light laugh.

Tommy’s lips twitched, like he was trying to keep from smiling. Eventually, he gave in and his lips curved upwards.

“I have,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d be coming back.”

Emilia nodded. “As I said, I can’t tell you everything, but I can tell you why this is important to me,” she said.

Tommy nodded, holding a hand out to her, inviting her to continue.

“Everyone casts a reflection, right?” she asked.

Tommy creased his brow. He grabbed the half empty bottle of wine and held it out to Emilia, offering her some. She shook her head in decline. Tommy poured himself a glass.

“I’m not sure I followed you around that bend,” Tommy admitted, sipping his wine.

“You’re reflected in your work, in your fans,” she explained, waving an arm around at the paintings on his walls. “Others are reflected in the faces of those around them.”

“Yes, I suppose that is true,” Tommy said, his eyes drifting to the side in thought.

“I don’t have that,” Emilia admitted. She linked her fingers together behind her back.

“How can you not?” the artist asked, finishing his wine and placing the glass in the sink.

Emilia smiled dryly. “I want to know what I look like,” she continued, ignoring Tommy’s question. “What others see when they look at me.”

“That’s all you can tell me?” Tommy asked, quirking an eyebrow at her again.

“For now,” Emilia said, smiling coyly. Tommy smirked.

“Let’s get started,” he said.