Chapter 11

"Lucifer, you have guests," Sam said, knocking on the door to my office.

"Yes, come in," I responded without looking up from my laptop, where I was reading through a news report about my last case, as it was one I thought I could have lost, should one more member of the jury put up a good argument. 'I cannot believe a human man almost won over me. This cannot happen again.'

"Lucifer, long time no see," Alaric said with a grin as he, Bartholomew, and William came into the office, then sat on the couches off to the left, waiting for me to go and join them.

"To what do I owe this... visit?" I asked, laughing aloud when Alaric shot me a glare, his gray eyes narrowed in a look of disbelief and amusement.

"Most would call it a pleasure."

"Most have not met you, Alaric," Bartholomew responded, earning himself a punch in the chest from William, who growled. "Jesus, it was a joke!"

"Though it was a joke, I have to agree with him, regardless. You are not a man I would say that many enjoy being around or knowing in general." I said as I sat on the chair across from Bartholomew and William, with Alaric seated to my left and Sam to my right. 'Which, I believe, is one of the reasons that we get along so splendidly.'

"That may be true, but what does that make you?" Alaric responded with a huff, trying to act as though I'd hurt his feelings, although we all knew I hadn't.

"I am the king. Last I checked, it was not in my job description to be likable." I retorted with a scoff of amusement.

"You say that like you've ever checked your job description," Sam mumbled with a roll of his eyes before grinning when he realized I was watching him. "You are right, though. I don't think being a likable king would do you much good."

"That really depends on who you're likable to, doesn't it?" Bartholomew cut in, furrowing his brows in confusion. "Well, you can either be likable to the vampire world, or you can be likable to the elders. Those are two completely different things, each with its own set of pros and cons."

"That's a fair point, actually." William agreed with a nod before looking towards the office door, where we could hear a few heartbeats approaching.

"Do we have clients coming in? I didn't see anything on the schedule." I asked Sam as I cocked my head to the side to concentrate on the humans coming towards the office. "Five of them?"

"Don't be absurd, Lucifer, I ordered lunch," Sam said with a grin as he stood and opened the door, ushering the humans to come and join us. "If you make a mess, you're cleaning it." He growled to Alaric, William, and Bartholomew with a threatening glare.

"No, Sir, I wouldn't dream of it." Alaric gasped, his eyes going wide as if the very notion of making a mess offended him to his very core. He stood and walked to the nearest human man, making a big show of sinking his fangs into the man's throat, gulping his blood so quickly that there wasn't a chance of a single drop spilling.

"You know, Alaric, every time you and I meet, I wish Erica would give me a reason to kill her so that you can become an elder already," I said with a chuckle as I grabbed the nearest man, putting my hand over his mouth to stifle his scream as I sank my fangs into his throat.

"Is that so?" Alaric asked me once I'd finished my meal, watching as William, Bartholomew, and Sam finished theirs.

"You and Bartholomew are the only two at the table that Lucifer wouldn't kill if given a chance," Sam said with a nod as he, William, and Bartholomew picked up the bodies and carried them out of the room, heading out to dispose of them.

"I hope you don't take offense, Lucifer, but why do you drink from men? There were two women closer to you than the man was, but you went after him instead." Alaric asked as we sat back down on the couches.

"If you're asking if I'm sapphic, no. My reasoning is not one that I can tell someone who sits at the table, as if you tell your elder, I will have to kill you both." I responded, narrowing my eyes as I watched his reaction, surprised when he nodded his understanding and said nothing more. "Why did you go for a man?"

"I refuse to allow a human woman to arouse me. It disgusts me to my very core. Sometimes I have no choice but to drink from women, as Erica prefers to drink from men, and we nearly always hunt a couple. If I have the choice, however, I will only drink from a man."

"Well, I can honestly say that I did not expect that response. Why do you hate human women so much?" I asked, then held my hand up with a laugh. "Disregard that. I do not know what came over me when I felt the need to ask such a ridiculous question."

"As you know, full and well, some human women honestly do not know how to handle themselves, and it is quite irksome," Alaric responded with a knowing nod, then cocked his head to the side with a smile as if he'd just remembered something. "I came across a young vampire not long ago. He couldn't have been turned more than a decade ago, and he asked me why we react that way to women."

"If he is as young as you say, then he does not yet know the troubles those women give us. I understand that they are beautiful, but it is hard enough keeping ourselves from turning into blood-hungry monsters who do nothing but hunt. I have not known a single vampire man who could bed multiple humans while simultaneously keeping his composure."

"Woah, what conversation did we just walk in on?" William asked as he, Bartholomew, and Sam came back into the office, looking back and forth between Alaric and me.

"We are conversing about how troublesome human women are," I responded, watching as Bartholomew and William came to sit back down. "I suppose you are the only two vampire men I've met that do not have an issue with it."

"It does not matter that we do not enjoy the company of women; they still throw themselves at us. Though, I suppose, it is easier for us to brush them off, as we do not find them attractive." Bartholomew said with a shake of his head, leaning back on the couch as he draped an arm across William's shoulder.

"I do understand why you find it so annoying, but I don't entirely understand why you hate the humans as much as you do because of it. I've wanted to ask but did not want to speak out of turn by doing so." William said, casting a nervous glance at Alaric as he spoke.

"If you think about it, William, it does make sense. Why do you not bed human men?" Sam asked him, then held up his hands in a show of surrender when Bartholomew growled, narrowing his eyes. "Other than the fact that you are in a relationship, I mean."

"Well, other than because I am in a relationship, it is because I would find it entirely too troublesome to hold myself back. All we need to do is slip up, just for a second, and the human would be dead." William responded with a shrug.

"Precisely. That is the reason they despise what the women do. They cannot bed them because if they did, they would likely kill them. So, the women continually throwing themselves at them is like never-ending torture."

"I hadn't thought about it that way," Bartholomew said with a slight noise of surprise, then narrowed his eyes in thought before looking up at me. "If you wanted it bad enough, you would refrain yourself."

"What is the point?" Alaric laughed out, shaking his head. "We already do not receive full enjoyment from human women, and on top of it, we will have to hold ourselves back the entire time. It makes more sense to refuse to bed them all together rather than to allow ourselves to be further tortured by their very mortality."

"They say creatures such as ourselves do not have souls, and so we will not have an afterlife, but sometimes I believe that our very existence as vampires is our afterlife. We are tormented endlessly by the one thing we want but cannot have, for if we have it, we will destroy it." I mumbled, shaking my head with a sigh before looking up at the group of men. I couldn't help it as my thoughts inevitably turned to Bast, the one human I wanted, but could not have, as I was sure I would not be able to control myself.