Forbidden Lover ~ Eclipse of the Turning

It was never going to happen to her. Margo knew this and expected it to be so. Vampires were a damn traditional bunch of creatures.

This tended to be the case with any creature where most of the population were decades if not centuries older than the current modern stance on society. Margo believed the same must be true for fate or the universe. Whoever handed out soulmates had to be a traditionalist too.

It was never going to happen to her. If it did, she would probably wish it hadn't.

So, color her surprised when her nightly run had taken her to the same spot in the city for the seventh time. Margo pulled her earbuds out and looked around. Where in the world was she?

She was in the woods surrounding a generic middle-class suburban housing track. Why was she here again? Unlike the previous times she noticed something new that stood out.

A young blonde-haired girl, a true beauty walked into her back yard. She was dressed simply in a tank top and pair of jean shorts. Didn't this girl know there were monsters in the woods?

Margo watched her as the girl raised her head to the sky and let out a long breath. Margo shifted positions minutely as the girl looked into the woods. Their eyes locked for a split second.

That was when Margo realized that the universe was just like her and liked to shake it up sometimes. That beautiful girl in the backyard was her mate.

Margo made a silent exclamation of joy before looking back to the yard. Apparently, the middle of nowhere was somewhere worth being. A voice called from inside the house and the woman rushed inside.

Margo raced around the front to get the address. She would send Antoine back to get all the information on this woman as soon as she got back to the tower. Once out front she saw a police car. Margo thought about investigating further but didn't.

She had just seen the woman surely everything would be fine for a couple hours. Margo enjoyed the run back even more than she normally did. Margo used to live in fear of being given a mate but as soon as she had seen the woman she felt relief.

Margo didn't run because she needed exercise or for any other traditional reason. She ran because she was old enough that genetically she still felt the urge to hunt. Running helped somewhat.

The newer vampires were used to their meals waltzing right up them. Only about a half dozen vampires on the West coast still had the hunting gene. Three of them were on the council with her in Seattle.

No, Margo wasn't a traditionalist. She liked fast cars, cursing like she was getting paid for it, and beautiful women. She liked to buck the system. She rarely cared who got their feelings hurt in the exchange.

Margo had been around long enough that she was respected, revered, and even feared. No small feat in a traditionalist vampire society. Though it helped that she had been around at least twice as long as most had been alive.

Margaret Durning had been a newly married noblewoman in the year 936 A.D. in Francia. A vampire uprising had swept through Paris killing roughly sixty individuals and turning another twenty.

Margo had been one of the terrified ones that turned. In those first volatile years she had remembered very little, becoming simply Margo.

Decades later she had become quite adept at reading maps. She had been put in charge of navigation for the clan. Her name had been changed to Margo Atlas and that name had stuck for a millennium.

That clan had grown, changed, and traveled. It had finally settled in the Seattle area in the very early days of the twentieth century. One thing that has remained constant was Margo.

She was the oldest surviving member of the clan and its leader. They now had over five hundred vampires. Those numbers had held steady over the last forty years.

Every once in a while, an older vampire would get sloppy and be culled or a new face would be added when a mate was found. The clan wasn't outwardly at war with either of the two other smaller clans in the area. They even were friendly to the four Portland clans.

Though it helped that her clan was more than four times larger than any of the others. Things were good. The simple rules of keeping a low profile with humans and not turning anyone without just cause were being followed.

Being a vampire came with some drama. The entire species were jealous, territorial, and aggressive. These were all traits that lent to a population with high-strung emotionally charged situations.

This was generally dealt with quickly and without resorting to violence. This was good because vampires were not safe for public consumption when violent.

Vampires were super strong, super-fast, and some, especially the vamps past their five hundredth year often had gifts that made them worse than lethal. Fighting vampires tended to make the news with headlines that read 'Catastrophic and unexpected tornado wipes out half of town.' Margo tried to keep her clan's drama in check but sometimes shit happens.

Feeding from humans was the norm but killing humans was not. Generally, what was known as the thrall was used to induce memory loss. The human went back to life with an unusually sore neck and feeling kind of tired.

Humans did still occasionally die though it was frowned upon. Mass killing of humans or even killing humans consistently would get a vampire detained or dead.

It wasn't because of some deep love of humanity. Simply, authorities investigating disappearances at all was the opposite of what the council wanted. Humans looking too deeply into their members or businesses created a bad public image. Margo personally had billions at stake to bad public relations.

Margo reached the tower and raced inside. She slid the key card into the slot in the elevator to take her to the penthouse apartment. She knew that Antoine would be there waiting for her before they headed out for night's business.

Antoine had joined her clan in 1281 in Paris. It was during her clan's reign in France which ended when they moved on to central Europe around 1345.

Antoine had been the head of a fashion house in France. While Margo didn't care a bit about fashion, she knew that Antoine's eye for it in those times kept them from sticking out. He was Margo's oldest and dearest friend and the only person she trusted with her very human mate. There were many who would have loved to hold such a valuable prize. To gain control of Margo and the council through her. They needed to find this girl and get her changed immediately.

When Margo told Antoine about her mate, he was alarmed. Why didn't she call? No phone, to which he shook his head. Was she being followed? No, not that she saw.

Antoine bustled around letting her know that she couldn't miss the council meeting. Margo knew and got changed to head out. She let him know she would be doing a site inspection at third by the time he got back with the girl.

She wanted to know when he was back so she would come be there when the woman woke up. Antoine would have to put her under the thrall. This would help to stop the kidnapping panic.

Margo went to the council meeting. It was nondescript or nothing to report this week. Margo inspected the condo apartment units at third and found everything to be in order.

She inspected one of each of the unit sizes at random and they were all impeccable. Nearly all the units were already rented, and they were going for a steep sum.

Margo kept waiting to hear from Antoine. When she didn't, she headed back to the tower and went upstairs. It was one in the morning already.

While the sun didn't burn vampires alive like in the movies it could make them very sick. So, they avoided it like most people avoid contracting food poisoning. The effects were very similar.

Antoine finally came through about an hour later without the girl. Margo asked him where her mate was, and he hung his head. He said he had done everything he could to find her but there was no trace of her. She must have left in a car because there was no fresh scent of her leaving.

The house was being stripped of personal property right now. It was a dead end. He randomly drove around trying to find her scent. He found it at a shopping mall, but it was at least a month old.

For right now the girl was gone like she had never existed. Turns out the universe was a traditionalist after all. Margo had just been confused about which kind.

Margo was devastated to have come so close. She went over it a million times. She should have gone to her then. Of Course, Margo kept looking but there was just no sign that her mate had ever existed.

That was three months ago…

Now Margo was sitting in the VIP box overlooking the main floor of her club Chaos Zone. Below her on the floor was a beautiful blonde holding a serving tray. She was wearing the skimpy outfit worn by the floor employees. Margo's general manager Stephan was giving her instructions for how to work the floor.

Margo couldn't look away and then the blonde glanced up at her. There was her missing mate. Where had she been all this time? What the hell could possibly have led her to work in a seedy place like this?