Chapter 3

Cassius Lockwood.

Patriarch of the notorious pureblood vampire family.

A prime target for the hunters for many years.

He was ruthless.

Domineering.

An overall psychopath.

He had recently managed to worm his way into the good graces of the two most powerful vampire families.

The Redfern and Blackwell's.

Which was really bad news for... well... anyone that wasn't a vampire.

The slayers know that their plan was to eradicate any other supernatural species so that they reigned supreme.

Which was fine, saved the slayers a lot of work in a way, but they then wanted to enslave humanity.

Literally use people like cattle; maybe keep some as servants to them.

That was what they were fighting hard to stop.

Bringing down Cassius Lockwood could be the first move in knocking down the Redfern and Blackwell families. Cassius had more influence in the human world, as he has business deals left, right and centre with different politicians and influencers the like.

The other two families were... let's say, a little less social with the creatures they saw only as a food source, so Cassius would be a great help in their plans.

Which meant he knew their plans or at least parts of them.

That's why her mission wasn't to kill the evil bastard, it was to capture him.

Something she had never had to do before.

She had had plenty of training on how to do so but never had to put it into practice.

Isabelle spent the longest time pouring over the documents, again and again, trying to memorize every last detail about this guy.

She studied his picture over and over, trying to analyse every aspect of him.

Cassius didn't look a day over thirty, not bad for a guy who was centuries old. There were small signs of age on his near-perfect face, but these were so small that you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it.

He had striking steely grey eyes, that seemed to penetrate her soul, even from just a photo. He had a tussle of dark hair on top of his head that looked silky soft and always seemed well-groomed. A light dusting of facial hair patterned across his chiselled jaw line.

He was an attractive man.

Well, all vampires were really attractive, it was a predatory trait to draw in humans, but Cassius seemed even more so.

If he wasn't a hundreds of years old vampire, then she may have been a little flustered, but she knew the truth and his beauty just repulsed her.

"Disgusting parasite," she muttered to herself, finally putting the papers down and grabbing the wine she had poured but neglected for over two hours.

She'd only managed to sleep for a few hours, the new assignment was still reeling in her mind. She really couldn't believe she'd been entrusted with this. It was exciting and overwhelming all at the same time.

She woke up at noon, got dressed, poured some wine and made herself a sandwich and then sat down with her paperwork and she'd been there since, and it was now three in the afternoon.

The sandwich and wine had been neglected as she'd thrown herself straight into the research, but now she was all burned out.

She gulped down her wine and demolished her sandwich within just a few minutes.

She washed her plate in the kitchen and then went to safely put away the paperwork for the day. She'd done enough and after last night she deserved a day off.

She needed to go shopping for some more food as she'd been neglecting her household duties and she had to do a load of washing and try and get the bloodstains out of her cocktail dress.

The store was quiet as she wandered through the aisles pushing her trolley. She took her time, dawdling on the aisles, browsing things she knew she wouldn't buy, but enjoyed looking at them anyway.

After half filling the trolley with food, mostly of the junk variety, she wandered over to the clothing department. Again, she had no intention of buying anything, but it was always fun to look.

The selection was less than impressive. It was the middle of summer so little breezy dresses and short were in. Izzie really wasn't a fan of them, she much preferred her tight dark jeans and jumpers.

Not exactly summer wear, but it was what she was comfortable with. She wore the same style year-round. You'd never catch her in shorts and a crop top showed off too many of her scars during the day. Thankfully in the nightclub they weren't too noticeable, especially when she opted for tights with her cocktail dress, she also covered the ones on her arms chest and back with foundation.

She wasn't ashamed of her scars, they were her medals from battles won, but other humans were not so understanding and asked way too many questions. On the flip side, a target may become suspicious if they were to see them. All in all, it was better if she just kept them covered as much as possible.

Finally, she came across a cute bra and panties set that did take her fancy.

She lifted it off the rack and held it up.

It was a cute light blue lacy set, there was a little padding in the cups to give a nice bit of cleavage and the fabric was lovely and soft.

She found a mirror and held it up against herself, seeing if it matched her skin tone.

Was the colour right for her?

Did she really need another set?

She turned and looked over and over, debating whether she wanted to waste money on it.

It was cute though, and she could never have too many in her line of work.

Still, it was a little pricey.

"Go on," she heard a male voice behind her, "Treat yourself."

She used the mirror to glance behind her and spotted Jake smirking at her.

She rolled her eyes at him and proceeded to throw the set into the trolley.

She was going to treat herself, but not because Jake said so.

She was still a little pissed at him, but a lot of her anger had waned.

He made his way over to her casually and leant on the front of the trolley, stopping her from moving.

"Listen, Izzie," he said, a little more solemn now, "I'm sorry about what I said this morning, I realise now how it sounded."

Izzie nodded, she couldn't stay mad at him forever, "Apology accepted," she told him, still sticking him with a cold look.

The cold look began to defrost into a smirk when she saw him giving her the puppy dog eyes.

"Stop!" she nudged the trolley into him, the smirk breaking out fully, "You know that's cheating."

A smile touched his lips too as she nudged him, "Movie night?" he inquired, holding up a bag of popcorn he'd pulled from her trolley.

Dumb question.

"Of course," she smiled fully now.

She just couldn't stay mad at this guy, deep down she knew he didn't mean what he had said earlier, but still, she needed to make the point.

Then he pulls the sad eyes, knowing that she crumbles every time.

They chatted idly as they made their way to the self-scan and Jake started scanning things through as she was unloading the rest onto the conveyor belt.

Suddenly the beeping stopped and Izzie glanced up to see Jake stood frozen in place.

"Jake?" she asked with a frown, concerned for her friend, "Jake, are you alright?"

"Look," he breathed, his voice barely audible.

As instructed Izzie followed his gaze and was shocked by what she saw.

The dark hair.

The eyes like steel.

That perfect face.

Cassius Lockwood was five self-scans down from them, scanning through a couple of bottles of what looked like whiskey.

Cassius.

Fucking.

Lockwood.

Was in a supermarket.

Buying alcohol.

Using a self-scan.

By himself.

So many things were wrong with that.

Sooo many.

Cassius was always escorted by at least two guards, always.

"Stop staring," Izzie hissed, hoping her voice was low enough that Cassius couldn't hear them.

She averted her gaze as well, focusing her attention on getting everything scanned through.

Thankfully Jake listened and dropped his gaze down and moved from scanning to packing the shopping bags with her newly purchased food.

Izzie kept glancing up occasionally, keeping an eye on Cassius, assuming his guards were waiting in the wings or something.

It was disproven when he grabbed his bag and made his way towards the exit. No one joined him, not once.

She then watched his retreating form through the windowed front of the store.

Still, there was no one around him.

Eventually he stopped by an expensive-looking car, it was too dark for her to see exactly what the car was, let alone the licence plate. He threw his bag in and then hopped into the driver's seat and drove off.

Even as he was pulling out of the car park he was still alone. No other cars pulled behind him.

"What the hell just happened?" Jake asked as they both watched the taillights disappear.