'Damn these humans, must they always be such obnoxious creatures?' I thought as I parked my blacked-out Aston Martin in the parking space reserved for me. As was the same every morning, dozens of women were standing around my parking space, waiting for me. Every day they would reveal more of themselves and their unappealing flesh to me in the foolish hopes that I would bed them.

I sighed heavily before pushing the door open and stepping out, immediately making a beeline for the front door, ignoring the women as I did every morning. They never seemed to comprehend that I wouldn't someday magically want them, despite the amount of skin they showed me.

As I looked forward, my attention was drawn to a young girl fighting the wind to gather her papers as they were being strewn about on the front steps of my building. She was beautiful with long black hair down to her hips, her skin resembling porcelain perfection, but the thing that really caught my attention was her eyes. She had the most bewitching eyes I'd ever seen - a darker shade of yellow shining like pure gold under her long lashes. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this girl was a cat in human form. Although she was losing the fight against the wind, her every movement was graceful, her long black hair soft and seemingly unbothered by the wind as it remained still along her back.

The sounds of the women surrounding me snapped me out of my thoughts as I growled internally and shoved the door open to the building, keeping my pace as I went into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. It wasn't until the doors shut that I could enjoy a moment of silence, thankful for the small reprieve. The drive here and the elevator ride to my office were the only peace I would obtain for many of my days.

"Good morning, Alaric. How was your morning?" William asked me when the elevator doors opened, his brown eyes gleaming with a devious smile as he greeted me. He knew exactly how my morning went, as it rarely changed.

"Don't patronize me, William," I snarled to him, walking past him and into my office, where I was greeted by the stacks of papers on my desk awaiting my immediate attention.

"Yes, Sir. I have your itinerary for the day," William said as he began droning on, informing me of what I needed to do today as if he wouldn't be by my side for most of the day and reminding me throughout as he did every day.

I tuned him out as my thoughts went back to the girl on the front steps not long ago, wondering why I'd never seen her before. I know I'd remember her - especially with those eyes - but I couldn't recall ever seeing her before. I opened my laptop and clicked through the new employee files until I found her. Mercy Smith. The picture taken for her intern badge did her no justice and was nothing compared to the girl I saw only minutes ago. I clicked on her file and began reading through what HR had for her, trying to sate my ever-growing curiosity. She was eighteen years old and hired as an intern in the design department to work under Mrs. Cho, the old crow on the sixteenth floor.

'Mercy, what a beautiful but unconventional name.' I thought as I finished reading through her file, then went back to her picture. 'An unconventional name for a very unconventional girl.'

"Sir?" William asked, trying to bring my attention back to him as he realized I hadn't been listening to him but rather engrossed with what I was looking at. He stepped around the desk to look at my screen and nodded when he saw her file. "Oh, Mercy? She's a nice young lady."

I turned to face him as he said this, narrowing my eyes as I spoke. "You've met her?"

"Yes, she came up yesterday to drop off some proofs from the design department," he blurted out, his eyes widening in confusion and surprise when he saw my reaction, taken aback as I was not known to care about the humans who worked beneath me.

I nodded and turned back to the screen, looking at the girl once more before closing the lid on my computer, sighing as I motioned to the stack of papers before me. "What's all this, then?"

"Requisition notices requiring your signature," William said as he took a small section from what may have been hundreds before setting them in front of me.

"And what will I be requisitioning?" I asked him absentmindedly as I began signing the papers, one by one.

"Victor's share of Jag Co. These are for all the departments he headed, and the projects those departments were working on," William explained as he went to the door before turning around to look at me once more. "What would you like for lunch, Sir?"

I paused for a moment, considering this. "AB positive, William," I said before returning to my paperwork, scanning through the pages quickly before signing them. After William closed the door, I opened the laptop and viewed the security cameras on the sixteenth floor, browsing through them until I found the girl who'd imprinted herself in my thoughts without even looking at me. Mercy Smith. I found her relatively quickly as she was easily distinguishable from the other women in her department, even though the design department was one of our biggest and had over one hundred security cameras.

Mercy was sitting at her desk, head bowed as she worked on something I couldn't quite make out from the camera. I didn't entirely care what she was working on - I just wanted to see her. My thoughts were filled with confusion when it came to this curious little creature. I'd never been interested in a human before. Not once in my two centuries have I ever considered a human as anything more than my next meal.

'Why am I so infatuated with you, Mercy?' I thought as I watched her moving about her small office, seemingly unable to remain still for an extended time. 'I may have to make you mine if you remain in my thoughts, kitten.'