Birth of the Vampire (The Vanderlind Realm) (23 page)

“Just ignore them,” Erika said, squeezing my arm.

But ignoring nasty people was what you did when you had no other options. And I had options. I could have easily gone Stephen King on their asses. I had the option of sucking the blood out of every single one of them.

Chapter 35

Dorian

When I got back to Tiburon, I was packing a full flask and a sharp stake in my pocket. I was still undecided as to which one I should employ. I started searching for my dear scion immediately. A glance at the headlines of the local paper didn’t reveal anything about a mass killing, so I figured either Haley had been sticking to her routine of working the night shift and sucking all the pink out of every steak she could lay her hands on, or she had grown more discreet when stalking her human prey. If she’d stuck to the meat, I had to admire her self-control. I didn’t know any vampire who could survive the way that she had been surviving for more than a day or two. Especially a new vampire, when the bloodlust is at its most intense.

First I checked the diner, but Haley wasn’t there. Then I swung by her house, and with only a little persuasion, her half-uncle explained that she had gone to a dance at the local high school. Haley’s decision making stunned me. A new vampire in a gym filled with students sounded like a recipe for disaster. Lady Darby was right. I had to deal with Haley one way or the other.

As I entered the gymnasium, the smell of a room full of excited young people made me remember I hadn’t eaten much in the last few days. I’d been too busy flying to New York and back to focus on my carnal needs. Covertly, I slipped the flask out of my pocket and took a long pull. I wanted to guzzle the whole thing down, but I knew I would probably need it for Haley.

The dance was just picking up, and couples were crowding the dance floor. I wondered if Haley had arrived with a date. And what I was supposed to do with him if she had. But then I saw her through the swarm of teenagers. Her eyes closed as she danced with wanton abandon. Erika was quite close to her, also dancing but without quite the same recklessness as my progeny.

Haley looked stunning. Her gown fit her perfectly, the fabric flowing over her curves as she swayed and twirled. I saw several of the young men in attendance staring at her with lust easily discernible across their faces. Even the brutish boy from the party was staring at her, his mouth hanging open.

As I made my way through the crowd, I reached into my breast pocket, fingers easily finding the base of the stake. I would try to lure her outside to discretely end my little experiment in becoming a maker. But if she fought me, there was a good chance I would have to finish the deed in front of at least a hundred witnesses. That was going to cause me a lot of grief when the Bishops found out. And even though I was tucked away in a small town in Ohio, the Bishops always had a way of finding out.

“Haley,” I said in a low voice, hoping to draw her out without calling too much attention to my actions.

The girl acted as if she didn’t hear me. Her eyes remained closed, and her wild dancing continued uninterrupted. The only thing that made me think she was paying attention was the slight wrinkle that had formed over the bridge of her nose.

I took another slug from the flask. The loud music and all the mortal bodies surrounding me were distracting me from my focus. “Haley,” I called again.

“You’ll have to get in line,” some mortal girl said, leaning on my shoulder. She looked vaguely familiar from the Christmas Eve party. Feeling the need to elaborate, she shouted in my ear, “That girl’s a slut. She’ll do anyone.”

Like a bolt of lightning, Haley came flashing across the room. She raised her hand to strike the girl, and if I hadn’t been standing mere inches away, I wouldn’t have been able to stop her. My free hand was on the stake. I was on the verge of unsheathing it and ending my progeny.

But in that last split second, I realized that the last thing I wanted was for Haley Scott to meet the one true maker. And then we were kissing.

It was mad, passionate kissing. The kind that seems so genuine in films but rarely takes place in real life. I wanted Haley. I wanted to tear her clothes off and consume her. And for once, I didn’t mean it in the vampire sense.

We were kissing deeper and deeper, pulling and scratching and biting at each other like animals. “Let’s go outside,” I whispered in her ear.

“No,” she snarled back. “I’m hungry, and this party is too crowded.”

I quickly uncapped the flask and pressed it to her lips. “It’s not worth it,” I told her. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying,” was her reply as she glared at the girl who had called her a slut.

“There’s no drinking on school property,” a man said, quickly approaching us. From his tone and demeanor, I assumed he was a teacher or some type of school official.

I fixed him with my gaze. “Nothing is going on here. You need to go to the other side of the gymnasium.”

“Get a room,” some kid jeered at us while he was crossing the dance floor, causing Haley to whip her head around and glare at the boy.

“Come on.” I tugged her in the direction of the door, our arms still coiled around each other. “The flask is still almost full.” That caught her attention, and she willingly complied.

Around the corner of the building, there were a few couples kissing in the moonlight. “Go back inside,” I told them. They obeyed without hesitation. I handed my flask to Haley. “It’s all yours,” I told her.

My scion did not demure. She lifted the bottle to her perfect lips and emptied the contents in several large gulps. It was hard to conceive that a woman could look attractive as she chugged down almost the entire contents of a flask, but Haley managed to pull it off.

“Thanks,” she said, handing the flask back to me. “I needed that.”

“You are welcome,” I told her. “May I ask how you’ve been eating since we last spoke?”

She parted her lips, and for a moment I thought she was going to answer me, but instead she asked, “Why are you here?”

I carefully considered my options. “I came here to convince you to come with me and enter the vampire world,” I told her. “That or stake you,” I said, opening my jacket so she could catch a glimpse of the weapon I had concealed in my breast pocket.

“What?” she exclaimed. “Vampires can’t stake other vampires.”

“That is a myth,” I explained. “We quite obviously can, or I wouldn’t be carrying this thing around with me. To my own potential peril I might add.”

I saw anger flare up behind her eyes. “Why the hell do you want to stake me? You’re the one that turned me into a vampire in the first place.”

“Because you won’t listen,” I told her. “This isn’t how things are supposed to be. The bond between maker and progeny is supposed to be almost as strong as that between a mother and child,” I explained. “Or at least it’s supposed to exist.”

“Is that seriously how you’re handling this?” she demanded, her hands on her hips. “I’m not behaving the way you expected, so you just want to stake me? Why did you even become a maker in the first place?”

“It’s complicated,” I said with a sigh, not wanting to delve into my own fuzzy motives in any detail.

“You make me a vampire. You act like a total spaz with all this weird “I am your maker” nonsense. And then you decide to stake me because you just don’t want to deal with me,” Haley said, obviously having no respect for her maker. “Why don’t you just leave me at the fire station?”

“What?” I asked, running my hand across my chin. Her reference had me a bit confused.

“It’s a law in some states that a parent can just dump their babies at a hospital or fire station or wherever if they don't want them. It’s supposed to stop reluctant parents from leaving a baby in a dumpster or something.”

I blinked at her for a few seconds wondering if the transformation to vampire had left her completely unhinged.

A group of young people walked past on their way to the parking lot. “Watch out, dude,” a young man called. “She’s a bleeder.” Everybody laughed.

I saw that Haley was about to go after the boy, so I grabbed her and wrapped both arms around her.

“Let me go,” she said, glaring in the direction of the parking lot. “There’s somebody’s face I want to rip off.”

“No,” I told her. “I am your maker, and I am commanding you to stand down.”

“You what?” she asked, a small laugh escaping from her lips. “You’re commanding me?”

“Haley,” I said, releasing her. At least my words had stopped her from chasing after the ill-bred young man. “Do you truly feel no alliance to me as your maker? Do you not feel compelled to obey me?”

“No,” she told me. “Right now, I don’t feel compelled to obey anyone.”

“And you feel no connection to me at all?” I asked, but already guessed the answer.

“Not really,” she said.

“I accept that,” I told her, “but I still feel an obligation to help you as my progeny.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She gave me a shrug. I could tell she was still keeping tabs on the young people who were now sitting in a car.

“Are you happy here?” I wanted to know. “Working the night shift at a small-town diner, sucking on raw meat, and foraging for animals in the woods?” That was a guess. She looked too healthy to have been surviving on meat alone. “Wouldn’t you rather come with me and experience all the pleasures the world has to offer?”

She kept glaring in the direction of the kids in the parked car. I had the distinct impression that my scion wasn’t listening to me. “Haley,” I said, grabbing her by the shoulders and forcing her to look at me. “Do you want to come with me? Or do you want to stay here and be miserable?”

Chapter 36

Haley

“Haley.”

Someone had called my name. The voice sounded familiar, but I didn’t want to listen. There wasn’t anyone at the dance that I wanted to talk to besides Erika.

“You’ll have to get in line,” I heard Sheila’s voice say above the crowd. “That girl’s a slut. She’ll do anyone.”

That was it. I’d had sex with one guy one time, and it felt like I was never going to hear the end of it. I stormed across the dance floor with the conviction that I was going to slap some compassion into Sheila Lavelle.

But out of nowhere, there was Dorian. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to him. I thought he was going to strike me, but instead his lips found mine. I had thought I’d hated Dorian for what he’d done to me, but kissing him was fantastic. I felt it way down to my toes. There was the faint taste of blood on his tongue, and that only made me want him even more.

“Let’s go outside,” he whispered as we tugged at each other’s clothes.

His kiss was so enthralling that I’d almost forgotten about Sheila, Tommy, and everyone else. But then I heard a girl’s malicious giggle, and it brought me back to reality. “No,” I told him. His titillating kisses weren’t enough to pry me from the gym. There were too many nasty people who could use a good lesson. “I’m hungry, and this party is too crowded.”

He uncapped a silver flask and pressed it to my lips. “It’s not worth it,” he told me. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

From the smell, I knew the flask was full of blood. It smelled so good. All I wanted to do was suck the bottle dry. But there was Sheila. And there was Tommy. And the thing I wanted most on the planet was to make them regret ever being the nasty vermin that they were. “I know exactly what I’m saying,” I informed him, tracking Sheila the entire time.

A teacher barged into our conversation. “There’s no drinking on school property.”

Dorian fixed him with his crazy vampire eyes. “Nothing is going on here. You need to go to the other side of the gymnasium.” The teacher obeyed immediately.

“Get a room,” some kid jeered at us. I didn’t know his name, but I recognized his ugly freckled face.

“Come on.” Dorian tugged me in the direction of the door. He still had his arms around me, and it was the only thing keeping me from completely losing my temper. “The flask is still almost full,” he added. That got my attention. I was so desperately hungry.

Once we were outside and away from prying eyes, he handed me the flask, and I gulped it down. I hadn’t realized how much I had been starving myself until I actually got to eat. Dorian was staring at me the whole time, but I really didn’t care if he thought I was being vulgar.

“Thanks,” I said, handing the empty flask back to him. “I needed that.”

He started to talk about some random thing, but I cut him off with, “Why are you here?”

Dorian looked at me for a few moments as if deciding what to say. “I came here to convince you to come with me and enter the vampire world,” he told me. “That or stake you,” he added, flashing me a glimpse of the sharpened piece of wood in his breast pocket.