Fearless (The Blue Fire Saga) (27 page)

“You take the boy,” Marcio told Kristi. “Genevieve and Dara can share the girl.”

The two women smiled. They had shared many a meal over the centuries.

As the humans drew nearer, the vampires crouched to leap. Before they could, Kristi straightened up.

“I can’t do it,” she said.

Marcio pulled her farther back into the trees.
Dara and Genevieve followed
, looking angry and disappointed, respectively.

“What do you mean, you can’t do it?
” Marcio asked. “
You must
do it.
The alternative is agony you don’t even want to contemplate.
”

Kristi was torn. The
intoxicating
scent of the young lovers’
blood still hung in her nostrils. But
something was holding her back.

“They’re the same age as
my friends back in college,”
she said. “They seem so nice—a
nd so happy together
.”

“They are nice,” Genevieve said.
“That’s why their blood smells so sweet. Bad people
’s blood
do
es
n’t smell
quite
as
sweet.”

“Or taste as sweet,” Dara added.

“I’m sorry,” Kristi said.
Her shoulders slumped.
“I want to do it. I know I need to. But I just can’t.”

Genevieve turned to
Marcio. “Perhaps her time stranded
between living and undead softened her
in some way
.
”

“Perhaps,” Marcio agreed. He looked at Kristi thoughtfully. They should just leave her here. If she
chose to feed
, fine. If not, then she would suffer the consequences. But something would not let him abandon her.

“I have an idea,” he said at last.
“You only have to feed on human blood
but once. It must
be soon
, though
. Do you think you
could
feed upon
someone who wasn’t so nice?”

Kristi thought for a moment. “You mean,
like a gangbanger
or something
?”

“
Yes
.
Someone evil.
Could you do it then?”

Kristi nodded.
“Yeah
, I’m pretty sure
I
could do that
.”

Marcio smiled.
“
Then l
et’s go find one.” He glanced toward
Dara and Genevieve. “Or a couple of them,” he added.

The four vampires turned away from the park and headed south, where a soft
yellow glow over the horizon
told them they would find a town. Any place with more than a few hundred humans in it would certainly contain at least a couple of bad ones,
of that they were certain
.

They didn’t even need to go all the way to town,
however,
stopping instead outside a rundown roadside bar.
The gray brick building was the only structure along this
wooded
stretch of highway.
Blue neon letters a
cross the top proclaimed the place to be
The Thirsty Dog,
although the g was
dark
.
Kristy smiled, thinking that The Thirsty Do was not a bad name for a bar, eit
her. A
red Budweiser sign and
a
silver Coors Light display
glowing
in the blacked out front windows
were
brighter and obviously newer than the letters on the roof.

What drew the vampires
here
more than the seedy condition of the place was the
fifteen or so gleaming
motorcycles
parked in front of
the building
, clear evidence of the
kind of
clientele
inhabiting
the
bar
.

“I’m pretty sure we’ll find someone in here who won’t offend Kristi’s tender sensibilities,” Genevieve said. “Dara and I go will go in and find the nastiest guys we can
. We’ll
invite
them
outside
for some fun
.
” She grinned at the thought. “
Marcio, why don’t you disappear into the trees for bit? We don’t
want our guests thinking they have any competition out here. Kristi, you wait over by the corner.
”

Marcio and Kristi walked to the edge of the building while Dara and Genevieve went inside.
Marcio laid his hand of Kristi’s shoulder.

“You can do this,” he said. “You have to do this.”

Kristi nodded. “I know. And I will.”

Marcio kissed her on the forehead and then vanished silently into the shadows of the woods.

A moment later,
Dara and
Genevieve emerged from the bar
. Each had her arm linked around the arm of a burly biker
.
Both of the men were well over six feet tall
,
with thick, powerful bodies.
Dara’s
guy had a tangled brown beard and long hair held in place by a blue bandana. Genevieve’s
was taller by two inches, with
a shaved head and a dark, drooping mustache. Both wore
jeans with thick silver chains dangling into the pockets and
black leather jackets adorned with a picture of a wolf’s head on the chest.
The back of each jacket
bore a large round patch with a bigger wolf’s head and red letters reading “Gray Wolf Motorcycle Club.”

Both men sporte
d wide grin
s and walked the
slightly unsteady lurch that
came from
a bit too much to drink. Their smiles widened when they saw Kristi waiting for them
by the side of the building
.

“
You weren’t kidding when you said your friend was hot
,” bandana guy said.

Kristi felt the saliva beginning to moisten the inside of her mouth as she smelled the men’s blood. Neither smelled anywhere near as sweet as the college kids’ had, but the scent was still inviting.

Genevieve looked at Kristi.
“Your choice, Kristi.
Which one of these fine specimens do you want?”

Kristi breathed in their scent one more time. The bald guy’
s smell was a bit less sweet
than his friend’s. She placed her hand on his thick forearm.

“I
’ll
take this one.”

Bandana guy’s grin widened. “Too bad, Tumor,” he said as he linked his free arm around Genevieve’s.
“
Looks like you
get
only
one, while I
enjoy a doubleheader.”

Kristi smiled.
Tumor.
The guy’s nickname seemed
a pretty good
indication of the type of person he was.

Tumor put his hand
on Kristi’s cheek. “That’s fine by me
,” he said. “I’ll just do this one twice.”

“So,” b
andana guy said. “
Where
we
gonna
do this?
”

Dara smiled her sexiest
, most inviting
smile, developed back in the Parisian bordello.

“How about around back, where we won’t be interrupted?”

“You sure you don’t want to put on a
little
show for our buddies inside?” b
andana guy asked.
“They’d love to watch.”

Genevieve tightened her grip on his arm slightly.

“Positive,” she said. “Your friends might be tempted to join in
the fun
. We want
to
give you two our
full
attention.”

“Now t
hat’s what I’m
talkin
’ about,” Tumor said. “Let’
s
go
get this party started
.”

The three vampires all smiled. They led the bikers around the side of the building to the back. There were no windows here and they were hidden from view from the road.

Genevieve looked at Kristi. “Whenever you’re ready,” she said.

Kristi nodded. She let her fangs drop, thrilled at the feeling of power the simple act
sent surging through
her. Tumor’s eyes widened. Before he could move, Kristi’s fangs pierced his neck.
She lowered him to the ground as she drank.

The taste and feel of his hot blood flowing down her throat was beyond anything Kristi could imagine. Her senses and her strength, already magnified many times over, seemed to expand even further. A kaleidoscope of swirling colors bloomed inside her head as she sucked down Tumor’s blood. The feelings were indescribably delicious, yet what she was doing pricked at something deep in her psyche. Despite how good the blood tasted and how it made her feel, she was glad she would never have to do this again.

In less than two minutes, it was over. She looked up and saw Marcio, Genevieve and Dara looking down at her and smiling.
The two women had already finished with Tumor’s friend.
Blood
still dripped from the sides of their
mouths. Kristi wiped her
own
mouth with her sleeve and stood up.

“Congratulations,” Marcio said. “You are now one of us.”