Page 2 of Outcast Island

It’s not just domination I need.

It’s their pain and a need to make them bleed.

Tilting my head, my dark hair falls across my face. I don’t bother pushing it away as I peer at him through the parted strands. Rage burns inside of me, demanding an outlet and making my jaw throb in pain. My chest rumbles with a growl I can’t keep in. “Why settle for rations when I can just feed on you?”

His eyes widen as if he hadn’t expected that. Did the idiot forget how my rage worked?

I need to drink blood. A lot of it. It doesn’t matter what kind of blood it is or if my body will reject it.

The rage inside of me demands that rivers run red, and there are plenty of those on Outcast Island that will never be blue again.

My fingers wrap around his throat, stifling whatever sound he’s about to make.

Then a rock strikes me in the head, sending a sharp pain radiating through my temple as blood rolls down my cheek. I swat away a few more flying stones.

Huh, a telekinetic.

That’s a powerful ability, one that likely means this is a royal bastard from one of the more powerful nests, but this Vampire Alpha is far too starved to do more than ping me with a couple of rocks.

Let’s see how many rocks you can throw at me when you bleed,I think.

My fangs graze his cheek, splitting his skin open to form a few droplets of his dark blood, when a ball of fire streaks across the sky. It hurts my sensitive eyes to look up at it, but the sight is so unusual that I fixate on the object, watching it as it heads toward the emptiness of the sea.

No, that’s not a fireball,I realize when I spot the flashing lights.

That’s an escape pod.

The vampire in my grip looks up the moment I do and makes a guttural sound. It’s odd enough to draw my attention away from the fireball, and I find that a flicker of victory ignites in his eyes.

I don’t have time to see why a crashing escape pod interests him. He’s about to die.

A feral grin overtakes his face. I loosen my grip just enough so he can speak, because now I’m curious.

“If I die, I’m taking you with me,” he says with a hiss, then he bites off his own tongue.

I’m stunned as he chokes on his own blood.

What kind of insanity is Alpha Fare dealing out these days?

Then a shock wave of telekinetic power fueled by blood knocks me off my feet, but the Vampire Alpha’s power wasn’t aimed at me.

It was directed at the escape pod.

The airborne vehicle violently jerks in an unnatural pattern as the vampire snaps out a hand and seems to hold on to it.

My eyes widen as it veers toward us.

He’s trying to crash it right on top of us.

With a roar, I pounce on the vampire and twist his neck, and the snap of his spine cracks through the forest.

When I look up, I see the pod jerk again in another direction before it descends into the tree line, sending a plume of spoke into the air.

I wipe my fingers over the vampire’s mouth and draw his blood into mine. My vision turns red in response as my stomach twists with the wrongness of imbibing another Vampire Alpha’s blood.

But I know I have to keep it together. Those marked for exile didn’tcrashon this island. They were brought in on a regular schedule. Alpha Fare had initiated a new batch of vampires just last week.

Meaning that whoever is in that escape pod is an innocent.

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