Page 39 of Fated In Blood

One of them turned around and I gave her an awkward little wave that was supposed to be reassuring but only made them move faster, ducking into the first bar they came to. By the time I drew even with the door, they were lost in the Friday night crowd.

Oh my God, I’d been…hunting humans.

Not on purpose, but that’s what I’d been doing.

So far, being a vampire sucked ass. I prodded the sharp fangs protruding from my bleeding gums. My empty stomach cramped, I was practically naked under this scratchy coat, and I had blisters on the bottoms of my feet from these slippery, too big boots.

I was close to home anyway, and once I was there I’d just…cook myself a super rare steak or something because I was fucking starving. My mouth watered at the memory of Blake, but I shut that impulse down fast.

What an asshole. Even if what he said was true…none of those things applied to me.

At least…not directly.

Angel and I had been raised by our loving, single mother, but before we’d gone on the run, our lives had been grueling hours of weapons training, poison lessons, and hand-to-hand fighting.

Monster hunting was the Silverwood family business, a generational tradition passed down from father to son, or in this case, father to daughter, except my mother hadn’t approved, and we’d escaped one night under cover of darkness, my mother nursing a black eye and a broken arm that had never healed right.

Fucking hell, I was in so much trouble here. Not even the safety of my shitty apartment brought me any comfort when I snapped the handle off the door and ripped the deadlock out of the doorjamb, since I’d lost my purse in the explosion and my car was still down in the park.

The city had probably already towed the damned thing.

The place smelled like stale bread, with something dead rotting behind the stove. I lifted my head higher and took another whiff. Mouse, most likely two days old.

How the fuck could I possibly know that?

But my stomach was a real problem, along with this driving hunger, urging me to go out and hunt. To kill. I tossed a steak into the microwave, set the timer on defrost, then went to take a long, hot shower.

I couldn’t stand to smell Blake Marten for another minute and my hair was a rat’s nest of snarls and leaves. I scrubbed myself from head to toe, washing off blood and seed and otherfluids I didn’t want to think too hard about, anger ramping higher and higher as soapy water ran down the drain.

He didn’t even give me a chance to explain.

Just tossed me away, like I meant nothing.

Vampires were evil, disgusting creatures who could not be trusted, and I never had to see him or Riordan again. I wrapped myself in a towel and gave myself a clinical once over in the mirror, objectively cataloging changes, some of them startling.

For one thing, my eyes glowed, not the fiery way Blake’s had, more like the subtle aura of lightning in a thundercloud. My skin was unnervingly smooth, though I still had my signature freckles. I’d always been fit, but my muscles—my entire body was sculpted and lean, and from the way I’d ripped through the door on my way inside, I’d gotten a serious boost in the strength department. Definitely a check in the plus column of being turned into a vampire.

My hair was longer, shinier, thicker, and…I craned my neck to the side. Before my eyes, the small love bite on my throat disappeared.Good fucking riddance.

But…ow, my skin was on fire and even my best moisturizer didn’t help.

I pulled my softest shirt over my head—even that velvety fabric felt abrasive—and put on a pair of boxers, then went to my efficiency kitchen and pulled the steak out of the microwave. The meat was floppy, still frozen in the center, seeping blood, and I was horrified by how my mouth watered.

I touched my tongue to the surface, and while the blood didn’t have the sizzling power Blake’s did, it had…something. Maybe enough to knock the edge off this unrelenting hunger. Another lick and I was stuffing the thing in my mouth like I was in a competitive eating contest where the prize was a billion dollars.

I wiped off my chin, frowning down at my blood-flecked shirt.

Fuck. This was going to be a serious problem.

Steak was expensive. Shirts even more so.

And I didn’t have a job, not after I’d blown Vincent off three weeks in a row.

Sure, I was stronger, faster, could smell things I didn’t want to smell, but this tiny apartment was a cage, and none of these new skills would set my sister free.

I needed weapons. I needed aplan.

I paced around my living room, yanked the stove from the wall, pulled out the mouse, buried the little desiccated body beneath the spindly maple tree out front, then came back inside and paced some more. One thing for sure, I was going to go mad locked up like this.

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