Page 41 of Destined for Dreams
“Is everything okay?” Cori asked her.
Ariel slowly swallowed. “The food is good.”
“We should, uh, hang out again sometime,” Cori said. She’d come over to the trailer a couple of times to play cards with the former archangel and found it to be quite pleasant. One on one, Ariel handled being social a lot better.
She smiled. “I would like that.”
The meal continued, and food steadily disappeared from the serving dishes. More than once, a stray hand went under the table with a piece of meat for a hungry shifter cat waiting underneath. To not do so would be to risk having your shoes chewed on or a pant leg ripped by sharp teeth. Sable had purposely changed herself into a tiger so that she could maximize space in her stomach and eat more. Most everyone was familiar with her habits and catered to them.
Cori began to worry she might not have cooked enough food when a loud knock sounded at the front door. Melena was already on her feet, having sensed the new arrival well in advance.
“It’s just Kariann,” the sensor explained.
Cori relaxed. Since she’d set dinner time for after dark, she’d invited a few vampires she knew to come over, but none of them had taken her up on the offer. Maybe they were upset over her tattoo affecting one of their brethren, or maybe it was only because they couldn’t eat. They hadn’t given a specific reason. She supposed she could understand why they might avoid the torture of being reminded they’d never taste food again if that were the problem.
But then why was Kariann here now?
The blond Amazonian woman stepped into the foyer, holding a medium sized man in one hand. She tossed him to the floor with a snarl and kicked him in the stomach. He cried out, revealing a set of sharp fangs. Dried blood covered the lower half of his face and ran down his neck onto his shirt and gray jacket. Cori noted his fuzzy red aura, denoting him as a young vampire. Either his wounds had already healed, or the blood came from somewhere else.
He wrapped his arms around his head, covering his short, curly black hair as Kariann pushed her boot into his chest. Faint mewling sounds came from his mouth. She must have beaten him into submission before bringing him over, which wouldn’t have been difficult to do since she was a six-hundred-year-old vampire. Kariann could kick some serious ass, and she had little mercy for people who pissed her off.
Derrick rushed into the foyer, face red. “What in the hell do you think you’re doin’?”
“Caught this one outside the Dark Star Tavern, gorging himself on a human,” she said, digging her heel deeper into the vampire’s chest.
The Dark Star Tavern was the only supernatural drinking establishment in the area. It sat on the outskirts of Fairbanks, totally out of place with its medieval style building. The place even had a thatched roof. Cori had passed by it many times driving from her home to her shop, but she’d never been inside. It wasn’t safe for humans and boasted a warning sign at the entrance. She could have visited since her change, but she still didn’t feel like part of the supernatural crowd.
“What exactly was he doin’?” the alpha asked with a growl.
Kariann toed the vampire’s arms from his head, giving everyone a better view of his bloody, pale face. Any decent vampire could feed without making such a mess, which meant this one had to have been almost rabid.
“Caught him feeding on a human woman—outside the tavern in the parking lot,” Kariann replied, glaring at the vampire. “Never saw her inside, so I don’t know where he got her, but she was already half dead when I came across them.”
Derrick reached down and grabbed the man by his jacket, jerking him up. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I was so hungry,” the vamp said, voice weak and shaking. “It took longer to get up here than I thought it would.”
“You just arrivin’ in Fairbanks?”
The man jerked his head in a nod. “Early this morning, but it was almost dawn, so I didn’t get a chance to feed.”
Kerbasi came to hover at the edge of the foyer, head cocked to the side as he examined the vampire. “I could help you question this whelp if you’d like.”
“Oooh, baby.” Kariann gave him an inviting smile. “We could interrogate him together. I could put on my new leather outfit and bring my whip—the one you love so much. Then we could have hot, sweaty sex afterward.”
The guardian’s face colored, and he stepped away quickly. “No, no. I’ll leave this man in your…capable hands.”
Kerbasi should have known better than to bait Kariann. She loved nothing more than to tease and embarrass him with sexual innuendo and toys. More than once she’d chased after him with whips, cock rings, or dildos. In the beginning, he didn’t understand what most of those things were for, but after people explained it to him, he was horrified. Cori almost felt sorry for him when the female vampire taunted his virgin status and tried to tempt him into losing it, but the feeling always passed. Kerbasi totally deserved everything he got.
Kariann gave the guardian a smirk before returning her attention to the vampire and Derrick. “This idiot chose a woman who had already taken an anti-compulsion potion. She was screaming her head off and fighting him since he couldn’t calm her down.” She clucked her tongue. “At the very least, he should have checked for that before trying to make a meal of her.”
There weren’t many rules about who vampires could feed off of in the Fairbanks area—or anywhere else for that matter—but the few rules there were included that they couldn’t kill their prey, and they had to leave no traces of their bite behind. Their victims also had to be compelled to forget the experience afterward, which couldn’t be done if they were immune.
“Where’s the human at?” Derrick asked.
“She’s in my backseat sleeping. I healed her with my blood and compelled her to relax. That’s the most I can do since I’m not strong enough to make her forget what happened with that potion still in her.”
The brew the witches sold around the country was potent to a point. A powerful enough immortal could sometimes break through the potion, but it took a lot of energy to do it.
