Authors: Jennifer Knight

Tags: #Social Issues, #Love & Romance, #Vampires, #College Students, #Juvenile Fiction, #Paranormal, #General, #Romance, #Werewolves, #Dating & Sex, #Fiction, #Occult & Supernatural

Blood Crave 2 (28 page)

BOOK: Blood Crave 2

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“Well, do you want me to leave?” It was kind of hurtful that she didn’t want me to hang out with her friends, but that was definitely the vibe I was getting from her.

“No, I want to hang out,” she said. “It’s just—”

“HEATHER!” someone screamed from inside. “JOSH IS SMOKING ALL THE POT!” An explosion of laughter followed as well as a crash, and then more screams.

I stared at Heather, who was doing anything but looking at me.

“Are those the same girls we met at Zydeco’s?” I asked, trying to keep the accusation out of my voice.

She nodded reluctantly.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to hang out with them anymore.”

Man, I sounded like her mother. This sucked.

She remained silent.

“What happened?” I asked.

She just shrugged. “I got lonely.”

She could have slugged me in the gut for how hard that hit. She’d been lonely because I’d been too busy to hang out with her. Well, that was all going to change. Starting now.

“Look, let’s get out of here,” I said. “We can go to that—that Career Night thing they have going on in the Union. I know it sounds lame, but maybe not, right? I still haven’t picked a major, and—”

“I can’t,” she said stonily.

“Can’t?”

“I mean, I don’t want to. I’m fine here.”

“Heather—”

“No.” She finally looked up at me and I could see she meant business. I could also see her pupils were dilated. “I’m having fun, which is pretty hard to come by these days, so I’m staying. You can stay, too, if you want.”

My first instinct was to refuse her, since pot was so not my thing, but then I couldn’t exactly leave her, could I? These chicks were blood bitches with the potential for some very real danger. Heather, God love her, was being a little dumb, and she needed me to keep her from taking dumb to death.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll hang out for a little while.”

Heather looked somewhat shocked, but let me into her room. Inside, were the same three skanky girls from the Zydeco’s bathroom, as well as two boys. Everyone was arranged in a loose circle on the floor between the beds, chatting and smoking pot. Danni wasn’t there, I noticed.

“Hey, guys,” Heather said, “This is my friend, Faith.”

A few people gave me groggy waves. Heather muttered all of their names to me, but I promptly forgot them all. There was nobody I was interested in knowing here anyway.

Heather plopped herself down next to one of the guys and reached over to take a puff of his joint. I folded myself down next to her, hoping I was as invisible as I felt.

“I didn’t know you smoked pot,” I said.

“I don’t,” she said, coughing. “This is my first time.”

Awesome.

She must have seen my face because she rolled her eyes. “Don’t judge, okay? You’re not so perfect.”

“I know that, but I don’t do pot to fix my problems. Or vamp—whatever that stuff was from Zydeco’s either.” Crap, I’d almost said vampire blood. Supersmooth. I mentally smacked myself.

“Yeah, well, maybe you should do a drop or two,” Heather said. “You’re so uptight. Like every little problem is the end of the world. Maybe getting vamped would chill you out. Wanna try it?”

“No. I do not want to try it. I want you to
stop
doing it.”

“I don’t—”

A knock sounded at the door, cutting her off, and Heather jumped up to answer it.

“Hey, babe,” came a raspy voice from the doorway. “Mind if I crash?”

“Sure,” Heather said. She held open the door and Danni pushed past her, emerald eyes as piercing and beautiful as ever. She surveyed the room and a small quirk appeared on her glossy lips as though amused. Instead of plopping on the floor with the rest of us, she rested her back against Heather’s bed, looking down at everyone. A queen among the blood bitches.

She looked down at me, and the amusement on her face intensified.

“Faith,” she said. I was surprised she knew my name, but Heather must have told her. “How’s it hangin’?”

I wanted to go over and tell her she was a gigantic ho-bag for getting Heather involved in vampire blood, but I wasn’t even entirely sure that Danni knew it
was
vampire blood. The way she’d acted that night in Zydeco’s had made me think she knew something, but with her weak vibe it was hard to tell for sure. I tested it again, reaching across the room to feel her energy, but found it was still fuzzy. The only thing I got from her was what I could already read on her face: amusement.

“I’m fine,” I said at last, hearing a clipped edge to my voice.

She waved me over with a lazy flick of her wrist and hopped up onto Heather’s bed. She let her long legs hang over the edge and leaned back on her elbows.

I went and stood beside the bed as casually as I could manage. Heather clambered onto the bed as well, giggling shrilly when she slipped and hit her head on the desk. Danni cracked a smile, but helped her up.

“Take it easy,” she warned. “You might need those brains one day.”

I smiled despite myself.
Serves you right, you big idiot.

“Hey, Danni?” Heather asked. “Do you have any of that stuff from the other night?”

“I already gave you some. Free of charge, no less. Don’t tell me you used it all?”

“No,” Heather said, picking at the pilling fibers of a purple throw pillow.

“Well, go use your own stash,” Danni said, waving her off. I watched her wrist peek from behind her leather jacket and saw her charm bracelet. The bloody fang glittered among the beads.

“What’s it called?” I asked. “That drug you all were using?”

Danni’s piercing stare turned on me, studying every inch of my face, as if trying to find ulterior motives. I strained to keep my expression innocent. Finally, she said, “Anything you wanna call it.”

Hmm, how convenient.

“So why don’t you use?” I asked.

“Doesn’t gel with me.” She fiddled with her nails, which were surprisingly filthy.

“Why not?”

“Just doesn’t do anything for me.”

I eyed her profile, trying to figure out whether she was lying.

“If you’re so curious, you should try it,” Danni said.

“Why is everyone so intent on me trying this junk? I don’t want it, all right?”

Danni’s smile fixated. “Got it.” The finality in her tone made me believe she wouldn’t offer it again. “You’re missing out, though. It’s a hell of a ride, so I hear.”

Heather snickered into her pillow.

“So do you go here?” I asked Danni. “To CSU?”

“Nope. I work at a restaurant in Old Town.”

“So you’re graduated?”

She shook her head. “Dropped out.”

“And turned to drug dealing?”
Oops, that slipped out.

Danni’s petite jaw flexed; her gaze slowly turned to mine, and I felt a flare in her vibe, making it stronger for just an instant. But her expression wasn’t angry or offended, merely interested. “Is that a problem?” she asked.

“No,” I said, covering. “I bet you make a lot of money doing it. Especially on a college campus.”

“I do it more for the connections than the money.”

Connections to the vampires? Why would she want to get closer to them, especially if she didn’t actually do vampire blood?

I watched Danni as she picked at her nails again. What was her deal?

“So who was that dude you were with the other night?” Danni asked. “Boyfriend?”

I faltered, not wanting to discuss Derek with someone I suspected of involvement with the vampires. But if I didn’t answer, Heather would, so I said, “Just a friend. His name is Derek.”

Danni grinned, exposing pearly white teeth. “Friend, right. He’s a little too drop-dead gorgeous to be just a friend.” She shot me a wicked look. “Is he available?”

“No,” I said instantly.
Not for you.

Her smile faded, gaze like needles into my skin.

“You should see her boyfriend,” Heather chimed in, taking a drag off a joint and choking on it.

Yeah, that’s real sexy, Heather.

“Oh?” Danni said, hiking up a spindly brown brow. “Spill.”

Damn it.
I didn’t want to talk about Lucas either. I threw Heather the stink eye, but she wasn’t paying attention. “There’s nothing to spill,” I said, dodging.

“He’s like, the hottest thing on the planet,” Heather said, still gagging. “I couldn’t believe it when they started dating. He looks like the cover of a romance novel.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said flatly.

Danni let out a soft chuckle. “So have you and Fabio been together long?”

“His name’s Lucas,” I corrected without thinking. Why was everyone always calling him names?

“Right, sorry,” Danni said and turned away to say something to Heather. I thought I felt another small flare of her vibe, but I couldn’t be sure. All the smoke in the room was giving me a headache and numbing my power. I was also fairly certain I was getting high off the secondhand smoke. I wanted to go downstairs and brave the uncomfortable lounge chairs for the night, but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave Heather here alone. These people didn’t look dangerous, but I so didn’t trust them. Heather was in distress, and everything inside me said I had to protect her. Maybe it was because I’d been hanging out with overprotective werewolves and a viran for so long, but I just felt I had to stay with her tonight. And in the morning, I could try and fix everything.

NEGOTIATION

I
ended up sleeping over at Heather’s place, and woke up to find the blood bitches gone and Heather conked out on the bathroom floor, where she’d spent the latter part of the night throwing up.

It was a
super
fun night.

I’d fallen asleep slumped over on her desk in between helping her keep her hair out of the vomit-filled toilet and trying to get a hold of Lucas on his cell. The reception was garbage in Gould, so it wasn’t surprising that I’d failed, but I missed him and Derek. I didn’t even want to think about tonight.

Instead, I wanted to . . . I sighed to myself. As much as I loved and cared about what happened to my boys tonight, today, well, today I just wanted to be human. I’d made a promise to myself that I’d take time to do the things that were important to me—like school and running and photography—but I hadn’t held true to that promise. I had good reason, sure, but that didn’t make it right. Today, I had the rare opportunity to do whatever I wanted. And damn it, I was going to do it all.

Starting with a morning run.

I sat up from the desk and stretched, heading for the bathroom. Heather looked
literally
like roadkill, and smelled even worse. I glared down at her prone form, both worried and irritated at the same time. I was about to throw a blanket over her and wait until she woke to deal with her, but then ... I had a better idea.

It was something my mother had done to me in high school when I’d come home late from a party totally wasted. It was, in fact, how I began running in the first place.

I dragged Heather into the shower and started it. She woke up immediately, screaming profanities. I slammed the glass door shut and threw my weight against it as she tried to pry it open.

“Faith, oh my God, have you lost your mind?” she shouted.

“No, but you seem to have,” I said calmly. “And you smell, seriously, like something dead.”

“Screw off,” she said, banging on the glass. “Let me out. Come on, my head is killing me. I feel like I’m going to puke again.”

“Okay, then I’m
really
not letting you out.”

“You’re such a bitch!”

I smiled. “But I love you. Now use that soap until there’s nothing left, and get dressed. I want to go out.”

She groaned, wiping her hair out of her face. “What
time
is it?”

I checked my cell phone. “Six a.m.”

“You psycho.”

I grinned devilishly. “You think this is crazy? Wait until you see what we’re doing.”