Reborn to Bite (Vampire Shadows Book 1) (26 page)

"So they think we're all committing suicide?" Sabine asked.

Lorenzo nodded and turned to Deirdre. "You really want to see if we can stand the sunlight?"

Deirdre nodded. "Everything else follows the legends."

Melina smiled wide at Deirdre, her dark Italian eyes sparkling with humor. "If nothing else, that was a brilliant way to diffuse the situation."

"It'll work once, at least," Sabine grumbled. She looked up at Trent. "So where are Robert and Darren?"

***

Robert could sense vampires approaching. From his vantage point on the top of the building across the street, he and Darren could watch to see if the vampires left. If they didn't leave, then he could enter the apartment in the morning and stake them in their sleep. All but two. He had wanted Gabe to stick around too, but the jerk had bailed on them.

He could insist that Darren leave before the last two vampires were staked, promising to kill them. He smiled to himself. It was a good plan. Except the vampires were leaving.

The big group he'd sensed earlier had come for a visit apparently, and then left. But now the six he had sensed before were coming out, and heading their way. He tapped Darren, distracting him from his portable video game. "They're coming."

Darren sat up and looked over the ledge. He looked all over the street. "Where?"

Robert sighed and pointed to the group crossing the street. "Right there. Three women and three men. Are you blind?"

Darren shook his head. "You're seeing things, man. There's nobody there." He sat back down on the roof and resumed his game.

Robert watched the six vampires split up and head around the building. Could he be imagining them? No. It had to be glamour. Darren couldn't see them, but he could. Shit. If they didn't go back to the room, then he wouldn't know where they were in the morning. What if he broke into that room and only found some people drained to death? He wouldn't be able to use the vampires to glamour his way out.

"Hi Robert."

Robert spun around and stood at the sound of a familiar female voice, adrenalin shooting through his system. Standing in front of him were Sabine and the six vampires he'd seen on the street.

"How did you get up here?" He asked, trying to think fast. He kicked Darren to get the idiot's attention but Darren just stared at the stupid game. "Darren!"

Sabine moved forward. "It's okay Robert, this won't hurt a bit. I hope."

Robert concentrated on creating a circle of protection, like the book Ash had given him described, but Sabine grabbed him before he could complete the magic. He threw all the power he had at her. It would be enough to control her, then he'd worry about the others with her. He tried to grasp at the essence of death inside her, but it fragmented. How could this be? How could she be a hundred times stronger than last time? He felt her pressing into his mind, and held up his cross in a futile attempt to ward her off. It glowed. "What are you going to do?"

Stop you from using vampires to rob banks. Or worse.

Robert realized that the words had been spoken into his mind right before he felt himself drift into a dream. In this dream, reality and fantasy mingled into a pool of light that gradually descended into darkness.

***

"That should do the trick," Lorenzo said, as they watched Darren drive away with Robert.

"Are you sure my compulsion will work on a necromancer?" Sabine asked, rubbing her arms through the leather of her coat to ward off the chill she'd gotten from being in Robert's mind so long. She'd wanted to make sure she erased everything supernatural from the last year. She hadn't been prepared for the extent of the darkness she found in him.

Darren had been a choirboy in comparison. It took all of two seconds for Shelby to convince Darren to become a thrall, with just a smile and a toss of her blonde hair.

Lorenzo smiled. "They will go back to their homes and remove all vampire references from their lives, just as you instructed them. When Robert sends you his book of necromancy in the mail, you will know that your instructions were successful."

"Have you ever known someone to regain their memory?" Sabine asked.

Sabine's cell phone rang.

She reached in her pocket and pulled it out, checking the display. Trent. She hit the button to answer. "What's up, Trent?"

"I got tired of waiting around at the hotel and decided to head home. Did you find them?"

"Yeah, and we're good now. I hope."

"I didn't really get a chance to say goodbye when you guys all ran out, and I wasn't sure when I'd see you again."

"You want to? See me again?" Sabine hated how her voice broke. She wanted to see him again, just to know that she hadn't lost him. Even if she knew it wouldn't work out.
Desperate much?

In an attempt to sympathize, Claudia bombarded Sabine with memories of loss and loneliness.

For a second Sabine hated the blood bond. She wanted privacy for this. She shuddered and blocked everyone out. She had almost missed Trent's response.

"Yeah. I think we should go out."

"Like a date?" She smiled.

"Like a date, but more fun. Next week?"

Sabine forgot all her worries, and convinced herself everything would be okay. "You got it." They said their good-byes and ended the call. She followed the rest of the vampires as they jumped off the side of the ten-story building. They landed like cats on the sidewalk. Of all the things going on, why did finding someone to date seem the most surreal?

Sabine spent the rest of the night watching her Family and getting to know them. It was so strange having them in her head, sensing their emotions, being linked. Deirdre wore a path in the carpet, pacing back and forth like a kid waiting for Christmas.

"It's time," Deirdre said, stopping her march back and forth. "Hey everyone, it's time!"

Lorenzo and Melina stirred where they were snuggled against each other on the bed in the other room, and opened their eyes. Ernesto lifted his head and stretched on the couch.

They all felt it: the tugging sensation, pulling them down. Sucking the life out of them, as though they were balloons, borrowing air to have the illusion of size. They were borrowing life to have the illusion of the living. The magic that fed the illusion only worked in darkness, and the sun had arrived to drive the dark blood magic into hiding. And so, the vampires suddenly started to lose their life force.

Sabine felt the pull as well, and took a deep breath. She forced her energy out to the vampires in the room, and Claudia across town. Where they had drawn a helpful boost from her before, she now sustained them completely. Where they had been independent before, they were now totally dependent. She took a few deep breaths to steady herself, getting used to the feeling as they drained energy from her.

They all knew that she was giving them life. They stared at her as she put aside the sword she'd been polishing. Sabine stood on shaky legs as she adjusted to the burden.

"Amazing," Lorenzo said, holding up his hand. He and Melina got out of bed and joined the rest in the main room.

Sabine walked to the window. "So Ethan, why don't you fill the ice bucket with water and get ready? Deirdre, let's have you here by the window. The rest of you, stand over to the side."

They positioned themselves, with Ethan and Deirdre on one side of the curtain opening, and everyone else on the other, watching. They waited a minute while Deirdre prepared herself.

Deirdre nodded and looked to Sabine. "I'm ready."

Sabine pulled open the curtain an inch, and held her own hand in the light. She felt the blistering heat of the sun as it touched her skin. She looked to Deirdre as the whole group stared in rapt amazement. "One finger first."

Deirdre put a finger out, pulling it back quickly. She looked at the finger. "It tingles."

"Try again," Sabine said, holding out her hand.

Deirdre put her finger out and held it in the light. The light was hot, and she broadcast the sensation to the group; a tingling like getting circulation back in a limb that had fallen asleep. She hadn't felt that sensation in about a hundred years.

They all stared at her finger, waiting for it to catch fire.

"Wouldn't it have caught by now?" Shelby asked.

"Most definitely," Lorenzo said.

"Should we try the next step?" Deirdre asked, eyes hopeful as she watched for Sabine's decision.

Sabine smiled. "So being blood-bonded to me isn't so bad?"

Deirdre smiled bigger than Sabine had ever seen. "Can I hug you?"

"Of course," Sabine said.

Deirdre crossed the strip of sunlight to hug her new Mistress. She could walk in the sun. It was nothing short of a Miracle.

"So you all want to see the sun come up across the bay?" Sabine asked.

They nodded, so she opened all the curtains to the balcony of Lorenzo's room.

Low fog blanketed the bay, and the brilliant sun beamed on the horizon over it.

"It's amazing," Lorenzo said, squinting and holding a hand up.

Melina took Lorenzo's other hand. "It's brighter than I remember."

"It's just the sun, you guys; geez," Shelby said, turning and going back to sit on the couch.

They all turned to look at her, ready to contradict and debate how special the moment was.

"Gotcha!" Shelby said, laughing. "You guys need to lighten up. So... stroll in the rooftop garden?"

They all grabbed their coats and rushed to the door.

"I'm getting a little thirsty," Sabine said after a half hour looking out over the city from the rooftop garden. They each wore a pair of Sabine's spare sunglasses, having spent several minutes laughing at how they looked. She felt withered from the drain of keeping everyone awake and in the sun. And most of them were showing signs of sunburn.

Claudia volunteered to cut short her view of the dawn from Heather's house and tucked herself away for the day. Sabine felt a little relief as she cut the flow of energy to Claudia, but she still felt drained.

"Let's get you fed," Melina said. She proceeded to summon the nearest human, a man in one of the rooms nearby, tailoring a glamour specifically to him. When he walked out the door of the hotel, Melina directed him to stand beside Sabine. "Feed, Mistress."

Sabine regarded Melina with awe. "Can you teach me how to do that? I'm totally out of control. My glamour is always a whisper or a tsunami."

Melina laughed. "When you've had centuries of practice, these things get easier. Drink, young one."

Sabine felt her fangs descend. "I won't be hurting him? Should I send pleasure into him?"

"You know how to send pleasure?" Melina asked, a little surprised. "That took me a years to develop. Impressive!"

Sabine blushed a little. "I just learned it this week. It's still kinda in 'all-or-nothing mode' too."

Lorenzo chuckled. "That could be embarrassing."

"Don't worry, he won't feel a thing," Melina said with a reassuring hand on Sabine's shoulder. "I'm taking care of everything for you."

Sabine looked from one vampire to the next, suddenly self-conscious. What if she had been feeding wrong all this time, and they'd think she was an idiot or something? "Some Mistress I am, huh?" She mumbled under her breath before biting into the man's neck.

Sabine took a few good draws of blood and felt better. She licked the wound closed and looked back at Lorenzo and the rest. "I've never had lessons, so I'm worried that I'm doing something wrong."

Melina sent the man away with a thought and summoned another. "He walked away none the wiser, did he not?"

"Yeah," Sabine said. "But-"

Melina gave her a pat on the arm. "You did quite well, dear." As another man approached, she asked "May I show you how I do it?"

Sabine nodded, and watched as Melina sank her fangs into the man. She caressed the man's forehead, his cheek, and the opposite side of his neck as she sent a tiny amount of pleasure. Sabine sensed exactly how she had done it, even as the blood that Melina was drinking seemed to strengthen them both.

"May we experiment a little?" Lorenzo asked.

Sabine shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

Sabine followed Lorenzo as he led the group through the hotel and out to the street. She felt their sense of freedom as they walked down the sidewalk. They took turns using glamour to stop and bite a passerby as Melina shrouded them from the other humans on the street. Each time, Sabine felt the flow of energy back through their blood bond, and spread it to the rest of the group.

The ease with which they fed from people amazed Sabine. The people they drank from had no idea that they had been bitten or that a group of vampires had even been there. Melina's glamour touched everyone in their line of sight, and even people who might see a reflection. Melina even guided people to block nearby closed circuit cameras with vehicles. Melina thought of everything.

Sabine's new vampire Family smiled at each other as they walked, giddy with excitement and treasuring every moment. She recalled her first time in the sun, remembering feeling much the same way.