"I'm not his Queen!" I hollered after the quickly retreating backside of Sinclair as he disappeared around a corner. The arrogant jerk didn't even give a twitch of recognition and I had to resist the urge to chase after him to check and make sure he actually heard me. Which, given the circumstances, would have been a silly waste of time because vampires can hear a moth fart at 50 paces. I'm fairly certain he heard my screeched denial, but just didn't give a damn and chose to ignore me. Instead of running after him like a maniac, I stood there goggling after him. Yes, goggling. There are times in a girl's life when all else fails, your only recourse is to stand with your mouth hanging open and a confused expression slapped on your face. This was one of those times for me and I goggled to my heart's delight.
What was with these vampires? I turned to look in the direction Sinclair had told me to go and then back at the now empty corridor in front of me unsure what to think. One minute Sinclair was as cool as a cucumber and the next I got the sinking suspicion he was blaming me for all the sudden discourse between the Elders and them. As if I was personally responsible for them going all wackadoodle on the immortals. I wasn't sure if he was going to accept me as one of them or chew me up and spit me out. Even after all his "inspecting my person" business, I still wasn't a hundred percent positive where he stood. But...he had referred to me as Queen. Or...um...Fang's Queen, which really isn't a strong vote of confidence now that I think about it. Arrgh! These vamps were so confusing! I couldn't decide if they were crazy...or if I was the crazy one. Technically, since I had known them the shortest amount of time, my vote would be them. They were the ones in need of a straightjacket fitting, not me.
"And they are living in the perfect place to get one," I muttered to myself, turning to stomp down the hallway. I no longer cared I sounded like a herd of cattle on stampede. Maybe if I made enough noise, it would discourage anymore vampires from the Compound wanting to stop and chit-chat.
Too bad my theory didn't pay off. In my state of mental muddling, I accidently took a left instead of a right...or a right instead of a left. Really, I didn't remember which way Sinclair had told me to go. What did I look like, Garmin? Anyway, I was still debating if Sinclair was on team Mel or...well...not team Mel, when I ran smackdab into a brick wall. Not literally...but abdominally. My nose was presently squished against a set of abs steely enough to set off metal detectors at airport security.
"Watch were you are going, witch," a deep voice growled above me.
Witch? Stepping back, I looked up...and then up some more. Drat! Why were all these guys so dang tall? Finally, after getting a crick in my neck, my gaze focused on one very pissed off, growling, and total badass vamp. His lips curled up over his fangs as he returned my stare. Holy Moses on a pogo stick! It was the one who I had spotted behind the computer who actually snarled at me. Obviously, his opinion of me hadn't changed from the first night, considering he was still snarling. Not to mention the whole calling me witch thing. I may be a little slow at times, but I was pretty certain he didn't mean it as a compliment.
I was about to give him the sticks and stones spiel, but when I stepped back and got a better gander at him, I decided that probably wouldn't be a good idea. He was a complete vampire cliché dressed all in black from the baseball cap on top of his buzz cut head, the skin tight t-shirt, standard vampire issue leather pants and combat boots. I couldn't hold back the little gasp of fear at the amount of weaponry he had on display. Guns, knives, grenades...oh my. He was a billboard for doomsday preppers. You know, those guys who dig fallout shelters in their basements and stock them with tasteless dehydrated food items and porn. Then they spend the weekends tromping through the woods in full army fatigues with semi-automatic weapons practicing their skills with other preppers at killing zombies and other fictitious beasts like...unicorns.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped.
Jumping at his sudden question, I tore my eyes away from his arsenal strapped around his body and back up to his narrowed dark eyes. Boy howdy, I thought Nico-lame had some dark orbs, but this guy had him beat, hands down. They were deep pools of absolute nothingness. Not even a sparkle or a reflection could be seen which upped the fear factor exponentially. Giving him a quick once over, I noticed he wasn't classically handsome as the rest, but had more of a Charles Manson look about him with that dark goatee adding to his menacing presence.
"What. Are. You. Doing. Here," he said again, more slowly. When he leaned closer to me, I became very aware I was alone in an empty corridor with an armed and possibly deranged killer. Which is rather redundant, because aren't all killers deranged? Regardless, my fear flared to life and I took a large step back.
"Me?" I squeaked. "I...um...was looking for someone." I gulped and tried to stop my knees from knocking together like a set of maracas. "Sinclair was just here and told me to go upstairs, but I think I took a wrong turn. I have a horrible sense of direction." If I thought doing a little name-dropping was going to get him to back off, I was sadly mistaken. He took another step towards me and a dry, hysterical laugh nervously bubbled out of my lips. "I have a crappy memory too. I can't remember things...or anything really." I kept backing up, babbling like a lunatic until my butt hit the wall behind me. "Well...that's not completely true. I do remember odd bits of trivia. It's my talent really. For instance, did you know there is an actual final episode of Tom and Jerry that exists where they both commit suicide?" I doubted he was much of a Saturday morning cartoon fanatic, but I was hoping the more I distracted him, the better chance I had of escaping him. "Imagine how much of a bummer that must have been for the kids, huh?" Edging along the wall, I kept feeling frantically behind me in hopes of eventually bumping into a door knob...or a bazooka.
"I can smell your fear." He cocked his head to the side and gave me a toothy grin, pointy teeth and all. His dental work made a rattlesnake look like it had a mouthful of gummy bears.
Normally, smiling actually made people look happy and gave them a lovely warmth that set people at ease. Not this guy. His grinning made the hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. There wasn't a hint of warmth in it. In fact...it made him even colder and I shuddered from the chill.
"What does fear smell like, exactly?" I asked, swallowing hard. If he kept looking at me like that, I can guarantee he was about to get a whiff of something coming from my pants and it wasn't going to be pleasant.
"It smells spicy and it makes me...hungry." His sickly smile grew.
"That's not really making me feel better," I muttered.
"No, but it makes your scent so much stronger."
My eyes widened as he started heading in my direction with a predatory stalk. Oh crap! This was it. He was going to kill me and probably gnaw on my bones like a plate of hot wings.
"Hey, Mel! What's shaking bacon?"
Both our head snapped around and I sagged with relief when I saw Saxon ambling towards us. I was so happy to see him, I was willing to totally forgive his fashion faux pas of wearing socks with sandals and a Sarah Palin for president t-shirt. Well...almost, I thought cringing. Pulling my eyes away from the travesty of his feet, I greeted him with a huge smile, even welcoming his enthusiastic hug. And since I consider hugging nothing more than freely exchanging chances at catching the Bubonic Plague...that was really saying something.
"Hello, Dragos," he said, his tone changing from happy to serious. "Tallon sent me to find you. He needs you to report to headquarters ASAP." Saxon kept his arm wrapped around my shoulders, keeping me tight to his side. It was a total male-possessive-me man-me save you move, but right now, I was willing to let all that female equality shit fly out the window. Hell, I would be willing to cuddle with him in the middle of flu season if it kept me from being a midnight snack.
Dagos gave a short nod to Saxon, his creepy smile disappearing into a grim line. Turning back to me, he leaned forward and inhaled deeply. "Until we meet again...witch." His eyes sending icicles of cool fury spearing straight at me. With his warning sent and well received, he disappeared faster than a shadow in a blackout.
"Geeze...that guy seriously needs some anger management therapy," I grumbled, wrapping my arms around myself to fight off the chill.
"Dagos isn't someone you want to mess with," Saxon said, turning to me. His blond hair fell into his brilliant blue eyes and he shook it out of the way with a quick toss of his head. He reminded me of a Golden Retriever when he did that and I suddenly got the urge to toss a squeaky toy.
"I figured that out for myself, thanks." Pulling away from him before I started scratching him behind the ear, I straightened my shoulders and tried to brush off the lingering bits of fear still clinging to me like dandruff. "Someone needs to teach him some manners or does he call everyone names?"
A small chuckle eased out of Saxon. "Actually, that was rather PG-13 coming out of our man Dragos. He must like you."
"Lucky me." I rolled my eyes, not impressed. "Are you sure he is your man, because frankly, I get the sense he's not big on being a team player." He definitely wasn't on team Mel, that was for damn sure.
Saxon shrugged a shoulder. "He was the mostly highly revered assassin in the Elder ranks, but he defected here when he had a falling out with Nicolai. Apparently, he refused direct orders to wipe out a whole Vampyre family and instead helped them escape underground before coming to us."
"Wow." I'm not going to lie, I had a hard time imagining the vamp I had just encountered with the image of the nice guy Saxon was portraying. "Why would Nico-lame want a whole family wiped out?"
He cocked an eyebrow at the use of my nickname for the head Elder. "We don't know, Dragos never said."
Figures. The man looked like the type of guy who wouldn't be big into gossiping. "Yeah...well...he needs a muzzle," I huffed, turning on my heels to head off. I was bored out of my tits of dealing with vampires right now. Even though Saxon was cool, the whole socks and sandals thing was starting to get on my nerves, but at least he wore jeans, so he got brownie points for bucking the leather trend.
"Where are you headed off to?" he asked, trotting up beside me and matching my stride with ease.
"To find the stupid stairs that will take me to the stupid spooky asylum so I can retrieve my stupid immortal."
Another bark of laughter came out of him. "Dude, now you sound like Dragos. Only without the cussing."
That stopped me dead in my temper tantrum tracks. He was right. I was one more sarcastic comment from needing a muzzle myself. Drat. My little tit-for-tat session with Dragos had set me on edge. Not to mention whatever the hell that was earlier with Sinclair. And if I really wanted to dig deeper into what was troubling me, there was the underlying humming still buzzing along every one of my nerve endings, sending out pulses in search of Fang.
I had turned into the human...ahem...vampire equivalent of a dowsing rod. There was something flowing through my blood now that made every atom within my body quiver with awareness, even at the mere thought or mention of him. I suddenly was uniquely conscious he was male and I was female, whatever our species and there was essential differences between us that my inner hussy desperately wanted to explore. It didn't matter to her that he had tricked us into this whole Queen situation or that he was a lying louse.
"I'm hungry," I grumbled lamely, tucking my chin to my chest and marching forward. Granted, it wasn't high up on my list of things that were bugging me, but it ranked top ten. Especially after my waffles had vanished this morning.
"Oh." Saxon came to a complete halt and because he had the whole sneaky, can't be heard vampire thing going on, I was miles ahead of him before I noticed.
Turning, I saw he had his head down and was currently staring at his feet with his hands plunged into the front pockets of his worn jeans. What the heck was his problem? "Why are you looking like you're about to be sent to the principal's office?" Yeah...I sounded irritated, because I was. After all, I was the one with the boatload of problems, not him.
"We should not be discussing...your hunger," he mumbled, shuffling his feet and still looking at his hideous sandals and socks.
"Why not?"
"What goes on between the King and his Queen...," he shook his head and squinted his eyes closed, "it's forbidden to talk about."
I rolled my eyes. Seriously...with these vamps and all their rules and regulations from prehistoric times...it's amazing they weren't still hanging upside down in caves, beating each other with wooden clubs.
"What does the King have to do with me being hungry?" I snapped, putting my hands on my hips. If Fang thought he would be able to dictate when or what I ate, he was in for a rude awakening. Now that Dragos was no longer in the picture and I wasn't in fear of being his spicy entrée, my full feminist self came roaring back to life.
A set of bright eyes peeked up at me and then darted away, looking at everything but yours truly. "Because...if you need to feed...that's up to your mate to fulfill...and...um...you being Queen...makes it more...ah...difficult to..."
"Oh good lord, stop!" I covered my ears turning every shade of red in the Sherwin-Williams paint collection. "I'm food hungry...not...that kind of hungry!" Yes...I am aware I was THAT kind of hungry too, but I wasn't about to sit here and have a conversation with him about it like he was Dr. Ruth.
"Oh! Well, shit...why didn't you say so?" His relief was almost comical.
"I thought I did," I muttered.
"Come on, I have just the thing to fix you up."
He grabbed my elbow and hauled me down the corridor. Before long, he threw open one of the many doors and we were in a movie theater. Holy crap! They had a real, honest-to-goodness movie theater here! With recliners, big screen and a concession stand...oh my! I walked with wide-eyed delight to the counter and looked at the plethora of what could only be described as junk food paradise. Shelves and shelves of candy, chips, popcorn, hotdogs, and pretzels laid before me and my mouth watered. Behind the counter they had three rows of soda machines in every flavor imaginable.
I changed my mind...They may be crazy, but I loved these vamps.
Author's Note:
I hoped you enjoyed this latest installment of FANGED and if you like it, you will consider giving it a vote. I love hearing from you and comments are always appreciated. If you don't see any updates here, feel free to check out my other works Bending Steele, When Roses Collide and Steal You Away.
The next installment of FANGED will hopefully be November 11th. Things are really chaotic right now, but I will do my best. :)
As always, thank you for reading!
Sincerely,
K