Half Blood by Lauren Dawes Read Free Book Online Page B

from “The Imp and Impaler”, an underground Goth club not too far from here. She made no attempt to move, the euphoria on her face enough to tell Rhett that the vamp’s saliva was doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing.
    The vampire bent down to pick up the girl again, but Rhett had him around the throat before he could lay another hand on her. He tutted condescendingly. ‘Didn’t your mother tell you not to eat off the floor?’
    The vampire snarled at him; its fangs and mouth stained with blood. Rhett bared his own teeth at the vampire and slammed him against the wall. He couldn’t see any tattoos on its neck, so it wasn’t a Sicarii. Regular run-of-the-mill vampires were still dangerous, but not as dangerous as a Sicarii. Rhett studied its chalky face, looking for any other signs of ownership, but found none.
    The vamp began making soft mewling sounds when Rhett cranked his fingers tighter around its throat, hoping to get more of a fight out of it, but it was weak from excessive consumption of human blood. Vamps could drink human blood, but it wasn’t their normal form of sustenance. In fact, from what he understood, it was like drinking motor oil compared to the normal diet of their mate’s blood. Vampires without a mate were either forced to buy it from immara— unbranded vampires—who whored it out, or forcibly take it from a female or male. Drinking human blood was the absolute last resort because, eventually, it would kill them.
    ‘Sabel,’ Rhett called. Sabel’s huge, brown frame skulked out from behind the dumpster; his top lip curled up from his canines. Rhett threw the vamp down to the ground, and although he struggled a little, he was no match for Sabel. He had decapitated the leech before Vaile even had a chance to get the girl away. With any luck, the high she was still riding would have fogged her little Goth mind up enough that she wouldn’t remember any of it. When Rhett turned back to check on Sabel’s progress, he was sitting on his haunches, cleaning his paws. The vampire’s face was still twitching—baring its fangs and hissing—but its body remained still. Pulling a knife from the small of his back, Rhett cut open the vamp’s chest cavity and took out its heart.
    The body began to flake away soon after, the cold air swirling through the backstreet and picking it up in one, powerful gust. ‘Let’s get back home,’ Vaile said, returning from leaving the girl somewhere she’d be seen soon. If she talked about what had happened to her, nobody was going to believe her. Vampires weren’t real, right?
    After retrieving Sabel’s clothes from the alleyway he’d changed in, they piled into Rhett’s Jetta and drove back to the farmhouse.

Chapter 4
     
     
    Nox’s feral diamond eyes swept over the street he’d tracked the half blood to once more. From his vantage point, he could see the entire length of the main street of this hell forsaken human city. He sucked in a hiss when the tattoo that ran along his chest, back and neck burned with his queen’s need. The blood bond he’d submitted to made his blood heat with her desires to suck and fuck, calling him to her—tormenting him because he couldn’t leave yet. His cock hardened with her need for sexual gratification, but he had to ignore it. He had been tracking the half blood—this abomination of the species—for too long. He needed to end her parasitic life before he could return to the sithen and his queen.
    The cold wind whipped past his still form perched on the edge of the roof as the first snowflakes of the season fell around him. His hunger stabbed at him like a rusty knife in his gut, making his fangs ache and his bloodlust bubble dangerously close to the surface. He hadn’t fed properly in three months now. He’d held out for as long as he could, but a couple of nights ago his need to feed had won over.
    He’d found a Goth bar named “The Imp and Impaler.” It was tacky as fuck, but there were a lot of