Reclaiming Angelica by Zena Wynn Read Free Book Online Page B

kiss.
    Angelica rolled her eyes. Her cousin’s family line fed on
sex as well as blood. Sophie looked like sex on a stick, and her sensuous
nature never left her lacking for lovers. For a moment, she almost pitied
Stephen. Her cousin wasn’t equipped to settle down with a mate, not for a long
time at least, and Stephen looked like he had it bad for her, if the glazed
expression in his eyes when the kiss ended was anything to go by.
    Sophie wiggled her fingers at him, grabbed Angelica by the
arm, and said, “Later, lover,” as she towed Angelica through the black double
door.
    Sounds and scents crashed over them like a big Hawaiian
wave. Heavy metal rock blasted her sensitive eardrums, and the scent of sex
with a metallic undertone of blood assaulted her nostrils. It was the emotional
backlash that rocked her and almost brought her to her knees. Angelica sent
more power to her empathic shields until on the psychic plane they took on a
diamond-like hardness. Sophie tugged on her arm and pointed up. Angelica
allowed her gaze to travel in the direction of her cousin’s finger and noticed
a set of stairs leading to an upper, glassed-in level. The bottom of the stairs
was roped off, and the upper room seemed, from this angle, to have less people.
She followed when Sophie turned and headed in that direction.
    “Up here we can be ourselves,” her cousin shouted as she
unlatched the cord, waved Angelica past, and secured the cord again once she
was on the other side. As they walked up the stairs, Angelica could feel the
anticipation radiating off Sophie in waves.
    She’d never before been to the Warehouse, being instead
inclined to shy away from places her kind haunted. Half-breeds like herself
were rare. In fact, Angelica was the only one of her kind that she knew about
in this generation, and on this continent. Therefore, it wouldn’t take long for
others to put two and two together and realize she was the daughter of an
extremely powerful vampire. Then any hint of anonymity and independence she’d
gained over the years would be lost.
    Her father would assign guards to protect his fragile
half-human daughter from vampires willing to use her as a pawn against him. Not
to mention power-hungry male vampires would be coming out of the woodwork, attempting
to woo her with the idea of getting an in with her father. No thank you. She
hadn’t traveled thousands of miles from home and set up housekeeping only to
get dragged back into vampire politics and the power struggles that went hand
in hand with them.
    Angelica pushed all that out of her mind as they went
through the double-wide opening at the top of the stairs. In here, the lighting
and sound was much more vampire friendly. The glass walls must have had some
type of soundproofing in them, because most of the noise from below was muted.
A quick glance showed several vampires feeding, from arms, necks, and even a
few inner thighs. The smell of sex was stronger up here than below. Sex did
make a feeding so much better.
    In her element, Angelica cautiously dropped her shields and
let the emotions—lust, hunger, anticipation, greed, satiation—flow over her and
fill her. None but other members of her family caste knew she could feed from
emotions as well as from blood. She drew it in so deep her nipples puckered and
her sex swelled and moistened. Oh yes, this was more like it.
    Angelica followed Sophie onto the dance floor. Before she
left tonight the Thirst would be well quenched. She thought back to earlier
that evening when she’d been making love with Raul. Since the beginning she’d
been aware of the physical signs of his wolf coming to the surface as his lust
raged almost out of control, but Raul had been so busy hiding what he was, he’d
never noticed her feeding off the sexual energy they’d created. Or the
appearance of her fangs as she’d fought the battle to feed from more than his
emotions.
    She swayed her hips sensuously from side to side and let her
body