Taste of Torment by Suzanne Wright Read Free Book Online

we were both at Evan’s side, helping him from the floor. As I’d expected, the bite was bad. The vampire had almost taken a chunk out of Evan’s neck with his overriding thirst. “You okay?”
    Evan put pressure against the badly bleeding wound with his hand. “No.”
    “Well, that explained why no one came.” When a vampire went into ‘starvation mode’, their senses gradually dulled until they were even less acute than human senses. Furthermore, their predatory drives increasingly took over as their need for survival made them operate on an almost animal instinct – losing rationality, reason, and civilisation. That was why they were also unable to focus enough to use their gifts.
    I tensed as the ground seemed to rumble beneath us. Worse, it sounded like a freaking stampede was heading our way. Clearly the racket we’d just made and the sound of the vampire’s scream had gained us some attention. If that was the rest of the nest coming toward us, we were doomed if we didn’t get out of there now . I turned, intending to order everyone to hold onto one another so I could teleport us all outside. That was when I noticed that not only was there a big gap between us and the others – who had clearly continued following my order to retreat – but none of them were looking at me. They were staring at the horde of vampires that were charging down the other end of the tunnel, heading for them.
    Fuck, we were boxed in.
    Having the deadliest gifts, David, Chico, and Salem immediately began attacking the starving vampires approaching them, taking advantage of the distance still between them. At the same time, Harvey used his telekinesis to shove them back again and again. Having faith that they could all handle themselves for now and do what they had been trained to do, I joined Evan and Sam in dealing with the flock of vampires that were fast approaching us.
    Sam was attacking with energy balls, energy bolts, and thermal energy beams. Evan was freezing every vampire that came at him – not to ice, but completely immobilising them so that there was no blood-flow, no heartbeat, no breathing, nothing. Mere milliseconds after the vampires were frozen, they exploded into ashes.
    I joined the fight; sending charge after charge after charge of electricity from my hands. But there were just so damn many of them that even our combined efforts couldn’t keep them completely at bay. Any time a vampire managed to get too close, Sam would slam up her shield, causing the vampire to bounce away. But they weren’t deterred; they continued to charge at us. Sam then conjured an energy shield big enough to encompass her, me, and Evan, but the vampires tried crawling over it like ants.
    “Bollocks to this,” she gritted out. A blast of wind flew out of her palms, sending the vampires zooming through the air until they collided with the wall at the end of the tunnel. She then swiftly tapped into the natural elements, using the earth to quickly build a wall to block the tunnel. “It won’t hold them back for long,” she warned. She was right; no sooner had the tunnel sealed shut than the wall was being charged at. “Quick, go, go, go!”
    Turning, I took in the sight in front of us. Butch had formed a deflecting shield and was using it to protect Salem, David, and Chico as they attacked the starving vampires. Unfortunately the shield wasn’t big enough to act as a barrier, and some of the vampires had gotten past it. Denny was shooting yellowy-green ooze out of his thumbs and smallest fingers to engulf and spring them away while Harvey was using his telekinesis to fight off others. But still some vampires had slipped through.
    One was currently biting into Stuart’s arm, who then quickly exploded into molecules in order to get free. Another had its teeth buried in Max’s throat as Cristiano attacked it from behind with a knife that I was guessing he’d conjured – nice gift. Ava was fighting off a third and, damn, could she