Blood's Fury (Deadly Beauties 1)

"You're a little confusing, Alyssa," he says while tilting his head. "You seemed terrified of me earlier, and yet now you're here, flirting with me."

Way to be obvious, Alyssa.

"I thought your girl was supposed to flirt with you," I say jokingly to lighten the mood, praying I don't look like the mess I feel I do.

"Cute. So, why'd you change your mind about coming?" he says softly, shifting as he puts his hands in his pocket.

Five seconds ago he seemed so confident, and now he seems nervous.

"Long story. So, are these people your friends?"

He lets his eyes drift around, taking in the partiers as he mulls that over.

"Some of them. You want me to introduce you around?" he asks curiously while hopping up on the tailgate of a truck.

"Um, nah. I'm not staying long. I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about."

And I secretly wanted to see him again - possibly to piss my mother off. Great. I had to move out before I had the courage to start acting rebellious.

"Well, now you see a bunch of lake-loving drunks. Some fun, huh?" he says through a laugh, making me chuckle lightly while nodding in agreement.

I look down to see it's almost midnight.

"So much for your theory - the fun gets started at midnight. It looks like it gets sloppy after eleven."

He laughs ridiculously hard, and then he lifts me up, as though I weigh nothing, to pull me beside him on the tailgate of the truck. His unexpected touch makes my breath hitch, but I play it off without letting him know how he just affected me.

"You'll have to come to one of my parties sometime. This one shouldn't be setting the bar for this place. I wouldn't have come if I had known it'd be this pathetic."

"You live close to here?" I muse, given the way he said it.

"Yeah, two houses over. You should come by sometime, seriously. We have a party at least once a week. My roommates are relentless hell-raisers."

I smile lightly, and then I tug at my dress when I see it has risen almost too high. He looks down and smirks.

"Pink's a good color on you," he murmurs, his eyes motioning to my dress.

I start to thank him when a group of people walk up to us. They're laughing and talking

"Hey, Kane," one girl says. "We're ditching the dud party and having the after party at our place. You coming?"

He looks to me and smirks. "Told you."

I force a smile, but my stomach is almost queasy. There's no way this many hot-as-hell people are all in one group without them being some sort of immortals. Maybe they're harmless though.

Or maybe you just think he's hot and now you're making excuses.

Girls are missing. And here is a group of immortals, but I know Kane isn't. They're not blood drinkers... they can't be. It's now after midnight, and no one is revealing themselves. Midnight is the waking hour when their victims' deaths force the curse of revelation. They're planning to party, not hide.

"You coming?" a guy prompts, his eyes questioning Kane. "You can bring your… new girl."

His eyes rake over me once before looking to Kane to give him a smile of approval, and Kane lets out a laugh.

"I'll see. You guys head on."

They all start walking off, though one girl turns around to burn through me with her glare. She's the only girl without a guy's arm draped around her, and I start wondering if she's

into Kane. I sure as hell don't need to make enemies with her until I know what she is.