Love Bites

“I think it’s clean, Syd.”

The dryly amused comment made Sydney glance up at the woman lounging against the counter. That wasn’t exactly true. Emily didn’t lounge. But the normally uptight librarian looked positively relaxed as she paged through the latest issue of Goth Grrl magazine.

Out of the last crazy weeks, one good thing had emerged. One real, insanely good thing.

She’d found a new friend.

Three days after she’d left Kellan’s, Sydney had ventured out on her first solo trip AV—after vampirism. She’d stopped by her normal haunts. The corner drugstore for the vanilla soda she no longer craved. The movie store for a couple flicks—anything but horror, which had once been her favorite genre. Her favorite delicatessen, only to find her beloved pastrami-on-rye tasted like warmed sawdust.

Worn out and miserable, she’d found herself at the library. Emily had come upon her sobbing in the stacks over the V section of the World Book Encyclopedia, but she hadn’t laughed. She’d just asked her what she wanted to know.

In between hiccups, Sydney had managed to share her questions. In whispers, of course. Emily selected a stack of books for her, then took her lunch break so she could help Sydney carry them home, since she’d never retrieved her car from Kellan’s. She’d been so freaked out the day she left she’d never even thought of her vehicle, and since then, she’d refused to contact him to ask him to return it. Besides, with her new vampy strength and speed, jogging to work every day barely made her sweat.

Emily had quickly become her confidant. During the last two and a half weeks, they’d become inseparable.

She’d never had a girlfriend before. Not one she could giggle and share secrets with—though, let’s face it, nowadays all she had were secrets. She’d only ever befriended guys. Women never liked her. Whether she just lacked some vital feminine trait that would’ve granted her acceptability or if it was because they didn’t approve of her fearless sexuality, she didn’t know.

Which was another salient point she and Emily discussed. Sex, and their dire lack thereof.

Emily had gone without for quite some time, but she didn’t say exactly how long. She’d had some sort of trauma in her past, that was clear. But she was as horny as the next gal, if the next gal didn’t happen to be a half-vamp like Syd.

Horny didn’t begin to cover Sydney’s current level of frustration. If she didn’t get some relief soon, she’d start humping the extra-tall bar stools.

“Seriously, you’re going to ruin your manicure.”

A smile tipped up Sydney’s lips. She didn’t have a manicure. Didn’t need one. Since the change, her nails bore a natural pink sheen no polish could compete with. Strangely enough, now that she’d become a poster child for the half-dead, she radiated health.

She buffed a scratch along one edge of the counter. “I missed a spot.”

“No, what you miss is getting rammed until you’re little more than a whimpering mess.”

At first, she’d been shocked to hear talk like that from the seemingly prim little librarian. Then she’d realized there was more to Emily than baggy brown cardigans and argyle kneesocks. Maybe she dressed conservatively, but Emily’s mind was wide open and she swore like a sailor who’d taken up a second career driving a truck.

“We both need to get rammed,” Sydney agreed, tossing aside her rag. Just as well she stopped before she got lightheaded. “Any ideas on that score?”

“I’m a watcher, not a doer.” Emily continued to flip her magazine, but her fingers tensed enough to wrinkle the pages. “You, on the other hand, know where your bread is buttered.”

Sydney turned away. “Not any more.”

“You’ll only be able to fight the lure for so long. He is your sire. A bond like that is lifelong, Syd. You’ve read the books. Even if he didn’t turn you, he drank enough of your blood and gave you enough of his own to start the change. You will never be able to forget him, unless you get a lobotomy.”

“Start, yes, but not finish. In case you’ve forgotten, Em, I’m still partially human.”

She crossed to the small personal cooler she carried with her everywhere she went and withdrew four raw steaks. The pungent aroma struck her like a sledgehammer. Nothing like the smell of blood—even bovine—in the afternoon.

The impulse to dig into the frozen meat battled with the knowledge she might chip a tooth as she had the last time. Why risk the pain? Besides, it was about time she developed a little self-control.

Saliva pooled in her mouth as she peeled off the plastic wrap and transferred the steaks to a paper plate. An instant later, the ste

aks were rotating on the silver disk in the microwave.

Surely she could wait one minute.

“Partially human. Uh huh. So you say as you prepare to siphon off a pint of cow’s blood.”

Turning back to Emily, she licked the bloody ice crystals from her fingertips. Wrong move. Her fangs began to elongate the moment the sweetly bitter substance hit her tongue, and need churned in her stomach.

The need to feed.