Her Yearning for Blood (5 page)

6

A blood-curdling scream stabbed like a
knife
through
my
ears.
I
sat bolt upright and heard the clank of chains.
Cold steel chafed at my wrists.
A white hot rage flashed across
my
mind.
I
snarled and
yanked
against the
shackles
that bound
my
arms to the cast iron headboard
behind me
.
I
kicked
and felt a
nother set of chains secur
ing
my ankles
to the footboard. Somehow
,
I
had allowed
my
self to be duped by
the gorgeous but evil Evan and his
mean-spirited
aunt.

Rage surged like a living mass inside of me.

“Let me out of here!”
I
hissed and felt the skin inside
my
mouth rip. For some reason, the coppery taste of blood
was driving
me
crazy.
I
ran
my
tongue across
the
wounds but could fe
e
l nothing. The pain was gone.

S
omething was different
, however
.

I
probed
my
teeth with
my
tongue
.
They seemed to take up more space inside my mouth. Then
the tip of
my
tongue passed across the point of
an upper canine tooth
. I
felt
an instant stab of pain but
as with
the
earlier
cut,
the
discomfort
vanished
as quickly
as I felt it
. The taste of blood sent
my
mind into an almost uncontrollable state of hunger.
My
stomach grumbled with need.

What was happening to
me
?

“Evan! Nurse Groacher!”
I
shook all four chains at once. “You better let me out of here!”

Through the walls,
I
could hear
a muffled
male voice also calling for freedom, but his pleas seemed to have no more effect than
my
own. If only
w
e had been closer together, maybe
w
e could have teamed up to escape.

Suddenly,
I
realized the pain
from
m
y
ant bites was gone.
I glanced down.
Unbelievably, the hundr
eds of red welts all over
my
body
had
disappeared
. It hardly seemed possible that
I
could have healed
so
quickly. Maybe the red marks hadn’t been bites at all. Maybe they
had been
some kind of a rash
…
caused by Nurse Groacher
?

Even as
I
thought it,
I
knew it wasn’t true.
I
had still been conscious wh
en the ants attacked
me
. They
had been
as real and painful as the recent marks on
my
skin. No, something beyond
my
understand
ing
had happened
;
I
intended to find out what
,
just as soon as
I
could get free of
my
restraints
…and get something to eat. My stomach cramped in hunger
.

“Evan,
please let me go now.
I promise not to tell anyone
.
”

Who would believe me anyway?

“
Evan? Evan?
”
I
kept up
my
calls for several minutes until it became obvious that either
he
wasn’t listening or didn’t care. Either wa
y,
I
was on
my
own.
I
knew
I
should have been more frightened but something
inside
of me
had
changed. Here, chained
and
locked
in a strange
room,
I
felt more in control than
e
ver
before in my
short teen
life
.
I
couldn’t put
a
finger on why
I
felt so different, so strong, but
I
did.

I
was also
hungrier than I had ever been
.

Visions of barely cooked hunks of steak came to
my
mind.
And the weird thing was
,
I didn’t even like steak…certainly not raw. Nevertheless, the image made my mouth water.
I remembered the blood being squeezed from the headless squirrel. I imagined my mouth below that gray body, catching every drop.

“Yuck!”

What was happening to me?

I had to get away from this place.
Now.

I
st
udied m
y
chains and the cast iron headboard for any signs of weakness
. Not seeing any, I had moved my focus to the manacles around my ankles
. T
he floorboards in the hallway creak
ed
ever-so-faintly.
All senses attuned,
I
inhaled and could smell his earthy scent. A whole new kind of hunger overcame
m
e.

Everything stopped as
I
waited for Evan to unlock and open the door.

The sight of him struck
m
e with an intensity
I
wasn’t prepared for. His strong chin and dark eyes were like beacons
,
and the open top buttons of his shirt revealed pale skin pulled over taught chest muscles, muscles that matched the ripples beneath the skin of his thick forearms. Awestruck,
I
watched him approach the bed with a
brass
key in one hand.

“My aunt gets carried away,” Evan said as he freed
me from
the manacle
s
around first one ankle then the other.
As he reached for
my
wrists,
my
eyes were drawn to his Adams apple and the taut cords
to either side of his neck.
I
had an overwhelming desire to lick and bit
e into him there.
It took all of
my
willpower not to give in
to the urge as he released the last two manacles
.

“Are you okay?” he asked, leaning so close
I
could see every whisker of his five o’clock shadow.
I
held
my
breath and
tried to focus on the distant wall with the bent gun
,
but even the sound of his voice sent tremors of need
coursing
through
my
body.

It’s true
that I
had had a crush on him for going on two years, but this was something else entirely. There was something animalistic about the way
my
mouth watered at the sight of him, the way the muscles between
my
thighs trembled.
I
simultaneously needed him to leave and to stay.
My
body was a quivering mass of hormones and every last one of them wanted one thing—him.

“The next twenty-four hours are going to be the hardest for you,” he said. “It’s a transition period for your digestive and circulatory systems.” The deep timbre of his voice made it hard to concentrate. “
Considering how many more ants attacked you, y
ou’re doing really well compared to a couple of the guys and
Erica
.”

Fury shot like electricity through my body.
Though I didn’t know
any Erica
, h
earing him say her name
was reason enough to-to…. B
reath whooshed from my lungs. I couldn’t believe the violent
rush of thoughts that
had
surged through
me
. I
n just a few seconds, I
imagined ten different ways to brutally
kill a girl I
didn’t even
know.

What was happening to me?

My stomach chose that moment to growl
, which gave me an excuse to say something and take my mind off
the
beautiful dark eyes
which bored
into me. A part of me wanted th
ose eyes to s
tay
focused on me forever.

“I’m hungry,” I
managed to say
.

He got to his feet and half-broke the spell that had been holding me enthralled. I still couldn’t take my eyes off his powerful neck. My saliva glands were working overtime, which made no sense at all!

“Food could be a problem,” he said.

“You can’t afford food?” I
responded
,
then
suddenly realized how rude
that
had been. Everyone knew that Evan’s mother had died when we were still in elementary school, and a few of us had heard rumors about the legal battle he had gone through to emancipate himself from his aunt several years earlier. In short, Evan was a teenager living alone in his deceased parents’
huge
ho
use
.
Without a job,
it wasn’t surprising that he
couldn’t afford groceries.

“Get your ass down here and let me out,” I heard a boy yell. “Evan, let me out or I’m going to beat your ass!”

“Is that Paul Doucette?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’s going to be a real headache,” Evan said.

“So let him go,” I blurted.

And
that girl
Erica, too.

“You
do
realize
something has happened, don’t you?”
Evan said. The way he said it sounded ominous. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any more. There had been so many kids at the military base.

“The base?”
I said.
“The explosions?”

“It’s not what you think,” Evan said. “No one died. Not yet, anyway.”

“So?”

“Do you remember the ants?”

I glanced to my arms, which strangely looked
paler
than usual, and nodded.

“Those ants carried a kind of virus, something the military was experimenting with.”

My eyes were glued to his.

“The Army was trying to create vampire soldiers,” Evan said.

Instinctively, my tongue swept over four extra-long, extra-sharp canines. “And you’re saying—”

“I’m saying those were vampire ants. Seven of you got bi
tten
. You worst of all
.”

“So we’re—we’re—”

I smiled. Obviously this was some sort of a party joke. At any moment, Amanda and Rachel were going to come running into the room, giggling at me for being so ridiculously gullible.

“
I’m not kidding, Kayla,” Evan said. “
You’re becoming a vampire
.”

Suddenly
,
a dozen pieces of the crazy puzzle of the last—I didn’t know how much time had passed—
s
tarted com
ing
together: the ravenous ants, the out-of-control squirrel, Evan squeezing blood all over the ground, all of it. I wished I could faint, something I had done at least a dozen times in the past, but apparently my body was no longer as fragile as it had once been. I remained awake and aware, forced to face the horrifying reality straight on.