“Relax, Conor.” Saintcrow’s voice. It seemed to come from far away.
“We love you,” his mother murmured. “We’ll be here when you wake tomorrow night.”
It took all Conor’s effort to nod. His body felt light, as if he could drift away. Had something gone wrong? Was he dying?
Don’t fight it.
Saintcrow’s voice in his mind. Conor smiled faintly when he heard it. When next he woke, he, too, would be a vampire.
What would Bryn think if she knew?
It was his last conscious thought before the world went black and silent.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
For the first time that he could remember, Conor woke from a deep sleep that hadn’t been interrupted by dreams or anything else. The room was dark yet he knew he wasn’t alone. His mother and Saintcrow stood on the left side of his bed and although there were no lights on, when he turned his head to the side, he saw them clearly and distinctly. His mother was concerned, his father merely curious.
Feeling wide awake, Conor jackknifed into a sitting position. And then it hit him. He was a vampire!
“Are you all right?” his mother asked anxiously. “You haven’t changed your mind?”
“I think it’s too soon to tell, Mom,” he said with a lopsided grin.
“How do you feel?” Saintcrow asked.
“I don’t know. Strange.” He glanced around the room. “Everything looks the same but different. I can hear a dog barking from somewhere in town, a couple fighting over what to watch on TV, a baby crying.” He shook his head. “Even the air feels different.” Rising, he paced the floor. “I feel like my insides are on fire.” He licked his lips. “And I smell blood.”
“Yeah,” Saintcrow said. “Come on, let’s see what kind of vampire you are.”
Conor frowned at him. “What kind? Is there more than one?”
“There are all kinds of vampires. A few are like your mother. They don’t inherit the killer instinct. They never hunt for pleasure, only to satisfy a need. Others turn into the monster so prevalent in Hollywood, nasty, blood-thirsty creatures who kill for the fun of it. And then are those like me. But we’ll talk about that some other time. Let’s go. You coming, Kadie?”
“Of course. I was there for his first step,” she said with a grin. “His first tooth. His first birthday. I’m not going to miss his first bite.”
~ * ~
Conor grinned as they left his house. Three people dressed in unrelieved black. He knew instinctively that it served two purposes – the color made it easy for them to blend into the shadows of the night. And it wouldn’t show the blood.
Since Conor had never tried transporting before, Saintcrow took care of it. With one arm around Kadie’s waist, and his free hand on Conor’s shoulder, Saintcrow transported them to the outskirts of Cheyenne where a group of homeless people lived, mostly in makeshift tents.
Standing behind a dilapidated camper, Saintcrow took in the lay of the land. Men and women and a few children huddled around a couple of campfires. They were a pitiful lot, clad in mismatched clothing. Most were thin, obviously undernourished. A couple were sick. One was dying.
Kadie tugged on Rylan’s arm. “Can’t we go somewhere else?”
“Next time.” He glanced at Conor. “If something goes wrong, nobody here is going to call the cops.”
“What do you mean? What can go wrong?” Conor asked, and then muttered, “Oh, right. You mean if I kill somebody, no one will complain.”
“Exactly.”
This was his first hunt. There was always a chance he might take too much. Conor took a deep breath, felt his stomach tighten at the smell of so much prey, so close. He stared at the camp, then glanced at Saintcrow.
“You’re not going to kill anyone,” Kadie said. “If you start to take too much, one of us will stop you. Right, Rylan?”
He shrugged. And then grinned when Kadie glared at him. “Right.”
“One thing you never told me washowto bite someone,” Conor said, sounding less than enthusiastic now that he was faced with the reality of his new existence.
