Not even for my best friend, who was suddenly licking her lips, her teeth faintly pink, smeared with Kieran’s blood, her eyes red veined and fierce. I heard the dry rasp of bat wings, felt the shadows of them moving toward us even if I couldn’t see them clearly in the dark.
We were in so much trouble I nearly gave up right then and there.
“Solange!” I tried to snap her out of the bloodlust. “Remember who you are!”
“I think I finally am.” She was practically purring.
I’d known she was in a bad way when Nicholas and I found her a few days ago, drunk on human blood, a willing donor passed out at her feet. And then she’d attacked me for making comments about the mysterious vampire Constantine, whom I’d never met but did not like. I especially didn’t like the way she said his name, as if he were hotter than Johnny Depp.
“Get in the van, Kieran,” I said, moving very slowly to stand in front of him while he struggled to lift his heavy feet all the way in. He pushed something at me, hiding it in the small of my back. It was too square to be either a knife or a stake.
Taser.
“No, don’t go,” Solange said, pulling off the nose clips and tossing them aside. “I’m still hungry.”
Apparently adrenaline, fear, panic, and guilt could only hold out for so long against bloodlust.
Solange was gone.
I wasn’t sure who was standing in front of me. She might have Solange’s ethereal beauty and her ballerina grace, but she wasn’t Solange.
Oblivious, Kieran leaned toward her, as if I weren’t in his way.
Vampire pheromones.
Without his nose plugs, he was vulnerable. I’d grown up with Solange and her brothers so I was mostly immune. Theoretically.
Because, lately, Solange was breaking all of our theories.
Kieran didn’t even notice the bats swarming above us. I ducked my head a little, trying not to scream like a child in a Halloween haunted house. “Crap,” I said darkly, shoving him down into his seat. “Solange, back off.”
“No.”
Kieran leaned farther forward, his blood dripping on the car mat and out into the grass. He tried to shove me aside so that Solange could finish her dinner. I shoved back without turning around, making sure to poke him hard in his wound. The flesh was warm and ragged and sticky under my finger. I decided I might just throw up later. It was worth it though, as Kieran recoiled, hissing through his teeth. The pain broke the lure of Solange’s pheromones, if only for a moment. I elbowed him savagely so that he fell back completely into the van, and then I slammed the door shut on him.
Solange only smiled. Her eyes were veined in red, like an autumn leaf. “I’m still thirsty,” she murmured.
I scowled, trying to remember the Solange I knew, covered in clay and only wanting to be left alone. “Too bad,” I said through my teeth, which weren’t nearly as impressive as hers. Her fangs gleamed when her smile widened. Bats flew in a whirlwind over her head. “Go away, Sol.”
“Mmm, I don’t think so.” She shrugged one shoulder. “You can run if you like. I’m going to start with Kieran first. You’d only taste like lemons and ash. I can smell your anger.” She wrinkled her nose as if I were spoiled meat. “It doesn’t enhance you, not like the others.”
“Gee, I’m so sorry that the fact that I want to punch you right in your princess nose might ruin your palate. We’re not bottles of wine.”
She just shrugged again.
And then she was pressing me into the van, so close I could see the blue under her skin, hear the flap of bat wings and the crackle they left in the air. I couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t snap my neck just to get to Kieran, slowly bleeding himself into a coma behind me.
So I did the only thing I could think to do.
I Tasered my best friend.
I wasn’t sure if it was the jolts of electricity running through her or the proximity of the dawn, but she fell backward onto the grass. I didn’t even have time to make sure she was all right. Technically, she was already dead, so a little shock wouldn’t hurt her for long. Okay, 1500 volts, whatever. She’d survive, but Kieran needed help now.
I paused.
She’d survive being Tasered, but not the dawn.
I’d have to bring her with me. “Shit,” I said. “This is just the worst night ever.”