LOVE BITES Page 0,84
Pudge moved to turn on a television that sat in the corner. An image of the front door of a house, presumably this one, immediately popped into view. Pudge was into hi-tech gizmos just like Etienne, Rachel realized as she peered at the potbellied behemoth in the beer T-shirt now leaning against the doorbell with one hand and pounding at the door with the other.
"My brother." Pudge sounded glum at first, then suddenly he brightened and turned to her. "You could feed on him. I don't really like him. And you wouldn't even have to turn him. He's a big bully pain in the butt anyway."
"I am not biting your brother," Rachel gasped, shocked at the very idea. Jeez, what did he think she was? His very own assassin sent to get rid of any creature who annoyed him? She had never bitten a real live person before and didn't intend to start now. Well, except for Etienne, of course, but that had been rather... er... intimate in nature. Different. She had no intention of starting to bite complete strangers.
"Well, you have to eat something." He was looking irritated again.
Rachel decided she had to put an end to this. "I'm not hungry. I'm not biting anyone. Or anything."
"Well, hell!" Apparently deciding not to deal with his brother if she wouldn't bite him, Pudge turned away from the TV screen and paced the room as his brother continued to ring and pound. Just when Rachel thought the racket was going to drive her bonkers, Pudge's bully brother gave up with one last kick at the door and moved out of camera shot.
Some of Pudge's tension left him when his brother gave up and went away. He stopped pacing and paused before what appeared to be a large metal coffin to sit on its lid, then stared at her with displeasure. Rachel was getting the feeling that she was a major disappointment as a vamp chick. Too bad she couldn't work up any regret over that, she thought, and finally took a look around the basement. She had only got a glance around on the way downstairs, and then she hadn't taken the time while she had been trying to free herself. Now she saw that it was a haven of cheesy vampire paraphernalia. Half of it appeared to be filled with weapons to kill vampires, the other half of things vampires might need: the coffin, a cape hanging from a hook, fake teeth on a counter, every book on vampires ever published. Rachel had an image in mind of him wearing the cape and fake fangs and pretending to be a vampire. She shook her head. The man really was cuckoo.
"So when will you get hungry? And what exactly will you eat, since you're so fussy?"
Rachel glanced back to her captor and decided to be honest in the hope that he would stop offering her his relatives and pets to feed on. "I'm a little hungry now, but I've never bitten anyone. I don't think I can."
He looked surprised at this admission. "Well then, how have you been feeding? You must have been feeding since Etienne turned you. That was more than two weeks ago. You--"
"Bagged blood," she interrupted.
"Bagged blood?" He looked shocked at the thought. "You mean cold bagged blood, like in the hospital?" When Rachel nodded, his face screwed up with disgust. "Ewwwww."
She rolled her eyes at his reaction. Apparently, he saw biting people as a better alternative to drinking blood like wine. Oh, he'd be a great vampire. One of those rogues Etienne had mentioned. She definitely wasn't ever biting him. Setting him loose on mankind would be a bad thing to do.
"Well, we're gonna change all that. You--" He paused in saying what she suspected was going to be something she didn't want to hear and glanced toward the television screen when the door chimes rang again. Rachel followed his irritated gaze to see a short, round little gray-haired lady there, shouting at the door as she pushed the doorbell and rapped her knuckles on the wood.
This time Pudge grabbed a remote and turned the volume up to hear what the woman was yelling. Her staccato words burst into the room full of indignant fury. "Open the door this instant, Norman Renberger. I know you're in there, and you have my Muffin! I saw you snatch him out of the backyard. You open the door this instant or I'm going right home to call the police."
"Shit," Pudge