Free Blood of a Red Rose by Tish Thawer

within me , and the strength they carried with them was truly a blessing from the gods. The last thing to happen was the scanni ng ability snapping into place.
    As soon as Evie released me , I bolted off the couch and grabbed my head. The noise was too much for me to b ear . I assumed this was an unforeseen side-effect of the scanning ability combining with my clairaudience . But whatever it was, it sucked.
    I was suddenly overwhelmed with the loud noises of everything and everyone in the vicinity. The club's music, people calling o ut their orders to Dom and Tori. P ieces of conversation rang through my head like a cacophony of squawking birds, and then I heard the one thing that overshadowed all the rest...Rose's scream .

* * * * *
    CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    In Trouble
    ( Renard)
     
    After spending the day comatose in the hotel, Loni and I awoke with the sun ' s disappearance, and immediately started making our plans for the night.
    "Do you think Jeremy knows who we are? Are we in trouble here?" Loni asked.
    "No, poppet, we d on't need to worry. Jeremy isn't a threat . E ven if he was daft enough to a ttack us, we could easily rectify the situation by biting him and making him forget. No, I'm not worried about him. But we do have to worry about Meredith. We need to see what she's up to, so my suggestion for tonight i s to again, feed in the park, but then we need to move the car and keep w atch from a different location. Hopefully she'll make a move that will shed some light on her powers or possibly her intentions."
    "Alright, my love. Sounds like a plan." Loni kissed me, long and deep , and if we didn't need to rush to move our car from its present location, I would have sank ba ck down onto the bed and relived some of the other fond memories from our honeymoon.
     
    * * * * *
    (Meredith)
     
    Snagging the two workers had gone just as planned. As the horn signaled the end of the their day, we used our strength and speed to knock them out and rush them to the abandoned hunting shack.
    I could tell Damien was having a hard time keeping his desire to drink from these humans in check. But after I told him he could have a small sip to begin the draining process, his mood quickly improved.
    "I can't believe how quickly the changes take effect. I can feel my strength increase almost immediately." He made his point by slamming his fist through the solid log wall.
    "What the hell are you doing? " I dropped the human I was holding and flew to within an inch of his face. " We've taken care to set this whole scene , and you think slamming a hole through t he wall isn't going to raise a few questions?"
    "Who cares? If anyone did track this scene back to us , I'd kill them. Problem solved."
    "Problem solved? Problem solved?" My rage was boiling over, and I was sure my eyes were glowing red. I slammed him against the wall he'd just put the hole in. He may have just gained a boost in s trength, but there was no way he could compare to m e. "You listen to me, you blood- hungry asshole. I will not let you put everything I'm working towards in jeopardy by leav ing a trail of bodies across this city. What we're doing has to be kept on the down low. I can't risk the vampire's finding out."
    He pushed off the wall, s hrugg ing out of my grasp. I let him go. "Fine. I'm sorry. I won't kill anyone with out your permission . " He paced the room, looking at the bodies on the floor. After a sigh , h e continued, sounding remorseful . " I'll fix the hole. I have a sledgehammer in my truck we could leave here a s evidence. I' ll wipe it down so all we' ll have t o do is put one of these guys' prints on it and we should be in the clear. A sledgehammer could easily put a hole like that through a wall this old ."
    For being as hot - headed as he was just mom ents ago, his pla n actually had merit. I was pretty sure it would work. "Okay. Hurry and go get the hammer . I'll finish draining these two and make sure all the animal scratches and drugs are in