Free Blood Descendants (St. Clair Vampires Book 1) by Beverly Toney Page B

Vampire, as are most of the others in this room.
Tabitha was sent as a scout to protect you while our elders confirmed
that you are indeed my blood descendant.”
    As if to drive the
point home, a man I hadn’t seen appeared from the shadows and
walked toward her. He knelt directly in front of her taking off his
suede choker and exposing his neck as he went. Efia leaned toward
him, never breaking eye contact with me. She appeared ready to kiss
him until her lips pulled back to reveal slightly elongated canines.
The man jerked slightly when she penetrated his skin and started to
suck softly from his neck, but then relaxed against the leg of the
chair.
    I sat there in a daze,
as if she had not just bitten someone right in front of me. Tabitha,
who was standing sentry behind me, gently rubbed my shoulder. I was
waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out and say I was Punk’d,
but nothing happened. I would have thought this was an April Fool’s
prank if not for the fact that it was the end of September. I closed
my eyes and took a deep breath. I knew that once they were open I
would find myself back in my 3rd period math class that I must have
fallen asleep in. I took another deep breath and opened my eyes.
Damn!
    Every eye on the dais
was trained on me. Efia was wiping tiny drops of blood from her mouth
with a white handkerchief and the man she had been bitten was sitting
quietly at the foot of her chair. I stared at him for a minute before
I leaned forward and threw up all over the floor. I fell down in
front of my chair and continued to heave up everything that I had
recently eaten and stayed on all fours until my stomach was empty and
my body stopped shaking.
    Zander and Jordan
gently lifted me back into the chair while Tabitha wiped my face with
a wet cloth. They were acting as if this was an everyday occurrence
for them. A man dressed in red came and cleaned up my mess while I
regained what little composure I could. Efia and the others on the
dais sat quietly. I waited for them to crack a smile and tell me that
it was all a joke, but when I looked at Tabitha, I knew that they
weren’t.

Chapter 4

    I bolted straight up
as if I had been zapped with a taser. By looking at my surroundings I
realized that I was in the suite of rooms where I had taken my bath.
I was covered with a soft comforter while laying on a chaise lounge
near the fireplace. On the rug in front of me lay Artemis and Apollo.
They had raised their heads when I sat up and were looking right at
me. They were not, however, the only beings in the room with me.
Sitting on a chaise lounge opposite the sprawling dogs was Tabitha.
She was wearing a black militant suit, a small smile on her face and
worry in her eyes.
    “ I’m
sorry about that. The feeding”, she actually sounded
remorseful. “Do you think you’re ready to talk?”
    “ I’m
not ready to say anything, but I am ready for an explanation,”
I said, pulling my shoulders back as if I had some sort of control
over anything that had happened to me in the last few days.
    Tabitha smiled at my
feigned confidence but allowed me to retain my dignity, however false
it was. I was not looking forward to finding out what role I played
in all of this, but didn’t feel like I had much of a choice. I
sat cross legged waiting for her to explain this craziness away. But
something had changed between us. Tabitha was looking at me with a
kind of reverence that I wasn’t use to.
    “ Cheyenne,
I really need you to have an open mind right now. There are forces at
work that are stronger than the two of us and you need to become
aware of them.” She sat there for a moment, all Yoda-like,
letting her statement sink in.
    She walked over to a
table and opened a very large very old book. When I followed her I
found that the book was titled “Historia Lamia”, “The
History of Vampires”. I sat down, hard, and began to read.
    Everything that I
thought I knew about Vampires was wrong. First off, wrapping my brain
around