Free Born in Twilight by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page A

only a bit of stirring to bring them back to blazing rage again.
    He’d been attacked, fed upon without his consent, made to feel helpless and nearly killed. Oh, how he’d like to run into that raggedy vampiress again. He was strong now, stronger than she would ever be, he was certain, since he’d been infused with the blood of the truly ancient. Rhiannon in particular. Yes, he’d like to see that tangled and tattered woman try to attack him again. He’d toss her away like a rag doll. Snap her like a matchstick. She would learn.
    Of course, that fury would probably never be vented. She was likely long dead by now. Vampires, Jameson knew all too well, didn’t tend to last long in captivity. Particularly when their captors saw them as useless once the experiments were done. Easier to simply let them die in an agony of slow starvation, or just tranquilize them with that drug they’d developed, and stake them out in the burning rays of the sun. Disposable experiments.
    Somehow, it gave Jameson no pleasure at all to think of that bone-thin and chalk-white vampiress dying in such a way. No pleasure at all.
    Above all the lessons he’d been taught by his friends was that he mustn’t take blood from the living. The bloodlust could become overwhelming, and a vampire could easily lose himself in the act of assuaging his passionate thirst. Well, he’d witnessed that firsthand, hadn’t he? And since he had no desire to kill anyone—anyone in San Diego, at least—he took his blood as the others did. From the stores they kept, robbed from blood banks and hospitals.
    â€œJamey, I need to talk to you.”
    He turned, saw Tamara entering his room in one of the many houses they all kept around the country, this one in San Diego. He really wasn’t certain why they were still here. His affairs were in order. He had plenty of money and a good cover to keep him invisible from DPI’s prying eyes. His lessons were pretty much complete as well. They could go wherever they wanted. He supposed they hadn’t moved on yet because they simply hadn’t felt the urge to do so.
    Tamara still hadn’t stopped calling him Jamey, and he’d all but given up hope that she ever would.
    He frowned as he met her eyes, and a little trill of alarm rushed through him, because she looked…very upset. “What is it, Tam?” She approached him, gnawing her lower lip, but then stopped halfway, and gripped the back of an armchair as if for support. And this alarmed him even more. “My God, what’s wrong?”
    â€œJamey—Lord, but I don’t know how to tell you this….”
    He went to her, gripping her shoulders and easing her trembling body into the chair she’d been clinging to. “Has something happened to Eric? Or Roland? Is Rhiannon all—”
    â€œEveryone is fine, Jamey. But you…you won’t be.” She tipped her head up, her eyes probing his. “If you fly out of here in a blind rage, Jamey, you’ll only end up getting yourself killed, and that won’t help the situation. This is…it’s horrible. If it’s even true. If it is, we have to take action. But with thought, and planning, and extreme caution. I can’t stress that enough.”
    He narrowed his eyes and stared at her. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, Tam.”
    She licked her lips, closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. “When DPI held you…”
    As her words trailed off, Jameson snapped to attention. “When DPI held me?” he prompted. “Go on, Tam, get to the point.”
    Tamara cleared her throat, lifted her delicate chin, looked him in the eye. “You said they took…samples.”
    He averted his eyes. But Tamara’s small hand came to his shoulder, and her steady gaze drew his back like a magnet. “I need to know…what kind.”
    â€œThat’s not