Free Dating for Demons by Serena Robar Page A

I tried it. I knew it was necessary to survive but that didn’t make it any easier to walk up to a virtual stranger and take a pint of O negative.
    Full-bloods, on the other hand, were missing a piece of their soul. It was probably an evolutionary necessity. Aunt Chloe told me once that during World War II soldiers used the worst kind of epithets for the enemy. The way they talked around the camps and such, you would think the enemy armies were demons. It was a means to dehumanize the people you were ordered to kill.
    I don’t think I really understood that until I became a vampire. How do you take an eighteen-year-old soldier who’s been raised in a moral household where he was taught right from wrong and then expect him to put all that aside and kill another person?
    I wasn’t raised to drink other people’s blood. But I have to do it or I die. And it’s hard. Really hard. If I didn’t have the support of others like me, I don’t think I could keep doing it. I think eventually it would warp me. So full-bloods had to change. To evolve. To lose a bit of their humanity in order to survive.
    I knew Thomas was not the same man he was when he was living. He’s still a good man. He’s just harder somehow, less sentimental, with more of an edge. He was missing a piece of his soul, his essence. To hunt your former peers, you must change. And he did.
    I doubted Barnaby would come after me directly, but he needed me so he could play on the fears the Prophesy exacerbated. It was logical to assume he would come after someone close to me. That left two likely candidates. Thomas and Piper. And Piper had a complete soul. I wasn’t totally ruling her out because Barnaby had unleashed his possessed playthings on us in the parking garage. At the time I thought they were only after me, but what if they weren’t? After all, I didn’t get staked and they’d tried to block the exits so Piper couldn’t escape. If they only wanted me, who cared about a human girl getting away?
    But if they killed Piper and possessed her body, they could try to influence me through her. But was she the logical first choice or were they getting desperate? Did they think they were running out of time? Maybe possessing Piper was Plan B. If so, what was Plan A?
    I thought of Thomas. He wasn’t sleeping at night, he was edgy and doing things I wouldn’t categorize as rational. Sending Carl away to New York City was one such decision. Why send away his best friend when he knew we needed him here? Thomas was isolating himself. Not a good sign.
    I returned to Psi Phi House and went directly up to my room. Would Thomas be there? Slowly, I opened the door so I wouldn’t disturb him if he were sleeping. I was surprised to find him watching television, propped up on my bed.
    “Hey,” I said carefully. We were fighting the last time we spoke.
    “Hey.” He smiled his sleepy, sexy half-smile and my heart melted. He looked rested, like he’d finally gotten a decent rest.
    “You look better.” I shut the door behind me and joined him on the bed.
    He reached out and drew me near, fitting our bodies together nicely. I sighed in contentment.
    “I feel better. I haven’t been able to sleep much lately—all these crazy dreams—but for some reason, I lay down here and was out. A good three hours of deep sleep. I feel like a new man.”
    “Did you get something to eat?” I asked, craning my neck back to look at his face. The dark circles seemed lighter, his muscles were less tense. Maybe he wasn’t in danger of being possessed by a demon. Maybe he was just tired from all the extra work lately.
    “I had a bag of A positive and it helped.”
    I wrinkled my nose up at him. “You can’t be serious.”
    “It’s really not that bad. It was pretty fresh, from this afternoon, so it still had some kick; but in general, I think I prefer it straight from the source.”
    “I don’t know what Aunt Chloe was thinking. I mean, I get that we are a bit suspicious and