Free Warrior Rising by Linda Winstead Jones

She wasn’t even the prettiest girl in the club.
    But Darin kept looking at her. He looked at her as if she were the prettiest girl in the world. At least, the prettiest girl in this small crowd. His green eyes — and beautiful green eyes they were — glowed a little bit. It was a reflection of light, she supposed, and would not last. It was beautiful.
    The glow continued. It didn’t die when he moved his head a little bit. Suddenly the words he was singing made sense. She finally understood.
    Come to me.
    Feed me.
    I need you, Kenzie.
    Come to me.
    She did. Without thinking about what she was doing, Kenzie walked to the steps at the side of the stage, and slowly, very slowly, walked up and onto the platform.
    Darin stepped back, and another band member took his place in front. The singer she had admired for months swung his guitar up and over his head, and set it aside. He reached for her, and she met him. Gladly. In a daze, yes, but still… gladly.
    He placed his mouth near her ear and said, “I don’t have to hide anymore.”
    “That’s good, I guess.” She did not feel like herself at all. Her legs and feet and arms were numb, and at the same time she felt like she was floating. How had she gotten up here? What did it matter? “What were you hiding from?”
    “Everyone.” He looked her in the eye again. Perhaps there was a moment of alarm. Those green eyes really did glow, and for a moment — a brief moment — her brain hurt. Then once again she felt nothing.
    Darin cocked his head and opened his mouth, and she saw the fangs that grew there. There was enough of her left to think, “Oh, shit. Vampires are real.”
    She didn’t mind when he bit down into her throat. It was a sexual thing, a pleasure, even as she felt her life slipping away. People were watching. It was like they were having sex on stage for everyone to see. She didn’t mind, not like she thought she should.
    The music stopped, and Kenzie turned her head in a way that would give Darin better access to what was left of her throat. She wondered who Natasha was, if the woman behind the name of the band had fed Darin the way she now was. And she was jealous. Slipping away, dying, and jealous.
    The other members of the band — there were four of them — leapt from the stage and into the small crowd. They took from others what Darin was taking from her, only they moved more quickly. They did not savor as he did.
    Kenzie heard a woman scream — the scream seemed to be very far away, but she knew it wasn’t — and then she heard nothing at all.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Chloe took a step away from Luca, as Duncan moved in closer to study the map. Isaac had already left, off with a handful of Warriors to set up a new headquarters on the other side of the city. They needed multiple safe havens for the few vampires among them, easily accessible dark spaces that weren’t a potentially deadly hour or so away. No one yet knew what this war would look like, but there would be more battles. There would be bloodshed as Marie and those who supported her attempted to take control, she knew that much.
    There were moments when Chloe was still surprised that even a few vampires were ready and willing to fight for humans.
    Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised. She was vampire now, and she was ready to fight for humanity. Of course, it hadn’t been all that long ago that she’d been human herself. Some of the others… not so much. She didn’t know the details of Luca’s friends’ lives, but it had been a very long time since either of them had needed to breathe.
    If they could reach out to friends who valued this world as they did, if they could recruit even a handful more vampires to this side, the war with Marie might be significantly shorter. Vampires with friends. Vampires who valued humans. These were concepts she would have dismissed even a few days ago, but now they gave her hope.
    Chloe was happy to leave the planning to the older vampires and the most