Free Blood Born by Linda Howard Page B

likes it.”
    The door opened on a small studio apartment. There was a tiny kitchenette, a living area with a long couch and a flat-screen TV, and a full-sized bed butted up against one wall and set apart by a lacquered Chinese screen. A pretty, dark-haired young woman looked up when the door opened, and smiled as she got to her feet. Naturally, there were no windows—no threat of sunlight, no way for the pretty girl to signal for help, if she ever decided she didn’t “like it.”
    “Kristi, darling, this is Luca. He’s hungry.”
    Instead of being afraid, as most humans would’ve been, Kristi turned that beaming smile on Luca and began to unbutton her blouse. For a moment, Luca wondered why she was so accommodating, and then he saw her eyes.
    “You’ve drugged her,” he said, his tone flat. He didn’t like that Marie had somehow known how hungry he was, and he didn’t like the risk of kidnapping a human and using her against her will.
    “I have not,” Marie responded sharply. “Kristi has simply been glamoured.”
    “For how long?” Luca asked.
    “Just a few weeks. When she goes home all she’ll remember is this lovely villa and the view of the ocean, and the man with whom she had a short, but passionate summer affair. She might wonder why he doesn’t call, she might try to find him, but other than that she’ll be fine.”
    “She’ll be a vegetable.” Being glamoured wasn’t without its side effects. A one-time, short-term glamour wouldn’t cause any noticeable brain damage, but something this continuous would leave the girl a drooling idiot. It wasn’t new, to keep food on-site, particularly where the Council was concerned. In the old days, ithadn’t been hard to find and keep willing donors for many years. These days, with communication so widespread, that simply wasn’t possible. When people went missing, the authorities mounted massive searches, unless the missing human was one of the homeless, which pretty much meant no self-respecting vampire wanted to feed from them anyway.
    That left drugging and glamouring, but drugs left the blood bitter-tasting. Usually a human was kept only a short while, and glamoured into forgetting.
    “No, she won’t. I’ve been working on this, refining my touch. I use barely a breath of power. When we release her, she’ll have suffered very little damage. Trust me,” she added in a low voice, “she’s better off here than she was where we found her.”
    Kristi shrugged off her blouse and unfastened her jeans. Luca held up a hand to stop her. He wasn’t about to fuck and feed on an empty-headed girl who had given up her free will—or had it taken from her—and had probably spread her legs for every Council member, and probably the on-site staff as well, who was interested in having her. Certainly her blood had been taken; if anyone had given her blood as well, during sex, then she was on her way to being bonded and he didn’t want to be the one who went over that threshold with her. The last thing he needed was to find himself bonded to a mentally handicapped blood donor. Marie might say Kristi would be all right, but that didn’t automatically translate to reality.
    Damn her, anyway. He needed to feed, and somehow she’d known that, dangling this helpless fruit in front of him. In the end, though, Kristi’s lack of will helped him hold back.
    “I like the hunt,” he said, motioning for the girl to be seated. She sank back, her expression disappointed and even hurt.
    “Don’t we all,” Marie snapped, then she shook her head and made a motion as if to wipe away her ill temper. “I miss it,” she said wistfully, “the days when we could move around without having to worry about computers and identification and all of the other things we have to deal with now.” She heaved a sigh, then gestured toward Kristi. “Command her to fight, if that’s what you want. She’ll do whatever you tell her.”
    “Knowing that kind of takes the fun out of