Free Need by Todd Gregory Page B

it bad enough you’ve poisoned your fraternity brother? Do you need to compound the error by bringing a stripper back to the house?”
    He said something else, but I didn’t hear. I was looking for the woman the voice belonged to—but there was no woman in the bar other than the girls who were still giggling and laughing at the dick-bouncing antics of the other stripper.
    Maybe I was just going insane.
    â€œTwo, you said?” I said.
    He winked and nodded before turning and walking away. I watched his oh-so-amazing ass as he headed across the dance floor and down the little hallway where the bathrooms were. He opened a door and disappeared behind it.
    I took a deep breath and headed for the front door.
    I really should check on Jared, I thought as I walked back out into the warm night.
    â€œDo you really think that door will hold him if he wants to get out?” the voice whispered into my ear again.
    I bit my lower lip and started walking quickly up Bourbon Street.

C HAPTER 4
    I leaned against the street sign on the corner and closed my eyes. Who was this woman whose voice I kept hearing in my head?
    She had to be a vampire—but why couldn’t I sense her presence?
    I opened my eyes and looked around. There was a group of young men standing across the street on the corner in front of the pub, all holding plastic cups with alcoholic drinks in their hands as they laughed and joked. I looked down toward the corner at Dumaine Street, but other than a heavy-set man with a beard talking on a cell phone just outside of the Clover Grill, Bourbon Street was deserted as far as I could see in that direction. I looked up at the balconies wrapping around the Bourbon Orleans Hotel, just across St. Ann, but there was no one there. The bar on its first floor was blaring a remix of Kylie Minogue’s “All the Lovers,” but that bar, too, was completely empty.
    She had to be nearby, I reasoned. I didn’t know how far a distance the vampiric telepathy could work across—the only time Jean-Paul had ever communicated that way with me had been at circuit parties, but I never really knew how far away he was from me in those vast spaces.
    And come to think of it, only Jean-Paul had ever talked directly to my mind. None of the others in our fraternity ever had.
    I’d always assumed it was a connection the two of us shared, as maker and creation, but maybe I was wrong.
    I’d never had any contact with a female vampire. Obviously, I knew they existed, but I’d never encountered one.
    For that matter, I’d never encountered a vampire outside of our circle.
    Maybe I could sense others only if they’d also been created by Jean-Paul.
    I just didn’t know.
    I scanned the crowd on the other side of St. Ann, on the “straight” side of Bourbon Street. There were plenty of women over there, but none of them were looking at me. None of them were alone—they were either with a man or in groups, laughing and drinking and clearly having a good time. I looked up St. Ann, but again, there wasn’t anyone to be seen.
    I need to get back to the house, make sure Jared’s still okay, I told myself. The stripper’s blood had sated my hunger, and I probably shouldn’t have left him alone for so long. I’d never witnessed a transition and had no idea what all it entailed.
    I’d been incredibly stupid in letting Jared drink from me, infecting him with my blood. I turned and looked back inside the bar. The stripper was moving his hips from side to side on the far side of the bar, his back to me. The cotton of the white bikini clung to that amazing ass, highlighting its extraordinary beauty.
    He truly had an exceptional body, but I could see where I’d bitten his neck. And there were no wounds there—nothing to show that just a few moments earlier I’d taken nourishment from him. I hadn’t done anything different with him than I had with Jared earlier on