her upright with a thigh and increasing the pressure. She took the hint and moved with the music, performing tribadism while Felicia sucked the breath from her body.
Felicia wrapped her fist in dark hair, pulling the girl’s head back to expose her neck and planting open-mouthed kisses along her throat, the girl’s scent turning almost black with want as she shook under a small orgasm. Felicia’s teeth grazed the skin, feeling the strong pulse through her lips and tongue. She slid her hand up the taut bodice, and her sense of red desire turned electric blue with sudden pain.
She yanked backward, stumbling into the pair of barely-legals behind her as she raised her hand to the light. A thin black line was etched into her palm, the mirror image of the chain that the girl was wearing. A silver chain. The music was suddenly louder than she could bear and Felicia felt close to vomiting.
“Wait!” The girl hurried after her as she fled the dance floor, intent upon finding the toilets, but Felicia ignored her, the pain a far more pressing matter than the prey.
Felicia stumbled into the bathroom and crashed through the door of the first open cubicle, the pounding music threatening to split open her head. She dropped the lid, ignoring the mess of fecal matter and condoms floating in the water, and slumped, cradling her stomach with her arms, her head bowed until it rested against her knees.
She fought the nausea then reviewed its possible cause. Drink? No. She’d been on water. Food? None since lunchtime.
“How long are you going to be in there?” The cute twenty-something with whom she’d been dancing banged on the door. She was all black velvet and silver jewelry, but she’d be good for a one night stand.
Felicia looked up. It was as if she could see through the door, for there was little Miss Vampire Chic outlined in the colors of musk, blood and sexual excitement. She grinned, her pain forgotten. “Coming.”
* * * *
Felicia howled.
The scents were unfamiliar and for the second time in one night she had no idea where she was or how she had got here. She blinked weary eyes and focused upon green trunks and leaves. A garden? She stretched and yawned, judging it to be an hour before dawn. Long past her bedtime. She looked at her hand, still marked with the black line across the palm. Since when had she been allergic to silver? That would be damned inconvenient. She often dealt with silver in the artworks she displayed. Perhaps the chain had been dipped in something corrosive.
She shivered, realizing she was naked. How often did that happen? She shook her head, wishing she could remember what had happened between the club and here, and took stock of her situation.
First priority was to find clothes. Naked on the street on a weekday morning was an option likely to get her arrested, or worse. The thought caused her nails to slide out and harden. She stared at them, too numb to be surprised by anything more. She lifted them to her mouth and bit the end of one. They were hard as steel. Well, nothing worse than arrested, then. Second priority was to get home, shower and cancel her credit cards. She would report the purse as stolen.
She stood to look over the bushes and discovered she was in the large garden of a house near, by the scent of the air, Laverstone Woods.
The wall was easy to vault and Felicia soon found herself next to a line of parked cars. She looked into each of them, finding a bag of clothes in the third. Trusting her new ability to heal, she punched straight through the window and grabbed the bag, her muscles propelling her a hundred yards away before the alarm had even begun its second trill. This was fantastic. She’d always been fit but this was like the superhero films at the cinema. This was Batgirl without the gadgets, Wonder Woman without the tan. All those hours of gym membership had finally made a difference. Whatever the little chic chick had slipped in her drink obviously agreed with her.
She changed into the liberated clothes quickly, lamenting the absence of shoes, and ventured out, turning this way and that to get her bearings.
She sagged beneath a sudden weight on her back and pain spread like acid across her neck. Felicia threw herself backward against the nearest wall, slamming into it and dropping to the ground. A figure sprang away then turned to face her–a face from a thousand late-night horror movies. Chic chick had nothing on this one. This woman dressed the part, right down to the black contact lenses and pointed canines, to say nothing of the leather jacket and white blouse.
* * * *
Gillian leaped back and spat out blood, forcing her esophagus to convulse and vomit out the few mouthfuls she had ingested. That was a close call. The girl looked human enough. Comely rather than pretty, a shoulder-length flow of black hair framing an apple face. She didn’t look like a werewolf. Had she been hungrier she wouldn’t have been able to stop herself draining the bitch. She was tempted to rip the girl’s head off as a matter of course, though the short dark fur was unusual in the species and the partial transformation indicated she was newly initiated. Her long limbs would give her an advantage in a fight and those claws could do significant damage.
She aimed a kick at the prone form. Her steel-tipped leather boots connected with a satin-soft cheek. The flesh tore but began to knit immediately, a bruise flushing purple beneath the surface, fading to yellow and vanishing in the blink of an eye.
Gillian spat again onto the girl’s face. “You can stand up now. I’m not going to kill you. Not yet, anyway. Who are you, and why are you here? This is my turf, bitch, and I didn’t authorize a dog pack.”
The girl leaped up and launched into an attack. Gillian sidestepped and caught her with a horizontal kick, felling her once again.
“I said, stand up. Do you speak English or should I bark?” Gillian crouched, an aggressive stance that could propel her in any of six directions.
The girl struggled upright. “Enough. I submit, or whatever it is you want.” She reached up and touched the wound on her neck, staring at the amount of blood. “What are you? Some kind of vampire?”
“You seem so surprised. Didn’t you believe we existed?”
The girl shrugged. “Well, to be honest, no. I thought it all romantic literature and the latest chic.”
“Tch. A werewolf that doesn’t believe in vampires. I didn’t think I’d die to see the day.”
“What makes you think I’m a werewolf?”
“I can smell it.”
“I don’t understand.” The girl sat on the pavement, her legs curled beneath her. “How can I be a werewolf? I’ve never met one.”
“You must have. You’re one of the Changed, a denizen of the night. I can hurt you and you can hurt me.” Gillian shrugged. “Well, you could if you were quick enough.”
“It would explain a lot of what’s been happening to me.” She looked away. “If anyone had asked me if I believed in werewolves and vampires a week ago I would have laughed in their face.”
“Are there others of your kind? Where do they hang out? The last thing I need is a dog pack running about.”
“There aren’t any others. Not that I know about, anyway. Only my sister, and she’s different. She sees dead people. Why did this happen to me? Last Friday I was normal.”
“Why should I care?” Gillian pursed her lips. Whatever this dog was, she wasn’t dangerous. “Very well. I could try to find out. Give me your address and I’ll meet you tonight.”
“Why not now?” The dog’s fists clenched, but Gillian laughed. “Not now. It’s nearly dawn.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” The girl reeled off her address. “What time?”
“Sundown is at nine-twenty. Call it ten. I’m Gillian, by the way.”
“Felicia. How will you...”
Gillian left her.
Chapter 10
Felicia