CHAPTER 11
WHEN AUBREY WOKE he brought himself to the edge of Red Rock, the forest that surrounded New Mayhem and fringed Ramsa. The ability to instantly move from one place to another was a power he used often, as he had for more than two thousand years.
The full moon was about a week away still, but Aubrey could easily sense a few untrained witches and some werewolves lurking in the busy forest. There were also several vampires nearby, all of Miras bloodline.
Ramsa was supposedly Miras territory, but that barely worried Aubrey. Mira, though ancient, was one of the weakest of their kind, and her fledglings were little stronger than most humans. Few in Miras bloodline had lived through Fala’s extermination of them a few hundred years before, and now they were hardly even considered part of the vampiric community. Most of them were so sensitive toward their prey that they only fed on animals and willing humans.
There was a party going on at a house on the edge of the woods. Shannon had unwittingly invited Aubrey to it, before he had frightened her. The house was filled with people, and the faint scent of alcohol floated from it to where Aubrey stood watching, many yards away. He easily reached out with his mind and sifted through the thoughts of those inside.
The minds he touched were hardly entertaining — either hazy from drinking, silly from joking, or angry from gossiping. He found Shannon quickly. She had drunk some beer and her defenses were down; little effort was necessary to convince her to come outside alone.
Shannon wandered absently into the woods, and jumped in surprise when she came upon Aubrey.
“Um … Hi, Alex.”
She greeted him tentatively, glancing back at the house in obvious confusion as to how she had arrived here. Before she could decide to leave, he reached into her mind and her nervousness faded.
“Shannon, right?” he asked, taking a step toward her.
“Yeah,” she answered with a coy smile. “Why are you hiding here in the —”
Sleep. Aubrey sent the command to her mind as soon as he was close enough to catch her as she fell.
She collapsed, unconscious in an instant, and he caught her without effort. He could have caught someone ten times her weight with no difficulty. Though he could control any human physically he didn’t relish the possibility that the girl would scream and attract inconvenient attention. It was easier to have her asleep as he fed. He had done this many times before.
He tilted Shannon’s head back to expose the artery, which was covered by nothing more than a thin layer of skin. His canines, which looked normal enough most of the time, extended to razor-sharp points. These fangs pierced the skin of her throat quickly and precisely, and within moments he was lost in the sensation of the rich human blood that ran over his tongue and quenched his thirst.