Fangs for Freaks (Book 2: Half-blood vampire series)

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Once dusk made an appearance, Piper and I headed over to my new home. The sorority house was located at the end of Greek Rowe, just a couple of blocks from Puget Sound University. Though PSU was a smaller college, it boasted three other sororities and four frats. I’d spent the summer with the interior decorator hired by the Tribunal. She was a perfectly respectable vampire who bordered on uptight. At first, she seemed to dislike me as much as other vampires but after working together on the house plans, she warmed up. Well, warmed as much as an Undead can. The only point we disagreed on was the amount of pink in the house. Shades of pink were the house colors so I really thought it needed to make a statement.

Piper parked in the designated “President’s Space,” which I’m not ashamed to admit gave me a thrill. We hopped out of the car and I insisted we wait for Thomas on the sun porch before entering.

“Why are we waiting for tall, dead and handsome?

Didn’t you at least let him see the house before now?” Piper whined.

“No, I wanted all of us to see it together. I want both of your reactions at the same time. I worked really hard on the color scheme, furniture, spaces. All of it.”

“Fine,” Piper huffed, plopping down in a wicker rocking chair. “You mind telling me what vampires are going to be enjoying the sun porch? Because it is, ya know, a sun porch?”

“Just because you would sit on the porch during the day doesn’t mean everyone else has to. Besides, the girls might be able to be out during the day, like me.”

“Might? As in you don’t know?”

I squirmed a bit at her line of questioning. I really didn’t want to admit I knew practically nothing about any of the people arriving this evening, especially to Piper. “Well, I don’t have all their vampire attributes committed to memory.”

“Hmmm,” she said, looking at me speculatively.

Luckily, Thomas arrived at that moment so I was able to divert Piper’s attention to the house once again. I jumped up and gave him a quick kiss.

“Hi honey, ready to see my masterpiece?” I pulled the keys out of my pocket.

“Of course.” He smiled warmly at me and I sort of melted into a pool of lust, figuratively speaking of course.

“Piper.” He nodded a greeting her way. “Hey,” Piper returned.

“Okay.” I started my grand tour. “As you both know I’ve been working with the decorator on the house, and though we disagreed a bit on the color scheme, things really took shape.

“Outside the house you’ll note our sorority letters”—ΨΦ—“which stands for Psi Phi House!” I couldn’t help but giggle again at the name. After all, how cute was I to pick out Psi Phi since it was pronounced Sci-Fi? A sorority for vampires called Psi Phi. Get it? I crack myself up.

I looked to my captive audience for their reaction, which appeared to be proper awe. Excellent. “Moving on inside the house”—I put the key in the lock and pushed the door open—“we enter the foyer, and directly to the right is our living room.”

I stepped aside, letting Thomas and Piper catch the full effect of my decorating influences. The walls were washed with a soft blush color, while the sectional couches were soft pink with a dark pink trim. To break up the monochromatic color palette, the decorator added accent touches of khaki, such as the floral print in the curtains and throw rugs over the hardwood.

“Well? What do you think?”

“It’s, uh, very true to the house colors,” Thomas said in a diplomatic way.