FANGED

Chapter Forty-Four

"I'm not his Queen!" I hollered after the quickly retreating backside of Sinclair as he disappeared around a corner. The arrogant jerk didn't even give a twitch of recognition and I had to resist the urge to chase after him to check and make sure he actually heard me. Which, given the circumstances, would have been a silly waste of time because vampires can hear a moth fart at 50 paces. I'm fairly certain he heard my screeched denial, but just didn't give a damn and chose to ignore me. Instead of running after him like a maniac, I stood there goggling after him. Yes, goggling. There are times in a girl's life when all else fails, your only recourse is to stand with your mouth hanging open and a confused expression slapped on your face. This was one of those times for me and I goggled to my heart's delight.

What was with these vampires? I turned to look in the direction Sinclair had told me to go and then back at the now empty corridor in front of me unsure what to think. One minute Sinclair was as cool as a cucumber and the next I got the sinking suspicion he was blaming me for all the sudden discourse between the Elders and them. As if I was personally responsible for them going all wackadoodle on the immortals. I wasn't sure if he was going to accept me as one of them or chew me up and spit me out. Even after all his "inspecting my person" business, I still wasn't a hundred percent positive where he stood. But...he had referred to me as Queen. Or...um...Fang's Queen, which really isn't a strong vote of confidence now that I think about it. Arrgh! These vamps were so confusing! I couldn't decide if they were crazy...or if I was the crazy one. Technically, since I had known them the shortest amount of time, my vote would be them. They were the ones in need of a straightjacket fitting, not me.

"And they are living in the perfect place to get one," I muttered to myself, turning to stomp down the hallway. I no longer cared I sounded like a herd of cattle on stampede. Maybe if I made enough noise, it would discourage anymore vampires from the Compound  wanting to stop and chit-chat.

Too bad my theory didn't pay off. In my state of mental muddling, I accidently took a left instead of a right...or a right instead of a left. Really, I didn't remember which way Sinclair had told me to go. What did I look like, Garmin? Anyway, I was still debating if Sinclair was on team Mel or...well...not team Mel, when I ran smackdab into a brick wall. Not literally...but abdominally. My nose was presently squished against a set of abs steely enough to set off metal detectors at airport security.

"Watch were you are going, witch," a deep voice growled above me.

Witch? Stepping back, I looked up...and then up some more. Drat! Why were all these guys so dang tall? Finally, after getting a crick in my neck, my gaze focused on one very pissed off, growling, and total badass vamp. His lips curled up over his fangs as he returned my stare. Holy Moses on a pogo stick! It was the one who I had spotted behind the computer who actually snarled at me. Obviously, his opinion of me hadn't changed from the first night, considering he was still snarling. Not to mention the whole calling me witch thing. I may be a little slow at times, but I was pretty certain he didn't mean it as a compliment.

I was about to give him the sticks and stones spiel, but when I stepped back and got a better gander at him, I decided that probably wouldn't be a good idea. He was a complete vampire cliché dressed all in black from the baseball cap on top of his buzz cut head, the skin tight t-shirt, standard vampire issue leather pants and combat boots. I couldn't hold back the little gasp of fear at the amount of weaponry he had on display. Guns, knives, grenades...oh my. He was a billboard for doomsday preppers. You know, those guys who dig fallout shelters in their basements and stock them with tasteless dehydrated food items and porn. Then they spend the weekends tromping through the woods in full army fatigues with semi-automatic weapons practicing their skills with other preppers at killing zombies and other fictitious beasts like...unicorns.