Manipulating Fate (Carousel Series #2)

Chapter 8: Santa Cruz, CA | 1987

Party-goers shot left and right as Ruby burst through the trees, in full frenzy mode. Hair streaming behind her she emerged like a demon from a circle of fire. Snarling, snapping, talons gleaming. Around her the Boys took down prey, one by one. Necks snapped, gashes bitten into flesh, blood spilled. Paul took down two girls at once. Dwayne took down a muscular jock that was probably Chet.

Yet, Ruby still had not taken prey. They darted past her as her hunger blinded her. So much blood yet too confused on how to capture it. She stumbled after a screaming girl in a bikini. Wasn't she supposed to automatically just have the prey fall into her hands? Ruby worsened as her gaze went red, hazing everything in her sight line.

"Childer." David's voice brought part of her mind back. "Over here." Where was David? Ruby kicked a body from her path, a sickening crunch revealing she'd probably broken the ribs postmortem. "This way. Come."

Following David's voice like a bloodhound does scent, she made her way past the carnage of the other Boys. Very few of the party-goers were left now. The Boys certainly worked quickly. The scent of charred flesh flew into her nose. Ah, cleaning up after themselves.

"Ruby..." David purred. Finally Ruby locked onto him and ran. He was at the edge of the lights, holding a screaming girl by the hair, her arm bent up behind her back. He was grinning, blood staining the stubble on his jaw. Ruby stopped, her vampiric senses locking onto the screaming mass of flesh. "Fetch childer."

David let the girl go and the girl did not disappoint, taking off in a dead run directly towards the water. Ruby tackled her from behind, taking her down 20 feet from the surf. David watched on as his childer snapped the girl's head back, rendering her paralyzed. The girl no longer struggled, barely able to breathe, her spinal cord useless.

"That's it Ruby. Be one of us." David's voice whispered on the night air that breezed past Ruby's ear as she sunk her fangs into the tender skin of the girl's neck. Hot blood fed by fear and fight for life flooded into her mouth. The force of the final act of change hit Ruby like a semi-truck but she held on. She drank and drank feeling the warmth fill her and spread through her body. She felt her heart almost begin to beat again, fed on the life force of this dying girl.

"Release her Ruby. Withdraw." David was standing over her now. The waters of the Pacific crashed over Ruby and her victim, swirling in eddies around David's boots. "Withdraw childer. You must. There's nothing left."

With a screaming roar, Ruby tossed the corpse from her. Blood streamed from her lips, slashed on her mouth like crimson lipstick. A stream down her neck and chest, staining the shirt she wore. The body was pulled by the undertow towards the ocean as Ruby watched, gasping for unneeded air.

David smiled like a proud parent. "You did beautifully, just like I expected you would." Strange praise for taking a life. Ruby felt no remorse, no guilt; she had taken life to keep her own. Such power.

"Sire..." She looked up at David, eyes wild. The change was completing, the Gift taking hold.

David leaned down, taking Ruby's face in his gloved hands. Their mouths met hotly, as hot as the spilt blood. Ruby kneeling in the surf, David bent over to reach her. They tasted each other as well as the blood, tongues dancing together. David tasted the last of Ruby's innocence leave her, shaking him to the core. It was something one tasted maybe once in a lifetime...

"RUBY!" Marko screamed, breaking David and Ruby apart mid-kiss. "NO! How could you!" Running full force, Marko slammed his outstretched hands into David, knocking him away from Ruby.

"Marko!" Dwayne called, running after him. Paul followed, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

"Marko, don't start." David warned, voice low.