Meg Cabot - Insatiable

“None of that’s true,” Sarah said. “He told me all those things were myths. Also about how vampires can live on animal blood. He said if they do that, they’ll die. That’s why he has to drink my blood. To stay alive.”

Alaric rolled his eyes. “Do you realize girls like you have been falling for that one for centuries? Vamps just don’t like animal blood. It weakens them. And they don’t look as nice after they’ve been drinking it for a while. And if they’re anything, vamps are vain. Human blood’s like filet mignon to them. So if he told you he’ll die if you don’t let him drink your blood, he’s a damned liar, in addition to being a putrid stinking woman-abusing soulless abomination.”

Sarah seemed to find his language objectionable, since this statement only made her weep harder.

Alaric felt a little bad about this. Holtzman was always telling him that he needed to work on his people skills more.

Accordingly, Alaric passed her a tissue from the little packet the rental car agency had left in the car.

“You’re mean,” Sarah said, blowing her nose into the tissue. “Felix isn’t a soulless abomination. He’s sensitive. He has feelings. He reads me poetry. Shakespeare.”

Alaric wanted to pull the car over so he could throw up, but they didn’t have time. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner he could go back to the hotel; order some room service; have a nice, relaxing bath (in the world’s tiniest tub, which had those grainy strips attached to the bottom, so guests wouldn’t slip in the shower-this was Alaric’s number one pet peeve about less-than-five-star hotels; he was a grown man, he knew how to stand without falling in the tub); and go to bed.

Then, tomorrow morning, he’d fly to New York, check into the Peninsula, find the prince, and kill him.

This made him quite happy to think about.

“This,” Alaric explained to Sarah in what he thought was a kindly voice, “isn’t love you’re feeling. Only dopamine. Because Felix isn’t like anyone else you know. Being a creature of the night, he’s new and exciting and activates a neurotransmitter in your brain that releases feelings of euphoria when you’re around him…especially because you know you can never actually be together, and he seems complicated, and perhaps even sensitive and vulnerable at times. But I can assure you: he’s anything but.”

“How dare you?” Sarah demanded hotly. “It isn’t dopa…whatever! It’s love! Love!”

Alaric wanted to argue. Vampires were incapable of love-human love-because they didn’t have hearts. Well, technically, he supposed they possessed hearts, since that’s what he had to stab a stake into in order to kill them. But their hearts didn’t pump blood or beat.

So how could they feel love, much less return it?

But arguing with a teenager over the semantics of vampire love didn’t seem like a winning proposition to him.

“Oh, come on, then,” Alaric couldn’t help saying finally, noticing that his passenger continued to sob quietly to herself. “It’s not all bad.”

“How?” Sarah demanded, flashing an aggravated look at him. “How is this not all bad? You’re going to try to kill my boyfriend!”

“True,” Alaric said. They were nearly to the address she’d given him. “But look at it this way. He promised to turn you into a vampire, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Sarah said, sounding a bit surprised. “He said he was going to turn me, just as soon as he got his strength up. Then I’ll be beautiful, like him. And immortal.”

“Right,” Alaric said a little sarcastically. He knew this Felix had no intention whatsoever of turning her. Doing so would deprive him of his primary food source.

What Alaric was sure the vampire would do instead was string her along for a few more months; then, when she grew too sickly from anemia to be of any more use to him, he’d move on to some healthier host. He’d probably tell her it was him, not her…that he needed time to “think about things.” Then he’d disappear.

Then, after her broken heart-and even more broken body-had healed, Felix would probably find his way back to Sarah-and to Chattanooga-and start the cycle all over again. Unless Sarah found the strength to put her foot down and tell him no, she would not be abused in this way.

But that wouldn’t happen. The vamps were just too alluring. And their victims just never seemed to think they deserved better than the treatment they were given. It was almost as if they were afraid to put their foot down, because they thought they’d never get anything better…

But that was what Alaric was for. He would be Sarah’s foot, since she didn’t have the strength, or willpower, to put her own down. He’d make sure she got something better and stop the cycle from continuing. Permanently.

Alaric found a parking space…except that it was beside a fire hydrant.

It didn’t matter. They wouldn’t be there that long.

“Supposing he did turn you into one of his kind,” he said, switching off the engine and turning to look at her, “then me, or one of my fellow officers, would only have to kill you eventually, because that’s what we do. We’re demon killers. And trust me, you really wouldn’t want any of us on your tail. We’d be your worst nightmare. It’s much better this way. This way, you’ll stay a human, and maybe you can go to college and get a degree and a fun job doing something you like. Or maybe you can find some nice guy back at the Walmart you can go out with, even marry. And, assuming you want them, you two can have a few babies, and grow old and watch them have babies, and be grandparents someday. Wouldn’t you like that? You could never have babies with Felix.”

“Vampires can have babies,” Sarah informed him. “I read it in a book.”

“Yes,” Alaric said, feeling annoyed. “Well, in books, the vampires struggle nobly against themselves not to bite you, because they love you so much. But that didn’t exactly happen, did it? So the books aren’t really very accurate, are they?”

Sarah glared at him.

“I hate you,” she said.

Alaric nodded. “I know,” he said. He reached across her and opened the car door. “Get out.”

She looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Go on,” he said. “I know you’re dying to run ahead and give lover boy the heads-up. I’m going to let you. Tell him I’ll let him go, on one condition.”

Her entire demeanor changed. Suddenly, she was all that was accommodating and pleasant.

“What condition?” she asked eagerly.

“Tell him that if he tells me where I can find the prince, I’ll let you both go. Then you can run off and have vampire babies together.”

Alaric couldn’t say the last part without laughing, though he did try, remembering that he was supposed to be working on his people skills.

Sarah evidently didn’t notice. “Oh, thank you!” Sarah was smiling as she scrambled from the car. “Thank you so much!”

“Not a problem,” Alaric said. He watched as she ran across the sidewalk and up to an unobtrusive-looking door beside the display window of an antiques shop inside an industrial-looking building. He gathered his things as she pressed an intercom. Then he calmly strode to the alley, where, as he’d suspected, there was a fire escape. He leapt for the rusted metal ladder as he heard Felix’s voice asking through the intercom, “Who is it?”

Then the buzzer went off, letting Sarah inside the building.

It only took Alaric a moment or two to climb to the roof of the building, and less than that to secure a grappling hook to the side of the building, then fasten the end of the rope to his belt.

A few seconds later, Alaric jumped from the roof, crashing through Felix’s plate-glass living room windows…