“Why would you say that?” I growled. I bared my fangs and Heaven touched my arm, holding me back.
Wayne went saucer-eyed, and he took a step back, stumbling into the wall. “It was—”
“Say it, Wayne,” I said. “It was…”
“Just let me go. I promise I won’t give you any more trouble.”
Finally, I had the upper hand. A little respect. Why had he made me resort to this?
“That’s not true, Wayne. You will definitely give me trouble.” This man had pushed me far enough. I’d come to Vermont to rehab a country inn, to start a bed-and-breakfast, to date a handsome farmer, to live a quietHallmark fantasy.
“Wayne, you should have left me alone. Who was I hurting?”
“No one, ma’am,” Wayne said, his voice beginning to tremble.
“Don’t call mema’am.That makes me feel old. Never call a womanma’am.”
Heaven tapped my arm. “Tiff,” she said in a cautionary tone.
“The thing that bit you was a vampire, Wayne. Is that what you want to hear?”
He was shaking.
This was how vampires solved problems. Vlad had been right all along. Feed on people. Have a late-night snack with some sex. If you were really thirsty, there were plenty of Wayne Jarvises. If someone died, bury the evidence. Don’t tell the neighbors your business. Those were the rules. I should have been following them.
Before Heaven could stop me, I bared my fangs and sank them into Wayne’s neck. My whole life had brought me to this moment: feeding off a local bureaucrat, a pencil-pushing rule-monger who couldn’t stop picking on twogirls, as he’d called us.
But we weren’tgirls.He knew that now.
He went limp in my arms as I gulped.
Wayne represented everything that had been plaguing me. Credit card late fees, the fine print that you never read, inflation, bumps in rent, taxes. Wayne Jarvis was the fax machine inOffice Space.He was officially my breaking point.
“Tiffenie, stop! You can’t kill that man. Everyone knows where he is. There’s a cop out front!”
Wayne and everyone like him. All of the rules and regulations. They had forced me into a box I didn’t fit into along with all my darkest thoughts. It was time to break the fuck out. I was done.
“Tiffenie!” Heaven screamed. “You can’t drain the city inspector!”
I looked at her but I couldn’t see her through the anger and thirst.
But she was strong and pried me off, yelling “Drop it!” like I was adog that wouldn’t let go of a stick.
“Fuck,” she said, shaking her head at me. There was blood running down my chin and onto my No Fear shirt. “What are we going to do now?”
I slumped against the wall, spent and disappointed.
“None of it matters, Heaven. We can’t have nice things. We’re vampires.” There are castle vampires and there are rogue vampires. We were rogue.
She’d clearly had it with me. “Nope. Get your ass over here and help me figure this out.” Wayne was moaning and clutching his neck.
“Don’t kill me,” he pleaded. “Who’s gonna feed my cat?”
“We can take your cat,” I said. I would never let a cat suffer.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway. I heard Vlad call, “Where is everyone?”
A second later, he stepped onto the back porch. “Tiffenie!” he said, taking in the scene with a look of shock. “What are you doing?”
