maintaining the upper hand. No one was allowed to ingest any narcotic substance that Fabian did not personally hand out.
Georgie knew that—but he thought he could show up high and Fabian wouldn’t notice.
Fool.
At present, Georgie partook of the bounty Fabian had supplied, his eyes glazed and his movements sluggish. He took extraordinary pleasure in being egregious.
For Georgie, it was the shock factor, not a proper understanding of the merits involved in partaking of sweet sustenance, consuming the very essence of life. He didn’t fathom the cerebral and sentient fulfillment of what they did.
As Fabian watched Georgie, his temper spiked.
Given a choice, Georgie would probably be stupid enough to eat the brains or even the spinal cord, both of which were prone to carrying disease.
Running his tongue along the blunt edges of his capped teeth, Fabian considered a punishment that might befit Georgie’s irreverence.
Yes, he knew what to do, knew exactly how to teach the others by using Georgie as an example. His heart began to pound in feverish anticipation.
God, he loved the adrenaline rush when he planned an attack.
Parting his lips, Fabian slipped his fingers into his own mouth and loosened the snug-fitting porcelain caps. One by one he removed them, leaving his real teeth exposed. He dropped the caps into the pocket of his coat.
With consummate delight, he skimmed his tongue along the honed edges of his predator’s bite. Long ago, his front teeth had been filed and reshaped to accommodate his inexhaustible hunger. There were no smooth borders, only jagged rims and his razor-sharp, elongated eyeteeth, meant to pierce the skin and flesh with ease.
An inferno of heat burned behind Fabian’s eyes when Georgie laughed too loud. He made a mockery of them, ridiculing their sublime practice, when in fact he should have shown due deference to the offering.
Fabian’s shoulders curled; his long fingers tightened. “Stop it,” he whispered, “right now.”
But Georgie didn’t hear the warning. He swiped a sleeve along his mouth, wasting the bounty—and Fabian lost the fragile hold on his maniacal rage.
On a thunderous roar, he launched himself at Georgie, knocking him backward. With a solid thud, Georgie’s head smacked against the chilly cement floor of the abandoned home Fabian had chosen to carry out the delectation of their avocation. Georgie groaned, flailed, and then sank into a stupor.
Someone screamed. Bodies scrambled to get out of their way.
In a blind frenzy of need and fury, Fabian sank his teeth into Georgie’s soft white throat. His tongue stroked, located the jugular, and he readjusted his bite.
He felt Georgie’s futile, insensate struggles. But he was a pathetic boy, not more than twenty, and as weak in body as he was in mind.
At six feet, two inches tall, Fabian was far stronger. He’d fed many times and gathered the strength of multiple sacrificial souls.
Nothing had ever tasted as good as this. He relished the raw, wild feeding from a live body with the heart still pumping hot blood throughout the veins. Because of societal intrusions, he’d long denied himself this splendid pleasure. Instead, he’d been making do by hooking IVs to wilting bodies, ensuring the blood supply lasted.
Now, with this frenzied meal, he moaned with bliss.
All around him, the others were silent, maybe with awe, maybe with fear.
He fucking well didn’t care.
Caution made it necessary to plan out the menu, to make each kill last. For far too long now he’d had to resort to a discreet drinking of the stored liquid mixed with anticoagulants and blood thinners, and to meting out the supply in small doses.
He was an alpha male, savage by nature, at the top rung of the proverbial food chain. His basic nature prodded him toward pursuit, domination, and slaughter. At least, on occasion.
When it was well deserved.
The others crowded closer. He felt their palpitating fascination. Slanting his gaze to the side, he saw one woman lick her lips and stroke her own nipples.
His cock hardened.
His pulse thrummed.
Filling his mouth with the metallic blood, he sat up and let Georgie, now a lifeless entity, drop limply to the floor.
He turned to the woman—her name escaped him—and saw her big breasts were heaving, her eyes slumberous with sexual excitement. Many would see her as a perverted soul, defective in her desires.
Fabian relished her reaction.
He grabbed her wrist and hauled her in close, then closed his mouth over hers and let her take Georgie’s blood directly from him. It was the rarest of gifts he bestowed on her, and she didn’t disappoint him.
She moaned, choked, and then her tongue slicked over his, over his lips and chin. He ripped her shirt away and squeezed her nipples, twisted. Crying out, she bit his chin, launching into her own primal derangement.
Fabian liked it that everyone watched them, that he would be the center of attention as befitted his importance.
With Georgie no longer a viable member, he had an audience of six, which was perhaps one too many.
He shoved his hand beneath the woman’s skirt and fingered her roughly through her panties. She panted, fell back with her legs spread.
A dangerous offering to a man in the middle of a bloody fete.
Fabian smiled and bent to her hot, fleshy thigh. He licked, nuzzled, testing the give of her soft body, aware of the warmth from her own flowing blood just beneath her smooth, silky skin.
He looked up at two other young men, both of them wide-eyed with fascination, watchful with expectation. As he recalled, one was an accountant, the other a cashier for the local grocery.
They were both easily led. “Hold her.”
At his order, the woman jerked with new awareness of her precarious position. Now panicked, she tried to fight, but oh, it was far too late for that.
His minions were quite willing to do as he bid them, if for no other reason than a macabre curiosity as to his intent.
One of the lads held her arms against her furious struggles; the other caught her free leg and pinned it back painfully so she couldn’t kick Fabian.
If she did, he’d kill her for certain. In fact, her outcome was yet undecided. But he inclined toward leniency; after all, they needed a new source of nourishment and Georgie was dead.
With her plump proportions she’d likely suffer them for a week or more, especially if they showed due moderation.
Salty tears, blackened with makeup, tracked her cheeks, mixing with the blood on her mouth and chin. She sobbed and pleaded to no avail.
Beside her, the scent of Georgie’s body, his blood and his violent death, spurred on their passion.
“Silence her,” Fabian said, and someone cupped a hard hand over her mouth, muffling her entreaties for a mercy that none of them possessed.
Hooking his fingers in her panties, Fabian pulled them to the side, exposing the soft white groin, the thin skin and most fragile flesh. He could see the delicate blue veins, could almost feel the life flowing through her.
His heart threatened to erupt with the grisly provocation of it.
Her snuffling sounds of terror blurred in Fabian’s mind, receding until all he could envision was the steady pumping of her blood through her veins. Slowly, relishing the moment, he bent and sank his teeth into her groin.
He could smell her pungent, aroused sex, and
She screamed in agony, but the sound only incited them all.
She wouldn’t die, Fabian decided; he wouldn’t allow her that easy release. Her exquisite taste would not be
