So You Used to Be Human - Book 3 (Original Version)

Chapter 4: The Beloved Ones

Nora's musk was driving me crazy, in the "really want to bite her" kind of way. That kind of emotion was a completely new one to me, but the smell of her was just so enticing that it made me forget just for a moment just what a fucked up situation I was currently in the middle of. Claude was inside with Nick, the moron and I was stuck outside with Nora the increasingly biteable. We could hear Nick and Claude arguing over Nora's cell phone, but I wasn't focused on that now. All I could think about was sinking my teeth into Nora's neck.

"Hey!" Nora snapped, and I broke my gaze from her pulsing carotid, which surged and swelled enticingly, promising sweet, warm blood that I suddenly wanted to bathe in, and just drink and drink. I smiled sloppily at Nora, trying to shake off this sudden obsession.

"Why do you smell so good?" I asked her and good god I felt like I was drunk. "It's like I want to drink you and fuck you at the same time?"

Nora grinned sweetly and slid closer to me, enticingly close to being a statistic in the morning newspaper. I just didn't want to taste her blood and get a high. I wanted to rip her apart and drink every single drop of her blood I could find. I would lick it from the alley until it was all gone.

"It's a perfume Beatrice gave me. Some kinda pheromone that supposed to make your kind go all loopy and stupid."

"That's what she told you?" I asked drunkenly, and that carotid was beckoning me again, so damn close, so full of blood—

I tore my gaze away and looked at the building down the alley, trying to think of anything else except drinking Nora's blood. Pheromone? Seriously? It was like Beatrice was trying to get the girl killed if this was the effect the pheromone was having on me.

"She doesn't lie to Nick and me you know. She loves us. She wants to protect us."

"And you want to rob her blind."

"She's a cheap bitch, what else can I say? Me and Nick, we got needs."

Needs. Yes, I could understand needs—

Fuck! I turned and walked away from Nora, desperately needing to clear my head.

"Hey, where you think you're going?"

"That pheromone is fucked up! I need to clear my head before I'm fucking and eating your bloody corpse and your ghost is still wondering what the fuck just happened."

I stopped about twenty feet away and let the cool night air blow over my face, just glad to be away from the smell and the stupid thoughts of blood and murder. What the hell kind of pheromones were those anyway? All of the happy thoughts had gone right out of my head and what was left in there was scaring the shit out of me. How was I supposed to think clearly and get a solid plan to get out of this stupid fucking situation with that damned smell taking over my brain?

"Will you stop pointing that gun at me? It makes it hard to concentrate, and right now I need to fucking concentrate." Claude's voice came over the speaker and I wondered what plan he had come up with to get away from Nick the idiot. He was resourceful and good at getting out of stupid shit like this.

"I've got the gun," Nick was saying now. "I tell you what to do."

Claude and Nick were now inside Beatrice's apartment, Claude doing some fast talking and actually getting Nick and Nora to listen to him on the best plan of getting inside of the apartment. He had taken charge quite easily and for a while Nick and Nora followed along as if under Claude's spell. "We cannot all go in there, not if you want to get out of this alive," he had said, mainly talking to Nora. He packed his toolkit from the back of the car while he talked. "We're breaking and entering in the middle of the night to rob a fucking vampire, who you're hoping isn't home. So if she comes back, you want your one asset—"