Saving Sahara
How Vlad Met Veronica
It wasn't love at first sight...
EXCERPT
Others within the supernatural community stayed far away from the Obyri. They feared the power his species wielded and their tempers. For the most part, Damian was mild-mannered. He didn’t believe he was hard to deal with. Unless there was a reason.
He and all Obyri possessed an entire repertoire of powers. Ground-shaking, earth-shattering… Well, let’s just say it wasn’t a good idea to piss him off.
His gaze shifted over to Dante and his resolve hardened. As an Obyri he watched over humans, protecting them not only from his own kind but from other bloodsuckers. There was more than one type of blood drinker in this world. Although humans lumped them all together and called them vampires, there were vast differences.
An Obyri was born, not created by a crazed goddess like the Dhampir, or forged in blood and magic as the vampires were. He had no restrictions on when he could spend time in the sun, or on what he could eat. Except that he occasionally needed human blood to supplement his diet.
To boost his powers, he had to take a blood lover. He also had responsibilities. As an ancient, he was tasked with protecting humans. Not only the Obyri fed on human blood, but there were also vampires and the Dhampir walking the earth. The power inducing blood supply needed to be protected from those who would wantonly waste the precious resource.
In fact, earlier tonight he attempted to track down a crazy vampire who was running amuck creating new vampires and leaving them to fend for themselves.
He turned to Dante and grinned. “I saw Vlad today,” he offered the tidbit.
Dante and Vlad had a very competitive relationship. Damian hoped the knowledge that the vampire was in town, would spur a fire back to life in Dante’s eyes.
It worked just as he’d hoped.
Dante hissed and turned eyes that were no longer dull and lifeless on Damian. “Where is he?” his brother demanded.
Damian grinned. “He is at his English country estate. I spent much of the night rounding up a couple of female vamps. There is a master running around creating them, and he leaves them to move on within a day or so. The women are forced to fend for themselves without understanding what happened.”
Dante raised an eyebrow. “You create it—you train it.”
“Exactly. Someone isn’t following the rules. Rules Vlad actually wrote down and handed out. Worse, the women not only didn’t give their permission to be turned, but they had no idea what the hell had happened to them. I left them with Vlad so he could explain what they had become and take care of them. Tara, one of the women, was shrieking at him to fix it, to change her back. And the other female, Veronica, escaped out the back door. He had no idea she was gone and I didn’t tell him. He was trying to calm the hysterical one when I left. I can tell you he was not happy.”
Dante laughed weakly. “Serves the reprobate right. But it isn’t a great situation. Vlad might deserve the mess, but Veronica and Tara don’t.”
Damian agreed. Without training, the new female vampires would die within a day or two of their making. Some of the newly turned couldn’t deal with their expanded reality and would seek death. Damian had left the vampires in Vlad’s tender care. That thought, pared with Vlad’s disposition made him smile. The man would rather kill the vamps than teach them. But he would do the right thing. They would either change their attitude and learn what Vlad could teach them or go their own way and find themselves beyond help. Vlad wouldn’t hesitate to put them out of their misery if they chose the second option. An untrained vampire was dangerous to not only humans but all blood-drinkers.
If he wasn’t in the middle of courting Sahara, Damian might have enjoyed hunting down and teaching the rogue vampire a lesson. As it was, he was happy to leave Vlad with the problem.
