Read Change of Fate (The Briar Creek Vampires, #4) by Jayme Morse & Jody Morse for Free Online Page B

before
going into the room. She glanced in the bathroom; it was empty. The
little eat-in area was also empty.
    Gabe was sprawled out on one of the double
beds, his head elevated by a few fluffy pillows.
    Rhonda walked over to the bed and noticed
that his eyes were closed. She sat down on the bed across from him
and slapped her hand down on the wooden nightstand, causing the
corded telephone to bounce against egg-colored wall.
    “Craig, what did I tell you? Don’t disturb
me. This is really important.”
    “I’m not Craig,” Rhonda answered. “It’s me .
. . Rhonda.” Gabe’s blue eyes popped open, and Rhonda grinned as
the look of shock crossed his face. “Bet you didn’t think I’d find
you,” she said.

Chapter 8
     
    ****
     
    When Gabe opened his eyes, he found Rhonda
smiling at him. Gabe felt a nauseous feeling build up in his chest.
If he had a heart that pumped blood through his body like a human,
it would have skipped a beat or two. He never thought he was going
to see Rhonda again.
    After the night Gabe had changed Rhonda into
a vampire, he hadn’t been expecting to hear from her again. When
he’d kicked her out of the room at the bed and breakfast a few
hours later, Rhonda had seemed completely out of it.
    Of course, Gabe knew that a vampire could
always find the vampire who had created them. But it took a vampire
a few years usually to realize this, and even when they did know
how, they couldn’t do it without a lot of focus and concentration.
It wasn’t something that just came easily, which was why Gabe had
never bothered to find Veronica. He hadn’t even known that she
would be at Huntington High when he’d arrived with Lexi and
Austin.
    After a few minutes, Gabe finally managed to
say, “How did you find me here?”
    “Oh, you know. A few birdies helped me out,”
Rhonda said cheerfully, waving her hand in the air. Her happy
expression was immediately clouded over by a look of darkness. “I
need you to tell me why you did this to me.”
    Gabe gulped. He remembered what it was like
to be a newborn vampire. When Veronica had changed him, he’d gone
on a killing spree, without even realizing what he was doing. There
was just a constant thirst that he constantly needed to satisfy.
Even worse, there were tons of questions about what he was and what
would become of him. The answers didn’t make him happy, but the
feeling of not knowing had been worse.
    “You’re a vampire,” Gabe told her. When
Rhonda stared back at him for further explanation, he went on. “The
night we were together, I – I really needed to drink from someone.
I’m sure that you know what it’s like to crave blood by now. I
hadn’t drunk from anyone in a while, and I was thirstier than
usual.” He looked up at Rhonda apologetically. “I drank more from
you than I should have. My two options were to either let you die
or turn you into a vampire, too.”
    Rhonda stared at him for a long moment,
nervously twirling a piece of strawberry blonde hair around her
finger. Finally, she said, “You made the wrong choice. You should
have just let me die.”
     
    *
     
    Austin was lying in bed watching a movie with Anna
when he heard his cell phone jangling on the nightstand that night.
Glancing at the caller ID, he saw that it was Mary-Kate.
    Anna seemed to know that Mary-Kate was the one who
was calling before Austin even told her. She said, “Maybe you
should just answer it. What if it’s something important? Something
might be happening back in Briar Creek.”
    “I guess you’re right,” Austin replied before
reluctantly picking up the phone. When he hit the ‘talk’ button,
Mary-Kate whispered, “Austin?”
    “What?” Austin asked. He hoped that he didn’t sound
as rude as he felt. He didn’t really have a problem with Mary-Kate.
He just didn’t want Anna to think that he was still interested in
her – and he didn’t want to lead Mary-Kate on either – so he
figured that his best option was to be short with