Read The Fertile Vampire for Free Online Page B

Pine-Sol, floor wax, and dried eucalyptus in the flower arrangement on the reception desk flooded my nose and made my eyes water. Below it was another odor, something heavier. Blood.  
    Closing my eyes, I concentrated on that one scent. Yes, it was blood but it wasn’t fresh. Yet there was enough it seemed to saturate the ground on which the building stood.  
    Did the donors donate on site? Or did this plot of land have a darker history?
    “Can I help you?”  
      I blinked open my eyes to find a pert young thing standing behind the reception desk looking as officious as an eighteen year old could look. But what did I know? She could be older than my grandmother.
    Her hair was black, slicked back from her face to form a ponytail ending below her shoulders. Intent blue eyes narrowed at me in a Nurse Ratched stare.  
    “I’m supposed to report to Orientation,” I said, approaching the counter.  
    “Fledging or donor?”  
    “Fledgling,” I said.  
    She smiled. Evidently, she was one of the Kindred. She probably was two hundred years old.  
    “Room 201,” she said, pointing to the stairs. “You’d better hurry, though, the class starts in three minutes. Miss Renfrew hates tardiness and locks the door at exactly ten.”  
    Renfrew? Seriously?  
    I nodded my thanks and took the stairs at a healthy clip, instantly transformed to a teenager in high school.  
    Room 201 turned out to be a small cell like room at the head of the stairs. I entered, bobbing my head in a gesture of submission I recognized and hated even as I did it.  
    The woman standing at the whiteboard glowered at me, her glasses reflecting the overhead fluorescent lights. Her nose was splayed on her face like a chicken’s foot, the alar sidewalls depressed, the tip pointing downward. Her chin was sharp enough to cut but a perfect compliment to the boniness of the rest of her face and a mouth thinned to a straight line.  
    I was immediately reminded of an eagle.  
    “Montgomery?”  
    I nodded, taking my place at the desk in the back of the class.  
    Four other people sat in the cinderblock room, each of them turning to stare at me as I tried to tuck my purse inside the little cubby below the seat, realized it wouldn’t fit, then put it on the floor under my knees.  
    The desk was made for a munchkin, fitted with a slanted top. I folded my hands on the surface like a good little girl, lifting my face toward Ms. Renfrew and studiously ignored my fellow students.
    They gradually faced forward, leaving me the freedom to study them. Evidently, vampires believed in diversity.
    In front of me was a young man with sleek black hair almost bluish in the light and cut in a bowl shape. He wore a t-shirt and jeans, his sneakers bright red with black laces. From the quick look I’d gotten of him, he was Asian, his face plump, his eyes hidden behind round glasses.  
    The girl in front of him had hair as red as blood. Here was the paleness I’d expected. Her skin was so white as to be translucent. She was stunningly lovely and I instantly envied her the air of cool self-possession surrounding her.  
    She wore a soft yellow dress more suited to summer than the onset of autumn, but it suited her, made her look like a garden sprite, a creature of fairy-like beauty.  
    The woman sitting on the other side of the aisle was black, her hair in dreadlocks, arranged in a clump and tied with a pink bandana proclaiming “Freedom!” Her ankle length dress was black with purple flowers the size of skillets splashed on it. She glanced at me more than once, her brown eyed gaze simultaneously assessing and dismissive.  
    “As I was saying,” Ms. Renfrew said, “the test is to assess your knowledge of your new species.”  
    “Nobody said there was going to be a test,” I said, a little louder than I intended.  
    Ms. Renfrew’s lips grew even thinner. “You will not be graded, Montgomery. We’re merely trying to determine the depth of your