Fangs for Freaks
Authors: Serena Robar
Tags: #Vampires, #Fiction, #Horror, #Best friends, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Juvenile Fiction, #Social Issues, #School & Education, #Friendship, #Fantasy & Magic, #Horror stories, #Universities and colleges
Table of Contents
Berkley titles by Serena Robar
BRACED TO BITE
FANGS FOR FREAKS
DATING FOR DEMONS
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Excerpt from
Dating for Demons
by Serena Robar copyright © by Serena Robar.
Dating for Demons
by Serena Robar copyright © by Serena Robar.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
BERKLEY
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is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
®
is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley JAM trade paperback edition / November 2006 Berkley trade paperback edition / July 2010
eISBN : 978-1-101-43484-0
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Berkley JAM trade paperback edition as follows:
Robar, Serena.
Fangs4freaks / Serena Robar.—Berkley Jam trade paperback ed. p. cm.
Summary: As Protector of the half-blood vampires, Colby is called into action when her sisters in the newly established Psi Phi sorority house start experiencing ugly, unexpected attacks, either from a member of the Vampire Tribunal, or from a spy.
eISBN : 978-1-101-43484-0
[1. Vampires—Fiction. 2. Best friends—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Universities and colleges—Fiction. 5. Horror stories.] I. Title. II. Title: Fangs 4 freaks. III. Title: Fangs for freaks. PZ7.R5312Fan 2006 [Fic]—dc22
2006020547
This book is dedicated to my husband, Jason,
without whose unflagging support I could not begin to pen
the stories in my heart. Or buy the shoes in my closet.
without whose unflagging support I could not begin to pen
the stories in my heart. Or buy the shoes in my closet.
Acknowledgments
There is always someone who comes along and makes a good book better.
Special thanks to Holly Henderson-Root at Trident Media Group, who acted as my second set of eyes; my Goddess Divine agent, Jenny Bent; and to my brilliant, hardworking editor, Cindy Hwang, who knew exactly what tweaks were needed to give
Fangs
more bite.
Fangs
more bite.
Hehe. Bite. Get it?
One
A
body launched from the bushes, straight at me, before I had time to register who or what it was. The force of the impact alone was enough to knock the breath from my lungs—that is, if I breathed. Instead of crushing me, I rolled with his momentum and neatly turned over once, then used my feet to send him flying over my head, crashing into crates of recycling awaiting pickup on the sidewalk.
body launched from the bushes, straight at me, before I had time to register who or what it was. The force of the impact alone was enough to knock the breath from my lungs—that is, if I breathed. Instead of crushing me, I rolled with his momentum and neatly turned over once, then used my feet to send him flying over my head, crashing into crates of recycling awaiting pickup on the sidewalk.
Doing a quick flip from my back onto my feet, I, Colby Blanchard, moved toward my would-be assailant without trepidation.
“Are you okay, Cyrus?” I questioned, looking for signs of injury as he lay sprawled among the old newspapers and empty soda cans.
“Mmmph,” came his muffled reply as he disentangled himself from the bins, “… finish me?” He stood and I was relieved to find him relatively unharmed.
“What did you say?” I asked, a bit dubious of his reply. His left pant leg was ripped at the knee and I could see the scraped skin starting to bleed.
The scent of fresh blood filled my senses and I had to take a step back. A familiar ache in the roof of my mouth and loud rumbling from my stomach reminded me I hadn’t fed last night. My treacherous hand involuntarily reached for the pocket housing specialized orthodontic headgear embedded with stainless-steel fangs. What? Just because I’m fang-handicapped doesn’t make me a freak or anything. I can still get the job done, ya know. Just not right now. Now it was a battle of wills, between my true self and the inner demon who demanded to feed.
I took a Zen moment and subdued my hunger. It was so not getting the upper hand here. The first rule of thumb was no feeding on friends, and I wasn’t about to break it because I was feeling a bit peckish.
“I said, why didn’t you finish me off? You stood there like some clueless victim waiting for me to find a weapon to take you down.”
“Uh, I knew it was you?” It was an obvious answer, but Cyrus was always all business.
For the last eight months, Cyrus spent two hours a day teaching me how to fight and protect myself. I met him on a routine visit to see Great-Aunt Chloe at her condo in Providence Point. Her neighbor, Bits Walker, was bragging about her grandson, a self-defense instructor and former special operative in the military. Like anything Bits said, I took it with a grain of salt. After all, she’d been married four times but on last count, she mentioned seven husbands. I wondered if perhaps she wasn’t all there.
But one day, there was Cyrus, holding Bits’s yarn as she knitted and listening attentively to her stories. He was smaller than I imagined, with craggy skin and a wicked-looking scar across his chin to his left ear, which appeared to be partially missing. He was wiry and muscular. I doubted he had an ounce of fat on his frame.
My thoughts were interrupted by Cyrus digging around the refuse. “What are you looking for?” I asked skeptically. Cyrus was, well, let’s just say he and his grandmother were very alike in the sanity department.
“Aha!” he shouted triumphantly, brandishing what appeared to be a sharpened piece of wood.
“You had a stake?!” I gasped incredulously.
“It’s like I’m having a conversation with Jell-o,” he muttered to himself. “Of course. Did you think I was going to continue attacking you with just my bare hands? You are far too advanced for those tactics. At least, I thought you were. I thought you had achieved the black zone.”
Oh crap, not the zones again.
When he first started training me, I was in the white zone, which meant I was completely oblivious to my surroundings. Then came the blue zone or was it the green? I could never keep them straight. Anyway, I quickly raced up the zones to the black zone, which meant I was in ninja-like awareness all the time. Personally, I liked being in the white zone, but when you’re the most unpopular half-blood Undead in the neighborhood, you couldn’t afford to be in the white zone anymore.
Ever since I was attacked and turned into a vampire—oh, excuse me, that would be
half-blood
vampire—I’d become persona non grata in the Undead community. I think I might have been able to live out my days in relative peace and solitude if I hadn’t petitioned for half-blood rights and emancipated an entire species. That move made me a little less than popular with the full-blood population. Well,
excuse me
for fighting injustice.
half-blood
vampire—I’d become persona non grata in the Undead community. I think I might have been able to live out my days in relative peace and solitude if I hadn’t petitioned for half-blood rights and emancipated an entire species. That move made me a little less than popular with the full-blood population. Well,
excuse me
for fighting injustice.
I did such a good job at freeing my people, I was elevated to being their Protector, which I am sure was the Tribunal’s way of getting rid of all of us. I imagine they were still kicking themselves that not only was I Undead and around, I was becoming a pretty kick-ass Protector in the process.
Today was the day I would meet the rest of my half-blood family. Yep, we were going to show those bigoted full-bloods that we’re every bit as useful and viable a species and deserve to exist. At least, I hoped so. I hadn’t met any other half-bloods yet, but I held out high hopes for our success.
“Colby? Hello? Colby Blanchard? Are you even listening to me?” Cyrus asked impatiently.
“Uh, sorry. What were you saying about the zone?”
He sighed in exasperation (he did that a lot with me) and repeated, “Since you refuse to allow me to test your skills in the evening, you have to be in the zone
all the time
.”
all the time
.”
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