Obsessed (Book #12 in the Vampire Journals) by Morgan Rice

and muscular. Vivian knew his vampire body would
be even stronger than his human one had been.
    Malcolm
advanced.
    “You’ve been
turned,” he said.
    Vivian noted the
way his lip curled as he spoke, and the way his nostrils flared as though he
were taking in her scent. The way he moved was animalistic, wolf-like.
    She squared up
him, keeping her composure, not letting him rattle her.
    “So have you,”
Vivian replied, keeping the playful lilt to her voice, using it a weapon to
subdue him.
    Malcolm prowled
closer.
    “It suits you,”
Malcolm said, the dangerous tone in his voice as sharp as the edge of a blade.
“I always did prefer the pale and interesting type.”
    Vivian barked
out her laughter and tapped one of her manicured fingernails against her crossed
forearm.
    The mood
instantly darkened. Behind Malcolm, the other four jocks stood, as though her
laughter had affronted them all. They were a pack, she realized, even more so
now that they were vampires than they had been as humans. And they were getting
bored of this game.
    “What do you
think happens now?” Malcolm said, tipping his head down so that dark shadows shook
across his face. “Now that we’re all vampires?” He smiled devilishly and
twirled some of her hair in his pale fingers. “Do we have to obey the same laws
like we used to? Or will it be anarchy?”
    Vivian let him
bring his face right next to hers. He sniffed her skin, taking in the scent of
her. Slowly, his deathly cold fingers began to wrap around her neck.
    Vivian locked
her eyes on his as she slid her hand into her back pocket and grasped the
jagged edges of the stake she’d used to kill Jojo.
    “I hope not,”
she said. “Because I just killed one of my best friends.”
    She wrenched her
hand from her pocket and before Malcolm had even a second to react, she jammed
the sharp wooden stake into his heart. The look of astonishment that flickered
across his face caused a thrill to run through Vivian. He let out a horrendous
growl before his body went slack, crumbled to pieces, and vanished in a cloud
of dust.
    The four other
jocks began to cry and howl. They snarled and paced, snapping their jaws at her
like feral beasts.
    Vivian held the
stake up.
    “Who’s next?”
she demanded.
    All four of them
flew at her once. Vivian leapt, using her super strength to leap over their
heads. She landed on the bench the other side with such a force it snapped in
half. Vivian grabbed the broken bench, wrenched it above her head, and charged
at the four jocks. Each one was speared through the heart by one of the
protruding jagged bits of wood.
    Vivian grinned,
showing her fangs, as she reduced the four of them to nothing more harmless
than piles of dust.
    “You never were
that bright,” she said, chucking the bench against the wall with enough force
to make it splinter into a thousand pieces.
    Then she grabbed
her makeshift weapon and stashed it into her pocket again.
    The killings had
made her feel invincible. She set to the sky to resume her search for Blake.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
     
    Kyle stood in
the entrance hall of Columbia University. How useful, he thought, for them to
display all the faculty members neatly on the wall like that. Kyle scanned the
row of photographs, some depicting smiling faces, other studious faces, all in black
and white. He read the names, each as innocuous as the last. Lyndsay Jones—Professor
of Mathematics. Sarah Gee—Professor of Psychology.
    What boring
little lives these women must live, Kyle thought. How much more exciting it
would be for them to join the vampire race. A couple of professors would make
interesting contributions to his army. And if they didn’t, he was certain the
football team he’d recently turned would find ways to enjoy their company.
    Kyle shook his
head. He was getting distracted. He was here to get information on the girl.
The priest had said to find the mother first, and that meant finding Aidan.
    Just then,
Kyle’s eyes rested on the