Every Last Drop

Part Three

"Miss Taylor! You have tread on your partner's toes again!" the teacher called out.
"Sorry," the pitiful little creature her scolding was directed at squeaked.
"Excellent work, Miss Ashby," the teacher called out to me.
This was no news to me. I was the top of my class in every single subject. I'd always kept up in what was popular at the time because it gave me an excuse to be close to humans so I could lure them off and feed on them.
When I got back to my room after class I threw myself across my bed and sighed.
"I don't see why we're taking these classes. The man is obviously going to choose the prettiest of us," I complained to my roommate, Joan Farley
"Why don't we go eat?" she suggested. "That always makes you feel better."
She was correct when she said I loved feeding, as did she, and looking into those eyes of full of such beautiful innocence I agreed. As we walked down the halls to what we simply called "The Room" every vampire we passed stared at Joan. As much as I sometimes resented her for it, she was gorgeous. Her long, gently curling, golden hair flowed down her back and her blue eyes sparkled, even in the darkest room. I guess compared to her I was quite homely with my stick strait brown hair and somewhat dull hazel eyes.
Joan's face was often filled with such youthful exuberance that it was impossible to forget I'd been a vampire longer than she'd been alive. She was born in 1930 and had been changed at only twelve years old. Next to her, even with my sixteenth year frozen upon my face, I looked ancient. Due to my travels I'd seen more suffering than anyone should ever see, and a great deal of that suffering had been caused by me, giving my eyes and face a hard quality that hadn't been there when I was a simple human girl.
It was obvious the reason Joan was in the top five choices for the prince was her beauty. I was only there because I'd worked so hard to be there. I wasn't about to let it slip now, not when the prince came to start eliminating girls tomorrow.
When we reached The Room my favorite orderly pulled me aside and told me that they'd gotten a new young man for me.
Ever since I'd turned and discovered the secret of conscious feeding, I'd almost always preyed on young men. Maybe it was in some way revenge on the young men of the world for what had happened to me due to the idiocy of a single man, but every time there was a new young man in the room, I made sure to stop by and visit him. Sinking my teeth into the neck of a strong, vibrant man always reminded me that no man could ever put me in danger again because I would always be stronger than he was.
The orderly lead me back through the maze of curtained off areas that were practically stalls where the feeders lived. I could hear others feeding behind the curtains. When we finally stopped she pointed me in out the correct stall and before she left she whispered in my ear, "This one's quite handsome."
I walked toward the curtain and hoped he was on just enough of the sedative that they were given that he'd be just too weak to run, not too weak to fight back. I liked it when they fought. I pulled back the curtain and stepped inside.
There in the bed, lay Edward Price.