FANGED

Chapter Forty-Six

After parting ways with Saxon, I headed in the direction he told me to go. This time, he drew me a little map on the back of a napkin to follow so I wouldn't get lost again. Which was mighty nice of him, considering I was still pissed off, and fuming over our conversation. Usually, my brain worked like the Bermuda Triangle. Information goes in, and gets lost forever. But not this time. This time I remembered every word, and tromped down the hallway like a woman on a mission. Joan of Arc had nothing on me. I was on my way to save my minion, and what the hell...I might make a stand for all minion kind while I was at it.

Yes, Courtanya was a monumental pain in the ass at times, but she was a living being for cripes sake. Not something you could discard or ship off to a new home simply because you gave your foster parent's daughter a mullet for Christmas. Okay, so I was probably a teeny bit oversensitive about the subject, beings I had been tossed around more than a Frisbee at Woodstock when I was a kid. So sue me. Regardless of my reasons, I could totally identify with how Bubbles must be feeling right now...or would be feeling...if I was absolutely positive she actually had feelings. Besides, I take great pride in being just crazy enough to make people question their own sanity. If I could make these vamps question their years of messed up thinking by proving Bubbles wasn't a threat to them, and change their stance on immortals, then consider the challenge accepted. There was tiger blood running through my veins, and I was about to go Charlie Sheen crazy on their asses.

In the meantime, I would have to make sure she never left my side, which in the long run benefited the both of us in a winner winner chicken dinner sort of way. I would force the Vampyre world to accept my tiny terror of an immortal, and she would keep Fang from crowning me Queen with his mighty, raging scepter. At least I was assuming it was mighty. I really had no idea, beings I had never actually seen it. I had felt it a few times...accidentally, of course...and from those encounters I got the sense of something enormous lurking behind his zipper.

Suddenly, my feet stopped moving, my heart started to beat in my chest like it had a hammer, and a purpose. My brain, which use to be such a reliable, and trustworthy organ on occasions, came to an abrupt halt. The hamster in the wheel ground to a stop faster than if Victor Fries had shot it with his freeze gun. All because I had thought of...him.

Groaning, I slouched against the wall once my body came to the realization he wasn't physically in the room, and allowed me to move again. Who was I kidding? I was never going to be able to resist him. Not with his obnoxious blood coursing through my body spraining my uterus at the merest mention of his name.

While I waited for my hormones to become less Marilyn Monroe and more Mother Teresa-ish, I thought about the big lug's decree concerning Bubbles. I mean, I knew he didn't like her, so why would he go through the trouble of making sure nothing happened to her? With a snap of his Kingly fingers, he could have ordered her death...but he didn't. Either he really did care about my feelings or he was just being abnormally sweet in hopes it would lure me into his bed. I snorted. Fat chance buddy. I would rather be a love piñata in a Mexican prison than to sleep with...I shook my head. Nope. No more thinking about you-know-who. My nookie cookie couldn't sustain another jolt to the ovaries like that.

With a colossal amount of effort, I pushed myself off the wall, and concentrated on continuing to follow Saxon's squiggly lines until I ran into the set of stairs that would lead me up to the asylum. I eyed them suspiciously with a why-am-I-here-again look. My nose wrinkled at the unpleasant smell wafting towards me from the drafty chasm of rickety wooden stairs leading up into the darkness. Looking up, I half expected to see body parts hanging from the ceiling. Turning back around, I took in the pristine marbled floors, and warm carved wood of the hallway I had just walked down. It was a far cry from the ghastly haunted looking staircase in front of me.