Vampire Seeker Read Online Free Page A

wondered. Perhaps they could tell me where I was?
    With the wind and the dust blowing around me, I held my hand over my eyes to block out the glare of the sun and watched the
     riders come towards me. The horses’ hooves kicked out clouds of grit and dirt and the sound of them was like thunder
     rolling across the desert. As the riders drew nearer, I could see that there were five men. Each of them wore clothes similar
     in style to mine. Watching them, I got a feeling in my stomach that something was wrong – everything was wrong with
     this picture.
    They reached me, and each of their faces was filthy-looking, worn, dark brown, and wrinkled by the desert sun. Sweat ran down
     the front and back of their shirts in ‘V’ shapes. All of them had guns strapped to their thighs.
    “What have we here?” the first of them said as he circled me on his horse. Beads of sweat glistened on his brow
     and he armed it away with the sleeve of his blue shirt. His voice was rough. But it was his eyes; they never met mine but,
     just looked me up and down like I was standing before him naked.
    “Whoo-hoo!” another seemed to cheer with excitement, and slapped the neck of his horse with the flat of his hand.
     The horse trotted forward a few steps and flicked its long brown tail.
    “Can you help me?” I asked them.
    “Sure we can help you,” the man with the sweat running from his brow said, dismounting from his horse. The others
     followed.
    “It’s just that I’m not sure where I am or how I got here,” I said, taking a step backwards and away
     from them.
    “Poor little thing is lost,” another of the men laughed. This one seemed to be chewing on something that he had
     placed inside the cheek of his mouth. He grinned at me, but it wasn’t friendly. He then spat a jet of brown liquid from
     the corner of his mouth and the ground greedily soaked it up.
    The first of them came behind me and I felt myself go tense. His breath was hot against my cheek and it stank of sour whiskey.
     Taking a strand of my hair in his hands, he sniffed at it.
    “Sweet,” I heard him breathe.
    Another of them came towards me, and my heart began to pound in my chest. This guy had two broken front teeth, probably knocked
     out in a fight. There were just two broken stumps, which were more yellow than white, and they protruded from gums which looked
     raw and infected.
    There was a part of me that just wanted to run from them, but there was another part – a newer part – that was
     already figuring out how I could kill these men, should I need to. My eyes flickered between them, working out the distance
     each of them was from me, their height, and where their guns were.
    “Look, I just want to go home,” I said to the one with the broken teeth.
    “There ain’t no rush,” he grinned. “Let’s have ourselves a little party.”
    “I’m not in the mood for a party,” I said flatly, and even though it was my voice, it was like it had come
     from that other part of me.
    The cowboy’s eyes widened just a fraction as if surprised by my lack of fear. Then without warning, he reached out with
     his hand and roughly gripped my left breast. A spike of pain shot into my shoulder blade. As quickly as he had grabbed me,
     I had seized his wrist and yanked his hand away.
    “Don’t touch me,” I told him, staring straight into his eyes.
    Trying to mask his own surprise at how quickly I had removed his hand, he turned to his friends and laughing, he said, “Boys,
     it looks as if we have a wild one here.”
    “The wilder, the better!” the one who had slapped his horse whooped with excitement.
    The man behind me suddenly grabbed my throat, snaked his arm around my waist and shoved his hard-on into the small of my back.
     Then, all hell broke loose. Jerking my right hand backwards, I gripped the man’s genitals and twisted my wrist and pulled.
     He made a deafening scream in my ear, and I felt him drop. The male with the rotten gums lurched for