Braced to Bite (21 page)

Read Braced to Bite Online

Authors: Serena Robar

Tags: #Vampires, #Fiction, #Horror, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Schools, #Juvenile Fiction, #School & Education, #High schools, #Fantasy & Magic

“Your loyalty is admirable. I promise I had no ‘loser’ in mind.” He walked back to the front door and opened it. After a moment, Carl walked in wearing a black tuxedo and I nearly swooned at the sight. Carl and I may have had our differences but yowza! The guy looked like he’d stepped off the cover of
GQ
.
I looked at both men for a moment, then picked up my phone and dialed Piper.
“Hey,” she answered. “I’ll be over in a second.”
“Look out your bedroom window into my driveway.”
She paused for a moment and said, “’Kay.”
I directed Thomas and Carl to go outside and stand in the driveway facing Piper’s house. I turned on the walkway lights to illuminate them both. I stood on the porch and when I could see Piper looking through her window I spoke into the phone.
“What do you think?”
“Is the tall, gorgeous one on the left for me?”
“Yeah.”
She took another moment and said, “Tell them to come back in an hour.”
Laughing, I replied, “Got it!”
I shooed the guys off for an hour and a half. Piper might only need an hour but this was Homecoming and I wanted to look my best. We could skip eating, since three of us were on a liquid diet. Piper would just have to grab a sandwich while she was getting ready.
She arrived at my house in exactly one hour, dressed in a Spanish flamenco dancer’s gown, with a short lace veil attached in her hair, which she wore severely slicked back. Black crystal earrings dangled from her lobes and a matching necklace showed her pale skin to perfection. She even wore a tiny black crystal stud in her nose.
I whistled deep when I saw her. She looked magnificent. “That is quite a dress, my friend. And some serious cleavage.”
She curtsied, snapping open a lace fan and gracefully fanning herself, delicately hiding her cleavage from view.
“This corset might just kill me,” she admitted and I laughed at her.
“The cost of beauty is never cheap,” I offered.
“Way to be dressed,” she accused as she sashayed down the hallway toward the kitchen.
“I’m almost done, just let me get the dress on. Be right down. You better eat something before we go,” I called out to her as I raced up the stairs.
“On it,” came her muffled reply. I heard my mom’s cries of admiration and surprise when she saw Piper.
I decided to wear my hair up, with a riot of curls cascading down my back. It was the style I thought would show off the princess tiara most appropriately. My dress for the evening was an icy blue, with spaghetti straps that crisscrossed down my back. The chiffon layers of the skirt floated as I walked, flashing a great deal of leg with each step. To complete the look, I wore strappy silver heels, a silver choker and matching hoop earrings. My license was the only adornment I needed on my hands. I checked myself out in the full-length mirror and nodded in satisfaction. Not too shabby.
I grabbed a tiny silver purse for my phone and lipstick, and then draped a silver wrap over my bare shoulders. Good thing I was Undead or tonight might be a little chilly.
The doorbell rang as I walked down the steps and my mom answered it.
Thomas stepped in and our eyes met. I was happy to see them widen in surprise and admiration. Yes, a girl liked to know when she looked good.
Carl stepped into the house behind him holding a bouquet of red roses for his date. Nice touch.
I could tell the instant he caught sight of Piper. His smile widened, his white teeth flashed and a dimple made an appearance. Who knew Carl was a dimple kind of guy? Usually he was growling at me or threatening me or trying to strangle me.
“Encantado,”
Carl murmured, bringing Piper’s hand to his mouth and kissing it.
I was amused to see Piper blush to the roots of her jet-black hair. She accepted the flowers but my mother quickly confiscated them to put in a vase full of water. Heaven forbid those blooms go another minute without moisture.
Moms
.
She returned with a camera and a single red bud from Piper’s bouquet and suggested Piper tuck it into Carl’s lapel. Then we withstood a thousand photographs.
Dad wished us all well as we left. A black limousine was waiting for us at the curb. Carl helped Piper into the car and Thomas waved the chauffer aside so he could hold the door open for me himself.
“Now isn’t this nicer than whacking me?” I teased him lightly.
He grabbed both my hands and looked deeply into my eyes. “The only reason I requested to be your executioner was to protect you, Colby. Some Investigators hate half-bloods and do unspeakable things to them before they finally end their pain. I could not bear to think of anyone toying with you in such a fashion.”
I was surprised by his concern. I could tell he spoke the truth by the intensity of his gaze.
“I would have died in my heart to end your life, but I would have done it to save you further torment.”
I gave him a small half smile, full of tenderness and emotion. Then I assured him cockily, “Dude, you sooo could not have killed me.”
He laughed and kissed the tip of my nose.
“Hurry up out there. We’ll never get to make fun of anyone if you keep gabbing,” Piper complained from inside the limo.
I laughed out loud. With Piper around I would never get too uppity, and with Thomas around, I—well, let’s just say things would never get boring. Next year I was going to PSU. My job was to run my own sorority house! Imagine the fun we would have. What was the Tribunal thinking?
Super Secret Author Confessions Volume 1
My Worst Date Ever …
In college, I experienced my worst date ever. Feel free to mock my pain …
I had a crush on a boy who worked in the dining hall. After many weeks of flirting, he finally asked me out. He took me to a party at his apartment where, within a half hour of our arrival, he received a phone call from his “other” job. He claimed he was also an on-call janitor for one of the dorms. After apologizing profusely, he changed into spandex shorts (Dude, it was the late ’80s), assured me he would return within the hour, and left to fulfill his janitorial duties. I did not see him again until six the next morning.
I was stranded at his apartment with a bunch of people I didn’t know. After playing one too many rounds of Quarters, I crashed on his bed. I also sort of … threw up on his bed. Anyway, about six in the morning I stumbled downstairs and found him cleaning up. He was so sorry and so sweet. He assured me he kept calling to make sure I was okay because he ended up having to “work” all night. I should have been suspicious, because he was
really
understanding about the whole vomit on his comforter thing. He gallantly offered to drive me back to my dorm after asking me to go to a concert with him the following week.
Once in my own bed, I promptly drifted off to sleep dreaming about our next date. I awoke to a fierce pounding on my door. “Where were you last night?” my friends demanded. I explained about my date and his “other” job. Imagine my surprise to discover my date had left me stranded at his apartment while he went on
another date
with a girl who lived two doors down from me. He took her to a widely advertised dance in the dining hall and entered the spandex competition (he won second place). Then he spent the night with her and returned home in the wee hours of the morning to me, his original date.
The best part of this story? When I confronted this guy, he was most upset that I wasn’t going to the concert because he expected me to
reimburse him for the ticket
.
Oh, yes, this is a true story. Sad, but very true.
Eight Things You Didn’t Know About Me
1. It took me three days to write 150 pages of
Braced 2 Bite
.
2. I watched every season of
Buffy
in only three weeks. For those of you doing the math, that’s approximately six plus episodes a day. Which would explain why I had to write 150 pages of
Braced 2 Bite
in three days.
3. My favorite drink is Mountain Dew and I try to have one of my characters drink it in every book. My secret hope is that someone at Pepsi will offer me free Dew in exchange for the promotion.
4. I currently own twenty-eight pairs of shoes, four pairs of sneakers, six pairs of flip-flops, and five pairs of boots.
5. I am an avid scrapbooker who has all the latest gadgets and paper but doesn’t possess a single up-to-date album.
6. Every year, my friends and I have an Oscar party. We dress up in formal wear (complete with tiaras) and pretend we are Joan and Melissa Rivers rating fashions on the red carpet. Then I hit the drive-thru at McDonald’s dressed in my finery.
7. When Googling my name (yeah, like you’ve never done it) I found a company called Robar Guns. They create custom firearms. Now I want to get one just so I can say I’m packing a Robar.
8. I couldn’t think of ten interesting things, which is really sort of sad… .
My first piece of published work appeared in an elementary-school newsletter when I was in the second grade. Please note the amount of angst I had for fish, which may explain why I never had any pets as a child… .
Ode to Fish
Hey, fish you stink
You smell like disinfected odors
When you die, they flush you
Down the toilet and your fish food too.
So don’t lose your smell!!
I hate you fish.
You stink. You do! You do! You do!
I am glad I do not like you.
You stay in the water too much.
And now for a special excerpt from Serena Robar’s next exciting novel …
FANGS FOR FREAKS
Available from Berkley!
A
body launched straight at me from the bushes before I had time to register who or what it was. The force of impact was enough to knock the breath from my lungs, that is, if I breathed. Instead of crushing me with its force, 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 pick-up 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.
“Mhmph,” 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 again, 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 the loud rumbling from my stomach reminded me I didn’t feed 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.

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