CHAPTER 5

"Mmm…." Isis looked up from the cold tile floor where she and Mark had ended up. "We should bathe together more often."

"I agree." Mark got to his feet, helping her up too. "Now I'm hungry."

Isis smiled wickedly. "And here I thought I'd of filled ya up."

"My dear, all you ever seem to do is rouse my… ah… appetite."

"Well let's go get you fed." Isis laughed, trailing a hand down his waist. "We still have to get outta here, remember?"

"I remember." He groaned, leading the way into their bedroom. He had just started slipping on his jeans when he froze, looking towards the door. "You smell that?"

Isis frowned, buttoning up the flannel shirt she had pulled on. "Yeah… almost smells like… no…" Her eyes narrowed slightly. "JADEN!"

Jaden winced when she heard Isis' voice bellow throughout the cabin and outside as well judging from the snow that fell from several nearby trees. "Oh lord…"

John, having just completed his first kill, stared at her. "What was that?"

"Remember my friend?"

He nodded.

"Her."

"I'm guessing that's a bad thing?"

"Probably." Jaden spun around when Isis and Mark appeared, both looking upset to put it mildly. "Now this isn't exactly what it looks like."

"What it looks like," Isis said coldly, approaching John. "Is you made another one of us… without askin' anyone about it!"

John actually shrank back from Isis, seeing with his new eyes truly how she looked, both beautiful and terrifying at the same time, her eyes flashing angrily and fangs exposed.

Jaden got between them. "Isis, he was dying!"

Isis halted, staring at Jaden suspiciously. "What happened?"

Mark seated himself at the table, pulling Isis into his lap. "She's restrained," He told Jaden. "Go ahead."

Jaden quickly recounted what had happened, including her own shameful attack on him as well as turning him, not bothering to hide the desperation she had felt.

Isis was like stone throughout the whole story, finally just nodding. "Welcome to the family John, hope you weren't to attached to this place because we're leavin'."

"Leaving?" Jaden echoed.

Mark nodded, sighing. "Leaving, we're fixing to be attacked by those morons down in town."

"Tomorrow." John spoke up. "That's what I was up here for, to warn you all."

Isis and Mark both stared at him.

He shrugged. "I overheard some of them talking about it, they all knew what you are and had planned on coming in the morning to uh… destroy you."

"We're leaving."

Texas was great. No more snow which meant nicer clothes to wear besides the cable knit sweaters. Jaden celebrated the occasion by spending some more of Mark's money and buying her a new wardrobe, also replacing many things in Isis'.

"I don't need them." Isis had said, though she allowed Jaden to dress her up, like a great marble doll in halter tops and leather pants, most of her overalls being tossed out.

John was adapting rather well to being a vampire, surprised to find that with a big city close by they hunted humans instead of animals. At first he had been violently opposed to this until Jaden had instructed him on the type of people to go after, then he started looking at feeding as doing the general populace a favor.

It was getting him to stop feeding that was the problem. John tended to be over zealous and drank from three to four victims a night, often crushing their ribs in his dangerous bear hugs. On nights like those the four would have to literally crush the body into jelly, leaving nothing more but a dark red stain on the ground.

The nights were literally theirs again, the four roaming the streets like sleek jungle cats, something they hadn't been able to do in Montana, too few people. Nowhere was off limits to them, they took advantage of the nocturnal hours to enter churches and museums, looking at things normally viewed only in the sunlight, always careful to avoid being detected by cameras.

They hung out in the malls, cafes and bars. Jaden and Isis especially enjoyed showing John how he could still get drunk, merely by selecting the right person to feed from.

All in all, life was good.

Until…

"Hey, what the hell is that?"

Mark followed John's stare, frowning when he seen the body. "A dead person."

Isis and Jaden were out clubbing, actually tasting some of the local… nightlife. The two men had decided to just stroll around, not interested in surrounding themselves with mortals that night.

Approaching the corpse, Mark inhaled sharply while John's eyebrows raised.

The throat had been ripped out.

"What do you think did this?" John asked, crouching down and staring at the wound.

"I don't know." Mark sniffed the air cautiously, bending down trying to see if he recognized the scent.

"Another vampire maybe?"

"Maybe."

John stood up, shivering even though the cold didn't bother him too much. "Let's go find the girls."

Isis laughed as Jaden was surrounded by four guys and it seemed another one on the way, moving backwards out of the crowd, her head swimming from all the tequila one of… dance partners had ingested. She sank down into a corner booth, resting against the smooth leather, shutting her eyes against the swirling lights.

"Where's your friend?"

Isis looked up to find a woman standing in front of her. "Do I know you?" She asked in a polite but cool voice.

"No." The woman gestured to the seat next to Isis. "May I?"

Isis shrugged.

Chuckling, the woman sat down, still a head taller than Isis even sitting. "I'm Amaranta."

"Unfadin'?"

"You know your Greek." Amaranta smiled approvingly.

"Not really." Isis shrugged again.

"You're very beautiful, do you know that?"

Isis found herself staring at this strange woman now, taking in the long blonde hair that hung loose and Amaranta's pale, luminescent skin.

Amaranta leaned closer, allowing Isis to look into her eyes.

Isis could have became lost in those purple orbs. She wasn't all that surprised to find specks of gold in them, nothing about this woman would really surprise her it seemed.

"How young you are Isis…" Amaranta breathed.

Isis pulled away. "How do you know me?" She demanded, struggling to reclaim herself, to pull herself out of the web this woman had cast upon her.

Amaranta smiled secretively.

"Who are you?" Isis whispered.

"I told you."

"You told me your name."

Amaranta leaned forward so her mouth was besides Isis' ear. "One who knew Gabriel and Damia."

Isis jerked as if physically struck.

"Yes, my young one, I know you. I know about your mate and your even younger companions."

Isis went to stand up but found she was being held in place, glancing down to see Amaranta's hands on her arms. "What do you want?" She demanded.

Jaden finally excused herself from her male admirers, laughing as they tried to extract promises that she'd come back. When she had cleared the dance floor, she looked around for Isis, frowning when she seen her sitting in a corner with some woman she did not recognize.

She quickly made her way over to the two, standing behind Isis and smiling icily. "Hello. Isis, going to introduce me to your friend?" She asked, not bothering to mask the coldness in her tone.

Amaranta smiled just as coldly back. "You must be Jaden…"

"Funny, I have no clue who the hell you are. Care to enlighten me?"

"One day perhaps…" Amaranta stood up. "Pleasure meeting you Isis."

Isis rose as well. "I'm sure it was."

Ignoring Isis' tone, Amaranta moved forward to embrace the young woman. "We'll meet again, I'm sure of it."

"Not if I can help it." Isis whispered.

Jaden watched wide eyed as the strange woman kissed Isis' cheek lingeringly before disappearing into the crowd. "Who the hell was that?"

"I have no clue."

"She seemed to know you pretty well."

"Too damn well, let's get the hell outta here."