Chapter 11

“Hail, the conquering hero!” Mr. Hugo was a bit goofy as he greeted me coming in, but I could tell that he somewhat meant it.

It felt more and more as if the attention was all on me, just as I felt as weak as possible right then. I needed to feed and to get out of sunlight, but neither seemed possible right then. I would just have to somehow last until lunchtime and see if I could find my sisters to feed off them. They were sophomores, after all, and they seemed willing to let me dine off them so far. Their high-iron lunch would come in rather handy for them at that point, wouldn’t it?

“Charles, you look rather faint. Do you need some of my blood?” Maria Mazzini, my first cousin, now offered me.

“I offered the same thing earlier today, but Coach Brown said no biting in class. I wasn’t sure if that was a new school policy, or what it was, to be honest. What do you think, Mr. Hugo?” my Lindsay (wait, MY Lindsay?) now told Mr. Hugo.

“I have heard of no such policy and I doubt that one would be adopted here, let alone that quickly. That was probably just Coach Brown being squeamish about vampirism. It is a big adjustment, learning that there is a literal vampire in our school, after all. If you need to feed in my class, go ahead. I don’t want you dying on me. An undead student I can still teach. A dead one I can’t,” Adam Hugo announced with a wink at me.

The next thing that I knew, several students shoved their wrists into my personal space, all urging me to drink their blood. While a bit embarrassing, as I didn’t wish to distract my classmates from their lessons, it was useful in some ways. I could take more blood without draining any single person too much. This would also give Heather and Natasha more time to recover before I had to feed off them.

I sank my fangs into Lindsay first, drinking a bit of her blood, which was rather salty, and then I bit Maria, who licked her lips as she felt me feeding from her veins. I started to feel a bit more normal, especially in shop class which had less exposure to sunlight than other parts of the school. Within ten minutes or so, I drank from enough different students to feel as normal as any vampire forced to go to school in daylight might be. This allowed us all to focus on pneumatics again, even if everyone around me seemed to stare at me or even ogle me.

As I started to leave shop class at the bell, Adam Hugo gestured for me to join him at his desk.

“Look ... I couldn’t offer you my blood in class. That would be ... inappropriate in my book. I won’t lie. I’m attracted to you. Very much so, physically speaking. We both know that I’m gay and you’re not. I will not have an inappropriate sexual relationship with you as long as you’re my student, no matter how much I desire you. I will not feed you, either.

“But the moment that you graduate, if you ever want to ... drink my blood ... or fuck me ... or both, just give me a call, okay? Word of warning. I’m a bottom. Strictly a bottom. I’ll need a reach around. Call me Adam, in any case,” he told me, clearly fighting the urge to kiss me right on the lips.

“Thanks, Adam. I’ll bear that in mind,” I winked at him as I left, feeling very flustered now that my shop teacher basically confessed a serious gay crush on me.

“Woah, holy smokes, man!” I heard Natasha say as she rushed to my side, as did Heather, joining Lindsay and Maria that way.

“Wow, here comes the bloodsucking ghoul himself, the freak, and his vampire groupies! Wait, isn’t she your cousin and those two are your stepsisters? Are you doing the incest, man? Or should I call you ‘Count’ now?” Starfish Wilson now mocked me for vampirism.

“Hey, Starfish, I gotta ask, did you get that nickname for licking buttholes, ramming them, fingering them, or having any or all of the above done to you? And if so, who did it? Principal Hogan would be my guess. You were enough of a suck-up to him, just like your stupid sister!” I deliberately goaded him.

I felt annoyed that the sunlight showing into the lunch room already started to sap anything that I gained from feeding. It was a real and consistent problem. I would feed ... and then the damn exposure to daylight would drain me of much of my recovered strength. I figured that if I could provoke Starfish or someone else to attack me, I would have an excuse to bite them and take some of their blood, too. It worked in a way with Lewis Hogan, though not intentionally at all yesterday.

“You asshole! How dare you say such things about my brother!” Melinda rushed at me at the same time that her brother did.

“This from the bitch who called me an incel? Not so much fun on the other end of the bullying, especially now that your protector, Lewis Hogan, is gone, is it?” I taunted her some more, just daring her to assault me.

My fangs were quite visible by now and this made the Wilsons, David Schuyler, Oliver Manson, and the Horne sisters extremely nervous around me. They all backed off a bit, fearing that perhaps they had antagonized me too much. That was a heady wine, sensing their growing panic at the realization that I could possibly drain their blood and kill them. They could tell that I hated them, after all.

“Mind if I sit with you, too?” Amber Dumont shocked me by planting herself nearby at my table, to be followed by Kat Summers.

Both ladies were usually on good terms with the likes of Melinda Wilson and the Horne sisters, yet now they stared daggers at each other. It got worse when Addy Swearingen and Trevor Barker both wanted to sit with me. Things only intensified when it became clear that everyone sitting at my table was there mainly because of lust ... for me. When not glaring at their former friends, each person at the table sent off heat waves of desire that I could almost see. When Addy and Trevor both offered me their blood, followed by all of the ladies, I was truly stunned.