Read Online Insatiable by Meg Cabot - Free Book Online Page A

difficult enough to find anyone able to keep his head while swinging a sword at a screaming succubus, let alone someone who was also a devoted Catholic. Palatine Guard members were of a wide mix of religions…even, like Alaric, complete nonbelievers.)
    It helped Holtzman’s ruse, Alaric supposed, that he looked like a lawyer.
    Still, there was nothing wrong with looking like a muscle-bound demon-hunter…especially if that was what one was. Alaric didn’t have degrees in anything, except chopping the heads off vampires and returning their victims to full humanity once more.
    So Alaric didn’t waste time on ruses the way Holtzman did. Especially not when it came to Sarah. He got straight to the point…by applying Señor Sticky to her throat.
    When she finally stammered, “Felix…Felix lives in a loft over an antiques store on West Fourth…but please…,” he grabbed her by the back of the neck and stuffed her into the passenger seat of his rental car. He didn’t need her texting her undead lover any warnings so Felix could call his vamp friends and set up a trap.
    It wasn’t the most uplifting drive over to Felix’s place. Especially because Sarah sobbed most of the way and whispered, “Please, please…don’t hurt him. You don’t understand…he doesn’t want to be the way he is. He hates what he is. He hates that he has to…hurt me.”
    “Yes?” Alaric glanced at her. He’d turned the car radio to the heavy metal station. He didn’t particularly like heavy metal, but he neededsomething loud enough to drown out the sound of her sniffling. “So why do you let him do it, then?”
    “Because,” Sarah said, sniffling, “he’ll die if I don’t.”
    “You’re wrong about that,” Alaric said. “He can’t die unless someone stabs him with a wooden stake through the heart or cuts off his head. Or, alternatively, if someone shoves him into some direct sunlight or completely immerses his body in holy water. But then,” he added, throwing a glance her way, “you must know all this.”
    “None of that’s true,” Sarah said. “He told me all those things were myths. Also about how vampires can live on animal blood. He said if they do that, they’ll die. That’s why he has to drink my blood. To stay alive.”
    Alaric rolled his eyes. “Do you realize girls like you have been falling for that one for centuries? Vamps just don’t like animal blood. It weakens them. And they don’t look as nice after they’ve been drinking it for a while. And if they’re anything, vamps are vain. Human blood’s like filet mignon to them. So if he told you he’ll die if you don’t let him drink your blood, he’s a damned liar, in addition to being a putrid stinking woman-abusing soulless abomination.”
    Sarah seemed to find his language objectionable, since this statement only made her weep harder.
    Alaric felt a little bad about this. Holtzman was always telling him that he needed to work on his people skills more.
    Accordingly, Alaric passed her a tissue from the little packet the rental car agency had left in the car.
    “You’re mean,” Sarah said, blowing her nose into the tissue. “Felix isn’t a soulless abomination. He’s sensitive. He has feelings. He reads me poetry. Shakespeare.”
    Alaric wanted to pull the car over so he could throw up, but they didn’t have time. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner he could go back to the hotel; order some room service; have a nice, relaxing bath (in the world’s tiniest tub, which had those grainy strips attached to the bottom, so guests wouldn’t slip in the shower—this was Alaric’s number one pet peeve about less-than-five-star hotels; he was a grown man, he knew how to stand without falling in the tub); and go to bed.
    Then, tomorrow morning, he’d fly to New York, check into the Peninsula, find the prince, and kill him.
    This made him quite happy to think about.
    “This,” Alaric explained to Sarah in what he thought was a kindly