Page 2 of Plug and Drain

The footsteps grew louder. She hadn’t imagined it. Someone was coming down the stairs.

Down? The vampire dorms were below the wolf dorms. Who was coming from upstairs?

Susie tensed.

Please don’t knock on Molly’s door.

Shadowy figures passed through the corridor in silence.

Susie’s breathing halted, her skin crawling as she drew back slightly from the door. It was ajar—just a crack—enough for her to peer out and make sure Molly was left alone.

Susie was ready to intervene if she was not.

A group of vampires passed, trailed by several others who walked alone. Some entered through the open doors. Others knocked before entering closed ones. Some didn’t knock at all and went in without an invitation.

There were no locks on the doors, so there was nothing to be done.

The corridor was quiet once more.

Susie released the breath she’d been holding.

Molly was safe. For now.

It was the end of Orientation Week, and most of the first years had been successfully placed in a pack. It was the only thing that offered any level of protection against the nightly feedings: the protection a pack could provide.

And not just any pack. Only the higher tier ones could guarantee protection. Like the Poplarin Pack, which was the largest in the school and boasted several powerful alphas and vicious betas. Vampires didn’t dare try anything with a Poplarin, so their members could enjoy peaceful nights of sleep.

The rest of us are on our own.

Some wolf shifters were so brainwashed that they hadn’t even tried to join a pack. Those were the same wolves who left their doors open every night, wet with perverted desire for the enemy and pining to be fed on. They were addicted to the attention the vampires gave them—to how the sex could apparently feel.

Susie wouldn’t know. Sex had never been enjoyable.

Another shadow drifted through the hall, a vampire who paused outside Susie’s door.

Shit.

A heartbeat later, soft moans sounded from one of the open doorways further along the hall, and the vampire followed the source into the room.

Susie let out another relieved sigh.

She hardly had time to worry about herself, plus it would have been counterproductive. Instead, she preoccupied herself with feeling anxious for the first-year wolves.

Especially Molly.

The poor, young wolf had been assaulted on the first day of Orientation Week. Feeling sick, Molly had left the welcome and information sessions early and returned to her room. She was followed. A vampire had entered her room and fed on her.

Molly had screamed so loudly that the vampire had fled—but not before apologising profusely. Vampires had a tendency to be well-mannered, even when performing the most abhorrent crimes.

At least, Susie considered it a crime. To attack an eighteen-year-old wolf while she was sleeping seemed wrong.

But for Molly, the vampire’s bite had been just the beginning of a long and gruelling ordeal. Her scream had alerted a group of wolves that Susie detested with every breath in her body: Oscar and his followers. They were omegas from the Poplarin Pack and were low enough in rank that they constantly felt the need to flaunt their prestigious membership to anyone who was not a Poplarin. The four omegas had sought Molly out, and what they had done to her was despicable.

Rather than defend their own kin, something about Molly’s frightened screams had had the opposite effect on them. Instead of consoling her, they’d crowded her, snickering as they forced her down onto the bed, and took her.

No one had come to Molly’s aid, even though her piercing screams could no doubt be heard on the entire floor.

A couple of wolves had come to investigate but had done nothing; since Molly did not belong to a pack, they were not obligated to intervene. Besides, no one dared to challenge the omegas, not when the weight of the Poplarin name protected them.