Oh, God, how succulent she’d been…the taste of her…He turned the photo over where the smear of her blood was still visible on the back of the snapshot. Smiling in pure self-indulgent wickedness, he lifted the picture to his mouth and gently flicked the tip of his long tongue over the dark crimson stain. The taste of her filled his mouth and he sucked in his breath with the euphoria of it.

His cock was rock hard now. Ready.

To impale.

Licking his lips, he laid the picture onto the table with the rest of his chosen ones, then searched the others…hundreds of them tucked into his hiding place.

He’d already pulled those he thought the most likely candidates, the girls who appealed to him. Though he was missing a few. The new ones. The coeds who had signed up for this, the second term, as new students. He didn’t have their pictures yet.

But he would.

And soon.

Then they would join those he’d already identified, those who would soon join their sisters.

He smiled, running his tongue over his teeth, savoring the taste of poor, scared-out-of-her-mind Rylee Ames.

In the next batch, though he had yet to procure her photograph, Vlad thought of another, the cop’s kid who had rented Tara’s apartment. As if she were fated to do so, he thought, conjuring up her image in his mind.

He’d seen her. Watched her. Mentally claimed her. She was a gorgeous woman with just the right amount of spirit and the perfect body for his needs, for his sacrifice. When her time came. She was not slated to be the next, but her time would come soon enough. He could wait. He had no choice. All that was to be, had already been decided.

His blood flowed hot at the thought of taking her and he looked down at the pictures on the table before him.

Though she didn’t yet know it, Kristi Bentz would soon join her sisters….

CHAPTER 5

S o this is what everyone was talking about, Kristi thought as she took a seat in the packed classroom on the first day of the term. It was the Monday after New Year’s at eight in the morning. Most of the students looked as if they’d just rolled out of bed.

Chairs scraped against the floor, shoes shuffled, voices buzzed with conversation, and in the background the soft strains of Renaissance music drifted from speakers mounted high on the walls of the large, auditoriumlike room. Rows of seats were situated on tiers that funneled down to a barren center stage that held a battered table, podium, and microphone. A stack of books and an open three-leaf binder were situated near a laptop computer on the table.