by Lexi C. Foss
“I have taken ownership of the artifact,” he declared. “It belongs to me, and I forbid you from touching it as long as I breathe.” All of the vampires on the lawn stopped cold. Etienne Leclair stared at his son.
“You would become a traitor over some trinket?” He glanced toward us and back at Damien. “Or perhaps the truth is more salacious than that. I fear you have chosen a different path.”
Damien took a breath so deep I saw it from where I stood. “Maybe so,” he answered. “I am not turning back, Father. Where this path goes, I must follow.”
The elder Leclair’s face hardened into a terrifying mask. “Where this path goes, you walk alone, my foolish son. Only out of the dregs of mercy do I not strike you down where you stand. But as you are my blood, you deserve one final fighting chance.” He stared Damien down. “Run. For if I strike out in pursuit and find you, there shall be no salvation.”
With one more baleful look toward my bedroom window, Leclair beckoned to his underlings. They faded readily into the shadows, as if they were little more than figments of our imagination. The car swallowed up its passenger and pulled away. Soon, only Damien stood in the street.
“Wow.” Brina shrunk her staff down. “What an asshole.”
Together, we went about the task of allowing the dead vampires to dissolve into ash, burning up, which then blew away out the remains of the window. By the time Damien had reentered, Brina was sweeping up the glass as I stripped the sheets from my bed.
“Did he hurt you?” He looked between us.
“Alex is fine,” Brina said curtly.
“What about you?” I asked. “You were in pretty rough shape not too long ago.”
Damien shrugged and stepped closer. He took up the pouch from my neck, untwining it with more care than I might have expected, if not for the fact that we had recently shared my bed. “This is what he wants,” he said softly. “As long as I have it, he can find me.”
I glanced down at it. “There’s only one thing to do, then.” I tugged it away and held it out to Brina. “Here.”
She and Damien spoke in unison. “What?” Insult was etched on Damien’s face, plus maybe a little bit of hurt.
I touched his chest. “Relax. If she does anything weird with it, I’ll hunt her down. Right, Brina?”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you’re being so dramatic about this, Alex. We’re on the same team. We want the same things. I just don’t want the Org holding the end of my leash.”
“Take it, then. This is me trusting you, rookie. Please don’t fuck it up.”
“Okay, Mom. I won’t. Don’t worry about it.” She emptied the last of the glass bits into the trash can by my desk. “What about you?”
“I have to leave,” Damien said. “Langley isn’t home anymore.” From the look on Brina’s face, I could tell she’d been talking mostly to me. I glanced at Damien. A potentially brilliant idea had planted itself in my head.
“What if…” I paused. He eyed me curiously. “What if we went to New York? You need to get as far away as possible, and it would give me a chance to visit HQ. They’ve got the best and the brightest out there. Maybe they could help us figure out the relic situation.”
He did not seem enthusiastic. “I have connections of my own. The organization that employs you to kill me is no friend of mine.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Have you ever heard of compromise? Let’s try that. We’ll go to New York and see your people on the way. It’s already a cross-country trip.”
“And you’re certain she can be trusted with the artifact?” He shot Brina a pointed look. She made a face back at him.
“Doesn’t matter, Casanova. You aren’t getting it back now,” she said.
“Oh my God, you guys are like, twelve years old.” I went to my dresser and pulled open the drawers. “Brina, scram. If there’s anything we’ve learned today, it’s that whoever has that thing on them can’t just hang around. I’ll see you when I see you. Whenever that turns out to be. And remember, if you rabbit on me, I’ll know.”
“Uh huh.” She paused with her leg up on the windowsill. “Good luck, Alex.”
I smiled. “You too.”
Damien sauntered up behind me as I threw things into a duffel bag. “I don’t understand you,” he mused, tracing the nape of my neck with his thumb.
“What are you talking about?” I shivered, swatting his hand away. “Don’t distract me. The sooner we hit the road, the better.
“All of a sudden, you want to stick by me.” He smirked. “Has it been that long since you got laid?”
“Watch your mouth.” I double checked my packing job and zipped the bag up. “What I want is to see this through. If that means putting up with you for a while longer, so be it.”
Damien caught me by the chin and planted a searing kiss on my mouth. Then he grabbed the bag from me and shouldered it as easily as if it were empty. “Rest assured,” he said, starting down the hall. “I never let my debts go unpaid.”
Something about the way he said that, in his cool, silky voice, made my body tingle. “I’ll hold you to that, Leclair.”
He winked. “I would expect nothing less.”
Night Kissed
Grab your copy of the next book in the Chosen Vampire Slayer series, NIGHT KISSED.
Click here.
To say I’m killing it at my job is an understatement… Literally.
Monsters. I hunt them. I kill them.
And I enjoy it, ridding the world of the vicious supernatural killers who stalk innocents and destroy lives.
Like mine. Like my family’s.
That was years ago. But I’m strong now. I’m not the victim anymore. I’ve fought hard to become the thing they should fear—a vampire slayer. When I’m called in to investigate a chain of suspicious deaths across Alaska, I meet three of the hottest, and most dangerous, monsters I’ve ever seen.
Just one problem.
They’re the things that go bump in the night—a vampire, a fallen angel, and a demon. Enemies I must trust with my life if I’m to solve the dark trail of mysteries before more lives are lost.
But just as hard as solving the murders is denying my attraction to them all. And as things heat up in more ways than one, I know I’ll never be the same again…
That is, if I survive the evil I’m sworn to kill... and the ones I’ve let into my heart.
Grab Your Copy of Night Kissed
Find more Mila Young books.
Shadowlands
Shadowlands Sector, One
Shadowlands Sector, Two
Shadowlands Sector, Three
Winter’s Thorn
To Seduce A Fae
To Tame A Fae
To Claim A Fae
Shadow Hunters Series
Boxed Set 1
Wicked Heat Series
Wicked Heat #1
Wicked Heat #2
Wicked Heat #3
Elemental Series
Taking Breath #1
Taking Breath #2
Gods and Monsters
Apollo Is Mine
Poseidon Is Mine
Ares Is Mine
Hades Is Mine
Haven Realm Series
Hunted (Little Red Riding Hood Retelling)
Cursed (Beauty and the Beast Retelling)
Entangled (Rapunzel Retelling)
Princess of Frost (Snow Queen)
Thief of Hearts Series Co-write with C.R. Jane
Siren Condemned
Siren Sacrificed
Siren Awakened
Broken Souls Series Co-write with C.R. Jane
School of Broken Souls
School of Broken Hearts
School of Broken Dreams
School of Broken Wings
Fallen World Series Co-write with C.R. Jane
Bound
Broken
Betrayed
Belong
Beautiful Beasts Academy Co-write with Kim Faulks
/> Manicures and Mayhem
Diamonds and Demons
Hexes and Hounds
Secrets and Shadows
Passions and Protectors
Ancients and Anarchy
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About Mila Young
Best-selling author, Mila Young tackles everything with the zeal and bravado of the fairytale heroes she grew up reading about. She slays monsters, real and imaginary, like there's no tomorrow. By day she rocks a keyboard as a marketing extraordinaire. At night she battles with her mighty pen-sword, creating fairytale retellings, and sexy ever after tales. In her spare time, she loves pretending she's a mighty warrior, walks on the beach with her dogs, cuddling up with her cats, and devouring every fantasy tale she can get her pinkies on.
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Slay All Day
By Rochelle Paige
Copyright © 2020 by Rochelle Paige
Edited by Editing4Indies
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Slay All Day
1. Denica
2. Trey
3. Denica
4. Trey
5. Denica
6. Trey
7. Denica
8. Trey
9. Denica
10. Trey
11. Denica
12. Trey
13. Denica
Crying Wolf
About the Author
Also by Rochelle Paige
Slay All Day
Denica Veles has spent more than a decade hunting down the undead as a vampire slayer. The dragon shifter never expected to meet her fated mate while out on a bounty, but there was no denying Trey Kaplan was meant to be hers. She mated and marked the head enforcer of the tiger streak who she’d come to help the same night they met.
Denica was no damsel in distress. She had the experience fighting against vampires that Trey didn’t. But he’d stay by her side every step of the way. Nothing was going to take his new mate away from him now that he’d found her.
1
Denica
A plethora of supernatural creatures went bump in the night. They weren’t all bad, but my job was to take down the vilest of them—vampires—when they went rogue. Like the male I was currently hunting. After draining a young couple who’d parked in the lot on a cliff overlooking the small town where teenagers went to make out, he had headed into the surrounding forest. My enhanced sense of smell made it easier for me to track him through the woods, and I tapped into my inner dragoness to kick my speed up a notch.
The vamp had a thirty-minute head start on me, but it didn't take me long to narrow the gap. The arrogant bastard wasn’t rushing and apparently had no concerns about being caught after killing two people. When I got within fifty feet of him, he slowed his pace even more. If it hadn’t been the dead of night and he hadn’t been dressed in a suit, he probably would’ve tried to pass himself off as a regular guy hiking in the woods as he turned to face me.
The vamp smiled, revealing white teeth with the slightest hint of sharp points. I would’ve thought my imagination was running wild if I hadn’t known what he was. Especially when he flashed me a charming grin. “Well, hello there. Are you lost?”
He had the slightest hint of a French accent, and there was an underlying tone of compulsion in his words. Luckily, my shifter blood made me resistant to his gift. “Nope, not even a tiny bit.”
Taking a couple of steps toward me, he gestured with his hand to the forest surrounding us. “That wasn’t the answer I was expecting, considering where we are. But in the end, your reason for being here doesn’t really matter. Just that you are.”
“I think you’ll find you’re mistaken about that.” My pace was leisurely as I moved closer, and my hands were in my pockets. I projected an air of relaxation, even though every molecule of my body was prepared for the battle ahead. I had the element of surprise on my side, and I wanted every advantage I could get.
“That’s right, my dear. Come to me.” The vamp’s entire focus was on me as he pushed more compulsion into his command.
If I was human, I wouldn’t have been able to withstand his power. Even with my natural protection, I felt the pull. He was stronger than I expected after seeing how sloppy he’d been in his killings. There had been a lack of details about the vamp I needed to hunt down when I’d been assigned this mission, but the death toll was too high to hesitate. My plan had been to do some investigative work when I got there, but that strategy was blown to smithereens when I’d been circling the town from the air under the cover of the night and had picked up the unmistakable smell of recent death below me. After discovering the young couple the bloodsucker had recently killed, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to follow his scent trail. It was a good thing I had trusted my instincts. Without a doubt, this vampire would’ve wreaked a lot more havoc in his wake if even another day had passed before I faced off against him.
Keeping my expression blank so he didn’t catch on that I wasn’t under his influence, I cut the distance between us in half before coming to an abrupt stop. I was downwind from him, but I didn’t want to get too close yet in case his sense of smell was heightened enough to catch my shifter blood from a distance. Slowly shaking my head, I feigned disorientation—widening my eyes as I darted my gaze around me and lifting my hand to my forehead. “How did I get here? Who are you?”
“I’m Louis. We’re great friends. Don’t you remember?” His voice dropped another octave, and the compulsion in his tone tugged faintly at me. He stretched his arm out, palm up. “Come closer, my dear. Let me help you.”
I held back my snort of disbelief. The only thing Louis was interested in helping me with was draining all my blood and leaving my corpse to rot in the woods. He was in for the shock of his life—which had to have been a long one based on the strength of his compulsion—because he was going to be the one to die here tonight. Stumbling a few steps in his direction, I mumbled, “Yes, please help me.”
He glided closer to me, almost within reach. Slowly dropping my hands through the slits in my pants pockets, I wrapped my hands around the daggers that were strapped to the outside of my upper thighs. Since my green eyes swirled with flames when I drew upon my fire magic, I dropped my gaze to the ground. Hunching my shoulders, I tried to make myself look like the victim I was supposed to be while I ran through fight strategies in my head. When he took those last few steps to bring him within striking range, I breathed deep and drew his scent into my lungs. If there had been any doubt about his guilt, it would have been eliminated when I recognized the life’s essence he’d drained from the young couple. With how recent his kills were, the odor was unmistakable.
Lifting my head so my aim would be true, I acted swiftly—drawing the dagger in my right hand and flinging it toward his heart. I quickly followed it up with my second dagger, which landed in his chest directly beneath the first. Louis screamed, rearing back in shock as blood and spit spewed from his mouth. Our gazes met, his eyes glowing red with evil intent. It felt as though time went into slow motion as his hands went to his chest. While he pulled the daggers out, I chanted under my breath to draw upon my fire magic. Flames sparked to life and wound around my body.
“Dragon shifter,” he spat, leaping toward me. I pricked my finger before letting a third dagger fly, catching him in the chest again. He staggered back, howling in pain as a drop of my blood hit the ground, strengthening my spell.
“Between my blades and fire magic, the outcome of this fight is already decided. You’re going down, vampire,” I promised.
“Not today,” he yelled, swiveling around to run in the other direction.
I couldn’t let him get away from me. Louis needed to die, here and now, before he could take more innocent lives. Racing after him, I urged the flames surrounding me to flare in his direction. I was completely calm and focused as they stretched from my body to his, striking him in the chest. Of the different methods to kill a vampire, burning them was my favorite. Some people might think that my ability to call upon fire magic due to being a dragon shifter gave me an unfair advantage over the evil creatures I hunted, but anyone who’d served the Eliminate Vampire Influence Everywhere organization would disagree. As an E.V.I.E. slayer, I would use whatever tool I needed to ensure I took down each and every bloodsucker bounty I was given without feeling an ounce of guilt.