by Riley, Alexa
Twice Bitten
Virgin Blood Series
Alexa Riley
Contents
Twice Bitten
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Fairytale Shifter Book 1
Stalk the Author
Twice Bitten
by Alexa Riley
Dove Wheeler doesn’t have many friends. The only one she ever got close to left her to go live with a vampire. Even thinking the word gives her chills, but in the best way possible. She spends hours in the library researching who they are and where they come from, until she can’t stand it any longer and goes looking for them on her own. What she doesn’t expect is to find two of them, a set of twins, that turn her world upside down.
Once Ezra and Erik Marcellus were changed to vampires, they tried to put everything in their past behind them and start fresh. They love their new family and everything about their new lives, but there’s always the worry that one day they will have to separate. Vampires don’t share their mates, so why does it feel like that’s exactly what they want? When they find a young woman snooping around, suddenly all of their fears come true. They’re both ready to lay their claim, but they’re not prepared for which one she’ll choose.
Warning: It’s the first time we’ve written vampires, so go easy on us. Enjoy this brand new series that features a coven of five and read about how all of them find love.
Copyright © 2017 by Author Alexa Riley LLC. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, email to [email protected]
http://alexariley.com/
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Edited by Aquila Editing
Cover Photo by Sara Eirew
Cover Designer: Mayhem Cover Creations
Prologue
Dove
I stare down at the map I printed out when I was working at the library earlier today. Over the last week I’ve learned that somehow these four large houses are connected. Though it shouldn’t be possible, it’s the only thing that makes sense. At this point this is the only thing I can think of for how they move.
Though the maps could be outdated, I know the overhead pictures on Google are only taken every few years. They could be traveling on four wheelers or something to get from home to home, but that would put them in the sunlight during the day.
They never use the main roads to go from one house to another. How else are they coming and going without ever using their front doors? I know I’ve seen the twins return home, then hours later they’re exiting Kane and Juliet’s home without ever stepping foot outside. How did they get there?
For some reason I think they have underground passages, but maybe that’s my overactive imagination. My grandpa says mine can get out of control, that I let things take root and grow and grow until I’m caught in a trap of my own making and I can’t get out.
What’s a girl to do when you grow up in a mortuary? Books and digging into the unknown has been my life for as long as I can remember. Kids in school didn’t want to make friends with the girl whose home was in the middle of a graveyard and had bodies in the basement.
Grandpa was sure college would help push me out into the world, but I think it’s only made things worse because I’m pretty sure my dorm roommate ran off to live with a vampire.
“Are you staying for dinner, pumpkin?” my grandpa asks.
I look up from where I have everything laid out in front of me. There are maps, old newspapers, and even photos I’ve taken. He doesn’t give them a second look as he comes over to where I am. Growing up, my books and whatever I was researching were always scattered over the large dining room table because we didn’t need it with only the two of us. Most of the time we ate at the small table in the kitchen or in the living room on a TV tray.
“No, I’ve got plans,” I tell him as I start to pack up my stuff. I kind of miss living here, and it’s why I visit so much. I’m an introvert, but living in a dorm room alone is pretty lonely. I’m not about to ask Grandpa if I can come back home though. He wouldn’t let me because he thinks I need to find myself and not hang out with the dead all the time. If he only knew that I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ve stumbled on out there.
“Is it a date?” He perks up at the idea, and I fight a smile.
“Aren’t you supposed to warn me away from boys?” I tease him, but the two I’m thinking about right now are definitely men.
“You’re old enough to date. Falling in love was one of the greatest joys of my life.” His eyes drift off for a moment and I know he’s thinking about my grandma. I never knew her since she and both my parents died before I was old enough to remember anything about them other than what Grandpa told me. Death seemed to like this family a little too much. Grandpa says I’m the reason he had the will to keep on living after he lost them all.
“Well, I might have my eye on someone,” I admit, knowing it will make him happy to hear it. I leave out that it’s two somebodies and they could be vampires because I don’t want him to have a heart attack.
“Have fun, pumpkin.” He gives me a kiss on the top of my head and I finish packing up all my stuff.
I tell him goodbye again as I leave and get ready for my nightly stakeout. I’ve noticed they are only ever out at night, which obviously makes them vampires. The list of evidence I’ve been compiling is growing and growing. I’ve been looking at everyone, but I always drift back to the twin brothers. I’m used to being sucked into an idea for hours or days, but this is different. I should be scared of following them, but I’m not. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen my old roommate Juliet with her new man, Kane. He looks like a deadly beast that could rip a person in half with his bare hands, but he treats her as if she’s made from spun sugar. I could never imagine a man looking at me that way.
He’s the reason I started digging around to begin with. Things with Juliet and him went fast and I’ve seen him in action once. Neither of them knew I witnessed him attack a man who tried to hurt Juliet. The way he moved and the way his eyes changed…I knew he was something more and I had to know what it was. That’s when I found the twins, Ezra and Erik, and I was done for. Digging into their lives has been hard, but I’m slowly piecing it all together.
Maybe I’d have more information by now if I would stop trying to follow them around. Lately they’ve been hanging at Ravana’s house. She lives in one of the four connected houses. I’m going to go there tonight so I can maybe get a peek at the twins. I haven’t seen them in almost two days and a strange ache has started to form in my stomach.
I toss my bag into my passenger seat before checking to make sure I have a stash of snacks for the night. I reach in, grabbing a bag of cotton candy and eating a few bites. Once I’ve gotten my sugar rush I put my car into drive.
The moon lights up the graveyard tonight and som
e people might think it looks eerie. The headstones always made me sad. A few of them are all together, forgotten, and never get even a single flower anymore. It’s always a reminder to me why books are so special. They can carry so much history and tell the stories so that not all things are lost to time.
It doesn’t take me long to get to Ravana’s home, but I park away from the gate so I won’t be noticed. I see a limo is sitting outside and I watch, unsure how I feel about this. I’ve followed the twins a few times and they go to bars, but I could never get in. I was never dressed to club standards in my black yoga pants and black hoodie—the most inconspicuous clothing to wear while I’m essentially stalking.
I’d wait outside those nights to see when they left. One time they left alone, but another time I’d fallen asleep in my car waiting. I knew if I’d seen them leave the bar with women it would have killed something inside of me. I don’t even understand that. I don’t know them and for all I do know they are jerks that bang everything that moves. They could be leaving a trail of broken hearts all over the city with how handsome they are. I’m probably not far off the mark, but they could also be vampires who are feeding off people.
Jealousy always hits me when I think about them drinking someone’s blood, and I’m pretty sure I’m crazy at this point. What do I want them to do, feed off of me or something? The idea should scare the shit out of me, but it doesn’t. When I think about their mouths on me, my whole body tingles. I know I’m going to get caught eventually. I know this and I have no idea what I’ll do if it happens. I could always play dumb and say I’ve been worried about Juliet.
I break from my thoughts as I watch Ravana leave the house with Ezra and Erik right behind her. They all get into the limo together and take off. It’s a date, I know it.
All three were dressed for a night out on the town. The twins’ usual jeans and shirts were gone and now they were wearing slacks and button-up shirts. Which one of the brothers is Ravana dating?
I’d say she’s beautiful, but she’s more than that. She’s got long dark hair and even longer legs. She has a body some women would kill for, so how could they not want her?
Does it matter which one is dating her? Because I don’t want her touching either of them. An anger I’ve never felt in my life slices through me. I’m not used to such a raw feeling and I swallow, trying to get myself under control. They’re probably picking up another woman or maybe they’re meeting her there. They both can’t be her date. Can they?
While the idea fills me with jealousy, something else sparks. Could you imagine having them both? One woman belonging to the two of them is just scandalous, yet my body heats up. This time it has nothing to do with the anger, but something like a deep desire.
I pull away from the curb and follow them. I should turn around and go home right this second. I know I might see something tonight that will break my heart, but I keep on following because I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to stop.
One
Erik
The sun finally sets and takes the rest of its light along with it. I’m sitting on the window bench looking out into the trees that surround our house.
“Did you even go to bed?” Ezra asks as he walks from his bedroom over to me.
His bare chest glows in the moonlight as he gets closer. We’re identical in every way even down to how we’re dressed. His loose gray shorts hang low on his hips and there’s a trail of dark hair across his chest that leads down his stomach. When he comes over and sits down next to me he pushes his hair out of his face and rubs the sleep out of his eyes.
“I can’t sleep,” I say, crossing my arms across my chest. I lean back against the side of the window and try to avoid his stare.
“You could just talk to me about it,” Ezra says, and I hear him sigh.
There’s a pause between us, but I know exactly what he’s thinking. I can always read him just like he can read my mind.
“Erik.” He barks my name, and I look at him to see anger in his eyes. “If we don’t talk about this then we’re both going to be in a lot of pain one way or another. If you want to we can go to Bisho—”
“No!” I spit the word, cutting him off, and it echoes through the house.
This isn’t like me, but then again none of this is really something we’ve dealt with before. Normally I’m laidback and full of fun, and so is Ezra. We had a rough go in life before Bishop found us and welcomed us to his family. He may have made us into vampires, but he handed us the keys to a new life. We both swore that day to live it to the fullest and not to dwell on the bad things that happened to us. That’s why it makes it so much harder now to go to him and talk to him about this.
“I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t stand the pain. She’s out there, and I’m going to find her,” Ezra says, getting up from the window and walking away. I feel the same.
Even this kind of distance is difficult for us, but we’ve been pretending it’s all okay. Ever since we caught the scent of her, we’ve been on edge. That damn cotton candy is driving me insane and I have to find it. We have to find it.
Ezra is right that Bishop might have the answers, but what if the answers he has are the ones we don’t want to hear. He never told us if vampire twins can share a mate because he’s never seen a pair before. He only created us because he found us both near death and didn’t know what else to do.
We always had a bond ever since I can remember, but being made into a vampire somehow heightened that. Now when we’re apart for even a short amount of time it becomes uncomfortable. Since we scented the girl following us we’ve both been on edge with each other. Does this mean we’re about to break in half? I keep thinking in the back of my mind that we’ve just become each other’s competition to claim her as a mate. I know in my soul that I would lie down and die before I’d lay a hand on my brother in anger. But something primal in me has this need to protect, and if he stands between the girl and me, what will I do? Those are the thoughts that kept me from sleeping, and now I watch him storm away in anger. How does any of this make sense?
Before I can think on it too much I hear the water running in his room. He’s taking a shower and then I have a feeling he’s going to hunt for her. It’s been a week since the theater and when Valen told us about her snooping around. Now suddenly she’s gone and we can’t find her. How was she so close and I didn’t know?
We live alone in this giant house that Bishop designed for us. Our bedrooms are right beside one another, but there’s a third floor above us that we don’t talk about. The first time we saw it we were confused, but Bishop told us it was just in case. I’ve thought about the room upstairs for years and wondered if it was even a possibility. It’s a master that’s larger than the two of ours combined. There’s a bed bigger than I’ve ever seen and enough space for three.
Three.
I get up from the window and go into my room. I turn on the shower and decide to get ready. I won’t let Ezra go out alone just like he wouldn’t let me go out by myself either. There’s so much unspoken between us right now and so much happening within the confines of our family. Not only has Kane found his mate but she’s pregnant and now so is our sister, Ravana. It’s all happening at once and the reality that one of us has found our mate now is almost too much to wrap my head around.
This could all be in my head that I’m somehow mated to the same person as my twin. It could just be our strong connection, and now that he’s possibly found the one for himself I’m feeling that possessive instinct through him. There are a million different ways to explain what is going on between us right now, but I refuse to dwell on it. I’m afraid of all the negative scenarios, so instead I just stick my head in the sand and hope it all turns out okay. While I’m pretending, I know that Ezra is in pain and that’s the hardest part of all.
If I was honest with myself and allowed this to go the way I wanted, I would choose to share a mate with my brother. Why wouldn’t we? It seems that children are possible if she’
s human, and from what Valen said she most definitely is. We could have eternity together and raise a family. The world could be ours for the taking. But then the thought of him having a family without me takes over and I just push all of it away.
I take a quick shower and get dressed before I walk out of my room. At the same time Ezra closes the door to his and we look at one another. Of course, we’re both dressed the same; it happens almost every single day. It’s the twin connection, but it’s intensified since we were changed and now it’s odd when we don’t match in some way.
“You’re nothing like him,” Ezra says as he walks over and stands in front of me.
That’s always the first thought in my mind when I’m getting down on myself. That I’ve somehow become our father and I’m going to do something to ruin our happiness.
“I know,” I say as Ezra hugs me.
I feel better when we’re okay and he knows what I need. Right now, I’m belittling what we have and trying to think of all the ways it can go wrong. Instead I should be focusing on the possibilities of what’s ahead. There is so much potential for what lies in front of us, and action is what’s going to make this come together.
“Tell me what I can do,” I say as we pull apart and walk down the stairs to the living room.
“I think we start with surveillance of our own. I don’t know how, but she’s managed to miss the perimeter cameras, so we should be doing our own sweeps around the houses. I can’t imagine if she knows what we are that she hasn’t figured out who the family are as well.” How long has she been following us? My jaw clenches when I think about her following us when we had to go to those bars doing patrols for Bishop in search of the slayer. Not to mention the string of missing people, too.