Not Another Vampire Book

by Cassandra Gannon

  “Unbelievable! She wrote theme music into the book.” Kara threw up her hands. “I’ve had it. Vlad, all that stuff I said about the tractor beam…? Total lies. I’d like to zap out of here now. I can put up with the seasickness. I swear. I just want to leave.”

  The feeling that things were off somehow intensified as Damien realized that he didn’t want to run home. Ordinarily, Slade’s arrival meant that he was forced to retreat. But now… not so much.

  Damien wanted to fight Slade.

  Hearing about the Vampire’s perfection, listening to the annoying music, and imagining Karalynn soft body in Slade’s arms just reminded him how wonderful it would feel to wipe the pontificating jackass right out of existence.

  It had always frustrated Damien that he and the Vampire had so many confrontations and planned so many ways to destroy each other… But, they never just fought it out until one of them was dead. Suddenly, that made no sense, at all. Why did he always hide from Slade? Why didn’t he just stab the lackwit through the heart and be done with it?

  Damien stepped forward, ushering Kara behind him, out of range.

  “Oh no.” She muttered. “Damien, don’t you kill him. I mean it.”

  Damien’s mouth curved in an anticipatory smile.

  “The woman is mine, Creature!” Slade’s passionate roar was slightly diminished by the brick he tripped over in the dark. “Ow!” He stumbled forward a step, flashing it a glower, and making an aggravate noise. “Alright, what are we even doing in this tenement?” He demanded, sounding frustrated and not like his normal sermonizing self. “Karalynn, why won’t you just give yourself to me and we can be done with it? Do you not realize that this is all going wrong?”

  “Of course I realize it’s wrong, dumbass. I’m the only one here who’s not insane.” Karalynn edged around Damien so she could speak into his ear. “Damien. Please. I can’t deal with him right now, and you can’t beat him. Not like this. We have to go.”

  “I can beat him. He’s a fucking moron.”

  “I know. The fight’s fixed, though. Don’t do it this way.”

  She sounded so certain that Damien hesitated. Doubts crept in. The brief flash of clarity faded and Damien realized Karalynn was right. He couldn’t kill Slade, yet. For some reason he just… couldn’t. It wasn’t the way things were supposed to go. He could feel it. Slade actually had a point for once. Something felt off about this entire evening. It was affecting his judgment.

  Still, he wasn’t going to rock the boat when things were finally going in his favor. His palm slid along Karalynn’s arm, partly to anchor himself and partly to infuriate the Vampire.

  Slade looked satisfactorily apoplectic. “Karalynn, don’t allow this monster to touch you, my sweetest lamb! He’s trying to sully you with his evil hands!”

  “Can’t you take a hint, Vampire? The woman doesn’t want you.” Damien tugged Kara even closer to him. “It seems she prefers creatures to knights.”

  Kara frowned. “Damien, don’t let Tanya mess with your head. You’re not a creature.”

  “Yes, he is, Eternal-One!” Slade whined out. “Now, if you don’t come willingly, what choices have you left me? I must take drastic measures to rescue you from yourself.”

  Damien’s eyes narrowed.

  Karalynn gasped. “Did you just threaten me?! God! Nice work with your hero, Tanya.”

  “Yes!” Slade’s expression lit up. “You have finally noticed I’m a hero! This is a good sign for your recovery, my beloved love. You are coming through the fog. Yes, I am your devoted hero.” He pointed at his own chest and nodded encouragingly, speaking slowly as if Karalynn was deranged. “I am Slade. Sa-Laidddd.”

  Damien’s jaw clenched. It was one thing for him to question the woman’s sanity, but Slade doing it was just irritating. “She isn’t as slow as you are, Sa-Laiddd. There’s no need to speak to her that way. In fact, you don’t need to speak to her, at all.”

  “Thank you, Vlad.”

  Slade ignored that. “Concentrate, Eternal-One. Look into my azure blue gaze and know who I am. I am not called Tanya. I am Slade, King of the Vampires and defender of all good beings in this world. I am the man you have waited for. I can provide you with everything you’d ever wish. Every desire of your body and mind…”

  Kara cut him off. “I know, I know. I’ve heard the sales pitch. Lord! Don’t you ever get tired of listening to your own voice?”

  “No, of course not.” Slade said, seriously.

  Kara muttered something under her breath that sounded an awful lot like, “fucking moron.”

  Damien realized that he was beginning to actually like another being in the vast, indifferent universe. It was an odd revelation. He didn’t know what to make of it.

  Slade clearly didn’t find Karalynn nearly so charming. “You’re being brainwashed, dearest hearted one. I must save you.”

  “I don’t even think there is brainwashing in this century.” Kara shot back, glaring at him, again. “And I’m not brainwashed. I just don’t like you. A lot.” She made an emphatic gesture with her hands. “Look, let’s just get this all out in the open, very clearly, so you can understand. Really try to listen, this time. I’m not your bride. You know that, someplace inside your cavernous skull. You don’t even want me.”

  “She believes that you seek the company of other Vampiresses, Your Majesty.” Fibos stage whispered. “The creature has planted falsehoods into her impressionable human mind.”

  “I don’t need to lie about you, Slade.” Damien kept his gaze locked on his enemy. “The woman sees the truth on her own.” Hopefully.

  In his empty heart, Damien still wasn’t willing to believe it was that easy. That Slade’s own Eternal-One was truly the single other being in the world who realized the Vampire was an asshole. Damien’s luck just wasn’t that good. This could all still be a trick. He needed the truth before this went much further. He needed to speak with the woman alone.

  Slade sighed dramatically. “You are so confused, Karalynn. You are but an innocent flower caught in a storm.”

  “Arggg!” Kara leaned down, grabbed a rock, and pegged it at him.

  Damien had the satisfaction of seeing the stone impact Slade’s empty, blond head and then he was teleporting Kara right back to the safety of his lair. If he couldn’t kill Slade, there seemed little point in enduring the man’s idiocy or risking Karalynn falling in love with his golden form. How did Vampires tan, anyway? He’d never understood that.

  “Oh man.” Karalynn sank down to the floor of the hotel bed chamber, again. “It’s not just the first trip, Vlad. It’s doing the dizzy thing this time, too.”

  “Perhaps, teleportation is difficult for human physiology.” He’d never tried it on humans before so he couldn’t be sure of the effects.

  “Whatever.” Kara looked around the room and sighed. “So, I’m stuck in this nightmare, my building is missing, Vampires are after me, and now my purse has been stolen. I swear to God, I will never complain about having a bad day, again.” She made a face. “And Slade just gets more and more annoying with each passing page. No wonder you hate him so much.”

  Lie or not, temporary or not, Damien appreciated the support. So few beings saw things from his perspective. “I will replace your belongings. All of them.”

  She snorted, obviously not believing him. “Yeah right. I don’t think even Tanya has invented tampons, yet. Or credit cards. Or my favorite pen, with the glitter ink. And I’m going to have to go down to the DMV to get a new driver’s license, which will be almost as big a pain in the ass as this living-in-a-book-deal is. And –shit!-- my silver earrings were in there, too. Damn Vampire muggers.”

  Damien spoke all the human dialects, but he had no clue what any of that meant.

  Her mouth thinned as she stared off at nothing. “There’s a picture of my mother in that wallet.” She murmured and Damien heard the sadness in her tone.

  “I will get your things back from the Vampires.” He made it a vow, altho
ugh why it mattered he had no idea. He could provide her with anything she needed to survive and the comfort of his prisoners had never been a concern before. “If you want your belongings, I will retrieve them for you.”

  Karalynn flashed him a surprised look. “You don’t have to do that. Really. I’m just venting. I should have checked the garden better before I went running off. I’m an idiot.” She dropped her head and, for the first time since he’d met her, looked ready to give up. “I’m a lost, planless, Vampire-stalked, idiot.”

  “You are distraught.” Over something or other. “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.” Damien had no idea why, but he wanted her to cheer up. Once again, he said the first thing that came to mind. “After all, you’re but a flower in a storm, Kara Lynn.”

  Her head snapped up at the facetious drawl. Perfect pink lips parted as she gaped at him.

  Damien shifted uncomfortably under her astonished stare. The joking comment had been really abnormal. Not at all like his usual self. It had come from someplace new inside of him. Someplace that seemed different from his usual words. He didn’t know what to make of the remark, either.

  Kara’s smile returned, again. Genuine and filled with relief. “You’ve got real potential when you act out of character, Vlad. You should ignore the script more often. I think you could come up with better lines.”

  More meaningless words, but at least they seemed like praise of some kind. He nodded and held out a hand to her. The woman spent half her time sitting on the ground. “We need to speak about some things.” Hopefully in English. She grasped his palm and Damien held onto it a beat longer than necessary. His thumb caressed the back of her hand as he reluctantly stepped away. “I have questions.”

  “Me first. I need to be sure of something.” Kara gazed up at him. “Why do you live here?”

  His head tilted, not expecting that. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why don’t you move someplace less morbid?”

  “Not all of us feel the need for ruby bedroom sets in our castles.” He snapped, sensing some criticism in her remarks and lashing out instinctively.

  “Oh please.” As usual, the woman was unfazed by his temper. “That’s just Tanya being her usual subtle self.” Karalynn waved it aside and focused on him intently. “Look around and be honest. Do you seriously like this place? The truth.”

  Damien blinked. This ridiculous exercise was important to her. He could tell. The woman was so weird that he halfway suspected the Vampires had pawned her off on him as a secret weapon. Testing him for weaknesses. So why was he willing to play along with her lunacy? Why did he never stay angry at her for more than a moment?

  Once again, he shied away from the answers to those questions. Examining them too closely would lead straight to his downfall.

  Instead, he sighed and began studying the space, pretending that he’d never even seen it before and trying to form an opinion.

  Actually, she was right. The furnishings were oppressive. Dark and dreary and covered in cobwebs. Did no one clean? Sometimes servants came and went, but Damien was never clear on their schedules or from where they appeared. He hadn’t hired them, had he?

  His brow furrowed with that foggy memory.

  Why did so many things suddenly not make sense when Karalynn pushed at him?

  “Do you like this room?” Kara prompted, tensely. “You, Damien. Just you. Think.”

  “No.” He said. “I don’t.”

  Kara let out a shaky breath. “Thank God. Thank God you can see through some of this craziness.”

  He snorted at her vehemence. “I had no idea interior design was so important to you.”

  “It’s not. It’s…” She shook her head. “Do you know the reason why your home looks like this? The reason it’s decorated in a way that you don’t like?”

  “No.” He finally admitted, glancing around, again. “I never thought about it.”

  Kara nodded. “Well, I do know the reason. The reason why sometimes you have a walking stick and sometimes you don’t. The reason your scar moves around your face. I even know your sister’s name was Amalie.”

  Damien’s jaw sagged.

  “You’re stuck in the Matrix, Neo.” Kara nodded as if that made perfect sense. “Sit down and let me tell you about the publishing world.”

  Chapter Five

  The Vampire Isle had never seemed so beautiful, yet Melessa’s innocent beauty rivaled the Golden Palace for splendor.

  Her radiant smile lit the eternal night with radiantness. Slade spent his days surrounded by the unequaled beauty of the Vampires. His furniture was made from the finest Rubies and his castle from the purest gold, but he knew that in this angelic human he had found his real treasure. In two short days, the Council of Elders would sanctify his Eternal-Bonding and then… he would never let Melessa go

  Eternal Passion at Sunset- Chapter Five

  “I know it wasn’t technically Slade’s fault, exactly, but I completely blame him for this whole thing.” Karalynn paced back and forth in front of the mantle. “He just has this annoying ‘ick’ about him that makes him such a handy target.”

  “I agree.” Damien stayed perfectly still, his eyes sliding over the exposed length of Kara’s legs. He sat in a red leather chair, waiting for her to explain her abilities, while a fire burned in the fireplace. July or not, the hotel was always drafty and cold. Karalynn had a point about that. She was pacing around so the flames backlit her miniscule skirt, letting him see every inch of her thighs.

  Slade would do anything to have her back. Risk anything. Truthfully, Damien didn’t even blame the Vampire for that. The woman was unique.

  Dangerous.

  Damien’s tongue ran over the edge of his teeth as he stared at her bare ankles. She wore a golden chain around one that caught the firelight as she walked back and forth on the Oriental rug. They’d moved into the hotel’s main sitting room. He usually didn’t pay a lot of attention to his surroundings, but Kara asking him if he liked the bedroom made him more aware of all the décor. Why did the hotel look this way? He must have bought it like this, because he never would have chosen any of this furniture.

  Why didn’t he remember coming to live here?

  The entire room was decorated in various shades of red and tarnished gold. Heavy velvets and fraying tassels abounded. The wallpaper looked like insects skittering, but you couldn’t really see too much of it since the walls were all covered in weapons. Swords and shields and medieval maces were mounded in ostentatious patterns. In the corner, his raven, Lenore, was perched on a full suit of armor.

  No. On his own, Damien never would have decorated his home like this.

  So why did it look this way?

  The question swirled in his mind again, and he tried to push it aside.

  Despite the arsenal displaced on the walls and the heavy, dusty fabrics, Kara insisting that this sitting room was the least creepy spot in his home. She’d chosen it as the place for their talk and Damien wasn’t going to argue. All things considered, getting her away from a bedroom wasn’t such a bad idea.

  His gaze lingered on the curve of her hip.

  She made him think distracting thoughts.

  “Wait, you don’t think Slade can find us here, do you?” She glanced over at him and Damien quickly averted his eyes from her body. “With like Vampire GPS or whatever?”

  On average, he understood about one in three words she spoke. “Slade can’t find this hotel. I have it shrouded with my powers.”

  That didn’t mean the Vampire would stop hunting for them, though. Slade would have had to be an even bigger idiot than usual to give this woman up. And it was impossible to be a bigger idiot than Slade usually was. With the aid of Karalynn’s stolen belongings, he’d be scouring the globe for his lost queen.

  Bastard.

  Kara looked relieved by the news that Slade was temporarily stymied. “Good. Thanks for helping me dodge him, by the way. Again. Tanya’s created a male chauvinist pig for her
leading man. I was seriously worried that he’d club me and drag me around by my hair next.”

  Gods, her hair was lovely.

  Since she’d brought it up, Damien’s gaze went to her amazing head of curls. “Vampires are vicious.” He murmured, imagining the coffee colored strands sliding through his fingers. “You should avoid Slade.”

  Damien wasn’t about to let an opportunity to badmouth that bastard pass him by. Although, he’d never heard of any Vampire abusing their Eternal-One, he’d also never heard of an Eternal-One refusing her mate before, so he couldn’t predict how those morons would react. If he found her, Slade could force Karalynn to the Vampire Isle against her will.

  Something unexpected twisted in Damien’s chest at the thought. Something that was nearly a feeling beyond his burning need for vengeance.

  This woman was definitely dangerous.

  He cleared his throat, trying to get himself back under control. “If you see Slade, tell me immediately.” Because, then Damien could fulfill his plan and vanquish his foe. That was all that really mattered.

  Killing Slade.

  Having vengeance.

  “Oh, trust me. If Golden Boy shows up, again, you’re gonna hear about it.” She agreed with a scoff. “I should start carrying around garlic and holy water.”

  “Garlic doesn’t really work on Vampire. And they drink holy water.”

  “They drink holy water?”

  “Of course.” Everyone knew that. “It keeps them alive. Well that and the blood.”

  Kara sighed, loudly. “I hate it when writers start screwing with the established mythology. I mean, I get that you can take things and make them your own, but vampires should have rules, ya know? Stable, time tested rules, that everyone can get behind.” She shook her head in disgust. “Can they go in the sun or do they just sparkle?”