VAMPIRES
IN VEGAS
A PARANORMAL ROMANCE
SAMANTHA SNOW
Copyright ©2017 by Samantha Snow
All rights reserved.
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About This Book
Shy librarian Ella McCormack was well aware that “what happened in Vegas, stayed there” but she never thought it would happen like this.
When a bachelorette party in Sin City got a little bit rowdy, Ella found herself cornered by a bunch of overly pushy men. Coming to her rescue was an impossibly handsome man named Reagan Morgan. A man that Ella found herself immediately infatuated with.
But Ella had no idea that Reagan was a vampire. One of many that reside in Las Vegas.
And by the time she found out, it was already be too late..
This is a unique spin on the average vampire romance. Set in Las Vegas you can expect thrills, spills and naughty scenes galore. What happens in this book, stays in this book so get reading right now! ;-)
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER ONE
“Excuse me! You guys can’t be this loud in here, OK? You just...can’t. It’s a library, remember? With books?”
“Oh my god, are you serious right now?! There’s nobody in here, Ella! Like, nobody. Aside from you and probably a janitor or two, but god only knows where they are. I’d be willing to bet a boat-load of money that they’ve got themselves holed up in some broom closet somewhere where nobody will bother them while they watch Netflix on their iPhones. And don’t shake your head at me, because you know I’m right.”
But shake her head was exactly what Ella did. It didn’t matter to her that Jen was almost definitely right about the janitor thing. She had actually walked in on them doing exactly that kind of thing on more than one occasion, and despite her disapproving looks, they hadn’t seemed the least bit apologetic about it. Apparently, slacking on the job was no big deal. Not that Ella was going to admit that to Jen. The last thing that girl needed was for another person to tell her she was right. About anything.
“Actually, there are people in the library. Don’t roll your eyes at me, either. I should know, shouldn’t I? I’m the one who sees everyone who comes in and out of the building, after all.”
“That’s right, you are,” she said with an even more pronounced eye roll, “just like the gatekeeper for the gates of heaven, right? Or maybe hell? Doesn’t matter. There may be people in here, but it can’t be more than a half a dozen. If you tell me there are, I’ll tell you you’re lying.”
There were, in fact, only three people in the library at the moment, a building so vast that she couldn’t have said without looking at the expansive network of cameras (that only sometimes worked) to determine where exactly they were. So honestly, no, there was very little chance that Jen and her two giggling friends (girls Ella had met before but whose names she could not remember for the life of her) would really disrupt a patron of the library.
As far as Ella was concerned, that didn’t matter. She couldn’t have cared less. It was the principle of the matter. Principles were important to Ella. For her, principles and rules pretty much made the world go around. She had been like that for as long as she could remember and nothing she had encountered had been able to change it.
She had memories of her own mother and father shaking their heads at her in bemused exasperation and telling her that she could stand to lighten up just a little bit. As far as she could remember, she had taken their advice under advisement and ultimately chosen to ignore it. That was just the way she was. Jen knew this about her. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Annoyed was to be expected, but not surprised.
“Why don’t you just tell me why you guys are here, OK? That might be best. Just tell me why you guys are here and then we can all get back to what we’re supposed to be doing.”
“Jeez, don’t sound so excited to see me,” Jen quipped, her lip poking out in that fake sulk Ella had been witnessing since they were in grade school.
“I am happy to see you, of course I am, it’s just that this isn’t the place to talk. You know that. We’ve talked about it before.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. I just wanted to tell you about the bachelorette party. You are coming, aren’t you? I mean, it would be pretty weird for my maid of honor not to be at my bachelorette party.”
Oh, lord. Ella had known this was coming, of course. She knew how this sort of thing worked, whether or not she had actually been to a bachelorette party before. Jen was by no means a traditionalist, but she was also not the kind of girl to miss out on a tradition like that most infamous of all kinds of party. And there was no way Ella would get out of it.
It would make her a bad friend, and her desire to avoid that outweighed her desire to miss a crazy night of partying with Jen and her other friends. This was going to happen, whether she liked it or not. It was one case in which her better judgement could not win out. That was a very uncomfortable place for Ella to be, and she began to shift from one foot to the other, full of nervous energy.
“Ella?” Jen spoke her name in a warning voice, making it clear that there would be absolutely no excuses for her failure to attend. As if Ella needed that reminder. She knew it. She was a smart girl.
“I know, Jen, I know. I won’t miss it.”
“Awesome! Now, don’t you want to know where it is?”
“Where it is? What do you mean, where it is? Isn’t it going to be here?”
“Um, in the library?” one of Jen’s ditzy friends asked with disgust. “As if. That would be like, the most boring party ever.”
“No, not in the library. That’s not what I meant. I meant in the city. It isn’t going to be in Austin?”
“No way! This city is tired.”
Ella felt a little pang of sadness to hear Jen say that. They had both been born in Austin, had both grown up there, and had known each other since they were only five years old. They had spent many a late night when they were young discussing their plans for the future, all of which had involved them staying in Austin forever and ever, amen.
They had even talked about getting houses right beside one another, being neighbors until the day they died (which of course they would do on the exact same day). Ella was old enough to know better now, of course, twenty-five would have been much too old to still think a plan like that was either practical or plausible, but it didn’t mean hearing her best friend talk about their beloved city that way didn’t sting a little bit. It was just that it highlighted the chasm that had grown between them so perfectly that it was impossible to ignore.
Ella unde
rstood that people grew in different directions, childhood friends rarely growing into adults with the exact same tastes and interests. Honestly, she was lucky that the two of them were still friends at all. She knew that was very uncommon, as well. But these reminders of just how different they were frightened her. It made her uncomfortably aware of how easy it would be for the two of them to drift apart so that their friendship was nothing but a memory.
As far as she could tell, their childhood was the only thing that still really held their friendship together. Yet another reason why it was so important for her to go on this trip, wherever it might be. She needed to do this for the sake of a friendship that was terribly important to her. Quite possibly (probably) much more important to her at this point than it was to Jen.
“OK,” Ella said quietly, trying not to sound as weary as she felt, “where’s it going to be, then?”
“That’s the best part,” Jen grinned in a way that looked rather ominous in Ella’s humble opinion, “we’re going to Vegas!”
* * *
“I just don’t get it, El!”
“Don’t get what? There’s nothing to get?”
“Don’t get you. A weekend in Vegas is only going to be about the funnest thing ever, and you look like I killed your cat and want to drag you to the funeral.”
“Don’t say funnest. It’s not the best use of the word. And I don’t have a cat.”
“Jesus, Ella, you’ve got to lighten up a little. Pretty soon you’re going to be an old woman at twenty-five. At this point it seems like all that’s left is for you to start carrying butterscotch candies in your purse and using the phrase ‘back in my day.’ Don’t let that happen to you. You need some Vegas in your life.”
Thankfully, they were no longer in the library, where Ella would have to worry about her job as well as the impending doom of the trip. She was also grateful to have Jen’s two friends, whose names it turned out were Pamela and Kristy (with a “K,” not a “C”), were out of the picture for the moment as well.
Ella wasn’t dumb. She knew what those girls must think of her. She was sure that they thought she was weird and boring and a total drag, that they had tried on more than one occasion to convince Jen to finally pull the plug on her little girl friendship.
Thankfully, Jen hadn’t done it yet, and Ella hoped she never would, but those girls still made her nervous. She felt like they were constantly critiquing her, and that she was always coming up short. But not now. No, now it was only her and Jen, hanging out on the couch in Ella’s small but tidy apartment. There were two bottles of wine out on the table, one white and one red, because Jen had decided that when it came to wine, variety was the spice of life. Ella wasn’t exactly a big drinker, but when she had her movie nights with Jen, she would have a glass or two. It was her way of letting loose, and something she felt OK about from time to time. On this night, she was thinking she might even wind up having a third glass, depending on how stressful this conversation wound up being.
“Jen, I don’t think anyone needs Vegas in their life. I don’t get why you want to go there. Don’t you think that place seems...well, don’t you think it seems kind of scary?”
“Scary?! Um, not even a little bit. I think it seems exciting! There’s everything to do there, El, and the city literally NEVER goes to sleep. We’re going to have so much flipping fun! And what better time than right before a girl gets married to have an amazing, wild time?”
Jen was practically bouncing on the couch now, coming dangerously close to sloshing her wine over the edge of the glass and onto the meticulously kept fabric of the furniture. It wouldn’t be the first time Jen had done something like that and Ella had gotten pretty amazing at getting out stains, but it wasn’t like it was her favorite thing to do or anything like that.
Ella thought about telling Jen that a city couldn’t literally either sleep or never sleep, seeing as it was not a living thing, but decided against it. Jen hated it when she did stuff like that, and Ella supposed it could get pretty annoying if you were on the receiving end of it. Instead, she opted for something else, something she knew Jen wouldn’t care for either.
“Are you sure?”
“Am I sure of what, Vegas?”
“No,” Ella said quietly, already wishing she hadn’t said anything at all, “are you sure about him? Are you sure this is what you want to do?”
“Oh.”
The word was delivered in a flat, toneless voice that told Ella just how unhappy she was with what she had just heard. Ella had known that was what would happen. Dax had been a point of contention between the two of them in the past, as well. What kind of name was that, anyway; Dax? It didn’t even sound like a real name! He was fine, she supposed, but not the kind of guy you got serious about.
He was a musician/waiter/bartender, and the two of them had only been together for six months before they got engaged. He hadn’t given her a ring, either. Just tied a piece of string around her finger as a kind of an IOU for when he could afford to get her something more substantial. It wasn’t really that, though, not completely, that made Ella think the marriage idea was a bad one.
There was just something about him. A sleazy kind of a look, like he was always up to no good. He struck her as a guy that was always hiding something, and that could only be a bad sign when it came to getting married to someone. She had already said all of this to Jen and been shot down decisively, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t worth trying one more time. If Jen disagreed with her this time, she would never bring it up again. But she had to try. She loved Jen enough to give it just one more try. She just had to hope that it didn’t make Jen mad enough to uninvite her from everything, to uninvite her from her life. From the look on her face, she was pretty far from thrilled.
“Christ, Ella, again? Are you for real with this?”
“I don’t know. I guess so.”
“How many times?! How many times are we going to go through this?! Me and Dax, we’re going to get married, OK? This wedding is happening. And you know what? I don’t need you acting like my mother! I already have a mother, and she makes sure to remind me every chance she gets that men are shit and that all I need to do is look at my father to be sure of that. What I need from you is to be my friend, but if that’s too much to ask, let me know now. It’s not like you’re my only friend, Ella. If you don’t want to be part of this I can find someone else to be the maid of honor.”
Jen was up on her feet and pacing back and forth, swinging the glass of wine around haphazardly and increasing the odds of her spilling on the carpet. If she did that, spilled red wine on the carpet, Ella would never be able to get her deposit back. She could just forget it. Not that it mattered.
The deposit was not the priority here. Jen was the priority. Jen, whose face was flushed beneath her perpetually perfect tan and whose normally perfect blonde hair was a mess from her tugging at it. She was upset enough to where she really might just walk out of Ella’s life completely. It was an atrocious thought, something Ella wouldn’t be able to stand.
“No! No, please, I’m sorry. I just wanted to make sure. You see those stories, you know? You see those stories where someone says they knew from the start that a potential mate was no good but they didn’t say anything. Next thing you know, someone winds up in a ditch without a head.”
“Um, what kind of stories are you watching, El?”
“Dateline. Don’t you ever watch Dateline? If you don’t, you should. It’s pretty addictive. And then you’d know to look out for people.”
“Oh lord, Ella, I’m not going to wind up on a Dateline episode, OK? It’s just getting married. People do it every day, to people their friends don’t like even, and they wind up perfectly fine. You know what I think it is?”
Ella shook her head no. She hadn’t been joking about the Dateline thing, but she didn’t want to make too big of a deal out of it, didn’t want to push her point. It looked like Jen was starting to relax again, which was for the best. She was sitti
ng down again, this time in an old, cracked leather armchair that had belonged to Ella’s grandfather.
She had her legs slung over the arm of it and was looking thoughtfully into her glass. Something about that look was unsettling to Ella. She had an idea that whatever she was going to hear wasn’t going to be pleasant. She thought about trying to change the subject, but what was the point? Besides, she was the one who had opened up this particular can of worms. She would have to listen to the conclusion that came from it.
“No. What?”
“I think it’s because you don’t have any experience with men. It’s not your fault, really. You’re pretty and all, but your personality. Well, I love you, of course you know that, but your personality gets in the way with guys.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if that’s true.”
“Oh come on, it is. You do know it, really. It’s the stuffy, quirky thing. Men don’t like that. They don’t like things being difficult like that. They want girls who are fun, breezy.”
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