by Sophie Stern
Vampire Kiss
Sophie Stern
Published by Sophie Stern, 2020.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
VAMPIRE KISS
First edition. October 15, 2020.
Copyright © 2020 Sophie Stern.
Written by Sophie Stern.
Also by Sophie Stern
Alien Chaos
Destroyed
Guarded
Saved
Alien Chaos: A Sci-Fi Alien Romance Bundle
Anchored
Starboard
Battleship
All Aboard
Abandon Ship
Below Deck
Crossing the Line
Anchored: Books 1-3
Anchored: Books 4-6
Club Kitten Dancers
Move
Pose
Climb
Dragon Enchanted
Hidden Mage
Dragon Isle
My Lord and Dragon
The Dragon Fighter
A Dragon's Bite
Lost to the Dragon
Beware of Dragons
Cowboy Dragon
Dark Heart of the Dragon
Once Upon a Dragon
Catching the Dragon
Dragon Isle (Collection: Books 1-3)
Dragon Isle (Collection: Books 4-6)
Dragon Isle (Collection: Books 7-9)
Good Boys and Millionaires
Good Boys and Millionaires 1
Good Boys and Millionaires 2
Honeypot Babies
The Polar Bear's Baby
The Jaguar's Baby
The Tiger's Baby
Honeypot Darlings
The Bear's Virgin Darling
The Bear's Virgin Mate
The Bear's Virgin Bride
Office Gentlemen
Ben From Accounting
Polar Bears of the Air Force
Staff Sergeant Polar Bear
Master Sergeant Polar Bear
Airman Polar Bear
Senior Airman Polar Bear
Red
Red: Into the Dark
Red: Through the Dark
Red: Beyond the Dark
Return to Dragon Isle
Dragons Are Forever
Shifters at Law
Wolf Case
Bearly Legal
Tiger Clause
Sergeant Bear
Dragon Law
Stormy Mountain Bears
The Lumberjack's Baby Bear
The Fablestone Clan
Dragon's Oath
Dragon's Breath
Dragon's Darling
Dragon's Whisper
Dragon's Magic
The Hidden Planet
Vanquished
Outlaw
Conquered
The Wolfe City Pack
The Wolf's Darling
The Wolf's Mate
The Wolf's Bride
Standalone
Saucy Devil
Billionaire on Top
Jurassic Submissive
The Editor
Alien Beast
Snow White and the Wolves
Kissing the Billionaire
Wild
Alien Dragon
The Royal Her
Be My Tiger
Alien Monster
The Paralegal
Roses in the Dark
Honeypot Babies Omnibus Edition
Honeypot Darlings: Omnibus Edition
Red: The Complete Trilogy
First Shift
The Swan's Mate
Eternity: A Vampire Romance
The Feisty Librarian
Polar Bears of the Air Force
Wild Goose Chase
Star Princess
The Virgin and the Lumberjacks
Resting Bear Face
Shifters at Law
Seized by the Dragon
The Fablestone Clan: A Paranormal Dragon-Shifter Romance Collection
Star Kissed
Club Kitten Omnibus
Okami
Dark Favors
Savored
Vampire Kiss
Vampire Kiss
Sophie Stern
Copyright © 2020 by Sophie Stern
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Sometimes one kiss is all you need.
KIMBERLY
I’ve been hunting vampires my entire life. It’s what I do, what I’m good at, and what I live for. There’s just one vampire I’ve never been able to get my hands on, but I want to. The Vampire of Garnetia is a ruthless bastard who killed my friends, and I’ll stop at nothing to find him.
LIAM
I’ve been watching Kimberly for years, waiting for the opportune moment to take her. Kimberly has been a hunter her entire life. She's spent the last few years searching for vampires. More specifically, she’s been searching for me.
Usually, having a human chasing after me would be a fun game of cat and mouse, but with Kimberly, it’s different. I can’t read her mind, and I struggle to track her. There’s something different about her, and I think she just might be my fated mate.
There’s just one problem: she’s a hunter and I’m...
Well, I’m a Vampire Lord.
What could possibly go wrong?
For my silly boy
Contents
Prologue
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Epilogue
Author
Books
Prologue
Kimberly
Nothing says “fuck you” like a vampire standing with his foot on your throat.
The creature pressed harder, digging the toe of his boot into my skin. It hurt, but I wasn’t about to let him know the effect he was having on me. This was the kind of monster I was trained to kill. I wasn’t going to let him get away with hurting me like this. I definitely wasn’t going to let him know how much he was affecting me.
“Talk,” he said again.
“Suck my dick,” I replied. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have one. That was my response to anyone who threatened me or my way of life.
This creature was nothing to me but a blip on the radar that was my existence. I’d figure out a way to wiggle out from beneath his boot. I had to. Failure wasn’t an option for someone like me. It definitely wasn’t an option for today.
The vampire’s boot was cold and wet, and my skin started to feel gross and dirty. Looking up at him, I could see his leather trench coat floating in the breeze. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the night, I could see his cold, calculating face clearly.
Too bad he was a vamp.
If he wasn’t, I might actually think he was kind of hot.
“Nice try, love,” he said. His voice was smooth as silk, but it did nothing but piss me off. “Last chance. Why are you slinking around the Grove?”
He sounded like he actually didn’t know, which was good for me. The bad part was that he’d caught me, so if he told the other vampires that there was a hunter running around, they’d scatter. No longer would this be the hunting ground
I was counting on it to be, and I really, really loved my hunting ground. The Grove made finding vampires to slay really easy. Anytime someone caused any sort of trouble in the human city attached to the Grove, the vampires would just walk back through the iron gates and pretend they were safe.
Well, they weren’t safe.
I opened my mouth, ready to spit out another clever retort, but I was suddenly saved. A bird flew by just then, dangerously close to the vampire’s face, and he was distracted just long enough for him to slightly lighten the pressure on my neck. He probably didn’t even notice how his boot lifted just ever-so-slightly, but it was enough. I slid to the side, rolled over, and leapt to my feet.
Then I ran.
I started moving as fast as I possibly could. I knew that it wasn’t going to be fast enough. No matter how fast I ran, they would be able to catch me. That was the problem with vampires, after all. They always seemed to be just a little bit faster. They were just a little bit stronger than their human counterparts. Regardless of how long a human trained, at the end of the day, we were still mortal.
Sure enough, I felt something hit me from behind and I went barreling down, landing hard on the grass. He was on my back then, holding me down. I struggled, trying to break free, but I couldn’t get of his hold.
“Oh, little huntress, you can’t run from me,” he whispered in my ear. His breath was hot against my skin.
“So, you know who I am.”
Interesting.
He wasn’t a complete fool.
“I know a lot more than you think,” he said.
I believed him. Vampires didn’t live to be hundreds of years old by being idiots. It was almost always the young ones that I was able to kill. That was the thing about being a vampire hunter that people didn’t understand: learning which ones to kill was almost as hard as actually doing the killing. The young ones were stupid and reckless. They were wild and bloodthirsty. They were the ones who were bad and truly dangerous.
The older vampires mostly kept to themselves. Some of them would even stop drinking human blood and switch entirely to animal blood. They didn’t like to be bothered very much. They were tired, and they were ready to relax their way into eternity.
I’d found, during my years as a huntress, that vampires were sort of like cats. The young ones were like kittens: wild and liked to climb things. The older ones were more like older, grey housecats. They were usually a little fat, a little tired, and didn’t like to be bothered to work too hard for food.
The man who had me pinned down?
He was somewhere in-between the two, and he was a wildly dangerous mixture of intoxicating and sensual.
“Please let me go,” I whispered. I wasn’t begging. I wouldn’t do that. Not for a vamp. Still, sometimes being polite paid off more than you bargained for. If he liked the way I sounded, I could distract him again. I could get away. I wouldn’t have to die in the middle of the Grove like a brand-new monster hunter who didn’t know what she was doing.
“Say that again.”
“I’d like to go now,” I whispered.
I was pinned to the ground. He was totally on top of me and I was face-down in the dirt and grass. The Grove didn’t get its name because it was in a busy part of the city. Rather, it was a darkened portion of a long-forgotten area of town. It was separated from the rest of the city by a huge, wrought-iron fence with a huge gate. There were run-down buildings and yards with dead grass throughout the Grove. The sidewalks were cracked with weeds growing through. Everything about this place was disgusting.
Except for him.
“And where do you have to go, huntress?” He whispered. “As we’re talking, your safe house is being raided.”
I stilled.
No.
They couldn’t have found it.
Jacob was there, and so was Clay. Ruth was there, and Tanya was there, and Megan was there. He couldn’t have found it. Who was this vampire? How had he found my friends? And why? They didn’t go hunting nearly as often as I did. They were always busy with other things, and besides, I was the best at hunting. I was quick and efficient, and I didn’t get emotionally attached to anything, really. Killing a vampire didn’t bother me in the least.
“Liar,” I whispered. I couldn’t allow myself to believe that he was being honest about having my friends killed. I knew who this man worked for. He worked for the Vampire of Garnetia: the biggest, baddest motherfucker there was. That was the old vampire who was strong and wise and wicked, and he was the one behind this. I was sure of it.
“Try me,” he said.
“You’re not telling me the truth.”
“I am.”
“Vampires lie.”
“Not when it counts.”
He loosened his hold on me, and I felt him move off of my body and stand up. His jacket made a swishing sound as he moved. I didn’t move an inch, though. There had to be a catch. This had to be a trick somehow.
“Get up,” he said.
I thought about reaching for my stake. If I could get it, I could spin around and shove it up into his heart as I rose to my feet.
“This is a one-time offer,” he said coldly. “Stand.”
I was smart enough to know when I’d been beaten. Smart enough to know when I didn’t have anything else going for me. The vampire could kill me if he wanted to, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.
So, I stood.
I turned around to look at the man who had attacked me. He was wildly beautiful. He was all of the things I wanted in a vampire: beautiful, luxurious hair. He had bright, wonderful eyes. His nose looked like it had been chiseled out of stone. His entire face looked that way. Everything about the vampire seemed fake and perfect at the same time.
“Leave this place,” he said.
“What?”
“Leave it. Never come back to the Grove.”
“The Grove is a cesspool,” I pointed out. Why was I arguing with this creature who wanted to spare my life?
“I don’t care what it is. Leave, and tell the other hunters not to come back. The Grove is off limits. If I see you here again, the Vampire of Garnetia will ensure that you die.”
He turned and walked away, and I stood there stupidly like a total idiot. He walked down the sidewalk, rounded a corner, and disappeared from view.
And I was just left there, stuck with the knowledge that he’d killed all of my friends and I didn’t have anyone to warn to stay away.
Perfect.
1.
Kimberly
Five years later
“Trust me,” I slammed my glass down on the bar counter in front of me. “I’ve been hunting since I was five. I’ve got thirty years of experience. Nothing gets past me.”
“Bullshit,” Raven said. She looked at me, narrowing her eyes. Then she downed her own shot. “Stuff gets past you all the time.”
“Like what? Name one thing.”
“What about your surprise party?”
“That wasn’t my fault.”
“What about Hank’s surprise party?”
“Again, not my fault.”
“What about the fact that he was cheating on you?” She said, raising an eyebrow. Yeah, she knew she’d won with that little question.
“Ouch. I didn’t know this was bring-up-painful-memories day.” I closed my eyes for a second, collecting myself. I should have known something like that was coming, but I hadn’t adequately prepared myself.
“I’m sorry,” Raven said. “It’s just that I think you need to be careful.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but I’m close. I’m not backing down this time.”
I’d failed before. I wasn’t going to fail again. I needed to kill the vampire who had slaughtered my friends. Everyone wanted to bag this particular vampire. Everyone. He was big and powerful and strong, but nobody could get close enough to him to slay him. We all knew he lived in the Grove...somewhere. The problem was that the Grove was a big place, and unles
s you had infinite amounts of time and energy to fight your way to the vampire you wanted, you were dead on arrival.
“You’ve been hunting this vampire for a long time,” she agreed. “But at what cost?”
Raven looked at me softly, as though she was worried about hurting my feelings. Luckily for her, Hank had stripped away any feelings I had. He’d taken my heart and crushed it, completely destroying my self-esteem in the process. All that was left was some hollowed-out version of what used to be a human woman. Who was I now?
I certainly wasn’t brave or strong or in-control of myself anymore. I hated what Raven was saying, but she wasn’t exactly wrong, either. I’d screwed up many times, and I’d been brash. That was part of why Hank had left me, if I was being honest.
He wanted some more stable and predictable. Hell, he’d even said that out loud to me.
It’s not that I don’t love you, but I need someone I know is going to be home at dinnertime.
He’d never really understand my need to hunt. The profession had never been something that interested him. He’d been an accountant, and perhaps that was part of what had drawn me to him. I liked the fact that Hank wasn’t competing with me to be the world’s greatest hunter.
He was just...
Well, he was just Hank.
We’d been Hank and Kim, and then we’d been nothing.
“I don’t care what the cost is,” I said carefully. I reached for the new shot the bartender sat in front of me. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Raven placed her hand over mine.
“You have a problem,” she said.
“I’ve got a lot of problems.”
“You have a problem with not being able to quit,” she pointed out.
“I’m aware.”
Raven sighed and shook her head. She leaned back in the barstool, and I knew what she was thinking.
“You think I’m blowing this.”
“No.”
“You think I’m wasting my life.”