by R. E. Butler
Desire
Vampire Beloved Book Four
By R. E. Butler
Copyright 2021, R. E. Butler
Desire (Vampire Beloved Book Four)
By R. E. Butler
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
Cover by Jacqueline Sweet
This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is coincidental.
Disclaimer: The material in this book is for mature audiences only and contains graphic sexual content and is intended for those older than the age of 18 only.
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Edited by Missy Borucki
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Thanks to Joyce, Shelley, and Ann for beta reading.
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Table of Contents
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 Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Coming Next from R. E. Butler
Contact the Author
Other Books from R. E.
Coming Next in the Vampire Beloved Series
Desire (Vampire Beloved Book Four)
By R. E. Butler
Traz has seen a lot of things since his vampire turning three centuries ago, but he’s never seen anyone as enchanting as the human who works at the coat check at the club. He feels in his heart that she’s meant to be his, but he has no idea how to approach her.
Avery Banner has been working at Fang since February and loves getting to know the people around the club. Particularly the sexy Traz with the piercing jade green eyes. But he never talks to her, so she feels she’s alone in the intense desires that flow through her whenever he’s around. Her older sister, however, is furious that Avery is working for the vampires. As a staunch supporter of the anti-vampire group The First Church of Humanity, Daria wants Avery out of the club and dating a member of the Cleveland branch of the church ASAP. Avery’s got bigger problems than her fussy sister’s dating advice—an ex-boyfriend is intent on getting back into her life, no matter how many times she says no.
When Traz finds Avery near death, he has no choice but to alter her life in every conceivable way. His intervention makes them both a target for the church. Will Traz be able to keep her safe from the people who want her dead?
Chapter One
Avery Banner grasped the handle of the restaurant’s door and stared through the glass at her older sister. Daria sat at a table near the windows facing the street and looked down at her phone with a frown.
Man, she really didn’t want to be here.
Not that she didn’t love her sister, because she did. But she knew the night’s activities wouldn’t just include dinner—there would be a lecture about dating supernatural creatures and a commentary on her job choice. Both big hot buttons for her sister.
Then there would be the suggestion—for the hundredth time—that Avery date Vince Ford, a bodyguard to the head of the Ohio chapter of the anti-vampire group The First Church of Humanity. Avery met Vince a month earlier and found him to be a total meathead—all brawn and no brain. And an attitude that suggested he thought she needed to be put in her place and not allowed to work for the vampires. She suspected that he would be the sort of boyfriend who would keep his woman on a tight leash, and Avery wasn’t interested in anyone bossing her around.
Except for her boss, Cella. The nicest, prettiest vampire she’d ever met.
Shaking her wild thoughts away, Avery took in a deep breath and squeezed the door handle a little before she tugged it open. She had a plan to counter Daria’s arguments. As she wove through the closely set tables in the diner, her phone buzzed in the pocket of her jeans, and she didn’t have to look at the screen to know it was her ex. She’d dated Jasper for three weeks before realizing he was cuckoo-bananas and ended things. Once she’d broken up with him, she’d had to change her phone number three times and move.
The phone calls were the worst. It would be one call. Then two. Then three. Within an hour, Jasper would have called her thirty times. She never answered, and no matter how often she blocked his number, he still got through.
She wondered why she picked losers. It was like she was a loser magnet.
If only she could get demagnetized.
Plastering a smile on her face, she approached Daria, who put her phone on the table and stood, pulling Avery to her for a cheek kiss. Avery sat across from her, the wooden chair scraping on the tile floor loudly as she scooted herself close to the table. Her phone buzzed again, and Avery took it out of her purse and blocked the number.
Placing the phone on the table, she said, “You look nice, Daria. Did you change your hair?”
Daria fluffed the short chocolate strands, streaked with red. “Jerry gave me a gift card to a salon for our anniversary, and I thought it would be fun to try something new.”
“Looks good on you.”
“You look tired.”
“Thanks,” Avery said dryly.
Daria motioned to the waitress, who brought two menus over to them.
“Can I get you ladies anything to drink while you look over the menu?” she asked.
“Water for me, and coffee for my sister,” Daria said.
“Whoa, hard no on the coffee,” Avery said. “I have to go to bed soon. I’ll have water with lemon, please.”
The waitress nodded and walked away, and Avery lifted the menu to stop from seeing Daria’s pinched face.
“If you were working a normal job, you wouldn’t be a day sleeper like those leeches.” Daria’s voice dripped with sarcasm and disgust.
Avery inhaled and closed her eyes, tempted to grab her purse and split. Instead, she exhaled and put down the menu. “I don’t want to talk about my job.”
“They’re monsters.”
“What did I just say?” Avery ran her hand through her hair with a grunt of frustration. “The vampires at the club are great, not monsters. And the pay is awesome.”
“You’re like a whore, you know. Selling your soul for money.”
Avery rolled her eyes so hard it wouldn’t surprise her if they popped out of her head and bounced on the tile. “A, that’s not the definition of a whore, and b, I’m not selling my soul. I enjoy working at the club. If you’re planning to bitch at me the whole time, then I’m just going to say goodbye now.” Avery put her hand on her purse and pushed back in the chair.
“All right, all right,” Daria said. “Geez. I’m just trying to watch out for you.”
“No, you’re trying to get me to adopt your prejudices, and I won’t do that. Live and let live, I say.”
“They’re dead.”
“Holy shit!” Avery threw up her hands.
Daria grimaced and then said, “I won’t say anything more about your job.”
“Pro
mise?”
With a nod, Daria said, “Of course.”
The waitress returned with their drinks and took their orders. Her screen flashed and she saw an unknown number calling. Swiping her finger to send the call to voicemail, she was about to look at Daria when another call lit up the screen.
“Who is that?” Daria asked.
Avery quickly debated the pros and cons of telling her sister the truth but decided she might as well just be honest. “It’s Jasper.”
Daria’s nose wrinkled. “The animal?”
“The wolf shifter, yes.”
“You broke up with him.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why is he still calling you?”
“Because he’s an ass. He uses blocked and private numbers to call me, so I can’t block him entirely.”
“Get a restraining order.”
“I did. I can’t prove it’s him calling unless I answer. He doesn’t come within five hundred yards of me, but he’s still following me. I can feel it.”
Avery had gone to the wolf pack, but because Jasper was a rogue wolf—not part of any pack or beholden to any Alpha—they couldn’t force him to leave her alone. She’d spoken to the local Wiccan coven and asked for help too. The North Corner had given her a protection ward in the form of a bracelet. Although the pretty bracelet made her aware of his presence and the menace in his intent, it wouldn’t stop him from hurting her.
The only place she felt safe was at the club because Jasper had never followed her inside. She just wished she could live there.
Daria snatched the phone from the table and swiped her thumb across the screen.
“Hey! Don’t!” Avery tried to grab the phone back, but Daria turned so Avery couldn’t reach it without climbing onto the table.
“Who is this?” Daria demanded.
Avery couldn’t quite make out the words, but she recognized Jasper’s voice.
“I heard you’re one of those disgusting dog shifters. My sister has already moved on to a proper human boyfriend and has no need for you any longer. If you don’t stop calling her, I will go to the cops.”
Jasper’s tone rose and Daria pulled the phone away from her ear with a wince. “I hope you rot in hell, you miserable lowlife. Don’t call my sister again!”
Daria swiped her thumb to end the call and slammed the phone on the table. Avery stared at the phone for several quiet moments, waiting for an incoming call alert to appear on the screen. Each minute that passed increased her nervousness. Why wasn’t he calling? He always called back right away.
“See?” Daria said with a triumphant smile. “You just have to know how to handle those dirtbags. And really, Avery? A wolf shifter? It’s bad enough you work for those undead bloodsuckers who are ruining Cleveland, but then to actually date a shifter? It’s beneath you.”
Avery picked up the phone and stared at the blank screen. Then she looked at her sister. “You can throw stones all you like, but when I lost my job at the coffee shop, the only place I could get hired without a college degree was the club. And I know I’m pretty, but I haven’t exactly been beating guys off with a stick. Jasper’s handsome, and he was fun and sweet in the beginning. I couldn’t possibly have known he would turn out to be a possessive asshole.”
“If you dated humans, you wouldn’t have to worry about that.”
“Oh please. There are assholes in every type of creature on this planet, including humans.”
“You’re getting stalked by a dog.”
Avery opened her mouth to tell her sister to change the subject when their food arrived. She’d been hungry when she ordered, but after Daria’s behavior, she was anything but interested in eating.
Daria cleared her throat and smiled sweetly as if she hadn’t just had a verbal standoff with a werewolf who could shred her skin like paper. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you about a party I’m hosting on Friday night. It’s in celebration of Jerry’s promotion to regional captain. Vince will be there and he asked me to invite you as his date since you’re apparently not returning his calls.”
Avery raised her brow. She’d met Vince a month earlier at a church event disguised as a fundraiser for the local homeless shelter. Her sister tricked her into attending and Avery agreed to one date so she could get out of there quickly. She had no interest in a repeat.
“He made it clear on our one and only date that he hates who I work for. Why on earth would he want me to be his date to a party when I’m still working for the vampires?”
The sweet smile slipped to a condescending one. “Vince would be happy to find you a job within the church. And besides, if you marry him, you really wouldn’t need to work. The church is swimming in cash, and Vince is an important man. He guards Sean, and Sean pays his guards generously.”
“You’re all over the place, you know that?” Avery took her purse off the table and pulled her wallet out. “First, you attack my job and the people who hired me, then my dating choices. I didn’t ask to be stalked, and I hate everything about Jasper and what he’s doing. But I will not date Vince or go to your party because you’re just trying to control my life, and I’m fully sick of it.”
Rising to her feet, she pushed back the chair and dropped a twenty on the table. “I don’t need your help finding a date. I don’t need your negative attitude about my job or the people I hang out with. If you don’t like what I’m doing or who I’m doing it with, then feel free to stop calling me. Go back to your husband and your anti-vampire friends and leave me the hell alone.”
Striding through the diner, she held her head high. She should have gone with her original instinct and ran the other direction instead of going into the restaurant. She loved her sister, but she couldn’t take any more of her judgmental behavior. She just didn’t deserve it. They were at a stalemate. Daria wasn’t willing to give up the church, and Avery wasn’t willing to give up her job or the ability to choose her own husband.
It made her sad, but it was what it was. There was no reasoning with crazy.
Climbing behind the wheel of her car, she headed to her apartment to get some sleep. She didn’t work until Monday night, but she was a day sleeper, so she needed to hit the sack. Putting the awful meal at the diner out of her mind, she focused on the road ahead, wondering when she’d hear from Jasper or if her sister’s insulting intervention had finally done the trick and sent him packing.
Avery didn’t think she was that lucky.
Chapter Two
Traz stared at his computer, his eyes blurring a little. Leaning back, he squeezed them shut and rested his head on the back of the leather desk chair. He was so not a numbers guy. He liked tangible things, not computations.
Someone knocked on his open office door. Lifting his head, he smiled at Brone.
“Hey,” Traz said. “Come on in.”
Brone strode into the office and sat in one of the chairs across from the desk. He was a huge male, over a thousand years old, and the only male in the family with double fangs, a gift from his sire’s line.
“I didn’t expect to see you tonight,” Brone said.
The coven offices, located within Fang, the vampire-owned club, were open Monday through Saturday. As a member of the family—coven leader Mishka’s inner circle—Traz could come and go as he pleased mostly, picking his own hours. But hanging out in his chamber only furthered the lonely feelings that he’d been battling lately. And he wasn’t interested in the actual club where humans and vampires danced to pounding music and colorful lasers.
“I wanted to get the cost estimate for the new delivery trucks finished, so Mishka can review them first thing tomorrow,” Traz said.
“How’s it look?”
“Expensive.”
Traz turned the monitor so that Brone could also see the spreadsheet. Back in February, the coven’s enemies—The First Church of Humanity—had repeatedly attacked the delivery trucks that carried SyBl to covens, stores, and gathering places like Fang. The church had run the vehicles off the r
oad, slashed their tires, and at one point, replaced the fuel in the diesel engines with water. Mishka and the family overhauled the Ohio SyBl factory’s security and took the lead on figuring out how to keep the synthetic blood factory safe.
Vampires drank SyBl daily, taking real blood once a week. To say SyBl was essential to their people’s survival was an understatement.
“I’ve got a couple buyers interested in the diesel fleet,” Traz said.
“Why can’t we just replace the diesel engines with electric ones?”
Traz hadn’t really understood much about engine mechanics himself before he’d had to do a deep dive into the world of trucking and delivery logistics. “It would be nice if we could switch them out, but it doesn’t work like that. If we’re going with electric, that means a whole new fleet. But there are no engines to be tampered with.”
“That’s good news.”
“Indeed.”
Brone put his hands on the arms of the chair and pushed himself to a stand. “I’m meeting Arissa in the family room. Would you like to join us? Cella and Cyrus are there, as are Angie, Vex, and Rage.”
“No Mishka and Harmony?” he asked as he gave a once-over to the spreadsheet, saved it, then attached a copy to an email for Mishka.
“They’re at Bistro Rouge.”
The coven-owned restaurant next to Fang was a popular place. They served gourmet food, along with real and synthetic blood. Mishka took the family there before it opened to the public, and Traz had enjoyed a bowl of frozen SyBl with freeze-dried real blood shavings. As a male used to just drinking blood, he’d found it an interesting and fun concept.
“I don’t know,” Traz said as he shut the computer down. “All the happy couples and then me.”
“Temple and Ven are meeting us too. It’s why I came looking for you.”