by Kallysten
“She just… left?” I asked in a small voice.
He nodded.
“That means… that means I can’t leave, doesn’t it?”
He snorted. “You tell me. I assume you tried?”
I swallowed hard.
“What she said… about you… about you killing me… She was joking, right? She didn’t mean…”
His gaze finally came up to me. In his eyes, his dark, bottomless eyes, I could see the answer to my question without him needing to say a word.
I didn’t know, still, what he was. It was only later that he told me about vampires and compulsion, and it took a lot more time before he finally told me why Miss Delilah had chosen me as her gift to him—why, probably, she had hired me as her assistant, years earlier, in anticipation of the right moment.
At that time, however, I only knew two things: no, she hadn’t been joking. Yes, he was perfectly capable of killing me.
“I won’t kill you,” he said in a gruff voice, and I wasn’t sure I could believe him.
I wasn’t sure either why it felt like a ‘yet’ should have ended his sentence.
Truth be told, I wasn’t sure about much that night. But I was pretty certain my life was about to change.
I could never have guessed how much.
To be continued in May 2013 in My Reluctant Warden.
Excerpt from
Out of the Box
I had managed to calm down on my way home, being out of his presence helped. But now that I’ve picked up the pen to put all of it in writing before I forget, my heart is trying to break free of my chest again. He’s so different from the other men that passed through my nights. I knew he would be, of course, it was part of the thrill, but while he did what I wanted, what I expected, it’s everything else that made me wonder about possibilities I had never considered before. I’m not a prude, but what I saw in that box…
I guess I should start from the beginning.
I went to a new club last night. I heard about it when I first moved here, but it took me a while to work up the courage to go. It’s a vampire-friendly place. There isn’t a single mirror in it, not like regular clubs where it’s easy to know if you’re dancing with a human or a vamp. It was hard to tell, of course, but I think maybe half the crowd last night had fangs. And the other half… Well, most of them weren’t shy about showing off their bite marks. Necks, wrists, shoulders, it was almost like showing off tattoos. I felt a bit naked, with no marks of my own to display. And yes, I’ve got to admit that’s the reason I went there in the first place.
I’ve always been fascinated by vampires. I guess it was just a matter of time before I slept with one. In a way, it’s a bit surprising that it took me so long. It’s been fifteen years since I left home for college and started that long string of charming princes that turned into lousy frogs after a few nights or a few months. Fifteen years since I first had sex on that too small dorm room bed. Last night, when he touched me, I felt like a virgin all over again.
I had been at the club for a little while when he arrived, but when he came onto the dance floor, my eyes went straight to him—and never left. He isn’t particularly tall, and his clothes weren’t flashy in the least, suit pants and a beige shirt unbuttoned halfway down his dark honey chest. But something in the way he stood, in the way he moved, drew me in. I was caught the moment I saw him, and he didn’t even know I was there. Three or four girls descended on him and started dancing around him, close enough that they were practically humping him, but at the same time he seemed to be alone, dancing by himself, for his own pleasure. And let me tell you, he knows how to dance. He dances… It’s going to sound stupid, but I was going to say, he dances the same way he makes love. With the same sensuality, the same strength, and that look in his eyes… Yes, I got to compare both things firsthand.
When I stepped onto the dance floor and toward him, I just wanted to get close. I wasn’t planning on actually trying to talk to him or anything else. The girls around him were younger than me. Prettier. Sexier. But his eyes looked past them and into mine, he raised his hand toward me, and before I knew it, I had taken it and I was dancing with him. Against him. Close enough that I could tell he had no body heat, but by then I was already sure he was a vamp.
As we danced, his fingers fluttered over my arms, my back, my sides, barely brushing wherever my dress left skin exposed through those diamond cutouts I love so much. I love them even more after last night. To feel his touch like that, so innocent and at the same time a promise for much, much more… It was intoxicating. I didn’t drink more than a glass of wine last night, but I felt a little drunk when I was in his arms, moving alongside him. I was drunk on his touch, on the slight smile on his lips, and on the heat in his eyes. They are very dark, but I could have sworn I saw flames dancing through them.
I don’t remember what words exactly he murmured when he leaned so close that his lips brushed against my ear. I remember only that I trembled when I said yes, and his hand slipped down my arm to clasp mine. He led me through the crowd, and a few dirty looks were thrown my way. A few envious ones, too.
When we reached the parking lot, he opened the passenger door of his car for me and I had this fleeting thought that if I climbed in, there was no turning back—and no telling how the night would end either. I had that fantasy of being bitten by a vampire, of being needed on that very primal level, but I guess one can never know until after the fact whether a vamp is out to feed or kill.
He gently closed the door after me, and only then did I realize that I had made my decision when I had come to the club, before I ever laid my eyes on him. That thought calmed me enough that, once he had started the car, I managed to ask his name.
“Anando,” he replied, flashing me a smile. “What’s yours?”
“Virginia.”
Continued in Out of the Box.
Part 1 available for free on the author’s website.
Complete series available on Amazon and other retailers.
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About the Author:
Kallysten’s most exciting accomplishment to date was to cross a few thousand miles and an ocean to pursue (and catch!) the love of her life. She has been writing for over fifteen years, and always enjoyed sharing her stories and listening to the readers' reactions. After playing with science fiction, short stories and poetry, she is now trying her hand, heart and words at paranormal romance novels.
To see her other stories, including free short stories and sample chapters, visit http://original.kallysten.net
Also available:
Living Out of the Box
The very first time Virginia spent a night with the vampire Anando, she couldn’t have begun to imagine all the sensual and sexual games she would experience with him. She also couldn’t have imagined that she would fall in love with him, or he with her.
As she moves in with him and they find their places in each other’s lives, the discoveries start again. A few of them happen through old games revisited: roleplay, public sex or a familiar dildo in a different hand. Other discoveries come through new toys, some battery-operated, others custom-made to fit just right. And yet more discoveries come from playing with old and new partners.
But in the end, the one lesson that remains the same might be the most important of all: love.
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His Lover’s Fangs
Ever since attending the Academy together, Olivia and Logan have been partners: training partners before they graduated and became Special Enforcers, romantic partners in a sizzling relationship, and finally partners on the hunting field, where they track killer vampires together.
When Olivia succumbs to one of their enemies and is reborn with fangs of her own, their relationship takes a dramatic turn, especially after Logan kills her Sire. On the night when they first stand in front of each other again,
they’re not partners anymore, but instead hunter and prey. But which of them is the hunter now, and which of them is the prey?
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>> Amazon UK – DE – FR – IT - ES
Bodyguards (QuickSilver Codex #1)
On the verge of her twentieth birthday, Vivien’s worries are those of a typical young woman: doing well in college, gaining more independence, and maybe managing to show Brad, her classmate and sometimes jogging partner, that she wouldn’t mind taking their burgeoning relationship to a different level.
Everything changes in the blink of an eye. Vivien stumbles into a knife fight, watches a man die in front of her, and soon listens, stunned, as Brad and his brother Aedan tell her a story of magic, vampires and a murderous ruler intent on killing a princess in hiding – a tale in which she is the princess and heir to a realm she didn’t know existed.
Vivien’s first instinct is to refuse to believe this incredible tale, even if it comes from a man she is attracted to. But when her self-proclaimed bodyguards use magic to take her to a different world, the edges of reality start blurring and Vivien has to figure out who she truly is.
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A note from the author
If you enjoyed this story, would you consider taking a few moments to leave a review or rating on Amazon? I would be ever so grateful!
Thank you,
Kallysten
Copyright © 2013 Kallysten
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The right of Kallysten to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First Published 2013
All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Edited by Lilith Kyper