by Sam Crescent
Table of Contents
Evernight Publishing
DEDICATION
LOVING A VAMPIRESam CrescentCopyright © 2013Prologue
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
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Copyright© 2013 Sam Crescent
ISBN: 978-1-77130-516-7
Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor: Karyn White
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
To my readers, thank you so much for your wonderful support.
LOVING A VAMPIRE
Sam Crescent
Copyright © 2013
PROLOGUE
Augustus looked out over the sea. The latest human he’d turned to a vampire was chained at his feet awaiting her sentencing. When had his life become so empty? He’d been a vampire for over two hundred years, and yet he couldn’t find one person to spend his life with.
Over the years he’d escaped many things, capture, death, the sun. None of the elements had struck him, and yet he couldn’t find a single person to spend his future with. His life was a long line of feeding and empty fucking. No one wanted to have a conversation with him. They were always more interested in being turned so they could start on their own rampage.
“Please, Augustus, I’m sorry,” Helen said. She lay begging at his feet. Her punishment was already destined. She’d been a beautiful female but had grown tiresome as she killed every human she walked past in her thirst for blood.
“You’re sorry now. For how long are you sorry? A day? A week? Or until another human has cut themselves? I wonder, which one.” Augustus turned back to look at where he’d spent the last twenty years. It was easy to start out in a new town. He could pretend to age for a while, and only when he couldn’t keep his appearance close to his supposed age did people gossip.
“I swear, I didn’t mean it.”
“I’ve kept you for a month, Helen, and in that time you’ve caused me more problems than you’re worth. Tell me, why should I help you?” he asked.
“Because I’m newly turned. You warned me this could happen. I know I’m not perfect, and I’m sorry. I always try to be perfect for you,” she said.
He laughed. She lay beneath him, and yet her mind always turned to the blood.
“I don’t know why I bother.” In the next moment he snapped her neck and tore her head from her body. Staring at her lifeless form, Augustus set her aflame. Another of his human turnings was gone from him. Not all of his human turnings went wrong because of their uncontrollable urge to kill, their blood lust as he called it. Some of the people he turned hated being a vampire, and so they killed themselves. And he felt responsible for all of their deaths. None of their kind could physically kill themselves, so they needed to get another of their kind to kill them.
The humans he’d turned who hated being vampires would beg him to kill them, and when he refused, they went on a rampage, leaving him no choice but to kill them after all.
She’ll be the last.
After seeing Helen’s latest destruction Augustus realised he couldn’t bring another human over to his life. They gave in to the blood lust too easily or were too damned depressed. He’d been cursed to be a vampire. Being turned into a monster hadn’t been a choice for him. His turning had simply been with him in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was nothing he could do to turn the clock back. He was doomed to be a vampire until someone killed him.
He’d met many vampires on his travels. Some of them looked as miserable as he felt, and others looked happy to be alone. He couldn’t recall a single vampire in love.
Love, a sentiment he’d hoped would die with his age. Still, he found himself yearning for love and friendship.
Augustus watched the body burn.
“I must be the only living vampire who wants a friend and a lover.” Shaking his head, he waited until the fire died down and there was nothing left before moving away.
Love for his kind was not heard of. He kept his secret and used the humans he could to get what he wanted. Augustus hated his life. Humans were so fragile, and he always had to be careful in case they lost their way.
Turning away from the sight of the darkened ocean, Augustus headed away to find a new home.
****
One hundred years later
The scent of death clawed along the streets. Augustus watched the humans as they passed. Their misery was clear on their faces, but the misery also filled their minds. All of them hated their life or some form of it. He stood in the worst area of the city where death, sex, and decay were well known.
Augustus came here in order to make himself feel better. He wasn’t hurting for money, and he’d never die of disease. Sex was easy as he wasn’t an ugly man. He knew how to use his cock to satisfy the women he fucked.
No, he came to this part of the city in order to make him feel better with what he did possess in the world.
He couldn’t walk in the sun, but he didn’t have to worry about dying a horrid death. Living for a couple of hundred years guaranteed that. His birthday was tomorrow, and he’d be three hundred years old. Augustus chuckled wondering what the media would think of his age.
Moving down a darkened street, Augustus paused.
“I don’t want to die.” Thoughts struck him hard. A man was dying, and yet he was still fighting it.
“I shouldn’t have taken the fucking shit. Never trust anyone. All alone.”
He followed the sound until he stumbled on a blond haired man lying on his back. His eyes were glassy. Listening to his body, Augustus was shocked by the strong thoughts, and yet he was dying. His organs were shutting down. The scent of a strong drug leaked off him.
Augustus stared down one part of the alley and another. No one was in sight. They were alone. Looking at the man, Augustus ran his hands through his pockets.
“Gregory Clarke.” The ID was old. The man on the floor didn’t look like the man in the picture.
Intrigued by the fight inside the dying man’s mind, Augustus slit open his wrist and pressed the bloody wrist to Gregory’s mouth.
Once he’d fed him enough blood he watched as the blood started to fix what was broken.
Vampire blood was miraculous and a cure. His blood would mend Gregory for a time. If his blood started to leave Gregory’s system then it was only a matter of time until the human died.
Picking the human up in his arms, Augustus made his way home. He stuck to back streets out of sight of everyone.
His house was off the beaten track and away from prying eyes with a fully functioning basement.
Taking him down to the basement, Augustus tended to the man on the bed. He was filthy, and Augustus took the time to wash him, cleaning away the muck and grime.
Once he was finished, Augustus watched over him throughout the day. He locked the basement door like he’d been doing for some time.
The sun was high in the sky when Gregory gasped, opening his eyes and jumping to his feet.
Augustus laughed as Gregory pressed hands against his body.
“I’m alive?”
“You’re alive.”
“No, I was dying. I felt it. I should be dead.” Gregory kept staring at him and then around the room.
The blood he’d given the human had filled out his face. He looked more like the man in the photograph.
“Did you molest me?” Gregory asked.
In one movement, Augustus was in front of him. “Do I look like someone who would molest a dying man?”
“Shit, what the fuck are you? Are you insane?” Gregory scrambled away.
Rolling his eyes, Augustus took a sip of the blood he kept supplied in the house. His fangs grew, and Gregory let out the longest, most feminine squeal Augustus had ever heard.
“Seriously, I’ve known women with stronger back-bones than you.”
He was bored with the reaction.
“Wait, did you turn me into a vampire?” Gregory asked.
“No. I saved you from dying. You were fighting it even though your body was shutting down. You shouldn’t use drugs.”
“Drugs. Shit, when was my last fix?”
He heard the needs coursing around Gregory’s head. Moving back in front of him Augustus caught his head. “You will not use drugs anymore.”
“I can’t stop.” The pain in Gregory’s voice caught at him.
“Do you want to stop?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Gregory licked his lips. “You can hear my thoughts.”
“I can hear a hell of a lot. Now, you can either go out there and die by the time night falls again, or you can stay, talk, and we’ll get you back to being you.”
“What do you mean I’ll be dead by nightfall?” Gregory asked.
“My blood will only heal you as long as my blood is pure. Being a vampire is not like in the books. There are risks and rules.” Augustus had gotten tired of explaining what being a true vampire meant to humans. They were all under assumptions made by books and popular movies and what was on television. When he’d been turned there were no such things to warn him of the dangers that lurked at night.
Gregory sat down on the sofa and stared at him. Augustus was proud of the man. He clearly wasn’t happy with the way his life was. Augustus would help him. There was something powerful in Gregory. The man was a fighter, and he could respect it.
Over the years their friendship grew. Augustus couldn’t believe he’d been so lucky to gain a human friend. Gregory meant so much to him, but he still wished for a woman. Their time together was precious to him. If he could find a friend surely he could find a woman to love and to call his own?
Chapter One
Augustus Hunter was over three hundred years old, and in that time he’d taken many lovers. Other than his human wife he’d never been in love. Finding love as a vampire was impossible. There was no chance. The only friendship he had was with Gregory. For the last five years he’d been keeping the human alive. It was probably cruel of him not to turn Gregory, but he couldn’t let the man die. He cared about him too much. Still, there was no woman for him to keep around.
No woman, in the past, had lived long enough to entertain him. The few humans he’d taken as lovers had bored him within days of turning. Augustus couldn’t remember another time he’d been so deeply attracted to a woman. He couldn’t recall a time when he’d been so obsessed that he spent countless hours of his night sitting in a shitty café, drinking even worse coffee. The woman he couldn’t stop thinking about worked in the café where he now sat. Shaking his head, Augustus wondered why he was wasting his time. Still he sat and stared across the café as he watched his current prey, Marianna Lawrence. She was pretty, in her early twenties with the prettiest red hair he’d ever seen. He liked the way she smelled—like rich, dark chocolate. She never spoke to him other than to take his order. He’d noticed during all his visits she never spoke to anyone. There was no deep or meaningful conversation. Marianna worked her butt off to earn her wage and then went home. Her days were filled with the same mindless routine that humans seemed determined to live.
There was nothing exciting or exhilarating about her life. Marianna was wasting away on the stupidity of a human existence.
She walked by his table to place the cup of coffee he’d ordered in front of him. Her flesh was pale from lack of sunshine. Did this woman even go out in the sun?
“Anything else?” she asked.
“No.”
Nodding her pretty head, she turned away to go to another customer. For the past fifty years he’d been alone with no one to keep him company until he found Gregory. Unfortunately, Gregory had a cock and not a cunt. No human had intrigued him like Marianna did. There was something about her pale skin and red hair that pulled him in. The stirring in his loin startled him. He loved sex and to fuck whatever he liked, but he’d never felt such a stirring before. The stirring made him feel something more, something deeper. Customers filed out of the café without looking at him. None of them were aware of the danger that surrounded them. He could kill without anyone seeing him. The speed with which he moved couldn’t be seen with the human eye.
Being over three hundred years old gave him powers no human could ever comprehend. Augustus held so much power within his grasp, and yet he was sat in a café in the middle of a shitty area watching a red-headed waitress. Why? There was nothing amazing about her. She was on the plump side with large tits and thick hips. Her flesh would be easy to pierce, and she’d taste good. The plump women always did taste good.
Her weight aside he couldn’t find anything to grip him.
Why was he here?
Shaking his head, he lifted the cup to his lips. The coffee tasted bitter. He liked to have his human drip several droplets of blood from the wrist into his drink. If he was so inclined he could get Marianna to do it through his mind control. For some reason he didn’t want to control her that way.
Women, human women especially, were made to be controlled by men. He was born in an era when women were nothing but property. Growing up in England had cemented him in a lot of ways. As the saying went, you can take the man out of the century, but you can’t take the century out of the man. Augustus felt the same about his women. They did as they were told, and at least they used to dress in a lot more clothing when he was younger.
“I’m sorry to rush you along,” Marianna said, pulling a cloth from her apron. “But the boss is ready to close.”
Augustus smiled. “Tell him I’ll finish my coffee and then leave.”
Marianna nibbled her bottom lip as she left. He heard the boss yelling at her seconds before the rude man approached his table. The boss glared down at him. Marianna stood several feet behind her boss.
“I need for you to leave. I’m ready to close for the night.”
“I’ll go when I’m ready,” he said.
“Look, buddy.” The boss made to touch him. Augustus made eye contact with the only other man in the room.
“I said I’ll finish my coffee before leaving.”
The boss stared at him before repeating the words to Marianna and leaving them alone. She smiled at him then started wiping down the tables.
“I’m sorry about that. He can be a little hard to deal with at times.”
“You’d be surprised how easy it is to control men of his tastes.” The boss had a crush on Marianna. She didn’t know it, but Augustus sensed it from the moment he first saw the man. His senses were accurate with all the time he’d spent perfecting them. He spotted liars, cheaters and knew nearly everything a human was thinking. His skills made him the perfect predator.
He was getting thirsty.
“Well, I know Donald can be a problem. He means well.”
“You feel indebted to him?” Augustus asked.
She b
lushed, looking down at the floor. “Yeah, I do. He’s been so kind to me.”
He also knew why Donald had been so nice to her. The man wanted to fuck the pretty red-head and find out if she was a natural red. There were times like these where Augustus hated the human world. Innocence and niceness were never qualities that were valued. For too long he’d seen what happened to people with these qualities. Unlike the books or the movies, nothing good came of it. They were the first people to be hurt or killed.
Marianna would be tainted if Donald had his way. From the way the man was looking at her, Marianna had about three weeks before he cornered her and demanded a payment for his kindness.
Donald’s kindness came at a price, sex.
She didn’t even realise how quickly her life could turn. Staring at her pale skin as she tried to get the tables spotlessly clean Augustus couldn’t handle it. He may hate the Donalds of this world, but he was one just like them. Augustus preyed on the weak and made sure his opponent would always lose in a fight. She passed him, and the scent of rich chocolate drifted toward him.
“Marianna, how long will you be?” Donald asked, licking his lips. The lust reverberating off the man disgusted Augustus.
“Not long.” She pointed to several tables she needed to finish. “I’ll have it done. I know you want to get home to your wife.”
Donald didn’t want to go to his wife. He had every intention of setting Marianna up in an apartment of his choice so he could visit her whenever he wanted.
Staring at the woman, Augustus knew that lifestyle would kill his sweet Marianna. Throwing some change on the table he stood up.
“Thank you for your service.”
He walked out of the café and scented the night. The town was filled with the rotting decay of the city and the cackle of humans close by.
Augustus was hungry.
****