So I'm Not a Vampire? (Peaches - A Paranormal Shifter Romance Book 1)

by Rosi S. Phillips

  Screech! Hold up. Wait a minute.

  My eyes widened, and I cocked my head and regarded her like she’d just shit her pants and was eating it. “I must have had temporary insanity, because I’m pretty sure you didn’t just say what I think you said.”

  The woman raised her eyebrow and looked me up and down again. “That you’re a whore who lets men do whatever they—”

  I took a step closer so we were only a few inches apart. “I will cut you, bitch. I will break off this heel and go Hellsing on your ass.”

  I hadn’t grown up in the best areas of Burlington. I’d gone to an okay public school, fallen in with the wrong crowd several times because they were the only ones who’d accept me, and learned a thing or two about beating people up. Most of the time, people saw a fat, white-skinned redhead and thought I was weak, easily manipulated, and stupid. That wasn’t to say I didn’t have my dumb blonde moments occasionally, but I was by no means weak, stupid, or easily manipulated.

  She took a step closer until the tips of our noses almost touched. “I don’t think your master would allow that.”

  “Bane isn't my master.” I narrowed my eyes. “And he doesn’t allow me to do anything. I do what I want.”

  I saw it, then, the flicker of triumph in her eyes. All conversation stopped, and suddenly I was knocked back by a strong wind. I’d been two seconds away from punching the bitch in the face, and now I was suddenly behind Bane’s back, a little dizzy from the movement. I whipped my head around and saw that every vampire was looking at us. Before it had been my imagination, but now? God, I might actually be dinner.

  “You heard her, Malik,” the woman sneered, using an Arabic word I didn’t know. “You are not her master.”

  Then it hit me. I wanted to bang my head against something with how stupid I’d been. The one thing Bane had told me not to do, I’d done the minute I was out of his sight. Anger had gotten the best of me, and now it might be the death of me.

  Bane flashed me a look over his shoulder, but this one didn’t say a thing. I had no clue what was going through his mind, and that freaked me out a little. But then he smiled at me—tightly, but it was still a smile.

  “That’s right, khadina.” Bane stepped aside and put his arm around me again. I watched the blonde’s eyes bug out and her fangs tear her bottom lip open. “I am not her master, and she is not my servant.”

  Bane took a deep breath and brushed his lips over my forehead. Only I could feel his fangs graze my skin and the tightness in his muscles. His eyes might not have been talking to me, but his body was screaming that he wanted to fucking rip my throat out. I swallowed reflexively as he pulled back.

  “Georgia is my wife.”

  Chapter Nine

  It’s a Nice Day For a Goth Wedding

  Um ... um ... um ...

  My brain stopped working. It just clocked out as every vampire in the room exploded. I couldn’t be sure if they were even speaking in English, because I was still reeling from Bane’s words.

  I think I heard words like “king” and “council” and “queen” thrown around, but I couldn’t be sure. My hair was flying around as vampires zipped around the room like mini tornados. I was also feeling really threatened, and a couple of eyes with flecks of red in them turned my way. I wondered if this was what Bane had meant when he’d told me to be careful?

  “The ramifications of your actions will last far beyond this night, habibi,” Bane purred silkily.

  I whipped my head around to look at him and got a crick in my neck. I winced and rubbed at the muscle. Around us, people were still talking in loud demanding voices, but my ADD kicked in and I hyperfocused on Bane.

  How was he talking in my mind? I thought only the Bane cat could do that. And how did he know my name? I don’t remember thinking it. Could he just pick whatever memory he wanted out of my mind? That was disconcerting.

  “I’ve always been able to talk to you this way. There’s just never been a point.”

  I turned back to the vampires around us and spoke to him through our weird mind link. “Can’t everyone hear us?”

  I watched Bane watch the crowd closely, looking for the slightest twitch in anyone’s face. “No, I don’t think anyone can. But then, no one can do what you’re doing right now.”

  “What do you mean?” This night just kept getting weirder and weirder. Heck! My life was weird. I should be used to it by now.

  “You are the only creature I know of that has the ability to hear a vampire’s thoughts. Not even other vampires have this ability.”

  Wait! I could hear a vampire’s thoughts? But I’d only heard Bane that one time he’d been in cat form. I hadn’t heard anything else, and I sure didn’t hear vampire thoughts now.

  “I’ve been using mental barriers, and you haven’t been around any other vampire but me until tonight. I’m sure if you focused, you could do it easily. But we don’t have time for that now, habibi. You must make a choice. I claimed you as my wife, and that means—”

  “Silence!” a man roared from the other side of the room, the sound so loud he cut off Bane’s mind message to me.

  Shit! I tried to reach out to Bane’s mind, but his attention was elsewhere, and suddenly mine was too as a five-foot-five vampire sped across the room and stopped in front of us. The guy was dressed like a punk rocker with spiky brown hair, baggy pants with chains hanging from them, and a Slipknot t-shirt that was torn in different places. He didn’t look much older than seventeen, and yet it was his eyes that told me he could have been my great, great, great, great, great grandpa. Or something like that.

  The vamp looked sharply at me as a girl slipped next to him and linked their arms. She looked just as young, but she was a few inches taller than him. They were dressed in similar clothes, except she had on a skirt with silver chains and lace-up, knee-high boots. I stared at the girl for a second. There was something ... different about her. I didn’t know why, but I’d bet all my new threads that she wasn’t a vampire.

  “Bane.” The teen looked up at him, totally ignoring me. What was I? Chopped liver?

  “Luther,” Bane returned with the same removed, slightly bored tone.

  “Peaches,” I threw in for fun. Yup, I just opened my mouth and stupid came out.

  Luther turned his eyes on me and all I saw was red in them. I flinched back hard and tried to run, but Bane held me fast. Fucking imbecile didn’t realize that I wasn’t a vampire and still had blood. It was probably tasty, delicious blood if I smelled like sweet wind, honeysuckle, and other stuff.

  Oh why oh why did I want to go to a vamp party? Didn’t Buffy and Twilight and the other movies and shows teach me anything? Nothing good ever happens at vampire parties to humans! Granted, I had already died, but I wasn’t about to try my luck and do it again.

  “Girl,” the kid, Luther, addressed me.

  “Malika,” Bane growled.

  “You mean ma’am,” I snapped. I wanted to bludgeon myself. See, Peaches got killed because she’s stupid and people can easily manipulate her.

  The kid’s lips twitched in what I hoped was a suppressed smile and not a frown. I’d take being the butt of the party if my blood stayed in my body. I would strip naked and dance around like an idiot if I could walk out of here with the same cell count I’d walked in with.

  Red eyes cocked his head and smiled at me. “You’re Bane’s wife?”

  Oh, damn! Bane had declared me his wife. Well, that protected me at least, right? “Yes! Yup! I’m his wife, he’s my husband. And you can’t kill me, right?”

  That was the important thing here: not dying again. I would be Bane’s servant, his strumpet, his freaking dog for all I cared. I’d take my life over my pride every day of the week. There were few cases where I wouldn’t do that, but getting eaten by a teen in an underground nightclub where people threw up in front of you wasn’t one of those cases.

  “To be Bane’s wife”—red eyes asked carefully—“you do understand what that means, don’t you?�
��

  Bane’s grip tightened around my waist. I looked around at the vampires staring at us. Casper the friendly vampire was right behind the Luther guy, and standing next to him was the blonde bimbo who’d gotten me into this mess. No, I amended, I got myself into this mess. This wasn’t grade school, where the worst thing I’d get was detention or suspension if I let my temper get away with me; these were vampires.

  “Peaches.” Bane’s voice was in my head again. I didn't know what to say to him. Hell, I didn't even know how I was saying what I was saying to him. My brain hurt. I felt like an infant crying in a crib. I just needed someone to pick me up, to guide me and tell me what to do.

  I knew that wouldn't happen here. Centuries-old beings looked at me, waiting for me to make a choice. I hated choices. I'd been Undecided for all of my two years at college. I hadn't even chosen to be a manager at Kmart; the job had just been handed to me. Except, I realized, since I'd met Bane, I'd been making all my own choices; stupid, reckless ones, but they were mine.

  Change. The unknown. Choices. They bugged me, creeped me out. But here I was again, dealing with it. It was another one-or-the-other choice, this or that, marriage to a vampire or dinner of one.

  “I don’t understand what that means,” I said with far more confidence then I felt, considering I was letting everyone know I was uninformed. “But if it means that everyone stops looking at me like dessert and puts away their fangs, then sure, we’re married. ”

  “Then where is your ring?” the blonde bimbo hissed. “It is custom in human culture to have a ring, is it not?”

  I just barely stopped myself from snorting. Yeah, ‘cause announcing it to a group of immortals wasn’t enough.

  “Casper,” Bane called out. The other vampire stepped forward and took off a ring, then handed it to him.

  It was a silver ring in the shape of vampire teeth. Bane slid it on my ring finger. Yeah, forget the clear princess cut diamond on the platinum band surrounded by two half-carat emeralds. A girl always dreamed about a two dollar fang ring being slipped on her ring finger.

  “What is that human saying?” Luther’s lips twisted and he looked at me with a mix of amusement, pity, and curiosity. “Ah, yes. I now pronounce you vampire husband and ... unknown wife.”

  I’m not sure what I expected after that. Actually, that’s a lie. I sort of expected something epic to happen. Like I’d magically get pregnant and go into labor because of something sacred, blah, blah, blah. I also sort of expected an outburst. I mean, here I was, some unknown chick marrying a vampire in an underground goth club. That just smelled like a book. It had that texture and feel, if, uh, events could have texture and feel.

  The point is, I just expected a climax. A big ass banner in one way or another announcing I was married to a vampire. I didn’t get that, and it sort of bummed me out. It made the entire event feel real.

  Bane turned to me and smiled faintly. He’d obviously been reading my thoughts, and I didn’t doubt almost everyone in the room had too, yet no one did anything. “Wife.”

  I couldn’t help the half shrug I gave him, sort of a “well, this is officially a thing” shrug. “Husband.”

  In a windowless room, surrounded by hungry vampires with sweaty pits and feet that felt like needles were being forced into them, I was married. No one lunged for my throat and a magical fire didn’t suddenly spring into existence and threaten to burn the place down. I realized that the things I expected to be awesome and dangerous were usually safe; it was the safe shit that got me in trouble. Well, that and my big, fat mouth.

  Chapter Ten

  Just Call Me Hot Air

  “So … .” I’d been starting off every sentence with that for the last ten minutes, but I hadn’t actually been able to say anything else. I wanted to say that I’d always wanted to be married and I couldn’t be upset with my groom. But I also wanted to say that just because we were married didn’t mean I was about to give him my blood or do it with the guy.

  Bottom line: I was confused. After Bane had given me the ring, things had settled down and mellowed out. Then I’d been introduced to several different vampires as we worked around the room. Each vampire had had a similar reaction to me: distaste first and curiosity next. No one at the shindig seemed to know what I was, so the party had been a bust.

  Now we were heading back to our hotel, newlyweds, no closer to figuring out what I was than when we’d first met. I decided to change the topic completely and stop obsessing over something I couldn’t change. “I’m worried about my family.”

  I’d tried to push the hard things I wasn’t ready to deal with aside. They’d crept up a few times, but each time I’d found a way to distract myself. Locked in a car with my new husband, there wasn't much to talk about aside from what had just happened at the goth club, and I was not one to suffer silence. Dealing with unresolved things it was.

  “Did you want to get in contact with them?” For once Bane wasn’t speeding down the streets, and I wasn’t in crash position. The question was harmless, but loaded with meaning.

  I sighed and stared out the window, watching the city lights play against the night’s darkness. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  I felt Bane’s warm hand on my thigh. He squeezed it gently. “We’re family now, habibi. For better or worse, I’m with you ‘til the end.”

  Yup, he was. Luther had explained to me the ramifications of a vampire marriage after I’d declared myself Bane’s wife. He also explained that, had I not chosen to marry Bane, he would have let me go free. Not killing me. Figures.

  Vampire marriage, as it was explained to me, was for life—Bane’s or mine. There was no such thing as divorce between spouses who weren’t both vampire, because the non-vamp could spill the beans and scare off their human food, blah, blah, blah. Bottom line was that Bane and I were stuck together until we died, and since I still didn’t know how vamps died—or even how I would die for that matter—we had a long marriage ahead of us.

  “Ya know, Bane, I always pictured myself in a white dress with a large crimson sash. My daddy would walk me down the aisle, and my groom would be waiting at the altar with a grin on his face. I imaged a beautiful church with stained glass windows and bright light shining through.”

  I turned to my vampire husband still clad in a black mesh top and skintight leather pants. Then I looked down at my red bustier and leather mini skirt. I’d taken off my heels as soon as we’d gotten into the car and I wiggled my naked toes. Unorthodox would describe my wedding perfectly, and “nothing like the books or movies” would also be an apt description.

  Yet, it had been awesome. I mean, I was married. Really, truly married. And not having to worry about divorce was also a plus, unless Bane turned out to be an abusive jackass. I’d always thought I would marry Rob, buy the small house in the suburbs, have a kid or two, and be marginally happy. That was what I’d always been taught. Real life was a little drab, but I could always escape into books, movies, and shows.

  But I was married to a vampire. I had no family or friends. I had no clue what I was. I was dead. The list of craziness that was my life went on and on and on. It. Was. Fantastic.

  “I’m glad you can see the positive in all of this. I was worried there for a second,” Bane said as the car picked up speed.

  “Yeah, well, took me a while,” I mumbled as I turned to stare at Bane. I’d never been the wallowing type. I’d always been the look forward, have memories, and try to not make the same mistake again type of girl. Sure I missed my old life and old friends, but that was gone. Stressing about my family, lease, or other stuff wouldn’t do me any good now. I was dead to them all. My mother had even donated my body to my university for research. That was the only way I’d ended up in the morgue. Thank goodness my organs hadn’t been harvested yet.

  But that was all in the past. My mom, dad, Rob: that was my past life. I needed to stop thinking of myself as dead, and start thinking of myself as reborn.

  Bane chuckled a
nd the car was once again going well over the speed limit. “You’re thinking like a vampire.”

  No, I was thinking like myself. Change still scared me, no doubt, but I wasn’t alone anymore. I didn’t have to deal with it all right now by myself. I had someone. I had Bane.

  The car slammed to a stop, and then Bane used his vamp speed to open my door and drag me out. I didn’t even have time to get my fold up flats on. He just picked me up, princess style, threw his keys at the valet, and strode into the hotel.

  “Bane!” I looked around at the staff, mortified. The few people still in the hotel at whatever o’clock in the morning it was were looking at us like we were crazy. “Put me down!”

  “No.” Bane didn’t even look at me as he bypassed the elevator and went for the stairwell. “Just sit still, and hold on.”