EIGHT
LIVES
MATCH MADE IN HELL #1
AUTUMN BREEZE &
ASHLEY CHAMBLEE
Copyright © 2019 Autumn Breeze & Ashley Chamblee
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America
Author : Autumn Breeze (www.authorautumnbreeze.com)
Author: Ashley Chamblee ([email protected])
Content Editor : Emma Lowe and Lyss Em
Cover Design Artist : Covers by Raven Brooks
ALSO BY AUTUMN BREEZE
Loving Anna
Grim Life: Happily Ever After Isn’t So Happy
After The I Do: Meeting At The Fault Line #1
CONTENTS
1
Anselm
1
2
Edmund
8
3
Anselm
15
4
Edmund
22
5
Anselm
30
6
Edmund
38
7
Anselm
46
8
Edmund
53
9
Anselm
60
10
Edmund
68
11
Anselm
76
12
Edmund
85
13
Anselm
92
14
Edmund
101
15
Anselm
108
16
Edmund
116
17
Anselm
126
18
Edmund
135
19
Anselm
145
About Autumn Breeze
149
About Ashley Chamblee
151
After The I Do: Chapter 1
152
Anselm
There was a naked man in my living room. He stood frozen in the middle of the room, between the black leather sofa that was worn by time and use and the cherry coffee table that was cluttered with books. The stranger seemed just as surprised to see me as I was to see him.
“Who the hell are you? What the hell are you doing here?!” I demanded. My voice echoed through the room. The man blinked. He looked so…lost, so confused.
It wasn’t my problem.
Or maybe it was because he was standing ass naked in my living room, with everything hanging out as though it was on display. His wide blue eyes flickered around the room before settling on me again. Pale lips parted, and he made a sound. It was this little soft peep of a noise that was so familiar and yet foreign at the same time.
How had he gotten through my front door? Better yet, why wasn’t he a bloody mess? Normally, the annoying creature I had shared my home with for the past hundred years would have already sliced an intruder into pieces, but right now he was strangely absent. Usually, he was here to greet me in this very room when I returned home, especially when I held groceries, but there was no demanding whine or the soft flick of a tail against my leg.
I clenched my jaw. If this stranger had hurt Edmund, there would be hell to pay.
My immortal cat, as irritating as he could be sometimes, was my best friend. We’d been a pair since the beginning of the twentieth century and . . . in reality, he was all I had.
Everything changed but not Edmund. Nor me.
He was a cursed cat, once a young man in the prime of his life. I was the vampire he called friend.
“Edmund,” I called, dropping the bags I held. The fresh fish and blood I’d bought cascaded to the floor. Some of the packets burst open, but I didn’t care about the mess the blood would make or the smell that would linger for days; I cared about my best friend. “Edmund?!”
The stranger turned; his sharp gaze followed me though he was rooted to the spot.
I rushed through the living room, heading deeper into my home, knowing that if my heart still beat, it would be pounding against my chest like a sledgehammer.
Where was Edmund? Why wasn’t he answering?
Hunting through the rooms, I checked in all of Edmund’s favorite hiding spots—on top of the bookshelf, on my side of the bed, behind my pillow, in the perfect patch of moonlight that streamed through the bay windows in my office—but Edmund was nowhere to be found.
He was missing, gone, disappeared.
“Where is he?!” I demanded as I raged into the living room and caught the stranger by the throat. My fingers tightened as my anger—my fear—tainted the air, sending the thick stench of decay curling around us. The strange young man’s lips parted, opening and closing like a fish out of water as he grasped my wrist and fought for breath. “If you hurt him—” I couldn’t even finish the thought, much less the sentence.
The very idea of not having Edmund, of being without him . . .
I shook the man impatiently. “Where is he?!” I bellowed, shaking the boy.
He appeared desperate as he clutched my wrist and tugged on my arm, attempting to remove my hold, but my grasp was absolute as my fingers tightened around his neck.
Panic danced across his face. His wide eyes shined, a familiar neon blue that I knew.
My lips parted. “Edmund?”
I loosened my hold. It wasn’t possible. Edmund was . . .
The man I held by the neck trembled in my grasp, one minute a man, and in the next, thick black fur sprouted out of his transformed body.
“Y . . . You choked me,” he gasped as I gathered him close.
“You turned into a-a-a man!” I pulled him away from my chest, inspecting him as I did so.
How was this possible? He was cursed by a witch to live the rest of his life, or at least nine lives—eight now that he’d died once—as a cat. Right now, the fluffy black thing I peered down at looked like my housecat, but seconds ago . . .
“Holy shit,” he breathed, his familiar voice warm and bright and the same as it had been for the past century. “I was human.”
He was human.
How had it happened? Would it happen again?
I swallowed as I turned and sat down on the sofa. Edmund hopped onto the coffee table that sat beside it, then he faced me. My gaze drifted over him. He was as he had been for the last hundred years, but he had changed as well. For a moment, he had been a flesh and blood man.
“You saw me, Anselm. I was human,” he said. “I told you I was a human!”
I never once doubted that he had been human before.
“You were human . . . ,” I whispered, my mind a whirlwind of thoughts as I reached out, gently stroking his soft fur.
What did it mean? Was the effectiveness of the curse wearing off? Would he turn into a human again? If he did, would next time be for good? Would he begin to age?
My heart squeezed, and I closed my eyes.
&nb
sp; Was our time together finally coming to an end?
“Getting all worked up after seeing me naked, huh?” Edmund teased. “Told you I was hot.”
“You’re not my type,” I retorted, but from what I had seen, from what I had paid attention to, at least, he was my type. He was tiny, with midnight-black hair and the soft features I preferred in the men I took to my bed. They were the same men I often fed from, but he was a cat again, so what did it matter?
“Whatever,” he retorted, his head tilted to the side. His bright eyes shined in the moonlight that shimmered through the glass windows that wrapped around us. “So, what does this mean? That I’m going to be human once every hundred years?”
“Bummer,” I muttered, a note of sarcasm in my tone, but I was fine with him being a cat forever—just as the curse intended.
“Don’t sound so depressed, asshole!” he snapped, his eyes blazing like wildfire.
“You’re not very good at sarcasm as a cat,” I noted.
“Maybe we should go to a Med-Witch?” he asked. “Clearly something crazy is going on.”
I shoved to my feet, moving swiftly towards the mess I had left by the door. The blood was washing across the stained wood, turning it into an accidental crime scene. My gaze flickered toward Edmund as he hopped down from the table and followed behind me.
He paused before his paws slipped into the sticky red liquid.
I gathered what blood and fish could be salvaged, shoving it back into the grocery bags.
“Go if you want,” I eventually told him. He wasn’t my prisoner. He wasn’t even my pet. If he wanted to go see a Med-Witch, he could. I wouldn't stop him.
“Why are you not excited?” he whined, turning to follow me into the kitchen.
I dropped everything into the sink. The fish packages and blood bags that could be saved needed to be rinsed off and put away before they spoiled. The mess in the living room still needed to be cleaned up. And, on top of that, I had to worry about my cat abandoning me.
Edmund hopped onto the counter, his balance perfect. “I turned into a human, Anselm.”
“I know!” I shouted, shoving away from the sink and marching towards the kitchen closet so I could get the mop. “Why?” I asked him—asked the universe, actually. Why did he have to become human? Why couldn’t he just remain a cat and stay with me? We had a good life together. I liked our life. Sure, it had its ups and downs, but it was our life. We’d been living it just fine for the past hundred years. “What’s the point? So you can leave too?!”
“Why would I leave?” Edmund leapt off the counter; his claws sunk into my shoulder as he perched there. “I get to live here rent free, sleep all day, eat as much as I want, and hang out with my best friend. Do you really think I would leave you after a so many years together? You think I would get my thumbs back and hitch a way out of town? I’m insulted.”
I sighed, my shoulders falling.
Edmund’s claws dug into my flesh as his tail curled around my neck.
Would he really stay? I’d never known anyone who had.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he purred. “Cat, human, it doesn’t matter to me. Even if I use up all eight of my lives, my ghost is going to stick around to haunt you. You can’t get rid of me, vampire.” He nuzzled my cheek, turning to run his nose against my jaw.
I pulled him off my shoulder and cradled him in my arms. He fell to his back, tipping his chin up as I stroked him. Maybe he would stay. Maybe he wouldn’t.
If he was turning into a human again, even briefly, we had no clue what else was in store for us. He could turn into a human, never become a cat again, and begin to age and wither away.
Eventually, given enough time, Edmund would die on me like everyone I had ever loved.
What would I do then?
Edmund
When I woke up on the sofa, there was a new heaviness to my body.
The fog of sleep was still pressing down on me, and I didn’t want to be awake yet. Groaning, I reached up to hide my face under my paw before bolting upright. Glancing down at myself, I saw hands where paws should have been.
I was human again. I didn’t understand why, but I was human.
I quickly moved toward Anselm’s bedroom. He was still in bed with the covers pulled up over himself. It had been a week already. He needed to get up. I had let him wallow in his own pity, but I was getting worried now. He needed to shower and feed like a vampire was supposed to.
“Umm, Anselm,” I said, but there was no answer. “Anselm,” I called again, tapping his arm. Still, I was being ignored. “Anselm, there’s someone in the house!”
Anselm shifted backward, muttering, “Go away.”
With a deep frown, I firmly grabbed the cover before yanking it away from him.
“Get up already!” I demanded. He was being a big baby. It wasn’t like me suddenly being a human was only happening to him. It annoyed me how he’d just run to bed and stayed there, hiding away ever since the last time I’d shifted into a human. He didn’t even care how I was handling the change.
“No,” he said, peeking back at me. Instantly, his eyebrows furrowed.
He was clearly unhappy that I was human once more. I started to speak, but then something brushed against my leg. I turned and saw it. I had a tail. I was human again, but I had a tail. Turning, I reached for it, but it eluded me. I turned again before I stopped in my tracks, glancing back towards Anselm. He was seated and watching me.
I stopped myself from turning and reaching for the new appendage again.
“Did I have a tail last time?” I asked. I couldn’t remember.
“I don’t know. I didn’t look,” Anselm grumbled. He was no help at all.
I reached up, touching my face, my hair, before—
“I have cat ears!” I yelled, leaping over the bed and racing towards the bathroom.
I had cat ears—two black cat ears that sat on the top of my head in place of human ears. I still looked like a human, but with cat ears. Clearly, there was more going on here than I’d first thought.
The last time I’d been human, it had only been for a minute or two. I had been too shocked and confused to react, and then Anselm had returned home and choked the life out of me. Then I had become a cat once more, and until this morning, there had been no signs I would ever become a man again. Yet, here I was, looking at a face from a hundred years ago that I had nearly forgotten.
“It’s kinda cute,” Anselm said, appearing behind me. He reached out, rubbing the spot near my ear in that way he did when I was a cat.
My chest vibrated, and my tail swung behind me.
“You still purr.”
I shrugged. “I guess I’m not as human as we thought?”
“Human enough,” he said, his shoulders falling as he moved away.
“Wait.” I grabbed his hand to stop him. He paused, his gaze piercing as he stared down at me. “Drink,” I told him, offering my neck.
I could at least get him to eat if I was human. I knew this—me being human—wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted me to be a cat, and if I had control over the form I took, I would do that for him. I would give him whatever he needed.
However, right now it was out of our control. All I could offer him as a human was food. He needed to eat. I could already see the signs of his exhaustion and hunger. There were deep bags under his eyes. His flesh was waxy, and his cheeks were sunken in.
He still made a pretty picture, but it wasn’t healthy for a vampire to go so long without food.
Any blood we had in the house had spoiled by now, and he needed to feed.
“No way,” Anselm said, yanking away.
“You haven’t eaten in a week. I’m the closest thing to a human we’ve got. You have to eat, Anselm.”
“I’m not hungry,” he muttered. I frowned. He was going to refuse even though he was already half starved. Normally all I could do was whine until he finally gave in. Now I bit into my own wrist. My feline teeth cut through the soft sk
in, and the taste of iron filled my mouth before I held out my wrist toward him. Crimson liquid dripped to the floor.
Anselm froze. His nostrils flared as he watched the blood fall. I knew he could smell it. He could probably hear every drop that splashed into the puddle that was slowly growing on the bathroom floor. Would he just let me bleed out?
“Fine,” he huffed. “Just because you’re going to be a pain about it.”
Anselm grabbed my wrist. His other hand came around my body, and he pulled me closer. I could feel the draw of my blood as his fingers slowly slid down my lower back to my ass. His fingers were rough and strong. My heart pounded. Before the curse that had turned me into a cat, I’d never made it this far with any guy. My head swam. Everything danced.
Did I bite too deep? Was he taking too much blood?
“Anselm,” I whispered, my body swaying. The edge of my vision started to darken. My body felt light but at the same time, I felt heavy, as if I was sinking away into something dark and unknown.
He caught me against his chest, but I was smaller now—a cat again.
“Are you okay?” Anselm asked, his voice high and shaky.
“I—I think so?” I said, but it was hard to tell. I wasn’t sure what was going on with me.
“You need to eat and rest,” Anselm said. His arms were locked protectively around my small, furry cat frame as he carried me into the kitchen. He gently placed me down onto the counter before he got some canned tuna and put it on a plate.
Anselm stroked my back as I ate.
“We should get a Med-Witch to examine you,” he said.
I nodded, but it wasn’t like I could use the phone and call up a witch. “Well, you’re the one with thumbs.”
“I’ll make you an appointment,” Anselm said. I finished my meal, and Anselm picked me up and tucked me under his chin. His fingers ran through my fur. My chest rumbled with a soft purr, but I was a bit nervous this time too.
Eight Lives (Match Made In Hell Book 1) Page 1