AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Better to be pissed and alive than happy and dead,” I mutter as I cap the last of the well liquor and reach for the light that illuminates the back wall of the bar.
I’m about to flick it out and lock up when I hear the front door open behind me.
“Sorry, we’re closed,” I say, my voice hitching up half an octave as I see who’s stepping into the pub.
Fuck.
This night just keeps getting better…
Chapter Two
CASEY
“Well, well, what a surprise.” The vampire slipping through the door pauses to shoot me a lecherous grin as his gaze sweeps up and down what he can see of me behind the bar.
It’s Sultan, the vampire grundle nugget from Blaire and Darcy’s shield-renewing celebration last winter.
The one who tried to slip me a few hundred bucks for a sip of my “Indian Princess” blood…
The casual racism would have been bad enough, but when told to “fuck off,” the jerk followed up with a condescending laugh and a promise that I’d be back begging him to pop my vamp cherry once I realized no one wants to date a “half breed.” I assumed he was talking about me being half witch, not half Native American, but that didn’t make his grossness any less disgusting.
The petty part of me would like to take this opportunity to rub my engagement to Edmond, a vampire much higher up the food chain than this walking lump of butt cheese, in his face “niener, niener, you were wrong, you big fat wiener,” style, but Herbish’s warning is still fresh in my ears. It’s best to let sleeping dragons lie, especially when you’re alone with one of them on an unusually quiet Friday night.
All the businesses near the pub closed hours ago. There’s a very real chance that should I find myself in trouble, no one would hear me scream.
So instead of any of the passive-aggressive or just plain aggressive things I want to say, I force a smile and repeat, “Sorry, we’re closed.”
Sultan’s lips twitch as he steps deeper into the bar, allowing the heavy door to whump closed behind him. “The door wasn’t locked.”
I hold up the keys in my hand, giving them a little jingle. “Was just on my way to take care of that.”
“But you hadn’t yet,” he says, settling into the closest stool, placing himself between me and the front of the pub, effectively blocking my easiest route out.
There’s a back door through the kitchen, but I’d have to climb over the bar at the opposite end to get to the kitchen door, and I’ve seen how fast vampires can move, even morbidly obese ones like Sultan. If he doesn’t want me leaving, I won’t be. As much as it chaps my ass to kiss up to this piece of shit, I need his permission to close up without giving him whatever he came for.
“Listen, I hear you, the customer is always right,” I say, “but I have to get my daughter from daycare before midnight or they’ll be pissed. But I can make you a drink to go if you want.”
“No, I don’t want a drink to go. I’d like a blood rum fizz with a spritz of cherry for here,” he says, settling more deeply into the stool and pulling a folded newspaper from the inside of his lapel pocket.
In a tweed suit the same color as his pale-yellow hair and the blush on his chubby, fuzz-free cheeks, he looks about as harmless as the Pillsbury Doughboy, but I know better. The morning after the shield party, Darcy warned me to steer clear of Sultan. Apparently, he used to torture spies for a despot king in the Middle Ages and enjoyed his work far too much.
So much that he’s been known to engage in dubiously consensual knife games with the Blackmore servants…
He’s never crossed the line enough to get kicked out of the clan, but Darcy made it clear he wouldn’t put it past him.
Which means I have no choice but to give the turd what he wants and hope he fucks off in the next half hour before Amy gets freaked out about being the last kiddo left at school.
“Okay, great, coming right up,” I grit out through a clenched jaw as I turn to fetch the blood I just stored for the night from the fridge.
As I reach for the jar, cold air wooshes above my bent head. A beat later, I’m in the air, wrenched off my feet by a soft, sweaty hand wrapped around my neck.
“I don’t want that bile,” Sultan says, his grip tightening on my larynx. “I want fresh, Indian Princess blood.”
I kick and pry at his fingers with both hands, but he’s strong as hell and unfortunately, one of the few people tall enough to keep my feet off the floor. At nearly six feet, I’m almost always the tallest woman in the room, and accustomed to dating men an inch or two shorter. My various high school boyfriends had to stand up extra straight to look me in the eye and Manny barely reached my chin.
Edmond is the only man I’ve ever had to tip my head back, even a little, to kiss. But those kisses all happened four years ago. I haven’t had the chance to really kiss Edmond again, not the way I want to. When friends or family are around, he flirts with me like it’s his favorite hobby and has kissed me more than once. But when we’re alone, he holds me at a distance, determined to protect me from catching feelings for a doomed man.
But it’s too late. I already have a bad case of feels and can’t bear the thought of dying before I’ve made love to him again.
