VAMP

  V A M P

  by

  Dani Wyatt

  Copyright © 2019

  by Dani Wyatt

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  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,

  is purely coincidental.

  www.daniwyatt.com

  Cover Credit PopKitty

  Editing Nicci Haydon

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  VAMP

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE

  OTHER TITLES BY DANI WYATT

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  One

  Seleme

  THE NEW NEIGHBOR’S scent is stronger tonight.

  It’s making my stomach flutter and my heart beat faster than it has these past two weeks. I can’t seem to get him out of my head and I’ve yet to lay eyes on him.

  And Anna isn’t helping.

  “All I’m saying is, you haven’t even really lived. And now you’re going to...” She makes air quotes. “Do your duty. Joining the ranks of the undead is enough—marrying some douche canoe because of an arrangement between some old white dudes is another.” She looks around in mock panic. “Where’s my rape whistle? You’re going to need it.”

  “Stop,” I snap back. “You know how this works. You’ve been around more than a few centuries.”

  She rolls her glowing red eyes, completely in character as a twenty-five-year-old. “And for what? Some pact you had no hand in whatsoever. I’m just trying to establish what you want. You. My best friend, Seleme. Not what your father wants. Vampires are idiots, just like humans.”

  She crosses the room to my dollhouse, picking up the latest addition and examining it. The little grandfather clock, an exact replica of the full-size one in the foyer of our mansion, is perfect in every way. It even chimes on the hour. It's also worth more than most people make in a year.

  “This is quite exquisite,” she comments with a shrug.

  “Thank you. Papa gave it to me.” I draw in a breath through my nose.

  “Of course he did. Your clock is ticking, as it were.” She laughs, taking a long sniff of the open box of Cheez-Its on the table next to the doolhouse before putting it down with a disgusted look. “How do you eat these things? They smell like feet.”

  “Half human, half vampire, remember? I have to feed both.” Her disgust for my favorite food is nothing new, but I’m not in the mood to be called out on it right now. Besides, my own small kitchenette is stocked with plenty of healthy foods as well, and I get raw beef and blood when I’m hungry, while my parents usually go out to eat. So to speak. Half human, half vampire, keeping both healthy like a boss. “Look, it doesn’t matter what I want. You say it like my father is some sort of monster. He isn’t. He cares about us, my mother and me, which is the only reason he made this pact in the first place. He didn’t think my mother would actually get pregnant as a human. It wasn’t his plan for me to be born when I was. That my birthday would fall on the trifecta of vampire holy days or whatever you want to call it. The Messina family has protected us since I was born. Now it’s time for me to repay that debt. They think it’s likely, since my mother was able to conceive with a vampire, that I will as well. Simple.”

  “No, not simple.” She meets my eyes and I catch my breath, my human side literally stunned for a moment by her glamor. Human men practically fall to their knees when she walks by, and most would believe it was just her voluptuous curves, or the silky black hair that hangs to the middle of her back. They don't know it’s her otherworldly power of mind control that crumples them before her. “I mean, this isn’t a game. Alberto Messina is going to put his cock inside—”

  “Anna!”

  She falls silent. It’s not that I’m particularly embarrassed by talk of sex, but honestly, if you knew Alberto, you’d know why I don’t want to talk about it. He’s just...icky. I don’t know how else to describe him. Not necessarily bad looking by human standards, there is just...something off about him.

  Makes me shudder. Besides, the Messinas are pure-bloods and proud of it.

  No intermingling with humans as far back in their bloodline as anyone remembers but mating with me is a risk they are willing to take because of my unique potential.

  “I know how sex works,” I mutter.

  “Do you? Because you’ve spent nearly twenty-one years in near isolation.” She turns my way, still holding the tiny grandfather clock. The electric lighting glints in her golden eyes and makes her dark hair shine. “And I know for a fact that if a boy so much as looked at you your father would rip him a new one.”

  Rip him a new one.

  Typical Anna. Old as she is, she’s somehow able to soak up culture like a sponge, although it sometimes leads to some odd combinations...

  Right now, for instance, she’s wearing a ‘Go Vegan’ tank top with worn, vintage Levi’s from the eighteen-hundreds three sizes too big, held up by some ridiculous belt with a silver buckle nearly half the width of her waist.

  That particular item came to her from a rodeo champion who was abusing his horses. The details of what happened to him are sketchy, but put it this way: he didn’t hand over the buckle willingly. The legs of her jeans are rolled up to mid-calf and on her feet are six-inch, red patent-leather Valentino stilettos. Around her neck, she’s wearing one of those kid’s candy heart necklaces — she will never taste, but she likes the way it looks.

  “He’s not that bad,” I mutter, defending my father, but Anna doesn’t even acknowledge it.

  “Did your mom give you the talk?”

  Clearly, she’s not going to let this drop. “There’s a thing called the internet.”

  Her cheeks redden. “Really? They have that on there? Anyway, for me it’s been around for about five seconds. I'm not Bill Bates.” Despite everything else, she’s deathly afraid of computers. For whatever reason, she thinks they are going to steal her soul.

  “It’s Gates,” I correct grumpily.

  “Huh.” She draws her perfectly arched eyebrows together, squinting one eye at me. “Then who’s Bill Bates?”

  I try to hold back my laugh but lose and snort instead. “I have no idea. I think you just made him up.” I sigh. “I’m not sure I found out much about the reality about sex from the internet anyway. But yes, my mother gave me the 'proper Southern lady' talk. It was very basic; tab A
goes into slot B...and I could hardly come to you, could I? You’re a five-thousand-year-old virgin.”

  “Oh, come on, I’m four and a half at most. And I’m saving myself.” She retorts on a giggle, but she's told me the truth before: she’s never had a desire to mate or felt that flicker of attraction with anyone. She’s content to seek out the worst evil in the human race, then toy with them before sucking them dry and burning their bodies with the snap of her fingers. “Humans are so obsessed with sex and love, love and sex. Last night I was in Aruba, and this woman was about to marry a guy who really just wanted to get close to her ten-year-old son. Can you believe that shit?” She shudders a little. “I made sure that didn’t happen, obviously. But still, from what I see, love is bullshit. And sex is just weird.”

  I think it’s funny she doesn’t know how old she is. She might look like she’s in her twenties, but that means absolutely nothing. The oldest born vampires don’t age after about twenty or so. Younger ones like my father just age very slowly, probably due to human blood affecting the bloodline somewhere.

  Anna has been around longer, and knows more about our history, than any other vampire, and I guess after so much time you just lose track. She says there were others, older than her, but she has no idea if they’re still around or where they might be hiding if they are.

  “Prophecy or no prophecy, I worry about you, Seleme.”

  “Well, I worry, too. I worry what’s going to happen to me in five day—far more than I worry about having sex with Alberto Messina.” I drum my fingers against the arm of the sofa. “I mean, now that it’s so close, I’m scared. Will I even remember who I was before? Or will I just go from a vulnerable half-mortal to an all-powerful killing machine overnight? Do I get to keep any of my humanity, Anna? Will I recognize you as a friend or try to wipe you out as a rival?”

  “I wish I could tell you more.” She puts the miniature clock back and comes to sit beside me on the red velvet sofa, crossing her legs as she waves her hand at the fireplace and the flames come to life. We are a contrast next to one another. My long blonde hair, thin frame dressed in a crimson ball gown next to her dark hair, thick curves and edgy, Tom-boyish style.

  “I know you do. It’s okay.”

  “It isn’t okay. This shouldn’t be all on you. But there’s simply nothing I know that isn’t in the books we’ve all read. You’re the moon child or whatever. As far as I know, you’re the only one there’s ever been. Conceived when your mother was human but born after she became a vampire; coming of age under a full moon on a Halloween that coincides with Friday the thirteenth.” She raises her hands in mock exasperation. “The chances of that would be infinitesimal even without our notorious difficulty conceiving children. Your twenty-first birthday is going to be special. I just wish any of us knew exactly how special.”

  We’re silent for a long moment, and I pick up that scent again, pulling at my heart like a leash. Like all born half-human vampires, I come of age at twenty-one, and that first night is more than likely my one chance to conceive a child. There are exceptions to every rule, but we found none in all the historical records we scoured.

  The weird thing is ever since the new neighbor moved in, I feel like I’m in heat or something. I’m thinking it’s just a coincidence that my human hormones are launching an all-out attack on me before I leave my humanity behind.

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re going to turn into some monster. The Seleme I know is too sweet for that. And far too prissy to ruin her dress with the blood of her best friend.”

  “Hey!” I elbow her as her red eyes twinkle and she pulls at the candy necklace, bringing it just to her lips then releasing the elastic to settle back around her neck. “My dress is blood red, so it wouldn’t show.” I smile for a moment forgetting the weight that seems stacked on my shoulders.

  Anna’s been a friendly acquaintance of my father for a couple of centuries. She’s my godmother of sorts, there when I was born to help protect me, but she’s a rogue sort. She has no family, doesn’t take much to alliances, and she’s so old, she’s earned enough respect from most other covens to be left alone, which is exactly what she wants.

  As I grew up, she was my only friend, and by whatever magic, we formed a bond she says she hasn’t had in more than a thousand years.

  She laughs. “Anyway, I’m hardly someone you should see as a threat. I’m just old. There are much more powerful vampires than me. Your fiancé, for instance.”

  I straighten my dress, the stiff bodice keeping me sitting up straight and straining for a full breath. I’m forced to think about Alberto again. Anna’s lying when she says she’s not powerful, but different vampire families have powers that manifest in different ways. She can control fire, as can my father, and influence human thoughts among other things.

  Others are shape shifters, of sorts. Able to age themselves or regress themselves at their whim.

  Many of the Messinas have almost unbelievable physical strength and speed, and Alberto has won every one of their contests since he was ten years old — and that was many centuries ago. My family’s powers, on the other hand, tend to be more subtle. Like my heightened senses, which are diminished only by running water.

  Right now, I wish there was even a trickle of a stream between me and our new neighbor because at least it would dull this throbbing between my legs.

  What other powers will I possess after my birthday? That remains to be seen.

  “Are you coming tonight?” I ask, trying to change the subject.

  She pulls her deep burgundy lips to the side, flashing sharpened incisors. “Maybe. You know I don’t like parties.”

  “It’s a children’s party, Anna, how scary can it be?”

  “Children are scary. And it’s a kids' party hosted by vampires,” she counters. “Hollywood should make a horror movie out of it.”

  “You're a vampire,” I remind her.

  “I might come later, when the games have finished and most of the people have gone home. Only to look at what you’ve carved this year without having to wade through the crowds.”

  The sound of my father’s voice cuts into our conversation, booming through the stone halls of the mansion. “Seleme! Time to go, darling!” There’s no need to raise his voice, since I can hear a pin drop from across the other side of the sprawling house, but that’s fathers for you.

  “And that’s my cue to leave.” Anna stands, and I follow suit. Then she wraps her cool arms around my shoulders in a genuine embrace. “You look lovely. Your dress is very fetching. Enjoy tonight, and try not to worry about anything else. I’ll read some more. Maybe there’s something I missed.”

  “Thank you. Hopefully I’ll see you again before I go full creature of the night.”

  “I’ll try. Lots of nastiness in the news the last couple days. There was a report about a brothel in India. Young girls. Young. I’m going to pay the family that ran it a visit. I’ll try to be back in time, but you know me and time. After living this long, a month can feel like a minute.”

  I roll my eyes and she laughs, then turns and walks through the exterior wall of my bedroom. It's something you never really get used to seeing.

  With a deep breath, I ready myself to go out, beginning to smile as I think about the night ahead. It’s my favorite time of the year, and I intend to enjoy it. I glance over at Maltese, my cat, as I open the door to my bedroom suite, which is more like its own apartment.

  “You'll be good while I’m out, won’t you?”

  He stretches out along my bed and flicks his tail but doesn’t follow me. He’s already been fed, we took our run earlier on the treadmill, and plan on taking our one AM run later, so it’s doubtful he’ll move from that spot until I get back.

  As I descend the stairs, the cold air chills my shoulders and I shiver, wrapping my hands over my bare arms. The first floor is kept a good thirty degrees cooler by design because while I occupy the upper floors, my vampire parents generally occupy the lowe
r.

  Pinching the iridescent red silk and sequins of my gown in my fingers, I swish it back and forth, enjoying the way it catches the candlelight and casts twinkling red stars over the hand-cut stone walls of the mansion. The house is designed to emulate the Ardelean family’s traditional home, a castle in Eastern Romania, and from what I can remember from the one time I visited, it’s nearly a perfect replica.

  It’s a life many would envy, but everything is not always as it seems.

  Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy here. I had a glorious childhood. But my unique situation meant it was a lonely and unconventional one, educated behind these walls and gates by private tutors so that I wouldn’t have to face the dangers of the outside world.

  Since history tells us that I will not achieve my full immortality until I turn, my parents protected me from sickness and harm in an almost suffocating way. I don’t fault them. I am their one and only daughter, and the protective nature of vampires for their own rivals any mama grizzly.

  Even since I graduated and took up a position in my father’s law firm, he’s kept me safe under his watchful eye.

  “Glorious.” My father’s smooth, booming voice fills the grand foyer. He steps out into the candlelight, resplendent in his black tuxedo and white shirt, looking the same as he has my entire life—a handsome man perpetually in early middle age.

  Hard to believe he’s already lived nearly a dozen human lifetimes stacked end to end. While the eldest born vampires like Anna and some of the older Messinas stopped ageing at all once they reached maturity, younger vampires born to vampire parents, like my father, change gradually over their entire lifetime. It’s a slow process; eight-hundred years have passed since my father was born. And he’ll never die from old age. But as the centuries pass he will continue to look older, year by year.

  My mother, born human, has the same power. She effectively stopped ageing at the moment my father turned her, and it will be many years before there’s any noticeable change. It’s all very odd and subjective as well, so the same as humans, vampires are not all the same as many assume.