Vampire Lover Read Online Free PDF Page A

it. Vamps were supposed to be pale, gaunt creatures, yet this one could have been a movie star.
    What else had the legends gotten wrong?
    Why had this vampire left her alive and breathing?
    He hadn’t really tried to harm her…much.
    She glanced at her knuckle, at the smear of blood, and wondered if the scent would lure more nighttime creatures. She wasn’t up for that, no matter how badly she needed a byline.
    But the moonlight seemed to tug at her chest, as if attempting to pry free a rib bone. The vampire’s eyes had pried something loose as well, by delving into Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
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    hers. For a minute there she had felt different—defiant, belligerent, slightly dangerous and as though she carried someone she didn’t recognize hidden inside of her. The vampire’s unholy mouth on hers had started all of this strangeness, and his disappearance hadn’t lessened the effect.
    She felt… off.
    "Wolves haven’t helped your kind in a century," he had said. "Why not just call them?"
    "What the hell." None of this made any sense, anyway.
    Focusing her attention on the doorway, Kelsie said loudly, firmly, "Wolfmen. If you’re there, come out now."
    A hot breeze rose to circulate fallen leaves on the patio. Kelsie’s heart rate notched up tenfold.
    Light-headed again, she put a hand to the wall for support. How lame was calling werewolves with the expectation they would come? How ridiculous was it to take the advice of a bloodsucker? The encounter on this patio had turned her into an idiot.
    She fought off another wave of distress, thought, What sort of person can call werewolves?
    She frowned, trying to recall the term this vampire had used that had struck her anxiety cord, and shouted for the hell of it, "Weres! Come out!"
    When she looked up, it was to find two men beneath the awning. Big guys. Their chests and arms rippled beneath their shirts like a freaky muscle mirage. Their curiously bright, animal-like eyes were trained on her.
    "Shit!" she swore, as she raced for the gate.

    CHAPTER THREE
    After taking a good long look at the moon, Hayden turned his attention back to the nightclub, half a block away. A heated breeze ruffled his hair as he waited.
    He had given her every reason to come after him.
    He had scratched her skin, bringing up the blood necessary to identify her. Now that he had placed her, he could hear his dead ancestors crying out for retaliation against the atrocities her family had performed on them in the past.
    Hayden fought that notion, as he always had. More questions consumed him. Were Slayers always this attractive? He wanted her to come after him for reasons having less to do with what was wired into him, and more to do with the excitement of meeting a female strong enough to face him. A female with a shared past. One who already knew about him.
    Wouldn’t that be a relief?
    In spite of the time she had spent in Miami, this Slayer still tasted like County Clare. She wore the Connor crest at her throat—a heart with a stake through it.
    Cheeky Connor bastards. This wasn’t a game, after all, or a date with a viable partner. It was the unexpected meeting of a Connor with "Sense" and a Flynn, whose name in old Irish, Flann, meant blood-red. This meeting was a continuation of a terrible, Linda Thomas-Sundstrom
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    centuries-old war.
    A Connor Slayer would have to come after him.
    Her own blood would demand it, if not her soul. So why prolong the inevitable? He would wait for her right here, tonight, and get it over with.
    He’d love to get his hands on her again.
    And his mouth.
    Hell, he did want to bite her. His soul cried out for that. No Slayer, or anyone else out of the fold, knew how seductive a fang slipped into dewy skin could be, or how incredibly erotic that physical metaphor was.
    The longing for intimate blood sharing had a name.
    A Dark Surrender was a ritual that took place when a vampire found a mortal woman willing to take him in, body, blood and soul. Becoming like him.