Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 52247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 261(@200wpm)___ 209(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52247 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 261(@200wpm)___ 209(@250wpm)___ 174(@300wpm)
“Did you enjoy your day?”
She nods and I take my fingers away. “Speak.”
“Who were the shifters who visited today?
Did you like them, pet? I thought they would provide much needed entertainment.”
“They said they were looking into my pack.”
“Yes. I want to find them.”
“Why?”
“To corroborate your story, of course.” She stiffens in my arms. Aha. “Do you not want
me to find them?”
“I...it’s been a long time.”
“You could return to them, if you wish.”
She blinks at me. “What?”
“After this...experience. Once we’ve had our fun. Did you think I’d keep you forever?” I
prod her, enjoying her wide-eyed expression.
“You’d let me go?”
“Why not? You can stay if you wish.” I stroke her rigid back. “There will always be a
place for you in my club. I’ll take care of you. Or if you want to return to your family, you can.”
Her head bows and her hair veils her face. “My family is dead.”
I make a fist behind her back. I’d forgotten. “My apologies,” I say, and mean it. She
peeps at me from behind the shimmering fall of her hair. “I meant I will return you to your kind,
if you wish it.”
She’s biting her lip again, looking past my French double doors, worry knotted on her
forehead.
“Relax, pet. I only meant to give you a gift.”
“A gift,” she echoes.
“A kindness. After our time together, I will not keep you caged. Wild animals are meant
to run free.” I brush the hair back from her tense face. “What are you thinking, pet?”
“I don’t know what to think. I never thought you’d set me free.”
I set my fingers around her neck, collaring her. “Not yet, pet. First, you earn it.”
She licks her lips, visibly reigning in her focus. “What do you want me to do?”
“Come,” I rise with her in my arms. “I’ll show you.”
I head to the door with Selene stiff in my arms. She always seems uncertain of what to do when I carry her, and I enjoy putting her off balance.
The guards see me coming and pull open the doors. “Mr. Frangelico,” they greet me and usher me to the limo. I set Selene on the floor of the limo and take my seat. She looks a little dazed, so I snap my fingers and point to a place in front of my seat. She scoots closer and settles into a submissive’s pose gracefully. I sift my fingers through her hair and pull her head to my knee.
“Relax, pet,” I order. She blows out a breath hard enough to stir her hair, but the tension in her shoulders eases.
The limo rolls down the street, heading for my business holdings. I had Tucson on my radar for years before I moved in. My stay in Hollywood left me tired and jaded, even for a two thousand-year-old vampire. The production company I founded still pours money into my coffers, but when the time came to fake my death and move on, I was more than happy to find a new town to haunt. LA, for all it’s glamour, feels old. A shrine where virgins sacrifice themselves for fame.
We pass a movie theater plastered with posters of the latest blockbuster. The starring actress came to stardom through my agency. She was one of my finds. She offered to fuck me for a role, but by I was tired of it all. Tired of the fake tans, the airbrushed photos. The wheeling and dealing and greed that surpasses everything, even desire for human contact. When sex is a tool, a weapon to win a final role, life becomes more hollow than even a jaded vampire can bear. I came to Tucson--retreated is more like it--to find something real. Two bodies, colliding in the night. Untempered, uncalculated passion.
It’s no use. People look at me and they see my role. Vampire King. Ancient ruler. Even my sired eventually turn on me, try to take my power. Mine is the first face they see when they rise as vampires, and mine is the last. They attack and I kill them. One by one, the stars go out and I am left alone, in the dark.
“Sir?” A soft voice at my knee. “Are you all right?”
I’m sighing like a Victorian fop. The men of that era were useless, though a few wrote half decent poetry.
“I’m fine, pet. Just a little...stressed.”
Selene blinks up at me, dark lashes framing ocean grey eyes. She isn’t afraid of me, not really. Her wolf seems to accept me. It surged to the fore during the day, when I couldn’t protect her.
Her hair washes over my leg and I finger the silky strands. “Selene,” I say out loud, and lift a lock of hair to my lips. She flushes like I’ve kissed a very personal part of her--which I intend to do. Soon. “Goddess of the moon. Fitting name for a werewolf.”