Vampire Valentine E-Book

Lauren Smith

• Herausgeber: Lauren Smith
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

How bad can a blind date with a vampire really be?

The last thing Ryan Harding needs is his brother setting him up on dates with random women. Yes, he’s been avoiding relationships and burying himself in work, but come on, a blind date? Surely things aren’t that desperate. Still…the cute blonde at the bar is pretty amazing. Kind of sexy as hell. Why did he think a blind date was so bad again?

Grace Stanhope has no interest in dating mortals, but she owes her best friend one hell of a favor. A blind date with a human can’t be all that bad right? She might even have a nice time…but oh god is he three of her most favorite things? Tall, dark, AND handsome!?!

Before the night is through, sparks fly, spells are cast, and this blind date just might have a bite to it…

Leseprobe

Vampire Valentine

LAUREN SMITH

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

The Bite of Winter

About the Author

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 by Lauren Smith

Cover design by Croco Designs

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-960374-09-7 (ebook edition)

ISBN : 978-1-960374-10-3 (print on demand edition)

ChapterOne

“You know I don’t date mortals.” Grace Stanhope glared at her friend Georgina, who stood in the doorway to Grace’s apartment, waiting impatiently to be allowed inside. The dark-haired vampire grinned impishly at Grace and clapped her hands.

Georgina shoved her way into the apartment. “You’ll want to date this one, trust me. He’s adorable.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “Puppies are adorable. A man should be . . . so much more.” She wanted a real mate, someone who could handle her supernatural vampire strength. That meant mortals were out.

“Please, Grace. Just one date. What if he’s the one?” Georgina gave a dramatic pause around the words “the one,” as if expecting Grace to gasp in shock. Her younger self might have done that a century or so ago, when she had been human.

Instead, she felt old, worn out. She just wanted to find a true mate, someone who reminded her to live and embrace all of life’s joys.

“You and Jake are lucky,” Grace said. “Your potential true mate moved in next door to you.”

“But he was mortal too,” Georgina reminded her. “Please, Grace, just meet this one guy.”

Grace headed into her bedroom and tossed clothes onto her bed with a weary sigh. She fixed Georgina with a look when she began to sift through the clothing on the bed as though planning Grace’s date outfit.

“Why this one, Georgie?”

“Because he’s special, I can feel it! He’s the one for you. Just embrace the romance in the air. I always do.”

Georgina flopped onto Grace’s bed and lay in a swoon among the scattered outfits in a pose that once would have drawn in dozens of gentlemen to check on her and provide smelling salts, but men weren’t so chivalrous these days. Thankfully, Georgina was no lady, not anymore, and didn’t need rescuing. Neither did Grace. She’d gone a long time looking after herself. As a vampire, she had preternatural senses and strength. Despite her petite curvy figure, she was quite able to defend herself.

Still, it would be nice to meet a man who held the door open or stood when Grace rose to leave a room. She missed the small, courtly Victorian gestures that she’d grown up with, before she’d been turned into a vampire. It was silly to long for the past, but like most vampires, she tended to feel a bit nostalgic for the era she’d lived in before being turned.

“You know I’d never let you down, Grace.” Georgina, whom everyone called Georgie, had been born a century before Grace and yet seemed to fit into the new modern world as if she was as young as any twenty-three-year-old girl on the street. Grace envied her best friend’s easy, casual ability to move forward in time. Grace felt so stuck in the past sometimes, and modern life seemed determined to pull her farther and farther away from what she knew and felt comfortable with. Living in this modern age, she was torn between that old-world need to have a man desire her madly and wildly, and yet have her own space and freedom to live her life as she chose. It made dating, especially with mortals, virtually impossible for her.

“Spill it, Georgie. What have you gotten me into?” Grace tossed a herringbone wool skirt over her friend’s face, and Georgina curled her fingers into the skirt’s fabric, dragging it off her. “Or should I say, who are we talking about?”

“It’s . . . Jake’s little brother.”

Grace’s lips parted. “You set me up on a blind date with your mate’s mortal little brother?”

They really needed to talk about boundaries.

“Yes, but hear me out,” Georgina pleaded. “Jake’s brother doesn’t know about vampires—or anything that goes bump in the night or casts a spell, really. Jake’s turning was an accident, and well . . . it’s only been the two of them for so long. Jake can’t watch his little brother grow old and die. You know what that’s like for us. You lost William . . .”

Grace couldn’t stop the wave of grief that followed. In that moment, she felt the weight of the many years that had passed since William’s death. “That’s a low blow,” she warned her friend. “He died fighting the Germans. I lost him too soon. I never even had the chance to . . .”

She never had the chance to watch her mortal lover grow old and die. William had been her last fully mortal lover, at least the kind who had no connection to her powers from the supernatural realm. But he had been a true mate to her. She likely would never find another. A true mate was everything to a vampire. Mates were sacred. They were loved and cherished. Even the worst of her kind knew that a mate was something that should be respected. A mate was the other half of one’s soul. William had been the sunlight in her dark world. Losing him had destroyed her.

“I’m sorry, Grace.” Georgina resumed arranging outfits on Grace’s bed. “But you have to meet Ryan.”

“Why me? We have a lot of other vampires in our coven who haven’t found a mate yet. Have you tried them?”

Georgie winced. “I have. We had Ryan come to a few coven parties at our apartment. He didn’t know anyone was a vampire, of course. All of the single vampires gave him their usual inspections, but no luck on anyone being a mate.”

“Why do you need to find him a mate so badly?” Grace asked quietly. “He’s mortal—they don’t suffer the melancholy we do when we go too long alone.”

“Humans feel that loneliness just as deeply as we do,” Georgie replied, her tone softening. “You’ve just forgotten that, but they do.” She paused for a moment, her gaze briefly distant before she focused back on Grace. “If we can find Ryan a possible mate, he can be turned and Jake will stop moping about.”

“I don’t see Jake as the moping type,” Grace argued. Georgina’s mate was the definition of tall, dark, and handsome. Jacob had a natural charm and build that any vampire would kill to sink her teeth into. And that natural appeal had only been heightened after he became a vampire.

“Well, he isn’t moping. But he’s worried, and I don’t like him worried. If his brother gets too much older, well, it won’t work. Jake doesn’t want to have to explain to his brother when he’s fifty why he still looks twenty-eight.”

Georgina held up a black skirt and a red silk blouse, waving it to catch Grace’s attention as a suggestion for what to wear.

Grace rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to go on a date dressed like Elvira, especially if he doesn’t know about vampires.”

“Does that mean you’ll go?” Georgina swapped out the red top for a blue one, something they both knew would make Grace’s eyes glow.

“Fine, but just one date. Then you can take him over to the Sleepy Holly Dating Agency if you’re that desperate. They’re good at finding mates. Glinda is a real wizard . . . or should I say a real witch at matching.” Grace chuckled at her own silly joke of “Glinda the Good Witch,” as she was called. She ran the country’s best dating agency for supernatural creatures.

“You won’t regret this. I promise.” Georgie leaned in to look closely at her. “You know . . . you’re looking a bit pale and red-eyed. Better drink up before you meet him.”

Grace cringed. If a vampire wasn’t properly fed, their natural eye color gave way to the red glow that accompanied their hunger. She definitely couldn’t go on a date with glowing red eyes.

“I’ll get you a glass of blood.”

When Georgina returned to the bedroom, she handed Grace a glass of blood mixed in with Grace’s favorite merlot. Grace drank it down and then fetched her knee-high black riding boots.

“So, let me guess, you have this little blind date all planned out already?” Grace said grimly.

“Well, yes. I mean, who wants to spend Valentine’s Day alone?”

Grace hissed softly. “It’s Valentine’s Day?” She hadn’t thought about what day it was. “No, hell no, Georgie. I’m not going on a blind date on Valentine’s Day.”

There was nothing worse than an entire day devoted to thinking about all the loves of her past who were dead and gone. It was not her favorite holiday.

“Please,” Georgina begged. “You’ll know after one date if he’s a true mate or not. If he’s not, you can have a nice dinner and a drink and go home alone. No big deal.”

Grace closed her eyes. She could say no, but she didn’t want to be alone on Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t because she needed a man in her life, but rather because this was the one day of the entire year she felt the weight of her immortality and its terrible, lonely burden.

Maybe one date would be better than being here having an existential crisis.

“Fine,” she half whispered.

Georgina squealed and zoomed around the room with vampiric speed, plowed into Grace, then hugged her as she jumped up and down and squealed for another minute.

“I’m going to call Ryan right now and tell him where to meet you and give him your phone number.” She left Grace alone in the bedroom again, and Grace could hear her talking.

Grace took a minute to slip into the black skirt, blue blouse, and knee-high black boots before grabbing her coat. She didn’t actually need a coat, of course, but she lived among humans and did her best to fit in around them. When it was cold, she wore coats. In the heat of summer, she wore shorts and shirts. She just avoided the sun. She could technically be in sunlight, but it made her nearly comatose, putting her into a deep sleep and requiring a lot more blood to snap out of it. So she kept to a nighttime schedule, and since her job was online, she didn’t have to worry about any daytime job appearances.

“Georgie, come in and look at this outfit and make sure I look okay,” she called out to her friend in the other room.

“So you’re okay going into Boston tonight?” Georgina asked, holding one hand over the phone. Boston was only a quarter of an hour away from Cauldron Falls, where Grace and the rest of her vampire coven lived.

“That’s fine,” Grace sighed. She still couldn’t believe she had agreed to this.

“He’ll meet you at a restaurant called the Magic Pan in an hour and a half.”

“The Magic Pan? How on earth did you get a reservation on Valentine’s day? That’s impossible.”

“My suggestion.” Georgina grinned. “It’s owned by a chef who’s a witch. She makes the most magical food. She’s a friend of mine and I told her to reserve that table weeks ago for Jake and me, but I think it would be perfect for you and Ryan.”

“I bet she does. If you tell her to add a love potion to my drink, there’ll be hell to pay,” Grace warned as she studied her appearance in the mirror and ran a brush through her hair again. Once upon a time, she’d been considered a perfect beauty. But that was back in the late eighteen hundreds. She had been a perfect Victorian woman, petite with curves, blonde hair and the darkest blue eyes that more than one man had composed sonnets about.

But times change, as do the standards of beauty. Now she looked average, and men were drawn by her vampire glamour. Glamour was a vampire’s natural allure that mortals couldn’t resist. It was the best way to lure prey.

She missed the old days of simply being desired as a woman, before she had been turned. She wanted a man to look at her like she was the only woman in the world and see the real her, not the being she’d become. Only a true mate could do that.

Georgina put her hands on Grace’s shoulders and peered at her in the mirror’s reflection. That was one thing Grace was glad was a myth. Vampires had reflections, at least in modern-day mirrors. The myth had come from the fact that old mirrors used to be made with silver as part of the layers of the mirror, and vampires couldn’t see their reflection in pure silver. Modern mirrors, however, more often than not didn’t have any silver in them, so a vampire could see him or herself just fine. If Grace hadn’t been able to see her own reflection, it would have driven her mad. There was nothing worse than trying to style one’s hair without being able to see it in a mirror.

“This is going to be fun, you’ll see. Even if he isn’t your mate, you can still have a nice time. Not all mortals drool over us, you know. Some don’t even seem to be affected by our glamour these days. I blame the internet. Some of those social media apps I swear have spells layered into them to bewitch mortals into selling their souls.” Georgie rolled her eyes. “Anyway, you can still talk and dance and do other fun things with Ryan, if you want, without it becoming a big deal. It’s healthy to want to have a physical relationship with someone, even if they aren’t a possible true mate.”

Sex. Georgie was talking about sex.

Grace had to admit, she missed sex. She’d always liked it, despite being a Victorian woman when she’d been turned. She had a healthy appetite for passion, but she’d been without a romantic partner for nearly fifty years.

“I know,” Grace agreed. “It’s just that after Gabriel I feel nervous about the whole relationship thing.”

Georgina sighed. “Gabriel was a warlock, a seriously jealous one, like most of them. You had one bad experience, that’s all. It’s time to let it go. It’s been fifty years since you and Gabriel broke up and more than eighty years since William died.”

Grace was 160 years old, quite young for a vampire. Some days she could feel the years dragging by, while on other days it felt like she blinked and twenty years had gone by in an instant. She stared at the mirror, but in her mind she was back in time, watching her warlock boyfriend, Gabriel, cast spell after spell to make her stay with him. Vampires weren’t immune to magic, but the spells would wear off over time. Even the most powerful spells couldn’t last on vampires.

She had fought Gabriel’s enchantments time and again, leaving him, only to be spelled back into his bed. He had used her. He had never hurt her physically, but his spells had forced her to come back and say yes when she would have said no. That was a violation of her free will and autonomy, and she would never let a male of any species take that from her again.

As a vampire she was familiar with compulsion, but a vampire’s glamour—their ability to lure prey to them—couldn’t completely rob a human of their free will. It just removed their natural inhibitions and enabled a vampire to get what they needed: blood. Most vampires weren’t sadistic and didn’t go out of their way to hurt mortals. There were exceptions, of course, but most wanted to live in peace with humans. Gabriel had taken her will from her entirely and subverted her desires for his. She had been his puppet, his plaything.

Her stomach knotted at those dark, bitter memories. When she had finally gotten free of him and joined her current coven, she’d received support and protection from Georgina and the other vampires.

Gabriel wasn’t able to touch her, not without risking a conflict with the London Blood Society. Even though she was now an American citizen and her British accent had long since faded, she was still part of the largest vampire community in England. Their protection extended to covens all over the world.

“Don’t worry about Gabriel. He’s in Los Angeles. Last I heard, he was dating that soap opera actress, the one with those fake boobs and no brain. I’m sure he’s happy.”

Georgina drew her bottom lip between her teeth. She didn’t want to worry about Gabriel, but it was hard not to. He was a part of her past, and at times like this his memory hovered over her like a dark cloud.

“You’d better go if you want to beat traffic,” Georgina said. The pair left her apartment, and Georgina turned and called out to her as she walked toward her car.

“Have fun tonight, Grace. You’ll love Ryan. He’s just like Jake. Tall, dark, and handsome.”

Grace chuckled and shook her head before she got in her own car. Maybe tonight would be fun after all.

* * *

The shadows created by the twilight outside Grace’s apartment wavered and then began to shimmer as they took form. Gabriel Bonneville slid his hand into the pocket of his black wool coat and stared at the second-floor apartment where his former lover Grace lived.

“Oh Grace, my dear,” he breathed. “I let you have your freedom, but neither of us has been truly happy, have we?” His little vampire was sad, lonely, and he could make it all go away with the right spell.

He entered the indoor hallway of the stairwell and went up to her door. He held a hand out over the knob. A green glow emanated from his palm, and the lock clicked open. Gabriel turned the doorknob and stepped into the apartment. He did not have a vampire’s keen sense of smell, but he could see the energy that Grace had left behind as shimmering silver vapor trails, weaving patterns throughout the room.

Gabriel took his time in her home, picking up her photo albums and examining the desk where she worked. Grace was one of the few vampires who took well to change. Not all vampires did. Some seemed forever trapped in the era when they’d been turned. Those vampires did not survive long in the grand scheme of things. But Grace, she lived almost like a mortal. She had bright colors and plants and things that reminded her of life.

Her bedroom was painted a soft lake blue, and pictures of bright rolling hills in Austria and landmarks from major European cities formed collages on the walls. Shimmering clouds of her energy danced in a silvery pattern on the left side of the bed where she preferred to sleep. That hadn’t changed in the fifty years since she’d been his lover.

There was no hint of a man’s energy here. She was alone. That should have comforted him, but when he’d tracked Grace here tonight, he’d heard most of the conversation between Grace and Georgina using an eavesdropping spell. She was on her way to a blind date right now with a damned human. Damn that interfering idiot Georgina. Gabriel had never liked her.

Grace’s date wouldn’t amount to anything. But if it did, well . . . Gabriel would make sure that Grace ended up alone again soon enough. Then he would appear, take her back, and all would be as it should.

Gabriel’s lips curved into a smile as he stared at the silvery energy swirling around the bed.

“See you soon, lover.”

ChapterTwo

“A blind date?” Ryan growled. “Seriously, Jake?”

Ryan Harding stared at his brother, a frown twisting his lips. He wanted to throttle him for dropping the bombshell that he’d been set up with someone on Valentine’s Day, of all days.

His brother grinned. Jake was two years older than Ryan and not scared of his younger brother in the least, even though they were both built like football quarterbacks.

Jake lifted his glass of wine to his lips and took a sip. “Ever since you and Mandy broke up, you’ve been lonely.”

“I’ve been busy. That’s different.”

“Please,” Jake argued. “You always made time for Mandy when you were together. Now you’re just working yourself to the bone to fill the void in your life. Georgie and I never see you anymore. And when was the last time you shaved? You look like a caveman,” Jake pointed out unhelpfully.

“I see you and Georgie all the time,” Ryan muttered as he reached for the nearest reflective surface, which happened to be one of the pots hanging artfully above his kitchen island. Some designer had bought those pans and arranged this kitchen to look like a master chef lived here, but Ryan rarely cooked, thanks to his job’s travel schedule.

He studied his face in the side of the pan, seeing two days’ worth of stubble along his jaw. He didn’t look like a caveman, but he did look like he’d been living out on some ranch and had just gotten back from a cattle drive. It wasn’t far from the truth. He was a field geologist and traveled all over the country to oversee a variety of projects. So yeah, sometimes he looked a little rough, and he was still covered in dirt or dust, but who cared? He didn’t.