Bad Vampire Lauren Dawes (black books to read txt) 📖

plugged my AirPods into my ears and began typing.

When I finally finished the report, along with a dozen other things Sawyer kept passing off to me, it was just ticking over six p.m. I tilted my head from one side to the other to loosen the kink that had formed from hunching over my keyboard. Sawyer had been at his desk sporadically throughout the afternoon, but always disappeared before I could ask him what was happening next in our investigation.

He was finally back.

“Any developments I need to know about?”

“Yeah,” he replied, tapping something out on his keyboard without looking at me. “Go home. Get changed. I’ll be picking you up in an hour and a half.”

“Why?”

He turned to me. “I got a call from Alistair. His mistress agreed to see us tonight.”

I wanted to whine, ‘More vampires?’ but held my tongue in check. See? I was learning. “Okay. What should I wear?”

“Something that covers the bite. If they see you’ve been taken from, they’ll think you’re easy pickings.”

“Got it. Don’t show the steak to the hungry dog.”

“And wear your hair down.”

“Why?”

“It’ll help cover up your neck a little more.”

Hey, if it saved me from becoming a vampire snack, I was all for it. “Got it. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Come with me.”

I followed him into the weapons room, my fingers getting all twitchy when I thought about all the mischief I could get up to in here. Sawyer grabbed a leather holster then picked up four wooden stakes.

“Bring these with you.”

I eyed them speculatively. “Won’t they strip us of weapons?”

His mouth titled up in a grin. “Of that I have no doubt, but I’m hoping Reaver will be able to work his magic on them.”

I returned his grin. “You wicked bastard.”

He looked at the sling. “Think you could go without this tonight?”

Glancing down, I took stock of how my body felt. My shoulder was still sore, but the pain meds were good, making the pain a dull throb rather than an all-out bellow. “Why?”

“I don’t want you to have weaknesses in front of them. Vampires are a dangerous enemy to have.”

Thirteen

I pulled at the neck of the black turtleneck sweater and scratched at my chewed-on throat. It was beginning to itch, which meant it was beginning to heal. I had to take that as a win. With a sigh, I looked at my reflection and wondered if I’d done enough. Coupled with my sweater, I managed to pull on a pair of black skinny jeans and my motorcycle boots. The harness that would carry the stakes was crisscrossed over my chest, bisecting my breasts and making them look weird. I shrugged. Nobody would be staring at my breasts.

I was covered in black from head to toe, and even though I looked like an emo-goth circa 1990, my bright teal hair certainly pulled me out of any emotional tail-spin.

Right at seven-thirty, there was a knock on my door. Sawyer stood on my doorstep wearing an almost identical outfit—he’d just added a black leather riding jacket.

“Did you get your outfit from Oh shit, we’re meeting vampires tonight too?” I asked.

He ran his eyes down my body, and I sucked in a breath. When he finally returned his eyes to my face, his gaze simmered with heat. “Are you ready?”

I managed to nod. “Almost. I just need to get these stakes strapped in.”

“Let me give you a hand.” Sawyer helped me position the smooth ash wood, his fingers brushing against mine every so often. I tried to ignore the way that made me feel. It helped to remember that he was an incubus and he could literally create those feelings of lust with no more than a well-timed smile.

I strapped Reaver to my back using another holster Sawyer had given me and touched the glyph of my freaking face to will it away.

Outside, it was a dark night. The new moon was doing sweet fuck all to illuminate anything, which wasn’t a problem until we hit the city limits and were plunged into hick country.

“This is where the kiss lives?” I asked through the comms.

“This is where the mistress said we could meet with her. I doubt she’d allow cops into her actual place of residence.”

I looked around the dark landscape, seeing nothing but murky, vague shapes of barns and trees. “Well, if she was going for creepy, #NailedIt.”

“It’ll be fine. Alistair will be there as our liaison.”

“Not filling me with warm and fuzzies, Sawyer. In fact, I’m getting filled with the opposite.”

He patted my knee. “Trust me, pussy cat, I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”

“You let me wander into Wonderland.”

His abs flexed under my hands as he laughed. “I was in a shipping container nine feet in the air. I didn’t even know what you were doing.”

I sighed, hoping he heard how put out I was. “I’m like a child, Sawyer. If I’m not constrained in one of those weird tether things parents put on their kids, then I’m going to just wander off.”

He laughed again, and I smiled. I liked it. I had a feeling he didn’t laugh too much.

It only took another ten minutes before he slowed the bike and drove through a pair of stone plinths with carved gargoyles on the top. The avenue was tree lined and long, and when the house came into view, I thought we’d maybe traveled to Mississippi because it was Antebellum and plantation house all over. Sawyer parked his bike, and just as we lost the helmets, Alistair appeared at the top of the grand house’s wraparound porch stairs.

“I see you didn’t get lost.”

I glanced around. “Is your mistress reliving the glory days of being a plantation owner?”

The vampire laughed. “No, she just has an appreciation for Neoclassical architecture.”

“Top marks for her. Although, if she wanted to actually blend in around here, she’d have to seriously downgrade the house to a banged-up trailer.”

“Humans can’t see the property. Well, they can see the gates, but at the end of the driveway, there’s