Bad Vampire by Lauren Dawes (read aloud books txt) 📕

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To Inga and Leila - the best beta readers an author could ask for.

One

Worst. Day. Ever.

No, I wasn’t being dramatic, although I had been accused of that on more than one occasion. Mostly by ex-boyfriends and blowhards who thought they knew me. Which, FYI, they did not.

“Are you even listening to me, Officer McKenzie?”

“Yes, Captain Wolfe, I am,” I replied, meeting his steely gaze for a fleeting second. Even though he was sitting down, he still towered over me. At five foot four, I was used to having to crane my neck back to meet people’s eyes, and most of the time, it was because they thought they could stare me down and intimidate me. Well, it didn’t work for Peter Prince in elementary school, and it sure as shit wasn’t going to fly now.

Besides, I had a gun and I was a damn good shot.

At least, I would once they re-issued it to me. Right now, it was staring at me from beside Wolfe’s elbow, along with my badge.

“How was the week off?” he asked, leaning back in his chair, the steel frame creaking a little with the movement. “Been keeping busy?”

I glanced up briefly, then looked away. With blond hair buzzed close to his head and steely gray eyes, Vaile Wolfe had an aura about him that scared the pants off of me, and anything that scared me, I tried to give a wide berth. And avoided looking at.

If I could be in another zip code right now, I would be.

“Honestly? It sucked. Hard.”

He smiled with more teeth than necessary, making the grin look malevolent. “You could’ve gotten out of town. Visited family?”

“I don’t have any,” I replied, trying not to fidget in my seat. When I fidgeted in my boss’s presence, I felt like I was prey.

Heaving a sigh, he flipped open a folder and scanned the contents. “You’ve only been with us for eight days.” Ah, so that was my career record then.

It felt like a statement I should have a rebuttal to, but it was the truth. Okay, so here’s what happened—on my first day on the job, my partner and I got into some trouble. Yes, he was killed in front of me. Yes, I froze like a fucking deer in headlights…or like someone who just found out that all those monsters she’d been told weren’t real, actually were.

“You’ve been on compassionate leave for seven days.”

I held back my snarky reply.

Captain Wolfe was a scary motherfucker who didn’t appreciate being interrupted.

I figured that one out for myself on day one.

‘Compassionate leave’ was a nice way to put it though. I’d watched my partner die a horrible, horrible death. And just stood there. Then they told me not to come into work for a week while they decided my fate.

“Are you still struggling with the Reveal?” Wolfe asked softly. “It’s okay if you are. It’s only been six months, but for many, adjusting to the new reality is hard.”

The Reveal was the day the world found out humans weren’t the only ones living on this planet.

It had all started with multi-billionaire John Davis and his shitheel son, Marcus. Marcus was convinced that dear old dad was running his auto-manufacturing company into the ground, and as a result, running all of his inheritance into the ground. The solution, in Marcus’s mind, was to hire a hitman to get rid of his father. The hitman, as it turned out, was fae, and when Marcus was eventually arrested for conspiracy to commit murder, he sold the hitman out in order to save his own skin.

In a much-publicized trial, the hitman—a fae named Kailon Perry—took the slight to heart…and out on Marcus’s ass. In front of the cameras, he let everyone see what he hid beneath his glamor while he tore Marcus Davis limb from limb. Literally.

After that, all the supernaturals had come out to play—and all of them were monsters as far as I was concerned.

I brushed away a piece of lint from my jeans and shrugged. “I’m fine. I suspected we couldn’t be the only ones out there, you know? Like aliens or an emotionally available man.”

Vaile grunted and closed the folder, drumming his fingers on top of it. “So, what are we going to do with you?”

I braced myself with a deep inhale and closed my eyes. “Let me come back to work?”

Silence.

I peered at my boss and found him studying me.

“And what role would you have if you did?”

Please not a desk job. Please not a desk job. Pleasenotadeskjob. I wasn’t content to just sit on my ass all day and push paper. I wanted to be out on the streets, catching bad guys and kicking the ass of anyone who didn’t toe the justice line. “The same one?” My question came out slowly, monitoring how my boss felt about the concept.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so, McKenzie.” Leaning forward, he planted his elbows onto the blotter and said, “How about we play a game? I suggest something, and you tell me how you feel about that option.”

Wow, that didn’t sound so terrible. “Okay.”

“PIG.”

“I thought petty insults were below you, boss.”

He gave me flat stare.

I shook my head. “No. And how? It’s a department just for supes. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m not a supe.”

PIG was the very poorly selected, yet hilariously accurate, acronym for the Paranormal Investigative Group—a department made up of supernaturals who also happened to be cops before the world was turned upside down.

His smile was cold. “Human liaison. We need one for human on supe or supe on human crimes. The department has been requesting one for almost three months now. Guess who I selected for the position.”

“I won’t