Sleepless Beauties: A Rejected Mates Paranormal Romance (The Vampires Vendetta Series Book 1) by A.K. Koonce (best books under 200 pages txt) 📕

wants to delay Creature Control from stepping into the Council’s domain. He doesn’t want the lower vampires to start doubting their superiors. He wants the council to handle it internally and quietly. I’ve agreed to help buy him a little time. He’s using you to delay the inevitable.”

My anger lowers. How does he manage to do that? How does this mangy shifter ease every tense thought in my mind with just the soothing rumble of his voice?

“Two?” I ask innocently.

Prey doesn’t give a shit about my need to know, but Vuitton does.

Vuitton is the sweet one.

“Croft Four, Elizabeth Morton died first about a month ago. And your sister, Kyra Vega died two nights ago.” Prey folds his arms hard across his chest. He’s so wired with strength and protection that it literally seeps out of him.

And into me.

I knew there was another vampire who died before my sister.

Kyra said he was getting reckless. That he was becoming too controlling and daring.

I just didn’t do enough to help her before it was too late.

And now my life is on the line too.

Seven

Vuitton

Humans sleep so restlessly. I’ll never understand what these creatures have to fear when all the monsters are lurking in a different zip code.

Kira turns over once more on the tiny queen mattress. The bed would barely sleep myself, but I suppose it’s comfortable enough for her petite size.

Shit she’s small. Breakable… bendable even.

The thin sheet shifts around her and the black lace of her panties are revealed along with the smooth curve of her ass. My brow lifts as I watch her from the doorway, toeing the line between protecting and creeping on her all at the same time.

“Wasn’t Edward totally creepy for watching Bella Swan?” Louis pipes up in barely a whisper from where he leans, just near the window.

I look away so fast, I regret not memorizing the little moaning sound she makes just before I close the door with a soundless click.

“Edward was a creep. And a vampire,” I correct.

“Ah, so it’s only creepy when vampires lurk over sleeping women?”

I pause to really articulate my response.

“No, it just seems to happen more frequently with vampires. A creepy little hobby for some creepy little undead creatures.”

I push my hand through my hair and try not to dwell on the fact that my partner is absolutely right.

I’m being a fucking creep with this woman.

But fuck, someone better be watching ovetr her. Someone needs to help her along.

Instead, it seems like everyone else around her is happy to just toss her into a pit of death and watch her squirm.

Shit.

That got a little too serious.

Kyra always told me to be as calm and happy as I try to make everyone else.

I wish I could be.

It’s better if I hold on to my worries and process them over and over again until they consume me. That’s what keeps everyone I know safe.

Because just look what happens when I don’t. You can see the results of when I distance myself and try to focus on my own health. Just look at the fucking mess of blood I’ve made! And it’s all because I couldn’t love the woman who took care of me.

And now I’m obsessing over the shadow of her memory.

The one who’s now sleeping restlessly in the next room.

Eight

Kira

Days pass with little to no information being offered to me. Dresses and shoes and how to part my hair and hold my shoulders are all it seems Prey wants to focus on. On the surface, in this tight navy dress that makes my eyes seem more sapphire than gray, I really do look like her. My hair is pulled back so tight it hurts. My spine is so stiff I swear it might break from the strain. But my steps glide like perfection when I strut past the critical vampire for the twelfth time in an hour.

It’s only now that I realize, my sister truly was a stranger to me. I can’t remember her laughter ringing out like it used to even once over the last two years. She wasn’t the life of the party any longer. Her face was so smooth and flawless, smiling lines could never have disrupted her perfection.

I’m standing here, three inches taller and so formally poised that I feel like I might fall apart with even the smallest of stumbles. This is supposed to be who she was? This eternal frowning pull of my lips, this is who they made my sister become?

It’s tragic.

“I think you’re perfect,” Prey praises. It is literally the first positive feedback he’s ever given me.

“What was that again?”

I’m clearly not used to any form of kindness from him. His face becomes serious once again as he too realizes the error of his ways. He shifts from one foot to the other.

“You’re decent. As close to my Kyra’s flawlessness as your lowly human self can perform.” He nods slowly, happier with that backhanded compliment.

We’re far too uncomfortable now. We have no idea how to function side by side unless we’re clawing each other’s eyes out while attempting to strangle one another.

This—this basic kindness shit is weird.

“Thanks,” I mumble.

He smiles, and this time he truly smiles. It isn’t a sneer or a cocky grin. It’s… genuinely sweet.

Why is my heart warming? No! I will not accept bare minimum, borderline insults from beautiful men and allow my neurotic heart to think it’s flirting.

… Is it though?

I give him another look from the corner of my eye and I note his attention gliding down my frame, along my throat, my breasts, my hips, my long legs…

No! Eye fucking is not flirting, Kira!

… Isn’t it though?

“I’ll inform Rival,” Someone with more brain cells than my infatuated mind says.

I turn and spot Louis making his way to the door. Still shirtless and animalistic, but obviously uncaring of what anyone in the outside world might think of him.

He doesn’t say any more before he closes the door and silence settles in with his absence.

What just happened?

“Rival?”