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

guys from my class who were still casting furtive looks her way. Those poor bastards. They wouldn’t know what hit them.

“You should go and talk to her,” I said as I passed. “She’s single.” I had no idea whether that was true or not. If it was, I just did her a favor.

“Cat!” Faline called, motioning me over.

I shifted the strap of my bag on my shoulder and made my way to her. “Hey.”

“I didn’t know this was where you took your class.”

“This gym is the best,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her. “How come I’ve never seen you in here before?”

“I usually do the nine o’clock class, but since I got out early tonight, I decided on the earlier one.”

“Who teaches this one?” Because Mike sure as shit didn’t.

“His name is Skeen. He’s some sort of elemental.”

“Elemental?”

The succubus touched me lightly on the shoulder and laughed. “I keep forgetting you still don’t know a lot about us. He’s a fae who can control the elements, but he specializes in fire.”

“Good to know,” I replied. I would not freak out. I would not freak out.

She looked over my shoulder and smiled, and holy shit, that smile was mesmerizing. I peered over at what she was looking at.

“Friends of yours?” she asked.

“Classmates, I guess.” I watched her for a little longer. “Are you feeding off them?”My question snapped her gaze back to mine, and she grimaced, then shrugged. “Maybe a little? I find aggression and sexual energy to be tightly entwined, so hitting up gyms like this gives me a nice little pick me up.”

“How often do you have to feed?”

“A few times a day.”

“What if you can’t find food?”

She laughed lightly, although I could hear the strain. “There’s always food around.”

“What if you were stuck in a lesbian convention all day that had a strict no-dick policy?”

That comment got a more genuine laugh, and I much preferred it to that fake shit she was laying on before. “You know what? I like you, Cat McKenzie.”

I didn’t say it, but I liked her too. I didn’t want to, though. She was one of the monsters I feared so much. They weren’t supposed to be likeable, or even approachable.

“How do you feed?” My question caught her off guard. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”

She waved away my concern, then turned when a guy appeared and started barking orders at them all. She shrugged and moved in the direction of the mats, dropping her bag and bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. I leaned against one of the support beams and watched how the lithe muscles in her legs helped her move with a grace that was almost feline. She wasn’t too thin, like most women were these days. Instead, she had sculpted muscles in her arms and shoulders, like she used to be a dancer or something.

The warm-up began, and where us mere mortals had had to run around in a circle, here they took running leaps that covered the entire mat, or defied gravity itself and ran directly up the walls in a wide arc.

The longer I watched, the more the opal against my heart heated up. With a sigh, I waved goodbye to Mike, then drove home, stopping for pizza at the joint only a block from my apartment.

I woke with a gasp in the middle of the night. Out of instinct, I reached for the opal, then thought that was stupid. The thing wasn’t a weapon. Honestly, I didn’t even know why it did what it did.

I jerked at the sound of a fist hammering away at my apartment door, then I cursed whoever it was for waking me up at two in the freaking morning. Didn’t they know I needed my beauty sleep? Tossing back the comforter, I stuck my feet into my unicorn slippers—no, they aren’t just for five-year-old girls—and slipped on the matching robe.

Whoever had woken me up was still hammering, and at this rate, the whole floor was going to be privy to the screaming I was about to rain down on the sucker.

“What?” I hissed as I yanked open the door.

Sawyer pushed past me and into my apartment without so much as a hello. He was still dressed in the black slacks and black button-down he’d worn to work that day…err, yesterday. Had he even gone home?

“What are you doing here?” I asked, shutting the door. “And please, do come in.”

He threw me an acerbic look.

“Not a morning person. Noted.” Shuffling into the kitchen, I got the Krups going and leaned back against the counter. “What are you doing here?”

“You didn’t answer your phone.”

“Umm, yeah, because I was asleep.”

He shook his head. “Crime doesn’t care what time it is.”

I actually laughed out loud. “Oh my god, how many nineties cop show re-runs have you been watching? Seriously? Crime doesn’t care what time it is,” I mimicked, pulling open an overhead cupboard and pulling out a mug. Sawyer didn’t get a cup of coffee this morning. Grouchy people deserved none.

“Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“It didn’t ring.” I didn’t mean to sound defensive, and I sure as hell didn’t mean to sound petulant, but Sawyer had a way of bringing out the immature side of me. “The battery must have died.”

His hands curved into fists at his side, and he sucked in a deep breath. “Unbelievable.”

I arched a brow but continued making my coffee. If he thought he could come into my apartment at two in the morning and berate me, he was living in a fucking alternate universe.

While I finished making my coffee, he stalked around my living room. “What’s with the unicorns?” he asked, amusement coloring his voice, just like his blood was going to color my walls if he didn’t stop making fun of my unicorn collection.

“I like ceramic unicorns.”

“They’re a little childish, aren’t they?”

“You’re a little childish,” I shot back. Definitely not my best retort, but it was early. Waaaaaay early. Plus, I hadn’t had any