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

He blinks his violent blue eyes at me. They’re pretty today, really. At least this time his eyes are not shadowed with the blood of his dinner lingering in his gaze.

They looked… gentle. And a little remorseful, if I didn’t know any better.

His dirty black boots scrape against the pavement as he looks away from me. The red line between us is a glaring notation. He doesn’t touch it.

Nor do I.

“Miss Vega cannot make it today. I’ve been advised to dismiss you this month.” There’s definitely something hidden behind those pretty prep-schoolboy eyes when he finally brings his attention back to me.

He can pretend to be proper and fake being polite,but we both know he isn’t.

A beat passes in silence as I pick apart his words, his stance, his stare, his every minute detail.

Dark circles rim his inky lashes. His already lean frame has a more careless slouch today, if that’s even possible. A tired sort of stance. And as for what he just said… No one knows that I meet my twin sister here on the sixth of every month. He didn’t say Kyra asked him to send me an update, he said he had been advised…

By whom?

Who else could possibly know about me?

No one. Kyra wouldn’t take that chance. She wouldn’t dare tell anyone about her human sister.

Just like I wouldn’t even tell our mother that Kyra’s didn’t actually die two years ago. That she’s alive and... Well… as close to alive as an undead monster can be anyway.

So the bigger question isn’t who knows and who sent him, but…

“Why isn’t she here?” I take a single step closer to the dangerous line that to the average eye would be overlooked. And because of the magical spell interwoven with that line, it would naturally be avoided by the more oblivious of my kind.

Lucky them.

Prey tilts his head to the side, a smug smirk cutting over his lips as he looks down on me. His hands slide into his pockets as if he’s cold in the autumn weather but I know he feels nothing.

Not a damn thing.

“Careful, Pretty Human. You wouldn’t want to cross that line.”

My jaw grinds hard as I keep my mouth shut about the one thing I can never tell anyone. Especially his kind.

They’d kill me for it.

Because the humans who know about supernaturals, don’t step over into their world. And they’ve agreed not to come into ours.

My sister and I break this rule once a month. We don’t dare to break the rule often.

I break it more than they’ll ever know but that’s my own little secret for just me to keep.

“I want to see her myself.”

A car slows with squealing brakes as it travels down Crimson Road. Just as it nears the city line, the car comes to a full stop. The driver shakes his head. It takes him a minute to reevaluate whatever it is the magic shows him. A dead end? More endless road construction?

Whatever it is, he reverses because of it. He turns his little white sedan right around and will more than likely forget he ever drove down this cursed lane.

I wish I had.

Honestly, it would have been easier to believe Kyra had died that night on our eighteenth birthday. It was far easier than learning the twisted truth.

“I want to see her!” I state with an edge biting my tone.

I knew something would happen. I knew the moment she snuck directly into my apartment to confess her worst fears.

Those fears are clearly alive and well now.

“Did it ever occur to you that she doesn’t return that sweet sentiment? Perhaps she has grown tired of keeping the stale relationship with her weak little sister alive.” Everything he says is so condescending and cruel. It pains me not to throat punch him, just to cut into that obnoxiously proper tone of his a little.

I storm forward and maybe I will punch him. Maybe I’ll tackle his scrawny ass to the ground and give him a kick for every single spiteful thing he’s ever said to me over the last two years.

But I only make it one step.

My sneakers hit the red line and before I can lunge at him, he surprises me.

His shoulder slams into my stomach hard enough to knock the wind out of me. I tense for the impact of the sidewalk to crash against my back.

But the collision never comes.

With a fluid movement, he flings my entire body over his shoulder and strides down the Chicago sidewalk in broad daylight. It’s a languid walk of complete casualness as I bring my knee to his chest over and over again, my nails claw into his back with every step he takes. Still, he just carries on as if there isn’t a hundred and thirty pound rabid cat of a woman hissing obscenities right to his very taut ass. God, why is his ass the only thing I can see right now? His slim jeans hang just a little, and I notice that his underwear is black as well, just as I predicted. And his shirt keeps riding up. Are those dimples? He has back dimples?

Stop making my heart stupid!

“Put me down!”

A sparking flick of sound strikes, then I hear him inhale deeply.

Is… is he having a smoke right now?

“No can do, Vega.”

The scent of nicotine hits my lungs as he flicks his ashes right into my face.

“Fucking Lost Boys wannabe!” I slam my fist into his back.

Someone passes by. A woman wearing a sweater and boots stares, but when she looks up at Prey…

“Little sisters. You know how they are. Am I right, Karen?” I can hear the cocky smirk in his tone.

Her face flushes bright red and she scurries off.

“Fucking cock-corpse! Put me down!”

“I would, but then you’d stop with all the pretty compliments, and my ego could really use a boost lately.” Another long drag sends another flurry of ashes into my face. “Tell me more about my dead hard cock, Pretty Pet.”

My fists clench so hard