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

time, you can forget what it feels like to be excited about the mundane things. Like good weather, or warm sunlight falling across a morning chill. The smell of rain when it falls for the first time in spring. Amusements found in the tiny moments of life. All of that grows dull with time, and an all-consuming emptiness settles in their place.”

The pain in my heart spreads the longer he speaks. My hand twitches to reach out for him. To remind him he’s not alone in this world.

The way I should have reminded Kyra when I had the chance.

Without a second thought, my hand slides over his calloused knuckles. He turns toward me, but I look away the moment his eyes almost meet mine.

An intense melting warmth fills me up, and I just know it’s coming from him. My energy is seeping into him, and he’s feeding it right back to me. It feels genuinely good.

Distracting even.

Maybe that’s why I try to focus a little harder, dig a little deeper.

“Did you ever see her arguing with anyone? Spending time with someone she clearly didn’t want to be around?”

What am I missing in this chess game of a High Council?

“Just Rival. He was her only friend, and really, I could tell that they weren’t really friends.”

“They weren’t?”

He shakes his head harshly. “Nah. Rival went out of his way to try to make everyone see him as her friend, even as her lover. But he was always pretending that there was more between them than there really was. The way she responded to a simple brush of their hands could tell anyone with eyes that she hated being near him.”

He was always pretending there was more…

He can pretend all he wants, but we both know what he did…

My heart slams violently. Aston’s comments swirl with the words written inside of Kyra’s journal, and it’s only then that everything comes crashing down into perspective.

Rival.

It’s always the boyfriend!

Or in this case, the man who wanted so badly to be her boyfriend.

But instead, he just killed her.

Nineteen

Kira

I’m stumbling through the window, out of the rear building and across the catwalk in a matter of minutes. My bare feet storm over the smooth tiles of the croft so rapidly that I can feel heat burning into the soles of my feet. But I don’t stop until I’m in front of his door.

The metal plate is smooth under my fingertips as I hurriedly scribble out my sister’s name.

I’m inside and rushing in front of the wavering blue beam with dwindling air in my lungs as I push myself to move faster.

“Did Kyra love Rival?” I blurt to the man hiding beneath the imprisonment of his curtain.

A pause dips in before an amused voice speaks slowly. “It isn’t kind to speak ill of the dead,” he says eerily.

I gawk with an open mouth. “It isn’t speaking ill, now tell me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me Kyra was your sister?”

“Tell me!”

“Do not create dishonesty between us, Miss Vega,” the demon says in a smooth threat.

“Kyra Vega was my twin sister. She was murdered, and now I’m here to find out who killed her, who killed the other members of the council, and who’s killing the humans all across my city. Now, answer my question before he kills again!”

“You’re afraid of this man?”

I want to scream. I want to claw into this bizarre blue shield that he’s hiding behind and scream in his face until he reveals to me every little secret I know that he knows.

“He’s a murderer. And every second you spend toying with me supplies him with more time to kill again!”

“You want to know what I know?”

“Yes.” I speak flatly through my clenched teeth.

“You trust me enough to tell you the truth?”

“Yes.”

“I hadn’t realized we were so close, Miss Vega,” the demon says casually as the shine of his glowing sapphire eyes catches mine.

“Tell me who killed Kyra!” I fling my hand through the veil with tension splaying my fingers wide as I aim for what I hope is his throat.

But nothing except for cold ice stabbing into my flesh meets me on the other side. It prickles and stings my bones with vengeance. My scream washes through the colors, waving the blue and white and silver together like a building tsunami.

A calm touch wraps around my hand. His warmth burns through the cold, like numbing pain settling in.

“Our relationship requires blind trust, Miss Vega. A vow of eternal trust.” His whisper washes over the back of my hand as a kiss seals itself there delicately. “Do you understand?”

A gasp cuts from my throat as tears openly trickle down my eyes.

“I trust you,” I grind out. “Tell me,” I whisper on a shaking breath.

I’ll suffer through this pain. Even if this magic slices through flesh and bone, I’d be willing to sacrifice so much more to find Kyra’s justice after all that I ignored when she was alive and needed me the most.

An unclear cutting smile lines through the water of magic that lies between the demon and I.

“A vow so deep should be commiserated,” he whispers like a snake slithering through the shadows.

Hard breaths and desperate beats of my heart are all I can hear for a moment as I stare at him with pleading eyes.

“Please,” I whisper once more.

A cackle of laughter and the warmth of a fire burns up my arm as he pulls himself against me. Instead, I fall headfirst into the veil. A swoosh of magic fills my ears. Thousands of slicing sensations stab into my neck and face, yet still he pulls me closer. My feet stagger, but I fight him off enough to stay partially grounded.

The world around me is a colorless void of white, silver, and a hint of ice blue. And the man standing at the center of it is the same. His flame blue eyes stare curiously into mine. Messy hair the color of bright blue gemstones hangs over his brow as he looks down on