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

me with a hooded gaze. Tall white horns rise up from his temples in a terrifyingly beautiful arch.

“You’re powerful, for a human,” the demon whispers strangely. “Bewitching too,” he adds. He speaks like he’s afraid he might break me if he leans any closer.

Yet he does. He leans down, his hair skims over my cheek as his breath tingles over my ear. “Most delightful of all,” he pauses as he gazes at me from the corner of his mischievous eyes, “your soul is now a part of mine!”

And then he slams his lips into mine.

He tastes like Hell and candy. Like smoke and sugar. Like a deadly, deadly mistake.

I pull back from him, my hands clutching onto his as I shove him away. My palm snaps across his cheek just as my knee comes up fast. My foot connects with his groin, but he grabs me there. He holds me close and as I stumble back, he follows.

My ass hits the floor with a thump of discomfort slamming all through my body as his heavy weight collides into me. His smooth chest glows in the darkness. Symbols like nothing I’ve ever seen before slash over up his arms and down the center of his chest like a glowing neon sign. Black, tattered pants cling to his waist where even more swirling letters dash down the hard lines of his hips.

Color kisses his pale skin now. But oddly, his eyes and hair still retain that shimmering gemstone color. He holds himself up with his arms braced on either side of me as he stares into my eyes like I’m the most enchanting thing he has ever gazed upon.

“Tell me!” I repeat once again on a ragged breath.

I don’t give a single fuck about this demon. I don’t care that I’ve released him without a single understanding as to how or why.

He made a vow, and now he’s going to tell me everything.

Right now.

“Kyra didn’t love Rival. Rival felt guilt toward Kyra, and she chose to put up with him for some reason.” He speaks factually as his fingers brush my hair back from my face.

I bat his hand away.

“Did Rival kill her? Did he? Tell me!”

“I only know what people tell me. What they ask of me.”

I blink up at him.

No one’s going to flat out confess. I understand that.

I get it.

I just—I need more answers.

“Rival once asked me where to hide a dead body. And about the best way to cover up a murder.” The demon sits up slowly.

My hands shake across the cold floor as I push myself up as well.

“He buried someone in a used grave just between the front of the house and the rear. And then he bought time to avoid any investigations.” He tries to search my face as he speaks, but I’m already standing and running for the door.

Kyra’s here! Her body was just carelessly buried on top of a stranger’s. And the man who brought me here to help her, he’s really just hiding her for as long as possible.

Twenty

Kira

My bare feet fly over the floor so fast that the sounds of cracking floor tile calls after the wake of my footfalls. I’m up the stairs and rounding the door to Rival’s library room in mere moments. The old books are perfectly in place along his floor to ceiling shelves. A half empty glass of blood sits abandoned on the fireplace mantel.

And the book I tried to hide so carefully lies open to my scribbled note of paper on his desk.

Acessa

Polite. But is she hiding something?

Aston Cardence

Has the strength and the arrogance but his drive isn’t there. The boy has all the aspirations of a browning banana.

Pavel

…physically unfit.

Rival Royale

A lover is the first suspect.

He threatened me, twice.

Has the motive. And the ability.

The signs were all there. I just didn’t recognize them in the man who was supposed to care about my sister. Even more innocent people have died because I refused to see him clearly.

And every second that passes is another opportunity for him to strike.

I stride out of the empty room. My chest collides hard with someone else.

“Slow down!” Prey looks me up and down and though there’s hatred in the hard pull of his brow and lips, his gaze is soft as he apprises me. There’s love and concern written all over his moody little face.

I just don’t have any time to care at the moment.

I shove past him, but he grips my wrist and pulls me close.

“We need to talk,” he says.

“I have to go.” I shake him off, but still he clings to me.

“I just. I’m sorr—”

“Rival killed Kyra!” I shriek just to get it through his thick skull that something more important than his arrogant feelings is happening right now.

His mouth falls open hard. “No,” he whispers slowly.

It’s only then that I see Prey for who he really is. He’s been belittled and shoved down by all these superiors… and yet he continues to trust them without question. The confusion and disbelief in his features tells me I’m threatening the foundation of his existence here.

And I know he won’t be the only one who feels that way if I call Rival out.

Will the High Council stand by his side? Will they cover for a murderer? A rapist? A monster?

Prey is still staring at me with wide, uncertain eyes when I slip my hand out of his and keep going.

I’m through the quiet dining hall in a matter of seconds. Acessa’s assistant, Blyke passes a look my way, but he doesn’t comment on my messy hair or dirty feet as I search the room. He eats alone, but there’s something else about the young vampire…

Every drink from his wine glass is a stiff and proper motion. A nervous tension expels from him in waves that I can feel in my own chest.

Why do I sense him in that way?

Whose magic is bouncing around me at this moment?

I shake the thought away, but before I dash out of the