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

my breathing, taking longer and longer breaths to focus my mind. Someone came down the stairs again, and judging by the clack of heels, it was Faline. Quickly, so she wouldn’t think anything was amiss, I placed my hands behind my back and rolled onto my side as she opened the casket lid.

Her dark hair was disheveled, but her green eyes were bright. The smell of sex perfumed the air, and I screwed my face up.

“You just fucked the cadaver?” I asked. “He’s as cold as the grave.”

She flashed the inside of her wrist. “Not after he’s fed, he’s not. With my blood pumping through his veins, he’s warm and hard and ripe for the plucking.”

“Don’t say the word hard to me.” I shuddered. “I get a mental image.”

She folded her arms and stared at me. Like I was a puzzle. Which I guessed I was, given I was so fucking ignorant of what my parents did for a living and I had a magical sword following me around like a dog.

“You’ll be dying in an hour. Any last words?”

An hour? This was probably my last chance to get out of here. “Yeah. Why the fuck would you delay this shit?”

Her nostrils flared. “He wants to wage psychological warfare on you. He wants to make you sweat. After all, revenge is a dish best served cold.”

“Well, you can let him know he’s doing an exceptional job of that.” I wrapped my fingers around Reaver’s hilt—the fingers of my left hand because my right shoulder was fucked—and let out a breath. “Do me a favor though?” I said. “Can you just scratch my nose for me?”

“What?”

Rolling my eyes theatrically, because why should Draco have all the thespian fun, I said, “I have an itch. On my nose. You cuffed me. I can’t reach it.”

With a long-suffering growl, she leaned down to scratch my fictional itch, and that was when I made my move. Bringing my arm up in a cumbersome arc, I brought Reaver down onto her neck, slicing through it with very little effort. Her head bounced off my chest, landing face-down between me and the side of the casket. Blood gushed from her neck, filling the inside of the coffin. The white satin turned red, eagerly absorbing the hot liquid. Bile hit the back of my throat.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed Faline by the hair and threw her head out of the casket, blood spiraling like macabre confetti around her. The appendage landed with a dull thud, and I vomited, emptying my stomach both onto me and into the coffin. After the gagging stopped, I sat up, sucking in another hiss as my right shoulder reminded me with agony-filled fingers that shit was not okay in the scapular region of my body.

Wiping a hand over the back of my mouth, I peered over the edge of the casket to make sure Faline was good and dead. If I’d learned anything from horror movies and The Walking Dead, it was that things rarely came back from decapitation. When there was movement above my head, I jerked to look at the ceiling and cursed—softly, because vampire. Hauling myself onto my good knee, I eased myself out of the coffin and off the edge of the table, making sure to keep my grip on Reaver tight. I skirted around the growing puddle of blood from Faline and began looking for somewhere to hide. The only problem was there was nowhere to hide. This guy had the cleanest fucking basement I’d ever seen. Who the hell did he think he was, Marie Condo?

The basement door opened then, and I bolted under the stairs.

Draco’s steps were light, almost non-existent, but he couldn’t control the air he displaced as he moved. From my vantage, I saw him reach the landing and freeze. I could only see him in profile, but his expression was twisted into genuine grief. I should’ve known he’d felt the moment I ended Faline’s life. He walked over to the casket and flipped off the lid, then hissed when he realized I was gone.

Easing out from under the stairs, I readjusted my grip on Reaver and hesitated. I hesitated because I could just as easily run up those stairs, out of the basement and away…but vampires were fast. I’d seen that, so standing and fighting also seemed like a good idea. Cut the head off the snake and all that.

“I don’t think you can return that coffin now,” I said, hoping I sounded as brave out loud as I did in my head. Draco spun around in a whoosh of tailored suit and snarled.

“You killed her.”

I dipped my chin. “At least you aren’t blind.”

“How?”

I looked down to find Reaver gone. Again. I glanced back up at him and shrugged. “Call me resourceful.”

“I’ll call you dead,” he said on a snarl as he launched himself at me. I braced for impact, widening my stance. He hit me with what felt like five hundred pounds of muscle and anger, but I rolled with it, absorbing the hit and toppling over. Taking this to the ground was a mistake, but I had to trust that Reaver knew what it was doing.

And now I was talking like Reaver had a brain and made tactical decisions.

My head slammed back into the bare concrete floor when Draco’s fist collided with my face. I blinked the black fuzzies out of my eyes, trying to focus on where the next strike was coming from. He caught me in the mouth, popping open my split lip that had barely healed. By the time I was done here, I was afraid of what the doctors at the hospital would think of me.

Draco’s fist hovered above me, and I dodged the strike, making the bastard punch the concrete instead. He hissed, blood leaking from his shattered hand. I was horrified to learn that vampires didn’t sustain damage like regular people. The mangled mess of bones in his hand