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

I slip through my bedroom and quietly open the door.

Then I fling my fist out so fast that the man looming over me doesn’t even have time to react. My knuckles meet the hard plane of his abdomen and he folds on impact. The lazy lean he had as he lounged against the door frame crumbles in half a second. My tired eyes watch while Prey hisses out a lost breath as I simply walk past him to my couch and curl up there with my morning blanket. Once I’m wrapped like a pretty cocoon, not yet ready to spread my wings and fly, I acknowledge the coughing creature.

“Put a fucking shirt on and don’t get comfortable in my house.”

He slowly lifts back to his impressive height, but there’s a new glare in his eyes.

“Did your sister never tell you not to attack your superiors?”

Superiors.

He can call himself whatever he likes, but he’ll always be the kind of monster humans whisper about.

I hold his crisp blue gaze without blinking. “So your kind can attack us, but not the other way around?”

His hand still lingers on the etched lines of his lean stomach and the smile he gives me is on the cutting edge of hostility.

“Vampires are consensual beings.”

“Bullshit.”

Prey stalks toward me like the predator he really is. His long fingers brace against the back of the couch as he cages me in to hold my gaze.

He smells like a surprising mixture of honey and spice. I stop myself from leaning in closer to the addicting scent.

He isn't hot coffee. There’s no lustful humming or orgasmic eye flutters when I smell him.

Shit, did I just hum?

“To be fed from is the most erotic sense of pleasure you could ever know, Pretty Pet,” he whispers. “There are more than enough of volunteers. We do not need to attack.”

My foot extends fast and hard, slamming into his stomach once more. A groan rumbles from his throat as the air heaves from his lungs in one big huff.

But he manages to catch my ankle. And he holds me there.

“You don’t need to attack. But you still fucking do!” I accuse through clenched teeth.

With a flash of fangs, his own sharp teeth shine back at me. “Do not. Ever. Attack me.” His nails bite into the skin just above my foot.

I refuse to wince from the pain.

Blood slides down my flesh from around his fingertips.

He’s controlled. He won’t bite my leg off simply from catching the smell of blood. But the ruby color shadowing his pale blue eyes is a telling sign.

“Let go,” I grind out.

His glare burns into mine. Beneath the soft throw blanket my fingers dig into my palm and every calculated way I can think of to hurt him circles my mind.

How to make it look like an accident?

A slip of the pencil to the eye: death by guy liner. A thousand flat-iron burns: an e-boy’s tragic demise. Introducing him to Andy Biersack: A fanboy’s heart failure.

I don’t have time for any of those scenarios, unfortunately.

Instead, I leap off the couch and tackle his ass to the floor with a heavy thump. Prey releases a grunt of pain, but that pain is given right back to me as we flip suddenly. He shoves me down before the air hits my lungs again. And then his hands are around my upper arms, holding my hands above my head as he stares down on me with more spite than I’ve ever seen from the conniving vampire before.

He hates me...

Our breaths clash between us and there’s no gentleness as we glare at one another.

There is nothing but animalistic violence in the air.

Until…

“You were told to protect her, not fuck her,” someone says with laughter kissing their warm, deep words.

From my low-lying spot on the floor, I look over the small coffee table to find two—very large—men standing there.

With luggage.

As if they’re planning to stay a while.

Motherfucker!

Three

Kira

The first man strides in as if this has been his apartment for years and he’s happily reunited with all his beloved possessions after a long time away. Probably has renter’s insurance or some shit. His luggage —an old Bull’s duffle bag— gets tossed on the couch without care. He kicks his enormous sneakers off haphazardly near the door, flinging dirt over the beige carpet as he goes.

The second man sets his duffle down quietly and I appreciate him as he slowly slips out of his shoes and closes the door behind him.At least one of these assholes has manners.

Then his hand grips the bottom of his green shirt and he pulls it up slowly. Inch by glorious inch of smooth bronze skin reveals the deep lines of his abdomen.

My eyebrows lift high, but that’s the only outrage I’m capable of expressing. My brain is detesting it, complaining about the audacity, but my uterus is already bundling up a little egg and preparing it like a present just for him, whenever he’s ready.

He folds the shirt, but when he unbuttons and drops his jeans, my brain finally clocks back into work.

“Who the fuck are you two?” I sputter from the floor, still trapped and held prisoner in my own house by the jerk leaning above me.

The man is folding his jeans now as well, his innocent and smiling eyes finally meet mine, as if he forgot I was here at all.

Yeah. Y’all invited me to my your housewarming party here, asshole. Please acknowledge me!

He kneels down on his hunches, squatting in nothing but a pair of tight black boxers and a bulge that not even Mother Mary could ignore.

He sweeps his long golden blonde hair from his eyes, giving me a gleaming smile like the sun rising over a crashing ocean.

“Vuitton,” he extends his big hand an inch away from mine… the one that’s held down to the floor where I’ve been pinned.

I pause, but awkwardly lift my wrist as much as I can. He proceeds to shake it like the weird gentleman that