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

My hand drops to the floor like a dead fish, yet still he lingers.

“Louis and I are guards.”

“Wolves,” Louis corrects.

“Wolves,” Prey rolls his eyes hard.

“Don’t be mad, little leech. It’s not our fault that our senses are so superior.” Vuitton is still smiling that big aloof smile he walked in with.

“Louis and Vuitton.” I blink at that.

Vuitton smiles, like a dog about to pounce a tennis ball.

“Your sister named us. We’re her personal guards when she needs us.”

“Were. We were her guards,” Louis corrects once more as he pulls his shirt off and gazes intently out the foggy glass window that overlooks my quiet street.

Guard dogs.

My sister had a pair of guard dogs.

And she named them after shoes…

I blink up at the enormous beautiful man as I try to sort out the mess my life has become.

Kyra Vega had a vampire assistant and two pet werewolves for protection.

And still her enemies managed to kill her.

“How did she die?” I ask so quietly, but the room halts on a dime the moment I say those words.

Prey finally loosens the pressure he’s been holding over my wrists. He releases me slowly, and it’s with a hard frown etching his smooth features that he leaves me lying there. He stalks off toward the kitchen without looking back at me.

Vuitton looks to Louis, but the two of them remain silent.

I close my eyes and just wish I could fall right through the cracks in the floor. To be absorbed into the carpet and floorboards and hope that that existence feels better than this crushing grief. As I lie here wishing for numbness through the anxiety and confusion, Vuitton finally speaks in a gentle rumble of words.

“Someone did it while she slept.” His honesty lights up the darkness. His soft words reveal what Kyra already knew would happen.

Exactly what she warned me about last month.

Someone would hurt her there.

Again.

“They found her lying in her coffin just before sunset two nights ago. Other than the four of us and Royale, no one else knows.” The enormous man is still lingering at my side. I stare up at him, dissecting those last words.

“Why does no one know of her death? Why isn’t it being investigated?” I fling myself up then and look at Louis for more information, but the man hasn’t shifted his eyes from the glass window even once.

“Why do you think we’re here, Pretty Pet?” Prey says in that cruel and cutting tone of his.

He leans against my kitchen wall as he gazes at me like I’m a toy to be played with.

I process his question, and only one answer comes to mind.

“I’m a ploy. A trap for whoever did this to Kyra.”

Edged laughter rumbles from the vampire as he throws his head back and really enjoys what he seems to see as stupidity.

“You’re her twin. The twin no one knew about.” He tilts his head at me. “No one knows Kyra is dead.”

My memories flicker through all the twin swaps Kyra and I did to mom. Our friends. Our teachers. Everyone. They all flash before my eyes over and over again.

“You want me to be bait… in your world.”

Vuitton doesn’t meet my searching eyes, but Prey just smiles at me. He smiles in that way that makes me think he might eat me alive if everyone turned their heads away for longer than a second. My stomach drops just imagining being planted among the deadliest creatures our world has come to know. And I’m supposed to trick them long enough to catch a killer? The numbness I had craved so badly finally settles in.

“Royale will be here after nightfall. He’s too old to sun-walk like I do. He’ll get everything in order for you,” Prey shoves off from his leaning spot and flops down on my green velvet couch.

Still shirtless. Still acting as if this is their home and not mine.

“Hey!” A banging resounds through the room. “Hey, that’s not your stoop. That’s not yours!” More ruckus than I’ve yet heard from Louis erupts as he bangs his forehead off the glass not once but twice, scolding someone down below the entire time. “Tie your dirty fucking shoes somewhere else, bitch! This ain’t your building. Keep walking. Yeah, you better keep going, you loose-laced cunt.”

My wide eyes blink slowly attempting to process all of that.

His every muscle is taut and flexed as he continues to chew the woman out from the safety of my second story apartment living room. The fog his breath leaves against the glass is smudged from how he’s rubbed his chin and nose on the window too many times. Vuitton looks wildly interested, his brown eyes big and watchful as he hops up and strides over to his friend.

“She won’t be coming back here any time soon,” Vuitton encourages, clapping Louis on the shoulder as the two nearly naked men appraise their good work.

And I’m left sitting on the floor. More confused and worried than when I first woke up.

Four

Kira

I’m still glaring daggers at the three strangers in my living room as I sip a soda in my kitchenette. Louis and Vuitton still guard the window, barking their asses off anytime someone so much as spits gum on the sidewalk. Prey naps… do vampires nap? Anyway, Prey lounges with his dark lashes fanned over his sharp cheekbones on the couch, his feet hanging off the edge as he rests.

The last few rays of the warm sunlight halo the two shifters in a golden god-like framing of perfection. Louis’ dark brown hair sits high at the back of his partially shaved head. The bun is so loose I have no idea how it’s made it through all of his many outbursts this evening.

Vuitton and him are in sync. But they don’t seem to be brothers. At least their polar opposite appearances wouldn’t suggest they’re even vaguely related. But they do share something. It’s more than comradery, it’s a bond of some kind. When one spots something