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

I watch their every move from over my drink and that’s how I know what they zero in on this time isn’t a jogger running at “too suspicious of a pace”, or a stray cat looking “too stray for this neighborhood”.

I know it’s something real when they both hone in on whatever it is down below.

Neither of them make a noise.

They simply look to one another with that bond of theirs communicating so much more than meets the eye.

What is it?

“Royale’s here,” Vuitton announces calmly.

Prey snaps up in a blur of movements. In the time it takes me to swallow my drink and lower it to the counter, Prey finds his shirt, smooths it down, slides into his boots and is already swinging open the door before anyone even has the chance to knock.

“Royale,” Prey says with a bow of his head. An odd welcoming passes between the arrogant vampire and the man named Royale. Prey never looks up. He doesn’t meet the man’s pale gray eyes. Prey steps backward for Royale to enter and it’s then that I note that Louis and Vuitton also refuse to meet the stranger’s sweeping gaze.

Royale appears as intimidating as these deadly men are treating him, if I’m being honest. His height alone is a fearsome stance of total dominance. He strides into my home wearing a tailored blackout suit that hugs the wide span of his chest. His silk ebony tie gleams, even in the dim lighting of the living room. The stubble along his jaw is the only unkempt part of him. If you could call that perfectly etched five o’clock shadow unkempt…

He’s a prowling monster.

Who happens to look entirely like a sex god.

His scanning attention falls on me and I’m suddenly all too aware of myself. Even while I refuse to shift beneath his slicing gaze.

“Kyra…” he whispers suspiciously.

“Kira,” I correct, my arms folding across my stained high school jersey as he appraises me.

The man glances to Prey, but the vampire doesn’t lift his bowed head.

“Prey was right: you are identical.” His tone caresses syllables here and there and grates against them at other points.

It’s an alluring accent that I can’t quite pinpoint.

“Except I’m human,” I say those words hard and enunciate them for his little critter brain to fully understand.

“Yes...” He nods while a line forms between his eyebrows, as if me being human is really ruining his precious evening. “Prey will take care of that.”

My head tilts at the stranger.

“You have three days. I’ve told Zavia that Kyra is out of the country for the rest of the week. That gives us three days to prepare.” Royale strides back toward the door and out into the hall as if that’s all settled.

But it’s fucking not.

“Excuse me!” I rush after him and only when I pass does Prey lift his head slightly. I storm out barefoot onto the worn floorboards of the building’s hallway. “What if I don’t want to? I have a great job, you know? I have an enthralling life. Friends. And family.”

Kind of.

Sort of.

I mean, maybe my mother’s phone call once a week is the only time my phone rings, and maybe Robert’s dick pic is the only one I’ve seen for eight months, but that’s irrelevant. This is my life.

And I have a choice.

“You have no choice,” Royale echoes absently before turning his back on me and walking away.

“I’m a fucking human!” I screech.

In the blink of an eye he’s on me. His hand presses forcefully against my mouth as I’m slammed into the wall.

“Do not,” his pretty grey eyes blaze into a darker, more ominous color before he finishes, “make me turn you.”

His breath fans over me in a rush of heat that seems to burn my cheeks as his words sink in.

They truly could. They like to preach that they’re all about consent, that the euphoria of feeding is enough to convince any human. But my sister is —was— walking proof that consent isn’t really their style.

I stare at the monster who is pressed against me so hard that I can feel every part of him.

He really could turn me right now, and his life would be all the easier for it.

He owns me now.

The force of his hand lowers slowly, but he keeps his forearm pressed into my chest for so long the squeal of hinges turning revives a real fear within my heart. My attention darts to the door across from mine.

Fuck. My old neighbor, Miss Croot.

The vampire doesn’t even look her way but I know, I just know she’ll ask and prod and berate me with her endless questions if she’s given the chance.

So I don’t give her that chance.

I shove against his strength and with the little space I do gain, I lunge into it. I slam my lips to his so hard that my teeth sink into my lips with the taste of copper filling my mouth.

And his.

The groan that leaves him is barely released as he sucks hard against my lower lip, swirling his tongue across my blood, my mouth… and my tongue. He kisses me deeper, it’s a wanting caress that edges on violent seduction. My lashes flutter and I fall heart and soul into the calming and all-consuming sensation he provides with just a press of his lips to mine.

It’s like floating. Like flying. Like dying. It’s like all three rolled into one.

I faintly hear a mumble from an old woman, but I’ve forgotten her name. I’ve forgotten my own existence.

A claiming hand pushes through my hair and when it twists through my locks, my entire head flings to one side with an audible crack that might have just killed me.

Maybe it did.

But the pleasure that’s surging through my mind and body is still pulsing deeper and deeper. A slickness glides across the side of my throat. Warm breath tingles across my flesh. One inhale. Two. Three...

And then he releases me.

He steps back one