Holiday Bites: A Collection of Vampire Paranormal Romances Read Online Free Page A

was concluded, I married her. And because she was a submissive, she felt it acceptable to do anything her husband and master asked. So, when she met Robert, another vampire, and I saw her attraction to him… I brought him into our bed.
    “After a while, Robert wanted her only for himself. He captured me to bait the trap. She swooped in to save me and I let her. I was weak from torture and blood-letting. I had to go to ground to heal and regain my strength. I knew I could return the next night, on Christmas Eve, and save her . I thought that would be a romantic gesture. I would rescue my wife on the holiday she treasured most. But I was wrong.”
    “W-what happened?”
    “Robert drained her and turned her. When she realized what he’d done, that she’d lost her soul, she escaped into the dawn. She committed suicide because she had nothing to lose in the afterlife—and she refused to live as a vampire.
    “Even though Robert’s jealousy and possession had blinded him, he really did love Derina. He followed her into the sunrise. Maybe he hoped to be with her in the afterlife. If there is a hell, though, I hope that’s where he is. He didn’t deserve her.” He sighed again. “I wrote Swelter as a way to remember the good times we had together. Swelter, Too was mostly fiction—perhaps my own longing for the way things might’ve been had we’d lived happily. But then … I found you, Eve.”
    In her anxiety, she nearly squeezed the pillow flat. Endless tears trailed her cheeks. Am I Derina reborn? Is that why he wants me? Even as she denied the possibility, her heart knew differently. She had loved Swelter , had read and reread it because she’d connected to character of Derina.
    When she met Steven, she had recognized him on a soul-deep level. No man had ever stayed in her life for long because no man, in any lifetime, had measured up. “That’s why I got invited to the reader’s party. So you could meet me and see if I was … her.”
    “You sent me that lovely fan letter. It sounded like her. And the way you signed your name … I swore that was Derina’s handwriting. Oh, Eve. Forgive me. I thought I could recapture what I had lost.”
    It hurt to him admit that he’d wanted her because he believed her to be someone else. And now, when he was admitting that he loved her, how could she believe him? “You expect me to believe that I’m your reincarnated lover and that you are a vampire.”
    “It doesn’t matter if you believe in reincarnation. I love you not because you might be Derina, but because you are Eve. However, I can prove that I’m a vampire.” He smiled and she saw the gleam of his fangs.
    Holy damn. Eve wondered what it would feel like to be bitten. Quivering, she put a hand to her throat and kept her gaze on Steven. He had never shown her his fangs and had never bitten her. The questions must’ve shown in her eyes.
    “I protected that part of my life from you. In this day and age, I don’t have to hunt humans for sustenance. Blood banks deliver. Darling, I can smell your fear,” he murmured. “Your heart is beating a mile a minute. Sweat is prickling your brow. Don’t be afraid of me, Eve.”
    “I’m sorry. This is a lot to take in.” She looked at him and saw the longing and desperation in his expression. “Do you want to turn me?”
    “I want to love you. I want your happiness. I want to give you the world and everything in it.”
    “In Swelter , you mark Derina. Is that fact or fiction?”
    “Vampires mark their mates.” He withdrew a black velvet box from the pocket of his robe and set it in the middle of the bed. “I want to marry you, Eve. I want to make you mine in every way that counts.”
    “I’m not Derina,” she said, her gaze on the box. Her heart thumped wildly. “And I won’t pretend that I am.”
    “Have I ever asked that of you? A fragment of her soul may reside in yours,” said Steven, “but it is you I love, Eve. You are my mate.”
    She saw the truth