A Forbidden Taking

This is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to
actual events, locations, organizations, or person, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

WCP

World Castle
Publishing

Pensacola, Florida

Copyright © Kathi S. Barton 2013

ISBN: 9781938961779

First Edition World Castle Publishing
January 1, 2013

http://www.worldcastlepublishing.com

Licensing Notes

All rights reserved. No part of
this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and
reviews.

Cover: Karen Fuller

Photos: Shutterstock

Editor: Brieanna Robertson

~Chapter 1~

Megan moved toward her car. She
was exhausted and her head hurt. Rubbing her forehead with her finger tips she
staggered slightly when she bumped into a parked car. Laughing slightly to
herself she continued on until she could see her car.

Megan Reed was only a few short
days from getting her results back from her state exams, then she’d be a full
fledged doctor. Nine years waiting for this day and she was almost too tired to
be happy. Grinning as she came upon her car, she rubbed her hand over the trunk
and thought about what kind of car she would buy when she had the money. A fast
back, she decided, and maybe a—

The noise came out of nowhere. It
was a low, keening sound that made her want to run and hide. Looking around she
couldn’t see anything, but instinctively she knew she wasn’t alone. Moving to
the door she pulled out her keys and kept darting her gaze around looking for
it, for something. When the shadow fell across her face she nearly screamed out
loud, her hand going to her throat before she realized she knew the person.

“Alfred, you scared the life out
of me,” she said as she leaned against the car. “Where have you been lately? I
haven’t seen you in weeks.”

Alfred
Deveron
stared at her. She looked around for his
car and wasn’t surprised that it was still in the same place it had been for
the last two weeks. She’d heard rumors that he’d gone off with one of his
women, but who knew with this man? He was as strange as they came. She looked
back at him and noticed he looked ill.

“Alfred?”

“I’m sorry, Megan. I’m hungry. I’m
really sorry.” She started to get a little scared when he came toward her.

“That’s okay. I’ll…maybe I can get
you something at the local diner. My treat. You can meet me there.”

She knew as sure as she was
standing there that as soon as he stepped away she was out of there. Alfred
didn’t look right. He looked…well, he looked dead. Megan started fumbling for
the door handle and was startled when Alfred was suddenly right there, his hand
gripping hers so tightly that she was sure he’d break bones if he kept it up.

“Alfred, you’re hurting me. Let go
of my hand or I’ll call security. And step back. You’re crowding—”

“I’m sorry, Megan. I wish I could
do this differently, but I’m so hungry. So very hungry. And it only hurts for a
little while, I promise.”

He was too close now, much too
close for her to get away, and incredibly strong. She’d never realized that he
was so strong before. She started to struggle and pull away, but he simply
wrapped his arm around her waist, trapping her arms and lifting her off the
ground. Before she could scream or yell, he clasped his other hand over her
mouth. She felt her lip burst from the pressure. He tightened his grip on her
and suddenly—holy shit, they were flying.

Crying now, she screamed around
his hand. Megan was afraid to struggle much, afraid that he would drop her and
she’d die. When he started to nuzzle her neck, licking and nipping at her, she
thought she would be sick. He smelled of old blood and death. Crying harder,
she was startled when the ground was suddenly under her feet.

“You have to know that I’m sorry.
I’m just so hungry.” He licked her throat again and then pulled back to look at
her.

His eyes were red. Not the
bloodshot kind of a person who’d been crying a lot or had been drinking, but a
blood red. The whites of his eyes were red. And his mouth. Screaming again, she
looked at his teeth. He had…he had fucking fangs. When he licked her this time
she really fought him, trying to get away. When she felt a rib break, she nearly
passed out from the pain. Pausing slightly was all the encouragement he needed,
apparently.

With another, “I’m so sorry,” Alfred
bit her. His teeth, his fangs, sank into her deep.

Her screams were ringing in her
head. Now she was sick; her belly was churning over and over until she felt
herself grow weak. When the colors started to fade from the trees around her
and the grass became gray as well, she felt her knees grow wobbly then she
drifted off. Her last thought was that she would never know what her results
were.

~~~

The sun was close to setting, she
thought, and Megan needed to move. Her body was sore and achy from lying in a
cramped place for so long. She stretched and moved to open the way out. This
was the part she hated more than anything, the not knowing.

She didn’t know anything really.
All this time and all she knew was that she was a monster. A horrible monster who
wished every day that she could have died that day sixteen months ago. Testing
the light coming in she was relieved to find it was indeed dark out and moved
the seat out of the way and then moved out of her trunk.

She crawled out of the back seat
and was standing up when the first wave of hunger hit her. Looking around she
could see a couple of people milling around, and the sound of their hearts
beating nearly drove her to slide back into her hidey hole.

That was the second thing she
hated. Everything was too much. The sounds were too loud, the colors too bright,
and the smells…some days she wanted bury her head in a gas mask to keep the
smells away. She held onto the handle of her car trying to keep herself from
going to them, the warm blooded people who would feed her.

Megan hated this part of herself
too. The need to drink blood. The need to feed herself on the blood of others
was sickening to her. She had tried not drinking from anyone, but that had been
a mistake. She’d killed that man that one time and had vowed never to do that
again. Now she fed nightly, or as close to that as she could. She wouldn’t put
herself in a predicament like that again. She started toward the two men
standing next to the fire in the large can near the water.

“Cold, huh?” She grinned at them
and hoped that her fangs wouldn’t show.

She didn’t know how they just knew
to drop like they did. Sometimes when she was excited they just popped out. She
tried to control them, but had only made it worse by thinking about them. Since
they didn’t run off she figured she was all right.

“Sure is. Huddle up closer, girl. You
don’t got enough meat on your bones to be standing around without a jacket on.
You should go down to the shelter. They’ll give you a nice fleece.”

Megan looked down. She’d forgotten
about a coat. The truth was, she didn’t feel the cold like others did. Most of
the time she was barefooted and would only wear shoes when someone would point
it out to her. She moved closer to the fire and began rubbing her hands together.

Moving slightly closer to the man nearest
to her she turned her body so that it looked as if she was seeking warmth from
him. The other man couldn’t really see her or what she was doing, but he did
move up behind her other side and seemed to be sheltering her from the worst of
the wind. She nearly cried out for them not to be nice to her, she was a
monster, but she was hungry and kept quiet.

When she nuzzled up to his throat,
she licked the area. The man, nearly twice her age, moaned in response. Before
he could say anything she bit down. She was as gentle as she could be, but he
still jerked a little. Soon he wasn’t moving away, but turning so that his body
was bumping hard against her thigh.

She’d learned that the first time
she’d had to feed. Men got some sort of sexual release from her biting them.
The first several times she’d felt them come in their pants she’d been sickened
more by it. But soon she realized that if they got pleasure from this they
didn’t fight her as much. At least the older men didn’t. She’d learned the hard
way to keep away from the younger men. She was sealing up the wound when she
felt someone coming.

Megan didn’t move much, but her
body was ready. She leaned into the second man, quicker now, and bit him as
well. She never drank much, just a few swallows, but it was enough to get her
through the night before she had to seek others out.

She saw the man in the shadows. He
was just beyond the light of the fire, but with her powerful sight she could
make him out. He didn’t move, but watched them. As soon as she sealed the wound
at the second man’s neck he climaxed too. Megan was backing away from the two
men when the one in the shadows moved toward her.

Megan could smell him. He didn’t
smell like anyone she’d ever smelled before and that made her nervous. She
moved back further as he kept walking toward her. She was nearly to the edge of
the light herself when he stepped into the light enough that she could see him.

Christ. He was big and not only
big, but he was beautiful. Shaking her head Megan turned and ran from the area.
She was nearly three miles away when she realized that she wasn’t alone. There
were wolves here, big ones too.

Megan sat down next to one of the
big trees in the open forest and stilled. She knew that she could sit this way
for hours and no one would ever feel her. Twenty minutes later the man, the one
in the shadows, walked right by her. The wolves, silent now, didn’t move when
he did.

Megan waited another ten minutes,
sure that he was gone before she rose. Smiling at the wolves she thanked them
for their added help and began playing with them. It was nearly ten o’clock at
night when she moved away to go to work.

~Chapter 2~

Kyle paced his office. He wasn’t a
very patient man and he knew this. He was hoping that his mate, Madison, would
hurry up and show. He knew that she could calm him in ways that nothing else
could. His friend Beau had better be on time too.

Beau
Desjardin
was coming for an extended visit. Kyle didn’t know why, nor did he particularly
care, but he was glad for the visit. He and Beau had been friends for more than
two hundred years, since Kyle had been visiting France during the war.

He’d
met Beau just after the French war. He’d been wandering around in a slight daze
and Kyle had come upon him, thinking to find a quick feed. He didn’t care for
feeding from men, but he was starved and desperate. It wasn’t until he was
nearly next to Beau that Kyle realized that Beau was a newly turned vampire.

When
Kyle had tried to help the younger man he’d been surprised at his strength. A
newly turned vamp was normally weak and very easy to kill. Beau had not only
knocked Kyle on his ass a couple of times, but managed it on a massive amount
of blood loss and not knowing how to replenish it.

Taking
him under his wing Kyle showed him the basics and also showed him how to make
sure that he had what he needed to survive. Not just in the human world, but
also among the predators like themselves.

Beau had
become a master some decades back and had retired with honor among his kind. A
rare thing for a vamp to retire; they were normally killed for their position
and power. But Beau had managed to not only do that, but also retire with the
blessing of the Vampire Council as well.

“Will
you please sit down? You’re wearing a hole in that carpet and I am
so
not going to wait for that carpet guy to come back.”

Kyle
turned to Maddie. “I told you I didn’t do anything to him. He was in the way
when I came up from our lair and he was…startled, that’s all.”

Maddie
looked at him with a raised brow. She could do that as well as Aaron, his
friend. He didn’t like it on her any more than he did on Aaron.

“You
just happened to come from the lower levels at the same time he was making a
pass at me? Get real. We both know you’d been waiting in the corner to jump him
ever since I told you he thought I had a nice ass.”