Never Have A Vampire's Baby (12 page)

THE END

Message From The Author:

Hiii

I hope you enjoyed the main book.

As promised and as part of this special package there is a bonus book included that has never previously been released anywhere before and you can start reading this now on the next page!

BONUS BOOK

THE VAMPIRE'S UNWANTED WIFE

PAULA MORGAN

About This Book:

“He didn't want her but now he has to protect her”

Rita's past as a vampire hunter made her the type of woman that handsome vampire Asher would never go for despite how much he was attracted to her.

However, when his shapeshifter enemies make the mistake of thinking that Rita is his wife, they go after her. And they want her dead.

Now Asher feels he has no choice but to save his apparently unwanted “wife” and the two of them soon find themselves fighting much more than their feelings for each other in the process...

THE VAMPIRE'S UNWANTED WIFE

Chapter One

The sight of her mother in full tactical gear, which consisted of an all-black outfit and her mini bow, elicited a sigh from Rita Jones. "I should have slept in the office."

She had just pulled into the driveway of the bright blue ranch style home she shared with her sister and her parents. At twenty-three years old, she really needed to find her own place, she thought. This was especially true after seeing what they were doing through the front window. Her father was strapping her sister into what looked like harnesses that would go under her jacket.

Groaning she had to force herself to climb from her pride and joy, a ten-year-old black jeep. Her parents and Greta were getting ready for the hunt. They would do the same thing they always did and try to guilt her to go with them. Rita hadn't gone after vampires in over a year and was perfectly content with her boring, yet well-paying, paralegal job. It had been an okay day, the back to back meetings made it fly by and they bought lunch for them, so there wasn’t much that could top that.

Slowly moving up to the front door, she put her ear against it, knowing her parents hadn’t heard her pull in. They could hear a vamp in the bushes miles away, but a jeep in the driveway, didn’t alert them.

“She’s going to say no,” Greta was saying. “I don’t know why you insist on trying to get her to go every time.”

Greta Jones was the perfect daughter for her parents. At just one year older than Rita, she’d excelled at hunting, trapping, and marking. It helped that she was perfect with blonde hair down to her ass and a cute as hell freckled baby face. Men fell all over themselves for her. She looked just like their mom. Rita had gotten her dad’s dark black locks, brown eyes, and fair skin. It was a strange combination of features, and while she wasn’t ugly, she always felt strange.

It was time to face the music, she thought. Pushing the door open, she put on a huge fake smile and greeted her family. 

“Rita darling, we were just talking about you!” her mother exclaimed and moved forward to hug her.

“All bad of course,” Greta said, such a jokester.

Her father was loading one of their many weapons at the table and didn’t look up but said, “Rita you’re going out with us tonight. You shouldn't forget how to defend yourself if something happens to us. Go get suited up.” He said it so calmly and directly she almost felt like she didn’t have a choice, but would she allow herself to be sucked in?

Her mother approached her again putting a hand on her shoulder. “Just go tonight, you go and you see. If you hate it, we’ll leave you alone for another six months about it.”

“Fine,” Rita was outnumbered and annoyed.

She stomped up the stairs feeling like a fifteen-year-old being told what to do by her parents. When she got to her extremely plain room, she threw the closet open. She’d put nothing on the walls since moving back in with her parents. It symbolized to her that she wouldn’t be there for long; of course, now that it had been two years, she was starting to realize that had been dumb. Until she paid off her school and credit card debt, she would be there and she might as well put something up on the wall.

Pulling back all her work clothes and workout gear, she stared at her outfit. All black like her mother's, with pockets for weapons and that silver stake she’d had made once she was almost taken out by a werewolf.

Getting dressed, she resented her parents for not just being real people, with normal jobs. Vampire hunting didn’t even pay well. She pulled on the dark tank top and long sleeved shirt. The vest she had was perfect for putting her guns on the inside of her jacket, one for vampires and one for anything else that might take them by surprise in the night. At least the tighter-than-hell pants still fit her, thanks to every morning spent in the gym. She braided her long black hair tightly back from her face and grabbed a gun and some other must have weapons from her small arsenal. Her parents had stopped letting her strap on a sword, even though it made her feel very powerful.

When she’d been younger, she couldn’t wait to go out and get ready for the day when she could go hunting with her parents. They always told her as soon as she turned eighteen, she could go. That little girl disappeared when she had a close call at twenty with a group of vamps. The event had scared her so badly she couldn’t bring herself to go again. Her mother and father had told her they’d had close calls, but she doubted it was as traumatic as the one she’d had. His face haunted her dreams; she still couldn’t go out without looking over her shoulder to make sure somehow he hadn’t found her. The story was, he left town, but there was no way she was going to just accept he’d left.

After a lot of procrastinating, Greta came up to check on her progress. She stood in the doorway and sighed several times as Rita painstakingly checked every pocket of her outfit. Finally, after the twentieth sigh, she whirled around to face her.

“What is it Greta, can I help you?”

“I don’t know why you can’t just enjoy it Rita, it’s our job.”

“It’s not our job, you three make a choice every time you go out there. I have a job.”

“As a secretary, what fun is that?”

“I am a paralegal Greta, that’s not the same.”

“Whatever, mom and dad are waiting, let’s go.”

“You get off on this whole thing don’t you? I don’t know why, but you’ve always gotten off on it,” Rita taunted her sister.

“Listen, I’m good at it, and it’s our job. There’s no reason for you to be mean about it.”

“You love it when mom and dad tell you what a great job you’ve done,” Rita continued.

“Of course I do, who doesn’t want praise, Rita? Quit being a dick and just come downstairs.”

She descended the stairs to find her parents standing there waiting like she was coming down in a prom dress and not the tightest black outfit on the planet. It would have been better to be going to prom, even at her age, and less uncomfortable. Greta rolled her eyes and stood impatiently by the door.

“Oh honey, you look wonderful,” her mother said as she clasped onto her father’s arm and they gazed at one another.

She cringed at the pride in their eyes knowing this was a one bang Sally. She’d go out tonight and that would be it. There was no reason to get their hopes up.

“This is just for this evening,” she said.

“Yes, yes honey we know,” her mother said already not listening as she tightened something on her father’s calf that was loose or not strapped in.

“I’m serious guys, I’m only going tonight because you forced me into it.”

“I know, honey,” her dad said tucking her mom’s hair behind her ear and squeezing her shoulders. He also wasn’t listening to her.

Leaning in, he kissed her mom longer than was comfortable and Greta cleared her throat loudly. Her parents had no problem showing their affection for one another all the time. It had to be the excitement of their profession, but as their daughters, it was always embarrassing.

“Whole family, ready to go.” Her dad threw a fist in the air and turned towards the door, where they all filed outside into the driveway. 

They climbed into the large black SUV her father had decked out and customized for their hunting trips and he pulled out of the driveway. To her mother and sister’s delight, their father put on some catchy Elvis song that simply grated on Rita’s nerves. Everyone except for her started to dance as they drove down the road.

“Do we have to always listen to this?” she asked.

“Yes we do!” Her dad grinned at her in the rear view.

So without any more argument, they headed out into Manchester, Wisconsin. It was a town overrun with paranormal creatures and lousy with vampires, but still the most boring place you’d ever visit. Driving out of their little neighborhood, they hit the long road that led to town. There was nothing but woods on either side of them for at least three miles. Once they passed that three-mile marker, there was one lonely gas station with two pumps and the tiniest store. Then there were trees again for another mile and then the small town. Town had one stop sign, a general store, a clothing store, a candy shop for the tourists they never had, a sheriff’s department and city hall.

For decades, the Jones family had been responsible for keeping the vamp population in Manchester down. There was not a real great explanation for why they chose the small and boring town to make their stomping grounds. Mostly, it seemed it was just where they settled and stayed. For the most part, the human residents in the town went unaware that vampires actually existed. There were some who’d had run ins with them but the vampires just hypnotized it out of them. It was the people that were drained because the vamps got too hungry, or just didn’t care, that were the unlucky ones.

One thing that contributed to the vampires being so vast in the area was a huge labyrinth of underground tunnels that they could travel beneath the city and pop out to grab an unsuspecting victim. The tunnels had been built by the first vampires to come into the area and many a hunter had lost their lives in those tunnels. The hunters never went into the tunnels unless they absolutely had to. The one time she’d been there, it had been traumatic and the reason for her exit from hunting.

There were a lot more of them in the beginning; her parents told her there were seven original brothers and sisters in the Jones family, and they all had several children each. This family of hunters was unstoppable for a while, until the vampires banded together and started to take them out. Now it was just them, and the powers that controlled the hunters around the country. Rita wasn’t sure how many families there were in the world like them, she’d never been told. She had a feeling her parents didn’t really know and that’s why they didn’t tell her.

Her mother had been a Harris before she’d married Dad and she wondered how exactly one found a wife who would just be into what you were doing, when it involved hunting vampires. They had to meet at some sort of conference or something. The strange thing was, they’d never tell the girls. They said where they met was their special secret which only made them really want to know. When their mom’s parents had still been alive, they’d asked them, and noticed how they avoided answering as well. In some ways, her parents were just as mysterious as the powers.

Rita had never seen the powers, she just knew that her father was the only one in contact with them and sometimes they gave them very specific assignments. Her close call had been a special assignment and she’d always wondered what the powers thought would happen. She had always pictured them as a group of men sitting at a long table and wearing dark cloaks where you couldn’t see their faces. It was probably way off, but it just seemed appropriate for the leaders of the vampire hunters of America, or whatever you would call them if they had a cool name like that.

“We’re here,” her mother said cheerfully as they got out of the car next to the graveyard gates and prepared to go to war.

Her mother loved the job and took what they did very seriously. At forty-two, she really didn’t look a day over thirty and still could kick any vampire’s ass. Her dad was the same age and didn’t look it either. Rita hoped that meant she had great genes and would look younger when she was old.

The tall spiked gate stood as a warning that no one should go through it into the graveyard. This cemetery had been around as long as the town, with some of the gravestones statues to the founders. It went beyond creepy and there were several crypts the vampires liked to hang out in.

“I live for this shit,” Greta was already getting excited even though she did the same thing every week.

The plan was to get out of the car and move together until they were inside the gates and then split up. Once they made it inside, her dad went towards the left while they went to the right. He’d find a high spot to watch them from and act as a sniper. The point of their trips out to find the vamps wasn’t to kill them, although sometimes it was necessary. What they did was incapacitate them so they couldn’t feed on humans. They were given a large number of bullets and serums to use on the vampires. These bullets were full of a serum that would cause vampires to become sick if they fed on humans, forcing them to hunt for animals instead.

What baffled Rita the most was that vampires still came to the same graveyard every night, even though the hunters always started there. It was like they were attracted to that one spot for some reason, like something was drawing them there. She’d asked her mom once why the vamps continued coming to the same spot they’d been hunting for so long and she’d given a really canned answer.

“They’re stupid honey, like vermin. They don’t know any better.”

Everything in her told her that couldn’t be true; they seemed a lot more intelligent than that. Especially the one who’d held her captive, he was definitely smarter than her mother seemed to think they were, but she let it go. Maybe they were just arrogant and thought they could win against them, she thought.

The vampires they hunted weren’t like the vampires portrayed in the movies. They couldn’t detect the humans just because they were nearby and they didn’t have highly sensitive hearing either. Sure, if someone cut their arm open and stood in the middle of the graveyard they would smell it, but unless they saw them, they had the element of surprise. They didn’t come out in the day because they would burn but not like burst into flames, it was mostly just uncomfortable for them. They didn’t fry at the sight of a cross, or holy water, and a stake through the heart wouldn’t kill them. You had to cut off their head, if it came to that.