Vampire for Christmas

Vampire for Christmas

It was one last mission. Shannon, a demon hunter with the
agency, is looking forward to leaving behind the small town and the
vampire she’s been stuck with for the past two years. Things are
getting complicated fast and she wants out. A fresh start, free of
her vampire partner, awaits her if she can survive their final
mission and the lonely Christmas holidays.

It was one last mission. Rafe, a vampire doing time with the
agency, watches it approach with dread weighing heavily in his
stomach. Two years of working with Shannon has been difficult,
especially since he started falling for her, but he doesn’t want
their partnership to end. He has barely a few days to make her face
her feelings and stop her from leaving, and he intends to do just
that.

When a slimy demon threatens the season of peace and goodwill,
it’s the chance Rafe has been waiting for and the moment Shannon
secretly fears. Rafe’s determination to prise open her heart and
her own resolve to keep it closed clash as violently as they do
with the demon, and threatens to end as messily.

Can Rafe make Shannon see that his love for her is real and
that she feels something for him too? Can Shannon face her fears
and her past, and stop herself from running away from both? Will a
wish on a star bring her what her heart truly desires—a vampire for
Christmas?

Vampire for Christmas

Felicity Heaton

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 by Felicity Heaton

All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage
and retrieval system, without written permission from the author,
except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a
review.

****

Chapter 1

His
favourite prey.

Rafe
stood on the lawn, his dark eyes following her from room to room in
her large house. Shannon disappeared from view on the top floor
only to reappear in the living room. He couldn’t see much through
the open curtains but his senses made up for what he lacked in
vision. He tracked her with them, focusing until the dark world
around him drifted into the distance and there was only
her.

She was
muttering.

A smile
tugged at his lips.

How many
times had he told her not to mutter?

She
reappeared and stood in the middle of the living room, tying her
long fair hair up into a ponytail, her gaze on the television. The
twinkling lights hanging around the room cast a myriad of colours,
turning the scene from warm to cold and back again. She looked pale
tonight. Had she been getting enough sleep? They had last worked
together two weeks ago and she hadn’t seemed herself. He had tried
to ask her what was wrong, but had failed to find his voice,
instead leaving her to mull over whatever was bothering her in
silence.

Rafe had
killed the vampire that night. She hadn’t even noticed it. He’d had
to report it to the agency. In a toss up between her being angry
with him for telling her superiors about her dangerous lack of
concentration and her being safe, the latter would always win with
him.

She
smiled.

His chest
ached.

He hadn’t
seen her smile in a long time. He stood in silence, unmoving,
absorbing this rare beauty before him. She was a goddess when she
smiled, and it always tugged at his insides, luring him to her. She
turned towards the window and her smile slowly faded, her
expression turning distant.

What was
she thinking in there?

She
couldn’t see him. Human eyes weren’t sharp enough to pick him out
in the shadows of the tall trees on her lawn. The lights in the
room would steal what little night-vision she had. He could observe
her from the darkness without fear, could watch her and think over
the things that plagued him every night.

The
feelings.

During
the day, Rafe could almost pretend they didn’t exist. The sun stole
the world from him and his emotions with it, leaving him in a
deathly slumber. At night, when he came to her, when he saw her
again, everything returned, and each time it came back
stronger.

He knew
that Shannon didn’t like working with him, and the past two years
had been difficult for them both at times, especially at the start,
but it didn’t stop him from feeling something for her. They had
been through so much together, so many fights for their lives, so
many long nights passed in quiet company when no demons showed up,
and so many long conversations when her guard slipped. When they
had first been assigned to each other, he had wanted out of the
deal straight away, but now he almost looked forward to the times
they were required to work together.

His dead
heart called him a liar.

He didn’t
almost look forward to it at all. He waited for it. Yearned, in
fact.

Rafe
sighed and leaned back against the broad rough trunk of the pine
tree.

It was no
use anyway.

Come the
New Year, the agency would separate them and relocate them at
opposite ends of the country.

He stared
at her. She swept a few rogue strands of golden hair back, tucking
them into her messy ponytail, and laughed at something. The light
from the television flickered across her face. Rafe smiled at the
same time as she did. The sight of her chased the winter chill from
his body.

He was
going to miss her.

His
little vampire hunter.

He had
never wanted a partner, but she had changed that. Now, he didn’t
want any partner except her.

Shannon
smiled again and zipped up her red jumper, until the tall collar of
it covered her neck. She pushed shorter lengths of her hair behind
her ears and then looked out of the window again, and he felt as
though she was looking right at him. She was so beautiful when she
was unaware of him. Naturally so too. No trace of make-up touched
her oval face. No kohl to highlight the depths of her green eyes,
or lipstick to enhance the sensual swell of her coral lips.
Everything about her was natural, right down to her curvy shape. He
had tended to her wounds a few times before, each time battling his
desire as he swept his fingers over her soft skin and laid eyes on
the toned body she hid beneath her clothes. She trembled for him
sometimes and refused to look at him whenever she did, and he was
convinced that her shivers weren’t born of fear. He was convinced
that part of her was attracted to him too. Her gaze shifted and
settled on something partially obscured by the pale
curtains.

He
frowned and tried to make out what it was.

Ragged
dark shape that tapered upwards. Shiny coloured lights. Glittering
orbs. Tufted strings of foil.

A
Christmas tree.

It
surprised him that she celebrated the occasion. He had thought she
would be indifferent to such human things since she was a demon
hunter, but there she was, standing in a room bathed in twinkling
lights, tinsel and festive trimmings. The entire street was alive
with flashing reindeers, singing Santas, and fake snow on roofs. No
decoration touched the outside of her two storey home, but it was
different on the inside.

Rafe
studied her as she adjusted a bauble on the tree. He might have
been talking about her. The exterior she showed to him and others
was different to how she was on the inside. He knew that best at
times like these when he was watching her from the shadows. This
was the real her, the one she hid beneath her armour and would
never let him see. This was his only way of seeing the side of her
that he wished she would show to him, and he couldn’t help
himself.

He told
himself that it wasn’t stalking. It was observing. It was hunting.
It was having the chance to see the woman he wanted her to be
around him and taking it.

Shannon
moved away from the tree, towards the back of the house, her hips
swaying in her snug blue jeans. His gaze slipped to her backside
and he growled, desire spearing him in the gut. He loved the way
she walked even when she thought no one was watching. There was
something sexy about it, alluring. He cocked his head to one side
and fought the urge that rose inside him.

It was
useless.

She would
never be his.

She had
looked at him differently sometimes, almost as if he was human, but
those moments rarely lasted. The barriers were swift to come back
up, protecting her heart before he could reach out and capture it.
During their past few hunts, he had struggled with the right words,
trying to form them into a semblance of order and put his feelings
in a way that she wouldn’t reject outright, in a way that would
make her see that his emotions were real and that he would never
harm her. He had never found the perfect moment though, or the
perfect words.

And time
was running out.

The
ticking clock made him reckless. It didn’t matter anymore if she
rejected him. He couldn’t let the chance slip through his fingers
again. It was now or never.

This was
their last mission together.

He
wouldn’t leave without trying to make her see what he felt for
her.

Shannon
came out of the back room, her jacket in her left hand, and stopped
in front of the Christmas tree again. She touched the same bauble
she had before but this time her expression changed, turning
troubled and distant. What was on her mind? Rafe had seen that look
before, normally when she was lost in her thoughts, like the time
he had reported to her superiors. They had told him not to worry
about it and that they would speak with her. He wanted to be the
one to speak to her about it. He wanted to know why she had joined
the agency. She was young, barely over thirty, and she had never
mentioned her family. Did her reason for hunting demons have
something to do with them? Did it have anything to do with
vampires?

He only
hunted his own kind because the agency had him by the balls on
several murder cases. He was a vampire. All of his species were
susceptible to temptation and he was far from saintly. He had
fought his addiction though and had come out the other side a
better vampire for it. A stronger vampire because of it. He didn’t
kill anymore. He could control that side of him now, and maybe it
was time he made the agency realise that and made them let him
go.

Rafe
shook his head at the way he sounded. Childish. Petulant.
Everything that a vampire his age shouldn’t be. And why? Because he
didn’t want to leave her. He didn’t want to be reassigned to
someone else, or sent off to work alone. He wanted to stay here,
with Shannon, where he belonged.

She
tugged her short black wool jacket on and Rafe knew it was time to
make a move. She was expecting him and he had never been late
before.

He moved
further back into the shadows on her front garden when she
approached the window. She didn’t see him. She closed the curtains,
hiding her from view, and he resorted to tracking her with his
senses again.

A car
passed along the street behind him. The sound of carol singers
drifted on the chill breeze. Rafe looked up at the crisp night sky
and the twinkling stars. Christmas. He couldn’t remember if he had
ever celebrated it.

He had
forgotten so much about his former life on becoming a
vampire.

His gaze
dropped and stuck on something on her porch.

Mistletoe.

Rafe
raised an eyebrow and then smiled as he left his hiding place and
walked towards the front door.

Some
traditions he definitely remembered from his life as a
human.

***

There was
a knock at the door. Shannon knew from the impatient clip it had
who would be waiting on the porch, and she took her time because of
it. It wouldn’t look good if she rushed to answer it. The last time
she had opened the door within a minute, because she had been
passing it at the time, Rafe had teased her the whole night about
how she had been waiting for him on the other side, desperate to go
out with him again, and how attracted to him she was.