🧛🏻What would you do if your ex was a Vampire? 🧛🏻

Feb 12, 2021 2:14 am

Bee Murray’s Book Club | Newsletter

🌿Emerald Fern Press🌿

February 2021

Bad Blood: A VamPR Nightmare

Introducing…. the Pisces Paranormal PR Agency

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🧛🏻 It’s almost here! Bad Blood: A VamPR Nightmare releases on February 16th! I am so excited to introduce this full-length, urban fantasy/paranormal suspense novel to y’all. Please forgive me for the length of the newsletter this month. We have a special treat for you, though. Niobe and I included a full chapter of Bad Blood just for my subscribers!! 🧛🏻

One upon a time, two dark and twisty authors decided to write a rom-com that started with mass murder and ended in... chaos.

Oops? :-D

If dark humor, blood, and vampiric violence plays a role in your version of romance, you might be our kind of people.

Bad Blood is a dark paranormal, urban fantasy, vampiric thriller that is perfect for lovers of True Blood, Scandal, Vampire Diaries, and things that go bump in the night!

Check out Bad Blood: A VamPR Nightmare on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited Here:

Books2read.com/VamPR

LIVIN' THAT VAMP LIFE

CHAPTER ONE SNEAK PEEK

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Chapter 1

Vinnie

Test results could be wrong.

False positives were a thing. I’d heard about it on the news as early as two weeks ago. A politician who almost lost her entire career because of a false positive. She’d end up with a nice lawsuit and a chunk of change… That’s what usually happened, anyway. A nice pay off for the inconvenience. But only the ones who could afford to sue. The rest?

Well… the rest had to deal with the consequences of being a vampire in a town that wasn’t quite ready for that kind of diversity.

I squinted at the paper in my hands, convinced if I stared at it long enough maybe the words would change.

I’d done it a hundred times.

They never changed.

A familiar feeling of desperation coursed through me. The worst part of hating reality is when you know, without any doubt, that the thing you fear is real.

I already knew the truth. I had known it for a long, long time. The results weren’t wrong.

And nothing was going to change that fact.

If I looked at the damned letter any longer, I was going to go insane. With a growl, I crumpled up the letter and threw it across the room to join the others in the growing pile next to the door.

Each torn, balled up piece of paper in that pile had come in the same baby blue envelope marked URGENT.

They’re all from the same place: The Seattle Infectious Disease Clinic: Vampiric Infections Division, Exposure Outreach.

I don’t need to open the familiar blue envelope and read the letter that came today because it’s the same as the letter I received yesterday. The same as the day before, and the day before that.

Sure, I’d read the first one; I just refused to believe that this was actually happening. Things like this don’t happen to people like me. It’s one benefit of being rich and famous. People believe what you tell them. To the world, I’m an eccentric pop star who lives his best life after sunset. Nothing more. Nothing less. I’m not even an anomaly.

But with the truth? That’s where my options were limited, and I felt more than a little trapped. I could call my lawyers and set them on it—it would be easy enough to threaten the medical assholes that had dared to put this in writing.

Maybe they would back off, retract their findings. I could call my manager and pay off the testing staff. If threats didn’t work, money usually would. But I couldn’t bring myself to hit the speed dial.

Plus, if I did anything like that, they might go public with the results.

That’s what all the letters were about. I had to confirm their findings and acknowledge that I understood my responsibilities as an infected party—no fucking way. They’d keep sending letters until someone reported my death or I offered the truth.

In order to make this go away, I would have to address the problem head on. Historically, not my strong suit. I would have to tell them what the letters said and risk leaking a scandal to the press. In order to do that, I would have to expand my circle of trust to include more of my staff, to tell them the truth. That doesn’t work for me. The truth doesn’t set me free—it crushes my career and might even put my life in danger.

I dropped my phone onto the cushion beside me, ran my hands through my hair, and sank deeper into the leather sofa. A small sliver of sunlight peeked out from behind the cloud and shone merrily onto my house and into my covered porch. It was just a small sliver of sunlight determined to brighten up an otherwise dreary Seattle day when it landed on my leg. I stared at it and willed myself to enjoy the small gift of warmth, but the smoke had already started. Little whiffs rose from my $900 jeans as the heat of that small sliver of sunlight baked through the denim and roasted my skin.

I watched it a little longer, morbidly curious if what I thought would happen would actually happen.

A small lick of reddish-orange flame showed up just a moment later. My leg was on fire. I watched as the small orange flare became a flame that shot across my thigh, destroying my jeans entirely before it clicked in my brain… My fucking leg is on fire.

With a roar, I reached for the pitcher of tequila sunrise drink mix next to me and dumped it on my leg, extinguishing the experiment with tequila and lime. The only sunrise that won’t kill me.

Considering how I got into this situation in the first place, if I’d been in a better mood, I would have appreciated the irony of it all. I dropped the pitcher onto the floor and sighed again as I pressed the button on the remote that closed the blackout drapes.

Not only did I have a burned hole in my jeans and an angry red welt on my leg, but now everything was sticky, and reeked of tequila. Great. Just… great.

Twin flames of rage and intense hunger rose in my core. The emotions were confusing, and I usually ignored them. Deep emotions weren’t my strong suit. Not anymore. Not after that night.

Back then, I’d known with every fiber of my being that I wasn’t supposed to be there. My buddies and I were supposed to play the set and go home.

That had been the agreement. But when the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen appeared by my side at the bar and offered me a drink, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.

Before I knew it, I was drunk. Suddenly, nothing else had mattered. Not even the woman waiting at home, or my buddies in the band.

That night, I was consumed with feelings that wrecked me and lust that blinded me.

A vision in crimson. She had made me crave her with an intensity I had never felt before, and I had been weak. I didn’t tell her to stop. Not when I saw her fangs, not when she caressed my neck with such exquisite sweetness, not even when she bit me and drank deeply of the blood that pounded through my veins.

No.

I came alive for her, caught in a web of pretty promises and adrenaline.

Hindsight is a bitch.

How was I supposed to know that one moment would throw my entire life as I knew it away?

When she offered me her own wrist, the deep ruby droplets of her blood glistening against her skin, I didn’t even fucking hesitate. I drank, knowing it would change everything. I was a selfish prick who wanted to be king of the world.

They say, be careful what you wish for.

I fed from her and relished the taste of the infection electrifying my skin.

She held my head to her wrist and crooned such sweet promises in my ear.

It would be us against the world, she promised. Everything would be ok.

Except that it wasn’t. The minute I had drunk my fill, I passed out.

It was the feel of early morning sunshine burning my cheek that woke me up the next morning. She’d taken me to a hotel room, complete with blackout curtains, and abandoned me there.

I waited for her.

But she never returned. Maybe that was her plan. Unleash a monster without a care in the world and then leave me to my own devices.

Either way, it didn’t matter. I didn’t die. I survived. I built a fucking empire. The selfish prick won and maybe it’s time to pay the proverbial piper.

After all, I’d wanted this, right? It was my own damn fault. I became a monster.

I have the immortality she promised; but at what cost?

My head snapped toward the locked door as I heard quick footsteps on the highly polished hardwood floor in the corridor.

Bad timing.

A small fist hammered on the thick wooden door.

“Mr. Quake, are you in there?”

Georgia. She knew damn well I was in there. I’d been in this room for the last two weeks. She and Patricia made sure that my fridge was stocked with blood bags and that my laundry was done. I needed little else.

High maintenance popstar, low maintenance vampire.

Get you a guy who can do both.

I looked down at my tequila-stained jeans and swallowed a growl of frustration. My closest staff, the ones in my circle of trust, were there because they only interrupted whatever the hell I was doing on the absolute rarest of occasions. They had keys to every room. I didn’t even know why Georgia was knocking. This better be good.

I stalked to the door and leaned against it. “It’s not a good time,” I said loudly enough for her to hear.

“I have some mail for you,” Georgia said.

“Fan mail? Leave it in my studio.”

Ugh. Fan mail. How many pairs of lacy underwear would there be in this shipment…

“It’s not fan mail.”

“Then what?”

“Mr. Quake, may I come in? I need to speak to you.”

I rubbed a hand over my face in frustration and unlocked the deadbolts and walked away from the door. Once my closest staff had learned about my… condition, I took precautions. It was in part because I didn’t want to make them nervous. A vampire looming over them in a darkened doorway was enough to make anyone nervous, and rightly so. The monster I could have been loomed just behind the facade of who I used to be. Just under the surface. It was hard to keep him caged, and the more time went by, the harder it was…. I needed the locks for my comfort.

Georgia walked through the door with her familiar, no-nonsense gait. Her uniform was crisp and starched, just like always. I took comfort in the predictable nature of Georgia.

“What is it?”

But she didn’t need to answer. I’d already seen the stack of baby blue envelopes in her hand.

“You need to address this.” Her voice was measured and steady, as though she’d been practicing. Probably with Patricia. They were the only ones on my staff who knew my secret.

“Address what?” I replied flatly.

She looked down at the envelopes in her hand and sighed heavily. “You can’t just… ignore them.”

“Why not?” I pointed to the pile of crumpled and torn paper near the door. “They’re not hurting anyone.”

“Mr. Quake… You’re going to have to—”

“Have to what? Admit that I’m infected? Go down to the clinic and put myself on the registry? Is that what I should do?”

Georgia’s calm expression faltered just a little. She was nervous. Maybe even scared.

Good. She should be.

I might’ve been a tame vampire, but there was still a monster hiding in the shadows.

“Maybe it will be different. It’s been a few years and people are more accepting of your—”

“Of my kind?” I hissed.

Georgia swallowed thickly and I could see the vein in her throat throb as her heart rate sped up. She knew she’d made a mistake now.

I let her flounder in the silence for a moment as I walked around her in a circle. “I heard you and Patricia talking yesterday,” I said.

“We talk all the time,” she said. “She’s ordered a new shipment of blood for you. A different abattoir that doesn’t ask as many questions.”

“You and Patricia always take such good care of me,” I said.

Georgia’s hands clenched into fists before she forced herself to relax and smile. “We do our best. You’re definitely a challenge.”

I tapped my finger against my temple as though I was trying to remember something important. “What was it you were talking about,” I said. “It wasn’t blood. I’d remember that. It’s… it’s all I think about, after all.”

I was toying with her. I didn’t need to. But anger welled up inside me and I couldn’t escape its clutches.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she stammered. “Like I said—”

I snapped my fingers, and she jumped. “Now I remember,” I said brightly. “You were talking about the fang haters… Patricia knows some, doesn’t she? She sounded pretty torn up about it. Like she couldn’t talk about her life with them. Is this hard for you, Georgia? Working for me?”

“I—”

“You wouldn’t sell me out to the hunters, would you?”

My words were soft and dangerous, and I knew Georgia was afraid. I could smell it.

“Never,” she blurted out. “Patricia was just — She’s worried about you, too.”

“So, you both want me to sign on to the vamp registry. Out myself to the world… And for what? So you don’t have to sneak around and pretend you’re still working for an exciting eccentric pop star instead of a fanghead who can’t come to terms with his own reality?”

“Mr. Quake — I said nothing of the —”

“You don’t have to say anything,” I murmured. “I’m disappointed in you, Georgia. You’ve been invaluable…”

Her job had been to clean up my messes. There was no way she could have known what state of mind I was in. There was no way she would know what I’d do to protect myself.

That’s what I was doing. I was protecting myself. Or, rather, my monster was protecting me.

He reared up and took hold of me as I wrapped my arms around Georgia and held her tight against my chest so that I could bury my fangs into that delicious, pulsing vein in the side of her neck. Her thin scream of fear and pain fell on deaf ears. All I could hear was the rushing of her blood and the pounding pace of her heart as her blood flowed over my tongue.

Giving in to my monster gave me peace.

It felt…. right.

Her blood was sweet and light and perfect. The more I drank, the happier I felt.

When I felt her life-force leave her as she slumped in my arms? My only regret was that my moment of happiness and this quintessentially primal experience was over.

My monster was insatiable. Once loose, he’s hard to corral back into control. The all-consuming hunger burrowed deep into my psyche, blocking out all the work I had done for years to keep it at bay.

Georgia was delicious.

But she wasn’t enough.

It’s like, if we instructed a human to live on only oatmeal and multivitamins. You get your nutrients and you satiate your body, but it doesn’t quell your hunger. Then, one day, you give that person a cake. A delicious, glorious chocolate cake. You tell them they can have one bite and then they have to go back to oatmeal.

Georgia was my cake. And I wasn’t ready to stop with just one bite.

The monster was loose again.

All the intense work I had done over the last five years to keep him at bay — gone in a literal heartbeat. That progress vanished the instant her blood touched my tongue. My human brain left me and the primal, monstrous part of me picked up the slack.

My sensitive ears picked up the pounding of the heartbeats in the house, and they called to me with a seductive tempo that would take a man of great self-control to refuse.

I had never been a man of great self-control, and my monster had no time for remorse. I’ve denied his existence for too long.

All day long, I prowled through the estate. My unsuspecting staff never stood a chance.

Not really.

I hunted them for sport. My thirst drove me into a fever, but the thrill of the capture and hunt drove me into a delirious state.

They never knew the danger they were in. Only Georgia and Patricia knew what I really was. Each victim tasted better than the last.

Their blood sang to me and, one after the other, I tracked them through the house by their heartbeats and pounced.

When I drained them of their life-force, I dragged them to my private quarters and lined them up like cords of firewood. My housekeeper Liliana lay next to Georgia. Those two had always gotten on well. My personal chef, Alejandro, with his food-stained apron was on the other side of my personal trainer, Dan.

Eight staff members lived and worked at my estate, and I killed them all.

The bloodlust faded by the time I got to my executive assistant, Patricia. Efficient, devoted Patricia. She didn’t beg like the others. She was resigned to her fate. Maybe her lack of fight was why I got sloppy towards the end. I didn’t double-check to make sure she was completely gone when I put her in with the others.

The ding of the text alert tipped me off, but it was too late.

She used her dying moments to send a text to my label, Cainin Records. Not her family, or her friends, or her cat sitter—my label.

“Vinnie is a vampire. Household staff dead. Call in the entire team. Get Pisces for PR before it’s too late.”

She died surrounded by the bodies of her colleagues with her phone in her hand. A small smile on her face.

That’s what finally got through to me.

Someone far more deserving of life than I used their dying moments to help me, a monster. There’s nothing about me that should inspire this kind of loyalty.

The least I could do, the absolute very least, was get my monster under control. For Patricia. And Georgia. Liliana, Dan, Alejandro, Sue, Ella, and Harris. They didn’t need to die.

I sighed heavily as the sounds of vehicles coming up the drive alerted me to my visitors. Judging from the noise, there were at least three trucks. My people were the best money could buy and I was a cash-cow for my label.

Little things like cleaning up a massacre of an entire household-worth of staff wasn’t outside their job duties. They might fear me, but they would fix this with the utmost discretion.

The darkness swirled inside me, unhappy to be locked away with my monster once again.

I don’t want to be a monster.

If I could, I would take it all back in a heartbeat. I would redo the last five years or, at the very least, just die in that hotel room. But there was no more normal for me, not anymore. If the people who claim to adore me really knew the truth, they would abandon me. That’s what people do to vampires. They fear you, abandon you, and treat you like the monster you are.

Vinnie Quake, international popstar, billionaire, global chart-topping narcissistic asshole, is a vampire... And soon enough the entire world will know. Things will never be normal again….

Get Bad Blood: A VamPR Nightmare Here!

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Other 2021 Releases from Bee:

BOOK CAT’s

READING RECOMMENDATIONS

Find a new book to read. Or five.

Freebies | Kindle Unlimited Finds | 99c Steals | Book Fairs

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Vanquished: A Dark Romance ~ “Note from Author: If you like it so dark even the sun won’t make you warm again, then you’ve found the right place, and Caesar is waiting.” Available on Kindle Unlimited here
Lords of Pain (Dark College Bully Romance): Royals of Forsyth University ~ I never claimed to be a good girl, but I definitely never asked for this. Reverse Harem Bully Romance. “Note from Author: This is a dark/bully romance that contains graphic content including abuse and assault. Please heed warnings at beginning of book.” Available on Kindle Unlimited Here

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