Don't Drink the Holy Water
Don’t Drink the Holy Water
ISBN #
978-1-78430-865-0
©Copyright Bailey Bradford 2015
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright October 2015
Edited by Rebecca Scott
Pride Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Pride Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Pride Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2015 by Pride Publishing,
Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN
Pride Publishing is a subsidiary of Totally Entwined Group Limited.
The Vamp for Me
DON’T DRINK THE HOLY WATER
Bailey Bradford
Book four in The Vamp for Me series
Being left for dead sure has a way of changing a man.
All West wanted was one night of fun. He’d taken on the responsibility of raising his younger siblings after their parents died, had done so out of love, but he was a young man and he just wanted a chance to live like one for a few hours.
It almost cost him his life. It certainly meant his life was changed forever, and along with his life, the lives of his siblings. They were all exposed to a secret world they’d never known existed. Vampires.
Human children living alongside vampires…seemed unusual. Claude, the coven leader who saved West and his brothers and sisters, doesn’t have accommodations for kids. He finds one coven in the country that does, and sets about making a home there for West and his family. Before he sends West away, West meets an intriguing man, Axel, whom he encounters again months later. The attraction between them is strong, but there is more to consider than just how sexy Axel is.
Nothing in life is easy, whether you’re a vampire or a human.
Dedication
No matter how hard the road, keep walking it. Things will get better, and you are stronger than you think.
Trademarks Acknowledgment
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Superman: DC Comics
The Walking Dead
: AMC Studios
Holiday Inn Express: InterContinental Hotels Group
Harlequin: Harlequin Enterprises Limited
The Matrix
: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Point Break
: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Thinking Out Loud
: Ed Sheeran, Amy Wadge
DSi XL: Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Single Ladies
: Christopher ‘Tricky’ Stewart, Terius ‘The-Dream’ Nash, Thaddis Harrell, Beyoncé
Prologue
I tried. I tried so hard to take care of my family after Mom and Dad passed away. Let’s not think about their passing, though. I can’t, even three years later. It hurts too much, and all that crap about time making it better hasn’t proven to be true.
I’m a responsible man, a good son, diligent and loyal. There was no way I’d let the state come in and take my siblings away. Stepping up was never a question. Of course I took them in. I love them all, the little twerps.
But I made one stupid, horrible mistake—and it cost me my life.
Don’t call me a melodramatic fool. You weren’t the one left for dead on the porch of a vampire den. House. Whatever.
You weren’t the one tricked and hurt.
Now everything’s different, and if I’ve learned only one thing, it’s this—I will never trust another man with my heart again.
* * * *
In the not so distant past…
West fumbled with the top button on his jeans as he waited in the alley. It was dark—
of course it’s dark, it’s a danged alley behind a raunchy bar
—and a little scary outside. A slight breeze carried the scent of garbage and spunk to him.
Other men were out there, fucking and sucking like they didn’t care if anyone else saw or heard them.
Maybe they didn’t.
“Obviously they don’t,” West muttered to himself.
His heart beat faster and his pulse raced as he saw a tall man exit the club. He knew with a surety he couldn’t explain that it was
him
, the tall, intense, and rather frightening man he’d locked gazes with inside.
West was truly terrified—and yet he couldn’t leave, couldn’t make himself walk or run away. Here he stood, a twenty-four-year-old virgin, so desperate for another man’s touch he’d let the first guy who wanted him have him.
It was wrong. West knew it. He felt it inside. His mother would be so upset with him, giving away his virginity in a grungy alley to a stranger who looked like he’d enjoy hurting West.
And there was a definite hard cast to the man’s features, a brooding anger that was unmistakable.
So why couldn’t West leave?
A little voice in his head screamed at him. He didn’t want this. He’d only come to the club because he’d wanted—
That little voice shut down on a yelp like a big, invisible boot had stomped it to death. West’s head actually throbbed for a second, then he was staring at the big man in front of him.
Black eyes. No soul.
The thoughts shot through West’s brain, and he would have opened his mouth up to scream—though why should he want to do that?—but he couldn’t move.
A cruel smile twisted thin lips, and to West’s utter horror, fangs appeared.
The man leaned closer, and West was paralyzed, except for his heart, which slammed erratically, as if trying to escape his chest.
“Such a stupid boy,” the stranger rasped, those sharp fangs scraping the shell of West’s ear.
It hurt, and he was pretty sure the skin was broken, yet he didn’t move or cry out.
Couldn’t.
“Nice. So innocent and easy.”
His ear was licked, then sucked on, then bit. Not too hard, but enough that he wanted to cry. He wasn’t into being hurt, and pain scared him. Death scared him.
Yet when he looked into those fathomless eyes, he knew death was coming for him, and inside, at least, he wept for his siblings.
Chapter One
Excruciating pain filled West so completely he couldn’t even scream. Every nerve-ending in his body burned as hot as the sun, and agony rolled through him in waves without a second’s relief.
Images flashed through his head, fangs, glowing red eyes, horns and wings—those wings, God but he could hear them, a creaking, sticking-together sound even as they were flaring out behind his attacker.
West couldn’t tell the present from the past. The bits and pieces that were bouncing around in his brain weren’t coherent.
Fangs, wings, glowing eyes?
He was hallucinating, and he wished that the pain was a hallucination too.
He knew it wasn’t. That kind of suffering couldn’t be imagined. West had never been given to daydreaming and fantasizing anyway. Not more than any sexually frustrated young man his age, and likely much less so, given his responsibilities.
His responsibilities— West tried to shout for his brothers and sisters. The pain he’d felt before then doubled. Something horrific was wrong with his throat, and he wept as blessed darkness pulled him down.
But his sleep held no comfort. There, he still couldn’t escape the evil that seemed to be surrounding him. He heard laughter, bitter, hateful laughter that made him believe Satan existed. Before that moment, he’d assigned all evil behavior to humans rather than some spiritual force—now he doubted that. Something very evil did exist, and it’d come for him in a dark alley.
It was what he got for acting like a whore.
That simple truth resonated in him, until all he could hear was the laughter and the word
whore,
as a deep sensation of loss permeated his soul, or what used to be his soul.
* * * *
West heard them first, the soft voices, murmured words, then he dared to open one eye enough to peek. He caught a glimpse of four strangers, all males.
One kept drawing his gaze. Tall, dark-haired, very refined in appearance, wearing a nice suit. There was a tug at West’s gut when he looked at that particular man. It was unnerving, but better than the agony West had been suffering.
He closed his eye and did a quick mental examination of his body. He was stiff, his muscles ached, but there was nothing like that bright, hot pain he’d been immersed in.
When he swallowed, his throat still felt raw, much like when he’d had strep as a kid.
Maybe that’s what happened. Maybe I got sick. I could be in the hospital—
West shut off the delusional bullcrap. He wasn’t in a hospital. Those men weren’t doctors. He didn’t know who they were, what they wanted with him, but he’d been attacked, and had things done to him. The pain hadn’t been imagined, and he heard that rough, hateful laughter every time his heart began to pound. The men’s voices filtered through regardless.
“Is he awake?”
“Augustin, perhaps you could get a glass of ice?”
“Ice?” A snort. “But he can’t drink or—”