The Vampire's Spell - Kiss of The Night: Book 3 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The Vampire’s Spell

  Kiss of The Night:

  Book 3

  Lucy Lyons

  © 2017

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 1

  I made a hard left as the light changed and checked my rearview mirror, but the car following me hadn’t made it through. I pulled into a parking garage and tugged my phone out of the midnight blue sequined clutch Simi had loaned me and stared at the lock screen. I didn’t even know who to call. Whoever had sent someone to tail me was either worried about another attack on my life, or attempting to assassinate me. Call the wrong person and I’d be just as dead as if I did nothing at all.

  No one would ever have classified my life as easy, but until I was kidnapped and held captive by the vampires I had been raised to hunt, at least it had been uncomplicated. I had slept, eaten, breathed vampire hunting, and when it was discovered I had psychic abilities, I’d instantly committed to using them to help me find and execute the blood-sucking murderers.

  But instead of the monsters from my lessons and fairytales, I found a civilization of people living parallel to my own. They ran the gambit of white to black and every shade of grey in between. Sure, there were villains. One of them had been chained in a coffin for the last eighteen months. He was waiting for redemption for the crime of attacking a Venatores Lamiae hunter. I was waiting for him to be released, so I could cut off his head and stake him through the heart. The hunter he’d attacked had been a friend of mine.

  We weren’t friends anymore. Sometimes I wondered how we ever had been. I glanced at my phone again. David hated me enough to try to assassinate me. But, he lacked the creativity (and the balls) to do it himself. I sent a quick text to Simi, just letting her know that I was almost sure I’d ditched the tail I’d seen. The truth was, if anyone really was tailing me, either they would’ve given up by now, or I wasn’t going to be able to shake them unless I ditched the car, the phone, and possibly my clothes.

  I felt a presence around me and heard a familiar chuckle that sent shivers of pleasure and anticipation down my spine.

  “Caroline, I may start sending spies after you myself, if my reward is to get you out of that hunter’s uniform of black turtlenecks and pantsuits.” I snorted and chose to ignore the master vampire speaking to me telepathically. Lord Nicholas D’Elbrecht, master vampire and now, thanks to me, beast caller, was the vampire who had kidnapped me. Now for all intents and purposes, he was my boyfriend.

  Not every hunter could say they were dating the enemy. It caused a lot of upheaval when I returned from the clutches of the vampires, only to tell the other hunters that vampires were no less honorable than themselves. I was labelled everything from a victim of Stockholm syndrome, to an outright traitor.

  Maybe my adversaries were right. I’d defied the rules of the society and jeopardized my membership in the Catholic church to be with a centuries old vampire. Then, instead of helping the Venatores to destroy him and his entire clan, I’d shared power with him and together we’d unlocked an ability that vampires had thought lost to them forever.

  I reached out along the thread of power that connected me to Nicholas and felt the familiar tug of the rat king not far from him. When we were together, we could cre
ate a circle of power that even seemed to shake Nicholas. Because of that, and because when we were together I couldn’t seem to tell Nicholas “no”, the rat king and I had promised to stay apart from each other when one of us was with him.

  “Nicholas, I’m going to try to leave the parking garage. If I’m still being followed, I’ll just hit up In and Out for a milkshake and head back to the compound.” I said the words aloud because it was more comfortable for me and telepathy was exhausting to maintain for long periods of time. Still, I knew he had heard me. Our connection was metaphysical and the channel itself took less effort to keep open.

  “I didn’t come all this way only to speak to you from a distance. I want to see your face, Caroline.”

  I sighed heavily, and felt his irritation in return.

  “I do want to see you, Nicholas,” I reminded him, and it was true. I needed to have him close to me, to feel his cool skin against mine and reassure myself that what we had together was real. It would’ve been hard enough to maintain a long distance if we were normal humans. But, I was a witch and he was a vampire and we had just added a bouncing bundle of were-rats to the mix. We needed some time alone together.

  “I want to see you too, so why don’t you unlock the car and let me in?” he asked through the window and I jumped.

  “Damn you, Nicholas! I was so busy looking for, for not you, I didn’t see you there.” He chuckled and I slammed my fist against the window before unlocking the doors. He opened mine and offered me a hand out, which I eyed suspiciously.

  “Please, Caroline.” I bit my lip and squinted at him.

  “Are you asking me to get out to kiss you, or so you can be a chauvinist and make me sit in the passenger seat of my own car?” He refused to answer and held his hand out to me, standing perfectly still, as only a vampire could. I resisted until the hair stood up on my neck from the power he subtly let wash over me, and got out of the car, sidestepping his hand.

  Disappointment was clear on his face, which to me, meant that I had won. It was never easy having a battle of wills with the master vampire, but I chose to rebel every chance I could, over the tiniest things, just to prove to myself that I was still my own person.

  He dropped his hand and I moved closer to him, bracing my hands against his chest so that I could stand on tiptoe. At over six feet tall, Nicholas towered over my five-foot three-inches. Somehow, he always managed to make it seem like kissing me was the easiest thing in the world for him. And even when he was angry with me, that was one thing he never held back on when we were together.

  “You’re lucky that one of us has the benefit of wisdom to bring to this arrangement,” he quipped as he deftly slid his hand under my butt and lifted me to a better kissing height. I wrapped my legs around his waist and lowered my mouth to his full lips, careful to avoid his fangs as I tasted him. The slightly sweet, metallic tang of blood was on his tongue, telling me that he’d recently hunted. I tried not to let it bother me, but he realized that I’d noticed and sighed heavily as he put me down.

  “I’m sorry, Nicholas. I know we do this every time and I know you aren’t killing anyone. But, how would you feel if every time you held me, you felt a wooden stake poking you in the chest?” I tugged on the lapels of his suit and he let me pull him into me.

  “I can’t kiss you if I don’t survive.”

  “Fair enough. Can you tell me that blood wasn’t from a person?” I replied and he smiled.

  “I can truthfully say that it isn’t from a human.” I cringed and banged my head on his chest.

  “You’re taking blood from the were-rats. Fabulous. And you wonder why the Venatores don’t like you?” There was nothing I could do when he decided to be stubborn. He was centuries old and used to being the top man on the totem pole. All I could do was forget what he had said and not tell my superiors back at the compound.

  “It’s got a much better kick than human blood, truth be told.” He sighed. “Don’t roll your eyes, I only take what is freely offered. Besides, you shouldn’t sneak around on my behalf, Caroline,” he chided me as his lips brushed my forehead. Irritation surged through me and I pulled away again.

  “Yes, I do. I’m not sneaking around because I’m ashamed of you, Nicholas. That would be proof of insanity. Seriously. How can you be so insecure about my feelings for you, when your safety and wellbeing are exactly why I’m sneaking around?”

  “You seem to have forgotten that I’m currently the most powerful master vampire in the new world.” He sounded suspiciously like he was pouting. It could be exhausting, dating a centuries old creature who was unused to the word ‘no’.

  “We’re not having this fight. We’ll go wherever you want to go except the patrol route or the compound. I understand that you’re powerful. After all, I’m part of what makes you that way, now. However, I’m also a Venatores and my people want to roast you on a spit. Please, don’t give them the justification they’re looking for by picking a fight with them?” He leaned down and kissed me chastely on the lips. It was his magnanimous acceptance of my concession. Unfortunately, I knew that as much as he cared for me, he cared for his powerbase more.

  His people had kidnapped me as a gift for their master. He’d recognized my power from the start, even though he still hadn’t admitted that my psychic abilities had set me apart as a candidate to be his metaphysical companion. He’d chosen a girl with metaphysical powers to be his servant and nothing was going to stop him from increasing his power. Not even that I belonged to the Venatores Lamiae, the society of vampire hunters.

  “May I drive, Caroline?”

  I groaned. He knew I couldn’t refuse him; after all, he’d bought the damn car in the first place. With a sigh, which even I had to admit was melodramatic, I strode to the passenger side of the car. In a rush of wind, Nicholas beat me to the door and opened it for me. He knew I hated it, but he had old-fashioned habits, and with us so short on time, I didn’t want to waste any more of it arguing.

  “You’re pressing my patience awfully thin, Nicholas. Why are you trying to goad me into a fight? I don’t want to fight you. I want you to take me in your arms and tell me you’re doing your part on your end, hunting the bastards that tried to kill me. Then you’re supposed to kiss my face off. How is my plan not better than yours?” I considered that handsome, blank face and after a few uncomfortable beats, I nodded. “Fine.”

  I climbed into the passenger seat and stared at him through the window as he shut the door. His face was as utterly unreadable as it had been the first days I’d known him. It meant he was angry. But I had no idea what he could be angry about. We drove in silence and I could feel the wall he’d put up between us. Even if I had wanted to open our psychic channel, he’d shielded himself from me.

  Mentally, I reached out to Jeremy, the rat-king and pushed for information, but he was as confused as I was and cut off from his new master as well. He teased that if ever we were going to plan a coup, this was the time to do it. I laughed him off, then added vampire paranoia to the list of possible things that could get me killed tonight.

  We pulled up to the valet at Canlis and were seated immediately upon entering the restaurant. One benefit of dating nobility was that saying ‘Lord’ in front of someone’s name indicated celebrity. That came with a lot of perks. Fortunately, no one would’ve dreamed they were talking to the original, Lord D’Elbrecht who had been born sometime in the middle ages.

  Canlis was becoming our regular date night location. As the server brought me a glass of wine I hadn’t ordered and was too young to drink legally, I wondered if maybe it was time for a change of venue.

  Nicholas saw me eying the glass and arched an eyebrow at me. I pushed it away and watched his calm façade drop for a split second. He was angrier than I’d guessed; he’d let me see it.

  “It’s a glass of wine, Caroline,” he sneered, raising my hackles.

  “It’s against the law of the land, Nicholas,” I retorted.

  “So is murder.” I gaped a
t him and threw up my hands.

  “What the all-fired hell are you talking about, Nicholas?” I hissed at him. The only creature I’d ever killed was a were-rat that had sold his pack out to the Venatores, after murdering people and trying to pin it on the vampires. What I’d done was a legal execution, not murder, and Nicholas knew it. He also knew that it still gave me nightmares and I was still trying to gain back the weight I’d lost along with my appetite ever since.

  “By refusing to leave the Venatores and merge your power with mine, you leave me weak before the council. You’re worried about an attempt on your life? How many attempts on mine do you think I’ve survived since you returned to Seattle?” He placed his palms on the table and spoke so quietly, it was almost a whisper.

  “So, what’s changed since the last visit, Nicholas? What’s got you so angry with me, that I can feel it like a hot wind on my face?” I itched to get up and run away from him and that searing anger. Instead, I stood my ground, literally.

  Standing across the table from him, no one would have guessed what was happening was anything more than a lovers’ quarrel. What the curious patrons couldn’t see however, was another matter. I felt this power build as he tried to force my psychic shields down to control me.

  My right hand was hovering over the silver knife in the sheath I’d sewn into my jacket and my left was free to pull the curved and deadly karambit blade from my hair if necessary. He was still stronger than me, but not nearly as much as he had once been. If he wanted to take me down, he’d have to work for it.

  “Please sit, Caroline. I don’t want to make a scene,” Nicholas kept both his palms on the table and when I pushed back against his metaphysical power, he pulled it back. It would be difficult to describe the sensation of his power decreasing. It was like emptying a glass of water by pressing rewind and pulling the water out of the glass and back into the carafe.

  I got goosebumps from the strange pull of his power and I rubbed my upper arms through my jacket. When I no longer felt like I was going to drown in the middle of the restaurant, I sat back down and eyed him cautiously.

  “Now that you’ve reminded me which of us can kill with their mind, how about you tell me what’s going on? I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.” I pled with him quietly, then stopped talking and smiled up at the approaching waiter.