Sleepless Beauties: A Rejected Mates Paranormal Romance (The Vampires Vendetta Series Book 1)

by A. K. Koonce

  “Didn’t you want to be here?” He lifts his hands to the small amount of personality in this tiny room.

  The way he searches my features, I know that he knows. How? How can he know so much with just a glance?

  My lips part, but my brain stalls without a logical excuse.

  “I got the soundtrack from Underworld I haven’t listened to yet.” His strange statement hangs between us.

  “What?”

  The excitement in his smooth features makes me smile weirdly. “The movie. I found the soundtrack to the movie.”

  Still I stare at him, but my smile only grows.

  “Why?” I can’t help but ask.

  “Whyyyy? Because every good vampire movie needs a little hate fucking, that’s why!” His smile creeps up on one side, and it’s apparent to me that my sister couldn’t have hated him. He isn’t the cruel man she described as her killer.

  He’s just a dork.

  And she was just a broken woman.

  Neither of them could see the other for what they really were.

  His taunting with me is different than it was the first time we met. He wanted a reaction. He wanted to feed. I gave that to him freely, without even trying.

  He wasn’t an asshole, he was just hangry.

  “Then let’s hear it,” I say, grabbing the notebook on Kyra’s desk with one hand and his wrist with the other.

  I guide Aston down the stairs and back to the floor we entered on.

  I stop there and when I turn to him, he looks at me so much more intently. In fact… we’re much too close. I stare up at him, our chests brushing lightly.

  And then I step abruptly back.

  “Which one’s yours?” I motion to the doors, and it seems to take him a moment to realize I’ve asked him a question.

  “Uh. Yeah. Right.” He motions to the left, and I follow after him.

  We pass a few open doors. Acessa sits on a pale pink mat through one in a downward position as she stretches her long frame. Her curious eyes pass over Aston, and then myself.

  Does she know?

  She simply smiles quietly.

  Aston opens the door at the end of the hall, and he stumbles when he motions me inside. He’s… excited, I think. And he’s a mess because of it.

  An adorable vampiric mess.

  I slip inside his room to find a velvet blue chaise just in front of the large glossy window. Two shelves frame it on either side, both filled with records.

  I turn in a slow circle. Gold and silver records are framed along all the walls, from singers and bands that have long since passed.

  “How did you get all these?” I point, and a smirk kisses his lips.

  “Well, I have visited a lot of mansions over the years.”

  I stare at him blankly for only a moment.

  “You… you stole them? From celebrities?”

  Aston scoffs dramatically.

  “Celebrities are meant to be celebrated, are they not?”

  “With petty theft? No, I don’t think that’s what their title means.”

  “I was quiet. No one even noticed. And if they did, they’ll print themselves a new gold-plated record to gather dust in their empty condos. These ones are mine.”

  He filters absently through his shelves until he seems to find what he’s looking for. The vinyl that he pulls from the sleeve catches the light of the chandelier with a black shine across the surface. He places it incredulously carefully on an antique turntable.

  A beat of static silence passes before a symphony of music I couldn’t recognize if I tried plays out for us. His eyes close as he sits on the edge of the chaise.

  It has a nice beat, nothing wrong with it at all, But for Aston, it seems to send out a wave of calm euphoria that I can feel tingle through my own chest.

  That’s what music does for people. It provides us with emotions that we can’t describe or explain.

  And Aston lives for it.

  Because he has so little of his own to hold on to, I guess.

  “I like it,” I whisper.

  He nods with that pleased smile still ghosting his lips.

  “Sit down. Read,” he waves vaguely at my sister’s book in my hand.

  I take a seat next to him, our elbows brushing as I try to turn away to open the diary. My back leans into the chair with my legs tilting off just near Aston’s thighs. He doesn’t watch me, even if he is acutely aware of my every move. He just leans back against the wall and seems to lose himself in the melody. I know he’s pretending not to care what’s in this notebook. He’s also pretending not to be aware of me.

  All the while keeping me company. Distracting me if I need it, but giving me space as well.

  My heart melts as I watch him avoid me entirely. He blatantly ignores me, really. He’s better at it than most children even.

  It’s sweet, in an awkward way.

  How could I ever have thought he was my sister’s tormenter?

  I take a slow breath in, despite my lungs protesting that there isn’t enough space within the tightness of my chest.

  Then I open the journal.

  July 19th

  Men are trash.

  Recyclable and reusable.

  But still terrible for the environment.

  A loud laugh falls from my lips before I can stop it as I stare down at the short but adamant entry. Aston peers at me from the corner of his eye, but when I cover my smile with my palm he abruptly looks away.

  I close my eyes as I imagine her painted red lips saying those few lines. She’d never! As a vampire, she kept our time together rather short and to the point. She asked about our parents, and myself. Short small talk that didn’t really resemble the person I remembered at all.

  But as my sister, she was always witty and funny.

  And for some reason, this entry reminds me of that side of her.

  Even if there was a darker meaning and reminder lying just beneath the surface of these inky words.

  I flip through the entries until a more recent date appears.

  September 1st

  Confessing to Kira how hard life has been here was strange. It felt… painful to talk about it. I know I need to, but I guess after two years I’m still not ready.

  Maybe I’ll never speak his name to anyone as long as I walk this Earth, but at least I know he doesn’t have the power to push me down any more. He can pretend all he wants, but we both know what he did. What he’s still doing. I’ve shut my mouth and kept to myself here in Crimson City, but I’m not alone.

  Kira still cares about me.

  And someday I’ll be able to tell her more than just a few small details about the man who took everything from me.

  My stomach sinks fast and hard.

  He used her and turned her and eventually killed her, and still that wasn’t enough? He controlled her life here, too?

  My memories of every single one of our meetings begin flashing before my eyes.

  Kyra wasn’t clipped and careless with our short time together. She was trained, and afraid to speak. To anyone. He took everything about her away.

  Who was he?

  Pavel? Rival? Aston? A member of Creature Control?

  Who?!

  I close the book for a moment, and I find myself holding it to my chest.

  The same way I wish I would have held Kyra. I should have reassured her more. I should have tried harder. I should have told her she was loved and missed and…

  “Are you all right?” A gentle voice asks just as a hand slips over my ankle and I realize I’ve pulled my legs up to my chest and basically used Aston as a footrest while I all but kicked him off his lounge.

  “Oh,” I try to move away, but he pulls back at my leg slowly.

  My lips close softly as he brings my feet onto his lap and just looks at me with so much concern in his big, shining eyes.

  “You can feel every single thing I feel, can’t you?” I ask slowly as I understand why he’s so good at knowing what I need.

>   Aston nods.

  “Why does everyone hate you if you’re so…” I lift my hands, but I can’t think of the right phrasing. “Good at reading people?”

  His smile is slow to creep across his face.

  “Because human emotions are unstilted. Even the ones who try, they aren’t very good at concealing their guilt, or rage, or their happiness. Whereas vampires won’t give up those emotions so easily, I have to pry it out of them. Antagonize it out of them sometimes. Enrage it out of them if I need to.” He smirks at those words, but I sense that it bothers him more than he would ever admit.

  I nod, and he’s absolutely right. I’m terrible at hiding myself here among these predators. Even the sweet ones like Aston. Which is why I need to be alone when I read the rest of these pages.

  I slide my legs out from beneath his hands and stand up. “I’m going to finish this up in my room for tonight.” He’s nodding before I’ve fully explained, and I don’t know why I’m smiling at him like a total drunken idiot.

  “Can I show you why I think Kyra chose the smallest room the council had to offer?”

  My brow lifts.

  I hadn’t really thought about it. I just assumed it was assigned to her or something.

  “She chose that room upstairs?”

  He stands, carefully pulling the needle from his record before slipping it into its dustjacket and back on the shelf in its proper place. He turns on his sneakers and an addicting happy go lucky energy seems to sway off of him. So much so that I follow behind him like a lovesick, record collecting groupie.

  Jesus, what is wrong with me? The guy plays one little movie soundtrack and suddenly my panties are begging to be tossed at his feet?

  I shake my head and try to clear my messy mind as we travel down the hall and up the short stairwell once more. This time, he opens Kyra’s door and joins me inside the small space.

  “I used to spot her at night sometimes.” He grunts out those words as he leans over her small desk and shoves the window open. Cold air breezes in, twirling my hair back from my face as I watch the strange man. “She’d be up here,” he says as he climbs up, squats low on the table top and then leans out her window.

  He stands up fully on the reading desk, his legs are still pushing off the edge of the white frame before… disappearing entirely. My gawking reaches a new level as the silence presses on, and still I’m just staring out the newly empty window.

  “Are you coming?” Aston asks, his voice sounds far off, but I know exactly where the undead lunatic is.

  “On the roof!?” I scream at him in a whisper. “No! No I’m not coming, Aston,” I quietly screech. “Not all of us have an unbreakable nervous system. If I fall, I won’t just bounce back up like your offensively durable ass would.”

  “Offensively durable ass! It is a rather nice ass, isn’t it?”

  “Come down from there!” I shriek.

  “Come on up here!” He shrieks right back in an abnormally high voice to mock me.

  I shake my head hard before placing the notebook back on the desk… and then climbing up myself.

  This is so stupid.

  Are we absolutely sure he’s not a murdering psychopath?

  Don’t climb on top of a building unless you’re ninety-nine percent sure he won’t yeet you right off and call it an accident…

  I’m… At least ninety percent sure… Ninety-nine, that’s asking a lot, really. I don’t even trust myself ninety-nine percent.

  I tilt my head this way and that and eventually decide that a skinny white boy wearing tight black jeans and a “Golden Girls: That’s my Type” tee-shirt is not the way I’m meant to go. He’s safe. As safe as a bloodthirsty monster of the afterlife can be, anyway.

  I cling to the top of the window as I slip my head out and shakily stand.

  “This is stupid!” I hiss into the blowing wind.

  My heels clatter just before I kick them off entirely. The scraping sound of them hitting the side of the building before falling out into the night claws at my nerves even more. Those were designer brands, but they weren’t my style anyway.

  Aston’s crooked smile lights up his eyes when he looks down on the wet cat of a girl trying to cling to the rooftop.

  “Come up,” he whispers in a sensual tone that sends shivers all down my body. His hand extends and before I can awkwardly pull myself up, he’s already grabbed my hips. And then my feet are no longer grounded.

  An unsteady breath of a scream shakes through me, but as quick as the wind is against my body, so is he. My chest slides up over every part of him. He leans back to fully drag me up over the ledge, and then my breasts are pressing into his lean chest. Cold air heaves over my lips, and all I can do is blink down on the beautiful moonlit shine in the depths of his pale green eyes.

  “It feels good, right?”

  When he says those rasping words, I’m suddenly very aware of how my legs are spread nicely over his narrow hips. My body is melded into his like we were made to fit together just like this.

  “The breeze up here, it feels good, right?” He tilts his head innocently at me and I realize with a slam of too many dirty thoughts that I’m the only one making this sexual.

  Because he’s a gentleman, and I’m the fucking pervert.

  “Uh, yeah,” I shove away rapidly but carefully from the safety of his arms. My ass hits the cold roof.

  It’s only then that I finally get a chance to look out at the view.

  “Oh!” I whisper without a breath to hang on to. “It’s beautiful.”

  Warm lights like fireflies shine out across the hidden city that mingles with Chicago like a hidden lover. The peaks of old houses and chimneys lay beneath the stars in an inky silhouette of shadows.

  “I used to see her up here at night, when I would be heading to my room.” He points down at the pale crosswalk below us. “She hated me, but I always thought that she was similar to myself. She was just better at handling it.”

  I tear my gaze off of the shining starlight city to look at Aston.

  “Handling what?”

  His lips part, but he doesn’t immediately respond.

  “Eh. The emptiness, I guess.” His hands lift with vague gestures. “When you turn, your heartbeat slows. It slows down, but the world around you speeds up. Years fall off and away like autumn leaves on a tree. Over time, you can forget what it feels like to be excited about the mundane things. Like good weather, or warm sunlight falling across a morning chill. The smell of rain when it falls for the first time in spring. Amusements found in the tiny moments of life. All of that grows dull with time, and an all-consuming emptiness settles in their place.”

  The pain in my heart spreads the longer he speaks. My hand twitches to reach out for him. To remind him he’s not alone in this world.

  The way I should have reminded Kyra when I had the chance.

  Without a second thought, my hand slides over his calloused knuckles. He turns toward me, but I look away the moment his eyes almost meet mine.

  An intense melting warmth fills me up, and I just know it’s coming from him. My energy is seeping into him, and he’s feeding it right back to me. It feels genuinely good.

  Distracting even.

  Maybe that’s why I try to focus a little harder, dig a little deeper.

  “Did you ever see her arguing with anyone? Spending time with someone she clearly didn’t want to be around?”

  What am I missing in this chess game of a High Council?

  “Just Rival. He was her only friend, and really, I could tell that they weren’t really friends.”

  “They weren’t?”

  He shakes his head harshly. “Nah. Rival went out of his way to try to make everyone see him as her friend, even as her lover. But he was always pretending that there was more between them than there really was. The way she responded to a simple brush of their hands could tell anyone with eyes that she hated being near him.”

  He was always pretending there was more…


  He can pretend all he wants, but we both know what he did…

  My heart slams violently. Aston’s comments swirl with the words written inside of Kyra’s journal, and it’s only then that everything comes crashing down into perspective.

  Rival.

  It’s always the boyfriend!

  Or in this case, the man who wanted so badly to be her boyfriend.

  But instead, he just killed her.

  Nineteen

  Kira

  I’m stumbling through the window, out of the rear building and across the catwalk in a matter of minutes. My bare feet storm over the smooth tiles of the croft so rapidly that I can feel heat burning into the soles of my feet. But I don’t stop until I’m in front of his door.

  The metal plate is smooth under my fingertips as I hurriedly scribble out my sister’s name.

  I’m inside and rushing in front of the wavering blue beam with dwindling air in my lungs as I push myself to move faster.

  “Did Kyra love Rival?” I blurt to the man hiding beneath the imprisonment of his curtain.

  A pause dips in before an amused voice speaks slowly. “It isn’t kind to speak ill of the dead,” he says eerily.

  I gawk with an open mouth. “It isn’t speaking ill, now tell me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Kyra was your sister?”

  “Tell me!”

  “Do not create dishonesty between us, Miss Vega,” the demon says in a smooth threat.

  “Kyra Vega was my twin sister. She was murdered, and now I’m here to find out who killed her, who killed the other members of the council, and who’s killing the humans all across my city. Now, answer my question before he kills again!”

  “You’re afraid of this man?”

  I want to scream. I want to claw into this bizarre blue shield that he’s hiding behind and scream in his face until he reveals to me every little secret I know that he knows.

  “He’s a murderer. And every second you spend toying with me supplies him with more time to kill again!”

  “You want to know what I know?”