The Night Watch: A Vampire Paranormal Romance (Blood Red Series Book 2)

by W. J. May

  The Night Watch

  By W.J. May

  Book 2

  Of the

  Blood Red Series

  Copyright 2015 by W.J. May

  The Night Watch

  Copyright © 2015 by W. J. May

  Cover Art by Book Covers by Design

  Printed in the United States of America

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  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Thank you for your purchase, for comments, or to obtain further copies, please find us on the web at www.wanitamay.yolasite.com, on Face Book at Author WJ May, or contact the author direct at wanitamay@aol.com.

  Book Blurb:

  What if courage was your only option?

  Having been forced into a new world, Kallie find herself surrounded by vampires. With her father being the victim of continued brutal attacks by his own kind, she's desperate for help.

  Liam, the city's top detective, and a Blue Blood refuses, the situation officially out of his hands and not his problem.

  A Red Blood vampire, Caleb, steps up and has sworn to protect her, but is ineffective at stopping the violence of his people.

  When the raging feud between the Red Bloods and Blue Bloods spills into her home, Kallie is forced in the middle of it. Torn between love and family loyalty, she must find the courage to fight what she fears the most and risk everything, even if it means losing herself in the process.

  Blood Red Series:

  Courage Runs Red – Now Available

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VC8HSFE

  The Night Watch – Now Available

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZDK4DSM

  Night of Courage –Coming Winter 2015/16

  http://www.amazon.com/dp/

  Find W.J. May:

  Website: http://www.wanitamay.yolasite.com

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  NIGHT WATCH

  Prologue

  The scene before her was almost too much. Kallie glanced at her father, who lay unconscious. His “discussion” with Liam not going anywhere. It seemed that Red Bloods and Blue Bloods had no control over their inherent desire to kill each other. She panted softly as fear wrapped around her tightly. Was her father turning into one of the mindless beasts like the rest of his vampire clan?

  She glanced to Caleb and growled her words. “Why would you care if I lived or died that night?”

  She didn’t know him enough to see if he was a friend or foe, but one thing she knew for sure, he had been there the night of the accident. He was there. Liam was there, but which one of them caused the accident? Who turned her father and why had he not turned her too? What the hell had happened that night?

  Not that she wanted the curse, but the questions were becoming too much.

  “I do.” Caleb’s eyes burned nearly red, the passion in his voice searing her. “More than you’ll ever know.”

  He turned to walk toward Liam, who was slumped against the large oak tree that lay destroyed around him. The hit he took would have killed a human, but he was far from it. He had come to help her, to protect her as best he could, and he had done so at his own detriment.

  “No! No, Caleb. Leave him alone. He isn’t the villain here.” She hobbled toward Caleb as he turned to pin her with a hard stare. Her ankle screamed in protest as the wind picked up and almost knocked her over. Were the heavens aware of all that the earth held? She glanced up to see one hell of a storm rolling in.

  “Then who is, Kallie? He’s a Blue Blood! They are set on destroying us because we are nothing but savage beasts. I’m a Red Blood, so is your father. Who is the villain? Tell me?” His voice started out strong and accusing, but softened as he watched her.

  Something moved behind him, Liam. Kallie kept her gaze locked on Caleb, needing to let her handsome cop get away. He had done nothing wrong but take her father’s attack.

  “I don’t know. I’m confused. All I know is that you’re not going to extinguish him.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Liam stood at the edge of the woods, Kallie’s eyes shifting to him accidently. She wanted to scream for him to run, but couldn’t force the words from her throat. She knew he was there the night of the accident, they all were. Her father groaned and she turned to see him roll onto his side as be began to vomit blood.

  “Please no,” Kallie mumbled and rushed to his side. She hit her knees and let out a pinched scream, her ankle sending a wave of pain up her leg. Damn stairs.

  “Stay with your father. I have to…” Caleb’s voice faded. Kallie looked up as the handsome blonde boy sprinted toward the forest. Liam was nowhere in sight, but without a doubt, Caleb would be able to track him. How bad was he hurt?

  “Caleb. Please. Just this once. I need to find out the truth before you hurt the only person who’s been helping me.” She rubbed her father’s back and rolled him onto his back and then to his other side. “Just help me get my father inside.”

  Strong hands pressed into her shoulders as he lifted her. He reached down and picked her up, his forearm under her legs. “I’ll get you in the house but I’m going after him. I don’t care who you think Liam is, Kallie. He’s not one of us and therefore he’s the enemy. We have to protect ourselves and you bringing him here was ignorant.”

  She jerked from him, almost landing on the ground below. He righted himself and growled at her, the beautiful expression on his face fearsome and yet somehow breathtaking. He was majestic up close, his skin pristine, his eyes so full of light.

  She wrapped her arms around herself and huffed at him, but he seemed to ignore it other than the smirk tugging at his lip. “I’m not a child, so stop treating me like one.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re a human with very little knowledge of our kind. What you did was out of ignorance. Your father could’ve been killed. It’s my job to protect you, but I can’t protect everyone around you and still vie for your safety.”

  “Whatever,” she gritted out through clenched teeth. His authoritative voice was grating her nerves. “I asked for his help and he offered it.”

  They moved into the house and he leaned over, putting her on the couch. The closeness of their position caused her stomach to contract. She pushed him back and he smiled.

  “I like it too.” He turned and walked toward the back door.

  “I don’t like anything… you misunderstand because yo
u’re ignorant.” She smirked, proud of her comeback.

  “Keep telling yourself that, pretty girl. When you’re convinced let me know and I’ll not bother you again.” He laughed and she settled on the couch, her leg raised, hating the fact that he was right.

  Caleb’s cool hand pressed against the swelling on her leg. “This’ll be fine by morning.” He kissed her ankle and winked at her before disappearing out the door.

  Kallie heard him carry her father downstairs before the back door clicked shut permanently.

  She had no clue who the villain was, but either way, one of the two men in her life was guilty as charged and the other was a protector. Which one could she trust until she figured everything out? It was simple, really.

  Neither.

  Chapter 1

  The wind outside blew ferociously. It was almost as if Mother Nature understood Kallie’s fury. The twisted branches of the tree outside clawed and scratched against her bedroom window. She wanted to be that tree, whipping around in anger at the unfortunate events that had unfolded earlier in the evening. The man she trusted had abandoned her. But then again, he wasn’t a man now, was he?

  No, Liam’s a vampire.

  It seemed she was surrounded by vampires these days, and none of them acted the way they did in movies, or the books she’d read under the covers with a flashlight when she was younger. No, they weren’t the romanticized creatures she had envisioned. Nor were they the horrific beings of old black and white flicks her grandparents grew up on. Kallie would have given anything for a smoldering hot, broody, vamp who just wanted to be ‘understood’. However, that was fantasy, not her reality. These vampires were more…calculated. It didn’t consist of a simple suck and feed. No, these vamps knew exactly what they wanted: Seize, claim, and subject innocents to war.

  At least that’s how everything seemed now.

  The whole thing had turned into one big headache – more like a migraine – and Kallie wished she could shut off her brain as easily as one would turn off the television. She no longer wanted to see images of red glowing eyes or her badly beaten father popping into her head every time she tried to sleep. She couldn’t even enjoy the memory of Liam’s lips pressed against hers, because right now she feared Liam was the true enemy.

  He had to be.

  If he truly wanted to safeguard her, like he said he did, he never would have fled. Enter boy number two. Kallie rolled her eyes at the inner dialogue in her head. Of course there was Caleb. He swore he was there to protect her, but could she trust him? Kallie rolled around in her bed, wishing sleep would just take over. Knowing her luck, if she ever did fall asleep she’d probably dream of vampires. Nightmares, not dreams!

  Both boys had pretty much blown her mind and then taken off. Liam first, in a way that surprised Kallie. She never pictured him as the run-away type. Then Caleb left on ‘fight-night’ as she now called it, in his swagger-cool style. Except he dropped a load of unanswered questions before he took off. She wanted to kill both of them, and fall in love with them at the same time.

  “Ugh!” Throwing off her covers, she swung her legs out of the bed and shoved her feet into a pair of fuzzy red slippers. She grabbed a powder blue terry cloth robe and went downstairs. A midnight snack usually helped comfort her. She often joked with her mom that middle of the night snacks didn’t contain any calories… “How do I know I even ate? Maybe it was a dream,” she’d argue. Her mother disagreed, but laughed at the way Kallie always had a way of reasoning out the world. “Just try to reach for something healthy… carrots, perhaps?”

  She tiptoed down the stairs and wandered into the kitchen, carrots were definitely the last thing she wanted to snack on right now. When she flipped on the light, she nearly screamed. Her father was sitting in the dark, looking out the window. “Dad!” She clutched at her heart. “You scared the crap out of me!”

  “Sorry.” He sighed. “There’s enough to fear out there.” He gestured outside at the whipping branches and deserted yard. “I don’t need to be scaring you in here.”

  “You don’t scare me.” She felt like she always had to reassure her father since his transition. Like Caleb, her father was a red blood vampire. “I figured you’d be downstairs or something.” He seemed to spend all his time down there now, never wanted her or her mom in the one room.

  “Do you want me to go downstairs? I can give you some privacy, if you need it.” He stood, but Kallie motioned for him to sit back down.

  “Don’t be silly, Dad.” She forced a smile. “It’s just been a crazy week and one hell of a night.”

  “Watch your language,” her father warned.

  “Sorry. It slipped.” She leaned against the fridge, staring up at the ceiling. “My mind won’t stop thinking. I don’t know what to believe anymore. I can’t stop wondering what’s going to happen. All I can come up with are worst case scenarios.”

  “Since the night of the accident, that’s all I’ve thought about as well. Except the worst case scenarios keep getting worse. As much as we like to pretend everything’s going to go back to normal, it’s not.”

  Her father looked miserable, and it tore at Kallie’s heart. The car accident was two years ago, but he was right. It had changed everything. That was the night he was turned, the night she stopped being a kid and saw the world through a new lens. One that showed off the creatures of the night. She wanted to just rewind the clock to a time when the only vampire she thought about was Dracula. She was envious of her friends and their ignorance. To them a vampire was just a Halloween costume. She had been like them too, and would give anything to go back to that time. There’s freedom in not knowing. All the truth does is shackle you down by the weight of the responsibility it holds.

  Absentmindedly, Kallie opened the door of the fridge and scanned its contents. Chocolate was what she was looking for… maybe some peanut butter…

  “What do you think of Caleb?” her father asked.

  His question surprised her so she was glad her face was looking into the fridge, not at him. “I think he’s not about to go away very easily.” She reached for the jelly, and as she turned, closed the fridge door with her hip.

  “Is that what you want? For him to go away?”

  There was such desperation in her father’s voice, like he needed answers, but Kallie couldn’t give him any. She could only make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but she knew that too was the last thing he craved. He craved something warm, and in liquid form. She went into the bread basket and reached for the whole wheat loaf, her closest attempt at healthy for the night. The quiet in the kitchen was broken only by the buzzing of a fly near the light, and the sound of grabbing a knife from the drawer. As she smeared the thick peanut butter across the bread she started humming.

  Her father chuckled from the kitchen table where he sat.

  “What?” She gave him a quizzical look as she applied jelly to the other slice of bread.

  “Nothing.” He smiled. “Just enjoying you having a simple human moment.”

  She tried to smile back at him but the corners of her mouth preferred to point down. She wished her father had been given a choice. It was one thing to choose an immortal life and its rules. It was quite another to be forced. Had he been given the choice? She shook her head. She knew the answer to that. What bothered her more was wondering what his final human moments were like. Would he have lived to be eighty? Ninety? He would never know what it was like to grow old.

  A jarring thought wedged itself into her brain. What if she were given the choice? Would Kallie ever choose this savage life? It didn’t seem the life she would ever want, but then again, Caleb seemed perfectly content with his immortality. Perhaps if you’re not being tortured and fed on by mafia-type vamps then it could have its advantages.

  “Your wheels are turning, I can tell,” her father commented.

  Kallie sat at the table with her sandwich, she had gone from peckish to starving in a span of five minutes. She shrugged. “I was just wond
ering, if I became a vamp… what my last human moment might be like…” She took a bite of her sandwich. It was beyond good.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Her father’s voice came out louder than intended.

  She shushed him. “Shh! You don’t want to wake up mom.”

  “Kallie, please tell me you’re not thinking about having one of those boys turn you!” If it were at all possible, his face had gone paler.

  Kallie shook her head vehemently and nearly laughed. “Trust me, that’s not my intent! Ever! I was just curious… like how I wonder how a pair of stilettos would look with a certain dress.” She offered him a smile as she took another bite of her delicious sandwich.

  Her father didn’t appear convinced. “Kallie, this is not a game.”

  “I know it’s not a game!” she hissed. “So I’m going to make jokes! If I don’t, the whole thing is just too real. And real is scary.” She tilted her head as she stared at the sometimes stranger in front of her. “I thought you’d understand that.”

  Her dad sighed, and leaned back in his wooden chair. It creaked from his shift in weight. “I do understand. All too well. I’m scared every single day. Scared for you. For your mother.” A shuddering sigh escaped his lips. “If those dangerous monsters were ever to hurt you, either of you—”

  Kallie reached forward and placed her hand over his. “That won’t happen.”

  “You have no idea. You don’t know what kind of men they are. It isn’t… natural.” He shook his head as he whispered, “How do you know?”

  Kallie licked her bottom lip. It tasted like peanut butter. “I can’t be sure, but Caleb said he was protecting me.”