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

by W. J. May

  “Hello.” She was happy to discover she was able to hide how upset she actually was. Jeanna would never know. If she heard just a fraction of unpleasantness in her voice, Jeanna would turn into a bloodhound, digging until she unearthed as much gossip as possible.

  “Hey girl! We miss you! You feeling better? When will you be back at school? I’m crazy-bored without you.”

  Kallie wiped away at her face again and stared at the image on her notebook screen. The Watchmen.

  “I’m feeling so much better. In fact, I’ll be there tomorrow.” She stared at the image of Caleb, amazed at how defiantly he seemed to be looking back at her.

  She needed to face the world again. No more hiding.

  Chapter 3

  Wanting to be fresh and ready for school, Kallie took a shower and went to bed before nine thirty. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but an hour later, her eyes fluttered open and she lay on her back wide awake. She turned and tossed, and even tried counting sheep. All that managed to do was bore her. The night dragged on, and from the sounds of the house she knew her mother had gone to bed, and her father was probably lying beside her, holding her for a few hours the way he always did. By midnight she bit her lip to stop herself from screaming in frustration. Her first class started at eight and she resented being such an early bird when she initially registered. I’ll be up all night, and exhausted all day… I can feel it. Another bloody sleepless night. I’d be better being a vampire than a human.

  Rather than try and force herself back to sleep, she surrendered and turned on the lamp sitting on the small dresser beside her bed. Kallie had always been a lover of books, so it seemed fitting to treat her insomnia with a romance novel. It was a great escape from the reality of her bizarre life and she was soon lost in the pages. The bedroom faded away and she found herself in the drama of the love between the stable boy and the lady of the castle. Normally Kallie had a pretty heavy reading assignment list from her professors, so she enjoyed a naughty read every now and then to get her blood flowing. It was her dirty little indulgence and a bad habit she wasn’t about to break. Just as the stable boy finally swept the heroine off of her feet, into his arms, and was about to kiss her, something smacked against Kallie’s window.

  She jumped in alarm. Her book went soaring into the air across the room. She nearly bit her tongue when once again, something struck her window. Lying low on the bed with the covers hanging off the bed, she glanced at the window from a bad angle. It couldn’t be a tree or an animal, it had to be someone.

  What if it was the men who hurt her father? She debated calling him, knowing he would hear her quiet cry out. She decided against it. The poor man needed a break. She’d check it out before calling for him, figuring he’d heard the stone or whatever it was against her window and wasn’t alarmed so he didn’t come and check on her.

  Stealthily, she crept out of bed and bent down to pick up one of the five-pound weights she used for working out. It wasn’t the best weapon, but it was all she had at the moment, and she was pretty certain a weight to the head would slow whatever was trying to get her attention. Instinct told her to proceed with caution.

  She reached up and flicked off the light so her room could be dark. Straightening up against the wall she felt like she was in a James Bond movie. Peeling away the sheer purple curtain, she peered outside. It took a second for her eyes to focus in the dark, as they adjusted, she saw a figure standing in the yard. It was a man—no, a vampire. Not just any parasite, either. It was… Liam.

  Kallie clutched the weight tighter in panic. Her heart rate quickened, partially in fear, the other in confused excitement, like a sudden bubble of nervousness burst inside of her. She had no idea what she should do. She couldn’t just ignore him, but would communicating with him be the safest thing to do? She shook her head and tried to think.

  It dawned on Kallie that she had yet to hear his side. He had fled days ago once he saw Caleb, which struck her as odd. It made her feel he wasn’t worth trusting, but now that he was back, maybe he could clarify some things? He still knew more about this strange world than Kallie did. In fact, he knew more than her own vampire father. So did Caleb, and he was the same kind – both red bloods. What would a blue blood want from her and her vampire father? Sometimes you have to take risks. So she did. She opened the window and poked her head outside. “What’re you doing here?” she whispered, terrified her father would hear with his sensitive vampire hearing.

  “I had to see you.” Liam took a step closer. “We need to talk.”

  “Why didn’t you just call me, or text?” Kallie would clearly have preferred that to this face to face encounter. She loosened her grip on the weight.

  “I didn’t think you’d reply… or you’d send me to voicemail. I figured, you’d still be mad at me. It seemed better to just try a grand gesture.” He offered a smile, and even in the dark Kallie could see those mystical blue eyes of his. Why did he have to be so cute?

  “I don’t see throwing rocks at my window as a grand gesture. What else you got?” Oh no. Am I really flirting with him? Kallie, you need to keep your hormones in check! You don’t know if you can trust this vampire… this cute, sexy, vampire… sigh. STOP IT!

  “Can I come up?” Liam asked.

  Kallie felt her heart pump harder against the inside of her ribcage. Seeing him standing outside on the grass, reminded her of the first time she’d met him. He still looked about the same age as her, his blue eyes bright against the light coming from the moon.

  He stood confident in the grass, hands on the hips of his jeans, black fitted sport top hanging on his muscled arms and upper body. His dark hair had grown a little but was still cropped short. She wondered if he still had the scruff of a five o’clock shadow. It had been rough against her lips when they’d kissed, but it had felt teasing at the same time. Sigh. He still had that sexy rough boy kind of look.

  “Hi.” He seemed amused by her staring.

  Kallie placed the weight on the floor as she glanced at her bedroom door, which was shut, and then back to Liam. “If I go downstairs and open the back door, my dad’ll hear me.”

  “I didn’t ask you to open the door. I asked if I could come up,” Liam said rather matter of fact.

  Whatever he was implying, Kallie didn’t get it. She stared at him with her eyebrows raised.

  “All you have to say is either, yes or no.”

  She answered instinctually, the word leaving her lips before she had even formed it in her mind. “Yes.”

  Liam released a breath and then backed up on her grass.

  Kallie leaned closer, curious what he planned to do and wondering if he was going to run off again.

  Then with lightning speed, he bolted forward and began scaling the wall of her house. He climbed as easily as a spider and before she knew it, he was at her window, his strong fingers holding on to her ledge as he looked at her hopefully. “I asked if I could come up. Now I’m asking if I can come in.”

  Feeling like he had pulled the rug from underneath her, Kallie tried to compose herself. “Is that like a vamp thing? You can only enter my room if I invite you in?” She tried to remember what they had done with her father. Or had he changed while in the house so he could come in. She couldn’t remember exactly.

  Liam flinched at her words and then gave her a crooked grin. “It’s more of a gentleman thing. It’s after midnight, and you’re alone in your bedroom. So,” he wagged his eyebrows at her, “can I come in?”

  Kallie stared at him, debating what to say. “Well, if you were going to kill me, you’d have tossed a spear through my heart or shot me or something. And if you planned on kidnapping me, you’d have done that already, or at least not asked if you could come in the house.” She waved her hand, gesturing for him to enter and went to turn the light back on so she wasn’t alone with a hot vampire in the dark. She had to remind herself she was still mad at him.

  With the light on, Liam had an eyeful of what she was wearing. A whi
te tank top and blue and pink striped boy short panties. She knew he could have just as easily seen it in the dark. His eyes ran over her body and she felt naked beneath his gaze. She folded her arms in front of her, she wasn’t even wearing a bra. A thin white tank top with no bra. I might as well be naked in front of him. She grabbed for her robe and tied it on, noticing how her fingers fumbled while she tried to calm the burning on her cheeks.

  Liam ran his hand through his hair. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to find you half dressed.”

  Kallie held her head high. “It’s the middle of the night! How did you expect to find me?” She lowered her voice. “What do you want, Liam?” She knew her quick beating heart betrayed her. She could act as confident as she liked, but her unease was swimming through her veins. And Liam, being a vampire, would know. He would hear her heart rate quicken, smell the change in her body chemistry and quite possibly go all hunter on her. Would he really do that? she wondered. Would Liam ever really see me as nothing more than his prey? She was grateful for one thing—he couldn’t read minds. At least not to her knowledge. She prayed she was right.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I need to apologize for what went down the other night. I came by to help out your father, and I swear my intentions were genuine—I didn’t expect to see Caleb. I didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression.”

  Kallie looked at him, trying to figure him out. “You mean, when you took off, like a scared rabbit?”

  He stared at her in surprise. “No,” he said slowly, “I mean the impression that I’m the bad guy.”

  Kallie snorted. Good cop. Bad cop. What was he? An idiot. Or maybe she was for trusting him. “Then what’s the right impression?”

  Liam stuffed his hands deeper into his pockets and his eyes darkened as they held her gaze.

  It annoyed the heck out of her the way his eyes alone could cause butterflies to stir inside her belly.

  “I’m not the bad guy. I’m the good guy,” he said with such sweet sincerity, Kallie wanted to believe him.

  The image of Caleb saying he wanted to protect her flashed in her mind, but she shook it away. One vampire at a time, Kallie. She crossed her arms. “Prove it.”

  “What?”

  “I said, prove it.”

  Liam reached into his back pocket and pulled out his badge. “They don’t hand these out to villains.”

  If it was meant to be a joke, Kallie was not amused. “Is that supposed to be funny?” she hissed quietly. “You really are an arrogant dick, you know?” She huffed in frustration and dug her nails into her arm. “Maybe you didn’t even earn that badge. Maybe you’re just really good at fooling people. Maybe you’ve killed people who have gotten in your way.” By this point Kallie was waving her arms in the air like a mad woman and whispering everything. “How am I supposed to know how far you’ve gone to get what you want? I barely know you.”

  Liam remained stoic. “All I want is to keep you safe.” His words were quiet but powerful.

  “Get in line,” Kallie spat back.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Liam seemed genuinely hurt.

  For a moment Kallie felt remorse for her venomous assault. “Caleb said he wants to protect me. Last I heard, protect means to keep someone safe.” Crap. She was just slinging sarcasm at him now. Why was she being so cruel? Then she realized, she was just a human, and her guarded nature was the only true protection she had against these creatures. “You guys are both doing a lousy job.”

  It was clear from the way Liam’s face twisted, he was not happy with her answer. “Caleb is the last person fit to protect you.”

  “Funny, I bet if he was here, Caleb would say the same thing about you.”

  Liam looked even more disgusted. “You switching teams now? Caleb’s your new knight in shining armor?”

  “No one is my knight.” If the guy wasn’t already dead, she would’ve murdered him right now. “You’re an ass.”

  Liam opened his mouth to shoot her a reply and then hesitated. His shoulders dropped. He nodded slowly, as if in defeat, and then gestured to the chair by her desk. “Is it okay if I sit?”

  Surprised by his reaction, Kallie took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. He hadn’t come here to fight. Somehow whenever they were around each other, a spark of some kind had to erupt between them. She sat on her bed. “Not like I can stop you. Be my guest.” Why did she have to make a snide comment? She could have just pointed to the chair.

  “I didn’t come here to fight.” He pulled out the chair, and sat down. “I came here to tell my story.” If Liam saw surprise in her face, he failed to acknowledge it. Placing his elbows on his knees he folded his hands and rested his chin in his palm. He didn’t say anything and it made her nervous. Liam didn’t look like the arrogant vampire she had just told off. He barely resembled the slick detective she had interviewed last week. He just looked like a person who needed someone to listen. Catching him in such an unguarded—human—moment melted away any remaining anger.

  If he had been within reach, she would have touched his knee. “It’s okay. You can tell me,” she whispered

  Liam looked at her, his eyes cautious. “I don’t know if you’ve figured it out, but I haven’t been a vampire very long. I was only turned two years ago. I was nineteen, the same age as you are now.”

  “You told me you were twenty-one, when we met. Vampires don’t age, you’re still nineteen.” She said it more for herself than to Liam.

  “It’s not exactly easy giving up your birthdays. And besides, it was hard enough getting into the police force at nineteen. I don’t look thirty or forty, so I couldn’t make myself an unrealistic age. I decided to pretend to be the age I should’ve been, had I not been killed.”

  “How did you die?” The word seemed horrible to say and talking to the dead was even odder. But then again, her father had died… and been reborn. Could Liam’s story be that much different from her dad’s? Had her dad been attacked before the accident? She had no idea except that when she woke the next day, she was fine and he was starving for blood, hiding in the basement. Did Liam seek this life out? Was it something he always wanted? The thought of wanting to drink blood was insane. Kallie was pretty sure people didn’t sign up for this lifestyle the way you enlist in the army.

  “My whole family, actually. We were on vacation, on our way home. We had been traveling for days, and trying to drive home in one night. My mother was exhausted. She didn’t want to take turns driving anymore and insisted that my father pull over and get us into a motel. I remember her saying how we would have a nice breakfast and drive home when the sun came up. But my dad wasn’t tired and felt he could drive through the night. To be honest, as nice as my mother’s temptation of a warm bed and a hot breakfast sounded, we were all pretty eager to get home. I can still remember how uncomfortable my head felt resting against the window. But, I agreed I’d rather go home than stop, so we slept in the car while my dad drove us home.”

  “We? You mean you and your mom?”

  “Me, my parents and my lil’ sister, Sally. She was thirteen.”

  The way he had said was, made Kallie uneasy. She knew he began the story by pointing out that his family had been killed, but the thought of that young girl! Dead at thirteen! At thirteen Kallie’s only concerns were lip gloss and going to the movies with her friends. She had assumed his story would be heartbreaking, this was too much. She felt like Liam had opened up his soul to her so she might have a peek.

  Liam continued, “The Reds had closed off the road, forcing my dad to stop the car. By the time I had woken up, my entire family was reduced to nothing more than food. I watched them feed on my mother, the animals were feeding on her neck and wrists at the same time. Then, I heard the cries of my sister—my father was already dead before I awoke. It was all happening so fast and there was nothing I could do. I was frozen, and this brutality was just flashing before my eyes.” Kallie had an urge to hug him, but she remained on the bed.

&n
bsp; Liam stared off into the distance. Kallie couldn’t breathe. So much tragedy in one night! No wonder Liam hated the Reds…it also explained his career choice. He was like a vampire vigilante of sorts.

  “Anyway, two Reds grabbed me, pulled me out of the car and took me off the road. They dragged me into the woods. I thought it was strange that they didn’t just kill me with the rest of my family. I tried to fight them off, but they had vampire strength. I was like a fly buzzing around a horse. I had no impact on them.”

  “You must have been so scared,” Kallie said, imagining Liam struggling to escape.

  “I don’t know if scared was the right word. I was still in shock over what I had seen. Nothing felt real, you know? It was like I was watching some cheesy horror movie, but I was the one starring in it. But then the unexpected happened. Three more vamps were in the woods. I guess that’s where they nested—”

  “Nested?” Kallie asked confused.

  “Sorry that’s vamp jargon. It just means that’s where they were living. They had a cabin in the woods. They probably had killed someone and taken it over… it’s not like I ever asked.”

  Kallie winced and nodded as she imagined the scenario. “Okay, I think I got it. Go on.”

  “The vamps started fighting each other. It was like a bunch of dogs fighting over a steak. And I was the bloody steak.” He snorted. “I realized that was my opportunity. While they fought, I would run. I took off, but one of them must have spotted me. Next thing I know they had caught up to me, picked up a nearby rock and smashed me in the head with it.”

  Kallie was on the edge of her seat. She had no idea Liam had such a horrific backstory. “Then what?” she croaked.

  “Then… I woke up in a dark room lit only by candles. I was weak, I mean really weak. I couldn’t even lift my finger. There were a few vampires in the room. They all had blue eyes.” Liam pointed to his own eyes and gave that crooked grin Kallie was starting to love. “I used to have brown eyes.” Kallie tried to imagine Liam with brown eyes. He would still be handsome, no doubt about that. But something about the blue just made him that much more seductive.