Venom & Vampires: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Collection

by Casey Lane

  He didn’t move, he didn’t wake up. She closed her eyes. She would wait.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  He was lost for his first week as a vampire. Being controlled and then set entirely loose messed with his head, not to mention fighting off a demon who wanted to get into the driver’s seat and took every opportunity to overwhelm Theo’s own soul. He’d killed people when the demon got his way. There was no getting around that. Yet every time he tried to find his own exit from this hellish existence, that foreign thing invaded his body and refused to allow it.

  He was close to losing his grip. The demon was winning. He was going to be in complete control soon.

  Theo was in a human bar, trying to convince himself not to let the demon take over, when Brody first approached him.

  “Hey, you’re new around here,” he’d said, slipping into the seat next to Theo.

  Theo barely glanced at him before he went back to sipping at the beer he could barely stomach. It’d been three days since he’d fed. He was beginning to get sharp pains in his abdomen that he hoped would mean death, but wasn’t certain about.

  “Look, I’m going to cut through the crap,” Brody turned his way.

  Theo got ready to tell the guy to get lost. Then he spoke again, and Theo found himself stunned into silence.

  “I know who you are.” He nodded as he looked him over. “And I can help you.”

  “You can?” He wasn’t getting alarm bells yet, but he was sure they were coming.

  “I can, but you need to stop starving yourself.”

  “Okay,” Theo agreed.

  “I’m Brody McIntosh.”

  They shook hands.

  It turned out Brody knew exactly who’d done this to him and why. That night, they went after the men who taken the life of his girlfriend and turned him. His maker saw it coming, but he hadn’t factored in what Brody was.

  “Turn on your human friend. Drain him,” the big guy ordered as if he was flicking a nuisance insect off his shoulder. He turned away as Theo launched himself at Brody, who halted his attack with a single command.

  Brody smiled at him. “Say goodnight, Blackburn.”

  The stake that launched through his body appeared out of thin air. The shock on his face melted as his remains spattered the ground.

  Theo breathed a sigh of relief, released from his maker’s hold.

  Brody smiled at him. “What do you say we go after his brother next?”

  Theo found a grin. The creep wasn’t going to know what hit him.

  Theo awoke next to the girl who’d given him a reason to hang on to his life. He smiled as she opened her eyes and gazed at him. “You’re okay.”

  “You were sleeping for a long time,” she let him know.

  He blinked. “I was?”

  Brody had warned him it might happen, but he really hadn’t felt tired when he lay down next to her. He was energized now, though his stomach was cramping a little. Feeding regularly was going to be a requirement. He needed to be back at full strength if they were going on the run.

  “I’m a vampire now,” she said, smiling wryly at him. “Apparently.”

  “It was the only way.”

  “I know.”

  “We should probably get out of here.”

  She sat up as he moved. “You sound worried. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t think Brody’s father knows we survived his attack, but if we hang around he might find out.” He got up and went to the window. “It’s getting too close to dawn. We need to be somewhere else right now.”

  “Where, exactly?” She didn’t think going back to her place was an option considering the dead body they’d left on her bedroom floor. She could just imagine Sian getting home from work and freaking the hell out. It would have happened by now. She wished she could have spared her the trauma, but she’d been too busy dying.

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.” He shook his head. “Brody will think of something. He always does.”

  “Why did he come after us, anyway?” She remembered something the creep had said to her in the kitchen, something she didn’t think he could possibly know if he wasn’t Sian’s boyfriend. The glowing eyes told her he was possessed at that point if the threatening behaviour didn’t.

  “I’m not sure,” Theo said. “But he mentioned something that might mean he targeted me for something I did a few years ago. When I met Brody.”

  “He mentioned something to me too,” she said.

  He frowned. “What was it?”

  “My perverted boss had tried to get me to agree to go on a business trip with him. I said no, but he mentioned that, said I should have done it.”

  “Okay, that’s a little worrying.”

  “I thought so. What was your thing about?”

  “Brody helped me kill the vampire who turned me, and his family.”

  “His family?”

  “His brother and father. They were killers, rapists, psychos,” he elaborated quickly. “But they were rich, connected. Kind of like Brody’s dad.”

  “Shit,” she said. “But wait. How long ago was that?”

  “A few years.”

  “Why would he suddenly care about that now?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t.” Theo shook his head. “I don’t know. His MO is torturing Brody for things he decides he’s doing wrong. That usually includes hurting someone he has some kind of feelings for. Friends. Lovers.”

  “So we need to get as far away from here as possible.”

  He nodded. “Now.”

  She looked him over. “We should get you some new clothes, too. You still smell like a stoner.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Theo mulled over what they’d talked about as he waited for Brody to get done with his emails. Apparently, Shayne had found it as a way to contact his boss without breaking the barriers Mr. McIntosh had put in place. He didn’t really know why his friend’s dad would be so determined to kill him, truth be told, but the reason didn’t matter as much as making sure he never found out he wasn’t successful did.

  He wasn’t the kind of person to let a loose end dangle, and despite Brody’s relief at the thought of the old man biting the bullet, he doubted it would be quite so cut and dry if Theo actually managed to kill him.

  Brody put his mobile on the table after a lengthy bout of typing. “Stacy’s freaking out about sleeping in the brothel.” He sighed. “I really don’t know what the hell he’s doing it for this time. We changed a lot more things to his liking after the last time.”

  “Do you think he might have found out about what we did three years ago?”

  Brody laughed. “You think this is about that?”

  “He mentioned it.”

  His laughter cut off. “He found out the night after that happened. He thanked me for taking down that arsehole.”

  “He did?”

  Brody nodded. “They didn’t exactly get along. I doubt it has anything to do with that.”

  His gaze wandered to the kitchen door. Liv’s sigh in the other room seemed to be a singular noise. But it distracted his friend’s attention all the same.

  “Are you still seeing Marina?”

  Brody snapped out of it and nodded slowly, picking up his mug. The coffee had to be going cold now, but if it was he didn’t seem to mind as he took a sip.

  “On and off. Nothing serious,” Brody murmured, putting the mug back down quietly.

  “Skye said he mentioned her boss. She said he’s a creep, he tried to get her to go on a business trip with him.”

  Brody’s focus came back. “Hmm. Might be nothing. He likes to know things. Probably went and searched after he rifled through her bag at the brothel. He was messing about behind the front desk for a bit. Stacy said he went through some of the personal effects in the cabinet.”

  “It would make sense.” Theo supposed, not that sense and Brody’s father saw eye to eye.

  “It could just be that he was waiting to see who escaped to come after
them,” Brody said. “I think that’s the most likely thing. He’s never locked the place down before. Maybe he was bored.”

  “Well, whatever it was, we need to get out of town and stay gone.”

  “Because he doesn’t know you’re not dead.” Some strange emotion crossed his face then. “Because you think you can fool him.”

  Theo stood up as Brody’s eyes started to glow. His friend’s laughter was decidedly unlike him. The possession happened so quickly that Theo froze in place, disbelief filling him.

  “Let’s see how well my son takes killing a friend by his own hands.”

  Theo backed away, his senses on alert. He had to be ready. Whatever spell the guy threw at him was going to need countered. An endless string of curse words burned through his head before he remembered the witch sleeping on the couch in the other room. Liv could handle this, he had to wake her up.

  He yelled for her as Brody’s mouth opened. The whispered words were the beginning of a spell, and it seemed like it was something far more complex than the fatal fire spell. He tried to memorize the words but there were just too many. His lips were moving too quickly, his voice speaking them too softly. Theo was screwed.

  “What the…” Liv appeared in the doorway, squinting at them.

  “You have to stop him. He’s not Brody.”

  She sighed. “Seriously?”

  Theo glowered at her. She sighed again, staring Brody down at she touched the pendant around her neck and started to cast her own spell. Theo backed out of the room as the smell of magic brewing started to make the kitchen smoky and warm.

  Skye had needed to rest, but he had to wake her. They needed to get the hell out of there, fast.

  “Skye…”

  The bed was empty. He checked the room and the others. She wasn’t there.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Skye snatched her arm out of the old guy’s grasp and glowered at him. It hadn’t hurt, but she didn’t care. No one put their hands on her without her permission.

  “You must be Brody’s father,” she spat at him, looking around the big corridor he’d brought her to. The instant teleport was a neat trick, but other than that she wasn’t the slightest bit impressed. Folding her arms, she glowered at him. “What exactly do you want?”

  “I want to know why you said no to that business trip.”

  She snorted. “Seriously?”

  He shrugged. “I have an unhappy business partner.”

  “Well, it’s a moot point now anyway. I’m a vampire. I can’t go to an airport in the middle of the day.” She put her hands on her hips. “This can’t be what this was all for.”

  “No, you’re right. It wasn’t. But that would be none of your business.”

  She frowned at him. “I died because of you and you’re telling me this isn’t my business?” Was this guy for real? She seriously wanted to punch him right now.

  “Anyway, I can see that there might be other uses for a girl like you.”

  “You can get that idea out of your head right now.” She had no idea what he was talking about, but he wasn’t sounding all that much different from the perverted boss she’d already said no to.

  “You do this, and I let Theo live.”

  “Do what?” Not that she intended to do what he told her to anyway, but she might as well know how disgusting he actually was before she told him to shove it up his arse.

  “Work at my brothel.”

  “I thought it was Brody’s brothel?”

  He laughed. “My son has no idea how to run a business. He’s just there so I don’t need to bother myself. Most of the time.”

  She could barely believe she was having this conversation, but she knew one thing for sure, this guy could kill her quicker than she could snap her fingers. He had the upper hand here, and she wasn’t foolish enough to think she’d be able to turn the tables on him. She’d barely been a vampire for five minutes. Her fighting skills weren’t exactly honed. More than all of that, he could use magic and she couldn’t. It was why Brody had decided hiding from the man was their best option when they’d first heard he was in the brothel.

  “How long for?” She settled for buying time with questions.

  “Six weeks,” he said, a sly smirk growing on his face.

  “Done,” she said it without flinching because she had no intention of following through. She just wanted to get the hell out of this place, out of his company, as quickly as she could.

  He smiled and grabbed her arm. The whoosh of air followed by their surroundings changing this time made her shudder. He left her in the brothel’s reception area with a shaken looking Stacy clambering to stand up behind the front desk.

  Brody’s father pushed Skye forward before he let go of her arm.

  “Set her up in a room and give her something nicer to wear.”

  Skye turned, but the guy was gone.

  Stacy cleared her throat. “What’s going on, exa—Oh my god, you’re one of them.” The fear in her voice made Skye’s heart sink.

  “I’m still me.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Stacy laughed nervously. “Only you have a demon in you now.”

  “A demon?” Skye didn’t understand.

  “Oh. You don’t know. Shit.” Stacy paled. “You should have Theo explain it to you. I don’t totally get it, I mean I’m not…”

  A manly sigh from behind the desk was the first sign that Stacy hadn’t been alone behind there. Shayne stood and Skye stared at him.

  “What’s she talking about?”

  He looked her over carefully. “Your demon has been suppressed. Theo did something to it. Sort of like a hypnotism. It’s a known tactic. Brody probably taught it to him. Makes the thing easier to control if it does start to get rowdy.”

  “Um, what?” She still didn’t get it. “I have a demon in me now?”

  “It’s kind of the whole point of vampires,” Stacy said, shrugging apologetically. “At least it was in the beginning or whatever.”

  “What she means is that vampires were created as a way to allow demonic spirits to walk the earth in human form.”

  Like that made it any less disturbing. Skye sat down on the couch across from the desk. As if being kidnapped hadn’t been bad enough. Turning into a vampire and striking a deal to work in a brothel to avoid the new guy she’d barely slept with being murdered….

  “I’m really wishing I was dreaming right now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Theo went crazy as Brody and Liv snapped at each other in the kitchen.

  “What are you even doing?”

  “Stopping you from killing your stupid vampire friend!”

  “I wasn’t….”

  “You were possessed by your psychotic father, Brody.”

  “What? No. Shut up.”

  Theo slammed the door against the wall, capturing both of their attentions.

  “Skye is gone! He took her. One of you needs to take me to her, right damn now.”

  He could barely contain his rage. The second he laid his hands on Brody’s father, the man was going to regret his very existence.

  “Find out where she is,” Liv ordered his confused friend. “I’ll take him to her.”

  Brody started the spell, and it couldn’t be cast quickly enough for Theo’s patience. He was ready to bounce off the damned walls by the time Liv touched his shoulder and activated a teleport. A few seconds later and he was inside the brothel’s reception area, Stacy and Shayne staring at him from behind the front desk.

  He turned quickly as Skye’s voice said his name, “Theo?”

  She got up from the couch and rushed into his arms. He held her close, breathing in her scent and thanking gods he didn’t believe in that she was safe.

  “I was so worried.” He took a step back, keeping her in his arms, but loosening his grip to check her over. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, slowly, but there was something in her gaze. She couldn’t quite seem to meet his eyes. “He wants me to work here.�
��

  Theo raised an eyebrow. “Who? Brody’s father?”

  She nodded. “I don’t get it.”

  Theo didn’t either, but a sense of relief washed over him. “That’s all?”

  She shrugged. “I guess it is. I don’t know what he was up to, but I don’t like this. I can’t work here, not like…”

  “You won’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Theo told her. “And we’ll leave as soon as we find somewhere else to go.”

  She smiled slowly. “Everything’s going to be okay?”

  He nodded, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

  Stacy cleared her throat, and he turned his head in her direction.

  “Um, we still seem to be on lock-down. Any idea why that might be?”

  Liv snorted. “Wait for word but this is hardly a lock-down.” She gestured to Theo. “We teleported in here. I assume he did as well, with the girl. There’s no magical barrier.”

  Stacy bit at her lip. “But we’ve not been told…”

  “Yeah. You’d better wait to be told you can go home,” Liv said, smirking slightly. “Goodnight.”

  She teleported out and Stacy blew out a breath.

  “I know she’s one of my bosses, but what a bitch.” She sat down, grumbling to herself.

  Shayne smiled down at her. “I’ll put the kettle on for you. Must be close to breakfast time.”

  “We need a new room,” Theo said, not wanting to make it easy if Brody’s father were to come back unexpectedly. “It can be allocated to Skye later. Can you just give us keys now, and as far as everyone’s concerned we’re in my room?”

  Shayne nodded, passing him a set before Stacy could answer. She swiped at Shayne’s arm.

  “That’s supposed to be my job.”

  “And you’re supposed to be sleeping while I cover for you.”

  Theo walked away with the keys as Stacy grumbled away under her breath, bitching about not getting to go home all night. He walked with Skye to the new room, expecting her to crash out the instant she lay down. It had been a trying day, and he doubted she’d fully adjusted to becoming a vampire quite yet.