by Anya Nowlan
Table of Contents
Prologue
Epilogue
A Little Taste…
Copyright
Ruby
Harlan
Ezra Excerpt
Want More?
About the Author
Thank you for reading!
Harlan
Vampire Seeking Bride
Anya Nowlan
Contents
A Little Taste…
Copyright
Prologue
1. Ruby
2. Ruby
3. Harlan
4. Ruby
5. Harlan
6. Ruby
7. Harlan
8. Ruby
9. Harlan
10. Ruby
11. Harlan
12. Ruby
13. Harlan
14. Ruby
15. Harlan
16. Ruby
17. Harlan
18. Ruby
19. Harlan
20. Ruby
21. Harlan
Epilogue
Ezra Excerpt
Want More?
About the Author
Thank you for reading!
A Little Taste…
Mark gave her a wistful smile as she climbed out of the car and clumsily waved goodbye to him. Walking over to the building, she listened to the vehicle idle at the curb as she got out her keys and stepped inside.
Hearing Mark pull away, she climbed up the stairs and made her way to a familiar blue door on the third floor. Unlocking it, she walked inside, dropping her bag on the floor. The place still looked the same as ever, small yet cozy, if only a bit dustier than she remembered.
When she shut the door behind her and walked into the living room, however, she sensed something was off. Before she could even react to the hint of movement from her peripheral vision, a man stepped out of her kitchen, holding a glass in his hand and swishing around the brown liquid inside.
“You have terrible taste in scotch, you know,” he said, frowning at the drink.
“Who the hell are you and why are you in my apartment?” Ruby demanded, already backing away toward the door.
This man was definitely someone she had never seen before. His dark hair almost reached his shoulders, framing his face perfectly and softening his chiseled jaw and sharp features. With a straight nose and high cheekbones, he definitely wasn’t bad to look at, as far as intruders went.
When his bright green eyes snapped to her and a smile spread over his full lips, Ruby could have sworn there was something oddly familiar about his voice.
“Why, I’m your future husband, of course.”
Copyright © 2017 Anya Nowlan
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Harlan
Vampire Seeking Bride
All rights reserved.
No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Anya Nowlan. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
Cover © Jack of Covers
Prologue
Harlan
Harlan hadn’t even gotten to sink his teeth into the pretty redhead sitting on his lap, when he felt himself tensing. His predatory instincts kicked in, as he sensed a wave of power sweeping over the room. With a sigh, he pulled his head back from the girl’s neck – Brittany was her name, maybe? – and gave her a wide smile.
“Sorry, darling. We’ll pick this up later,” he said, making her frown.
They were seated near the back of one of LA’s most popular underground clubs, known to those who were on the very hard to get on guest list as Sin. It was an apt name, Harlan thought.
Definitely no saints here, he mused, brushing a stray curl away from Brittany’s forehead.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked, stretching out her neck and writhing around in his lap.
The vein throbbing just below her ear did look tasty, but if Harlan was right about what had made his skin prickle only a moment before, he’d better take care of other things first.
He wasn’t that hungry, anyway. Places like Sin made sure he had plenty of willing donors to snack on.
“Not a thing,” he replied, while already scanning the crowd lounging around the club.
The music was muted, so this party was a lot quieter than most. Harlan’s kind was more sensitive to sounds, among other things, so there was no need for a thumping bass line or blown-out speakers.
A few couples were out on the dance floor, but most of the guests lounged around, talking, drinking, or playing card games with rules that most people had long forgotten. Both men and women walked around with trays, weaving past old and new friends, and offering drinks to shyer humans working up the courage to go introduce themselves to the alluring creatures of the night.
Harlan chuckled to himself, wondering if Brittany had ever been so coy. The way she threw a leg over his and was now straddling him made him think not. But then again, people had a great capacity for change. Having seen entire generations be born and die gave him a unique perspective on that.
Spotting a familiar figure standing near the doorway, one he definitely had not been expecting to see tonight, made Harlan turn serious. Brittany must have sensed something had changed, her smile wavering at the laser-like focus of Harlan’s gaze.
“Run along, now, darling,” Harlan waved her off, as he narrowed his eyes at the man now headed his way.
Brittany quickly disentangled herself from him, likely having been around long enough to know when she was not needed, and scampered off, leaving Harlan to adjust the lapels of his suit and run a hand over his long, dark-brown hair. Draping his hands over the backrest of the sofa he was sitting on, Harlan conjured up a neutral expression when his visitor reached him, coming to a stop in front of the small table near his feet.
“Julius,” Harlan stated impassively, giving the man a disinterested once-over. “Haven’t had the pleasure of seeing you in a decade or two.”
Julius stood stiffly in front of him, impeccably dressed as always in a three-piece suit, gray eyes fixed on Harlan. Tall and lean, with angular features and a clean-shaven jaw, Julius looked cold and regal, with his perfect posture and an air of privilege following him around wherever he went.
“Drop the sarcasm, Harlan. It doesn’t suit you,” Julius replied in that smooth British accent Harlan had come to find grating, folding his hands in front of him.
“I see you still haven’t gotten that stick dislodged from your ass. Might want to get that checked out,” Harlan remarked. “Doctors these days really do wonders, you know. No more prescribing mercury for everything and treating coughs with heroine. I bet that was fun, though,” he said, tapping a finger on his chin. “I bet you forgot all about cough after that treatment.”
Julius looked like he wanted to roll his eyes at Harlan but thought better of it at the last second.
“May I join you?” he asked instead, gesturing toward the sofa.
“Sure, sure, why not. I can get Brittany to come back, if you’d like,” Harlan replied, putting on a smile.
“That won’t be necessary,” Julius stated, taking the seat next to him. “Now would you please be a little more serious. I’m here for a reason.”
Harlan knew that couldn’t be good for him. And he couldn’t care l
ess about what Julius did or didn’t want from him. His days of following the man around were done. He lived a different life now, and he wasn’t about to give it up.
“Let me be completely honest,” Harlan said, earning a nod from Julius. “Whatever it is you were about to say – I don’t care.”
Julius looked like he wanted to disagree or interrupt, but Harlan just held up a hand.
“The royal families are in shambles? The human government has caught on to our existence and is sharpening their stakes? You’ve gambled away your fortune and are looking for a couch to crash on? I don’t care,” he said, putting special emphasis on that last part in case Julius was still confused.
“What a shock,” Julius scoffed, throwing him a withering glare. “Harlan Akers doesn’t care. As if you whoring and drinking your way through your immortal life hadn’t clued me in,” he continued, a distinct edge creeping into his voice.
“You must love the fact that you can never get a hangover, or an STD for that matter. My friends have been telling me for years I wasted my gift on you. I have to say, I’m beginning to think they’re right.”
Harlan could feel a dark part of him floating toward the surface, that corner of him that hungered for blood and relished in feeding off someone else’s life force sneaking out into the light. As much as he thought he no longer cared what anyone thought of him, Julius’ words still had an effect.
“You can tell your friends they can fuck off,” Harlan replied, trying to make it sound casual but failing.
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, as Julius’ expression grew thunderous. Shoulders tensing, he stared at Harlan, looking like he was ready to explode.
“I am your Maker,” he said, sounding like not yelling those words took considerable effort. “And you will treat me with the respect I deserve.”
The people closest to where Harlan and Julius were sitting suddenly made themselves scarce. Julius was very old, which made him very powerful, and all the other vampires close enough could easily sense that.
And they did not want to get in his way.
Harlan wanted to argue, but it went against every instinct he had. As the vampire that had turned him, Julius shared a special bond with Harlan, one that couldn’t be easily broken. Even after not seeing his Maker for almost thirty years, Julius’ demand for respect still tugged at something inside Harlan. It was a feeling he couldn’t ignore.
“What do you want?” he sighed, picking up his glass of champagne from the table and downing it in a single gulp.
It was hard for him to get drunk, a lot harder than it was for humans, but damned if he wasn’t going to give it the old college try. The drink didn’t taste as good as it had a second ago, though, especially not when Julius was still narrowing his eyes at him.
“I’m not here to ask you to return home,” Julius explained, touching his cufflinks before letting his hands rest in his lap. “I promised I would give you your freedom and I keep my promises. But there is a problem the Families need handled, and you are perfectly equipped for the task.”
“Is that so,” Harlan remarked, grabbing the bottle of Dom Pérignon from the ice bucket in front of him and refilling his glass.
To say Julius showing up and making demands of him irked Harlan would be an understatement. Yet he knew Julius wouldn’t have come if his business wasn’t both important, and something Harlan probably couldn’t afford to say ‘no’ to.
Doesn’t mean I have to like it. Or that I have to make it easy for him.
“It’s about Grant,” Julius said, and Harlan couldn’t help but raise a brow at that.
“Grant Williams?” he asked, even though he knew that had to be who Julius was talking about.
Harlan and Grant had been friends a long time ago, running in the same circles and both having a penchant for having fun. Older vampires all tended to be impossibly dull, so as relative newcomers, he and Grant had stuck together. Until they drifted apart, as many friends tended to do as years passed and lives, or afterlives as it were, took different turns.
“He has no regard for the rules anymore. We have tried reasoning with him, but now, he’s dropped off the map entirely. Whatever he is up to, it’s not good. He hasn’t made a lot of friends in the years you’ve spent apart, so I’d wager you know the man as well as anyone. How he thinks, where he’d go… And coming from you, maybe he’d finally listen to reason.”
Gritting his teeth, Harlan listened. Grant had always been kind of a loner, so what Julius was saying didn’t exactly surprise him. But that Grant would go against vampire rules… As much as Harlan had come to resent authority, even he still honored the principles set out by the old families.
The consequences were too severe for him not to.
“I’m guessing I don’t really have a choice in the matter,” Harlan commented, catching Brittany winking at him from across the room.
“No, you don’t,” Julius replied.
Didn’t think so.
1
Ruby
“Hey, stop!” Ruby called out as her hurried steps turned into running.
But the man she had spotted pulling a woman toward a nearby alley either didn’t hear her or didn’t want to hear her. The streets around her were dark, and while there were a fair amount of people milling about on the sidewalk, they were all minding their own business. Ruby’s shouts did little more than turn a couple of heads and earn a few shrugs.
That kind of reaction didn’t surprise her. Having been a proud member of the New York Police Department for over five years now, she was well aware of the average person’s desire to not get involved in something that could inconvenience them, or god forbid, waste their time.
In the bystanders’ defense, the mysterious man had already slunk off into the dark alleyway when Ruby had started shouting, so there was every chance she looked like your regular crazy lady, yelling to herself.
Leather boots thudding softly on the pavement, she tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear as she reached the corner rounding into the alley and flattened herself against the edge of it, hand already reaching for the service revolver at her side.
Not wanting to cause a panic by pulling out her gun while she was in her plain clothes, and not entirely sure if this all wasn’t her overreacting to a couple looking for a private moment to get frisky, she unclenched her fingers and forced her hands to rest at her sides.
Most of the time, being trained to assume the worst was a good thing. It had gotten her out of many sticky situations. But it also happened to make a person suspicious, and entirely too pessimistic when it came to people’s motives.
Slowly edging forward, Ruby peeked around the corner, and could barely make out two shapes near the back of the alley, one of them resting against a wall. Hand still hovering near her gun, she stepped into the narrow, dirty space in between two red-brick buildings, the smell of garbage wafting in the air.
“Sir? Ma’am?” she asked evenly, her voice as authoritative as ever. “Is everything okay here?”
There was no reply. Only a soft moan echoed in the air, and a wet, sucking sound.
Great, I’ve just interrupted some tourists’ make-out session, Ruby thought with a roll of her eyes.
But she had to make sure. That was just how she was built. A good cop always followed through, and Ruby was nothing if not a by-the-book officer. A woman’s safety could be at risk, and that outweighed the possible awkwardness of cutting in on some couple’s private time.
“I’m a police officer. Don’t make me ask you again,” Ruby warned, taking a step closer.
As her eyes started adjusting to the dark, she could see that the woman pressed against the wall had her head lolling back and to the side. Her blonde hair was brushed away from her face, and the man Ruby had spotted earlier seemed to be nuzzling her neck.
Tall and broad, clad in a dark coat and with light-brown, slicked back hair, the guy looked to be holding the girl on her feet as her body was limp and her knees bent.
What Ruby had first thought were moans now sounded more like choked sighs, or even groans.
Every primal instinct Ruby had was suddenly screaming at her, as the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. It was an unsettling feeling, as Ruby rarely found herself afraid. And in this situation, as her hand landed on the cool metal of her Glock 22, she was the one in control. Even if this man she was observing was armed, he would never reach his weapon before she did.
Then why do I feel my fight-or-flight instincts kicking in? she briefly wondered, before taking another step closer.
The man finally acknowledged her, raising his head from the woman’s neck. When he looked straight at Ruby, she instinctively pulled her gun from her holster, aiming it at the man and clicking off the safety with a smooth, practiced motion.
Blood, Ruby’s thoughts registered, as she quickly assessed the scene in front of her.
Now that the man’s mouth was off the woman’s neck, the red liquid was openly pouring down her throat and soaking the collar of her shirt. The guy’s mouth was stained with it, and he stared right at Ruby as his tongue snaked out and he licked the blood from his lips.
What the hell…
“Step away from the woman,” Ruby ordered, her right finger resting softly on the trigger as her left palm held her weapon steady.
“But I’m not done yet,” the man replied, and the coldness in his voice cut right through her.
He grinned at her, and his total lack of concern about having a gun pointed at him made Ruby think she had to be dealing with someone who had been on the wrong side of the law before.
Her instincts about something being off had been proven right, and she was glad she had gone with her gut. Now she had to get this creepy dude with a biting fetish away from the poor woman sagging in his arms, and get her some medical attention.
“Oh, yes, you are, buddy,” Ruby said. “Gently set the woman down and step away,” she ordered again, keeping a close eye on the man’s movements.
