The End Zone: SPORTS ROMANCE (Contemporary Sport Bad Boy Alpha Male American Football Romance) (New Adult Second Chance Women’s Fiction Romance Short Stories)

by Jenna Payne

  A great cloud of dense black nothingness exploded inside me, filling me with the deepest depression. I noticed my personality leaking out. My memories dropped away. Or maybe I just stopped being aware of their existence.

  He let go of me. I fell to the floor. I heard him laugh and boast to Andrei, “There now. I’ve given you two anchors to hold down your progress. I’ve taken one daughter completely and infected the other two. If you leave them alone at any time, I’ll come back and turn them. Good luck.” He walked out.

  *****

  Andrei held me in his arms. I tried to remember my love for him. It was there but it flickered. He said, “Don’t resist it. You can’t. We can guard you and keep him from taking you and your sister. If we can defeat him, you’ll change back.”

  I had enough pure panic in me to let me whisper, “What if you can’t?”

  “I’m afraid you’ll sicken and die. I’m sorry.”

  I raised my arm with all of my strength and touched his cheek. “Go. Go fight him.”

  He nodded. “Yes. That’s what I have to do to save you.”

  They took me and my sister and mother to my apartment. My father had a broken jaw. They had to take him to the emergency room. I had them put my sister and mother in my bed and me on the couch. I assured them that we’d be fine while they dealt with the evil vampires. A nice, young man stayed outside our door to guard us.

  I said goodbye and watched them leave.

  As soon as the door closed, I jumped up, completely cured. I didn’t have sense or awareness enough to wonder why I could do that.

  I had my strength back and didn’t feel full of darkness, but my will had been stored in a compartment back inside my mind where it wouldn’t cause any trouble.

  I knew exactly what I had to do. I walked out of my apartment quickly and tapped the young guard on the shoulder. I said, “I’ve just remembered something. I need to get it to the central committee. Take me there.”

  I don’t know what I pictured the headquarters of a coven of vampires to look like, but it wasn’t this. We drove up to an enormous, four-story, Victorian mansion; gorgeous, stately and graceful.

  Inside, I saw beautiful women and handsome men. Their bodies came in different sizes, including several women who were shaped like me. I stopped by the receptionist, a lovely girl with auburn hair and light skin. “I need to talk to Commander Stafford”

  I didn’t know who Commander Stafford was. I just knew I needed to talk to him.

  She showed me into an office that looked like a banker’s office from a hundred years ago. Stafford was in his fifties with black hair and a little gray at the temples. He stood and offered me his hand. I whipped a silver chain out of my pocket and whirled it around him. He looked stunned and sat back in his chair.

  I’m doing this in a place I’ve never been before and using knowledge I didn’t know I had. But I’m doing it.

  I swung a painting away from the wall and said, “What’s the combination?”

  Commander Stafford’s voice sounded strained, as if it had to battle to get past his teeth. “Turn the dial to the letters ‘B-r-i-g-h-t-a-n-d-S-h-i-n-i-n-g’. “ I spun the dial and the door opened. I looked inside at a leather bound book with gold lettering saying ‘Towers’. I knew it held every bit of information the evil vampires needed to defeat Andrei and his army.

  *****

  Andrei and his fighters waited in an alley. They had all of the weapons they needed to eliminate an evil vampire; crossbows with wooden arrows, darts with feathers dipped in concentrated garlic and holy water kept in glass vials.

  The evil vampires flew against them in waves. Andrei’s army was outnumbered five to one. Andrei and his men stopped the first and second wave with arrows from their crossbows. The third wave got closer but fell to the darts carrying the garlic. The fourth and final wave overwhelmed them and landed unopposed. Andrei and his fighters had to use swords and knifes. They killed in reckless numbers, but they were still outnumbered.

  Andrei slashed at the evil vampires. He and his men were stronger than the attackers but there’re so many of them. He was pressed back against a wall facing five evil vampires with axes.

  *****

  I looked at the book for a long time. I reached out to touch it and stopped. A memory clouded my mind. I couldn’t make it clear. I knew it was important. Something a man did to me that changed me. I took deep breaths and tried to concentrate.

  I won. I remembered the feel of Andrei’s touch on my cheek and his kiss on my lips. I withdrew my hand. I removed the silver chain from Commander Stafford and said, “They’re outside the building. Andrei can’t hold them off much longer.”

  The Commander hit a big red button on top of his desk and shouted. “All hands to the south side.”

  Love had won. My love for Andrei defeated the evil hypnotic state I was in.

  *****

  Andrei felt three blows from evil axes against his arms. The men fighting him were joined by two more. All around him, small glass vials of holy water exploded. It slowed them down.

  He saw something from the side of his vision. Evil vampires flew through the air like discarded newspapers on a high wind. His opponents saw it as well and tried to run. They were cut down by fresh fighters with crossbows.

  *****

  I watched from Stafford’s office three floors above the fight. I could see Andrei leading his men. The battle ended and I watched him run inside the building.

  We were alone in Stafford’s office. He wanted to hold me, but I held him off. I bawled like a baby with colic and blubbered, “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it.”

  A silver streak flew between us. A knife buried itself into the wall.

  I wanted to be part of the fight, not a bystander. I grabbed the knife and sliced into Andrei’s forearm. I planted my mouth over the cut and sucked. Andrei jerked his arms away from my mouth. He shouted, “No. You’ll die.”

  “No, she won’t. I didn’t give her the injection.” The tall man smirked at us. He closed the door behind him and locked it. He continued, “You’re so easy to fool. We couldn’t have used her if she’d been infected. We just hypnotized to make her look like it.” He lost the smirk and laughed, arrogantly. “It worked. Everything worked. I just have to dispose of you, you self-righteous asshole. I can have whatever I want from the bitch then take care of the other bastards in your coven at my convenience.” He looked past me to the Book inside the safe. “Thanks to Becky, we now have the Book of Towers. That’s all we need.”

  Andrei had wonder and excitement in his voice. “You’re alone.”

  “Yes. What of it?”

  “It’s an incredible opportunity. I can rescue three women.”

  “Only if you defeat me.”

  I concentrated and found I could follow this fight. A second later, I wished I couldn’t.

  Andrei started well. He lunged for the tall man and cut his leg. The man danced back and laughed. I really hated that laugh. As we watched, the wound in his leg healed. I looked at Andrei. It had shaken him. He was thinking the same thing. How can you defeat a man who can heal himself faster than you can cut him?

  The tall man struck at Andrei and struck again. He drove my lover back until he couldn’t back up any more. His back was against the wall. Literally.

  The tall man kept Andrei’s knife away from him with his sword. He said to me, “Hey bitch. Your sister’s a good fuck. Me and twenty two of my men had her yesterday. She’s got a lot of stamina. As soon as I deal with this piece of shit as he should be dealt with. I’ll turn you too. You’re going to be better than your sister.”

  That hit me where I lived. My little sister, Janice, was so young and naive. The thought of a long line of men using her for their own evil purposes made my hands shake. I felt so weak I sat down behind Stafford’s desk.

  Andrei called on all of his strength and threw the tall man away from him. Andrei moved away from the wall. I could see he was wearing out. It wasn’t fair. My beloved fou
ght an entire battle while the tall man stayed inside.

  The tall man looked at me with evil lust in his eyes. I could see I was going to be nothing more than a toy to him; something to amuse himself with for a while then throw away.

  I’m more important than that. I forced myself to muzzle my fear and looked around for an equalizer; something I could use to take away the tall man’s advantage. I searched the drawers in Stafford’s desk. The first three had nothing useful except a letter opener in the shape of a dagger but without an edge. The last drawer had a bottle with the answer to my prayers.

  I took the stopper out and moved around the room. Andrei saw what I was doing and moved to help me out.

  As soon as the tall man’s back was to me, I ran across the room and launched myself onto his back. I wrapped my legs around his belly, reached around his forehead and pulled as hard as I could.

  He did what anyone else does in that situation. My move surprised him so much that he didn’t have time to try to counter it. I pulled his head back and his mouth opened. I dumped the bottle of holy water in his open mouth then put both hands on his chin and pulled hard again. I managed to keep his mouth closed long enough for the holy water to have an effect.

  I mentioned earlier that garlic and holy water slow vampires down. They won’t kill them. It was enough. The tall man had to deal with his burning belly and Andrei. I added one more move that did the job. I wrapped my arms around his head over his eyes.

  He slashed around the room wildly and bucked and whirled, trying to throw me off. He couldn’t get rid of me, and he couldn’t see Andrei.

  My lover couldn’t slice his head off because I was too close. He grabbed a stake and mallet from the top of a file cabinet and drove himself into the tall man, knocking him down. I was on the bottom and felt every pound of the tall man’s considerable weight. I kept my hold on him.

  Andrei jabbed the stake into the tall man’s chest and hit it with the mallet immediately. The tall man’s hands grabbed the stake and tried to pull it out. Andrei hit it with all of his might over and over.

  The tall man screamed. The sound ripped through my ears. His arms and legs made odd, uncoordinated movements.

  Andrei wailed away at the stake with the mallet, driving it deeper and deeper.

  The tall man screamed one more time. Andrei hit the stake one more time; a heavy blow with all of his weight and hatred behind it. The stake penetrated the tall man’s chest. I could feel the tip touch my skin.

  The tall man turned to ashes immediately.

  The tall man had bitten me. With him dead, I should have felt better. I didn’t feel any different.

  *****

  Becky found all of the answers when she and Andrei took a shower later that day. Andrei held her in his arms from behind. He’d been scrubbing her back until he decided that her front needed some attention as well.

  His hands distracted her. She wanted to know so she kept her concentration focused as long as she could. “What did you mean when you said that I should be dead?” She moaned. “That feels so nice. I love having a man around.”

  Andrei said, “I love being around. Especially when parts of you are so round.” He smirked at his joke. Becky giggled. “Tell me.”

  “It’s simple. Becoming a vampire has two steps. A vampire bites a human and injects a solution through channels in his fangs. He sucks a little blood. This prepares the human for the next step where the human drinks the blood of a vampire.”

  “The first step happened when that man bit me at the restaurant. Except it didn’t.”

  Somehow, Andre’s right hand closed around my left breast. He continued, “That’s right. You would have died if you’d been bitten by an evil vampire and drank the blood of a good one. You’d been hypnotized to believe it happened so you’d show the effects. We’d think you were incapacitated and leave you behind. Actually, the tall man did nothing at all. That’s why you didn’t feel any different when you took my blood or when he died.” He kissed her ear. “That was very brave, by the way.”

  “Thank you.” She slid his hand down to her tummy. “Am I getting bigger yet?”

  Abruptly, the door to the bathroom opened and Janice walked in. She’d been found by the forces of the good vampires in the tall man’s lair. She couldn’t remember anything from the time she hadn’t been human. Once the tall man died, she returned to her sweet self.

  Janice screamed and turned to run out. But she didn’t run. Instead, she wiped the moisture from the glass of the shower and looked very closely at Andrei.

  Becky yelped, “Janice?! Leave us alone.”

  Janice stood on her tiptoes to look over the top of the shower. Andrei hadn’t covered himself up. Janice studied his body from top to bottom, lingering in the middle for a moment. “Do you have a brother, Andrei?”

  Becky said, again, “Janice?! Leave us alone. We’re busy.”

  “Yes, I see that. But I want a man for my own. Andrei looks very good to me. If there’s another Andrei running around, I’d be happy to meet him.” She hadn’t taken her eyes off Andrei. He grinned at her. “Yes. I have a brother named Stefan. He’s 23. He’s like me but better looking. I’ll arrange a dinner this week. You can meet him.”

  Janice nodded her head and left the room, Andrei laughed. “I like your sister. She’s feisty like you.”

  “I like her too. Now. I asked a question. Is my tummy getting bigger?”

  “Not yet. It’s only been a week.

  Becky wrapped her arms around Andrei. “If I understand correctly, I was never bitten. The appearance of that first step was caused by the hypnosis. That means I’m a good candidate to join your coven.” She happened to be looking at Andrei when she said that. She saw his canines turn into fangs. “You may bite me anytime you want.”

  He lowered his head to her neck. She felt two little stings and a blissful stability afterwards. She looked at him. “That was wonderful. Do the next part.”

  He cut his arm with his fingernail and let the blood drip into her mouth. He held her as she changed into a good vampire. She smiled all through the process.

  THE END

  Bonus Story 10 of 20

  Navy Seal Tiger

  Getting dragged out to a bar that was an hour away from the nearest town seemed absolutely ridiculous to me, but my friend Maggie insisted that it was the bar we needed to go to. She had decided a few months prior that the way to meet a good man was to meet one that wasn’t around long enough to cheat on you, and fought for something he believed in. Of course that equation led her to believe that military men were the way to go, and the bar we happened to be going to that evening was the main bar where all of the navy men visited. It was the only bar near the water, so the men would frequently come ashore to relax and have a few drinks while off duty from their ships, and Maggie took the opportunity to pounce on any of the seals she deemed “worthy” of her attention. I of course got left at the bar to fend for myself, tossing peanut shells into an empty bowl while I slowly sipped on my pint, trying to ignore the loud voices ringing in my ear. I’m not sure how long he was sitting there before I noticed him, but it must have been a while because when I turned around I flinched like a toddler at their first haunted house, and he simply laughed at me.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “Oh no, that was my bad. I must have lost myself in thoughts again, I do that a lot.”

  I took a moment then to check out the man sitting next to me. He seemed tall, sitting on a five foot stool while his feet touched the ground and he still hovered over me like a giant, best guess about six foot two. His hair was a light brown, shaved down to standard military crew cut that matched his perfectly structured face very well. His t-shirt was tight and outlined every muscle on his arms and chest; he definitely did some seriously hard work-outs on and off duty. His eyes were a soft green, pale like a restaurant mint. His skin was that of a tanned god, a medium tan with no noticeable farmer tan lines and he smelt like a mixture of e
xpensive cologne and the ocean. Safe to say he was a walking sea god, and I was shocked as to why he chose to sit and talk with me. I’m nothing to look at, especially not compared to Maggie. My hair is a dusty, faded blonde that never does anything but lay flat against my face. My eyes are a deep sapphire blue that tends to weird people out more than anything; they say it’s like looking into a dark blue hole. My body has a few extra curves where I wish it didn’t and I am taller than most girls, standing at five foot seven.

  “That bored?”

  “That is the life of the wing man.”

  “Wingman for who?”

  I pointed out Maggie who was busy flirting with not one, but two naval officers. Rolling my eyes as I turned back to the bar, taking another sip of my beer.

  “Ah, that one.”

  “You know her?”

  “You could say that, she’s more of a regular than the officers.”

  I couldn’t help but snort, it wasn’t hard to believe that Maggie practically lived at this bar, she had been against long term relationships since her ex dumped her three years prior.

  “Doesn’t surprise me, she enjoys the fact that they leave eventually. No offense.”

  “None taken, I was never one of her targets.”

  “Lucky you.”

  “Why does it sound like you don’t like your friend very much?”

  “Oh no, it’s not that. I just hate that she insisted I come, and left me as soon as we walked through the door.”

  “I get that, practically my whole unit ditched me to go surround her.”

  We both laughed, taking one last look at Maggie and what had geon from two naval officers to an entire group surrounding her, all of them laughing and flirtatiously touching each other’s arms.

  “I’m Jacob.”

  He reached his hand out to me, and I couldn’t help but be polite and reach my hand out to grip his.

  “I’m Tabitha”

  “Well it’s a pleasure to meet you Tabitha.”