Page 80 of Purrfectly Kissed
“A thousand years we’ve waited, and I’m walking into a fucking scene from a bad episode ofHoarders,” Troy shook his head and frowned at the decrepit house that sat a few hundred feet away from him.
It was cold as fuck outside and his leather jacket did little to warm him. Avian Shifters did not carry around the same bulk as other types of Shifters. He ran hotter than normals, but the single digit temperature froze him to the bone.
True, he wasn’t beefy like some of his fellow Shifters, but he was just as incredibly strong, and he was wicked fast. Much stronger than any average male. He paused briefly gauging the atmosphere. There was something off about the place. He scentedMagicand something else. His Bird bristled beneath his skin.Easy now.
Lightning flashed in the darkened skies, allowing him to see the worn shingles, and cracked siding of the beaten-up colonial in greater detail. More than one window had been smashed and boarded up with cheap plywood.
If anything, it enhanced the creepy haunted house feel of the place. The porch sagged dangerously. He wondered how the place had managed to not be condemned by the town. One thing was certain, it was an ugly little turd of a house.
Who the hell put gray siding on their house anyway?Maybe it wasn’t always that color. Maybe the owner liked gray.Whatever. He couldn’t give two shits about the siding.
His only concern was the increased supernatural activity in the area over the past two weeks. Ever since the owner, aMrs. Renalda Curosi, passed away.A haunting?
A creaking sound floated up to his ears and he stilled his movements. The sound developed into more of amoaningnoise. An unearthly wail. It grew louder as the lightning continued to flash in the sky.
Troy had never seen a ghost. True, there were a lot of things in the universe he had never seen nor heard of, but that didn’t make them any less real.
If ghosts were real, and they made noises, he imagined that pitiful wail was damn close to what it would sound like.
No such thingas ghosts. Yeah, well, most people had never heard of Shifters either. And yet, there he stood.
His Thunderbird shifted once more beneath his skin, the beast flexing his senses as the lightning in the air drew him to the surface.No.He told his other half. His human needed to be in control now. He walked across the street, keeping to the shadows.
Something was indeed off about the creepy old house. He inched further to the black door. The knocker was in the shape of a face or mask. No discernible features, just a vague impression of eyes, nose, and mouth.Shadowland indeed.
He listened with his enhanced hearing and frowned. There was a distinct voice somewhere beneath the moaning and creaking. Afemalevoice. His curiosity was piqued.
From what he’d seen in her file, Mrs. Curosi was ninety-seven when she passed. Her closest living relative was a half-sister, aMagdelena Kristos, and she lived over three hours away in New Jersey. The half-sister was cut from Mrs. Curosi’s will recently. She’d bequeathed her entire estate, house, bank account, and all her earthly belongings, to someone namedA. Kristos.Another sister? Maybe.
Troy hadn’t given it much thought until now. A crash sounded from inside the house. He perked up as the feminine voice he’d thought he’d heard earlier screamed in pain.Time to act.
Excerpt from Fangs For Nothin’
“Are you out of your mind?”
Xavier DuMont, Vampire and Prince of the Tenebris Clan out of DuMont, New Jersey, ran a hand over his face. It was almost five in the morning on Wednesday, and he was still going over the weekly requests and complaints.
He could not believe it. One after the other, he’d received dozens of requests for formal introductions for most of the eligible young females in the Clan by their parents or some family matchmaker or other. It was the 21stCentury, and yet, the Vampires of the Tenebris Clan still thought he needed an arranged marriage to run things!
“No, Lucius, I assure you my mind is sound.”
“How can you be thinking of going away? To some retreat? At this time of year! You know, the whole Clan is up in arms over the tax laws your father had set into motion before his demise. Some are questioning your right to rule. Then, there is still the matter of your mating—”
“Lucius, for the love of fuck! I know what is going on in my own Clan. I am even now revoking those tax laws, people will just have to be patient.”
“And what about meeting with these young females? Maybe that will quell some of the unrest—”
“No! I am not inclined to take a mate at this time. My father’s grave has barely begun to grow grass. There is no rush!”
“There is pressure though, sire,” Lucius Redwing insisted.
He was Xavier’s oldest and most reliable friend. At nearly three hundred years old, they’d known each other for a considerable length of time. Lucius had been his childhood companion when they’d fled France for the New World. After settling the town of DuMont, his father had not only been the most productive of the local normals, but he had taken over their branch of the Clan.
Breaking ties with the old regime, and establishing their own rule, the DuMonts had done exceedingly well. Of course, coming into the new century had been difficult for some, but Xavier was determined to do it, to breathe new life into the old-fashioned world of Vampires. He would see them succeed and blossom in this age that was simply exploding with technology.
“I know you have plans, sire. But the anxious mamas are already parading their daughters resumes as if they were applying for a job.” Lucius grinned. He waved a manila envelope bursting with applications for audiences with him from the most prestigious Vampire families in all of DuMont.
“For fuck’s sake, Luc. Get rid of them,” Xavier growled, and ran a hand over his face.
