Don't Blackmail the Vampire by Tiffany Allee Read Free Book Online

his room for a few mouthfuls of nearly powerless bottled blood, he headed for Brent and Kristen’s room.
    His cell phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored the vibration. It was Noah. Again. The man seemed unable to relax and wait patiently. Not that Charles was feeling relaxed himself lately. As a general rule, he kept people at a safe distance emotionally. But his brother’s girlfriend Alice was unique, and she’d crawled right under his skin to the place that only his vampire family had occupied before. He gave a fuck about Alice.
    Which meant he needed to help Noah figure this out yesterday. Not only to help change his brother’s opinion of him, but even more to keep those he cared for safe.
    His phone buzzed again and he let out a growl and pulled it out.
    “What?”
    “You were supposed to report in an hour ago,” Noah said, voice heavy with irritation and a touch of an emotion Charles wasn’t used to hearing from either of his brothers.
    Fear.
    “I got a little sidetracked, but I’m headed to his room now.”
    “Sidetracked? What the fuck, Charles? This is serious.”
    “I know that—”
    “Do you? Then why does it feel like you aren’t taking this seriously? He called again last night.”
    “Still untraceable?”
    “So far.” Noah let out a frustrated sigh. “This call was worse.”
    “How so?”
    “He still used the fucking voice disguiser, but the wording was more specific this time. It’s obvious he knows her. Brent is seeming more likely for this by the minute.”
    Great. While he was failing to sway Rachel with his powers and allowing her to think she’d blackmailed him, fucking Brent was calling in threats. “No new leads on your end?”
    “Not a damn thing. I’m down to running background checks on her fucking elementary school classmates.”
    “You’re doing the most important job there is right now—keeping Alice safe.”
    “I know that, but it’s damn frustrating. And Alex is having zero luck with his connections in the vampire community. It seems pretty damn unlikely that it’s one of us.”
    Charles wasn’t surprised. The vampires were all connected through a magical bond. What it did exactly was a mystery, but it did seem to encourage their community to stay strong. Parts of the web connecting them had been active since before Charles was made, but it had been enhanced after fighting among the factions stopped. Between that and the honor that made vampires almost zealots in protecting their own and following their code of honor, it seemed unlikely that one would threaten Alice. “What kind of threat did the asshole make?”
    “Does it matter?”
    “It might. Don’t tie my hands here, man.” Charles growled out the words, frustrated more with himself than Noah.
    “He said that she was in danger—that she didn’t have long to live. That she would come to regret living with a beast.”
    “Fuck.” Charles hadn’t experienced a lot of the hell vampires had suffered in earlier centuries. But he’d seen a couple of nuts abduct vampires. Once, they’d saved a young vampire taken by a group of zealots seeking to purify him in the most painful way possible. The other time he’d been called in, they hadn’t been so lucky. A human who fancied himself a vampire hunter had done horrible things to the “monster” he’d captured: a young female whose only crime had been revealing her nature to the wrong man.
    Alice was still a human. A beautiful, kind, easy-to-hurt-and-kill human. She hadn’t been harmed yet, and Charles would be damned if he didn’t do everything in his power to keep it that way.
    “Get me something, Charles. I need to know if it’s him, or if I need to be concentrating on some other asshole.” Noah took a deep breath. “You are taking this seriously, right?”
    “Of course I am.” The desire to demand that Noah trust him was tempting. But what would that accomplish? Sure, Charles hadn’t always taken things as seriously as his brothers, but