The Dangers of Dating a Rebound Vampire by Molly Harper Read Free Book Online Page A

her before. I do not know how or when or where, but I have seen her before.”
    â€œOf course you have, you idiot. I sent you to her school months ago to ‘talk to’ that boy in her class who wouldn’t stop making unwanted advances on her!” Cal cried, exasperated.
    â€œThat was you?” I exclaimed.
    â€œOh, Cal, you didn’t.” Iris sighed.
    â€œI do not remember that.” Nik shook his head, still staring at me as if I was some precious, fascinating gemstone. A girl could get used to being stared at like that . . . minus the patchy memory and the occasional attempted mugging. And despite the situation, I could feel a little smile forming on my lips.
    â€œDo you remember following me when I was home over Christmas break?” I asked.
    Nik shook his head. “No.”
    â€œWhat?” Iris exclaimed. “What the hell is going on here? Has everyone gone nuts?”
    â€œDo you remember kissing me in front of Jane Jameson’s bookshop?” I asked, ignoring my sister’s growing distress.
    â€œNo, but I wish I did remember, truly,” Nik said, grinning cheekily. “You have certainly built up an elaborate pretend relationship between the two of us. I am sorry I missed it.”
    â€œGladiola Grace Scanlon!” Iris yelled, catching my arm as I surged forward to smack him. Or at least poke him really hard. “You were followed and kissed by a strange vampire, and you didn’t think to tell anybody about it?” Damn it. She broke out my full birth name. That meant I was really in trouble.
    â€œLet’s just focus on the problem at hand,” I told Iris, my violent intent temporarily redirected.
    Iris pointed her finger in my face. “We are so going to revisit this.”
    Meanwhile, Cal had Nik pressed against the wall by his collar. “You kissed my little sister?”
    My stake swung dangerously close to my vampire companions as I threw my arms into the air. “Oh, come on, that you believe, but I’m crazy when I say he attacked me?”
    â€œI don’t know if we should be here right now,” ­Andrea whispered to Dick.
    â€œIf we leave now, we’ll miss a lot, and we’ll just have to catch up later,” Dick whispered back.
    â€œEveryone can hear you,” Jane hissed over both of them.
    Suddenly, Nik started laughing and pointing at Dick, who was wearing one of the few shirts Andrea had missed in her legendary purge of his inappropriate T-shirt collection: “Home is where the pants aren’t.” When he realized everybody was staring at him, Nik cried, “What? Is funny, yes?”
    Jane slapped her hand over her face. “Oh, God, it’s Russian Dick Cheney.”
    Gabriel shuddered. “There are two of them.”
    â€œHey!” Dick exclaimed. “That hurts my feelings!”
    â€œLet’s get back to the point. Did you kiss my sister?” Cal demanded, shaking Nik back and forth hard enough to make fangs rattle.
    â€œIf you say that you don’t remember kissing me, I will choke you out,” I told him.
    The room went silent. Even Cal was looking over at me with a doubtful expression that I found insulting.
    I amended, “I would try real hard.”
    â€œAll right, all right, yes, there is something going on here,” Nik said, clearing his throat and removing Cal’s hands from their locked position around his neck. “And I do not understand what it is. But I do not think that choking me is going to help the situation.”
    Somehow, the overly formal language, the precise pronunciation of every syllable without contractions or slang, the mark of someone who’d learned English as a second language decades before, reminded me so much of Cal it made me smile. That sort of sucked, because I was supposed to be all pissed off and bad­ass. It was hard to be badass when you were smiling like a goof.
    Nik smiled back at me, a big,