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

beautiful, open smile, and it set a whole flock of condor-sized butterflies loose in my stomach. And all that doubt about where Nik landed on the fairy-tale-monster line of violence didn’t seem to matter so much anymore. In that moment, forgiving him for that little life-or-death scuffle in the parking lot seemed like a totally reasonable thing to do. Hell, climbing into his lap and nibbling his ears seemed like a totally reasonable thing to do.
    I might not have been the authority on what was reasonable, at that moment.
    Maybe Nik’s secret vampire power was like Dick’s “female persuasion”? Dick could persuade a woman to shave her own head and do the Macarena in the town square if he flirted enough with her, something he rarely put to use because he didn’t consider it sporting.
    â€œWhy do I not remember you?” Nik asked me, as if we were the only ones in the room. He reached for my face, like he was about to cup my cheek, only to have his hand diverted by a slap from Cal. “I should remember you.”
    â€œI don’t know.” I chuckled, despite the incredible weirdness of the situation. “But could you maybe say hi from now on? Instead of the skulking and the lunging?”
    Nik leaned just a tiny bit closer, his blunt white teeth dragging over that full bottom lip. “I think that could be arranged.”
    Cal cleared his throat. And then I realized I was inappropriately infatuated with someone who shared an uncomfortable number of similarities with my surrogate brother-slash-father-figure, and my goofy smile melted away like magic. And then I remembered the parking-lot roughhousing, and I took another step back.
    â€œThis is a very sweet moment, but I would really like you to get out of my house,” Iris said, somehow outmuscling her husband and pushing Nik toward the door. “Cal will be in touch. Stay away from Gigi.”
    â€œWhat if I do not want to leave?” Nik asked, his voice a low, threatening growl, as Cal hovered in front of Nik, preventing him from getting closer to me.
    My eyes widened as a ripple of that same fear I had felt in the parking lot zipped down my spine. Jamie moved in front of me in a protective stance, while Iris leapt forward at her inhuman speed and practically tackled Nik to force him out the door. She slammed the door in his face. His beautiful, beautiful face. I would analyze my rapid shifts in attitude toward parking-­lot assailants at a later time.
    â€œI do not understand what is happening right now.” I sighed.
    â€œYou are making very poor decisions,” Iris told me.
    â€œYou are not to see that boy again,” Cal said in an authoritative, fatherly tone that was frankly terrifying.
    â€œI am not twelve,” I told him. “And he’s hardly a boy. If he’s an old friend of yours, that probably means he’s, what, four hundred years old?”
    Cal muttered something under his breath.
    â€œWhat was that?” I asked.
    â€œI said it’s closer to five hundred,” he grumbled. “Give or take a decade.” And Iris buried her face in her hands.
    â€œI told you we should have left earlier,” Andrea whispered to Dick. “Now it’s super-awkward, and they’re standing in front of the door.”

3

    You are not Norma Rae. Sometimes standing up for what you believe in should take a backseat to survival.
    â€”The Office After Dark: A Guide to Maintaining a Safe, Productive Vampire Workplace
    I would like to say that Cal, Iris, and I bade our trapped guests good evening and had a mature, thoughtful discussion about my options before forming a coherent plan for how to handle the Nik situation.
    But instead, they sent me to my room.
    This was what I got for not renting my own apartment for the summer.
    The next morning, the whole hit-by-a-truck feeling still lingered. Because I couldn’t explain what the hell had happened the night before or how it was