VAMPIRE: COLLECTION - TWO HOT & PASSIONATE Vampire Short Stories to Tickle You Numb! (MMF, Menage, Threesome, BDSM, Vampire Romance) by Celia Styles Read Free Book Online Page B

of the skyscrapers.  It was as close as I could get to being in that light, and I'd instructed Reshi to go the long way. 
    "I'll just hear his case," I said.  "If I don't do at least that much someone will start asking questions.  And we absolutely can't have questions."
    "True," he agreed.  "But I don't have to like it."
    The restaurant was the Fat Goose, a spin-off of London's Fat Duck.  Like everything American, it was everything the original was, except bigger, more excessive.  I saw Charles at the bar, waiting for me.  He had a bottle of wine and two glasses, and as I walked closer he began to pour.  Right away I realized that something was off--what he was pouring was blood. 
    "Are you trying to intimidate me?" I asked, as I joined him.  "I'm here.  What do you want?"
    "I just thought you'd appreciate this," he said, handing me a glass.  "It's supposedly young virgin, but you know how dealers can be."
    We clinked glasses.  I had to admit that the blood was a nice gesture.  I'd gotten used to picking at dishes and pretending to drink, and it was nice to actually be able to partake in something so simple as drinking from a glass.  
    "I'm afraid dinner is a little more base," he said, as he led me to our table.  "While I could convince the bartender to let me bring the extraordinary 'vintage', trying to arrange for a platter of fresh blood is a bit difficult, to say the least."
    "You can dispense with dinner altogether for all I care," I said.  "What do you want?"
    "Business, business.  Very well.  I want your womb."
    To say that I was shocked would be an understatement.  Minutes crawled by before I realized that there was no punch line, that this wasn't a set-up to some other request.  "You--you want me to have a child with you?" I asked, finally. 
    "Yes," he said.  "I would compensate you for your troubles, of course.  But consider--a child with our two gifts, able to venture into the sun--"
    "It would be an abomination," I hissed. 
    "To the contrary," he said, pulling out his phone.  He showed me a picture of a beautiful girl, with dark skin, hair as black as coals, eyes as green as emeralds.  "This is the daughter of Enya Rey-Tan and Madison Fong," he said.  "They live in Malaysia.  I met them while travelling on business." 
    "But how--"
    "Apparently our kinds are not as incompatible as the common view would have them be."
    "What's in it for you, then?" I asked. 
    "A daughter of my own.  Or a son.  A legacy of my kind, newly written."  I felt a warm furry thing snake around my legs under the table.  It was his tail, sensuous but not enticing, just reminding me that he was a being like me.  "We are dying out, Sybil.   There are only a few hundred of my kind left--without this infusion of new blood we'll be gone in a few years.  As will yours."
    "The Order Chiefs can make more of us as they wish," I scoffed.  "You know that."
    "And ten of the twelve have died in the last five years," he reminded me.  Nine of them had perished in a plane crash, the last one had been drugged and taken outside in a kidnapping attempt gone awry.
    "Two Order Chiefs is plenty," I said. 
    "Yes, but not when they've gone mad."
    I felt a coldness in the pit of my stomach.  The Order Chiefs were old, true--but they were supposed to be immune to the madness that takes my kind in the end.  He showed me his phone again, this time a report about a man who'd burst into flames spontaneously.  "This was yesterday," he said softly. 
    I gulped.  One Order Chief was technically enough to complete the ritual, but it was incredibly risky.  I saw the name of the victim, and realized that the remaining Order Chief was 200 years old--if he was still around.  He'd gone to Siberia 80 years ago.  Nobody had seen him since.  I began to feel dizzy. 
    "So you see, it's a matter of survival."
    "Get me out of here," I said hoarsely.  "I can't--I need to think--"
    We got up and left.  He tossed a few hundred on the