Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness)
Read Scarlet Heat (Born to Darkness) Online
Authors: Evangeline Anderson
Scarlet Heat
Born to Darkness Series book 2
Evangeline Anderson
KINDLE EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Evangeline
Anderson on Kindle
Scarlet Heat
Born to
Darkness 2
Copyright ©
2013 by Evangeline Anderson
Kindle
Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your
personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other
people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please
purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading
this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only,
then you should return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for
respecting the author's work.
* * * * *
Dedicated to Ditter
Thanks for all your help
with the plotting. You’re a great friend with an amazing talent.
* * * * *
Author's Note:
Hi and thanks to
everyone who is giving my Born to Darkness series a chance. I know you're all
waiting for the next Kindred book and I promise it's coming—I hope to have it
out this fall. I'm even including a portion of chapter 2 to keep you going.
Look for it at the end of the book. (Hey, no fair skipping there now! Read
Scarlet Heat first. lol)
As always I would ask
you to please not pirate my work. I keep the prices low so everyone can enjoy
my books but this is how I make my living. If you're stealing my work or
selling it or giving it away for free to strangers, you're taking money out of
my pocket and harming my ability to care for my family. Please don't do that
and if you see anyone else doing it, please e-mail me at [email protected]
and let me know about it so I can stop it.
I have an
announcement that will make some of you happy—I am putting Claimed, the first
book in my Kindred series into print. It's going through Creataspace on Amazon
so it's POD or print on demand. Unfortunately because of the length of the
book, the least it can be sold for is 9.75. That's pretty much as low as I
could get it and I'll be making much less off the print books than I do off the
Kindle editions—this is mostly for the readers who kept writing and asking for
a print copy. If Claimed does reasonably well (by which I mean, if it at least
makes back the money I put into getting it to print) I'll consider getting the
other Kindred books into print as well. So if you like to have print copies of
your favorite books, please check it out and let your Kindred fan friends know
as well. Here's a link to the print book:
https://www.createspace.com/4214214
Okay, that's all for
now except be watching for Ruby Shadows, the third book in the Born to Darkness
series soon as wel
l as Shadowed,
Kindred 8. As well as any other stand alone novels my muse cooks up. Sometimes
when I get blocked on one book, I have to write something completely different
to get around the block. So you never can tell what's coming next…
Hugs and Happy
Reading to All of you!
Evangeline on April 2013
Prologue
My name is Taylor Hendricks and I am a
vampire.
Oh God, that sounds like an introduction at
a twelve step program to get over some kind of awful addiction, doesn’t it? But
the only addiction I have is to blood—I can’t live without it. And vampirism
isn’t something you can get over by going to weekly meetings—or at all, for
that matter. The only thing that could cure me of being undead would be a swift
stake to the heart or prolonged exposure to sunlight.
To be honest, I have considered both
options.
Back in my human life, I always thought of
myself as a strong, smart person. I was at the top of my class in school and I
never needed any help to get by. I lived with my best friend Addison, and I was
in my last year of veterinary college with my whole future ahead of me—it was a
great life.
Then Celeste came along. Celeste is a
three-star vampire—meaning she has been undead for three centuries, making her
incredibly old and powerful. She also happens to be incredibly cruel. For some
reason, Celeste took a liking to me and turned me into a vampire against my
will.
I don’t know what she thought she saw in
me but I don’t make a very good vampire. I just don’t seem to be suited for the
whole undead business. I can’t glamour humans and even if I could, I can’t bear
to do glam-sex—a kind of mental porno most vamps are capable of projecting into
a willing human’s mind—in exchange for blood. In fact, I’m embarrassed to say
that if it wasn’t for Addison’s willingness to be my donor, I probably would
have wasted away entirely by now.
My vampire mistress, Celeste, hated me for
being a failure and treated me accordingly. She used me as a slave for the
first six years of my new undead life. She beat me, berated me, and broke every
bone in my body multiple times. And then it got worse.
When the vampire Area Inquisitor came to
town, Celeste gave me to him as his personal sex slave. Roderick did things to
me that…well, I’m trying to forget them. I don’t want to say any more than
that.
Anyway, the whole miserable situation
forced my friend Addison into an alliance with Corbin, the only vampire strong
enough to take Celeste on and win. Unfortunately, though Corbin rescued me,
Celeste and Roderick didn’t want to let me go. From what I heard, Roderick was
talking about taking me back to meet the Undead Empress—also called The Lady of
Shadows—at the vampire court.
I’d rather meet the blazing sun at noon.
In order to put me out of Roderick’s
reach, my new master Corbin had me blood-bound to a werewolf named Victor. Now
you have to understand that vampires and werewolves
really
don’t like each other. In fact, we’re pretty much mortal
enemies and Victor made it plain he had no interest in marrying a “fanger” like
me. I wasn’t too wild about having a hubby that got furry every full moon,
either. But Victor owed Corbin fifty thousand dollars and I would literally
rather have died than go back to Roderick. Victor was a better option.
Corbin promised us both we need only stay
together for three months—just enough time to satisfy the Laws of Ownership.
But he did warn us that breaking the blood-bond between us early would have
serious consequences—I don’t know what those might be and I don’t intend to
find out. I’m just going to do my time like a good little vamp and when this
whole thing is over maybe I can go back to veterinary school and get my life
back on track.
There’s only one problem—ever since I had
Victor’s blood from the Chalice of Union during our “wedding,” I’ve been having
the strangest…feelings. Feelings I thought I’d never have again for any male after
what Roderick and some of Celeste’s other “friends” did to me. And now Victor
has come to claim me.
Oh God, what am I going to do?
Chapter One—Taylor
Sitting beside my new husband in his
rugged black pickup truck, bouncing along down a bumpy unpaved road toward the
huge werewolf’s land, I couldn’t help noticing how angry he seemed. His eyes
glowed a steady animalistic gold in the deepening twilight and his scent, wild
and musky and somehow entirely masculine, filled the cab of the truck.
I was frightened of him—scared to death to
be honest. I didn’t want to be this close to any male—especially not one who
was angry at having me thrust onto him like a bloodsucking burden he couldn’t
get rid of for the next three months. The way he’d looked at me when Corbin had
informed him that he was expected to let me drink his blood was nothing less
than completely disgusted.
He
hates me,
I thought miserably.
We don’t even know each other and he already
hates me. God, I wish I didn’t need him. I wish I wasn’t so thirsty.
His warm,
animal scent was doing things to me, making my already dry throat feel like
sandpaper. Giving me those strange feelings I’d been fighting almost from the
moment I’d first drunk his blood from the Chalice of Union during our brief and
perfunctory wedding ceremony.
I squeezed my thighs together tightly and
tried to ignore both my growing thirst and the frightening needs stirring
inside me.
Overhead, the full moon was rising,
shedding pure silver light over my pale, white hands. I noticed they were
trembling and folded them quickly in my lap. My stomach felt like it was
gnawing a hole in itself and I was faint and dizzy. It had been well over a week
since I’d last had any blood but so far Victor hadn’t offered me any. In fact,
he’d done nothing but growl at me to get in the truck and those were the last
words he had spoken. We had been riding for forty-five minutes in complete
silence.
Maybe
if I get him to talk,
I thought.
Maybe it won’t be so bad…we could even be
friends. Or at least not enemies. After all, he went to Corbin to borrow money
instead of to another were so maybe he doesn’t hate
all
vampires.
I cleared my throat nervously and cast a
sidelong glance at the big werewolf. He was so huge he seemed to take up most
of the truck. I was scrunched up in the corner, sitting as close to the window
as possible to avoid touching him but I could still feel the furnace-like heat
of his big body radiating against my cold skin. As intimidating as he was,
though, I had to say
something
. Had
to make the first move or nothing was ever going to get done.
“Um, it’s a beautiful night,” I ventured.
The big were was silent. I frowned—had he
heard me at all?
“I said, it’s a
beautiful night,”
I said, raising my voice to be heard above the
roar of the truck’s engine.
“Yeah. Really fucking gorgeous,” he
growled, still staring straight ahead.
Instantly, I was tempted to shrink back
into myself and shut up. But something told me that I couldn’t do that. Tonight
would set the tone of our future relationship and I didn’t want the big were to
think he could treat me like a doormat—just some stupid girl he could walk all
over. I’d taken enough abuse from Celeste, had spent years walking on eggshells
around my cruel mistress.
I’m not going
to live like that,
I told myself, lifting my chin.
Not anymore.
“Your property certainly is way out of
Tampa,” I said, determined to make conversation.
Victor grunted, his golden eyes never
leaving the road.
“Don’t you like the city?” I asked. “I
always think the nice thing about Tampa is that it’s big enough to always have
something going on without being so huge you can’t get around in it.”
Victor made an annoyed sound in the back
of his throat. “Do you always talk this much?”
“I’m sorry.” I crossed her arms over my
breasts and frowned at him. “I was just trying to make conversation.”
“Well,
don’t.
And it’s not that I don’t like the city—I live in the country because I’m a
fucking were. I need space to change, space to run and hunt.”
"Oh.” Abruptly, I felt stupid. “Of
course. I guess I didn’t…didn’t think about that.”
“That’s because you’re a vamp. Your kind
don’t need wide open spaces to let loose in—you’re monsters all the damn time,
not just once a month like us.”
“We’re not monsters,” I said, stung. “At
least,
I’m
not.”
“Oh no?” The glance he threw me was a lot
less than friendly. “Last time I looked, vamps are undead and live on blood.
That’s the fucking definition of monster if you ask me.”
“At least I
look
normal,” I snapped, losing my temper. “At least I don’t grow
hair all over and…and turn into an animal.”