Vampire Mate: BBW Paranormal Romance (4 page)

Glenn gave his head a quick,
hard shake. It couldn't be her. The last time he saw her, she had
been working the night shift behind the counter of a convenience
store. The only words she had spoken to him that night were: “And
here's your change, sir. Have a good night.”

He had caught her name on her
name tag:
Charlene Cole
. And then the group of merrymakers
behind him had dumped their mountain of chips and beer on the
counter, and jostled forward, pushing him out of the way. He had
stepped out of the store to wait for her, but then his phone had
beeped, and it was one urgent meeting after another. And then he
heard the terrible news from the Enforcers—a rogue werewolf had
attacked two human females in a dark alleyway just after midnight.
One of them had been taken to the hospital in time, while the other,
her sister, was likely killed in the attack. Likely, they said,
since they never found her body.

That was more than a year ago.
The surviving sister, Charlotte Cole, was now a full-fledged
Enforcer, and the PAC Alpha, Lucas Rieve's mate. And her sister,
Charlene, the one presumed to be dead—was right now standing
before his very eyes.

She was Charlene Cole. There
was no doubt. Her face, her brilliant eyes, her presence, the heat
and hunger that she sparked in him with just a coy smile. No female
had made him feel this way, pulled him and haunted him with just one
look.

She was the same, beautiful
woman that he had seen just once and remembered forever. Yet—she
was somehow changed. Her smile, once sweet and soft, had a hard,
predatory edge to it. When he first saw her, she was dressed
modestly in the convenience store uniform with hardly any makeup on
her face. Now she was dressed to kill. Her lips and nails were
painted dark red, her eyes heavily lined and smoky, and the top
buttons of her black silk blouse were undone to show off her
maddening, braless curves. She licked her lips as she approached the
growling werewolf, her prey. And the faint red swirls at the corner
of her eyes hinted at what she now was.

The werewolf was large and
muscular, a frightening looking beast to a defenseless female. But
clearly Charlene was no defenseless female. As she sauntered
forward, the beast growled low and backed away slowly. “Come,”
she cooed, curling a finger. “Come here, you bad, bad doggie.”

Glenn started forward, and two
pairs of eyes, one feral, one female, flicked to him. Wolf and woman
glowered at him, and he heard two distinct growls.

“
This doesn't concern
you, vampire,” the woman snarled, baring her fangs at him.

She was—no longer human.
There was no doubt. He knew, but he refused to believe, what she
had become.

She was not a vampire. Of
that he was certain. He would be able to sense another vampire, and
he would know if she had been newly turned from her scent. She
didn't mist into the alley. She had teleported here, and stepped out
of the air behind the rogue.

She was...a demoness.

Her fangs were serrated, not
smooth.

She was a blood demoness.

No.
No
. His mind
whirled, trying to deny what was before him.

“
Charlene.”

Whatever she was, whatever she
had become, she was still Charlene.

She jerked, her nostrils
flaring and her eyes widening a fraction.

When their gazes clashed,
Glenn saw her stifle a gasp as her green eyes burned with her
erupting emotions and memories. There was the unmistakable spark of
recognition and pain in her eyes as she took a small step back.

“
You,” she
whispered.
I...remember you.

“
Glenn. Glenn
Constantine. I've been hoping to see you again,” he said
softly.

She shook her head, her
fingers curling into claws at her side. “Please go, Glenn,”
she said in a hard voice and spun round just as the werewolf launched
itself from a corner.

Glenn lunged towards her, but
Charlene was faster. She was supernaturally fast for a young
demoness. She dived out of the way of both wolf and vampire and
managed to kick the rogue's legs out from under him. As the wolf
fell, she dug her claws into his throat and held him down. With the
werewolf's spilled blood, she drew a circle around them and stood up,
her boot on the wolf's head.

Glenn ran to the circle, but
something repelled him from the circle. A red mist rose from the
spilled blood on the ground, erecting some sort of barrier between
them. He could still see them through the half sphere of blood red
mist, but he couldn't breach the circle and reach them.

The wolf had shifted back to
human form and was groaning and convulsing at Charlene's feet. She
glanced down pitilessly at him and spat, “You were going to
rape that woman, weren't you?”

The man gurgled his response,
as she crouched down and yanked his head back. She crinkled her nose
in disgust as she glared at his torn throat. “Even your blood
stinks, but—” She shrugged. “Waste not, want
not.”

“
No, Charlene, no!”
Glenn shouted, trying to push through the blood mist. But this
demon force field was powered by blood, and there was only one type
of demon that could draw such deadly, unfathomable power from blood
alone.

He watched her with wide,
pained eyes as she lowered her lips to the man's throat.

As she drank his blood, the
blood mist darkened, becoming denser and angrier, whipping into a
storm of blood right in the alley. Glenn shouted her name, and
charged right into the cyclone of blood and raw demon power but he
couldn't see her. The blood rain pummeled him, shoving him to the
ground, and when he stood up again, the storm had died down
completely, leaving him alone in the middle of a circle of blood. He
glanced down. There was not a single drop of blood on him.

Charlene was gone. And she
had taken her prey with her.

Charlene, that sweet, shy
human woman he had seen one magical moment a year ago, was now a
blood demoness.

Charlene kept her fangs in the
werewolf's throat, holding him down and taking his blood until his
thrashing weakened and his eyes rolled back in his head. She
withdrew her fangs and sneered. He wasn't the first big, bullying
brute to pass out with pain and blood loss.

She had taken two others. One
was a human, or rather, a poor excuse for a human. She had
teleported into a quiet neighborhood and had heard pleas and screams
coming from a kitchen window. By the light of a flickering naked
bulb, she saw a man holding a crying woman by her hair and smashing
her head against their kitchen wall. In a trace, Charlene had
teleported into the kitchen and knocked the wife-beating brute back.
He had reeked of beer and piss. While the woman scrabbled back, half
crazed with fear, Charlene had sunk her fangs into the man's neck and
teleported back to Kron's lair. But Kron hadn't been happy. He had
rolled his eyes and snapped, “Not a human, stupid. A
beast
.
But he'll do for tonight.”

The second was a wererat, who
had been holding a female shifter at knife point. The rat hadn't put
up much of a struggle and she had teleported him back to Kron with
relative ease.

The werewolf tonight was her
biggest haul so far.

Charlene dropped the
unconscious man in front of Kron's enormous fireplace and
straightened up. The demon lord would sense her presence and make
his appearance soon. In the meantime, she would rest. A little.

She slumped onto the large
sofa and closed her eyes. Swords, flags and decapitated animal heads
adorned the walls of Kron's castle. Yup, Kron had a thing for
medieval architecture it seemed. He had designed his residence to
resemble a castle, complete with battlements and gargoyles perched on
top of the carved stone pillars. He lived in a rich, remote
neighborhood at the edge of New Moon City that was home to many
eccentric billionaires with bizarre tastes. The houses in Infernal
Springs were of all shapes, sizes and designs. Some were ordinary
mansions, others were grander than palaces for royals, and yet others
were good old-fashioned castles.

Kron had a towering arched
fireplace that was more of a furnace really, in his living room. The
fire raged and spat at all hours, roaring and burning endlessly.
Charlene could make out shapeless faces and grasping hands in those
red flames. Sometimes she saw figures struggling to leap out from
the fireplace, like they were trying to escape, before they were
dragged back into the flames. Thin wails and screams could often be
heard from the roaring flames.

Charlene made sure she sat at
the corner of the sofa, farthest away from that eerie fireplace. It
gave her the shudders and bad memories.

She had spent one day in the
Abyss, and she never wanted to go back again. She had spent one full
day drowning in black blood and burning in sulfuric fires before Kron
fished her out of the Abyss. He had brought her straight to his
castle, given her some new clothes and promptly sent her out to hunt
for him. Blood, he'd told her, bring me fresh, living blood.

He had driven her out to the
city on the very first night. As a newly Made blood demoness, her
hunger for blood was gnawing, tormenting, and her body was wrecked
with pain and convulsions as she struggled with her blood lust. But
Kron wouldn't provide her with any blood.

Kron had told her casually as
she wept tears of blood, shivering and gasping in agony, “You'll
have to learn to hunt for your own food and power source. More blood
means more power. You'll be able to teleport once you've had your
first drink of blood. You'll feel much better, soon.”

Charlene had forced herself to
listen to the droning voices on the car radio and glare at the clocks
and advertisements on the plasma screens on their way into the city
to take her mind off her excruciating hunger and pain. What she saw
and heard made her realize in shock and sadness that time and tide
waited for no man and certainly no demon.

It had taken one demon day in
the Abyss for her to be Made into a blood demoness. But a little
more than one year had passed in New Moon City. It was just
yesterday to her, but it was more than a year ago that she had been
attacked by the rogue werewolf in that alley.

Fresh, living blood, Kron had
told her.

He didn't say if the blood
should come from good, upright citizens, or the scum of the city.
Even on that first harrowing night, when she had been thrown into the
deep end of the city and left to kill or be killed, she had retained
enough of her conscience and her senses to choose her victims.

Charlene had forced her hunger
down and tried to be very careful and discerning on her hunt. She
evaded the Enforcers that patrolled the streets, and kept her eyes
and ears peeled for criminal, violent activity. If she had to get
blood, she might as well make sure that the blood that she got
deserved to be spilled.

It was a kind of vigilantism,
she supposed.

But it was the best she could
do in the circumstances.

Charlene leaned her head back,
her nails digging into the armrest of the sofa as her thoughts
flashed to that tall, handsome vampire she saw tonight. She had seen
him before, once.

I've been hoping to see you
again.

He remembered her.

And she certainly remembered
him. How could she forget?

He had walked into the
convenience store one night and bought a current affairs magazine.
It had been a busy night at the store, but she had noticed and
remembered him. He wasn't a male any woman would forget in a hurry.
Tall, broad-shouldered, well-dressed, elegant, polite, and he had the
face of an angel, a dark angel with deep, black eyes and
midnight-black hair that fell across his forehead. He had held her
gaze with those quiet, hypnotic eyes and in that instant, there was
only him. She simply forgot everything else. She forgot to even
breathe, but somehow she had managed to fumble for his change. He
had lightly brushed his fingers against hers when she handed him his
change. And just that one touch had been electrifying.

It was as if she had been
asleep her whole life before, functioning and working but not really
awake and alive. Suddenly, everything flashed brighter, clearer,
sharper. Strange, intense feelings surged through her, and she had
to press her hand to her chest to try to stop her heart from
hammering like crazy. When she gasped and blinked, he had already
exited the store, and there was a crowd of impatient, hooting
customers clamoring for her attention. But she had glimpsed him
leaning against a lamppost across the street, watching her,
and...wanting her.

Charlene had shaken her head
at that thought. A dish like him, wanting...a dishcloth like her?

No way.

He was elegantly and
expensively dressed, sophisticated, well-built and too handsome for
her own good. He was without a doubt successful, powerful and
influential. Whereas she was just a checkout girl, working double,
triple shifts in a convenient store, running herself ragged and
trying to bring up her younger sister as best she could. She ate
whatever cheap junk food she could, comfort food, food to get her
through another day, and her figure—well, what figure? She
wore loose fitting clothes from a discount store most of the time.
She cut her own hair to save money, scrounged for secondhand shoes
and bought no makeup. No man would give her a second glance. Big
Joe who was in charge of the store supplies was the only man she came
into contact with. Joe was sweet, shy and didn't talk much. He had
once asked her out for coffee, and that was that. He never looked at
her the way Glenn Constantine stared at her.