Vampire Mate: BBW Paranormal Romance (5 page)

Charlene's insides had twisted
into knots when she turned to peek out the store window.

Glenn Constantine was a dream.

She—was the fallout of a
dream.

There was no way he could want
someone like her.

Yet, his eyes couldn't lie,
couldn't hide the fierce want, hope and pain burning in those dark
depths.

She had looked into his eyes
again tonight, and seen that very same look.

It was the same look, but he
was looking at a very different girl.

“
I'm not the same girl
anymore, Glenn,” she whispered.
You should stay away from
me.

Charlene stood up and
straightened her mini skirt. She gave a small laugh. She had never
worn a leather mini skirt in all her human life, especially not one
that barely reached halfway down her fleshy thighs. If Charlotte
could see her now...

“
Well now, you certainly
took your time,” Kron's nasal voice cut through the room. He
was in his human form, wearing his top hat, monocle and three-piece
suit. Just last night he had taken to amusing himself by
experimenting with different voices and speech patterns. “Which
do you like best, my squeaky voice, the nasal one, or this deep, bass
baritone?” he'd asked Charlene.

She had smiled tightly.
I'd
like it best if I don't hear your voice at all.
But she had
tactfully and politely picked the nasal voice.

Charlene stepped back
wordlessly to allow Kron to circle the groaning man. He was
regaining consciousness, and Charlene rather pitied him. It would
have been better for him to remain unconscious.

Kron poked the man in the ribs
with his cane.

“
Hmm, much better. You
learn fast,” the demon lord beamed. “There's more of the
beast in this one than the rat you brought me. Good job, Charlene.
All right, send him down.”

Charlene nodded and stepped
forward. The man fixed round, unseeing eyes on her and shrank back
with a curse. Kron sat on the sofa and inspected his nails. “Get
on with it,” he said impatiently. “I haven't got all
night.”

Charlene gripped the man's
arm, ignoring his shouts and dragged him to the middle of a thick red
carpet at the corner of the living room. Throwing him onto the
carpet, she walked over to the statue of a naked androgynous
two-headed figure and put her hand on the top of one head. With a
grating sound, she twisted the head all the way back. The floor
vibrated and before the man could scream, the panel beneath the
carpet had rotated to reveal a yawning chasm. The man was tipped
into the chasm, and the echo of his scream rose through the
floorboards as the carpet swung back into place.

“
Join me for supper
downstairs?” Kron offered, rising to his feet with a smile.

“
I've just eaten,”
Charlene answered. “But thank you.”

Kron shrugged. His demons
hunted for him, and he expected them to hunt for themselves.

“
Wait here, Charlene.
I'll be sending something up. Deliver it back to the city on your
way home, will you?” he said casually as he sauntered to a side
door. “Oh, and be here tomorrow night at eight o'clock sharp.
There's someone I'd like you to meet.”

Meet? Or eat?

Charlene gave the tiniest arch
of her brow and nodded.

“
Good.” Kron
smiled, baring his elongated, jagged fangs, and tapped his cane on
the floor. His human facade faded and Charlene saw his demon form
emerge just as he opened the side door and descended the long flight
of stairs to his dungeon. The door creaked shut after him.

Charlene stood rigidly beside
the carpet and waited.

Kron would be sending up the
remains of yesterday's dinner soon. She had made the mistake of
assuming that the remains would be a harmless, motionless pile of
bones on the first night. She had paid for her mistake, with her
blood.

The remains had clawed and
tore at her, breaking a few of her bones and had almost ripped out
her heart. The human, who had been a violent, volatile brute to
begin with, was hardly recognizable. What little humanity he had in
him had been completely drained, together with most of his blood.
He was covered with his own blood as well as black demon blood. He
made wordless, savage noises, and his eyes looked feral, not human.
He scratched, and tore at her with his nails and teeth, setting on
her like a wild animal. It was only when she finally managed to
latch onto his neck with her fangs and forced him to bleed into her
mouth that her blood power had grown and the man had weakened. And
she had teleported back to the city with him, and dropped him at the
front steps of a psychiatric hospital.

Kron didn't fully drain his
victims. He didn't devour them and pick their flesh off their bones.

He took their blood to
increase his power as a blood demon lord, and tortured them to awaken
their beasts, and snap the connection between their human selves to
turn them into rogues. He turned the humans into beasts. Just as
some demon lords of chaos created conflict and chaos to feed their
power, Kron, being the demon Lord of Beasts and Bloodshed needed
blood and the destructive power of the beast to sustain and empower
him.

She was supposed to drop these
rogues back to New Moon City and let their beasts go on a rampage.
But she picked her drop off points carefully. She tried to drop them
off where they would do the least damage to others and themselves,
and where they could receive the help they needed, hopefully.

Charlene sighed. These
victimizing hooligans had now become victims themselves. Yup, karma
was a bitch. She was that bitch.

As far as possible, Charlene
had tried not to drag any innocent civilian off the streets, and had
waited until she could snag a criminal one, or at least one that as
far as she could tell, had criminal and cruel intentions.

She'd pulled a would-be rapist
and a robber off their victims. She had sunk her fangs into a brute
who had been smashing his wife's face in. Dredging through the
darker parts of the city for scum wasn't that hard, but it took time.
And Kron wasn't the patient sort.

Charlene gulped, closing her
eyes briefly. She feared that soon she would be forced to take an
innocent. And then she would be well and truly lost.

She opened her eyes at the
grinding sound. The floorboard wobbled and on the carpet crouched a
large, rabid hyena, its eyes blood red and its jaws bleeding and
salivating.

She eyed the animal, circling
it warily. This one had not the slightest trace of its human self.
It wasn't even stuck in a half shift, trapped in a half human, half
animal form as it struggled against its beast taking over completely.
This rogue was fully feral, completely animal.

She frowned. She didn't
remember dragging a werehyena back to Kron. This must have been
brought to him by his other blood demons. She didn't know how many
blood demons he had under his command and control. None of the
demons lived at the castle with Kron.

Charlene had her own place in
the city. Or rather, Kron had given her a neat, luxurious loft in
the city, fully furnished and completely rent free. Kron made it a
point to provide lavish housing for his underlings. He also made it
a point to house his henchmen and henchwomen separately, away from
one another. She had never met Kron's other demons. Just last
night, after she brought him his supper, he had told her to wait
outside his study. She'd heard voices, shrieks and screams coming
from the study but when the doors flew open, she had found Kron
completely alone, smiling and seated calmly behind his huge desk.

Divide and rule was always the
strategy of an insecure despot.

She might be a newly Made
demoness, but she wasn't born yesterday. When she bled, she had seen
that her blood was still red, not black. And Kron didn't seem to
control every aspect of her. He could Summon her, and once she heard
his voice in her head, she would have to teleport to him immediately,
or he would yank some invisible leash and drag her through the Abyss
to him. Kron had delighted in showing her how the Summoning worked
on her very first night as a blood demoness. Being dragged through
the Abyss again was no fun at all, to say the least.

But the scare tactic had
backfired on Kron. Charlene's initial fear and awe of the demon lord
had dropped many notches after that stunt. She had absolutely no
respect and regard for insecure, impotent bosses who scared their
underlings into submission.

Charlene had dealt with jerks
and creeps before as a human. She had seen how some male colleagues
and bosses tried to abuse their authority and power at the work place
and at home. Fear had been one of their often-used weapons. Fear of
reprisal, fear of violence. To get away with their corruption and
cowardice, they would try to scare their subordinates or family into
silence and submission. She had learned to stay away from such
people for the sake of her little sister, her only family. She
needed to stay safe, sane and functional.

Kron was her demon Maker. He
could Summon her and yank her leash, but he couldn't control her
actions and her choices. Even demons had free will. So—as
long as she brought him what he wanted, she was free to roam the city
and do her own thing once she had discharged her duty.

Charlene stared at the
snarling hyena and sighed. Should she drop this one off at the
animal shelter, the zoo, the police station, or near a watering hole
she knew was frequented by PAC Enforcers? The beast lunged at her,
and Charlene dodged its teeth at the last minute. Digging her claws
into its back, she held it tightly and teleported away.

She would drop this off near
the watering hole.

Then she would go back to her
apartment, rinse off all this grime and blood, and begin her search
for her sister. Charlotte was no longer living in their old house.
It had been sold, and Charlene didn't blame her. The house probably
held too many painful memories for Charlotte. The girl had lost both
her parents, and she'd had to watch her big sister die. After
Charlene's 'death', getting rid of the place and all those terrible
memories was the right thing to do. The only thing to do.

But where could Charlotte be
living now?

Charlene would search the
whole city, scour all the streets and alleys to find her little
sister.

Live
, she had told
Charlotte. She had lived, and she was sure Charlotte had as well.
She knew that Charlotte was alive. She could feel it in her bones,
in her heart, in her very soul—assuming she still had one.

She was back in New Moon City
just three days. And already she had so much blood on her hands.

Glenn misted into the lobby of
the PAC Headquarters. Stanley, the night security guard, greeted him
without batting an eyelid. “Good evening, Mr Constantine.”

Glenn nodded at the old
vampire, “Evening, Stanley.”

Striding into the lift, he
stabbed the button for the top floor and grabbed the few seconds of
silence to clear his thoughts.

What was Charlene Cole doing,
and who was she doing it for? She had teleported away with the rogue
werewolf instead of leaving him where he was after taking his blood.
And by drinking the werewolf's blood, she had clearly broken PAC
laws. Should he report her to the Enforcers? Should he reveal to
the Council that the supposedly deceased elder sister of the PAC
Alpha's mate was now a blood demoness, who had possibly gone rogue?

Glenn's fangs elongated and
ground down on his lower lip.

Six seconds were up.

The lift door dinged open.

Glenn snapped his eyes open
and walked resolutely to the tall double doors of the PAC conference
room.

He took a moment to compose
himself, forcing his fangs to retract. He couldn't and wouldn't lie
to the Council. He would...just have to choose his words very
carefully.

Glenn put his palm against the
solid door for a couple of heartbeats before pushing it open. He
nodded to the Council members present and took his seat. An animated
discussion was taking place between Samantha and the warlock Grayson
Volan. The witch and the warlock were discussing an upcoming
magickal conference that the PAC was hosting for the coven Elders
from the various cities. There were a few logistical issues to be
resolved, and Samantha and Grayson weren't exactly seeing eye to eye.

Glenn glanced around the long
table. All the Council members were present, except Zorath. The
demon prince probably had his hands full putting his army and his
kingdom back in order after his recent bloody battle against Prince
Deviazel, a rapacious, bloodthirsty demon prince who had been eyeing
Zorath's kingdom for eons. The powerful bear shifter, Blake Madden,
had been instrumental in Zorath's victory, but looking at Blake, who
was lounging in his swivel chair in jeans and a gray tank top, you'd
never guess that he had just been in a fight to the death against a
deadly demon army. It was one maddened bear, defending his mate
against a horde of red-skinned demons, and the bear had won. Blake
looked relaxed, happy, blissful. He had found, fought for, and
claimed his mate, and it was clear that he and Jasynta, the PAC's
witch doctor and healer, were enjoying their honeymoon period. Jett
Riley, Head of the Enforcement Unit, had snorted, “Bear and
honey, so honey-moon, get it? Ha, ha, ha!”