Rylie Cruz 2 - How to Date a Vampire

How to Date a Vampire

Copyright © 2011by Rose Pressey

Smashwords Edition

More in the Rylie Cruz Series:

How to Date a Werewolf

How to Date a Demon

More books by Rose Pressey:

Me and My Ghoulfriends

Ghouls Night Out

No Shoes, No Shirt, No Spells

Rock ‘n’ Roll is Undead

To my son, who brings me joy every single
day. To my mother, who introduced me to the love of books. To my
husband, who encourages me and always has faith in me.

Chapter One

How to Date a Vampire, Rule #1:

Chilled blood is always a nice choice for
dinner.

“Hey, dipshit, kindly remove your hands from
my boyfriend’s neck,” I yelled.

The brute had Jack in a headlock. “Watch
out, Jack, there’s a table behind you.” Jack Chandler and I had
only dated a few times, but I thought the fact that he was fighting
vampires for me gave him instant boyfriend status.

My skin tingled and hair sprouted over my
body. The familiar itch and tugging sensation that accompanied my
transformations charged through my veins. There was no way I
wouldn’t get involved in this battle. Even if it meant Jack’s ego
ended up bruised. It wasn’t fair to allow a human to battle
vampires—not when I was a werewolf.

My mother jumped on the brute’s back. Yes,
my mother. She should have whacked him with her pocket book—that
thing weighed a bazillion pounds. My father struggled with another
goon in the corner. They teetered dangerously close to the
grandfather clock. Maybe Dad could tip it over on his assailant.
Where was a wooden stake when a girl needed one? Perhaps some heavy
silver chains? A crucifix? Throw me a bone here. No pun
intended.

A gorgeous female vampire with long, blonde
hair streaked with pink highlights lingered in the corner of the
living room with a scowl across her face. She hadn’t offered to get
involved with the tussle. I guess she didn’t want to ruin her
outfit.

I’m Rylie Cruz and I hail from a family of
werewolves, a long line of them. As if that wasn’t bad enough,
there’s a curse on me… literally. As soon as puberty hit, my mother
had sat me down and explained the Cruz Curse
.
As the story
goes, the youngest daughter of the Cruz name was destined to live a
loveless life, never to find true love. A gypsy bestowed the
punishment upon my ancestors for the sin of mingling with
werewolves. The old hag needed to mind her own business, if you
asked me.

I never believed the crazy story, but when
my twenty-sixth birthday rolled around, and I was sitting at home
on a Saturday night watching
Sabado Gigante
and eating my
weight in beef jerky, I started to believe. How could I not?

“Mama, don’t,” I screamed as I lunged at
her.

“Stand back, Rylie. I’ll save him,” she
said, as she leapt forward.

Biting a vampire—not such a good idea. I
didn’t know the repercussions, but I didn’t want to find out,
either. I pulled her off and the goon stumbled backward. Jack
climbed up from the floor and braced himself for another attack.
Before he made another move, though, he placed his right hand on
his neck, wiped the blood, then stared at his palm.

The color drained from his face. Without
saying a word, Jack tumbled to his knees, crashing to the hardwood
floor with such force that a thud echoed across the room.

I ran to his side and grabbed his arm.
“Jack, are you okay?”

My mother stood beside us, panting from the
exertion. She wasn’t the fitness type. Her idea of exercise was
lifting a fork. What must Jack be thinking? This was the first time
he’d met my parents, and here they were in werewolf form.

“I’ve been bitten,” he choked out, holding
his hand to his neck.

Jack met my gaze, a slight panic in his
eyes. Despite the recent brawl, he still looked gorgeous with his
disheveled blond hair and chiseled features. His six-foot frame and
abundance of muscles were probably no match for the vampires,
though.

This was not good, not good at all. Could I
convince him he’d cut himself shaving? Nope. Surely he’d felt the
teeth sink into his skin. How could he not? “Um, it’s a little
nick. I’m sure it’ll stop bleeding soon,” I said. “We’ll just stick
a little toilet paper on it. It’ll stop oozing in no time.”

Had he read the look of alarm on my face? I
mean, as if getting in a fight with a vampire wasn’t bad enough,
now he’d been bitten by one. Oh boy. Jack probably had a long list
of reasons not to date me stuck to his bedroom mirror.

Sirens sounded outside. The vampires stopped
their attack immediately. We stared at each other, ready to pounce.
The men wore dark suits impeccably tailored to fit every contour of
their bodies.

When Jack and I had arrived at my parents’
home, I had barely had time to register the events before things
had turned into utter chaos. I’d been at my apartment talking to my
mother on the phone when the hooligans burst through her door
searching for my Uncle Ernie. Jack and I had rushed over to their
house and discovered the vampires ready to attack my parents. Jack
had only just accepted my werewolf status when all of this went
down. He probably regretted that now.

The female vampire still stood in the corner
with a smirk on her face. She was exquisitely dressed in a sexy
black blouse and black pants. Large diamond studs dotted her
earlobes and a matching necklace dangled around her neck. The look
on her face was anything but exquisite, though. Her expression said
she wanted to rip someone’s head off and drink their blood from a
martini glass.

“We’ll be back. This isn’t over.” The men
headed toward the door.

My father let out a growl.

The blonde-haired woman with more curves
than a mountainous highway strolled up to Jack. She stopped in
front of him, leaned down, then ran her finger across the blood on
his neck.

She licked her finger, then smiled.
“Tasty.”

“C’mon, Sophie. Let’s get out of here. The
boss’ll be pissed if we end up in jail.” The smaller of the thugs
grabbed her arm and yanked her toward the door.

All of this over my uncle’s gambling debt?
What the hell had happened to my life? One minute I was running my
dating service, Get a Mate, the next I was fending off crazed
vampires. Wait. Were there any other kind of vampires other than
crazed? I’d never wrangled a vampire before and I didn’t really
want to start now. I didn’t
like
to fight anyone. Sure, I’d
do it if I had to, but I preferred to remain civilized. Some of the
paranormal folks I had come into contact with made that task very
difficult, though. Anyway, I was thankful the fiasco seemed to be
over without any dead bodies. They’d be back though. Uncle Ernie
needed to settle his debt, pronto.

Once the thugs slipped out the back door, I
looked to my mother.

“Where the hell is Uncle Ernie? We should
just pay off his debt so they’ll leave us alone.”

“I don’t even know how much he owes.” She
let go a deep breath.

Jack stood beside us. I searched his eyes
for a reaction to what had just happened. He stared straight ahead
as if his thoughts were a million miles away.

I touched his arm again. “How are you
feeling? Are you still all right?” He nodded, but didn’t utter a
word.

My mother ran over to my dad. The fur had
begun to fade from our bodies. I really hated for Jack to see me in
this condition, but there was no avoiding it. I also hated for Jack
to see my dysfunctional family… ever, much less under these
circumstances. I’d probably get the breakup call tomorrow.

“I intend to find out exactly what Ernie’s
been up to. Do you know where he’s hiding out?” I asked.

“I don’t know, Rylie.” She shrugged.

“We need to put one of those dog shock
collars on Uncle Ernie. Every time he tries to leave the yard it’ll
zap him back.” I snorted.

Mama rubbed her temples. “I don’t even know
what’s going on. One minute I’m talking to you, then the next we’re
all fighting like a bunch of hooligans.”

My father stood, grabbing his pants from the
floor. How had he taken the time to remove them before his
transformation? I ruined a lot of clothing in the shifting
process.

“Did they hurt you?” I asked, looking from
my dad to Mama.

“We’re okay. But what about him?” She
pointed at Jack.

Jack had collapsed onto the oversized chair
next to the fireplace. His eyes were shut, but he still held the
side of his neck.

A pounding rattled the front door. “New
Orleans Special Shifter Forces,” the male voice boomed.

When my father swung open the door, I
expected the pack police to storm through like part of a swap team
with assault rifles, body armor, and shields. That didn’t happen.
They sauntered through the door as if they’d been invited over for
dinner and cocktails. The men stepped just inside the foyer, not
offering to move any further into the living room where we stood.
They looked around at the toppled over furniture and broken
knickknacks. Hadn’t they ever seen a living room brawl before? I
picked up a chair and set it back to its right position.

“What’s the problem,” the tall one
asked.

Their uniforms looked like any regular
police attire with no special markings giving away their werewolf
enforcement status. Just navy blue pants and shirts.

“We had to fight off vampires,” my mother
said. Her voice had begun to return to its normal raspy tone, but
it was still at a high decibel from the adrenaline.

My father stepped forward. “They broke into
my home. I suppose their looking for my brother. He has a bit of a
gambling problem.”

The officers exchanged glances.

“Ernie Cruz, yeah, we’re aware of him,” the
shorter one said.

I didn’t have a lot of confidence in the
pack police. I wasn’t sure what had caused my skepticism regarding
the werewolf enforcers, but their lack of interest in our plight
did nothing to alleviate that sentiment.

“The vampires took off out the back door if
you want to go look for them,” I offered, pointing toward the back
of the house. “It’s the door through the kitchen.”

“There is nothing we can do.” The tall one
made a move for the door.

So that was it? They weren’t even going to
glance out the back door. Just as I had figured. Why had we even
bothered to call them? I knew they’d say something along those
lines. Was there nothing they could do? Or did they not want to get
involved with the vampires? As far as I was concerned, the vampires
weren’t so tough. Okay, they were sort of tough, but was that any
reason not to stand up to them?

“We’ll write up a report, but tell your
uncle to leave the vampires alone.” The short one pulled my father
aside.

He probably wanted to lecture him about his
brother. My father wasn’t his brother’s babysitter. Ernie was a
grown werewolf and it was about time he started acting like an
adult. I intended to see to it that he did. I wouldn’t allow the
vampires to harass my parents… not to mention what they’d done to
poor Jack.

I took my attention away from my father and
the pack police so I could tend to Jack. His eyes popped open when
I reached out to touch his arm. “Those were vampires, right?” he
asked.

It would be impossible to fib my way out of
this one. “Yes, they were vampires. We don’t normally get into
fights with random vampires, you know? We don’t get into fights at
all. Well, sometimes with other werewolves, but only when
provoked.” I sat on the arm of the chair.

Jack looked up at me with wide blue eyes. In
his most serious voice, he asked, “Am I going to be a vampire
now?”

“What? No. No, no.” I shook my head and
looked away. My stomach turned at the thought. I’d done this to
him. How would he ever forgive me? I’d brought him to a home with
crazed vampires—not good girlfriend material.