Appetite of a Vampire [Vampire Love and Lust 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Read online

  Vampire Love and Lust 2

  Appetite of a Vampire

  “I don’t just want to have sex with you…I want to drink your blood.” Marty Williams is a female vampire, but she is different. She suffers from amnesia and can’t remember how she became a vampire or the man who turned her.

  Marty meets four men to help her find the vampire she gave up being human for.

  Barry West, an army veteran and maintenance man at the hospital where Marty works as a nurse.

  Derrick Powers and Aaron Mason, two wealthy playboys on a road trip across the country who like to share their women.

  Dr. Owen Bradon, a young doctor on staff at the hospital where Marty works.

  The five realize they will never stay together unless they can unravel the mystery surrounding Marty. In the process of finding her past, Marty almost kills her lovers of the present with her appetite for drinking their blood.

  Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 82,594 words

  APPETITE OF A VAMPIRE

  Vampire Love and Lust 2

  Dani April

  MENAGE AMOUR

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Amour

  APPETITE OF A VAMPIRE

  Copyright © 2012 by Dani April

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-826-5

  First E-book Publication: July 2012

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Appetite of a Vampire by Dani April from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

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  This is Dani April’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. April’s right to earn a living from her work.

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  APPETITE OF A VAMPIRE

  Vampire Love and Lust 2

  DANI APRIL

  Copyright © 2012

  Chapter One

  Marty knew she was a misfit. She had come to the concert at the amphitheater tonight to try and get away, but she didn’t fit in here with these people. She didn’t fit in anywhere or with anyone.

  Marty was lost. She barely knew who she was or what she was doing. All she could focus on was her hunger. She was ravenous. Her appetite knew no bounds. Yet she hadn’t eaten in days. She couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten.

  She didn’t know why she had come to the rap show tonight. The group was playing on a small stage, and the outdoor amphitheater was packed with several thousand people. Maybe it was the people she had come to be around. Standing in the crowd, she felt less alone and less lost. Everyone around her seemed happy and carefree. This took her mind off the nightmare she was currently living through.

  Or perhaps she thought she would meet him in the crowd tonight, the one man she had been looking for her entire life. That one elusive man who would take her from the terror of her life and make her world perfect again as it had been in the past when she was a child. She didn’t know exactly what her man looked like. All she knew was that he would be beautiful, and that when she saw him for the first time she would recognize him without question.

  The night air was warm and humid. The smell of spring was in the air and of new beginnings, and Marty hated to be feeling such fear during this magical time of the year. Everything in nature was being reborn, and she felt like rolling up into a ball and dying.

  Marty searched every male face she saw in the crowd. None of them were that of her man. It made her sad to see that everyone at the concert seemed to have someone they were with except for her. She had no one. She was all alone.

  She made eye contact with a surfer-type dude. He was muscular and blond and wasn’t wearing a shirt. “I’d like to get her cute little ass into bed,” the surfer dude thought, and Marty could hear each word as if they had been spoken to her aloud. “I wonder if Denise would let me bring her back to our place. Maybe we could get some three-way action going tonight.”

  As Marty made her way closer to the surfer dude, his thoughts become louder and clearer. Just then a girl who Marty assumed must have been Denise stepped up next to him and put her arms around him. She said something to him, but though she said it aloud, Marty couldn’t hear the words over the din of the crowd.

  Then suddenly, the internal dialogue of the girl was screaming inside Marty’s head. “Mike has seen that little hottie over there. I’ve got to distract him. Hopefully the little bitch will move away soon. I wonder why she doesn’t have her boyfriend with her tonight. She sure looks like a strange one.”

  The girl wrapped her arms around her boyfriend and gave him a kiss on the lips. Then she brought his attention away from Marty and back toward the rap group up on the stage.

  Marty moved away from them quickly. She was hurt by the girl’s words. But they hadn’t really been words at all. They had been her thoughts, and Marty had read every one of them.

  Marty moved through the crowd aimlessly, paying no attention to the music up onstage. The speaker system was loud and the group’s lyrics aggressive, but she heard it all only faintly, as if in the distance. Instead, the constant thinking of other people hammered at her, becoming a deafening din inside her brain.

  “Why did I come out with Bob tonight? I would have r
ather been with Anthony.”

  “I’ve got to get up the courage to tell Jessica I’m gay.”

  “I don’t want to go back home with Paul tonight. He might hit me like he did last time.”

  “No one at the office knows how much money I’ve stolen from them this past year. I think I’m going to get away with it. They are all so dumb. They won’t ever catch me.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t be angry if Hal is cheating on me. After all, I did sleep with his brother. I think it would actually make it easier on me if Hal did cheat occasionally.”

  The thoughts of many different people came to her all at once in a kaleidoscope. They were all strangers to her, yet every time she heard them think, she became more frightened. She willed their thoughts to go away, but they just kept cascading through the thick night air toward her. She couldn’t stop them. Everyone she looked at in the crowd was an open book to her.

  Marty felt pure terror hearing all these voices inside her head. For a moment, she considered that she might be going crazy and losing her mind. Didn’t crazy people hear voices in their head, voices that were not real? If she had been going crazy, that would explain everything that was happening in her life and make it much easier to deal with. However, she couldn’t convince herself of that. She knew each voice she heard was the real thoughts of another person sharing the crowded space of the amphitheater with her.

  She had to fight back the hysteria that was building inside of her. She wanted to scream and run and push her way out of that crowd and back into the blackness of the night from where she had come. She wanted to hide from them all. Each and every person in the crowd was a potential enemy, capable of doing her harm.

  Coming out here to the concert tonight had been the worst idea of all time. Far from solving the mystery that surrounded her life, the thoughts of all these people had only served to intensify her terror, adding more confusion. She knew less about herself than ever. Her name was Martha Williams, and she was alone in the world, and other than snippets from her past before the nightmare had begun, that was all she knew about herself. How the nightmare had started in the first place was a complete mystery to her.

  The food stands were set up behind the crowd, and she had made her way to them through all the hostile voices of the people’s thoughts.

  She felt so hungry, and it was her hunger that had led her out into the night and to the concert. Now she could smell the hot dogs and hamburgers, peanuts and pretzels on sale in the food kiosks. The nacho cheese was casting a particularly strong odor in her direction. A vendor passed her, hawking cold beer. The whiff of alcohol in the bottles he was selling flew inside her nostrils.

  She found if she closed her eyes, the thoughts of the other people stopped. The group performing onstage had taken most of the crowd back to their seats. There were few people around the food stands. Marty was able to step right up to the first one.

  “What are you having?” The vendor behind the stand asked her. “What’s wrong with this chick? She was walking around with her eyes closed. I think she’s already had too much to drink.”

  “The chips and cheese, please?” Marty asked the vendor. She had looked directly into his eyes and couldn’t avoid his thoughts. “Don’t worry, I’m not having anything to drink.”

  The vendor gave her a strange look but apparently didn’t think anything, because she heard nothing. He gave her what she asked for, and she paid him. When she turned her back on him she could just make out his last thoughts about her.

  “That girl looks like a hippy. Doesn’t she know they haven’t been around for forty years? I wonder if she’s on drugs.”

  She took her nacho chips up to a table and set them down. The vendor’s thought about forty years terrified her, because she realized that she wasn’t even certain what year this was. Another clue pointing to the fact that she must be insane, yet she knew she was not.

  She had to eat something, because she knew she hadn’t eaten in so long that her hunger was making her feel light-headed. The nachos didn’t look very good, but she had to force herself to eat them. She remembered in the past, before the nightmare had started, she had always had a fondness for cheese.

  She dipped the first chip in a healthy dab of cheese and put it in her mouth. Before she could get more than a fleeting taste, she was spitting it out onto the ground at her feet. She gagged at the horrible taste and felt nauseated.

  So that would explain why she hadn’t eaten for so long, because she hated food. But then why was she so hungry? What was she hungry for?

  She turned her attention to the side. A very attractive man was standing next to her. When she saw him, she knew exactly what she was hungry for.

  Chapter Two

  “Hey,” the stud standing next to her greeted. He was wearing a lightweight, black leather jacket that contrasted with the mop of blond hair on his head.

  “Hey,” she greeted him back.

  “You look lost.”

  “I’m not lost.”

  “That’s good because I am.”

  He was tall, and when he smiled it set a fire burning inside her. For a fraction of a second, she thought he might be the man she was looking for. The one who could answer all of her questions and help her regain her life. But then she realized he was just what he appeared to be, a gorgeous man standing in the dark next to her. At the moment, that was good enough.

  She returned his smile.

  “I’m just passing through town,” the stud explained to her. “I don’t really know this area very well. I thought maybe I recognized a kindred soul in you, a fellow traveler.”

  “No. Not me. I grew up around here.”

  “I’m…” He started. He extended his hand to her and gave her his name. She wasn’t listening to his words and didn’t catch this. His strong body had captured her complete attention.

  “I’m Marty.”

  “An interesting name for a pretty girl.”

  “That’s my nickname. It’s short for Martha.”

  “Martha? Now there’s an old-fashioned name if I ever heard one.”

  “I’m an old-fashioned girl.”

  “That’s good. I like old-fashioned girls.” Then she caught his radiant, blue eyes. They were beautiful and made her want him all the more. She read his thoughts and knew he wondered if she was with anyone.

  She looked away from him and felt self-conscious. “I’m alone,” she told him.

  He gave her a surprised look. “Interesting, you came here by yourself, and yet I don’t think you’re a fan of this kind of music.”

  “How do you know? Maybe I am.”

  “You’re not listening to any of it.”

  “I was hungry. I came back here to get a bite to eat.”

  “This isn’t the place to go if you’re hungry. The food here is terrible, you know.”

  “Maybe I like it.”

  “I don’t think you do.” He looked down on the ground where she had spit out the nacho chip.

  “It’s a warm night. I just felt like getting out and being around people. You’re not listening to the music either. What’s your excuse?”

  “I’m not a fan of this group. I came here with my friend. We’re traveling across the country together.” At the mention of his friend, she looked back up at him for his thoughts. “Oh God, why did I put it like that? She’ll think I’m here with a woman. Aaron is only my buddy, and he’s the fan of rap, not me. Damn it! I don’t want to blow my chances with this woman.”

  “You and your friend don’t like the same type of music. You just came here tonight to appease him,” Marty said, thinking she would try and put him at ease.

  “That’s exactly right!” He was quick to take the bait. “He’s just a buddy of mine from back in college. In all fairness, he’ll accompany me occasionally to see a group I like. So it all evens out.”

  She could have read his thoughts and found out more about him, but she wanted to hear him tell it to her from his lips. The sound of his deep, mas
culine voice was soothing to her, and in his presence she felt less afraid.

  “Why are you and your friend traveling across the country…?” She fumbled for his name but then realized she hadn’t been listening when he told her.

  “My name’s Derrick,” he told her again, realizing her dilemma. “Aaron and I are just bumming around. We’ve taken a year off from life. We’re driving across the country.”

  “That sounds exciting.”

  “Yeah, it’s been okay so far. Only sometimes I get tired of being lost.”

  “I’ve lived around here for a long time. Maybe I can show you guys around while you’re staying in town.”

  “Thank you. That’s an offer I won’t turn down.” He smiled at her again. The fire inside her burned all the hotter. “Aaron and I have seats in the front row. If you’d like to come on down with me, I think we can squeeze you in.”

  Marty hesitated for a moment. She feared if she went with this man, disaster would follow. He wasn’t the man she was seeking after all. But she was weak. She had lived in terror for so long, and in his presence she felt almost normal again. He gave her a part of what she needed, and there was a promise of more to come.

  She followed him back down through the crowds and to his seat with his friend Aaron in the front row. Aaron was a light-skinned African-American, handsome, young, and well built.

  He was surprised to see Derrick had brought back a girlfriend from the vending area.

  “Marty, this is my buddy Aaron,” Derrick said, introducing them. “Aaron, this is my new friend Marty. She is from here and has been kind enough to offer to show us around while we’re out here.”