N. Walters - Finding Chrissten

Chrissten was impressed with her younger brother. He’d been busy and had obviously put a lot of thought into this. She glanced up at Hank. “What do you think?”

“I’d like to see the building, but I like the idea. A lot.”

“You can still work here if you want,” Meredith told them. “We can always use waitresses,” she said to Chrissten and Bethany. “And Hank, you know your job is here for as long as you want it.” She turned to Craig and then Quinn. “That goes for you too. There’s always plenty to do in a place this size.”

The offer truly touched Chrissten. “Thank you.”

“We’ll help with any renovations,” Isaiah offered. Chrissten had a feeling the alpha would do just about anything to make Meredith happy and that meant keeping all her children, natural and adopted, close to her. It was obvious to everyone that Meredith didn’t want any of them to leave.

“Quinn?” It was Bethany who questioned her mate. Chrissten waited, barely daring to breathe.

He looked at all of them standing around him waiting for his reply. “Sure. What the hell.”

A huge smile broke across Craig’s face. “Good because I already put an offer in on the building.”

Chrissten burst out laughing. Quinn simply shook his head, caught their younger brother in a headlock and rubbed the top of his head. Craig laughed and the sound was beautiful to her ears. There was a time she’d feared she’d never hear such a wonderful sound again.

“Happy?” Hank whispered in her ear.

“Extremely.” She pulled his head down and kissed him, not caring who saw them. Hank was her mate. Her rock in the storm.

The unmistakable sound of hoots and hollers broke them apart. Hank grinned down at her. “How about we get something to eat and then go look at the building.”

“Deal.” She gave him kiss and started to go to the table, but he tugged her back.

“And later,” he promised, his eyes telling her exactly what he was going to do to her.

She shivered and her body ached. Oh yes. She couldn’t wait for later.

Damek slowly lowered the phone, setting it back into place. He had a cellphone, of course, but he still had a landline. He was old-fashioned about some things and thought it safer for certain, more sensitive phone calls. His office was encased in shadows. He was a creature of the night and embraced it. He’d had to in order to survive all these long years.

He was relieved that Chrissten and the others were safe and the threat to the Haven pack had been neutralized. Such a sanitized word for killing, but true nonetheless.

He hadn’t gone to them. Hadn’t been able to make himself leave his club when Craig had called looking for the address and asking for help. He’d given his new friend the location and information he’d discovered. But that was all.

He was too close to the edge.

He ran his tongue over his sharp incisor. Yes, he was definitely a vampire on the edge. He’d lived a very long time. Some would say too long, but he’d laughed over their graves centuries ago. He enjoyed life, for the most part, but the long years had taken their toll on him.

Very little interested him these days. Yes, he had his business concerns and the friendship of the occasional human, like Craig Lawton, who fascinated him. But he was…lonely. That was the word he was searching for.

He’d stopped making close friends centuries ago. It was too hard to watch everyone around him die, to see empires rise and fall around him while he remained the same. He survived by maintaining total control over himself and his environment. He took what he needed from humans to survive. No more, no less.

But sometimes…sometimes the demons rose up within him demanding more.

Werewolf blood. Paranormal blood. He pricked his tongue against his tooth and tasted the sweet tang of his own blood. Paranormal blood had the power to push a vampire past all restraint, thus creating a much more dangerous creature.

Monster.

Sometimes he feared he’d become just that. It was bad enough he’d had to search out the former members of Doctor Morton’s military experiment and either steal their memories or exterminate them for the good of all concerned.

No one could be allowed to expose his secrets and live. He was safe from the general populace as long as the myth of the vampire lived in the annals of fiction and folklore. Proving the existence of a werewolf was only a step away from proving his. Plus, he liked the Striker family and their packs. He didn’t want to see them harmed. Survival was hard enough with the paranormal bounty hunters searching for all of them.

Fire burned in his gut at the mere thought of those abominations. They killed women and children, males and females alike with no discrimination. It didn’t matter to them if the ones they murdered were good, decent people. All they cared was that paranormal beings were different. Not human.

And they called him a monster.

The fight with the rogue pack would have been too much of a temptation for him. Six rogue werewolves who needed to die. All that lush, lovely blood to be had. He could have gorged himself on it. Drinking until he could drink no more.

But would he have stopped there?

That was the question, the one he feared to answer. Would he have stopped or would he have attacked one of his friends simply because he was lost to the bloodlust? He couldn’t risk it. Wouldn’t risk it.

The Haven pack accepted the fact he hadn’t come to fight beside them. They didn’t question his decision, but he knew Craig was disappointed in him. He’d heard it the hurt in the human’s voice. But he’d made it up to him even if Craig didn’t know it. His realtor had just called to inform him he’d met with Craig and his family earlier today. The property the Lawton family was currently considering purchasing was one of his. He planned to see they got a good deal on it if they wanted it. He hoped they would.

Angry with himself for caring, he sat in his chair and pulled his ledger over to him. There was always work to do when one owned a variety of properties. Damek had nothing but time on his hands. It was good he kept busy.

But he was too restless to work and got up from his desk and left his office behind, heading out into his club. Music pumped wildly through the speakers that ringed the room. People danced and drank and the shadows hid more intimate encounters.

The smell of sweat and alcohol, sex and desperation filled his nostrils. This was his domain, his world, his kingdom.

It’s good to be king .

N.J. Walters has always been a voracious reader of romance novels and decided one day that she could write one as well. The contemporary story, Discovering Dani, was the very first novel she wrote while living in a little town much like the one Dani O’Rourke lives in, though all other similarities to Dani’s life pretty much end there. Then she wrote another one that followed up on Dani’s friends and neighbors. But she didn’t consider herself a “real” writer yet.

Just a few years later N. J. had a mid-life crisis at a fairly young age, gave notice after ten years at her job on a Friday and received a tentative acceptance for her first published novel (an erotic romance) from a publisher on the following Sunday.

Happily married to the love of her life, with his encouragement and support she gave up the job of selling books for the more pleasurable job of writing them. She now spends her days writing novels of her own. Werewolves, vampires, time-travelers, seductive handymen, and next-door neighbors with smoldering good looks—all vie for her attention. It’s a tough life, but someone’s got to do it. And some days she actually feels like a “real” writer.