ROMANCE: PARANORMAL ROMANCE: The Vampire´s Bride Awakening (Alpha Male Shifter Kidnapping BBW Romance) (Paranormal Young Adult Protector Romance) Read online

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  The Vampire´s Bride Awakening

  Bound by Fate: Book One

  A Paranormal Romance

  By Jasmine Wylder

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter One

  The night had been bad long before the strangers had shown up.

  Her ex-boyfriend Lane had decided that Ember’s bar was the perfect place to bring his new girlfriend and test out the road-readiness of her tonsils. Lane had sauntered in with some skinny little bottle blonde draped under his arms and found a couple of bar stools annoying close to Ember. It was all for show, of course. Lane was playing the part of the jilted ex-lover. Blondie was acting out her role of rebound hookup perfectly and as for Ember? Ember just rolled her eyes and tried her best to concentrate on the NASCAR race one of her regulars had put on the television above the pool tables.

  Erebus, the name of the small watering hole her father had built with his own two hands in the quiet mountain town of Devil’s Folly, was particularly busy for a regular Wednesday night and Ember was glad for it. If Lane and his bimbo had been her only customers, she just might have had to swallow a fork to pass her time.

  Ember pushed her way through the tables collecting empty bottles and glasses and taking a few orders along the way. When she returned to the counter with her arms full, she was surprised to see three large men sitting at the counter.

  Where had they come from? She didn’t remember hearing anyone come in the front door. From the corner of her eye, she saw the regulars nervously eyeing the huge newcomers in dark suits. To say they stuck out in a place like Devil’s Folly would be a huge understatement—in a town that boasted the most Carhartt purchases per square mile, three men in what looked to be Italian tailored suits just didn’t quite jive.

  Dropping the dirty dishes in a bus tub, Ember wiped her hands on the bar towel tucked into her back pocket and approached the group.

  “Good evening,” she said with a smile that was just a bit too wide. She was suddenly nervous and all three of them had faces made of granite—no expressions or any hint that they were actually human. “Can I get you guys something to drink?”

  The man in the center shook his head no. He had a short, military-style buzz cut and light blonde hair. At 32, Ember guessed this guy to be just a few years older than her.

  “We’re looking for someone and we hear you might be able to help us out,” he said. Ember couldn’t help but notice Lane’s ears perk up and his miserable attempt at eavesdropping without being noticed.

  Nosy bastard.

  “Mind your business,” she said as she shot Lane and his date a withering look. She rolled her eyes and focused her attention back on the man who had spoken.

  “I’m not sure what, or who, gave you that impression,” she said casually. “I don’t get out much.”

  Nonplussed, the man continued.

  “Malakai Arkos,” he said. “About six and a half feet tall, broad built, black hair, brown eyes. Extremely dangerous. He’s a wanted man, so if you’ve seen him or know where he is, you need to cooperate with us.”

  “Are you guys law enforcement?” Ember asked, looking from face to face.

  “That’s not important,” Buzz Cut said. “What’s important is that you tell us what you need to know.”

  Oh, really? A small smile quirked on the side of Ember’s mouth.

  “Can’t help you boys, sorry,” she said and turned to get back to the business or running a bar. She felt a meaty hand snatch her right wrist before she got half a step away and Ember froze.

  “Can’t help us or won’t help us?” The man in the middle spoke low, his lips thinning across his teeth. Ember moved to pull her arm free, but he squeezed harder. She bit back a wince as he ground her wrist bones together painfully.

  “Out. NOW,” she said as loud as she could manage and pointed to the door. “You’re not welcome here any longer.”

  Silence floated across the barroom as folks began to notice Ember’s agitation and the man grasping her arm. Soon, the only noise to be heard was the whine of the car engines on screen as the race played on above them.

  The men looked at one another, slow to respond. Buzz Cut looked downright livid that Ember would dare talk to him like that.

  Well, Ember was never one to back down from a challenge and when the man didn’t remove his meaty paw from her left arm, she used her right arm and pulled the shotgun from its rack just beneath the bar deftly with one hand.

  As she raised it up and toward her shoulder, the crowd let out a gasp and Buzz Cut dropped her arm immediately. The three of them were off their stools in an instant and backing up.

  Ember let out a dramatic sigh.

  “I tried to be reasonable, gentlemen,” she said with a fake, sugary sweet smile. “Now, out that front door without another word from you. Please.”

  Two of the men complied, but Buzz Cut stood his ground a little longer.

  “You better pray we never have a reason to come in here again,” he said, the malice dripping heavily off his words. “Next time, I won’t be so patient.”

  Ember winked at him.

  “I get to ‘three’ and you’re all gonna have buckshot in your ass,” she said, raising the shotgun up a few inches. “Wanna try me?”

  Thankfully, the men left without another word and only two or three dirty looks cast over their shoulders as they left. Devil’s Folly was a bit of a rough town, so most of the regulars shrugged the incident off and went back to their car race. Most of them.

  “Couple old boyfriends of yours, Ember?” Lane snickered from a few feet away. He’d come up for air after jamming his tongue down his date’s throat once Ember had put the shotgun away.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “The only old news around here is you, Lane.”

  She didn’t hear his response and concentrated really hard on not looking down at that end of the bar for the rest of the night. At this rate, he’d have the girl’s clothes off and be mounted on her before last call in a last-ditch effort to make Ember jealous.

  Wasn’t happening.

  They’d dated for almost a year before Ember happened to look at his phone one afternoon when he was sleeping of
f a hangover. Not one to really snoop, Ember had been unable to resist the text notification that began with “Baby. I need you inside me now. When are you coming back?”

  That had definitely caught her attention and Lane was stupid enough to use is birth month and day as his lock screen password. In seconds, she’d uncovered that every time Lane took a roughneck job in a different city, he was setting himself up with a new girl and a new cover story.

  After Ember smashed his phone into about a million pieces, she picked up every single trace that she’d ever been in his life, or his apartment, and walked out his front door. That night when he’d sobered up and shown up at the bar, she’d bloodied his nose and thrown him out the front door on his ass.

  That’d been four months ago and recently, Lane’d been showing up with random women doing his damndest to get Ember to notice.

  Whatever. It wasn’t exactly fun to see your ex-boyfriend cavorting with other women in an effort to hurt your feelings, but Ember wasn’t exactly torn up about Lane. He hadn’t even been that great in the sack.

  “Average on a good day,” Ember mused to herself as she ran the last of the glasses through the dishwasher. She’d shouted out “last call” thirty minutes ago, and if she was lucky, she just might make it home before 3 a.m. this morning. More often than not, though, she had to play marriage counselor or relationship therapist to a feuding couple in the parking lot before she was free to leave.

  Just after 2 a.m., the last customer closed the door behind themselves and Ember walked through the place turning off pool table lights, neon beer signs, and bathroom lights. By 2:15, she was locking the front door and silently celebrating her soon-to-be victory.

  And when she reached her Tacoma truck by 2:18 in the morning, she was grinning. She was going home relatively early for the first time in a long, long time. Cranking the engine over, Ember let out a long sigh. To say it had been a long night would have been a major understatement.

  Three alarm bells dinged a warning on her dashboard and Ember let out a salty curse.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she swore. Her gas was dangerously low and now her victory had been tainted. She’d have to drive almost ten miles in the other direction to get to the only gas station in the county open at this hour.

  “Maybe next time, old girl,” Ember whispered miserably to herself as she pulled onto the dark roadway.

  Chapter Two

  Coming to Devil’s Folly had been a mistake.

  Malakai Arkos knew better than to let his curiosity get the better of him and now he’d likely put Ember and her sister in danger just by coming to town—all because he’d just wanted to see Ember Terzi in person, even just once.

  He’d known the beautiful brunette, with her lush curves and full, pouty mouth was his fated mate. He’d known long before he had ever laid eyes on her, too. Ember’s father, Phaedro Terzi, was a minor noble in the Arkos clan, and had left Greece when civil war among the families had threatened their downfall. He’d taken his pregnant wife, Emelia, to America to hide among the mountains in hopes that the supernatural world would never find his wife or daughters. It had almost worked, too.

  But Arkos vampires were imprinted with the souls of their mates long before their birth and something inside Malakai’s very being had stirred when Ember was born, far away from him—across oceans and continents and concrete city blocks full of millions of people—he’d felt her very first breath deep within his soul.

  Kai had tried to honor Phaedro’s wish to raise his family away from the danger and intrigue of Arkos court politics. He was a patient man and had planned to let Ember come to him if she ever chose—and she would, eventually. The pull in her was just as strong as the one he felt and the pressure to find each other would only get more persistent until they were finally united by blood.

  When Kai’s cousin Aksel found a decade-old obituary from a random mountain town in Wyoming, everything had changed. Phaedro and Emelia had been killed by a drunk driver coming home from a weekend away, leaving their daughters alone in the world with no knowledge of the supernatural and certainly no protection. Malakai had sprung into action then, not really stopping to form a plan before boarding his plane from the Arkos’ private island near Cyprus, and flying straight into Devil’s Folly.

  He found Ember easily enough and even laughed at the fact that Phaedro had named his tiny bar Erebus, after the god of darkness. The old man certainly had a sense of humor. Phaedro’s line was descended of old nobility vampires and had pledged fealty to the Arkos clan in exchange for protection—and freedom. People born of the original blood were not vampires at birth—they remained human so long as they did not choose to turn. Phaedro had chosen to remain human and to marry a beautiful human girl who’d stolen his heart when he was 17 years old. His daughters were born with the same genetic potential for immortality and preternatural strength and abilities as their father, but would remain human if they did not choose to be turned.

  Kai knew there was a strong chance that Ember knew nothing about her heritage and an even stronger chance that she’d want nothing to do with vampires once she learned the truth.

  He sighed heavily as he made his way back to the Jeep he’d rented. He knew that he was constantly being hunted by New Dawn and their mercenaries and Aksel had only confirmed what he already knew—that they’d followed him to Devil’s Folly early this morning. They were in town and if they were half as good as they thought they were, they’d have figured out who Kai was looking for. Phaedro had hidden fairly well, but had never bothered to assume a new identity or to cover his tracks.

  Kai cast a glance over his shoulder at Ember’s cabin, searching the darkness around it one last time for any perceived danger. It was still clear and the tiny cameras he’d installed around the perimeter would help him keep watch over her while she slept.

  He still wasn’t sure what he was going to do now—there was no way he could have a mate right now with New Dawn hunting vampires down with surprisingly deadly accuracy. His clan needed him to be a strong leader and having a new mate would only weaken him.

  No, he’d lead the hunters away from Devil’s Folly and fight the war they seemed so intent on bringing to his family. Then if he survived, and only then, would he return and convince Ember to take her place at his side.

  Pulling away from the secluded cabin, the all-terrain tires crunched on the gravel as he sped down the winding mountain road. He was lost in thought, remembering the swell of Ember’s gorgeous breasts against the tight black t-shirt she was wearing the night before. He’d trailed her from afar as she drove in to work that morning and stopped by a small grocery store for a bag of limes. Gods, but she was something else. Tall for a woman, though she’d still only come up to his chin if they stood face to face, with a round, plump ass and those beautiful tits she wasn’t ashamed to flaunt in her small t-shirts.

  She was something else. More than he’d bargained for, that’s for sure. Watching her from afar, Kai’s mate had blown him away with her raw beauty and no shit-taking attitude. If he didn’t know better, he could almost believe that he’d be in danger of falling head over heels crazy for a girl like that.

  Kai scrubbed a hand over his face and blew out a frustrated breath. He needed to focus on something other than the filthy fantasies involving Ember and some silk scarves that were forming in his mind at a furious pace.

  Once he’d made it down the treacherous mountain road, Kai turned onto the state highway and headed for his hotel room in the next town. It would take him about twenty minutes to reach it with no cars on the road.

  He was nearly halfway there when all hell broke loose.

  A flash of light ripped through the pitch black night beside the driver’s window, temporarily blinding him. The front end of his Jeep smashed into something solid and the deploying air back hit his torso so hard, it knocked the wind out of him.

  His eyesight was swimming as he struggled to focus. Loud footsteps crunched up beside the window. Seconds later the
glass smashed into pieces. Kai blinked furiously to regain his vision but before he could get himself unbuckled, something sharp and painful stabbed him through the neck.

  No.

  He’d failed.

  Beside him, a deep voice spoke into a static-y Walkie Talkie.

  “Mitchell, we found it,” the voice said. “Yes sir. It’s incapacitated. We’ll deliver it shortly.”

  Kai’s vision swam violently as he struggled to stay awake, but it was a losing battle. Seconds later, the world went dark as Kai’s forehead hit the steering wheel a second time.

  Chapter Three

  “Kinda late, isn’t it Ember?”

  She gave J.D. a sheepish grin and handed the bearded old man a twenty. He harped on her for not getting gas during daylight hours each time she came in after closing for a tank of gas—which was more often than she cared to admit.

  “Ain’t right, a young woman like you gallivanting all over the county by yourself at this ungodly hour. You need to settle yourself down and get a man to protect you.”

  Ember snorted.

  “Easy, J.D.,” she teased. “Don’t try to marry me off to the first taker, will you? I’m actually pretty good at taking care of myself.”

  The old man grumbled but shot her an endearing wink.

  “Still now,” he said as Ember turned to go. “You be careful out there. Night is full of weirdos and all sorts of dangerous things.”

  If only Ember had heeded his warning.

  With the gas in the tank, Ember dashed to the ladies’ room, regretting that last bottle of water she’d chugged at last call. With a quick swipe at her washed hands with a paper towel, she stepped back out into the darkness of the side of the service station and made for her truck. Voices that hadn’t been there when she went in made her stop.

  She recognized one in particular and the pit of her stomach dropped in warning.