The Vampire's Choice: A Paranormal Romance E-Book

AJ Tipton

• Herausgeber: AJ Tipton
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

A vampire princess desperate to atone for her past mistakes. A hunky hermit with a plan to change the world. In their quest to save their people, can they also save themselves?

Valerie Dal has spent centuries helping victims of the hortari, the mind control which compels vampires to follow the commands of their sires. But her efforts are never enough. With hope fading, Valerie ventures out to meet up with a vampire with a wild theory: the hortari may not be as permanent as vampires have always believed. When Valerie follows this stranger to a cave of magical trials, will she sacrifice more than she anticipated?

Centuries ago, Mickey Shive's sire forced him to commit an act of evil using the ruthless mind control of the hortari. Wracked with guilt and self-loathing, Mickey has dedicated his life to finding a way to free his people. There’s only one problem: nobody believes he’s found it. When a gorgeous princess comes to hear him out, he’s ready to believe redemption is possible. But Mickey’s dream soon turns into a nightmare when he learns the sacrifices he must make to save the day.

The Vampire's Choice is an adult, paranormal novella. If you like daring rescues, magical hijinks, and a love that will set you free, then you will love this epic finale to the sizzling Royal Blood Series.

The ROYAL BLOOD books may each be read as standalones. However, you may find they are best enjoyed in the following order:

1 - The Vampire’s Throne

2 - The Vampire’s Lair,

3 - The Vampire’s Escape,

4 - The Vampire’s Choice

Leseprobe

The Vampire's Choice

A Paranormal Romance

AJ Tipton

Illustrated byCirceCorp

Contents

The Vampire’s Choice

Letter from the Authors

Meet AJ Tipton

Copyright © 2017 by AJ Tipton

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is for sale to adult audiences only. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and incidents appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is purely coincidental.

Created with Vellum

Valerie Dal ground her teeth as she resisted glancing at her watch for the third time in the past five minutes. The last thing she needed was a last-minute meeting at the palace when she had so much other urgent work to get done. An unprecedented amount of rain was causing major delays on the construction of her latest housing complex, and the stress was starting to get to her. The construction sites were so inundated, even the most grizzled of her crew refused to risk coming to work.

Valerie sighed. Her crews were right, of course, and she wouldn’t force for them to work in what was commonly being referred to as a ‘monsoon’. But still, Valerie wanted to push forward. This undertaking was much more personal than she’d ever let on.

Her phone buzzed. Another pissed-off text from her foreman wanting to know when they'd be able reschedule the meeting with the local coven. Valerie responded that she'd reach out to them as soon as she could, quietly seething as she entered the conference room that was increasingly feeling like a cage.

If the witches pull out of this deal, Christopher is going to owe me. Big time. Being the sireling of the king of the vampires had to have some perks. Valerie just needed a little magic to keep moving forward with construction. Their spellwork could maintain an entire hotel downtown made of ice in a climate that rarely dipped below 60 degrees. They could definitely help Valerie manage a little rain. It was even for a good cause: the palace had been harboring victims of hortari abuse for months and they were running out of room. For far too many sirelings, inside the castle's walls was the only place they could be safe from their abusive sires. But even the castle had its limits, and Valerie needed to offer them more options.

Valerie took a moment to be grateful her vampire sire--and her king--had called all of his sirelings to the castle that afternoon by request, and not by command.

Valerie bit her lip, concentrating on hiding her impatience. She found a chair near the back of the long, stone room her sire, Christopher, had turned into a conference space. The king and his queen had been doing a lot of redecorating since they took the palace over from his evil brother, Rhys, two years ago. Christopher's brother, and his father before him, had had no use for communal spaces to make collaborative decisions. Their management style tended to involve thick, stone walls and sturdy chains. Christopher was a different kind of leader, one who valued a diversity of opinions and viewpoints before making decisions.

Even if that meant constant meetings for his inner circle.

"You could at least pretend to be happy to see us," Valerie's sireling sister Margot said, nudging Valerie with her elbow as she settled into the chair next to hers. "It's been months since we last saw you." Margot studied Valerie's face, her expression growing more concerned the longer she looked at her. Valerie fought the need to squirm in her chair under Margot's penetrating gaze. "You look in need of about a dozen stiff drinks and a pair of muscled masseurs, sweets."

Valerie forced a smile for her sister. The dark-skinned beauty was dressed in a bespoke, black pant suit with enormous beaded jewelry that Valerie guessed was probably designed for Margot by some as-yet-unknown-genius artist Margot was promoting at her art gallery.

Margot threw an arm over Valerie's shoulders, and Valerie fought the urge to lean into her sister's support. It would be so easy to pretend she deserved her sister's unconditional love, to just relax and act like everything was normal. But comfort was for those who deserved it.

"I'm okay," Valerie lied. "I’ve just got a lot going on. I don’t think you guys even really need me for this, do you?” Valerie stood to leave.

Margot's elegant eyebrow rose high in an unspoken response and Valerie slumped back into her chair. Christopher wouldn’t have asked her there if he didn’t need her.

A jolly male voice spoke from the door, "Trying to leave us already?"

"It's not that," Valerie said to her sireling brother, Danny, as he entered, followed closely by his wife, Robin. They were both dressed in black leather that hugged their figures like second skins. Danny's vest opened down the front showing far more skin than Valerie needed to see from a man she considered her brother, and Robin's bustier lifted her breasts with compelling definition out of her lace top. They looked every inch the co-owners of a vampire pleasure palace, and Valerie took a second to push down her envy at the casual confidence they exuded with every step.

"Danny, give her a break," her other sireling brother, Ben, called out from down the table. "I'd rather be in my lab than sitting around discussing policy." He gave an exaggerated shudder. His fiancé, Lauren, sitting next to him, giggled and leaned into him. She whispered something into his ear and he chuckled, pulling her closer.

Valerie looked away from the newest couple. Valerie didn't resent her siblings' long-awaited joy, but it sometimes hurt to look at what she would never allow herself to have.

Christopher and Alice entered last. Even after two years together, the king and queen of the vampires couldn't keep their hands off each other.

As was Christopher's way, he didn't sit at the head of the table, instead sitting closer to the middle so that his sirelings were spread out on either side of him. Margot tensed next to Valerie, and she followed Margot's concerned gaze to Christopher's hand holding Alice's on top of the table. A new worry prickled in Valerie's chest. Usually Alice and Christopher held hands lazily, one occasionally stroking the palm of the other. Today, their grips were ironclad, both their knuckles white from clenching.

"Thank you all for coming today. I know you all have other duties that require your attention, so I appreciate your time." Christopher's voice had all its familiar steadiness, but Valerie caught Danny, Ben, and Margot out of the corner of her eye, all leaning toward him. They'd all known Christopher long enough to hear the tension under his calm words.

"I've gathered you all here because we need to devise a permanent solution to a problem which has plagued vampires since our inception. The hortari."

"What?" Valerie said, the word escaping her lips in shock. Murmurs of surprise and confusion broke out around the table. The hortari was a bane to all vampires, built into their very natures. Anyone who sired a vampire had complete control over whomever they sired. That had always been the way. A sire's voice was an irresistible instrument, which Valerie knew all too well, to her eternal shame. The only example in living memory of a vampire breaking free of the hortari was sitting at their table: Alice, Christopher's wife.

Christopher continued. "Since we took power, the court has been bombarded with reports of sires who abuse their control and force their sirelings to commit actions against their will. We have sheltered those few who found ways to report the abuse." He nodded to Valerie. "And investigated their claims, bringing abusive sires to justice." He nodded to Danny, Christopher's lead investigator. "Everyone at this table knows of the horrors of hortari abuses, and sought to stop it in whatever way they could."

At the end of the table, Lauren and Ben snuggled close together. Valerie had never heard the full story about what Lauren had been forced to do, but Valerie did know that Lauren’s sire was buried deep in the castle dungeons, unable to reach her again.

Christopher leaned forward in his chair, his eyes alight with passion. "But it's not enough. There are many vampires who follow the lead set by my brother and father and do whatever they want with the vampires they sire. We thought we would be able to teach more vampires how to break the hortari, but..." He looked over at Alice, gesturing for her to jump in.

"We've had no success," Alice said. "I’ve worked with dozens of vamps, read through thousands of years of lore, and nothing is working. We don’t really know how I managed to break my hortari bond with Christopher, and it’s proving impossible to teach."

Valerie sat forward in her chair. The vampire queen sounded exhausted, and dark shadows haunted her eyes. More than a hundred vampires had escaped their sires in the two years since Christopher had become king. Valerie knew many of the vampires under Christopher’s protection from working alongside them to build their new homes. She’d bonded with these people, listened to their stories and dreams for the future. They all looked up to Alice as someone who would help break them all free. If Alice was losing hope of a cure… Valerie shook her head. There had to be a way.

Alice pressed her palms hard into the surface of the table. "In my research, I came across a few interesting theories about the hortari. One in particular has promise. What if it isn't just hard coded into our nature? What if it’s a curse, or a spell, something that can be undone?"

All around the table, Valerie and the others shifted in their seats. Valerie's head spun. The hortari was as much part of being a vampire as drinking blood, shying away from sunlight, and being invincible to everything except fire and beheading.

"But that's impossible--" Valerie started to say.

"Perhaps," Alice said. She reached down into the briefcase at her side and pulled out four thick file folders. "I’ve come across four different contacts that back up this theory. A few have even reached out to the previous kings, asking for help to break the hortari for good." She distributed the folders down the table, one to Ben and Lauren, one to Danny and Robin, one to Margot, and one to Valerie.

Valerie flipped open the inch-thick folder to the profile of a vampire, Mickey Shive, with a blurred, black and white photo of a bearded man in his thirties with long, dirty hair dressed in rags. He looked like he was one aluminum foil hat away from standing on a corner with a "The End is Nigh" sign.

"Seriously?" Valerie asked.

The folder was stuffed thick with official records, printed emails from the last few years, and a stack of handwritten letters going back centuries, all asking for either Christopher or one of his sire line to have an audience with him because Mickey had made an "existence-changing" discovery regarding the hortari and needed their help.

"They may look a little crackpot on the surface, but there's a chance that their ideas have some credence," Alice said. "We owe it to the vampires we govern--and to any vampires in the future--to at least hear these people out. It will all be worth it if there's a way that we can destroy the hortari."

"Any objections?" Christopher asked.

Everybody shook their head, the couples already murmuring plans together as they leafed through their files. Christopher tapped the table to end the meeting, and his family scrambled to their feet.

Valerie closed her file with a snap, her mind whirling with a dozen contradicting thoughts at once. Everybody knew that ending the hortari was impossible. It was just how vampires were made.

And yet…

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