The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 4: Life, Death and Something In Between

By Evelyn Lafont

Josie loves Walker.

Walker loves Josie.

Grady is a turdlog.

Harry is a Werebunny.

Josie's gonna mess some shit up by going against Walker's wishes and attempting to infiltrate a vampire hate group. Will she succeed? Will she live? WILL SHE AND WALKER EVER FIND PEACE? Find out now in the last book of the series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helios Media, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301050338

Evelyn Lafont

Evelyn Lafont is a freelance writer and author living in Tampa Bay, Florida. Originally from New England, she likes that none of her shoes or body parts freeze during the short Florida winter. She is the married mother of two catlike furballs and hates doing housework of any kind.

Book preview

THE VAMPIRE RELATIONSHIP GUIDE, VOLUME 4: Life, Death and Something In Between

Evelyn Lafont

The Vampire Relationship Guide, Volume 4: Life, Death and Something In Between. Copyright © 2013 Evelyn Lafont.

Smashwords edition May 2014

I hope you didn’t pirate this book. The eye patch is so 1999. If you have questions about the many ways you can use this book (other than as a hat or a pterodactyl) contact me at [e-mail]

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance herein to real people or places is purely coincidental.

To Josie and Walker. I’m honored to have been a part of your journey. Now get the fuck out of my head.

PART 1—ENGAGING THE VAMPIRE

Dear Vampy,

After three years of dating, my vampire proposed! The ring is quite large, and he’s really hot so … should I say yes?

Signed,

Confused in Michigan

Dear Confused,

Hell to the no, you should not say yes. Oh no, honey, not for your sake—for your vampire’s. Because if you don’t see what an opportunity you have, then you don’t deserve it.

—Excerpt from the syndicated Dear Vampy column

CHAPTER 1

So what did Vanessa do to Grady? I packed while I talked. I knew that Walker, Grady, and Harry wanted to hurry and get the hell outta dodge before Grady’s crazy ex-wife, Vanessa, a woman who’d been pretending to be a client of mine but was really profiling me because I’d helped to kill her maker and she thought I was sleeping with her ex, came in and tortured us or whatever. But I needed to still know more. It was weird. These were huge men, fast men, vampire and Were men, afraid of a non-muscular Morticia-looking model. I mean, what was she going to do? Dazzle them with her smile? Flick her perfect, straight, shiny hair at them? Send her eagle or falcon or whatever at their heads?

Articles of clothing flew out of the walk-in closet along with words from my hot vampire love, Walker. It was fucked. Grady usually likes ’em crazy, but Vanessa was … she was worse than any of them. The fake accent was the first tip-off. She falls in and out of it and uses different types of accents—it’s a mess.

Sure, but it’s not exactly worth leaving the house and hiding over.

There was that one time at a barbecue that she stabbed Grady in the thigh with a meat fork. Or that time she shaved his head while he was sleeping. Then, of course, there was the time she wore a wig and followed him around town, then broke his car windows when he met a colleague for dinner. Oh yeah, and that time she had my mom in a headlock over a recipe.

I nodded and packed faster. Okay, so, yeah, crazy. Is that why they divorced?

Walker stepped out of the closet, bag packed and zipped. No, they had some financial problems they couldn’t get past.

Seriously? She stabs him in the leg and puts your mom in a headlock, but it’s the financial trouble that breaks them up?

Walker grabbed one of my bags and we headed out to the hall. Grady and Harry came out of their rooms at the same time, and together we flew down the stairs to the foyer. I sucked in a huge breath when I looked up and saw a shadow on the other side of the door. The person attached to the shadow was tall and thin, standing under our porch light, hand lifting slowly.

It’s too late, I said. Seeing where my gaze was directed, Walker turned to look at the door. When the fist connected with wood, even though we all knew that was the next logical action, we jumped in unison.

No one moved, however. When the knock came again, this time slower with an, I can do this all day … and I will attitude, I dropped my bags and walked down the last few stairs to open the door.

Sure enough, Vanessa stood before us with Timothy—or, as I liked to think of him, Lurch 2.0. They breezed in without being asked and, not for the first time, I wished that whole myth about vamps needing an invitation were true. She looked around the foyer, gazing at Walker, then Harry, then Grady, her eyes lingering longer on Grady than the other two. Finally, she turned her gaze to me. She wiped her hands together as if a mountain of dust had settled on them and she simply had to get it off. Her lip curled as she said, So, this is vhere you liff vith my luff.

I heard Grady sigh. The earth practically trembled from the strength of his eye roll. I half expected her to finish off with a Count Chocula laugh, so I paused before I spoke.

Um, no. This is where I liff with my luff. I heard a cough behind me, probably Walker. But I didn’t care. This was girl-fight territory, which meant sharpening your sarcasm claws, and girl, I was ready for fightin’.

She chortled … or snorted … one of those dismissive noises that one makes when one is done with what- or whomever one is chortle-snorting at. She walked toward the staircase and looked at Grady. Vhy, my luff, have you gone vith her, this … this … sad, average girl?

I wrinkled my face and wondered when average had become a bad thing. After all, if it weren’t for us average folks, the exceptional wouldn’t be an exception. Besides, this girl couldn’t keep up with my titties—no way, no how.

Vanessa, I am not with her. Gross. She’s my brother’s girlfriend. You remember Walker. Grady pointed at his brother.

Oh jessss, the ugly one.

Okay, now bitch was gonna get it. What do you mean ‘ugly’? They’re identical! I moved toward her as quickly as I could, ready to punch her in the neck when two giant man paws slid around my waist and held me like steel bars on a roller coaster. Timothy had finally moved—I’d forgotten he was even there.

Get your hands off her. Now. Walker started to move from the staircase but I held my hand up to stop him. Good ol’ Timmy wasn’t hurting me and I really didn’t want to see what damage he could do to Walker’s face.

They is identical? Bah—you know that not to be true as vell as I do. Clearly, one uff them is a beauteeful man and the other a disgusting pile of skin on top of inside things. This tells me juss vhat I must do to determine who is telling truths and who is lies. Vee must have tests. Everyone, off the stairs. Now!

****

Dating a twin is different than dating a singleton. When you date a twin, especially when you live day in and day out with his exact likeness, you take extra care to notice, then memorize, certain small, almost imperceptible details that no one else would see, except maybe their mother.

So when Vanessa put Grady and Walker in a lineup at the bottom of the stairs in order for me to somehow prove I was in love with Walker, not Grady, it was simple for me to pick out Walker. Even if Grady, the formerly suicidal, sunbathing vamp, hadn’t been slightly more tan, I would’ve known my Walker from the crinkle of fine lines beside his left eye, the eye he squinted when he inhaled his cigarette. I would’ve known him from the depth of experience and