Vampire's Shade 3: Vampire's Shade Collection, #3

By Vivienne Neas

I've always tried to stay away from police, also now that I am not a killer anymore and my life is totally legal; also now that this gorgeous-looking cop required me as a professional shooting trainer.

In the middle of the night I find Joel and my sister at my door: our friend Carl is in jail in Fort Atkinson accused of murdering a young vampire-girl, and it's me that he wants to help him to get out clean.

As I said, I don't mix up with police: you don't if you have a past like mine, but this time my cop student offers to help me in Carl's investigation, and I desperately need his help.

I need to go there and find out what really happened, and who framed Carl and why. I'll have to look into in my ex-colleague's past, to find out if there is something dark in his story.

Once Adele starts investigating, she finds out this is all too messy, Carl's adoptive parents have many things to hide, there is much more in Carl's past than he could tell, the dead vampire-girl was somehow the key, and Adele is determined to find the truth whatever the cost, and the cost could be more that some can afford.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vivienne Neas
• Release date: Mar 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524273477

Book preview

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Chapter 1

His arms were extended, locked at the elbow and steady. He sighed down the barrel of the gun, and I watched as his chest fell, all the air leaving it in the last exhalation before he pulled the trigger. I breathed with him, felt the air leaving his lungs and the world fall quiet around him. I could feel his concentration, solid around me, impenetrable.

His finger curled around the trigger and he squeezed, steadying the weapon with his other hand under the butt of the gun. He wore fingerless gloves, and I heard the gun click, the bullet swoosh out of the chamber.

It was a perfect hit, right in between the eyes. I felt the kickback of the gun, fingers numb, as though they had been my own hands. I felt the satisfaction of a perfect headshot.

I pulled the headphones off my head. The faint smell of gunpowder tickled my nostrils and I breathed in. To me it was home – comforting, the way the smell of freshly-baked bread was to someone else. I took two steps back and flicked the switch. The fluorescent lights flickered on one by one, drowning the shooting range in artificial light until everything was lit up and I was reminded where I really was.

It felt different this time, Tyrone said. He rolled his shoulders, trying to loosen his body under the bulletproof vest he wore. The word POLICE stood out in intimidating letters across his chest. Underneath he was wearing a grey t-shirt, stretched tight across his biceps and shoulders. What I could see of his chest was also pretty built, but the rest of his front was covered by the bulletproof vest.

That was right on the mark, I said. Tyrone looked down at the Glock in his hand. It was a Glock 21 Gen4, standard law enforcement issue. But I knew that it didn’t make a hell of a difference what gun Tyrone used – he would hit his target. He didn’t play games. When he aimed, he aimed to kill, and he didn’t pull the trigger until he was sure of his aim.

I respected that. People who could work with guns made it far with me.

I think that’s it for today. I still need to get back and tackle that paperwork, he said. He was on the Westham Police Force. He’d told me he was usually assigned to petty crimes: car thefts, drugstore holdups – that kind of thing. I didn’t believe him. The way he trained, the fact that he wanted more, told me that he was more. But I didn’t ask question and he didn’t volunteer answers.

He pulled off a glove and ran his fingers through his dark hair. When his eyes met mine he smiled a dazzling smile and I turned away. I didn’t do police as a rule, but Tyrone was an exception. He’d come to the academy looking for more training. He’d said he needed more than the station offered by way of training. Phil took him for combat lessons and I taught him shooting.

I was relieved I didn’t have to do both. Being a half-breed vampire I was stronger than him – it was my vampire blood showing through – but I wasn’t about to show him that. There was only one thing worse than a man with an ego the size of Tyrone’s – getting it bruised.

Besides that, he was charming as hell and it unsettled me. Connor and I were happy together. We’d been dating for a year and a half and things couldn’t be better for us. I didn’t want some self-assured police officer to get in between us with arrogant remarks. And Tyrone just had that way about him.

I’ll see you again toward the end of the week, he said to me, holstering his gun and packing his bag that stood on the floor in front of the counter.

Bright and early, I answered and he half-waved at me before walking out of the door. That was the other thing. Bright and early. I never wanted to face him in hand-to-hand combat because I didn’t want him to know what I was. I was a lot better at accepting the fact that I was at least half vampire. There was a time when I wasn’t okay with it – after my father, a vampire, had gone rogue, he’d killed my human mother and crippled my sister. I hadn’t wanted anything to do with vampires then and I’d made it my job to kill them instead.

It had taken my boyfriend Connor – a vampire – and a couple of my human friends to teach me that who I was wasn’t wrong. But I tried to keep it quiet. My human blood allowed me to walk in the sun, and I had a fairly normal routine. I didn’t need a police officer to mess that up for me.

He’s coming along nicely, Phil said in the door. He had his arms crossed over his chest and his one foot over the other, balancing it on the toe.

He’s always been good. I don’t know what he’s doing here, I said. He definitely doesn’t need a lot of pointers from me. I think I’ve told him two things in the four months he’s been here.

Phil shrugged. He’s willing to pay and it’s always good to have a contact on the force. Why complain?

I shrugged and wrote down a comment in the side margin of the book I kept on my students.

Maybe it’s because he makes you uncomfortable, he said. I shook my head.

Dazzling smile like that, handsome and well-built, he’s everything any man would want to be, Phil said.

Everything a man would want? I asked. I wanted to make a quip about how he didn’t have everything every man would want because he didn’t have me, but before the words left my mouth I realized how bad it would sound. I kept quiet but a blush crept up from my collar and flushed my cheeks.

Are you blushing? Phil asked. I shook my head. I wasn’t blushing like an idiot. I didn’t blush. But Phil chuckled.

You always find new ways to surprise me, Adele. Every time I think I’ve seen it all, you whip something new out of the bag. Usually it’s big and tough and vampire-kissed. But this time it’s girly and cute.

It just made me blush more. I would have given anything for him to leave.

Connor and I are happy, I said, and it just sounded like I was defending myself.

Of course you are, Phil said, but a smile played on his lips. I shook my head and pushed past him. It was my last class of the day, and I was tired. I wanted to go home. I wanted to shower away all the sweat and strain of a training, and I wanted to spend time with my boyfriend – the man I loved.

I’ll see you tomorrow, Phil, I said, lifting my hand in the air and waving without looking at him. I heard him chuckle behind me. I walked into the dim light of the setting sun and took my helmet off the