The Soul of A Vampire #1

By Rachel E. Rice

When Zoey Miller was kidnapped as a young child, she never expected to meet the man whose family stole her innocence. After years of trying to remember that harrowing time she finally realized that the nightmare she tried to remember faded away.
All she wanted to be was a normal twenty-one year old and go out to a bar with her girlfriend, but life isn't what you want it to be it just is. On that night her girlfriend died and Zoey ended up in a coma.
When she woke, it was three months later, and standing before her a handsome pale stranger who refused to answer her questions.
All Sebastian Vesper wanted was to keep Zoey safe and prevent her from finding out about him, and especially his family, who wants her dead. He soon discovers that keeping Zoey safe is not so easy, especially with a bounty on her head by a witch who is in love with him, and a brother who wants to put a stake in his heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rachel E. Rice
• Release date: Mar 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370512164

Rachel E. Rice

My name is Rachel E. Rice. I have been writing since I was a teen. I enjoy reading and writing romance fiction.You can contact me at: [e-mail]; I have written several novels and short stories. My short reads are: The Captain and the Virgin; The Captain's Lady and the Pirate; The Captain's Revenge: a Triangle of Love and Sex; and two novellas: Book 1 Seduced by an Earl and Book 2: The Naked Countess. A historical novella set in 1960: Tamika Jade: The case of the Girl with the Rose Tattoo.My contemporary novels are: The Obsession series, which begins with Book 1: Warm Bodies, Cold Hearts; Book 2 in the series is Naked Obsession. Book 3 : Burning Obsession.These following books are erotic romances. Book 1: The Incredible Mr. Black. Book 2: Temptation in Black, and Book 3: Submission To Black. All books are available and books 4 Black Tie Affair and 5 Mourning Becomes Black was published in 2016. Coming soon Book 6, Fade To Black will be available in Jan. 2017.Because I enjoy writing in different genres, my New Adult novel: Finding Summer, is available for purchase as well as another stand-alone edition: One Desire.My Werewolf Series Book 1: Insatiable: The Lone Werewolf finds a Mate, and Book 2: Insatiable: A Werewolf's Hunger is available where all e-books are sold. Book 3 of the Insatiable Series is available as well as seven more books in this series.When I'm not writing, I am watching movies and riding throughout the U.S meeting people.I have a degree in education and I reside in Texas.

Book preview

Author’s note: This is the first book in my new vampire series. If you enjoy the book, sign up for my Newsletter for the latest news and I have more paranormal romance books you may be interested in reading. And I have a new website coming this year (2017). Book 2 coming soon.

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Chapter One-Zoey

You can wake up, look outside and see the sun shining for the first time in months and think this is a great day. And then you wake up the next day and it’s a cold, dark, rainy, patchy, What the F happened day?

The only problem with that short sighted analysis was, it wasn’t the next day for me, but three months later. Three months of my life had just sunk into darkness. It’s like losing your paycheck after you’ve put in a grueling two weeks of work at a soul sucking job, only to drop the money on the sidewalk, coming out of the bank.

It was like that for me, only worse.

My memory came back slow and uneven. I glanced around the room and I know I’m not in a hospital, but someone’s home. Not even my home if I remember correctly. This place is a mansion compared to the dingy apartment I shared with my roommate Terry in Central Seattle on Twenty-Third Street. Apartment 2 B.

All I’m thinking about now is it’s all Terry’s fault. What I wanted to do during semester break was relax. Maybe drive to California and bathe in that sunshine I hear so much about and can only see in movies or television.

Terry was the one who convinced me to go to this bar. I should have fucking known better. She said it was to relax and have a drink and maybe play a game of pool. I can hear her now, Zoey, get your ass in gear, and let’s hang tonight.

Why? You don’t need me for what you want to do. I need my rest, I said putting on a tee shirt and ready to jump into the bed with a snack and my IPhone. I wanted to browse the social sites and see what the world was doing because there was no way I was doing that shit tonight. 

You can rest when you’re dead, she said pulling the covers from me. We’re too young to just go to work and school and never do anything that’s exciting. I closed my eyes and huffed my breath into the air.

For once I needed her to leave me alone. But she never did. She made an art form out of begging and nagging to get what she wanted from me. Like when she was short on rent because she spent it on a night out with her boyfriend or boyfriends. She knew I saved every dime I could get my hands on and worked in the school library to pay for my rented used books.

I decided it was easy to give in this time. 

OK, but just this once, I squawked at her with a furrowed brow, and stop being a pest. If I wanted to be nagged I’d stayed in my mother’s house. It feels like I never left with all the junk you’ve been hoarding. Look at this, what the fuck is that? I said. I held up a stuffed squirrel or large rat neither she nor I knew what to make of it.

She grabbed it from me, held it like a baby and then threw it in the corner with a box full of stuff animals collecting dust. 

What’s this? I picked up a piece of iron that had feet. You spent our food money on that I bet. You’re not borrowing another dime from me, I said.

This is expensive, she said with narrow eyes and ripping it from my hands and then placing it carefully on a table which looked like something she carried from my grandmother’s house during the estate sale. The table another useless piece of rubbish. It took up needed space in this small apartment. It just sat there for collecting dust, and piles of future junk.

I’m going to sell it at an auction and make a lot of money and then let’s see what you say then.

Yeah, an expensive piece of garbage no doubt. And no one’s going to give you a dime for it. You can eat it next week, I said mumbling to myself, as I stepped into my one pair of old worn jeans, which had been resting on a hanger in my closet.

Reaching for my leather jacket, I threw it over a blue sweater. I knew Terry’s taste in bars, men, junk, and they were about the same, a lot of trash and a little bit of flash, so who would notice me? I didn’t fit in with that crowd. I just didn’t fit.

Terry wore her brown hair short, when she wasn’t experimenting with the colors black, blond, purple or pink. Her blue eyes were large and expressive. She wore a ready smile for everyone. Me, I was the picture of sadness.

I wore my auburn hair long to hide behind.   

Terry I thought of as being a smart girl and fearless, at least that was my impression before she announced she was having her nose and nipples pierced. Then it came to me. I had given her more credit because of her seemingly matured outward appearance. I knew something wasn’t right when she said, Guys like this kind of shit. Then she tried to show me her pierced nipples.

I’m not interested. I have a pair.

Yeah, but they don’t look like this and she flashed me.

Save them for someone who cares if your breasts are gigantic, I said.

I bet you’re jealous with those little virgin tits, she said to me. I rolled my eyes because she wanted me to be an exhibitionist like her.

We were now ready to leave the apartment to go to that place I didn’t want to go to or be caught dead in. Terry led the way outside as I locked the door. We would take her broken down yellow and black Volkswagen Bug with the torn convertible top, as opposed to walking in the rain because I didn’t own a car, and as Terry said, Beggars can’t be choosers.

She cranked up the car and we took off in her Beetle and I could swear they were still making these cars when my grandmother was a teenager because it looked just like hers.

Arriving at the Stick and Balls around eleven was perfect. I glanced up at the title as we passed by. Just perfect, I mumbled. Terry acted like she didn’t hear me. There was no way I would spend more time than I had to at a place call stick and balls. The title conjured up all kinds of mind movies. 

I imagined we could get in a game of pool, have a drink, and be home before midnight. Terry found a parking space behind the bar. It’s dark back here. Do you think we’re safe? I asked.

You’re always worried about safe. A life isn’t worth living unless you’ve come close to death. I rolled my eyes at her. She was always throwing out little pearls like this when I first met her. Maybe that’s why I came to believe she knew something I didn’t know. Now I know better after living with her.

What the fuck, Terry. You’re now a philosopher? You barely passed your first year class and now you’re throwing words around like you know something about life. For fuck sake I’m twenty one and you’re twenty three and I want to live to see my next birthday which happens to be in two months.

I was just trying to relax you and cheer you up. She shrugged turning the car motor off.

How about doing it a different way and back this thing up and park near a light.

Ok. Ok, she huffed. If it will make you happy, she said with an impatient dry tone to her voice.

Yes it will. Terry started the car and backed out of the parking lot and found parking space near the club.

This must be our lucky day, what do you know a parking space right in front, Terry said as if she had anything to do with it. Her front of the bar and my front were two different things. Her interpretation of things were the opposite of mine.  

Glancing over at her as she carefully parked her piece of junk, I said, This isn’t exactly right in front and it looks dark here.

I can’t do anything about that. Now let’s get out and have some fun for once before it’s midnight. And before you find something else to complain about.

What about midnight?

That’s when I turn into a pumpkin if I can’t get a man on top of me. I glanced at her and rolled my eyes again.

Is everything with you about men? I said.

Yes. What else is there in life? She said smiling and looking into the mirror and putting on another coat of red lipstick and black eyeliner. 

We hopped out of the car, but the parking space wasn’t exactly in front of the bar where I thought she should have parked. We still had to walk a long block to get there. Good thing I wore flats. Terry on the other hand wore her spike heels even with jeans.

Don’t walk so fast, Zoey. I need your arm.

No one told you to wear those high heels. I stopped and she grabbed my hand. Now someone will think we’re lesbians.

Let them think whatever they want. We know better. I wish I was as confident as Terry was but I’m not. I have all kinds of insecurities. Maybe it’s because of my childhood. 

There wasn’t a problem getting into the club. No lines or a bouncer at the door. We walked in because it was the middle of the week, and eleven o’clock. Usually you can’t move inside the club or get a pool table, but tonight was different. It had just the right amount of people inside, not too crowded, and the music was intense, but low, and you could talk to someone if you wanted to without screaming.

When Terry entered she waved at the bartender and he shouted, There’s a table in the back for you. He pointed and she looked back.

You’re not leaving me yet, are you?

What, am I a twin? I don’t need you to play a game of pool. There are plenty of hunks on the prowl. She smiled and I gave her a quick closed smile back. Not yet. I need a beer first. And she gave the bartender a wave.

Terry turned to me and rolled her eyes, and I shrugged at her. So what? I didn’t want to be here in the first place to play pool or have a drink. All I could think about was getting home and getting in my bed. And check Twitter.

I sat on a bar stool because no one was near me, except Terry. If I had spotted a man sitting there, I would have chosen a table.

Turning nervously, because I felt eyes staring at me, I turned to my right. That’s when I spotted a figure of a man dressed in black. I narrowed my eyes to get a better look because of the dim lights in the club. I still couldn’t see him well. Not with two men standing in front of him. But he was taller than they were and I saw his eyes. They appeared to be green or blueish. He peered at me with an intense erotic glare as if he could devour me with just that look.

I felt weak. My hands trembled, my breathing accelerated. I found his invading stare tortuously disturbing. I wanted to run. I wanted to cry. I wanted to jump into his arms. All these feeling came at me at once flooding my body with intense desire for him.

But who is he and why does he have that control over me?  

His hair dark, his face pale, set off those bluish-green eyes. He wore a black turtleneck sweater under a black leather jacket and dark pants. He commanded the room. Tall and confident with his head erect like most Alpha males.

Sitting like a statue, I turned my head to look at Terry. She on the other hand had her eyes on someone sitting at a table with his girlfriend. I turned back to see if the guy was still standing in the same place. He was, but the two men in front of him talking and drinking beers, were now gone. I had a clear view of him. He wore an expression of satisfaction with his small closed smile.

I lowered my eyes when our gaze locked and I felt his forceful look. Why did I feel as if I had seen those eyes before? He had a profound effect over me. My unstable pulse wouldn’t let up. I couldn’t control it. I felt in a daze as if I could faint.

That’s all I needed was to faint and fall to the floor. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Then he could pick me up and whisk me away to his place and we would live happily ever after and I would have his babies. He looked like he could make beautiful babies.

Chapter Two-Zoey

It had been unsettling knowing his eyes were fixed on me and affecting my body until I couldn’t move if I wanted. It was unsettling to know that someone could stare at me and I would feel compelled to follow after him if he desired.

Not many men could stare me down in that profound way and have me fantasizing about him controlling me. Taking me. Owning me. But maybe I never noticed. But I’m noticing now, and somewhere between liking it and hating it, I find I enjoy his powerful presence.

Thinking he would leave, he stood there in one spot watching at me. His face pale and handsome but it seemed familiar none the less. My eyes locked on his and when I tilted my head to wonder why me, I felt a touch.

Terry tapped me on my shoulder. I jumped because I was surprised and I had forgotten she was sitting near me drinking her beer. I hadn’t notice when the barman brought the beer because my mind was on that handsome intriguing man standing in the corner observing me.

I’m going in the back to get in a game of pool. Want to come? she said. I barely heard her over my own thoughts.

No. I’ll stay here and drink my beer. My voice sound as if it was a mile away and I had just awaken from a