Blood From a Stoner

By L. A. Witt

A paranormal gay romance with vampires & weed. In Seattle. Obviously.

 

Greg Dawson's not sure which he regrets more—becoming a vampire or becoming a software engineer. Immortality? Not all it's cracked up to be. The job? Way more headache than it's worth, especially on those increasingly frequent nights when he's overworked and hangry. With a deadline looming and his hunger growing, he's nearing the end of his tether. Then relief comes from an unexpected source—Zane Webber, the hot programmer Greg's been fantasizing about for two years.

Disregarding company policy, Zane lets him feed, but kind of forgets to mention he's got some weed in his system. The next thing Greg knows, he's high as a kite… and he likes it. He wants more. Except how much of that high is secondhand weed, and how much is the electric and undeniable chemistry between him and Zane?

That chemistry draws them back to each other again and again, and suddenly their downtime is full of sex, smoke, feeding… and emotions. The only problem is that Zane's a mortal. If they're in this for the long haul, then Greg has to either turn Zane or accept a future of watching him wither and die. Greg doesn't want to lose Zane, but he also can't stomach condemning him to this "life."

And if they can't find some middle ground, they'll have no choice but to let their love go up in smoke.

This novella is approximately 26,000 words.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GallagherWitt
• Release date: Mar 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781944426033

L. A. Witt

L.A. Witt is the author of Back Piece. She is a M/M romance writer who has finally been released from the purgatorial corn maze of Omaha, Nebraska, and now spends her time on the southwestern coast of Spain. In between wondering how she didn’t lose her mind in Omaha, she explores the country with her husband, several clairvoyant hamsters, and an ever-growing herd of rabid plot bunnies.

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Copyright Information

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Blood From a Stoner

First edition

Copyright © 2017, 2023 L.A. Witt

Cover Art by Lori Witt

Editor: Jules Robin

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact L.A. Witt at [e-mail]

ISBN: 978-1-944426-03-3

About Blood From a Stoner

Greg Dawson’s not sure which he regrets more—becoming a vampire or becoming a software engineer. Immortality? Not all it’s cracked up to be. The job? Way more headache than it’s worth, especially on those increasingly frequent nights when he’s overworked and hangry. With a deadline looming and his hunger growing, he’s nearing the end of his tether. Then relief comes from an unexpected source—Zane Webber, the hot programmer Greg’s been fantasizing about for two years.

Disregarding company policy, Zane lets him feed, but kind of forgets to mention he’s got some weed in his system. The next thing Greg knows, he’s high as a kite… and he likes it. He wants more. Except how much of that high is secondhand weed, and how much is the electric and undeniable chemistry between him and Zane?

That chemistry draws them back to each other again and again, and suddenly their downtime is full of sex, smoke, feeding… and emotions. The only problem is that Zane’s a mortal. If they’re in this for the long haul, then Greg has to either turn Zane or accept a future of watching him wither and die. Greg doesn’t want to lose Zane, but he also can’t stomach condemning him to this life.

And if they can’t find some middle ground, they’ll have no choice but to let their love go up in smoke.

This novella is approximately 26,000 words.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

Chapter 1

Nights like tonight, I seriously regret becoming a vampire. I regret becoming a software engineer too, but at least I could change that if I wanted to. In theory, anyway. The job market is offering me about as many options as the fridge in the staff breakroom.

TekNorth actually does keep the breakroom pretty well stocked. When you’re asking the mortal employees to be here for twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours at a time, you’re smart to load the place up with energy drinks, coffee, muffins, candy, chips, and the odd bowl of fruit no one notices except for the flies.

So the mortals are covered, but me and the other vampires? Those of us who also have to work insane amounts of unpaid overtime? TekNorth still hasn’t quite caught up with the times and figured out that Red Bull, Five Hour, and Seattle’s Best Coffee aren’t going to cut it. And until such time as someone invents a vending machine that caters to people like me…

Groaning, I press my elbows into my desk and rub my throbbing temples. I’m hungry. I’m tired. I haven’t had a day off in two weeks. This project is nowhere near ready for its rollout next Thursday. And if Samir doesn’t stop mumbling along to Taylor Swift and tapping his foot against our shared cubicle wall, I’m going to walk over there and bite him. It doesn’t matter that he’s also a vampire and it won’t do a thing to satisfy this excruciating hunger—I don’t have the energy to kick his ass, so a well-placed bite is the next best thing.

Fuck. I need some air. I really need to feed, but there’s no one here I can feed from. The soonest I’ll get hands on someone will be after I leave work, which will be an hour before sunrise. Ah well. Still won’t hurt to go walk around for a few minutes and wake myself up.

I switch my instant messenger to Away, push my chair back, and get up. I don’t say anything on my way out of the department. No one tries to stop me either. My department is almost entirely vampire—that’s why we’re all at work at night instead of during the day like our mortal colleagues—and everyone has been on a short fuse this week. The mortals can never understand why everyone is so bitchy over here during the high-intensity weeks leading up to a new release. If someone locked down the breakroom so they couldn’t get to their Red Bull and banana nut muffins, they’d get it.

Anyway, I leave without drawing any attention and head for the patio where our daytime coworkers have barbecues during the summer. It’ll be empty this time of night and that’s fine by me.

On my way past the endless cubicle farms, a poster with bright red writing and a red cross symbol catches my attention, and I roll my eyes so hard they nearly fall out of my skull. I’ve already got a hangry, and so help me if I see one more SIGN UP FOR THE BLOOD DRIVE poster, I’m going to bring this building down with cleansing fire.

The hallway out to the patio takes me past the breakroom full of neglected fruit and junk food I haven’t tasted in ten years. My stomach growls hard enough to register on the Richter scale. Life would be so much easier right now if I could swing in there and raid the vending machines. Even that sad-looking banana in the bowl of good intentions makes my mouth water. I barely remember what any of that stuff tastes like, and I know from experience that I will regret it if I have so much as a nibble, but even worshipping the porcelain god for the rest of night almost seems worth it because I am so… fucking… hungry.

With a pitiful sound that I’m hoping no one actually hears, I keep walking. Of course the Hallway of Horrors isn’t over yet. I have to go by the closed door of Human Resources.

Human Resources. Pfft. False advertising if you ask me. More like Mortal Resources, and it’s not like they have any humans there for those of us who need them as resources.

God. So. Hungry.

I’m really not this bitchy and whiny most of the time, but for fuck’s sake, a guy needs to eat once in a while. And especially since TekNorth bought out the smaller startup I’d been working for, these long dry spells are becoming a regular thing. TekNorth is based out of Chicago, a city that doesn’t have a lot of vampires anymore because Illinois seems to think immortality means it’s impossible to tax us to death. Vampires got sick and fucking tired of being—ironically—bled dry via taxes, and there was a mass exodus about twenty years ago. So it’s no surprise that the people running the company aren’t used to accommodating people like me.

Even now, our department head—a mortal who is likely sound asleep and digesting a nice dinner as we speak—doesn’t understand that our go home before sunrise policy isn’t negotiable. Or that a policy like that means we really can’t work as long in the summer as we can in the winter, and we’re honestly not just busting out so we can go to the beach or slack off. I’m serious—the guy knows less about vampires than he does about management. It takes either some brass balls or a special kind of stupid to tell a group of hungry, sleep-deprived vampires that since the meeting went late and the sun’s already up, we might as