Scarlet Heat Read online

  Scarlet Heat

  Born to Darkness Series book 2

  Evangeline Anderson

  KINDLE EDITION

  * * * * *

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Evangeline Anderson on Kindle

  Scarlet Heat

  Born to Darkness 2

  Copyright © 2013 by Evangeline Anderson

  Kindle Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  * * * * *

  Dedicated to Ditter

  Thanks for all your help with the plotting. You’re a great friend with an amazing talent.

  * * * * *

  Author's Note:

  Hi and thanks to everyone who is giving my Born to Darkness series a chance. I know you're all waiting for the next Kindred book and I promise it's coming—I hope to have it out this fall. I'm even including a portion of chapter 2 to keep you going. Look for it at the end of the book. (Hey, no fair skipping there now! Read Scarlet Heat first. lol)

  As always I would ask you to please not pirate my work. I keep the prices low so everyone can enjoy my books but this is how I make my living. If you're stealing my work or selling it or giving it away for free to strangers, you're taking money out of my pocket and harming my ability to care for my family. Please don't do that and if you see anyone else doing it, please e-mail me at [email protected] and let me know about it so I can stop it.

  I have an announcement that will make some of you happy—I am putting Claimed, the first book in my Kindred series into print. It's going through Creataspace on Amazon so it's POD or print on demand. Unfortunately because of the length of the book, the least it can be sold for is 9.75. That's pretty much as low as I could get it and I'll be making much less off the print books than I do off the Kindle editions—this is mostly for the readers who kept writing and asking for a print copy. If Claimed does reasonably well (by which I mean, if it at least makes back the money I put into getting it to print) I'll consider getting the other Kindred books into print as well. So if you like to have print copies of your favorite books, please check it out and let your Kindred fan friends know as well. Here's a link to the print book: https://www.createspace.com/4214214

  Okay, that's all for now except be watching for Ruby Shadows, the third book in the Born to Darkness series soon as wel

  l as Shadowed, Kindred 8. As well as any other stand alone novels my muse cooks up. Sometimes when I get blocked on one book, I have to write something completely different to get around the block. So you never can tell what's coming next…

  Hugs and Happy Reading to All of you!

  Evangeline on April 2013

  Prologue

  My name is Taylor Hendricks and I am a vampire.

  Oh God, that sounds like an introduction at a twelve step program to get over some kind of awful addiction, doesn’t it? But the only addiction I have is to blood—I can’t live without it. And vampirism isn’t something you can get over by going to weekly meetings—or at all, for that matter. The only thing that could cure me of being undead would be a swift stake to the heart or prolonged exposure to sunlight.

  To be honest, I have considered both options.

  Back in my human life, I always thought of myself as a strong, smart person. I was at the top of my class in school and I never needed any help to get by. I lived with my best friend Addison, and I was in my last year of veterinary college with my whole future ahead of me—it was a great life.

  Then Celeste came along. Celeste is a three-star vampire—meaning she has been undead for three centuries, making her incredibly old and powerful. She also happens to be incredibly cruel. For some reason, Celeste took a liking to me and turned me into a vampire against my will.

  I don’t know what she thought she saw in me but I don’t make a very good vampire. I just don’t seem to be suited for the whole undead business. I can’t glamour humans and even if I could, I can’t bear to do glam-sex—a kind of mental porno most vamps are capable of projecting into a willing human’s mind—in exchange for blood. In fact, I’m embarrassed to say that if it wasn’t for Addison’s willingness to be my donor, I probably would have wasted away entirely by now.

  My vampire mistress, Celeste, hated me for being a failure and treated me accordingly. She used me as a slave for the first six years of my new undead life. She beat me, berated me, and broke every bone in my body multiple times. And then it got worse.

  When the vampire Area Inquisitor came to town, Celeste gave me to him as his personal sex slave. Roderick did things to me that…well, I’m trying to forget them. I don’t want to say any more than that.

  Anyway, the whole miserable situation forced my friend Addison into an alliance with Corbin, the only vampire strong enough to take Celeste on and win. Unfortunately, though Corbin rescued me, Celeste and Roderick didn’t want to let me go. From what I heard, Roderick was talking about taking me back to meet the Undead Empress—also called The Lady of Shadows—at the vampire court.

  I’d rather meet the blazing sun at noon.

  In order to put me out of Roderick’s reach, my new master Corbin had me blood-bound to a werewolf named Victor. Now you have to understand that vampires and werewolves really don’t like each other. In fact, we’re pretty much mortal enemies and Victor made it plain he had no interest in marrying a “fanger” like me. I wasn’t too wild about having a hubby that got furry every full moon, either. But Victor owed Corbin fifty thousand dollars and I would literally rather have died than go back to Roderick. Victor was a better option.

  Corbin promised us both we need only stay together for three months—just enough time to satisfy the Laws of Ownership. But he did warn us that breaking the blood-bond between us early would have serious consequences—I don’t know what those might be and I don’t intend to find out. I’m just going to do my time like a good little vamp and when this whole thing is over maybe I can go back to veterinary school and get my life back on track.

  There’s only one problem—ever since I had Victor’s blood from the Chalice of Union during our “wedding,” I’ve been having the strangest…feelings. Feelings I thought I’d never have again for any male after what Roderick and some of Celeste’s other “friends” did to me. And now Victor has come to claim me.

  Oh God, what am I going to do?

  Chapter One—Taylor

  Sitting beside my new husband in his rugged black pickup truck, bouncing along down a bumpy unpaved road toward the huge werewolf’s land, I couldn’t help noticing how angry he seemed. His eyes glowed a steady animalistic gold in the deepening twilight and his scent, wild and musky and somehow entirely masculine, filled the cab of the truck.

  I was frightened of him—scared to death to be honest. I didn’t want to be this close to any male—especially not one who was angry at having me thrust onto him like a bloodsucking burden he couldn’t get rid of for the next three months. The way he’d looked at me when Corbin had informed him that he was expected to let me drink his blood was nothing less than completely disgusted.

  He hates me, I thought miserably. We don’t even know each other and he already hates me. God, I wish I didn’t need him. I wish I wasn’t so thirsty. His warm, animal scent was doing things to me, making my already dry throat feel like sandpaper. Giving me those strange feelings I’d been fighting almost from the moment I’d first drunk his blood from the Chalice of Union during our bri