Compel Me: A Reverse Harem Vampire Romance (The Last Vocari Book 1) Read online

  COMPEL ME

  THE LAST VOCARI: BOOK 1

  Elena LAWSON

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Copyright © 2019 Elena Lawson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, incidents and dialogs are products of the author’s

  imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events is strictly

  coincidental.

  1

  The vampire’s final breath left his pale lips like a sigh.

  I toed his corpse with the tip of my heeled boot just make sure. Yep, he’s dead alright.

  Deader than dead, really, since he could have been changed years ago. It takes a while, but their hearts do stop beating. That bit was true.

  Strange then, how ramming a metal stake through the soft tissue and muscle killed them. I mean, if it wasn’t beating, anyway…

  I shook my head—I’d never really cared how it all worked, just that it did. I knelt down on the asphalt, careful not to kneel in the rapidly growing ring of deep red around his broken body and used his denim jacket to wipe off my stakes before sheathing them back into the leather rings on my inner thighs beneath my leather skirt.

  Leaning in, I peeled back his eyelids.

  “Damn,” I whispered, pushing the pale flaps of skin back down to cover his unseeing green eyes. He wasn’t the one I hunted. But he had fangs and the wreak of fresh blood on his breath and that was evidence enough against him in my books.

  Rising, I stretched out my back, cracked my neck. Sighed. I searched the deserted area around back of the bowling alley. It was a Tuesday night—well past midnight. I didn’t like leaving the bodies out in the open like this, but I didn’t see I had much other choice this time. This one had been a bonus. I wasn’t out to hunt—with my truck, tarp, shovel and rope. I’d been doing my laundry at the 24hr joint down the strip and left for some air and a cup of coffee when I saw him.

  The bloodsucker looked like he’d just come from a feeding. With color in his cheeks and the metallic reek of blood on him. I only hoped he’d left his victim alive, otherwise the police would be dealing with two bodies in the morgue tomorrow. Notifying one family that their sister, aunt, friend or father wouldn’t be coming home ever again.

  I shuddered.

  Ah! A dumpster. The green metal bin crouched against the weathered brick of the building, a few paces from a door marked ‘employees only’, but a staggering twenty feet or so from where I stood with the decaying vampire at my feet.

  “Hope you’re not as heavy as you look,” I said to him, and hoisted his body onto my shoulder, grunting with the effort. His blood dripped down my shoulder, staining my shirt.

  “You owe me a shirt,” I said, exasperated.

  His limp corpse proved heavier than I anticipated. But nothing I couldn’t manage. I’d conditioned my body for this. How else could a human woman take out fully matured vampires? Practice.

  And patience.

  And a little something extra.

  They were the only reasons I was still alive and so many of them were dead. I lifted the lid of the green bin and shoved him inside, a horrid smell wafting up from the black bags beneath him the moment he hit them. Ugh. I reached into his pocket and fished out his wallet, glad to see there were more than few hundreds tucked inside the flaps.

  Score.

  Reaching into the knot of black hair at the back of my head, I tugged free the small rosebud I’d tucked there before leaving the motel and tossed it atop the vamp’s chest. The lid fell closed and I stepped back, holding my breath to ward off the stench.

  I felt sorry for the poor employee who found him. It looked like rain tonight, but tomorrow would be hot as hell if the weatherman was to be trusted. And there’s nothing worse than the smell of dead guy in the morning.

  Here was hoping the little old lady back at the Soap ‘n Suds had finished her washing for the night. With this much blood on me, I’d wind up giving her a heart attack otherwise.

  “Seth!” Someone called from down the street, cursing under his breath. I’d always had great hearing, so when I heard the unmistakable sound of a numbers being dialed on a cell, I flipped open the wallet in my hand.

  There, in the little plastic covered card-slot was an i.d. card. Either a very good fake, or this guy was more recently changed. He looked just like in the photo. Seth Carfax.

  I rolled my eyes at the darkened sky. Couldn’t I have just one day off?

  Any second now the other vamp would smell the blood of his friend and be around the building.

  Looks like laundry will have to wait.

  But I couldn’t risk getting any more blood on my clothes. If I anyone spotted me on my way back to the laundry, I would draw too much attention. I didn’t feel like dealing with the local authorities tonight.

  The soles of the new player’s shoes slapped the pavement in quick steps as he came around the edge of the building. I was already on the ground, feigning injury. Just a pretty girl, helpless and all alone in the dark. No one around to hear me scream.

  Worked almost every time.

  He froze mid-dialing, and I resisted the urge to loose a sigh of relief. I hadn’t checked the one in the dumpster’s pockets for a phone, but I knew a ringing dumpster would be pretty fucking suspicious if he completed that call.

  His lips parted as he took in the sight of me. Dressed in a low-cut halter and short leather skirt. My boots hugging my calves all the way to my knees.

  “Please,” I said, in my most pleading high-pitched voice. “Please help me.”

  The vampire drew nearer, and I saw that I hadn’t been wrong about what he was. They had an air about them. I felt the presence of them in the atmosphere when they were near. Another learned ability.

  He walked over to me, and I hoped he wouldn’t see the enormous streak of blood twenty feet away. That he wouldn’t follow the drips to the trash bin over by the wall.

  But no, his focus narrowed squarely on me.

  That’s it. Come and get me.

  The vampire stood tall and lanky. Maybe six feet. Broad through the shoulders with a trim waist. A shock of white-blonde hair offset his dark eyes and sharp cheekbones. He reminded me of someone I used to know. Too bad he wasn’t still human—I’d climb him like a tree if he were. Such a waste.

  “I can’t get up,” I said as he approached, doing my best to hold his attention. “My leg, its—”

  He leaned down and I got him. His eyes locked on min—giving me the only leverage I needed.

  “Don’t move.”

  He stilled.

  I focused my mind on him and only him. It was the only way it worked, and even then, it could falter.

  He opened his mouth to speak as I rose to my feet. “Quiet,” I commanded.

  His lips sealed closed. A crease formed between his brows.
His lips curled in distaste. They really didn’t like it when I used their own ability against them. Compulsion was their power. On top of speed, agility, heightened senses and immortality.

  But it was also mine.

  “You’re wondering what I am, aren’t you?” I asked, my voice teasing as sweat beaded on both my brow and his. The focus of keeping him bent to my will exerted me more than any street fight could. My pulse soared and my chest tightened, constricting my breath to small, sharp inhales. I’d learned to get used to it, though. I could hold him like this for nearly an hour if I tried hard enough.

  I shrugged when he didn’t answer, smiling to myself knowing that he couldn’t even if he wanted to.

  “I’m lucky, I guess.”

  It was all I would allow myself to think. The fact I shared this trait with my victims made my skin itch. I hated it, but it was necessary. And very likely the only reason I hadn’t been drained dry yet. And the only reason I got away with doing everything I did.

  “But you,” I said, circling him. “Aren’t so lucky tonight.”

  I pulled out one of my metal stakes from between my legs and twirled it in my fingers, making sure he caught the glint of the cold hard steel in the moonlight. He made a strained sound in his throat, and I crouched down in front of him, meeting his eyes again, disappointed to find that they were both a dull brown. Not the guy, either.

  “What was that? Speak up.”

  He took a short, gasping breath, his eyes wide as he sputtered. “The Black Rose.”

  Huh?

  “I know who you are,” he said in a rush and my blood chilled. “They’re coming for you. They’ll kill—”

  “That’s enough,” I ordered. I was losing my edge. The compulsion slipping as his words wreaked havoc on my nerves. Stupid of me to allow him to speak at all. It didn’t happen often, given that only the strongest and oldest of them could compel at all…but if they compelled me before I could compel them…

  Well, let’s just say I didn’t ever want to know what would become of me if that happened.

  “Time to meet your maker,” I said, my tone bored as I reeled back and plunged the sharp edged metal into his hunched back, throwing all my body weight into the swing to make sure I broke through the bones of his ribs and hit my target.

  His breath left him in a great whoosh. He choked a bit on the inhale, and then he fell. My compulsion releasing him at the same moment his unnatural life ended.

  The Black Rose.

  I wiped off my stake on the ass of his jeans.

  So, they had a name for me now?

  I mulled over the new information, fighting against the logical half of my brain that screamed this was a very very bad thing. Listening instead to the twisted little minx who whispered in the dark recesses of my mind that that shit was badass.

  2

  I had the sneaking suspicion I should get out of town. I only stayed in one place for a week or two at a time anyway and I’d had my fill of this place. Besides, it was about time I popped by the house to check on things.

  The dead streets made for an easy retreat. I’d dumped vamp number two in with his buddy—though, regretfully, I’d only had the one rose. They would have to share. Just this once though, I didn’t want any of the other bloodsuckers to think The Black Rose was getting lazy. I found myself grinning again as I heaved my duffle into the back of my old black ford pick-up.

  I couldn’t help it. The nickname made me feel, I don’t know, special? No, that wasn’t the word. Infamous. Yes, that was it.

  I assumed it had something to do with my long shining black hair, the black leathers I wore while I hunted, and the fact I left a rose—a signature of sorts—with each of my kills. Though I never really left any alive to go blabbing, so, it was likely less to do with my appearance and more to do with the roses.

  Beautiful as the rose you were named for, my mother used to say to me when she was upset at something I’d done, but with more thorns than any flower. What would she think of me now? Since I’d discarded the petals and embraced the thorns?

  I’d like to think she was proud.

  It was her I did this for.

  After he tore out her…no. I wouldn’t think about that right now.

  I had places to be. More vampires to kill. If my gut instinct was right, they would be after me, now.

  They’re coming for you, he said before I drove my stake through his heart. It’s possible he was lying. Knowing he would die and wanting to thoroughly shake me. To scare me before he met his end. But I didn’t think so.

  The jingle of the bells atop the door pierced my thoughts and I turned to find the motel manager coming out from his officer, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His stained undershirt lifting at the waist to expose a rotund belly covered in curling black hair.

  “Hey there,” he called. I ignored him, tossing my sling purse into the cab and getting inside after it. Feeling around in the dark for my keys. “Just where do you think you’re off to?”

  His grubby fingers came to rest on the ledge of my open window. The damned thing stopped rolling up a few days ago. I really needed to get that fixed. But when you lived most your life on a night-time schedule, options were limited for a decent mechanic.

  “Out of here,” I told him, sighing. “Let go of my truck.”

  “Uh-uh,” he chastised, somehow managing to look down on me even though he had to peer up to meet my haughty stare. “You ain’t paid yet, miss.”

  I made an annoyed sound in my throat and reached across my lap for my purse. Under normal circumstances I’d just compel him. Tell him to forget I was ever even here. But I had the extra cash this time. Might as well pay up for once.

  “Or,” he said, drawing out the word as I reached into my stolen wallet for a few hundreds. “We can work something else out if you’re short on funds,” he said with a sly grin, fingering the thick dark mustache above his thin upper lip.

  I don’t know why I have faith in any species anymore…

  I knew I wasn’t hard on the eyes. Blessed with perky B’s and an ass that won’t fit into most jeans—I was soft in all the right places and hard in all the others from too many hours spent training. Add those to the fact that my ever-so-slightly-slanted amber eyes say fuck me even when I want them to say fuck off and I end up fending guys off most everywhere I go.

  But usually the scar over my neck turned them off. The thick white line of slightly raised scar tissue spoke of what I’d been through. What I’d survived.

  But fuck if it wasn’t ugly as hell.

  My usual hunting attire covered it, but normal clothes didn’t. I couldn’t wait until fall so I could start wearing thick scarves and turtlenecks again without sweating my ass off.

  “Listen,” I said, locking my gaze on him as I latched onto his mind. Letting the power of my compulsion lace my words. It was so much easier with humans. “Have I got your attention?”

  He regarded me with a slack jaw. Enraptured the moment my compulsion took hold. He nodded.

  “Good. You are going to let go of my truck, turn around, and walk back into your office and forget I was ever here. Then tomorrow you’re going to find yourself a nice church—proclaim yourself a born-again Christian and take a vow of celibacy that you will uphold for the rest of your miserable life. Oh! And you’ll shave that godawful mustache.”

  I paused for a breath. It wasn’t my most creative of punishments, but I was tired, and it would have to do. He wouldn’t be harassing any other young girls after tonight and that was the main thing.

  “Now go.”

  With a haze over his eyes and a zombie-like walk, he staggered back to his office.

  Pig.

  I found my keys and turned over the engine, relief flooding me when it turned over the first time. It’d been touch and go with ‘ol Betty for a while now, but I knew she’d pull through. “That’s my girl,” I whispered to my truck, patting her weathered dash. “Time to go home.”

  The drive from the small town
where I’d been to my hometown of Silverton, just an hour outside Portland took nearly until dawn. I couldn’t remember if I’d adjusted the dash clock the last time I crossed back into Pacific time, but if I had then there was exactly one hour and forty-eight minutes until it would cast its glow over the hills, painting the tops of the tall firs and pines in shades of gold and amber.

  I itched for it. The whole drive I’d had a wisp of that familiar hair-raising feeling. What happened with vamp number two earlier must’ve really shaken me. It felt like the vamp himself was following me home instead of just his words.

  A long swallow of the now-cold coffee I’d picked up along the way helped to shake off the feeling, bringing my focus back to the road and home.

  Silverton hadn’t been home since what happened with mom—since the men in suits came and took me away. They threw me into the foster care system, and I stayed there until I was sixteen. Then I ran.

  My ability manifested young, but it hadn’t truly blossomed—become the tool I use it as today until I was firmly in my teen years. I’d have left sooner if I could’ve.

  But somehow, even now, driving down to Silverton always felt like going home. Like even if my mind repelled the memories, or the majority of them were made before I had the brain capacity to capture them forever—my bones still remembered. A warmth settled into them. A sort of peace.

  I came to check on the house every time I came within reasonable driving distance. Sometimes I stayed a night or two—but that was rare. I couldn’t stand the sight of her things still hanging in the closet. The smell of her perfume in the bathroom seemed like it would never fade. So, usually I only stayed long enough to dust and sweep. Make sure no animals had gotten in. No squirrels or raccoons had made a nest in the attic like they did last summer.