Nephyrae:The Vampire's Cousin Read online

  Nephyrae: A Paranormal Romance

  Nephyrae:The Vampire's Cousin

  By

  Dee Ashford

  Heaven clicked through the television channels one by one. There was absolutely nothing on. At all. On any of the two hundred and sixty-four channels that her satellite company sold her for the low price of fifty dollars a month.

  Which wouldn’t be so bad. If she hadn’t just lost her job.

  Heaven Golding, all of twenty-eight years old, had been trying to find new employment for three days now without luck. And you’d think that in a city of several million people like New York City, there would be plenty of jobs to be had.

  She sighed and shut the television off. Her head thumped back against the couch cushions. Her short dark hair flopped across her forehead as she did. She felt a headache starting behind her eyes. Possibly because she hadn’t eaten all day, but more likely because she hadn’t had a soda yet today. She needed a caffeine rush.

  Pushing herself up she went into the kitchen and got a can of Pepsi from her fridge. It was the last one in there. She’d have to go shopping soon, which would deplete her bank account even further.

  “Way to feel sorry for yourself, Heaven,” she mumbled.

  The phone rang. Heaven set the soda can down quickly and jumped to answer it. She had laid the receiver down somewhere else, though, and now she couldn’t find it. She swore softly under her breath as she tossed the couch cushions and tossed newspaper want ads off the table. Where was the thing?

  The answering machine beeped and her voice told whoever it was to leave a message. Heaven threw her hands up in frustration.

  “Yes, this is Wesley DiMarlo calling from All The Wrong Places,” a squeaky man’s voice said after the second beep. “You recently applied for a waitressing position here with us and I’m calling because we have a position that just opened up. If you’re still interested you can call us back before seven tonight. Thank you.”

  Heaven bounced on her heels. Yes! That’s what she needed. Well. Waitressing wasn’t her first choice. But at this point, she’d take anything.

  Screw calling them back, she thought. She’d go down there right now and tell them in person she wanted the job. The club was six blocks away from her. The fact that it was walking distance was one of the reasons she had applied in the first place.

  She needed a shower. She hadn’t bothered even getting dressed this morning. Taking a last sip of her soda she put the can back in the fridge. There on the shelf next to the carton of expired milk, the handset for the portable phone sat, its little red message light blinking.

  Halfway into her first week, Heaven realized she had finally found a job she could keep. All The Wrong Places was a cozy bar and restaurant. The menu was limited to a few different kinds of burgers, a rib platter, and a selection of soups and chillies. Most people who came in did so for a drink or two. Or more.

  But the patrons were friendly and most were good tippers. And she could wear jeans and a t-shirt if she wanted to. Heaven was skinny and wore a c-cup bra. The male patrons noticed. It helped with the tips.

  The other people who worked here had been decent to her right from the start. The bartender, Bronson, always had a smile for her. It looked good on his strong features. She didn’t think he got to smile much.

  The squeaky-voiced owner of the place, Wesley DiMarlo, was a little man with a good heart. He had put her to work the day after she came in to say she still wanted the job. Full time hours. Limited benefits, but she hadn’t expected much in the way of those. She just needed the money.

  There were two other waitresses that worked there. One who worked the morning shifts, Bonnie, was nice but didn’t talk much. The other, Gloria, worked the swing shift which put her on part of the time that Heaven was there. Gloria was the one downer to the whole crew. She snapped at everyone, grumbled under her breath whenever things didn’t go her way, and then wondered why people didn’t tip her well.

  Now, Heaven went up to the long bar at the far back of the open main room and set her order pad down to read it to Bronson. “Table six wants a Veggie Burger hold the lettuce, a Big Boy Burger well done, and two light beers.”

  Bronson looked at her notes for a second and then smiled at her again. “You sure that’s what it says?”

  “Hey,” she said, moving around to the backside of the bar to draw the beers from the tap. “You making fun of my handwriting?”

  “It needs making fun of?” Bronson asked with a wink. She and Bronson had become quick friends over the past few days. He was funny and easy to talk to. His blonde good looks and muscular body didn’t hurt her opinion of him, either.

  He tore the page from her order pad and put it on the cook’s turntable hanging from the open window behind the bar before dinging the little service bell. Sven, the cook for Wrong Places took the slip and went to work. Heaven hadn’t met him yet. He just kind of did his work, and then left.

  “So I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Bronson said to her. “What kind of name is Heaven?”

  She set the two glasses of foamy beer on her serving tray and smiled back at him. “What kind of name is Bronson?”

  “My parents named me after the actor.”

  “Oh yeah? Guess what my parents named me after.”

  He chuckled as she walked away with the drinks.

  The rest of the night went smoothly. She was really starting to like this job. She figured tomorrow she’d hit up Wesley for an advance on her pay, maybe get some bills taken care of and buy some groceries. Stuff like that.

  After they stopped serving at one in the morning, and after she had helped Bronson clean the place up, she grabbed her coat and told Bronson she’d see him tomorrow.

  “Hey, Heaven,” he called to her before she could walk out. “You want me to walk you home?”

  She grinned at him. “Why Bronson, I’m surprised at you. I never take a man home on the first date.”

  He shrugged. “Bad neighborhood out there.”

  His concern for her was nice. It felt good to have people in her life who cared about her again. “It’s all right. Really. My apartment is only a few blocks away.”

  Bronson put the last of the chairs upside down on the tables. “You’re sure?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’ve been walking the streets without an escort for years now. Trust me, I’ll be fine.”

  He looked like he wasn’t so sure, but he didn’t say anything else.

  Heaven walked out into the chilly summer’s night air and headed home. Bad part of town or not, there weren’t many people out this time of night. She walked two blocks and hardly saw anyone. She was humming to herself, thinking that maybe she could ask Bronson to take her out for a drink sometime, when the guy in the black coat stepped in front of her.

  “Excuse me,” she said, and went to walk around him.

  He grabbed her arm. “Hello, Heaven. I like your name.”

  Shocked, she looked at his face. There was something familiar about it. Then she remembered him from the lunch rush today. Tall, dark red hair, and a pinched face. And very unfriendly eyes.

  “Let go of me, creep!” she said.

  “Now, now, that’s not nice. A girl with a name like yours should be nicer.” He started pulling her toward an alley that lead away from the sidewalk between two closed businesses.

  “No!” she told him, digging in her heels and trying to break away from his grip. He laughed at her, and kept drawing her toward that alley. She knew if he got her there, he would try to do things to her people didn’t do in the daylight.

  A dark form suddenly stood behind Heaven’s assailant. “Hey, the lady said no.”

  Heaven recognized the voice, even i
f she couldn’t see the face.

  Bronson.

  “Buzz off, this is none of—”

  The red-headed pig-faced man never got to finish his thought. Bronson grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him away from Heaven.

  And then picked him up into the air and threw him into the alley. Heaven heard the guy land, hard, against a metal trashcan. His body fell limply to the alley floor. Bronson clapped his hands together as if he were wiping away filth. Then he turned to her.

  Heaven gasped. His eyes were red. Not bloodshot, red. A long, tapered tongue slipped back into his mouth as she watched. And his usually handsome face was puffed out, the neck stretched into a rounded, scooped shape.

  She took a step back from him. “Bronson?”

  He blinked several times and then shook his head again, and again, and when he looked at her again he was the man she knew from Wrong Places.

  So what had he been a few seconds before?

  He sighed and nodded, as if she had said something to him. “I understand. I’ll go now, if you sure you’re okay.”

  “You’ll…wait, what? No, I’m okay, I mean, but…what?” She stumbled over her words and she thought she felt her hands trembling.

  His smile was sad. “This is usually the part where any woman I’ve been interested in tells me she doesn’t want to see me again. The part where they see what I am. I hadn’t meant to show it to you, not this quickly, but under the circumstances…you know.”

  She did?

  When she didn’t say anything else, he turned and shrugged into his jean jacket as he walked away.

  Heaven was too confused to think straight. She looked from Bronson to the guy softly moaning in the alley. Then back to Bronson. She might not understand everything that had just happened but she knew this much: Bronson had just saved her life.

  “Bronson, wait a sec!” She ran to catch up to him, and when he turned back, she leaned up and kissed him on his cheek. His skin felt warm and soft against her lips, no different than any man’s had ever felt to her.

  He put his fingertips to where she had kissed him as if he had to touch the spot to believe it.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,”she said to him. “And, uh, maybe we can talk after work?”

  He nodded. He was still staring at her as she turned and started out for her apartment again.

  Work lasted far too long for Heaven the next night. She talked to Bronson about what orders people had made, what food or drinks they wanted, and they said very little else to each other. But she kept looking at him out of the corner of her eye. And every time she looked at him, he was looking at her, too.

  Gloria caught her in the women's bathroom during their shift. The other woman checked to make sure no one was in the two stalls, then turned to Heaven with her hands on her hips.

  “You should stay away from Bronson. Man ain’t nothing but trouble.”

  Heaven gaped at the dark-skinned woman. “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “You heard. Trouble. You want I should spell it for you, too? I seen the way you two been looking at each other. Ain't no good gonna come of it. You mark my words.”

  She had nodded to Heaven curtly, as if that had settled the whole thing, and walked out of the ladies room again.

  Heaven shook her head. Some people needed to mind their own business. Still, after what she had seen Bronson do last night, and what she had seen him become, Gloria’s words weighed heavy on her mind.

  After work, after cleaning the bar and after Bronson had locked the place up, he slipped on his faded jean jacket and turned to her with a shy look. “You sure you want me to take you for a drink?”

  Heaven nodded. She had thought it through more than once, and she was sure. “I think I’d like to hear about you.”

  “Even after Gloria told you I was trouble?”

  She blinked. “You heard that?”

  Bronson pointed to each ear. “I have really good hearing.”

  Heaven was sure she was blushing. There had been a conversation between her and Bonnie in the women’s bathroom when she had said how delicious—her exact words—Bronson looked.

  “Come on,” Bronson told her. “I know a place that’s still open.”

  They went around the corner to a hole in the wall bar and ordered two long-neck bottles. They sat in a booth way in the back.

  Bronson cleared his throat. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  “I wasn’t scared.” When he looked at her with his head to one side, she added, “Well, not much. I mean, I was more surprised than anything. What happened to you?”

  He took a drink of his beer before answering. “Okay. I’m going to tell you all of this, because…because I like you. Damn, that sounded more juvenile in words than it did in my head. But still. I’m going to tell you all of it and then you can tell me if you don’t want me around you anymore. I’ll understand.”

  “Is it that bad?” she asked.

  He shrugged.

  “Are you human?”

  He laughed at her question. “Well, you got to that quicker than most women I’ve known. I’m sort of human. When I’m like this I’m as human as the next guy.”

  “Got all the same parts?” she asked.

  Well. She had to know.

  He smirked and rolled the beer bottle between his hands. “Yeah, all the male parts are there. But there’s another side to me. Another half of me, if you want to look at it that way. When I get angry, or frustrated, or really, really tired, the other part comes out.”

  Heaven sat up straight. “You’re a—”

  “Please don’t say vampire,” he interrupted.

  She choked the word back. She had been about to ask exactly that. “Well, okay then, what do you call yourself?”

  “Bronson.”

  She waved a hand. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. But it’s important for you to know that I’m no different than the first day you met me. I’m still Bronson. Always will be. But to answer your question, I’m something you’ve probably never heard of. We’re a distant cousin to the vampire, kind of. See, when the mood takes me, I get strong. Real strong. My neck puffs out, like you saw, right? And there are these poison glands there that can squirt out a neurotoxic gas. It’s a defense mechanism, really. It doesn’t hurt so much as it just puts people to sleep.”

  “And the red eyes?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “They turn red.”

  “That’s all? They don’t, like, see through walls or something?”

  He laughed, an open and honest laugh. “No. And I can’t shoot lasers from them either. My blood runs hot when I change. It floods my eyes and turns them red. That’s all.”

  “What else?” She hadn’t realized she had leaned closer to him, over the table, until her beer bottle touched his.

  “What else? That isn’t enough?”

  She shook her head. “I want to know it all. Those are some damned fine strengths you get from this whatever-it-is. Plus super hearing. What are the down sides?”

  Bronson looked away from her. He downed most of the rest of his beer. “I don’t want to talk about that. Not yet.”

  Heaven put her hand over his where he held his beer, felt the warmth of his skin, the cold glass. It felt…natural for her. Like she’d known this man longer than half a week.

  “Bronson, it’s okay. You can tell me. I want to know, really.”

  As she watched, a single tear fell out of the corner of his eye.

  “I feed off people’s life energy. That guy last night? The reason he didn’t fight back is because as soon as I touched his shoulders, I was feeding on him. Sucking chunks of his energy, his aura, his soul, whatever you want to call it, to feed the monster in me.”

  Wow, was all she could think.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  He stared at her, his mouth hanging open. “Do you know,” he said, “I’ve told my secret to maybe half a dozen women over the years, starting back when I was in high school
. You, Heaven, are the first one to ask me that question. Everyone else has either asked me if I enjoyed it, or called me sick, or they leave long before now.”

  He let go of his bottle and held tighter to her hand. She let him.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” she prompted gently.

  He looked down at the table top and nodded his head. “Yes. It hurts. Inside here.” He tapped his chest with his free hand. “I know what I’m doing, but I can’t stop myself. I need to feed. Physically need to feed on these people. I can’t stop myself.”

  She turned his hand over without letting go of it. “You’re not doing it now.”

  “I’m not in the change now. If you ever see me like that again, don’t touch me. Don’t let me touch you. I’m a danger to everyone around me when I’m like that.”

  Gloria's words rang again in Heaven’s mind. “You should stay away from Bronson. Man ain’t nothing but trouble.”

  But she didn’t get up. And she didn’t walk away.

  When they finally left the bar to walk home, out on the sidewalk Heaven leaned in close to Bronson and lightly rested her hands on his arms.

  “I like you too, Bronson,” she said.

  He looked like he wanted to speak, but he didn’t. Instead, with halting slowness he leaned down to her and brushed his lips against hers. She opened her mouth to him, and then he was kissing her more strongly, with a passion she felt as well. As he pulled away from her she closed her eyes, feeling him against her mouth still. She licked her lips as though to taste him on her.

  “So,” she said. “What do you call the monster inside you?”

  “Nephyrae,” he answered with one corner of his mouth twisted up. “It’s a mouthful, I know.”

  From behind Heaven a voice spoke to them. “Most of us, we just call them monsters.”

  Bronson and Heaven both turned to see Gloria standing there, her dark skin flushed, her eyes burning with hatred.

  And a gun in her hand.

  “I told you he be nothing but trouble. But you didn’t want to go and listen to me, now did ya?” She snorted. “Too bad. I kinda liked you, you know? But you got some horrible taste in men.”