Read Online The Fertile Vampire by Karen Ranney - Free Book Online Page B

of unexpected death - quite another to witness it.  
    Hell, I hadn’t even realized I was dying when Doug bit me.  
    I pulled into my parking place, grateful my neighbor had finally parked straight. Mr. Gunderson was a lovely man, but his depth perception sucked. He always thought he left enough room between our cars in the covered, assigned parking, but most of the time I had to park in the guest spots. Tonight, fortune - and Mr. Gunderson - smiled on me.  
    Grabbing the packet from school and my purse, I hotfooted it through the complex to my townhouse. It was a small place, but bigger than the one I had right out of college. Every year the rent went up until I was thinking of buying my own house. With the money from the Death fund, I could.  
    I tossed the packet on the bar and walked upstairs.The townhouse had two bedrooms, with the master suite upstairs and a smaller full bath downstairs next to the second bedroom. I’d converted it into an office, but I hadn’t been in there for two weeks.  
    Amazing how your life can change on a dime.  
    I was nearly desperate for a shower, as if I could wash away the events of the last few hours. I peeled off my clothes, leaving them in a trail as I walked into the bedroom. The hot water was barely warm when I stepped into the shower but I didn’t care.  
    I had to get clean.  
    Leaning my head back with my eyes closed, I let the water hit me. When it got hotter, I didn’t move, feeling the need to be purified. I started to cry, not at all surprised.  
    Sometimes, the only thing you could do in a situation was cry. Maybe that’s why I would never be a badass: too emotional. I might even be too emotional to be a vampire. I felt things strongly. When I was angry, I was furious. When I was sad, I was in the pits.  
    Several things I couldn’t think about any longer. My family, for one. Those friends I thought I had. I missed everyone and I wanted to explain. This hadn’t been my choice. But the choice to live, even as a vampire, had been one I’d freely made.  
    I didn’t want to die yet. So shoot me.
    Poor Ophelia. I felt even worse about my jealousy now she was dead. But if she’d been alive, standing in front of me, I’d probably still be jealous. She was everything I wasn’t. Beautiful, check. Accomplished, check. Talented? She probably had played piano by ear.  
    I was still jealous of a dead woman. What did that make me?  
    Pathetic, that’s what.  
    I finished my shower, got into my gauze nightgown and padded downstairs. I don’t wear slippers. I’m not a shoe gal anyway. I’d rather be barefoot. Wearing really high heels only lasted a few weeks for me. My arches ached and my back hurt. Plus, I couldn’t move like the sinuous models on TV, hips rotating from left to right. I had a tendency to take a tentative step, rock a little, then take another step. As a friend once told me, it looked like I had something between my legs I was trying to grind to a pulp.  
    I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I grabbed a bottle of wine, the same bottle I was saving for an important occasion, from the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. Now seemed like a great time. Tonight had taught me two lessons: I wasn’t as immortal as I thought and I was desperately lonely.  
    My purse was on the table in the hall. I picked it up, noticed the packet and took that, too, along with my bottle of wine and the glass. Once in the living room, I plunked down on the sofa, stretching my feet out on the leather ottoman.  
    I remoted the TV on, not paying any attention to the news. Instead, I opened my purse, pulled out the bag of Mexican pastries and ate the head off a cinnamon pig.  
    After I polished off a few pigs, washed down with a decent Chablis, I motored through the rest of the pastries. The world was not a bad place when you ended the day with white wine and Mexican cookies.  
    Picking up the envelope, I studied the handwriting. My name was written in