Read Online Vampire Instinct by Joey W. Hill - Free Book Online Page A

swept and the rugs, in interesting designs she expected were Indian, were bright and clean.
    The main sitting area was an open layout with chess- and checkerboards. That and packs of cards, a left-behind coffee mug, suggested staff members might gather there during off-hours, which she found interesting since she recalled a bunkhouse outside. While Danny treated her men well, they weren’t encouraged to come sprawl in her home, on her lovely mahogany furniture and needlepoint pillows.
    The furniture was sturdy and natural-looking, the chair arms retaining the knotted appearance of the trees from which they’d been created. The back of the sofa was woven sapling branches. She wondered if they’d ever considered weaving fresh flowers into them, so whoever lay there could inhale their sweet scent. Despite the rustic appearance, thick, deep cushions scattered about made it all look appealing and comfortable. Warm fleece throws were tossed over the backs of a couple chairs.
    The kitchen had a pass-through area and a radio. Currently, it played Big Band against a layer of static. Like on the station, the hands probably passed their leisure hours listening to the radio while mending, telling stories, playing cards and the like.
    A stairwell led to a lower level, subterranean for vampire guests to sleep without worry of the sun. For capricious reasons of her own, Danny sometimes chose to sleep in an upstairs room, the curtains securely closed. Dev always slept with her then, refusing to leave her so near the damaging morning sun without his watchful guard. When Elisa brought in a breakfast tray near twilight, Dev’s meal as well as a glass of juice to mix with his blood if Danny chose to take it that way, her lady would be lying across Dev and slumbering peacefully. Her blond hair would be a beautiful sweep of gold along immodestly bared shoulders, her naked breast concealed only where it was pressed against Dev’s chest. He’d be stroking her hair to aid her sleep, and would nod at Elisa, giving her a faint smile and a gesture to show her where to put the tray. She’d never walked in on Dev asleep. He was alert as a cat.
    Watching that large, capable hand soothe her lady’s brow, stroke down the bare spine, Elisa hadn’t wondered that Danny felt so secure that close to the sun, so safe. For some reason, Elisa remembered standing against Malachi in Leonidas’s cage. Since that made no sense, she pushed it away as the product of an overstressed mind.
    Just like humans, most vampires didn’t have a Dev or a Willis. They looked after their own safety. Hence, most slept on lower levels where the sun couldn’t be an immediate threat. Besides that, she knew from Dev that younger vampires had a harder time getting a good night’s rest if they weren’t deeper in the earth. Mal was younger than Danny was, and she was still considered young by vampire standards, at a little more than two hundred. So he likely slept in that subterranean level.
    All in all, seeing a world similar to the one in which she’d lived for the past few years made Elisa feel a little better. No one was in the main room or visible out in the yard through the large windows, so the staff was either sleeping in the bunkhouse—there was no telling whether humans in a vampire’s employ kept his hours or their own—or had risen long ago, going about their duties. She hastened her step. She hadn’t meant to sleep the day away.
    Though Mr. Malachi had ordered her to sleep eight hours, she knew how it was with vampires. They weren’t that different from human employers. If one did a semblance of the more irrational things they wanted, they were fine. As long as they weren’t paying too close attention.
    When Lady Constance had been her Mistress, Elisa had been able to convince her that Ian was giving her no trouble, because she didn’t want to worry the already troubled mistress of the house. Technically it was true, though it took the combined efforts of