Dying to Live
Chapter One
I have a reoccurring nightmare that latches onto me like a pit bull attacking his last meal. I see myself lying on a lounger on a white sandy beach in Jamaica. The wind is softly blowing a cool breeze while the sun shines above. Its delightful rays are warming me while shadowing a gorgeous cabana girl who is approaching me knowing she will tend only to my wishes. Her bright smile relaxes me.
“Can I get you something else, Ms Izzy?” she asks with a flirtatious Island accent.
I am tempted to let go of the hold I have on reality and forever spend the rest of my undead days lapping up the sun and the care that this beauty offers. Then I snap out of my delusion and realize that after everything I’ve been through, I ended up in Texas—not the Islands, where I could enjoy the sun and the fun while searching for Kaley Hightower. Oh no, that would have been asking for way too much. Instead, I’m stuck here where everything is supposedly bigger and I have yet to see better. What I have seen is that the lack of Kaley’s blood donor centers has made Texas a free-for-all-vampire-feeding-frenzy state.
A few months ago, Kaley, and her human girlfriend, Jules, had a major fight. Afterward, Kaley showed up at our house with her hunger raging for blood and she attacked me. Tamara, my vampire girlfriend and Mistress of the East Coast, fought her off, but in the few seconds Kaley had me, she drained too much of my precious elixir, leaving me near death. Welcome to the Hightower Clan. If you think you’ve got it bad with your in-laws, try mine.
I never doubted Tamara would preserve my humanity. I never even had a fear and maybe that’s what got me into trouble. I trusted vampires, especially the Hightowers, and even though it was a stupid thing to do, let my guard down. Imagine my surprise when Kaley, Tamara’s sister, bled me. In an effort to save my life, Tamara took me to the Hightower estate and turned me into one of them. Yeah, she said she couldn’t bear the thought of losing me forever and took matters into her own hands. Even that wasn’t easy. The half-witch in me complicated things and I turned into the first living vampire to walk on the Earth. My heart still beats, but my lungs don’t breathe and my magic is fizzling out while the vampire in me grows. Oh yeah, and I don’t die when the sun comes up. That’s right…I’m a day walker, which means, most importantly, I don’t burst into a ball of fire when sunlight touches my skin.
As for how I’m handling my transformation, some moments are better than others. I still have the undeniable urge to latch onto and feed from the first available donor—willing or not—and I have a hole in the pit of my stomach that regularly reminds me no amount of nourishment will satisfy my new needs. I pass normal, everyday people who are oblivious to the monsters walking beside them. We are the monsters that want their blood, their lives, even their souls. Monsters, like me, who feel their tempting warmth and focus on the pulsating artery on the side of their necks that calls to us to feed and fill our needs—when our needs arrives.
After Tamara turned me, we married vampire style, which consisted of making a concoction of our blood and drinking it. My genetics for being half-witch are wrecking havoc on Tamara’s vampire system and now, after hundreds of years, she can’t sleep. Believe me, you haven’t seen chaos until you’ve seen a Mistress Vampire afflicted with insomnia. She’s cranky, irritable, and emotionally unstable. A trip to Jamaica would have benefited me greatly.
That’s why Lady Katherine Hightower, Matriarch of the Hightower Clan and my new mother-in-law, sent me, not Tamara, to find her other beloved daughter, Kaley, and bring her home. I’m no match for a Hightower, especially a rogue one, so Katherine had the bruja, Shamana, a witch from days past, brew up some mojo, and I now share Katherine’s experiences. Talk about not being able to get away from your in-laws. Can you feel my enthusiasm?
Katherine provided me with a recon team to help me in my quest, but Texas is such a big state, we had to separate to cover most of it. Raven, whose black hair, dark complexion, and fluid movements adequately describe her nickname, is in Austin. Tank, a tall, handsome, well-educated, black man and ex-football player whose remarkable muscle mass would intimidate the entirety of the Dallas Cowboys team, is in Houston. Hummer, the epitome of an ex Hell’s Angel biker, wearing Italian tailored suits trying to blend in, is in El Paso. That leaves me in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, alone.
On Tamara’s advice, I found Pinky’s, a small, grey, square building with limited parking, and Fort Worth’s only gay bar. It seemed that it was common practice for patrons to mingle in the parking lot as couples hid behind cars making out and women gathered in small groups listening to the music emanating from the bar while catching a breath of fresh air. Not exactly what I would have expected, but hey, not every club is as nice as Club Red, the club I own in Florida.