Sold to her enemies, p.1
Sold to her Enemies, page 1
part #5 of Shifter Dating Service Series
© Copyright 2019 by Pure Passion Reads – All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
Sold to her Enemies
Shifter Dating Service: Book Five
A Paranormal Romance
by Jasmine Wylder
Contents
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
Thank You!
Also by Jasmine Wylder
About the Author
Dedication
To my loved ones B & B, who encouraged me to fly toward my dream:
Let’s soar.
Chapter One
Camille checked her makeup in the mirror one last time, pleased with how the bubblegum-pink lipstick looked on her plump lips. After so many years of keeping her focus on her career, with a healthy dose of not knowing what to do with dating even if she had a date, it was finally time to break out of her shell. Some people might scoff at her for using a dating agency, but she didn’t have the time or energy to go through the traditional means—not that she knew what those traditional means actually entailed.
“Stop fretting,” her younger sister, Maggie, told her firmly. “You look sexy. Those guys are gonna be knocked off their feet.”
Camille rolled her eyes and pulled a face but couldn’t help but be pleased with the compliment. Truthfully, this whole thing had her on edge. She hadn’t had a lot of dates over the years. Actually, she’d only had one. Twenty-five years old and had only one date, and that was, she was certain, a pity date. Camille wasn’t sure if it was because she didn’t pick up on clues or if there had been no clues to pick up on. It wasn’t like she had put herself out there very much, after all.
“Okay, so we’re going to Astoria down on Kinsley street,” Camille said, turning to her sister again. “I shouldn’t be home any later than nine-thirty. I’ll send a text every half hour or so, but if I don’t contact you or reply in a forty-five-minute timeframe, call. And if I don’t answer or I give the code word—”
“I know, I know.” Maggie smirked at her. “I’ll call the police right then and get them sent to your location.”
“You have the find my phone app downloaded?”
“Yes.” Maggie let out a world-weary sigh. “We go over this every time I go on a date; I don’t think I’m going to forget just because you're the one on the date this time.”
Camille shot her younger sister a dirty look. “Don’t be a smartass.”
“I think my ass is very smart, actually,” Maggie shot back. “Better than being a dumbass, at least. Don’t you think that’s true? Or would you rather I be one of those people who sit around vaping and playing video games and… Okay, people who sit around vaping and playing video games can be intelligent. Uh… How about a person who insists that white people are the only ones who want to be movie stars?”
“Don’t even start,” Camille groaned. “If I have to hear those words being spoken unironically one more time, I’ll—"
“Okay, okay.” Maggie held her hands into the air in surrender. “Sorry, I should have known better than to bring that up. Let’s just focus on this date of yours. Two handsome vampire hunks looking for a human female to round out their relationship into a real threesome. You don’t see many of those, especially when both of the guys claim to be straight.”
Camille turned back to the mirror to check her makeup one last time. The cab was going to be here soon to take her to the restaurant. She’d insisted on that; she didn’t want to get into a vehicle with people she hadn’t actually met in person before. The vampires had been chatting with her for just over a month since she’d quit her job working for Judge Valerie Gilson in order to pursue her own dreams. All the same, a month of chatting wasn’t enough to fully trust these guys.
“The agency has a strong vetting process,” Maggie reassured her, catching onto her nerves like she was so good at. “Nothing is going to go wrong. Just go, have fun, get to know them a little better. And send me pics, so that if you are kidnapped and murdered, I know who to sic the police on.”
“Kidnapped and murdered?” Camille repeated, aghast. “What the fuck are you saying that for?”
Maggie smiled sweetly and shrugged. “Don’t you remember what you told me on my first blind date?”
“This isn’t a blind date.”
“It is, too. You’ve never seen any pictures of them, and you haven’t sent any pictures to them, either. Therefore, it is essentially a blind date.”
Camille rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Okay, fine. I’ll accept that. Now,” a car horn honked from outside, “that’s my cab. I’ll text in half an hour.”
“Have fun!” Maggie waved as Camille dashed from the apartment. She hurried down the stairs and slid into the waiting cab.
As she gave the address, Camille settled back and dug in her purse for her compact mirror. Normally she didn’t care much about how she looked, but this was a momentous occasion. It had been a fantasy of hers for a long time to have two boyfriends at the same time, and she never thought she’d be able to see it through. Hell, she had almost given up the idea of having one boyfriend entirely. She wasn’t unattractive, really, but she was far too curvy to be considered traditionally beautiful. It was something her stepfather and mother had always been quick to point out, every extra pound on her body.
A familiar coil of doubt curled around her belly as those thoughts intruded on her consciousness. Was this dress too tight? Was she sitting so that her stomach appeared smaller? Was she holding her chin in a way that would emphasize her double chin?
Camille hissed between her teeth, shaking her head hard. She was not going to let her stepfather’s voice ruin this night for her. He was gone, he was dead; he couldn’t hurt any of them again. She wasn’t going to let him continue to hurt her. She’d spent too much time in therapy to let him have control over her like that now.
She reached the restaurant quickly and thanked her cab driver, giving him an extra tip. After sending a quick text to Maggie to let her know that she had arrived, she headed in. Excitement throbbed against her ribs as she scanned the dimly lit restaurant. When the host asked for her name, he told her that her companions had already arrived and led her back through a doorway into a private banquet room. Inside there was only one table set up, cozy for three people.
At the table were two vampires she knew very well.
Samuel Carter and Wayne Jonston. Two billionaire assholes that had harassed Judge Gilson on more than one occasion, trying to get her to push laws that would get them more money. Camille stopped, her eyes wide as she stared at them.
“There’s a mistake,” she blurted turning to the host. “I’m not here to see them.”
Samuel was at their side so quickly that she flinched. He offered a charming smile, dimples flashing, baring his fangs. “There is no mistake, Miss Roxton. I assure you. Wayne and I are the ones you are here to see.”
He took her arm, and, feeling the disapproving confusion from the host, let herself be guided to the table. Wayne pulled the chair out for her and she sat heavily.
“We apologize for not using our real names on the agency website,” Samuel continued, pouring her a glass of white wine. “We have to protect our privacy, you know. And then, we were certain that you wouldn’t want to see us if you knew it was us… considering our last meeting.”
“You mean when you tried to blackmail Valerie into letting you hire a whole harem of prostitutes? If you think you can get at her through me, you have another thing coming. I don’t work for Judge Gilson anymore.”
“Is that what we were doing?” Samuel and Wayne gave each other false looks of surprise as Samuel sighed. “Well, if it was, then we should have stopped the game as soon as we found out about you quitting. But we’ve known that since the day you packed your things and left. Or do you think it’s just a coincidence that we only contacted you through the agency after you quit?”
Camille glared at him. Whatever they were playing at, she wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of winning.
“It’s not a coincidence,” Wayne picked up, smirking widely. “You see, it’s against our policy to mix business and pleasure. As long as you were associated with Judge Gilson, you were off-limits. Which was a damn shame, I’d have liked to—”
He jumped like he’d been kicked under the table as Camille’s hands tightened on her purse.
Samuel glared at his partner for a moment. “What Wayne is trying to say is that we are not here to get at the judge. We are here because we want you. Both of us have been very fond of you ever since you first kicked us out of the Judge’s office. We admire that kind of bravery… and it’s very attractive.”
Camille continued to glare. Did they think she was so easily swayed by pretty words? She didn’t believe a single damn word they were saying.
“A ll we want,” Wayne said, recovering apparently, “is a sweet little human to have some fun with… Maybe snack on a bit.”
Camille jumped to her feet so fast that her chair fell backward. “So that’s it, is it? You think that you can throw some compliments my way and I’ll fawn all over you? If you want a groupie, you should look in your little fanbase. There are plenty of women out there who would cut off their hands for a chance to suck your dicks. Go bother one of them.”
Samuel rose his hands. “There is no reason to start being irrational—”
“I signed up looking for a forever mate and I’m not going to waste my time with a couple of jackasses who are only looking for some piece of ass that they can snack on. How is that being irrational?” Camille drew herself up, anger trembling through her and yes, perhaps impairing her judgment. The disappointment of the night was too powerful to ignore, though. “You can go fuck yourself.”
Wayne laughed, his eyes sharp and glittering. “A forever mate? Do you really think you’re going to find a forever mate that wants to share you with another person? You’re as interested in the sex as we are; you just don’t have the balls to admit it.”
“Wayne,” Samuel hissed, but Camille had heard enough. She wasn’t going to stand around waiting to be insulted. She strode from the banquet room, nearly knocking into the server, and told the host to call her a new cab.
She heard the two vampires arguing as she sat by the door, fighting tears as her anger slowly changed to humiliation. How stupid had she been, to think that any men would actually want to get to know her? There wasn’t anything special about her, it made sense that she’d end up in a situation like this. It was her own damn fault for being so disappointed now… after all, like Wayne said, why would any man want to share her with another man?
A cab pulled up outside, and she dashed from the restaurant and climbed in. Her nose was starting to run now, and she slumped back, rubbing at her eyes.
“Where to, Miss?” the driver asked.
“I don’t care,” she said. “Just get me away from here.”
The driver made a noise in his throat and started driving. She sat there, her phone in her hand as she tried to figure out how to tell this to Maggie. Maybe she should just go home. But she didn’t want to… Besides, she had almost half an hour before she had to text Maggie again. She shoved her phone back into her purse and pushed it away, watching the streets change outside her window as she struggled to calm herself down.
This night cannot get any worse, she thought as they slowed down for a red light.
Just then, the door was yanked open. Camille turned, yelping, but hands grabbed her. Something pressed over her face, and she was dragged away. Her head started to swim as she tried to struggle free. The last thing she saw as everything went black was the cab driver going through her purse.
***
“A forever mate? Do you really think you’re going to find a forever mate that wants to share you with another person? You’re as interested in the sex as we are; you just don’t have the balls to admit it.” Samuel glared at him as he repeated Wayne’s earlier words. “You have no idea how to talk to women. How is it that you’ve managed to get laid even once over the past century?”
Wayne glowered at him as he sipped at his wine. “Shut the fuck up.”
“You shut the fuck up.” Samuel rolled his eyes. “I’ll shut the fuck up when you smarten the fuck up.”
Wayne propped his elbows on the table. True, he shouldn’t have said that. He understood why Camille was offended by it. He hadn’t meant to say that it was impossible for a man to want to share her specifically. It was more that he didn’t think anybody could really want to share their forever mate. He and Samuel liked to trade off women sometimes, but the thought of having to always have that arrangement? To always share his one and only with him?
Pass. Hard pass.
Not that Wayne thought that there were such things as ‘forever’ mates. What good was ‘till death do we part’ when one of the people in the relationship had a short life ahead of them.
“I guess I shouldn’t complain,” Samuel continued, inspecting his own glass of wine as though it was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen. “It’s my own fault for thinking that you can be anything but rude and brusque. If you haven’t learned how to talk to women by now, I suppose you never will.”
“I know how to talk to women.”
Samuel rolled his eyes again. “Right. And that’s why instead of looking forward to tasting sweet Camille’s virgin blood, I have to resign myself to drinking from you again tonight. I knew it was a mistake to bring you with me.”
“You think I’m looking forward to drinking from you? It’s been so long since you’ve had human blood from the vein that you’re starting to taste like chalk. If I didn’t need vein blood, I’d stick with the bagged stuff.”
A vampire didn’t need blood fresh from the vein very often. Usually, it was just as well to drink it from a bag. Every so often, however, they needed it from the vein otherwise their hearts would stop beating and they’d end up burning up in the sunlight. Since Wayne and Samuel worked in the human world so much, that was a risk they couldn’t take.
The thing about drinking from the vein was that it connected the drinker and the drinkee. Allowed them to know more or less what the other was thinking. In cases like Samuel and Wayne, who were often forced to drink from each other (since there had been bills passed stating that vampires couldn’t pay for living blood banks and somehow it had wormed its way into the law that drinking from a significant other fell into ‘paying’ for it) they’d managed to have a strong enough connection that they could actually block it out mostly. There was nothing new from it, and so no shocks to break through their mental barriers.
It made for some degree of privacy between them, even if they weren’t overly concerned with privacy in most of their lives. Samuel had turned Wayne into a vampire centuries prior, and they’d been through a lot together. There was nothing romantic about their relationship, but best friends didn’t seem quite strong enough to cover the depth and rivalry of their relationship.
“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Samuel continued, that light, taunting tone to his voice. “You can stick with the paid ladies. I figured out a way to get around those blasted anti laws. We’ll just bring them on in the company and you can seduce whichever you want… Well, that is if you can manage to seduce them instead of insulting them.”
Wayne chugged the rest of his wine. “I can be plenty seductive and charming when I want to be.”
“Oh, is that why Camille left in a huff?” Samuel nodded, a challenge in his eyes. “I understand now. Makes total sense. What woman doesn’t want to be told that she’s not worth anything?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You might as well have said it, and you know it.”
The host crept into the room, looking a little uncertain and afraid. He cleared his throat. “Were you gentlemen looking for anything else?”
Samuel gave the host a grin that made women swoon. That was the thing about Samuel. He’d told Wayne several times that he had no interest in other men, but he wasn’t above pulling out all the charms on a person, regardless of their gender. It came so naturally to him that sometimes it made Wayne jealous.
“We’ll take the check please.”
The host nodded and scurried off, looking slightly dazed. Wayne rubbed the back of his neck as Samuel’s smile dropped.
“Wayne, I’m getting tired of the way things are going. I want an actual, proper girlfriend instead of escorts or girls just looking for sex.”
“How do you know that Camille wasn’t just looking for sex?”
“Do you think she was?”
Wayne did not want to answer that question. If he did, he would have to admit that he did not. Camille, in the last month of talking to her, had seemed nothing but genuine. When sexual topics did come up, she seemed shy and changed the subject quickly. If she had just been looking for sex rather than a real relationship, she wouldn’t have been so coy about it.
He dragged his hand through his hair and considered. Samuel’s dissatisfaction was more than clear. Over the past few years, he had been getting more and more reckless in his endeavors. Wayne recognized the signs. His boss and friend needed a change. Usually, it would have been Wayne getting into the reckless behavior. As a younger vampire, it was harder for him to maintain his levels of patience when everything fell into the same routine.
