Carter, p.1
Swipe for Fangs, page 1
Swipe for Fangs
by
Tracy Broemmer
Paranormal RomCom Novella
Published by Tracy Broemmer
Edited by Lexie Broemmer
Cover by Tracy Broemmer
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2024
Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or person, living or dead, is coincidental and not the intent of the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the author.
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
Swipe for Ghouls Chapter 1
About the Author
Also by Tracy Broemmer
CHAPTER 1
Archer
“The hell is this?”
Archer Radcliffe, with his back to the door, hunched his shoulders and screwed his already stony face into an angry frown. Hadn’t he asked Manrick that he not be disturbed? More to the point, was there anything more disturbing than an unannounced visit from Julian Bigelow? Archer sipped his neat pour of 10-year Blood Boast and then sucked in a slow, deep breath before turning to greet the kid.
“What happened to ‘The Four Seasons, Violin Concerto in E Major’—”
“Julian.” Archer interrupted him. Tension clawed its way into his shoulders, the back of his neck, just as surely as if Manrick’s damned hell cat Baal hung from his shoulders by his claws. Dressed in baggy jeans, rolled at the top of black combat boots, and what appeared to be a vintage black leather jacket, Julian looked like every other teenaged thug on the streets. He set a beat-up laptop on the glass-topped coffee table and straightened slowly to look Archer in the eyes.
The kid’s flaming red hair was spiked with shiny goo that looked like the whale fat mortals had burned for warmth in Alaska back in the 18th and 19th centuries. Archer would know; he had lived there for a short time. Oddly enough, the frigid temperatures had driven him to roam further south and take up residence in California for a while.
“The Lumineers,” Archer told Julian now.
“Sorry?” Julian shook his head and looked around the room. “Did I leave a light on in the hall or something?”
“The group, Julian. The music. The song?” Archer tucked his free hand in the pocket of his tailor-made dress trousers and eyed the kid and the laptop warily.
“I didn’t know you listened to brooding contemporary music.”
Julian was partly right. Archer didn’t often choose any sort of pop music. He rarely strayed outside of the classical realm, but his last girlfriend—ex-girlfriend he corrected himself—had left a few of her compact discs at his mansion. Bored with Rachmaninoff one day, Archer gave Cleopatra, the band’s sophomore release, a listen. No use in bothering to explain that to Julian. The kid probably had no idea what a CD was.
With a long-suffering sigh, Archer crossed the cavernous sitting room and motioned with the hand that held the rocks glass at Julian’s laptop. The black case was cracked in three spots, because Julian was careless, and covered with stickers that claimed things like Wickedly Dangerous, Dud Power (The e was torn off, but Archer found that more accurate anyway.) and Whynot State, where Julian had finally graduated with a useless degree in social media communications at the young age of 200.
“What brings you by?”
The quicker he got Julian to the point of the visit, the quicker he could get rid of him.
Gods love Newton Bigelow; he and Archer had grown up together in Europe. They had been friends for hundreds of years, and then Newton slept with that dingy mortal, which resulted in Julian. An anomaly. Archer had no idea if the kid had any sort of power other than being nearly immortal, but he did know he lacked a little in the brain power area.
Archer cursed himself often for stepping up and promising Newton he would look after Julian, but then what could he have done? Watching his best friend get staked in the heart by a riff-raff vampire slayer had made him emotional, not to mention scared bloodless. Archer had tried to attack the slayer, but something about the guy’s scent had been very off-putting, and it had thrown Archer off his game. Like Superman in the presence of kryptonite, driven to his knees, Archer had watched helplessly while the slayer drove the stake into Newton’s heart.
Before fleeing—still on his knees until he was far enough away to ditch that horrid feebleness—Archer had looked Newton in the eyes and nodded and vowed to watch over Julian.
“New job!” Julian’s grin revealed his mother’s dimple and his father’s elongated canines.
“Congratulations!” Archer said sincerely. He hadn’t expected that. After all, it took Julian thirty-three years to get through Whynot State, the local college. “When do you start?”
“Yesterday,” Julian told him.
Archer slipped his hand from his pocket and tilted his wrist to look at the Piaget watch. A sliver of annoyance poked at him. If Julian started a new job yesterday, why was he here during work hours on a weekday?
“What’s the job?” Archer sipped at his bourbon again, willing the kid not to say he was the new cashier at the convenience store on the corner or tending bar at the Vyper Lounge. Although, a good bartender at the Vyper could bring in some good tips.
“Love Bites dating agency.” Julian threw up jazz hands and offered Archer a dazzling smile. “Which…”
Archer squeezed his eyes closed in anticipation of whatever Julian was going to say. It didn’t matter; nothing he said after the words Love Bites would be good. When he blinked, he found Julian squatting in front of the coffee table with his laptop open. He tapped a few keys, frowned at the screen like what he was reading was a matter of national security, and finally nodded.
“…is why I’m here…”
“Why are you here?” Archer grumbled as Julian stood again and stared at him like a nurse calling him back to see a doctor—expectant, courteous, as if Archer were his…
Client.
“Well, we are going to set you up with a page on the app, and I’ll show you how to use it.”
“No.” Archer ground the word out through clenched teeth.
“Do you have your phone on you?” Julian looked around the room, as if Archer made a habit of stashing his mobile between the books on the shelves or maybe in the vase on the fireplace mantle. His phone, as usual, was in the right hip pocket of his trousers. As a powerful business mogul in Whynot, Archer liked his phone handy, the way policemen liked their guns at the ready.
“No.” The lie rolled off his tongue without hesitation.
“No?” Julian shook his head and stared at Archer in shock. “Well, okay. No matter. We can do it on my computer.”
“No.”
Julian, still ignoring Archer’s blunt refusal, picked up the laptop by the screen and carried it to the far corner of the room where an old mahogany desk sat. Archer’s desktop computer was dark, but when Julian put the laptop down with a thud, the screen lit up. The golden RI logo—Radcliffe Incorporated—bounced over the screen like the first video game in the 1970’s. If Archer remembered correctly, it was called Pong.
Ignoring the desktop and Archer’s deep sigh of frustration, Julian yanked the cognac-colored leather chair from under the desk and plopped into it with the force of a jet plane crashing. Archer flinched.
“Okay.” Julian typed something else and finally looked up at him. “Just need to ask you a few questions, and we’ll get you set up.”
“No.” Archer glowered at him. Julian, as usual, was too thickheaded or too familiar to be afraid of him, even though he was well over six feet tall and two hundred pounds of solid muscle.
And a very old, wealthy, powerful vampire.
Who had zero interest in dating games or apps.
Or women.
“Look, dude.” Julian flopped back in the chair, making Archer flinch again. He didn’t particularly want whale fat or Brylcream or even J Crew men’s styling cream smeared all over the leather.
“My name is not dude.”
“I really need you to help me out here,” Julian continued as if Archer hadn’t spoken. “I got the job, but I’m on a thirty-day trial basis. There’s this guy in the office named Steve. Totally incompetent, but he’s already got it out for me. If I don’t have a match in the first fifteen days, I’m out. If I get a match by that time, but it doesn’t work out, I can still work for the full thirty days and try again.”
“And?”
“I need this job,” Julian groaned. He pinched the bridge of his freckled nose and sighed. “Please, Archer? I have rent due next week. And I’m kind of in a bind…” Whatever bind he was in, he mumbled it unintelligibly so Archer wouldn’t catch it.
“I’m sorry.” Archer put his drink down on the desk and stared at Julian with all the parental aggravation he could muster. This was why he’d never had kids. “What did you just say?”
Not true. There was that pesky problem of never finding the right woman. But still. Julian had been a thorn in his side since the day Newton had died.
“I bet on a boxing match at Sully’s. Ralphie Sagamore’s after me for ten grand.”
“How can you be on the hook for ten grand?” Archer remai
Julian shrugged. “Borrowed from the Gannady family.”
Archer leaned over the desk to get in his face, palms flat on the desktop. “The Gannady family? Julian, they’re demons. You know that. What were you think—”
“I know!” Julian lurched from the chair, nearly knocking heads with him. “I know. I messed up, Archer. I know.” He danced away from Archer, finally showing the fear, the deference, Archer deserved, both as the powerful vampire he was and as Julian’s guardian.
“Your father would be so disappointed.”
Julian’s body folded in on itself at Archer’s sharp words. “I know. Which is why rather than asking you for the money to cover the bet and the loan, I really want to do this job. I really need to do it, Archer. But I will need your help.”
If Archer didn’t help him and Julian couldn’t pay off his debt, odds were Ralphie Sagamore’s henchmen would beat him to a pulp and the Gannady family thugs would take what was left of him and throw it on a fire as an offering to their high lord.
“And what do I get out of this?” Archer tipped his head, again staring at him with that fierce parental threatening look. At least he hoped his face looked like that.
“You fall in love!” Julian’s smile lit up the room once again. Archer didn’t believe in love, and he had no reason to believe Julian did, either, so apparently the kid had been brainwashed with Love Bites propaganda. “What more could you want, Archer?”
CHAPTER 2
Trixie
“And another thing!” Trixie Jones leaped from the front seat of the Toyota Prius even before Ned, the insufferable bore she’d had dinner with, slowed to a stop. “My name is Trixie. Not Trishie.”
The multicolored—as in spotty white paint and old, gray primer—car finally stopped, and Trixie swung her arm around to bat her door closed. She hurried away from him before she ended up mad enough to zap this jerk and turn him into a toad right here and now. But behind her, she heard a door open.
“Does this mean you don’t want to go with me to the art show tomorrow night?” Ned called after her.
“You made me buy your dinner!” She turned to face him but continued walking backwards. “And bored me to death talking about how great you are at your job!”
“I am, though,” he said with a shrug and a confused look on his face. Admittedly, Ned Davies was easy on the eyes. He had a very pretty face—big blue eyes and chiseled lips. In fact, he reminded her a lot of Freddie on Scooby Doo. The trouble started whenever he opened his mouth. Arrogant and boring, the blowhard had rattled for thirty-seven minutes about his band and how great their sound was—especially, of course, his guitar skills and his voice—before stopping to breathe. Trixie even wondered if she’d heard her cousin right when she set her up on this date. How did mortals talk that long without breathing? Was he not mortal? If not, what the heck was he?
Maybe a pile of dirt and rocks with a pretty face—maybe someone who wanted revenge on her had shaped a pile of rotting garbage into the shape of a muscle-bound rockstar and put a glamour on him to make him smokin’ hot. That would explain a lot, Trixie decided.
Like why a superstar like he claimed to be drove a beat-up heap of metal instead of a Ferrari or even a Harley Davidson. Like why she had never heard of him or his band—Ned Davies and the Doomsday Janes—even though she loved music and listened to anything other than Polka or Gospel.
“Get back in, Trishie,” he cajoled with what he apparently believed to be a smolder. Who the heck was named Trishie? Just further proof he hadn’t listened to the four words he had allowed her to say over dinner—my name’s actually Trixie—because he was too busy bragging on some new song he was working on. “I know you’re probably stuffed after eating that whole plate of lasagna—”
Trixie’s vision swam as she stopped in her tracks and stared at the jerk her cousin had set her up with. She would have a word with Connall when she got home. Oh yes, she might even turn her damned cousin into a toad, too. Never mind that Connall would just change back into his jerky, stupid warlock self within seconds.
“Excuse me,” she interrupted Ned’s judgmental comment ever-so-politely. “Is that a fat joke? Are you saying I ate too much?”
She was curvy. Not fat. And she’d eaten the whole piece of lasagna—yes, it was huge—because she had been so busy working with her grandmother on a new potion for the new spell book that she hadn’t had time to eat a thing all day.
“You’re not that fat.” He shook his head and waved his hand at her, as if to brush her worries away. “Come with me now. I’ll play that new song for you. It’s got a great rift right in the middle. And then I’ll let you kiss me—”
“Ugh!” Trixie lifted her left foot, tugged her red stiletto off, and winged at Ned. The stiletto smacked the passenger window. “You are disgusting!”
“I know women have a thing about rockstars,” he continued, his face betraying only a tiny bit of worry about the thrown shoe. “So, we can probably make out for a bit. Then I’ll need to get some rest. Big day of recording—”
“Get. Out. Of. Here.” She hopped on her bare foot to tug off her right shoe and chucked it at him, making sure to aim higher this time.
“Hey! What gives?” Ned yelped and ducked, but her shoe glanced off the side of his face. Unfortunately, it was the pointed toe that got him and not the heel.
“Leave.”
“That means no then? On making out with me? You know, by my guitar?”
Trixie lifted her hands to her face. What could she throw at him next? Not her purse! She didn’t trust the jerk not to grab her wallet and drive off with it, after that trick he pulled at dinner.
Oops, I forgot my wallet. Can you buy this time, Trishie?
“That means no. Never. Never ever again!” She screeched as she stomped back toward him and his car. “I never want to kiss you. Or make out with you. Or hear your new song! NO!”
“’kay.” He nodded like she simply said she couldn’t make it tonight. “How about the art show? Tomorrow?”
With another wail of frustration, she bent and picked up the closest rock she could find. Turned out to be a clump of dirt and weeds, but it would do.
“No!” She stood a foot away from the rattletrap car that hammered out a better beat than Ned did on the dashboard as he drove. “Get out of here before I turn you into a donkey.”
“Dude, why not just a toad?” he asked with a shrug.
Done with Ned Davies, done with the night, done with men, Trixie drew back and heaved the clump of dirt at him. This time he ducked into his car and squealed his tires on the pavement as he tore away, his door still hanging open.
Chest still heaving with indignant anger, Trixie muttered to herself as she retrieved her shoes. What an insufferable jerk. How had Connall thought they would be a good match? And what would she do to get him back?
Because revenge would be sweet, and Trixie loved sweets.
With one last look down the Bledsoe Drye Railroad tracks, Trixie hopped around to put her shoes back on and headed to the cramped little bungalow she shared with her grandmother and her cousin. She hated men. Ever since she fell for Nigel, back in her sophomore year of high school, she had searched for that same kind-hearted, good-looking boy. They had dated for the entire year, long enough that Trixie’s innocent heart had started planning their wedding.
And then school was out, Whynot’s summer heat rolled through town, and Nigel and his parents moved to Paris. He had promised to call her, but the first video call she got was from a rave. With a blonde on his arm.
So much for true love.
“Hey.” Connall called from the loveseat in Gran’s den. “How was the date?”
Trixie marched into the den with murder on her mind.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been on such a horrible date in my life!” she answered. “He couldn’t even remember my name.”
“Trixie’s tough.” Connall shrugged, apparently siding with Ned.
“But Trishie’s not?” she snapped. “Payback is hell, Con. Watch your back.”
“I’ll tell Gran.” Eyes back on his book, he dismissed her threat.
