Free The Accidental Vampire by Lynsay Sands

and stayed to listen through the door.
    Elvi stared at the closed door with regret. She'd never met another vampire and had a million questions she would have liked to ask. She feared she'd missed her opportunity, however. He wasn't a local. Obviously he was just passing through town. She had no idea why he'd stopped at the restaurant. Perhaps those men he'd been with were mortals and had needed to stop for a late dinner. She supposed she'd never know. The man would no doubt return to his friends and leave before she finished with Owen and made her way back out to the dining area.
    It was the first time in five years Elvi had met another of her kind and what had she done? Chattered nervously about the Birthday Bite and its origins. It was true he'd asked about it, but if she hadn't been so overset, she might have had the good sense to ask at least one or two of the questions she had. Like what was she? Could she get her soul back? How could she end her existence?
    Instead she'd babbled about the biting.
    It hadn't just been the fact that he was a vampire that had left her so unsettled. It was the man himself. He was tall and gorgeous and smelled good and Elvi had found him terribly attractive before she'd even found out he was a vampire. That in itself had been disturbing. Elvi hadn't reacted to a man this strongly in years. In her whole life, if she were to be honest with herself. Her husband had been her high school sweetheart. She'd grown up with him and known him all her life. They'd had a comfortable, loving relationship, but she didn't recall ever finding herself responding to his very presence with every fiber of her being as she had to this man's nearness. She'd been so disconcerted by just being near him she hadn't noticed her own reactions to the smell of his blood until her teeth had started to shift, and then her only thought had been to get away from him. While gaining a little distance from him had eased the blood hunger, it hadn't eased her other reactions to him. Elvi had acted like a nervous teenager on her first date, babbling like an idiot about nonsense instead of asking the very important questions she had.
    Now she was just feeling confused and torn. Part of her was glad she wouldn't meet him again and be forced to deal with the reactions he caused in her. The other part of her was upset. The idea of another five years passing before happening onto another of her kind and getting the answers she wanted was terribly disheartening.
    Sighing, Elvi turned to face Owen.
    "So…" She eyed him, noting the pallor to his cheeks and his lack of excitement. The boy was staring at the floor, a fine tremor running through his body.
    Shaking her head, she said gently, "We don't have to do this, Owen."
    He raised his head hopefully, but then his expression and shoulders drooped again just as quickly. "If we don't, my friends will tease me until I die," he said glumly. "We have to do it."
    Elvi frowned, thinking that peer pressure sucked. But there was no way she wanted to bite someone who was so obviously terrified of the very idea.
    "They don't have to know," she assured him and moved to her desk. Opening the top drawer, she pulled out the box of special bandages for just this sort of occasion. Choosing one with Happy Birthday stamped on it in purple, she slid it from the pack and held it up. "Put this on and we'll both just pretend it happened. No one has to know I didn't bite you."
    Owen stared at the Band-Aid as if it were a life raft, but asked uncertainly, "What do I say when they ask me what it was like?"
    Elvi shrugged. "Just tell them you don't kiss and tell."
    His eyes widened with new interest. "There's kissing?"
    "No," she said quickly and then chuckled softly at his disappointment. "It's just an old expression that means you won't be indiscreet enough to tell."
    "Oh." He sounded disappointed. Apparently if there was no kissing, he wasn't interested. She suspected if she'd said yes, there was kissing, he