Free Don't Blackmail the Vampire by Tiffany Allee

isn’t it?”
    Charles rocked on his toes in a way that appeared horribly uncomfortable, but he looked only lost in thought. “There is an argument to be made for minding your own business.”
    Her chest tightened. Why had she thought he’d understand? Sure, she knew minding her own business was the safe way to go—heck, maybe the wiser path. But something in her wouldn’t allow it. Why had she expected a stranger to understand something about herself that she didn’t entirely get?
    “However, I don’t think that’s necessarily the right path in this case.”
    “You don’t?” Maybe it showed how little belief she had in her own position with Kristen, but she wanted his approval. She wanted someone to tell her she wasn’t being totally unreasonable. That she was doing the right thing.
    “No. I think that any woman unlucky enough to be stuck with Brent Strub is in for a lifetime of regret and pain.”
    The vampire’s putting a voice to her fears suddenly made it all the more real. “Yes!” If a stranger could see it, then she wasn’t crazy to interfere. She stood, a surge of energy bolting through her and a slight head rush making her sway.
    “But.” He stood in one clean motion and took a step toward her, crowding her just a tiny bit and gripping her elbow to keep her balanced. He smelled like he’d already been outside—like snow and pine and fresh air.
    She leaned in just a bit to catch the scent better, before catching herself and jerking away. And finally his last word hit her. “But what?”
    “You need to decide if her happiness is worth the risk to you.”
    He didn’t have to voice what that risk was. And he didn’t
    “Aren’t we supposed to go ice-skating?” he asked instead.
    …
    Ice-skating was tricky business. A sport that Charles had never dabbled in because the images it evoked were always ones of family, and his family wasn’t the type that went skating together. And he imagined that whoever his human family had been, they hadn’t been the skating type either.
    “Are you sure your ankle is up to this?” he asked. Her ankle was really the least of his worries at the moment. She’d been upset in a way he hadn’t suspected the tough woman could be only an hour earlier. And seeing her on the floor in the gym, so dejected, had stirred something in him. Anger. Helplessness.
    He didn’t like it.
    Strong ties to people were dangerous, and Charles had made avoiding such emotions—such ties—one of the few rules he lived his life by. His bond with his brothers was the only one he allowed himself. And that was only because he owed them his life.
    Real attachment hadn’t come easily to him, and he couldn’t even pinpoint exactly when it had happened. The emotion had sneaked up on him slowly, over decades. So why was he now feeling protective of his brother’s woman, Alice, after less than a single year? Even odder, he worried over a near-stranger in Rachel simply because she intrigued him?
    Rachel pulled him from his difficult thoughts with a clipped response. “My ankle’s fine.”
    He gave her a pointed look and she blushed.
    “Okay, so it’s fine-ish. I’ll survive. The Tylenol will kick in any second. Maybe you should concentrate on chatting up Brent. Or charming my sister. Good thing this place is indoors, huh? Awfully bright out there today.” She sounded nervous; maybe he wasn’t the only one affected by their time in the other’s company.
    A sheaf of hair slid into her eyes as she tied her skating boots, and he clenched his hand at his side to keep from brushing it back for her. Bad enough that he’d kissed her last night. Sure, it had barely qualified as such, only the slightest brush of lips, but that hadn’t seemed to matter. Need had rushed through him so quickly and forcefully that he’d had to make himself leave right then, or be faced with the very real possibility that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from kissing her again. From doing a lot more than