Free The Fertile Vampire by Karen Ranney

elaborate script, something I’d seen on a handwritten invitation to a wedding.  
    What did the Eagle Lady think I needed to know?  
    The pastries done, I crumpled up the bag and put it aside, opening the envelope with confectioner’s sugar fingers. Five pages were inside, along with a memory card.  
    As I glanced through the pages, my blood chilled.  
    She had to be kidding.  
    But I doubted the Eagle Lady had a well developed sense of humor, especially since she didn’t look as if she ever smiled.  
    I took the pages and the memory card into my office, ignoring the faint layer of dust over my bookshelves. I inserted the card into my PC once it booted up.  
    The wind pressed hard against my office windows, hinting at a storm to come. I loved the sheer majesty of storms. I loved the rumbling fury of thunder, the slashing of the wind, the punishing rain. We humans, um vampires, seemed so frail when measured against nature.  
    I made myself take a deep breath and sit. Staring at my hands, I willed myself to calm.  
    Until this moment I’d thought the end of my innocence was when I’d awakened in the VRC. Instead, it was now, when my mouth was dry and my blood was pounding in my ears.  
    The memory card was filled with pictures. One by one, I studied each before advancing to the next.  
    Why hadn’t he told me? Why hadn’t anyone told me? Why was I left to sit here in the darkness, alone learning another truth, one I wasn’t prepared to know?  
    At the rate I was going I needed to put Il Duce on speed dial. When I rang his number a recording explained the offices were closed. Great, I had a nine to five mentor, which did nothing to explain how he’d known I needed him at The Smiling Senorita.  
    One crisis at a time. A few hours ago, it had been Opie’s death.  
    Right now it was werewolves.

C HAPTER T WELVE

    A duke, a prince, and a vampire walk into a bar…

    As long as I was in front of the computer, I googled Il Duce. To my surprise - and why should I be? - Il Duce was quite a mover and a shaker in Texas. He was on the Governor’s Committee on Paranormal Relations, Treasurer of the State of Texas Legal Defense Education Fund - Paranormal Branch, and involved in a dozen charities.  
    In addition, he was the CEO of something called MEDOC, a conglomeration of medical laboratories, each specializing in a different blood borne illness. MEDOC also supplied the state and federal government with various virus testing apparatus and vaccines.  
    Il Duce was a very wealthy man, um vampire.  
    When the door shivered, I rolled my eyes. I knew who it was immediately. Il Duce couldn’t be bothered to knock.  
    I opened the door and stood back as he strode into my house, bringing the chill in with him.  
    He’d changed and was now dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, topped with a leather jacket. Even in casual attire, he projected power. Did a vampire acquire that power from simply being a vampire? I suspected, in Il Duce’s case, it was something he possessed when he was, what? Alive? Mortal? Human?  
    I was running out of words.
    “You are upset,” he said, studying my face.  
    What an understatement that was.  
    “I am upset,” I said, turning and walking into my living room.  
    He followed me. “It was a terrible thing your friend was killed. I am sad I could not have helped her.”  
    I plopped down on the couch, poured myself more wine from the bottle I’d opened earlier, pre-werewolf pictures. Normally, I was a cheap drunk. One glass and I felt woozy. Now, however, either my super fast vampire metabolism was burning off the alcohol too quickly for me to feel it, or I was too upset to get buzzed.  
    I explained what I received from Ms. Renfrew.  
    “What else haven’t you told me?” I asked, looking up at him.  
    “You are speaking of werewolves?”  
    I narrowed my eyes. “I’m speaking of anything else you’ve conveniently left out.”  
    “Normally, you would not have to be