Free Blake, Abby - Vampires' Witness [PUP Squad Alpha 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) by Abby Blake

their supervisor, carefully explaining who Skye was and how she’d survived the attack, and studiously ignoring his two squadmates in the room. In the fifty years they’d been working together, none of them had seen him this confused. Thankfully, Alex and Thomas had chosen this moment to take the unusual approach and mind their own business, not pushing at all for an explanation.
    Samuel encrypted his e-mail, pressed send, and turned to his best friend. “She needs her sister,” he said in a rough voice. Skye called Jennifer each evening as soon as she woke at sundown. Some days their conversation was brief, at other times much longer, but it was obvious to anyone within hearing distance that the two women were very close.
    “I agree,” Benjamin said, managing to surprise him. They were both very big believers in keeping information about paranormals out of human hands, but it would seem that Skye’s need for her family overrode the concerns both of them held. “But we need to track down this ‘Ritchie’ guy before he kills again. We need to, all three of us, hold it together until we can complete this mission.” He smiled encouragingly. “I’ll do the paperwork to get some time off as soon as we get this done.”
    Samuel looked at his best friend, really looked at him for the first time in decades, and saw again that core of strength that had been the reason he’d followed the man into battle—both as human and as a vampire. “I’m sorry I fucked this up for you.”
    Benjamin looked shocked at his quiet words, shook his head as if to disagree, but then grinned and slapped him on the shoulder instead. “Let’s just get the mission done. Then we’ll figure out how to convince our reluctant woman that no matter where the attraction first came from she still belongs with us.”

    * * * *

    Skye downloaded yet another book to her e-reader, staunchly ignoring the erotic romances. Well, technically she was trying to avoid all romance stories, but it was amazing how many mainstream books carried a romantic thread. Hell, even the murder mystery she’d just finished had ended with a happily ever after for the main characters. Sheesh, did the whole world revolve around love?
    She glanced at Samuel working intently on his laptop. To describe the past several days as tense would be a serious understatement. Both Samuel and Benjamin had given her the space she’d insisted they all needed. She wasn’t a slave to her hormones. She refused to mistake chemically induced lust for the love connection she’d always craved.
    “Why do our hearts beat?” She asked the question out of curiosity, but more than wanting an answer she wanted to see the uncertainty wiped from Samuel’s face. Alex had told her Samuel’s nickname had been “The Iceman,” but since meeting her he’d been anything but cold.
    “I’m not really sure I know the answer,” he said quietly. “I was once told that vampires are simply a different species to human. The blood that you drink from your maker starts the change on a genetic level, altering your cells and rewriting your DNA.”
    “So we’re not ‘the living dead’?”
    “Far from it,” he said with a soft smile. “We’re very long lived, but we’re not immortal. Eventually, we’ll succumb to the ravages of age, albeit hundreds of years after our human bodies would have died.”
    “So the other stuff—casting no reflection in a mirror, needing permission to enter someone’s home, a wooden stake to the heart, bursting into flames, holy water—that’s all just made up?”
    He laughed softly. “Humans have added to the legends over the years. I’ve never seen a vampire burst into flames in the sunshine, but our reaction to the sun’s rays is rather immediate and quite horrible. The burns are very painful.” He shrugged as if getting burned was not that big a deal. “I think the mirror thing was a way of blaming vampires for unexplained illnesses. Even if they couldn’t see