Free Holiday Bites: A Collection of Vampire Paranormal Romances by Michele Bardsley

watched her friend track the handsome Michael Sanderson across the room. Val’s husband was a well-known publicist and sweet as sugar. Trixie envied her friend a little too much. How could she ever hope to find love again? She might settle for less than love if she could find a decent man who would treat her and Sadie with respect.
    This time, the sigh escaped. Val looked at her sharply. She placed her hand on Trixie’s arm. “You’ll find someone. You deserve a good man. You deserve true love.”
    “I’d settle for a good lay,” lied Trixie. She hadn’t had sex with a human being since Benny left her and Sadie almost seven years ago now. And he’d been her one and only lover. The only action her bed saw these days was when she got desperate and pulled out her battery-operated boyfriend.
    “I’m going upstairs for a while.” Trixie stood up, drained her glass, and set it on the tray of a passing waiter.
    “Don’t miss the fireworks.” Val stood, too. “They start around ten o’clock and they’re going to be spectacular.”
    Trixie glanced at her watch. It was just after seven p.m. She had plenty of time to go to her room to shower, change, and mope. “I’ll be there.”
     
    MARCUS MORAVIUS LEANED against the wall with his arms crossed and watched the lush blonde sashay through the living room and up the stairs. His cock stirred as his gaze roved over the nice ass wiggling inside the gold lame dress. Then she was gone. He’d overheard part of the conversation between her—the oh-so-lovely Trixie—and Michael’s wife, Val.
    He snorted. Why the hell his friends insisted on marrying mortals, he couldn’t comprehend. Beautiful women were everywhere and most would do anything asked of them. A vampire didn’t even need to bend their wills. In all his years on the Earth as a vampire, nearly a thousand now, he had never married. In his human life, before his maker found him and turned him into the living dead, he had been a husband, a father, a warrior for Rome.
    “I’ve seen that look in your eye before,” said Steven. “It’s the same look you get when you go after editors for more money.”
    “That’s my job as a literary agent. And I don’t hear you complaining.”
    “I’m not.” Steven’s gaze bounced over the people in the room, stopping on the brunette conversing in a corner. Marcus resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He couldn’t deny that Steven had been blissfully happy in his marriage to Eve. However, the idea of love for vampires was laughable.
    “Will you turn her?” he asked.
    “If she wants.”
    Marcus frowned. “And if she does not?”
    “Then I will spend every day of her mortal life with her.”
    “You would taste love for a blink of a vampire’s eye rather than take it for all eternity?” Marcus chewed over this alien concept. “She would forgive you for turning her… if she loves you so much.”
    “Ah. You can take the warrior out of Rome, but not Rome out of the warrior.” Steven looked at his friend. “I won’t make the same mistake with Eve that I made with Derina. Love is not about conquering, old friend. It’s about surrendering.”
    Steven nodded good-bye and joined his wife, leaving Marcus to ruminate over their conversation. He did not believe in love, but he knew all about honor and duty.
    Caligula had named him a Praetorian Guard and lavished gifts on him, including his marriage to the daughter of a Senator—Julia. Their union had not been a love match, few Roman marriages were, but they had affection and respect for each other. The first time he had known real love was the birth of his twin daughters. Only then had he known the true fear and longing of wanting to protect something precious and irreplaceable.
    Then Caligula had taken them all away—the whim of a mad emperor who could do anything he wanted because he was powerful. He thought himself a god. But Marcus and his fellow conspirators proved that belief a falsity. With the blessings of