Free Taken (M/F/M red-hot menage shifter romance) Standalone (Shadow Creek Shifters Book 2) by Madison Johns Page A

down like an animal,” Paige added. “Believe me, you won’t like the end result.”
    “I want to know why, Paige? Why did you turn me into a vampire?”
    “I told you I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
    “Possibly,” Katlyn began. “But why bite her in the first place?”
    “I don’t know, really. We were drinking and the next thing I knew we were kissing. Well, that brought the vampire in me out, and I just had to have a little taste.”
    “If that’s the case, you could have just eaten my pussy and left it at that,” Tessa said.
    “Oh? I didn’t really think you’d be up for something like that.”
    “Does it matter now? No. How was biting me one time going to equal me forgetting all about it? I would have known then what you were and told Katlyn, who I’m quite sure would have left this ranch.”
    “Most people ... I mean, I’ve heard that once you’re bitten by a vampire you simply forget all about it,” Paige said.
    “What?” Katlyn asked. “What do you mean, you heard? Have you ever bitten anyone once who wasn’t turned after one time?”
    “Actually, no. I didn’t realize that my bite would turn a human after just one time until much later. The thing is when I was bitten in London in 1952, I sure never forgot about it, and was turned that night.”
    “And what about your sister?” Katlyn asked. “Tessa said you had a sister, too, and that she had been bitten that night as well.”
    Paige swallowed hard. “Sadly, yes, but Arielle had been bitten too deeply. I did manage to get her home, but she was very sick and died during the night. She was only sixteen and very fragile.”
    “How did this happen, exactly?” Katlyn pressed.
    “We’d been invited to a party, and I really didn’t want to attend, but Arielle was so excited. We had a great time until a few men showed up who wore long trench coats that really made me very nervous, to the point that I insisted we leave posthaste. It was quite foggy that night and we got turned all around. It was in December of ’52, and that fog ended up being called The Great Smog of ’52. It ended up killing thousands of people by the time it lifted. Anyway, we were followed and heard someone pursuing us, and we ran and ran until two men jumped out of the alley at us.”
    “The same ones from the party?” Katlyn asked as she bit her lip.
    “Yes, when they revealed their fangs, we ran for our lives, but these men caught us easy enough. Here we were, on the ground trying to fight them off as they ripped our clothing down. At first, I thought they meant to rape us, but they simply were trying to get at our necks.” Tears glistened in Paige’s eyes. “When I was bitten, I stared over to my sister and the man who bit her mucked it up. She was bleeding so badly and I was unable to help her. After the man who bit me drank his fill, he thanked me, thanked me like I was allowing him to do that to me. He whispered to me, ‘that he’d see me soon’ and I knew right then that this was only the beginning of my nightmare.”
    Katlyn grabbed a box of tissue from an end table and handed it to Paige, and she continued, “Here my sister was, quite hurt, and I had to half carry her all the way back home. When we finally were home, I did my best to stop her bleeding, but there were huge marks in her neck that gaped open.”
    “Why didn’t you take her to the hospital?” Katlyn asked.
    “I just didn’t know how to explain any of it, but I did call for an ambulance a few hours later. Unfortunately, since the smog caused so many people to die and need medical attention, by the time the ambulance actually arrived, it was too late for Arielle,” Page cried. “I’ll never forgive myself for taking her to that party, but she so wanted to go and I just didn’t want to disappoint her. Our parents had died in a car accident the year before, you see.”
    Tessa’s face softened now, but her eyes were still guarded.
    Katlyn straightened her back when it began