Free Vampire Dreams_Int.indd by ghislainviau

“When the impossible is real, and the real is imaginary, boundaries and borders break down. Christina Moss ignores the constraints of common knowledge with blithe abandon, and weaves a tale of what might be, and how it should be if it were.
    “Everything about Vampire of My Dreams is dark and cool on the warp, and bright and hot on the weft. The fabric of this tale will chill and warm you at once, an unusual sensation you will remember for a long time.”
    —Don Dewsnap, Oak Wand Publishing
    “I rarely read for pleasure but more to learn about my trade and to improve upon my skills. Not only did this book keep me intensely interested, it brought tears to my eyes — more than once. I don’t recall the last time a book had the same effect on me. Now that’s saying something.”
    —Brad Fraunfelter, Science Fiction and Fantasy Illustrator

    Copyright © 2010 Christina Moss
    All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
    Adamantine Publishing House
    PO Box 6338
    Burbank, CA 91510
    First Edition: September 2010
    The characters and events portrayed in this book are fi ctitious.
    Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
    ISBN 978-0-9828245-2-8
    Cover Illustration: www.bradfraunfelterillustration.com
    © 2010 Christina Moss
    Interior Illustration: Christina Moss
    © 2010 Christina Moss
    Book Design: www.creativepublishingdesign.com Proofreading: Don Dewsnap
    Printed in the United States of America This one is for my husband, Edward.
    † † †

    Vampire of
    My Dreams
    T error coursed through the man’s body, and his heart was pumping fast as he tried to fl ee through the cold, dark night. Death was at hand and he always knew his would be gruesome, an inevitable outcome following a life of crime. He understood that very soon he would be dead but he ran just the same — instincts of self-preservation are like that.
    His end did come fast, just as he’d predicted. A freakishly powerful force knocked him to the ground and his pursuer was on him. The cold hand on the side of his face shoved his head aside, while the other hand ripped through his collar.
    He felt the fangs sink deep into his jugular and then he shook convulsively. Numbing feet and hands, then his slowed pulse signaled the life draining from him. He felt his throat being slit, and a moment later, he was dead.
    Alexander, the nearly-two-hundred-year-old vampire, licked his knife clean and slipped it into the leather sheath. He stood over the corpse for only a second before walking away.
    1

    Vampire of My Dreams
    He didn’t often feel elated but he did that night. However, his lift in spirits had nothing to do with his most recent kill.
    On the contrary, feeding on humans was not an activity he took any pleasure in at all.
    The thing that made him happy was the fact that he’d fi nished work early. That meant he could spend more time talking with Zoe and tonight was a special night, since it was her twenty-fourth birthday.
    For the past six years he’d entered the human girl’s dreams a few times each week and they would talk — sometimes for hours. Zoe was innocent and beautiful but in all of those years, the girl knew Alexander only as a dream, and so the vampire had never taken advantage of her. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, it was just that it wouldn’t have been right.
    That’s how he fi gured it.
    In those six years he’d revealed to her so much about himself — at least about his life when he still had one — the life he’d led before he was turned. No one knew as much about Alexander as she. And he had discovered so much about her
    — he knew her fears as well as the things that annoyed her, what made her laugh and what made her cry. But the one