Half in Love [Willie Krenshaw] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read online

  Willie Krenshaw

  Half in Love

  Willie Krenshaw wanted nothing more than a few minutes watching the waters of Lake Erie after a long workday. What she ended up with was a drugged male vampire and an itch to be a Good Samaritan.

  When her inner kitty starts sniffing around at the male she's helping, she knows Fate's evil sense of humor is in full swing. Being a shifter-vampire hybrid is hard enough, but having a male vampire as her fated mate is just too much.

  Nickola, the vampire she assists, finds her breathtaking and does all he can to push Fate's agenda.

  Stephen is the male vampire Nickola is investigating for the Council. He takes aim at the couple, intent on pulling Nick to his side or killing him. Between Stephen's scheming and the Council's interest in Willie, can they survive the chaos long enough to test the depths of their passions?

  Genre: Paranormal, Shape-shifter, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 47,780 words

  HALF IN LOVE

  Willie Krenshaw

  Lea Barrymire

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  HALF IN LOVE

  Copyright © 2012 by Lea Barrymire

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-723-7

  First E-book Publication: June 2012

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Half in Love by Lea Barrymire from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Lea Barrymire’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Barrymire’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  To Bridget.

  The only other person who understands and loves Willie as much as I do.

  HALF IN LOVE

  Willie Krenshaw

  LEA BARRYMIRE

  Copyright © 2012

  Prologue

  1997

  Robert pushed open the screen door, grimacing at the loud squeak from the hinges. He stepped out of his cabin onto the whitewashed wraparound porch, breathing deep of the crisp fall air. Most of the leaves had already fallen from the trees, leaving stark branches naked in the sunlight. The sweet smell of dried and decaying leaves floated on the light breeze. The pine trees cast deep shadows under their full branches. He closed his eyes and absorbed the serene surroundings, letting the tension from the last few weeks slowly melt off his shoulders.

  Being a doctor in an emergency room used to be easier, he mused. He used to work a few shifts a week to cover bills, but with budget cuts at the hospital, he’d been forced to take more and more shifts. It was getting harder to get the nights off that he needed for the full moons. More responsibilities had been heaped on him the longer he stayed at the hospital. Maybe it was time to move on to another town. He’d been in Glens Falls for almost eight years. He would have to move soon anyway, but most hospitals were in the same economic crunch. Maybe the next place he settled he could work as a family practitioner. Although, that forced the relocations faster. Being an ER doctor gave him some anonymity. He didn’t interact with the same patients day in and day out. He was just some doctor that someone saw with an emergency. In his position, he was easily forgotten, not studied, not connected to the community.

  He stepped down off the porch and headed into the woods for a long walk to the creek. Each time he came to this camp he stayed in the same cabin and he took the walk to the stream. It would take him about an hour of hard hiking to make it to water, but it’d be well worth it. The creek was spring fed and cold all year long. During the summer, the creek was a refreshing way to cool off. Or it was just serene to sit by during the spring and fall. Today Robert was just looking to do some communing with nature. He wanted to blend in and be lost in the rhythm of the woods. He planned on stripping and shifting when he made it to the creek, but he’d hike as a human to and from the stream. It was his ritualistic way of shedding his humanity and gaining the connection with nature he craved.

  After fifteen minutes of ground-eating strides he was skirting along the bottom of a hill. He heard a wounded whimper echoing through the valley in front of him. The sound was muffled, but it was distinct enough for him to know that it was a large animal that made the noise. He continued on his path, planning to ignore the animal. His wolf was interested in checking it out, but his human side was still in complete control. Wandering close to a wounded animal would most definitely spell disaster. He took a few more steps and heard the noise again. This time it was easier to make out, and he instinctively knew it was female. He wasn’t sure if it was a bear or a coyote, but he was sure it wasn’t a deer or other herbivore. After a few more steps and listening more closely to the cries and painful noises he gave in to his wolf’s demands and turned toward the location he thought the animal was hiding.

  Robert approached a rocky outcropping with silent feet. He didn’t want to startle the animal, especially if it was a bear. When he was within a few feet of the rocky ledge, he scented a human female. Without conscious thought, he rushed the last couple of feet to find a crumpled girl curled in a fetal position wedged under an overhanging rock ledge. He dropped to his knees in front of the huddled little body.

  “Hello? Can you hear me?” he asked quiet
ly, hoping she was conscious. He didn’t want to startle her. When she didn’t move or respond, he attempted to get a response again. “My name is Robert. I’m going to check to see if you are okay. I’m a doctor. Can you understand?”

  He didn’t wait for her to respond this time. Panic was coursing through his veins, prompting him to take action. He immediately started assessing her for injuries before trying to pull her out from the crevice she was wedged in. Her skin was pasty white. Her breathing was slow and erratic. Her pulse was very weak and thready. Her body temperature was extremely low. He couldn’t believe she was still alive.

  He sucked in a quick gasp when he saw the raw wound on her neck and the telltale marks of a vampire bite marring her smooth skin. Shit. Vampires in the Adirondacks? He looked around superstitiously even though he knew they were alone in the woods. That would explain the lack of color and tepid temperature of her little body.

  “Honey, can you hear me? I need to get you to a hospital,” he said as he slowly tried to pull her out of the crevice. He was sure she had to be unconscious, but she was fighting him with what little strength she had left. “Please, you need to let me get you out of here.”

  She either passed out or gave in to his steady pulling because in a moment she was out from between the rocks and in his arms. She looked to be twelve or thirteen years of age. Long brown hair hung limply from her head. It was matted with sticks and mud. She had crusted blood around her mouth and deep bruises on her face and arms. Her clothes were nothing but tatters, and he noticed that she was barefoot. Very carefully he laid her on the ground and pulled off his coat. He quickly wrapped it around her and hefted her little body back into his arms.

  “Hang on, hon. I’m going to get you help as fast as I can,” he said to his little bundle, but he was sure she wasn’t hearing him. He ran as fast as he could, tapping his inner wolf’s speed.

  He vaulted the steps into the cabin and quickly gathered his keys and wallet, never setting the still-unconscious girl down. With a leap he jumped off the porch to the gravel driveway. He shuffled her into the back seat of his SUV and threw two wool blankets over her unmoving body. He ran to the driver’s side door and slammed it shut, shoving the keys into the ignition. Stones flew as he stomped onto the gas pedal, saying a silent prayer that the girl would survive the drive to Glens Falls. He grabbed his cell phone and dialed the ER desk at the hospital, explaining in clipped words that he was bringing in a girl that was close the death with hypothermia and possible massive blood loss. While he talked to the nurse on duty, he cranked the heat up in the vehicle.

  During the hour it took to drive down to the hospital, Robert glanced repeatedly in the rearview mirror, hoping to catch some movement from the girl on the back seat. He tried to think of some sort of story to tell the swarms of doctors and nurses that would be over the girl in a matter of minutes. How to explain the wounds and lack of blood to the medical professionals without giving away information about the supernatural world? The best plan was to just push them to think it was an animal attack.

  He pulled into the parking lot and drove around the building to the ambulance entrance. He threw the truck in park, jumped out, and ripped the back door open. The girl looked paler than she’d been before, and he could tell that she was barely hanging onto life. She smelled of approaching death. His wolf howled in his head with concern for the little girl. Her labored breaths whispering across her lips and were barely audible. He gently picked her up and swung her through the sliding doors, rushing toward the room the staff had already set up for his arrival.

  The second he entered the building, organized chaos surrounded Robert and his little bundle. She was gently put on a bed, stripped of clothing, covered in heated blankets, and stuck with multiple needles to start the tests needed to track her ailments. An IV was started in one small hand as her blood pressure was taken. She was so close to death that her blood pressure caused errors on the monitoring equipment. Nurses scurried around, barking orders, making calls, and taking care of the girl.

  In all the commotion, Robert stepped back and watched. He was on vacation and knew that hospital policy wouldn’t allow him to work on the girl without clocking in. He felt responsible for her, though, so he stayed quiet and stood against the wall watching his coworkers attempt to bring the girl back from the brink of death. He tried to close out the conversations, but pieces made it through his filter.

  “Massive blood loss…”

  “…Blood type anomalies.”

  * * * *

  Willie could hear people’s voices echoing down a tunnel, or at least that’s what it sounded like. She couldn’t open her eyes, or they were open and it was absolutely black wherever she was. She felt so cold, but she didn’t think her teeth were chattering. Maybe they were and she was just too numb to feel her jaw moving. The thoughts skittered through her mind as she tried to grasp anything that would anchor herself to her body.

  A flame started burning in her stomach. Oh, God, were they setting her on fire? The pain intensified until she couldn’t think of anything else. Her flesh felt like it was melting from her body. Her mouth wouldn’t work to allow the scream out. She silently cried out until she wasn’t anything but a roasting ball of pain. Why would someone set me on fire alive? Someone help me, please!

  She lay suffering through pain unlike anything she had every felt. Scorching flames licked from her belly toward her face. Fire consumed her body piece by piece. She tried to breathe through the fear and pain, but it was too intense. She tried to scream, but nothing worked right. Her mouth wouldn’t work. She couldn’t force air up her throat to get the sound out. She was trapped inside her head with the agony. Terror took her, and she dissolved into silent cries for help. Blissful darkness opened up and swallowed her, crowding out the fire and panic.

  * * * *

  Eight hours. He had been sitting for eight hours next to her bed waiting for her to wake up. Robert had stayed in the ER with the girl for the three hours it took the staff to bring her body temperature back up to safe levels, and to get enough blood back into her body to give her almost normal vital signs. She hadn’t reacted well to the transfusions, but other than that she was healing and recuperating very quickly. It was close to three in the morning, and he was exhausted. The nurses on this floor had repeatedly pushed him to leave and come back in the morning, but he couldn’t leave her alone. He had a pretty good idea of what she was, and without family around to keep her calm, the hospital might have a real crisis on its hands.

  While the staff had worked on bringing her core body temperature up and getting blood into her system, he spent time reviewing the blood work that came back from the lab. There were very few ways to know if a person was a shifter, but one of them had to do with protein levels in the blood. This girl’s were borderline shifter levels, even with most of her blood drained from her body. If she was a shifter, she would wake and probably want to change to her animal form to speed her healing. Robert would keep her from doing that and was willing to sedate her if needed.

  He changed his position again in the chair he’d taken up residence in. He was uncomfortable, but wouldn’t leave her until she woke. He rotated his head on his neck, trying to dispel some of the tension in his shoulders. Being a shifter without a pack was easy until situations like this. Robert didn’t know any other local shifters, so he couldn’t call anyone else to sit with her.

  He reached forward and flipped through her chart again, reviewing the blood work one more time. Her protein levels were fluctuating with each blood draw, but that was to be expected with the multiple transfusions and IV fluids being pumped into her body. The levels that now concerned him were the red blood cell counts. When she was first brought in, even with little blood in her body, she had almost normal cell counts. Now, after eight hours and multiple transfusions she should have higher than normal numbers of blood cells streaming through her system, but she didn’t. Her counts continued to drop. This along with the crust of blood found aroun
d her mouth was disconcerting.

  The possibility that she had been turned, or made vampire, was becoming more real as each hour passed. The virus that created vampires usually tore through a human body in an hour or two, changing DNA as fast as the virus could duplicate. This slow change to her blood levels was troubling to say the least. He really would’ve liked to take a look at the cells under a microscope, but he didn’t have a good excuse to invade the lab at three in the morning. It’d take one look to see if the shape of her blood cells were changing to the vampiric form.

  Robert was snapped out of his thoughts by a quiet moan from the girl. She hadn’t opened her eyes yet, but she was starting to come around. He glanced at her heart rate on the monitor and noticed a slight increase. He leaned forward and lightly touched her arm.

  “Can you hear me?” he whispered. He watched her eyes flicker behind her eyelids. She was definitely coming around. Her fingers flexed on one hand, and when he took that hand in his, her eyes popped open in wide-eyed terror.

  * * * *

  Willie came out of her stupor and noticed that the pain wasn’t as intense. Maybe they had figured out she wasn’t dead and had put the fire out. She could hear beeping and the slight rasping sound of someone breathing near her. Panic invaded her thoughts as the last memory she had played through her mind. The gorgeous man had stopped and let her climb into his car. He had talked to her about the weather and asked questions that she didn’t want to answer. Then he had turned black eyes on her, and terror had skated through her system just as he moved with superhuman speed to grab her. A mouth full of sharp canines and dripping saliva slid into her thoughts. When a warm hand grabbed hers, she opened her eyes, ready to bolt.