Fanged Love Read online

  

  Vampire 3

  Fanged Love

  Sunshine Lorner comes to Lost, Colorado on a mission of salvation. Convinced that vampires are real and suffering from a virus, she’s determined to save them with a cure for vampirism. All she has to do is find a real vampire by the time her genius best friend can whip up the vaccine.

  Vampires Jack Granger, Hank Challenger, and Dade Weil are busy running a ranch. After Sunshine snags Jack in the middle of town, declaring she can save him, they make time for the lusciously curvy Sunshine. She’s tough and spunky, but with insecurity based entirely on her weight. Why can’t she see herself the way they see her? They aim to show her that she’s the perfect woman for them.

  Sunshine’s thrilled to have found not one, but three vampires. Now if only she can get them to take the cure. Will they change for her? Or are being vampires more important than loving her?

  Genres: Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 28,029

  FANGED LOVE

  Vampire 3

  Jane Jamison

  

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  Fanged Love

  Copyright © 2018 by Jane Jamison

  ISBN: 978-1-64243-436-1

  First Publication: October 2018

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All art and logo copyright © 2018 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.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  If you find a Siren-BookStrand e-book or print book being sold or shared illegally, please let us know at [email protected]

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for your support. Although I began writing for my own pleasure, I now write for yours, as well. To that end, I hope you’re enjoying my Vampire series. Please be sure to check out my other books that are available through all the major retailers.

  Enjoy!

  Jane Jamison

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  From an early age, Jane Jamison was fascinated with stories about werewolves, vampires, aliens, and whatever else might be hiding in her bedroom closet. To this day, she still swears she can hear growls and moans whenever the lights are out.

  Born under the sign of Scorpio meant Jane was destined to be very sensual. Some would say she’s downright sexual. Then one day she put her two favorite things together and found her life’s true ambition: to be a romance author.

  Jane spends each day locked in her office surrounded by her two furry bundles of joy and the heroes and heroines she loves. Her plans include taking care of her loving husband, traveling, and writing until her fingers fall off.

  Jane also writes as Beverly Rae.

  For all titles by Jane Jamison, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/jane-jamison

  For titles by Jane Jamison writing as

  Beverly Rae, please visit

  www.bookstrand.com/beverly-rae

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  FANGED LOVE

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Epilogue

  FANGED LOVE

  Vampire 3

  JANE JAMISON

  Copyright © 2018

  Prologue

  Six Months Earlier

  “Walter Crank, you’re drunk off your butt.” Sunshine Lorner hiccupped then stumbled over her purse she’d dropped earlier when she’d come in from work. The days at Freedom Insurance Company in Baltimore, Maryland, seemed to be getting longer and longer. By the time Friday rolled around, she was ready to find relief any way she could. Which usually meant tying one on with Walter, her best friend, who lived in the apartment next door.

  She’d met Walter the day she’d moved in two years earlier. He wasn’t handsome by any means, but she’d instantly liked his shy smile, his curly red hair, and soft blue eyes that looked so much like her own. He was also—compared to her five feet, seven inches—too short, missing her height by a solid three inches.

  “I’m not the only one. Look at yourself in the mirror.” Walter lay trapped—he’d already tried to get up not once but three times—in the beanbag chair that could convert into a queen-sized mattress. Although he lived next door, he’d more than likely end up spending the night in the beanbag without ever trying to convert it into the bed.

  Sunshine swiveled her gaze to the mirror on the wall. Yet, instead of getting more than a glimpse of her reflection, she let out a groan and flopped onto the floor next to Walter. “I can’t. I’m too tired.”

  “As an actual genius, I can tell you without a doubt that you’re wasted, not tired.”

  Sunshine lifted her drink of vodka and orange juice—at least she thought it was orange juice—and peered into its murky depths. She couldn’t argue the genius part of Walter’s statement. After all, he was a certifiable genius and a geneticist on top of it. She couldn’t remember how many degrees he had, but there were a lot of them. “You’re drunk, too.”

  Walter paused as though considering whether her statement had any merit then nodded. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  She grinned. Walter was a genius, no doubt, but he was also the best friend a girl ever had. If only he were gay, he’d be downright perfect. Tugging the tight shirt away from her generous stomach, she covered yet another hiccup then pointed at the vampire movie on the television and asked, “So, Mr. Genius. What’s your official opinion? Do vampires exist?”

  “Yes.”

  She whipped her attention toward him, causing her vision to blur, then gaped. He’d answered suspiciously fast. Waaay too fast. “Yes? Seriously? You think they’re real?”

  He nodded solemnly. Then again, sober or not, Walter always acted in a reserved manner. “Yes.” He paused yet again to think. “Yes, I do.”

  Her drink sloshed over the edge of her glass as she twisted to confront him. “Since when? And why didn’t you tell me before now?”

  He cleared his throat as though ready to give a lecture. “Because I’ve done the research and I find that there is enough evidence to back up the existence of many supernatural beings, including vampires.”

  “Seriously?” If only she weren’t drunk, she might be able to tell if he was joking or not.

  “Seriously. Remember last month when we went to the vampire marathon at the movies?”

  “Uh-huh. So?”

  “Well, I kind of got fixed on the idea of a cure and…” He shrugged. Walter often “got fixed” on an idea, which meant he was fixated enough to be unable to do anything else. He’d come up with several ingenious ideas that had already earned him a lot of money. He could afford to live in a mansion anywhere in the world and yet, he stayed in the same shoddy apartment building because the place had “character.” She suspected that his staying had more to do with her being there than any so-called “character” the old building possessed.

  “Are you kidding me?” She clutched hi
s arm, spilling even more of her drink. “Are you seriously telling me that you’ve found a cure for vampirism?”

  “Don’t get ahead of me. However, I do think that people become vampires because of a virus. A rare virus, mind you, but one that—”

  She tuned out. She often did whenever Walter started talking about the details of his work. After all, she didn’t understand half of what he said. At last, she shook the fog from her vodka-soaked mind and interrupted him. “Damn it, Walter. Speak English. Did you or did you not find a cure for vampirism?”

  “No.”

  Her heart sank. Why, she’d never know. It wasn’t as though she’d actually met a vampire, much less cared for one. “Damn it. I hate it when you get me all excited.”

  He blushed, and she knew what he was thinking. His “excited” was a lot different from hers. She’d known for quite a while that he had a crush on her. “Stop it, Walter. You know what I mean.”

  Her mother, of course, had been delighted that Walter liked her. As far as her mother was concerned, Walter was a catch because he wasn’t ugly, had money, and a good career, and—best of all—liked fat girls.

  She pulled on her shirt again. Didn’t it fit last month? Had it shrunk in the wash? “So you don’t have a cure.” She couldn’t mask the disappointment in her tone.

  “No. Not yet.” He gave her a sad smile.

  She couldn’t fault him. He’d done research after finally admitting that he believed that vampires could actually exist. Now was the time that she could admit what she’d done. “Well, I’ve done a little work of my own.”

  He pushed his Harry-Potter-style glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been researching online, and I’ve found a few things. Things that prove they really do exist.”

  “Are you talking about myths? Rumors? Fairy tales?” His eyebrows jumped above the glasses.

  “Yes. But I also found out about this town in Colorado. Supposedly, vampires live there.”

  “Where did you find this info? On some weird website like I Wanna Be a Fanged Lover? Come on, Sunshine. You know most of the info you find online is pure bullshit. Do you really think you can Google the word vampire and come up with legit scientific evidence?”

  “It may not be scientific, but something about this town feels like the real deal. Call it my woman’s intuition or whatever, but my gut says it’s true.”

  “Intuition? More like wishful thinking.”

  She shoved him, half irritated at him. “I think it’s worth checking out.”

  Walter tried in vain once more to get out of the beanbag chair then suddenly stopped and shot her a hard look. “Shit, Sunshine. Tell me you’re not going there.” He gave up and wiggled his fingers at the bottle of booze on the coffee table. “And hand me the bottle, please.”

  “Okay. I won’t tell you.” Suppressing her giggle of excitement wasn’t possible. “But I am. Next week, in fact.”

  “Shit. Tell me you’re joking. Shit.”

  “Stop saying shit. This is a good thing.” She finally put down her almost empty glass but didn’t hand him the bottle. She didn’t want him to get even more drunk now that they were discussing vampires. “Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you come with me?”

  Walter gave up the fight to get out of the beanbag. He looked longingly at the bottle. “Because I have important work I have to do.”

  “More important than proving that vampires exist?”

  “Yes. My real work. The work I get paid to do.”

  “Oh, bullshit. Nothing you’re working on can be more exciting than proving that vampires exist. Unless it’s finding a cure for vampirism.” Her excitement was growing. “Look at this.” Instead of getting up to get her laptop off the side table, she tugged on the cord and pulled it off. Thankfully, she caught it before it hit the floor.

  “You’d better stop doing that before you break a second computer.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard until she’d loaded the websites she’d bookmarked. “Look.”

  Walter fumbled and almost dropped her laptop when she shoved it against his chest. He repositioned his glasses again yet still squinted at the screen. All too slowly, he read the information.

  Sunshine squirmed, doing her best to wait for him to finish. But patience was not one of her virtues. “Do you see? Lost, Colorado, is a veritable hotbed of vampires.”

  “Those are myths and rumors. Nothing more. I don’t see any solid evidence that the town has vampires.”

  “Oh, come on. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, right? And that’s a hell of a lot of vampire smoke coming off those pages. Here.” She reached across him and brought up another website. “Look at this.”

  Walter did, patience actually being one of his better traits. “Yeah. Same here. Just stories.”

  She slumped against the edge of the broken-down sofa. “Well, of course, they are. If someone had outed the vampires, there would be more than stories. Reporters and scientists would be all over the place. Not to mention the government, ready to catch a vampire and treat him like a lab rat.”

  “If I find a cure, then those things might happen. Have you thought of that?”

  “I think it’s worth the risk and I’ll bet the vampires will think so, too.”

  “So what are you saying? You’re going to go to Lost, Colorado, and out one of them?”

  “Yeah. I am.” She sat up again, twisting to face him even more. “Think about it, Walter. If you had become a vampire after catching this rare virus, wouldn’t you want to find a cure? But you couldn’t come straight out and ask for it, could you? You couldn’t just walk into the Mayo Clinic and say, ‘hey, I’m a vampire who wants to be cured,’ could you? They’d lock you up in the psych ward.”

  “So you’re going to be a hero to all the vampires in the world?”

  She grinned and lightly punched him on the nose. “No, silly. You are. After all, you’re the one who’s going to find the cure. So how fast do you think you can do it?”

  “You’re talking about the creation of a vaccine without having any vampire blood to work with. Even under the right conditions it takes decades to find a vaccine. And you expect me to do it in record time? Yeah, right.”

  “Sure I do. You’re the world-renowned scientist and genius Walter Crank. If anyone can do it, you can.”

  “I’ve yet to cure cancer.”

  “No, but you will.” She didn’t mention that he’d never gotten “fixed” on a solution for cancer. He was very myopic on which problems he liked to solve. Vampirism had caught his attention in a way that curing cancer hadn’t. His fixations weren’t something he could control.

  “There’s a reason no one has tried it, Sunshine. It’s because vampires don’t exist.”

  “Yes, they do. And you believe they exist, too. That’s part of why you’re ready to find a cure. The fact that they do exist has you intrigued.”

  Walter groaned then took his glasses off and cleaned them with the hem of his shirt. “This is ridiculous. We’re drunk and saying stupid things.”

  “Uh-huh. I did a lot of research to find out about Lost. All while I was sober. And you did your research sober, too, right?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing, Walter.” She nodded as though confirming her idea to herself as well as to Walter. “I’m going. Besides, what better thing do I have to do with my vacation time?”

  “How about going home and visiting your family?”

  She tossed him a rueful glance. “Yeah. That’s not going to happen.”

  Sunshine’s parents were eccentric. After all, what parents named their child Sunshine? Her parents weren’t legally married and lived in a tiny home they used to travel the country long before the tiny house movement had gained popularity. Finding them was always a hit-and-miss proposition. Half of the time, they didn’t even have a cell phone, and even when they did, they hardly ever answered it.

  “I’m sorry
I can’t go on a vacation with you someplace nice. Like Hawaii.” Walter had always wanted to visit Hawaii but had never wanted to take off work long enough to do so. He was a workaholic, through and through.

  “Uh-huh. Well, you’d better get working on that cure because once I find a real vampire, you’re coming out there with the cure in hand. Agreed?”

  “I don’t know.” Walter face closed down, his usual response whenever he didn’t want to do something. “This is all so weird.”

  “Yes, you are.” She grinned at her tease. “You’re going to work on a cure even if you have to do it on the side.” She clutched the front of his Big Bang T-shirt. “Walter, you’re coming once I find a vampire and you find the cure. You got that? No, excuses.”

  “But I don’t have any vampire blood—”

  “You’ll figure something out. I know you will.”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked nervous so she turned him free. “Knock it off, Walter. You know you’re coming. There’s no way in hell you’d miss meeting a real live vampire.”

  He bit the inside of his mouth and nodded, somewhat sheepishly. “That would be something, all right. Although I’m not sure you can refer to a vampire as being alive.”

  “Whatever.” Taking hold of the couch, she pushed up then fell backward onto the cushion. “So we have a deal, right? Once I find a vampire, you come running to the rescue.”

  Walter’s blue eyes peered at her through his glasses. “All right. I just hope it’s the vampire that needs rescuing and not you.”

  Chapter One

  “I’m sorry, Sunshine, but we gave the position to Nan Harper.”

  Sunshine did her best to keep the anger exploding inside her from showing on her face. “You gave it to Nan?” At least, her voice sounded calm. “Have you made it official yet because if you have any doubt that I can do the job well, then I’d like to assure you—”