Fatal CravingsImmortal Keeper Vampire Paranormal Romance series
Daniella Starre
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Other Books By Daniella Starre
About the Author
Fatal Cravings © 2021 Daniella Starre
Cover Art © 2021 Glowing Moon Designs
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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1
I loved him since we first met. Granted, I was five, but still, I knew he was the one for me.
It was years before I saw him again. At sixteen, I thought I was finally worldly enough, worthy of him.
One kiss. One kiss, a nip at my neck, and he fled.
I thought that would be that, that I would never see him again—him with the features strong and sharp as if chiseled by the gods, him with dark hair and darker eyes, black but glinted with golden flecks, him with the large hands that can swallow mine whole.
He was a brutal monster.
A killer.
A vampire.
Still, I craved him.
I desired him.
I worshipped him.
But cravings could be fatal. I knew that.
Only the strongest of humans are allowed to become one of the Chosen, to have vampire donors. I used to pray to the moon and begged that he would return and give me a golden necklace. My every dream featured him.
That kiss he gave me burned me, seared me, marked me as his.
The other boys at school tried to talk to me. They thought I was playing hard to get. They didn’t realize that another had already laid claim to me.
I never played games.
But he did.
It wasn’t even until my eighteenth birthday that I learned what his name was.
“Annabel Gates.”
His voice was as smooth as silk, deep and rich like velvet. Just hearing him speak was enough to make me lose my mind.
He was inside my room. The window had been left open. My birthday was in early August, when the temperature was brutal in the sweltering Texas heat. My parents didn't have much, and we couldn't afford air conditioning. Only if there was a strong breeze did I get any relief. My sister had a nightmare again, as she had most nights, so she had gone to my parents' room to try to sleep peacefully for the rest of the night. We only had one bed between us, Amber and I. She was five years my junior, only thirteen, and if a vampire came for her, I would protect her.
There was no one here to protect me, though, not that I thought I needed protection.
Oh, how very wrong I was, so utterly naïve.
The vampire was leaning against the windowsill, arms crossed in front of him, ankles crossed too. As with every other occasion when I saw him, he was dressed in an impeccable suit, as if it had been tailored to fit him to a tee. Most likely, it had been. I never heard of a poor vampire.
But that was me—the poor part, not the vampire. I was just a human, a simple eighteen-year-old at that. Why was he here?”
“It’s not fair,” I finally forced myself to say. “Who are you? You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“Do you need to know my name?” he asked as he advanced toward me with a strange glint in his eyes.
I couldn’t look away from his domineering stare. He was a vampire. He drank and killed those like me, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t bring myself to be terrified of him. He didn’t scare me, and that shouldn’t be the case, but it was.
Why? I still didn’t know.
“Do you remember me, Annabel Gates?” he asked in that same seductive voice.
I nodded, my fingers touching my bottom lip.
His lips parted, and I could see the tip of his fang. When he licked his lips, I gasped.
Why was I so drawn to him? It felt like there was a bond between us, some strong magnetic force that drew us to one another, and I stood from where I had been sitting on my bed, trying to read a trashy romance novel.
That was when I remembered it was early in the morning, very early, and I was still dressed for bed.
In a tight shirt that didn’t even cover my underwear.
Self-consciously, I tugged on the hem, not that it would help to cover me more.
His lips curled into a smirk, and I could feel my cheeks turn red with embarrassment. Heat flushed all over me. Of course he had seen far more than what this t-shirt covered or rather didn’t cover. He had to be centuries old. By the look of him, I assumed him to be Italian. Sweet, seductive, savory…
Trying to be coy, I touched my bottom lip again, hoping he would react, that he would sweep me into his arms, but no, he remained there, watching me.
Slowly, I reached for the hem of my shirt again, intent on taking it off.
The next instant, he stood beside me. “What do you think you are doing?” he asked, his words like a purr that made me arch my back and unintentionally push out my chest.
“Vampires are…” I licked my lips. “You…”
He reached up to touch my face. “You are not like most,” he murmured.
“I am nothing special,” I blurted and then flinched. Why would I say that to him when I wanted him to think exactly that?
An infection, that was what he was. A plague. Since I first saw him when I was five, he had wormed his way into my heart.
Back then, I had been so afraid, so worried…
So hungry.
My parents hadn’t been able to afford enough food for the three of us, and my mom was almost ready to give birth to Amber. Looking back, clearly Amber had been an “oops” baby. I knew
