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  SCORNED

  A LeKrista Scott, Vampire Hunted Novel

  Tyffani Clark Kemp

  Published by Firstname SideStreet Cookie Publishing LLC at Smashwords

  Copyright 2012 Tyffani Clark Kemp

  DEDICATION

  For my "Pierce"

  CHAPTER ONE

  New Years Day

  Why do I tolerate this place?

  I ask myself that question every time I clock into work. Edgar Appleton, the flamboyant owner of the small-town floral shop Arrangements by Appleton, watched me through the window as I pulled into my parking space. I shut off the engine and gave a little wave and smile. Eddy shot me a dirty look and turned away. I could see the day taking a turn for the incredibly awful. Yay me.

  Appleton’s is five minutes from my house, which is lucky because my family lives in the boonies. The shop shares its space with a wedding coordinator and a cake decorator, so we get a lot of business. And in the small town of Travelers Rest, South Carolina it’s often repeat business.

  The sky was dark and menacing as I ducked inside. The sweet smell of flora filled my nostrils and I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the fragrant aroma. I didn’t even have a chance to blink before Eddy was on top of me with demands.

  “I need the backroom organized, Mizz Scott. I just got an unexpected delivery of vases,” he pronounced the word vah-zes like he was actually from somewhere. “The one that we had to reorder six times, as a matter of fact. It all came in.”

  I let out a heavy sigh and rolled my eyes.

  “Exactly. Get to work.”

  Surprised that we could actually agree on our little moment of commiseration, I offered him a sarcastic salute and marched to the backroom to fulfill my duties as the floral shop grunt. I’m really very good at my job and Eddy knows that, but he has to maintain some kind of face in front of his women. There are four other women who work for him around the shop, and only one of them is American. Even so, she’s from Hawaii and very exotic. They’re all beautiful, thin, flexible, girls. And I’m not guessing on the flexible part. Instead of working they like to compare notes. And I'm the one who Eddy likes to yell at to "get to work".

  I was only at my task for about twenty minutes, wondering when the others would use their freedom of passage to finally show up for work, when Eddy poked his head in the door.

  “LeKrista,” he whispered like he was afraid someone would overhear. Eddy doesn't do afraid. He does cocky. I might even go as far to say arrogant.

  “Yeah,” I whispered back. “What?”

  “I have a customer.” He didn’t even say anything about my sarcasm. “A meeting. I need you to come man the front room until one of the girls gets here.”

  “Okay.” We were still whispering. My legs began to tingle the moment I stood up and I followed Eddy out to the main room on rubbery legs. The front room was empty and quiet and the office door closed before I had a chance to see who was in there.

  I wasn’t in the front room long before one of Eddy’s girls walked in. Parashie pulled the front door open with a flourish and grace that I never could have managed. She’s one of the “blonde twins” as I refer to them in private. Her counterpart is a German girl named Maaren. They both have long blonde hair cut to one length with matching bangs, the cute kind that are tapered to blend into the hair rather than cut straight across. They both have ocean blue eyes that seem to change color with the seasons, and they both are about the same height and size. They even wear their clothes interchangeably. Add to that their similar facial features and bone structure, and you would think they’d been separated at birth.

  Parashie addressed me in Russian with what I know to mean something to the effect of “commoner” or “common girl.” Whatever. I know for a fact that she was found wandering the streets, orphaned.

  “Where is Edgar?” she asked. I would never tell her that I thought her accent was beautiful.

  I motioned to the office. “He’s having a private meeting.”

  Parashie rolled her eyes and stalked to the office door. She’s close to six feet, if not exactly, and anorexic-skinny, though she’s a healthy eater. I think her favorite is cheeseburgers. She’s not bulimic either. She just has one of those metabolisms. You know, the kind that makes us average, slightly overweight girls sick? Yeah. The “twins” are those girls. She dresses like she thinks she lives in Hollywood - tight skinny jeans, a white undershirt peeking out underneath a striped 1red and black sweater, and enough jewelry to accessorize a small country. Her stilettos thumped on the carpeted wood floor, making it sound hollow underneath, and it probably was.

  I didn’t try to stop her from opening the door. I have no qualms about letting her and the others know just how little I care for them. It would serve her right for calling me “common girl” for so long if she got in trouble.

  Eddy looked up when the door opened and his client whipped his head around. Shock and fear rolled off of him and filled my head. My heart sped up like I was experiencing his fear. I could feel his eyes locked on me. They were full of a power I didn’t understand. I felt a niggle at the base of my skull and my head ticked to the right in a sort of shiver. The man frowned at me, blinked, and then it was gone.

  Eddy was livid, his face flushed with anger. He shouted something at Parashie in Russian and rose out of his chair to block any view of his guest. Eddy looked and sounded the most manly I’d ever heard him. I realized, if he wasn’t such an ass - and gay - I might be attracted to him.

  “I didn’t know you spoke Russian,” I said quietly, mostly to myself than anything, but it seemed the wrong thing to do. Eddy heard me and, when he turned to look, his face had blanched to a creamy white. He looked sick, like he might pass out.

  “Shut the door!” Eddy shouted one last time, enunciating each word like Parashie was stupid.

  Parashie screamed something in her native tongue and slammed the door like a spoiled child. Then, she turned on me and shouted, “Don’t you have some work to do?”

  “I have to get my pills from my car,” I said and hurried out of the building. I wasn’t in the mood for a fight, and she was wearing stilettos, too? No, thanks. She could keep them.

  I keep my Clonidine in the console of my beat up Honda Civic. I suffer from Epilepsy and a mild case of Tourette’s Syndrome. I haven’t had a seizure in years and I keep the tics at bay with the pills. I don’t have vocal tics, the kind where you shout random words for no reason. Instead I have motor tics and sometimes my body will just shudder. It starts with the weird feeling at the base of my skull then travels my spine like a shiver. Those are mostly gone too, except for special occasions.

  I popped the pill and swallowed without water before I headed back inside. I ignored Parashie, who sat sulking in the corner, not doing any work whatsoever.

  The meeting was over before I made it to the backroom. Eddy walked out first, his head down and his tail tucked between his legs, so to speak. The client exited next, hands in his pockets, head held high. He was attractive, too attractive.

  “I will speak with you again soon, Eddy,” he said in an accent I couldn’t place. Accent whore that I am I loved it.

  Eddy nodded. We all watched him leave, even Parashie was enamored with his backside. Eddy seemed to come out of the stupor first, though he speared me with a look and said, “Back to work, Mizz Scott.”

  I hate the way he calls me that, but it’s better than Kris or some of the derogatory terms the girls have come up with. I sequestered myself in the backroom, hoping to avoid Eddy and his women for the rest of the day.

  My phone rang as I was finishing up. Sneezing from the dust I’d managed to inhale, I answered on the second ring.

  “Hey, Staci,” Pierce Wisely, my longtime boyfriend of just over five years,
said on the other end. His deep voice was welcome at the end of a day spent in the flower shop and I couldn’t help but smile.

  “Hey, baby. I’m about to leave work now.”

  “Are you going to stop and get some drinks before you head this way?” he asked.

  “Yeah. It’s my turn.”

  “Could you pick up some steaks too? I’ll cook.”

  “Just steaks or do you need the seasonings too?”

  “Seasonings too.” He listed what he needed, even though we both knew I wouldn’t remember all of it.

  “Pierce, I don’t know that I have enough money for all of that.”

  “Just get what you can. I’ll pay you back when you get here.”

  I agreed and hung up, more ready than ever to leave. I made sure I’d done what I could for the day then stepped out to tell Eddy and his ladies good bye. They were all there, the twins, Dayla the Hawaiian girl, the French actress and her protégée, and the African Princess. She was a real princess from what I could tell and I had no idea why she hung out with Eddy here in Travelers Rest. But she did, they all did, and it was weird.

  “Later,” I saluted them all. I pushed my way through the door and climbed into my car before anyone could say anything or try to stop me. Next stop Wal Mart, and from there Pierce, the highlight of my day.

  It was as I passed the little girl’s pajamas that I felt the eyes on me, something I’d grown accustomed to in the last months. The skin on my arms perked up and my nerves crawled like they were trying to get away. The spot between my shoulder blades itched, begging me to turn and see who was there. I stopped to inspect some bunny footy pajamas and looked at the price tag while subsequently using my peripheral to see who was behind me. A tall, lanky man with shaggy dark hair, dressed in loose fitting, faded jeans and a black polo with brown loafers walked by, but it wasn’t him. I would know those eyes when I saw them, and this man’s were insecure. He held himself with confidence, but his puppy-brown eyes spoke the truth.

  Tucking my dark hair behind one ear, more from habit than from necessity, I continued to the back of the store where the refrigerators housed what I was looking for; a case of Michelob Ultra for Pierce and a six pack of Bud Light for me.

  The eyes bore into the back of my skull, more intense than they’d ever been. I turned to leave with my booty- the beer, not my butt- and caught the figure of a man as he disappeared behind the shelves of the next aisle of wine bottles. All I had time to notice was that he was sexy as hell, and clearly foreign because Americans don’t dress that well. He smiled, I smiled, and then he was gone, on his way to get some cream cheese. Or milk. Or orange juice. Or cookie dough. I hurried to find the things I remembered from Pierce’s shopping list and headed up front to the registers. It didn’t take any time at all to find a register with a line that wasn’t wrapped all the way around the store to Women’s Underwear. January first tends to be a pretty slow day for the most part, with everyone at home drunk or hungover. I fished a wadded fifty out of the back pocket of my jeans, and handed it to the cashier. She took it, though a bit reluctantly, and started smoothing it.

  “Sorry about that,” I said.

  “No problem,” she replied. The pink hoop in her lip bobbed as she spoke and the tone she took said that it was, indeed, a problem.

  I let her ring me up and shoved the receipt in my front pocket.

  The sky was now a threatening grey-black that I found beautiful. The wind had picked up too, as if it could actually blow any harder.

  That’s stupid. Haven’t you heard of hurricanes? Tornadoes? Monsoons? Tsunamis?

  I switched everything to my left had so I could fumble for my key with my right, and told myself how stupid I could be sometimes. Normally, I have my key out by the time I make it to the car, but distracted by the wind and my own stupidity, I hadn’t even thought of it until too late. Now, I stood at my car door like an idiot, trying to get the right key out before the wind blew me away.

  Beer bottles hit the pavement with the sickening crash of glass and the splash of amber liquid. They crashed around my feet, soaking my faded yellow Chuck Taylors and the legs of my skinny jeans.

  I blinked and looked down. It was like slow motion. The bottles clanked and shifted and the cardboard bottoms of the beer cases slowly gave way. I hadn’t even thought to check them, or maybe the goth girl at the register sabotaged my beer because of the waded bill. Either way, I was about to lose twenty dollars worth.

  God? Is this Your way of telling me to stop drinking?

  I didn’t have a lot of money to begin with, and spending it on beer that is only going to end up on the ground is not ideal.

  The glass bottles shifted lazily once more and the whole bottom fell out, spilling beer bottles like confetti at a parade.

  “No!” I jumped back, out of the way of the deluge of glass and beer that I knew was coming, and braced myself. I turned away with my eyes shut tight against the sound of glass bottles popping against the asphalt.

  Nothing happened. I waited, but there was no sound of glass breaking, nor was there a river of beer up to my knees. I turned to see what had happened. The man from Eddy’s office was standing there, all twenty bottles of my beer in his arms as if he’d been carrying them to the car for me that way. He smiled, his mouth quirked up as if he thought it was funny that I’d almost lost my life’s savings in beer to the asphalt. Okay, so it wasn’t my life’s savings fortunately, but it felt like it sometimes.

  I cocked my head to the side and said, “I’m glad you think it’s funny.” He blinked at me, then chuckled, a rich sound that vibrated in his chest and made my heart thump a little off beat. That was all I needed, to add heart palpitations to my list of health issues.

  “Forgive me. I hope you do not mind. I saw you struggling and came over to help if I could. Before I could get here, well...” He shrugged, gesturing with his arms full. The light yellow liquid jostled in the bottles at his movement, and I was suddenly very aware of myself.

  I wasn’t much to look at. Just over five-four, I was stuck on the shorter side. My washed-out, brown hair was dry and brittle from too many chemical treatments. I prided myself on my almost-green, not quite brown, hazel eyes and my natural, killer tan. They call it light-skinned here in the South, those of us of mixed race. White mom, black dad. You get the picture.

  “I guess I should get a bag or something.” I was really looking for an excuse to escape the sudden awkwardness I felt in his presence. I looked around and checked the backseat of my car. Go me. I’d just cleaned it out. “If I run inside, you won’t disappear with my beer will you?” It was embarrassing to admit I was so broke I couldn’t afford to buy more.

  Mr. I-actually-iron-my-jeans-to-get-a-crease chuckled again, but no sound came from his lips, leaving me disappointed. “I promise. I don’t drink beer.”

  I had a sudden Wes Craven Dracula 2000 moment, “I don’t drink...coffee...” but I shook it off and tried for humorous. I put the rest of my bags in the front seat of the car and said, “It’s not the drinking I’m worried about. Do you have any idea what you could get for just one bottle of that stuff on eBay if you played it right?”

  It worked. He laughed again. Out loud. It was a beautiful, deep sound that I could have listened to all day and it followed me inside the store, bouncing around in my head like a song I couldn’t stop singing.

  “Excuse me,” I said to the closest cashier who didn’t look like she was busy or like she’d rather be in a coffin. She was an older woman with wrinkles and jet black hair that had to be from a bottle. There was no way she wasn’t gray underneath. “The bottom fell out of my beer cases. Do you think I could get some bags to put the bottles in?”

  She gave them to me and carried on about how the same thing had happened to her not too long ago. “There’s no such thing as quality anymore,” she ranted.

  I smiled, taking the bags from her. “Gotta make money.”

  She nodded and smiled like we’d just bonded over the poor qual
ity of cardboard beer cases. Or, perhaps I’m just too cynical. “You have a good day,” she called.

  “You too.”

  So-sexy-I-wear-the-jeans-with-fake-wear-lines-bleached-on-the-thighs hadn’t moved an inch, and he still had that humored smile that quirked up one side of his mouth. I wondered how he wasn’t cold, standing there in nothing but his pressed jeans, a grey knit sweater, and a scarf woven of dark gray and lilac that set off his royal blue eyes. I could see them from across the parking lot, staring straight at me like they’d been for months now. Those same eyes watching me, reading my thoughts...

  A car honked and I jumped. I was standing in the middle of the street holding up traffic. I waved an apology and hurried across the walkway. It was gone now- the feel of those eyes, the tingle on my arms and down my spine. I wondered if I’d imagined their intensity. Yeah, he was definitely attractive. The kind of guy I would drool over if I was single.

  I grabbed two bottles by the neck. He just stood there, quietly smirking at me as if he knew a joke I’d missed. I slid the first bag onto the floor on the passenger’s side and grabbed the next two. The wind had blown them across the car, plastering them against the passenger window, so Mr. Sexy got a lovely view of my backside as I retrieved them.

  When I was finished, I smiled and thanked him. “I appreciate your help...” I didn’t want to say “mister”. Too molester-ish. “Dude” didn’t work either and neither did “man”, so I just left it, hoping he would fill in the silent question with his name.

  He didn’t. All he said was, “It was my pleasure,” and that accent was just slightly thicker than before.

  “LeKrista” I told him, hoping he’d catch the hint, and I offered my hand to shake. He took it in his own but he didn’t shake it. His hands were cold, but rough and smooth at the same time as if the manual labor that he’d done to get the calluses was long over.