Accidentally dead, again.
Dakota Ca.s.sidy.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.
ber-thanks to Saranna DeWylde-auth.o.r.ess and, probably by the time of this book"s publication, a superstah in the literary romance world! After a totally random check-in email, you gave me the best ideas ever for this particular edition of the Accidentals. Much love, chica. You"re a rock star!
My son Cameron, who"s so brilliant it frightens me (He really is. Buy this book because he wants to go to an Ivy League school. Pleaaaase.), and who came up with such a terrific idea when talking this plot out with me. And my pal and beta reader Kaz who gave me a deeper insight to this particular plot.
To all my Facebook/Twitter fans and friends-I can"t begin to express to you the rollicking good time I have with you every day in proper words. You hang out, you answer my questions of the day, we talk books, we snark American Idol auditions and The Bachelor, or we just talk life. Whatever we"re doing, know how much you"re appreciated and adored by me. And to Mark Boyer, the hilariously funny man I based Phoebe"s best friend on and an active partic.i.p.ant on my Facebook fan page who might be sorry he won that contest!
Also, to all of you soap opera fans out there: I loved soap operas and was a faithful watcher for many, many years. My shout-out to them (in my parody sort of way) is with the greatest love and the absolute deepest respect.
And huge, huge thanks to the following shows, all of which had a hand in this book: Castle, Glee, The X-Files, Fringe, Grey"s Anatomy, and Psych!
Most especially to Melissa Dwyer, whose emails not only make me smile, but remind me the human spirit is not just alive, but on fire! I love ya, honey-you"re one h.e.l.luva fighter!
And, as always, to my (in earlier Accidentals dedications) one-time boyfriend, now husband, Rob. I could never do this if I didn"t have a safe harbor to park my whine in. That safe harbor is you.
Dakota.
CHAPTER.
1.
"Will I sparkle in the sunlight? Because confession: I"m uncomfortable sparkling," Samuel McLean said.
"Oh, dude, if you go out in the sunlight, I can promise there"ll be no sparkling. Now sparks? Hmmm. Could be. Definitely some f.u.c.king flames. For sure a whole lotta screaming, *Oh, my G.o.d, it burns!" but no sparkles. Though, I gotta give it to you, dude. With what you"re wearin", you give sparkly a whole new level of ugly."
He ignored the crude woman"s crack about his dress. According to the lady in the thrift store, he"d gotten a good deal on it, and it was a hot color this season. So, yeah. "Another pressing thought?"
"Shoot."
"Do I have to pick a team? I don"t want to screw with Edward or Jacob"s self-esteem."
A cackle with a definite hint of devious pleasure threading through it followed Sam"s question. The deep chuckle literally clanged in his ears to the point of painful, leaving him feeling like one full-bodied raw nerve. He shifted in his chair at the bas.e.m.e.nt offices of OOPS, pulling uncomfortably at the front of his red sequined dress to create some much-needed airflow.
Christ, it was hot. Why was it so d.a.m.n hot?
From behind him, the lingering presence of the woman who"d plowed into the office like he owed her money was downright imposing. When she leaned over his shoulder, Sam forced himself to forget he was wearing a hot little number. He mentally put his man-suit back on and asked, "You are, again?" with as much of an arrogant, I"m-still-in-charge-of-this-situation tilt to his penciled-in eyebrow as he could muster.
For which the imposing female wasn"t at all fazed. "Nina. Nina Blackman-Statleon. Vampire. The non-sparkly kind."
The breathtaking brunette in jeans and a sweatshirt clamped a hand on his shoulder. She clenched it with fingers of steel that burned clear through his shifting shoulder pads and made his big hoop, clip-on earrings sway. "Man, as soon as I heard you were here, I skipped right over like I was on my way to the flippin" Ring-Ding factory VIP tour. So. Jazzed. Look."
She came to stand in front of him, holding out a basket before she unceremoniously plunked it in Sam"s lap. "When Marty called me, I got so f.u.c.king excited you weren"t a whiny female this time round, I threw this s.h.i.t together. We"ve never had a legit dude accidentally bitten before. So call it my Vampire Welcome to the Clan gift."
She grinned, beautiful and maybe just a little too smug for his liking, quite obviously pleased with her generous contribution to this vampire thing.
Samuel"s eyes trailed down to the wicker basket in his lap and pushed his skirt toward his knees in the effort to keep his man bits properly covered-still too dazed to respond. Though not so dazed he missed the packet labeled BLOOD in bold black letters. It glistened, red and delicious, taunting him from its plastic casing.
Hungry, Sammy?
He clenched his jaw again, grinding his teeth together-which wasn"t easy, considering their recent growth spurt. f.u.c.k. He was actually eyeing the blood like it was a filet. Apparently a delicacy, as part of Marty"s Welcome to the Night Dwellers Club information packet, he"d never eat again.
"Oh, look," the aforementioned Marty remarked in dry tones, leaning against a chipped desk with her arms crossed over her chest. "Nina the Sensitive was kind enough to make you a vampire care package, Mr. McLean. Suppose you could"ve waited until he knew everything he was in for before you threw him into the dark overlord deep end of the pool, Nina?"
The brunette turned her middle finger up at the blonde with a smirk. "Blow me. He"s a man, Marty. He"d better take it like one. Which means he needs to get used to the fact that if he goes out in the sunlight without that G.o.dd.a.m.ned SPF two trillion, he"ll burn like a Yule log. And he"s got to feed or he"ll shrivel up just like all of his useless organs have."
Sam fought hard to keep the man in his male equation intact and not flinch when Nina reminded her friend his organs were now persona non grata and his time-share in Aruba was going to be a future Craigslist ad.
He squared his shoulders. Not that it was easy to do in a sequined red dress and heels.
Project his manliness, that is.
How the h.e.l.l did women keep these skimpy dresses in place? For that matter, how did they keep their legs closed, their nylons from ripping, their bra straps from digging a hole in their skin, apply false eyelashes with diamond studs on them and not end up with glue all over their faces, and walk in heels all at the same d.a.m.n time?
Suffice it to say, Sam did not enjoy being a girl. He looked down at his chest in disgust, adjusting his half deflated gel bra with impatience when the third woman in the trio spoke.
"Did you say manly?" a chestnut-haired brunette remarked with a snort at Nina"s comment. "You mean like the way you took it, Nina? All manly?" she taunted with a raised eyebrow, her eyes gleaming with laughter.
Nina made a face, distorting her beauty, and plopped down in a chair behind a duplicate of the desk Marty stood in front of. "Shut the h.e.l.l up, Wanda. I did not either cry."
Wanda. Yes. Sam remembered now. The elegantly dressed, gracious lady was Wanda Schwartz-Jefferson-the werevamp. At least that"s what he recalled her saying when he"d woken up in their office to find himself being hurled into a chair with the declaration that he had the ugliest pumps ever. Though, they"d a.s.sured him, his color something or other was spot on.
That had been Marty"s contribution to his condition.
Marty Flaherty ... the woman. Who"d lifted all six-foot-five and two hundred and thirty pounds of him like he was nothing more than a curling iron. Marty the werewolf-woman, that is.
So. Much. Crazy.
Wanda clucked her tongue. "No. You didn"t cry, bada.s.s. You p.i.s.sed and moaned and carried on for days. That"s what you did." She snapped her fingers together to shush Nina, who was quite obviously ready to react. With venom, if Sam was accurately reading her vibe. "Now, before things get out of control like they always do, shut up, Nina. Yes, you"re the expert on vampires here. Yes, I"m sure you"ll have plenty to add to Mr. McLean"s misery because that"s all part of the Nina genius. But you"re not going to do it for the pathetic glee the shock value brings you. Not today, Elvira. I refuse to have one more accidentally turned client fill out that infernal comment form Casey insisted we put on our site with another negative review about your skills as a paranormal crisis intervention counselor. Refuse."
Nina brushed imaginary lint from her sweatshirt that had a thumbs-up sign and read, VAMPIRE s.e.x. 24 PEOPLE LIKE THIS. "Oh, please. We all know that dude was a total d.i.c.k. Of course we weren"t helpful or whatever the f.u.c.k he said. He wasn"t really accidentally anything-except maybe a moron. He was no more accidentally turned into a dragon than I am the new Miss f.u.c.king Universe. He had eczema-not scales. Bet he"d take that s.h.i.t off the OOPS site if he knew his a.s.s was in for a poundin" from me. Shoulda just killed him when I had the little douche in the trunk of the car."
Wanda took a deep breath, her hands gripping the edge of her desk. "The point being, he should have never been in the trunk of your car, Nina! For the love of-you can"t just throw someone who makes you angry in the trunk of your car and threaten to make them a pair of cement Louboutins-even when they send us on a wild-goose chase! We are professionals. Now, false report or not, Chester wasn"t the only one who left a comment that was less than favorable about you, Mistress of the Dark. So knock it off! This is someone"s life-not a game where the poor, accidentally turned is the hunted and you"re the hunter. So stay seated, quiet your ever-unhelpful mouth, and let us a.s.sist Mr. McLean."
Nina"s lips formed a thin line, but upon Wanda"s order, she leaned back in her chair, letting her ankle rest on her knee.
Watching their interaction, one that had a certain rhythm to it, Sam was capable of only one a.s.sessment. It was d.a.m.n obvious these women were experienced in this sort of thing. So had it just been luck that he"d landed here? Or was it a calculated stop, drop, and roll on the doorstep of three women who just happened to claim they were supernatural? His usually sharp-as-a-tack mind couldn"t process much further than the scenario before him.
Maybe he was being punked by his new poker buddies? How did he know these women were telling the truth about all these accidents they lay claim to? Seriously, who thinks a werewolf looks like a dog, and did vampires really have dental plans?
If you listened to Wanda and Marty and the tales they"d told him about their accidental events, apparently, they did.
How did he know they could really help him? Sure, they claimed they knew what was happening to him and that they could a.s.sist, but how did he know he had what they had?
How did he know they had anything to begin with? Maybe what they"d shown him had David Copperfield properties to it, and he"d fallen for it because, let"s face it, he"d lost a day of his life-somewhere-somehow in a bizarre comatose-like state. He"d have called drunk for all the ensuing craziness, but the f.u.c.k of it was, he hadn"t had a drop to drink the night this had all begun. He never drank on the job ...
Maybe he was just tired, and all that snarling, shedding, and showing of the fangs they"d given him as proof was his eyes playing tricks on him.
Or ...
Sam, Sam, Sam. Don"t be an a.s.shat. Did you not bear witness to what that Marty called the shift? You"ll be picking fur out of your teeth for days for all the openmouthed horror you displayed.
Okay. There was no denying what he"d seen, whether he was recovering from a bender he couldn"t remember having or not. This was real. Marty had turned into a werewolf right in front of him, and Wanda had lifted not one, but both desks with a mere two fingers from each hand.
He"d seen. f.u.c.k. It had been like that crazy show his ex-girlfriend used to watch. Super-something with men she"d called lickable that were always fighting, not only with each other, but with Lucifer and his demons because they were vessels. s.h.i.t. Was he a vessel, too?
d.a.m.n. It would suck to be a vessel in a dress and these big hoopy earrings.
How could this all really be true?
"Mr. McLean? Are you still with us?" Wanda asked, her worried glance to the other two women making him reposition his slouching frame.
Be a man, Sam. All man. "Sam. Please, call me Sam." Or Vampire. Mr. Vampire.
Wanda perched on the edge of her desk, crossing her slender legs. Her black heels clacked together in an abomination of sound so sharply distinct, Sam gripped the arms of the office chair they"d given him to sit in upon his awakening. It was all he could do to keep from screaming at Wanda to shut up. Everything was so loud and abrasive. "Okay, so here we go, Sam. Obviously, you realize you"ve got a ... problem."
As problems went-this probably would cla.s.sify. He was in the office of women who declared they were paranormal crisis counselors and ran an organization t.i.tled OOPS. He had no idea how he"d gotten here. Add to that, he had on a dress, matching heels, nylons, fake eyelashes, and a blond wig. Definitely problematic.
Sam watched Wanda"s pink-glossed lips nibble at the end of her pencil while she waited for him to answer. "Yes. I think these"-he lifted his upper lip, taking care not to poke himself with the Lee Press Ons still stuck to his fingertips, and revealed the fangs the women had shown him he was now the proud owner of when they"d made him run his fingers along his newly elongated teeth-"are a definite problem. There"s also the small, but quite possibly deadly issue of my urge to eat anyone who has blood pumping through their veins-which I"ll be honest enough to tell you, I"m really fighting. I"m guessing *I"m a vampire" won"t be a solid defense in a court of law where murder"s concerned."
Insanity be thy name.
"I"d like to attribute this to the world"s worst hangover, but as far back as the night this happened, I can"t remember even having the chance to grab a beer."
Marty"s hand shot up, her bracelet-covered wrist shiny under the brash ceiling light. "Hold on. You were rambling just a little when we dragged you in here. Let"s hear what happened once more for posterity so Nina"s filled in?"
Sam"s mind raced back to two days ago when he"d been talked into going to his new friend Joel"s Halloween costume party. Dumbest a.s.s thing he"d done in a long d.a.m.n time. But Joel had convinced him he needed to mingle more instead of burying himself in his work. "I think, to my best recollection, it happened at my friend Joel"s costume party-"
"So you don"t always dress like Marilyn Monroe OD"d on steroids?" Nina queried with a wave of her hand at his torn dress and cracked heels.
Sam pushed a blond curl from the wig he was still wearing out of his eyes. Eyes that had taken one look in that hand mirror these bunch of women had given him when they"d spouted their paranormal pitch, and had nearly fallen out of his head.
And it wasn"t due to the fact that he didn"t need his gla.s.ses to see his reflection clearly anymore, but more because he had absolutely no reflection, period. "Um, no. It was a costume party. You know, Halloween? I thought it would be funny if-"
Nina cut him off again with a flap upward of her hands. "No judgment here, dude. You can be whatever you want to be. If you dig dressing up like a chick and bein" swishy, you won"t hear me point out that the dress you"re wearing is a s.h.i.tty color for your stupid color aura-or whatever. But I"m crushin" on your earrings."
"They were a total steal at some place in the mall called Claire"s. And hold on," he protested. "Marty said it was a good color for me ... and it was a costume party ..." Hey now. He stopped short, clamping his piehole shut.
"Nina!" Wanda chastised, her frown disapproving. "I"m sorry, Sam, but if you choose to work with us, she"s a part of the deal. Forget your color wheel and your dress and those ghastly heels and try to focus on the fact that Nina mostly knows what she"s talking about. She is the vampire in our equation. Full vampire, as opposed to my only half."
Right. Wanda was halfsie, as she"d jokingly referred to herself on a snort Marty had mirrored. That he could remember any of this after waking from what felt like a coma continued to amaze him.
Wanda rustled on the desk, regaining Sam"s attention. "Please, continue, Sam."
He scratched at his legs, ripping another hole in his pathetically shredded pantyhose. "Anyway, I went to this costume party where I met a woman dressed as a vampire and ..." And she"d been hot as Hades. Maybe hotter.
They"d made sizzling eye contact over the apple-bobbing barrel and the rest was as cliched as it got. He wasn"t one for one-night stands as a rule, but this woman, mysterious, round in all the right places, and with a pair of eyes so oddly tinted violet, he couldn"t help but pursue her.
But he wasn"t going to share those thoughts with a roomful of females who"d made it clear they could take on an entire football team while they polished their nails.
"Oh, pick me! I know what happened next," Nina teased, maniacal amus.e.m.e.nt glinting in her coal black eyes. "Your man parts thought getting your wonk on with a complete f.u.c.king stranger at a costume party was a good idea. The two of you left the party, went to some s.k.a.n.ky hotel, she gets ya all juiced, and bam, you wake up Dracula. And they say the male gender is the superior one."
"Hey," Sam scoffed, affronted. "It wasn"t a s.k.a.n.ky hotel." A weak defense but a defense nonetheless. It hadn"t been a s.k.a.n.ky hotel-it had been a perfectly fine Days Inn, even if the rest of what Nina had retold was mostly the truth. And he"d paid for the taxi.
"It wasn"t a s.k.a.n.ky hotel," Nina mimicked his protest with a laugh and a roll of her neck. "Is that the best ya got, Romeo?"
"Ohhhh, listen to the pot calling the kettle black, Nina Statleon!" Marty accused. "Sit down and still your trapdoor, girlie, before we have to remind you of your premarital *Oh, look. An unsuspecting man who needs an ego shredding with his one-night stand" days."
Nina"s eyes narrowed at Marty. "You wanna try vampire versus werewolf and see if I don"t take you out?"
"You wanna lose those elephant tusks, Fang?" Marty countered, hands on her svelte hips.
Wanda was up in a shot, moving to the middle of the room, glancing Sam"s way with a look of apology, her jaw tight. "Do you see why I"ve put them in separate corners, Sam? I swear on all that"s holy, it"s like crack-induced kindergarten. Nina, Marty-do not make me! Never you mind about one-night stands and s.k.a.n.ky hotels. That"s Sam"s business! Now shut it!"
Sam"s teeth tried to grind together again while he fought to remember he was, first and foremost, a gentleman-rare one-night stands aside. "Yes. My cave-dweller instincts got the best of me. I hang my head in shame. I"m an utter and total pig. The moment I find some spare time, I"ll make it my mission to put that on a billboard-all big and readable. But because I"m an in-the-moment kind of guy, I really think addressing my new teeth, my lack of lung function, the fact that I can not only hear but almost see noises, which means I can hear Marty"s blood course through her veins from clear over here, presents a bigger problem than my cad status or even my red dress."
Nina leaned forward in her chair, smiling at him-the tension between the two women as though it had never been. "Hah. Dude"s got a sense of humor. Good thing, too. You"re gonna need it, living as a vampire."
Sam yanked off his wig, pushing his own matted hair back. "So let me be clear on this just one more time. There"s no going back, right?" Marty had been, at his request, straight up about that much when they"d explained his current situation. He wanted to deny what was happening to him, but there was no denying he wasn"t breathing, and the hand he"d placed on his fake gel-breasted chest where his heart should be wasn"t feeling a steady rhythm.
Wanda hesitated momentarily, clearly measuring her words. "We wouldn"t rule anything out at this point, Sam. Not anything. We"ve seen some pretty crazy things since this happened to us, but more than likely, you"re a vampire for good. You"ll eventually be able to fly, read minds, kick some serious b.u.t.t without much effort. Almost everything you"ve ever heard, read, seen in a movie pretty much applies to you now."
"Except for the sparkling thing." Why he couldn"t let that go seemed ludicrous, but of all the things he"d have to incur if what Wanda said was true, sparkling had to be the worst of all offenses.
"Yeah," Nina"s response was dry. "Except for the sparkly stuff, Twilight. That"s the least of the s.h.i.t you have to worry about."
"So you remember absolutely nothing after that night in the hotel? Maybe this vampire lady"s name?" Marty inquired.
If he wasn"t a candidate for induction into the s.h.i.thead"s Hall of Fame after admitting he"d copped to a one-night stand, he was well on his way for what he was about to confess now. Own it, McLean. You were on a strictly don"t-ask, don"t-tell basis. Straightening his back, Sam looked them each square in the eye. "We didn"t exchange names." There. The lack-of-name-sharing bomb dropped.
Kaboom.
However, Wanda, whether purposefully or not, granted him a reprieve. "So we have no idea not only who accidentally turned you but who was responsible for dumping you on our doorstep like you were a newborn on the steps of St. Mary"s."