The Secret Vampire Lord's Contract Bride

Serena Hayes POV:

"Sign the marriage agreement, Serena! Sign it now!"

The wooden door of my restoration studio was kicked open and crashed against the peeling drywall.

Martha Hicks-my sister-in-law, my brother Declan's wife rushed in, her damp floral blouse clinging to her heavy frame, smelling of stale menthol cigarettes and rain, slamming a creased marriage agreement straight onto the edge of my workbench.

"If you don't marry Billy, our whole family is finished!" she sobbed, half-threatening and half-begging as she grabbed my sleeve. "Declan already can't walk, do you want to watch him get dragged to prison by the haulage union? What's so bad about marrying Billy Tucker? He's rich! He likes you! Just nod and we all survive!"

Behind her stood Billy Tucker, the lumberyard heir whose family owned half the commercial leases in Duskport.

He leaned against the doorframe, twirling a heavy brass key ring around his thick, hairy finger, his muddy brown eyes raking over my paint-stained apron with blatant appetite.

I didn't step back.

I kept my left hand firmly pressed over the fourteenth-century illuminated parchment on my workbench, my right hand raising a pair of surgical steel tweezers until the sharp point aimed directly at Billy's throat.

"Martha, stay calm. Don't let these bastards fool you,"I said, my voice dropping to a low, steady tone.

Martha gave me no reply; instead, Billy chuckled, stepping past Martha.

His heavy work boots tracked dark mud across my clean pine floorboards.

He reached out a thick, calloused paw toward my chin.

"Your brother Declan owes thirty grand to the haulage union, little bird. Sign the marriage settlement, let me take care of you, and those debts vanish. Refuse, and your brother goes to prison while you sleep under the wharf."

The metal tip of my tweezers pressed into the meat of his thumb before he could graze my skin.

A tiny bead of blood welled up.

Billy hissed, snatching his hand back, his smug expression twisting into ugly rage.

"You crazy bitch!"

He swept his arm across the nearest shelf, sending a stack of antique reference catalogs crashing to the floor.

"No one in this town will touch you! You'll beg me on your knees before the week is out!"

"I'd rather starve in the mud," I said, cold fury locking my joints.

Martha shrieked, grabbing Billy's arm to hold him back as he raised a fist.

Then,they backed out into the torrential Pacific Northwest downpour, the heavy oak door rattling in its frame as they slammed it shut.

My chest heaved.

My fingers were trembling so violently I nearly dropped the steel tweezers.

Thirty thousand dollars.

An eviction notice.

A forced marriage to a violent brute who looked at me like a piece of timber to be chopped down.

I didn't cry.

Tears wouldn't pay Declan's medical bills or keep a roof over our heads.

I pulled off my apron, grabbed my water-resistant canvas coat, and reached into my bag for the business card Alistair Sinclair had slipped across my counter yesterday.

The lawyer had made a bizarre proposal: a client of his needed a clean, legal marriage of convenience to get his family's elders off his back.

No expectations.

No romance.

Absolute privacy.

I ran through the freezing rain, my boots splashing through the dark puddles along the fog-choked streets of Duskport, until I reached Blackwood Coffee on the corner of the old harbor.

The bell chimed as I pushed through the heavy cedar door.

The cafe was dim, smelling of roasted beans, damp wool, and an underlying sharpness that felt like ozone before a lightning strike.

Sitting in the farthest corner booth, half-shadowed by a tall fiddle-leaf fig, was a man.

He didn't move.

He sat completely upright, his broad shoulders cutting a stark, elegant silhouette against the dark wood paneling.

His dark hair was cut short, framing cheekbones so sharp they looked carved by a sculptor who despised human softness.

I pulling my wet coat tighter around myself, and walked toward the booth.

"Mr. Sinclair?" I asked, my voice barely carrying over the hum of the espresso machine.

Julian Sinclair turned his head.

The breath caught in my throat.

His eyes were an impossible shade of arctic blue, pale and piercing, carrying a stillness that made the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

He didn't blink.

He looked at me not like a man looking at a woman, but like a predator evaluating the weight of a sparrow.

"Sit, Miss Hayes," he said.

His voice was a low, velvet baritone that seemed to vibrate directly against my collarbone.

I slid into the booth opposite him.

The air around him was unnervingly cold, like opening a freezer door in midsummer.

"Alistair explained the terms?" I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

"A legal union. Complete asset separation. You need a wife to get your family's elders off your back, and I need legal protection from a local debt collector."

Julian didn't answer immediately.

His long, pale fingers rested motionless on the dark marble tabletop.

"I am just a night-shift driver, Miss Hayes, and I don't have much money. I keep irregular hours. I do not offer warmth, companionship, or explanations. You will have a roof over your head and legal immunity under my name. Nothing more."

"That's more than enough," I said, reaching into my bag to pull out my identification.

In my haste, the sharp edge of the laminated document sliced across the tip of my index finger.

"Ow," I muttered, wincing.

A single droplet of bright crimson blood welled up on my skin.

A faint, sweet scent-like freesia blooming in a spring thunderstorm-drifted into the small space between us.

Julian froze.

Every muscle in his body turned to solid granite.

The pale arctic blue of his irises vanished in a split second, swallowed by a terrifying, abyssal black.

His hands clamped onto the edge of the table so hard the wood groaned under the pressure.

His jaw locked, his throat working in a violent, dry swallow as if he had just choked on burning coals.

"Mr. Sinclair?" I whispered, fear spiking through my veins.

"Are you-"

"Stop the bleeding," he rasped.

The sound was raw, gravelly, tore straight from the dark.

"Cover it. Now."

I scrambled for a napkin, pressing it hard against my cut.

Before I could ask if he was faint at the sight of blood, a deafening crash obliterated the front of the cafe.

Tires screeched.

The front plate-glass window exploded inward in a shower of glittering shards as a runaway logging truck careened off the slick road, plowing straight toward our corner booth.

I froze, terror turning my blood to ice.

The heavy chrome grill of the truck was five feet away.

Then, the world shattered into motion.

A blur of dark wool cut through the air.

An arm as hard and unyielding as an iron beam locked around my waist with impossible, bone-crushing speed.

The wind was ripped from my lungs as my feet left the floor.

Crash!

The truck smashed through the wooden booth, splintering the heavy table into kindling where I had been sitting a millisecond prior.

I opened my eyes, gasping for air.

I was standing three yards away, near the emergency exit, completely untouched.

Julian stood beside me, his arm slowly releasing my waist.

He wasn't breathing.

His chest didn't rise or fall.

He looked at the wreckage, then down at me, his black eyes gradually receding back into a chilling, guarded blue.

"How..." My voice broke.

"How did you do that? You were across the table-"

"I have fast reflexes," Julian said, his voice flat, emotionless, deliberately pushing me away.

"Night drivers learn to avoid collisions."

He pulled a folded document from his inside coat pocket and laid it on a clean patch of the nearby counter.

"The marriage contract. Sign it now, or walk away and deal with Billy Tucker alone."

I looked at the crumpled truck, then at the man standing before me.

He was dangerous.

He was cold as a corpse.

And he had just saved my life without breaking a sweat.

I took the pen from my pocket and signed my name on the line.

"Tomorrow morning," Julian said, taking the paper back without his fingers touching mine.

"Eight sharp. City Hall."