Vampires Among Us [Vampires Among Us 1] (Siren Publishing Classic)

momentum to stop daydreaming and get a move on it. If she didn’t make it out of the house before he woke up, chances were, she wouldn’t.
    Throwing on some cover-up on her face, she quickly donned a long sleeve shirt. Getting jeans on was a bit more difficult, but Erica was determined. She grabbed her books and keys, and quietly left the house.
    As she headed for the college, she pondered over her life. Her “happily ever after” fantasy marriage had died almost as quickly as it had begun. Once the wedding was over, and Shawn had her settled in his home, her world had quickly turned into a nightmare. He had done a great job of hiding his true personality while they were dating. His drinking, which had managed to go from bad to positively horrid over the past four years, was when he was at his worst. Erica discovered on her wedding night, much to her horror, she had not only managed to marry an alcoholic, but an abusive, alcoholic vampire on top of that!
    Shawn consumed more liquor than he drank blood. When she thought about it, there was a part of her that was happy about this fact, considering Shawn would often take his dinner straight from her. If he weren’t an alcoholic, she would have been dead a long time ago.
    He had told her his story one night shortly after they were married. He had been a young officer in the army during the Vietnam War. He and a few of his team members had been captured and held prisoners of war. Evidently, their captors had thought it would be a big joke to change their prisoners into vampires, and why not? Release them back into society, and watch them wreak havoc.
    Unfortunately, when Shawn became extremely intoxicated, he tended to have flashbacks of the war. During these flashbacks, Erica would watch him become a total stranger to her. He seemed unaware of where he was, or who anyone around him was. She would watch him in horror as he seemed to reenact some scene in his mind of being in the jungles of Vietnam. It was during these times, Erica was not his devoted wife, but became the enemy. The first few episodes had scared her so badly that she had tried running away from the situation. She had learned a painful, swift lesson in not making him angry when he was already out of his mind.
    She breathed a sigh of relief that he had passed out last night before inflicting any more pain on her. She was even more relieved that she had made it out the door this morning before he woke up. Now, if she could only figure out how to leave him, and never face him again, she would be doing great.
    She wanted to leave, she really did, but just how does a young woman leave a vampire without him chasing her down? If she left him and he found her, she wouldn’t live to tell about it, that she knew for sure. It wasn’t like she could go to her local police station stating, “I need a restraining order against my vampire husband.” Like that would do a bit of good!
    Yet, she knew if she continued to stay with him, it was only a matter of time before he killed her. She had allowed him to think he ruled her a long time ago, simply because if she didn’t he would beat her into submission. But the truth was he hadn’t beaten anything out of her. Her independence was still there, just carefully hidden, waiting in the wings to come alive.
    So, now the question of the day, was it possible to escape from a controlling, manipulating vampire? And live to tell about it? She was allowed to have no friends, and had been forced to stay at home at his beck and call. Add to that, he threatened her at least weekly that if she ever attempted to spill his secret, he would kill her. Trying to avoid going stir-crazy, she started nagging him almost two years ago to allow her to take a few courses at the local college, just for something to do. It had taken her fighting him for a year until he finally gave in.
    As she pulled her little car into a parking space, she allowed a slight smile to tug at the corners of her lips as she knew who would be waiting for her arrival. She had managed to befriend a classmate, and had somehow been able to keep this tidbit of information away from her husband. Kevin was Erica’s ray of sunshine as she traveled alone in her sea of despair. He was also her confidant. She certainly could not blurt out that her husband was a vampire, of course, but after talking with him for a few months, she finally trusted him enough to share a few of her problems. She had confided in him that her