A Werewolf’s Guide to Seducing a Vampire (Glimmer Falls, #3)

by Sarah Hawley

During her last summoning for an evening of watching Star Trek reruns, the witch had told her of the so-called “internet,” a place where people could communicate, shop, and learn anything they wished by visiting “web pages.” Eleonore had had difficulty envisioning it, but she’d assumed it was a plane tangential to the physical one, perhaps inhabited by scholarly spider creatures with access to the multiverse, and that Picard’s PADD could access this realm through witchcraft.

A negotiation was just a sword fight that hadn’t started yet.

“I hear she’s very avant-garde,” Astaroth drawled. “It’s going to be a bloody good time.” The damn demon. Astaroth had been delighted by this development, which appealed to his chaotic nature. Once he’d learned straightlaced Ben had acquired a half-feral vampire succubus assassin he had no idea how to interact with, he’d declared it the funniest thing he’d heard all year. He was now making vampire puns at every opportunity.

“She’s very pretty when she’s not dripping with blood and shrieking,” his father offered.

Most people end up in the ground anyway. Pretending otherwise doesn’t change that, and there’s freedom in knowing that and fighting anyway. Choosing to face the truth beneath life, no matter how bloody or strange, is always better than fooling yourself into thinking the sparkles on the surface are what’s real.”

Better to face death knowing it was coming than be surprised when something you thought was safe turned out not to be.

She hadn’t been able to defy the orders of the Witch in the Woods, but she had been able to control how she viewed her own actions. Lying to herself was even worse than lying to others.

What vindictive deity had saddled him with so many domineering women? His lips twitched. And why wasn’t he remotely upset about it?

She recognized wounded pride when she saw it, understood how important it could be to cling to scraps of imagined control long past the point of reason. Her pride, battered and chipped as it was, was her most precious possession, like an old warrior’s armor kept in a place of honor despite the dings and indents of battles lost. Ben was too proud to admit he was overwhelmed. He would cling to his knitting and his obligations until he passed out from sheer exhaustion.

“When pride is that fragile, it’s just aggression papered over insecurity or cruelty. It becomes a liability.”

“We’re in the same fan fiction Discord server,” Gigi said. “Themmie founded it. It’s called the Smutty Smurfettes. We share prompt fills, and Lilith always picks the most outrageous ones.” She tilted her head, chewing on her lip. “Maybe we can work in tentacles somehow? Elizabeth Bennet, tentacle monster has a nice ring to it.”

Ben had always been a crier. At sad movies, when his family and friends were upset, when he was overwhelmed…He’d been bullied for it at school, but he didn’t mind so much now. This was who he was, and he’d rather love deeply and cry than feel anything less for his family.

If you don’t feel better in a bit, I’ll take you to the doctor.” Eleonore bared her fangs and hissed. “No leeches,” she said. “I hate leeches.” “They don’t do leeches anymore.”

He didn’t care who or how many she’d been with—that sort of insecurity was patriarchal bullshit that treated female pleasure as something to be ashamed of—but she probably had high expectations for a partner’s performance.

Themmie couldn’t be taller than five feet, but pixies were surprisingly strong for how delicate they looked: like rainbows that could strangle someone if they felt like it.

“I’ve spent too much time around petty tyrants—people with huge egos and small hearts who take their misery out on others. Battlefields are full of men who would tear apart the world to prove their strength.”

“There’s nothing unique in that. I think true strength is in breaking from the stereotype to be a complex, thoughtful man.”

“H-how did a snake get near your testicles?” Eleonore asked. “You haven’t lived until you’ve played the Russian roulette of sex games with a bevy of kinky snake shifters,” Alzapraz wheezed. “It was still worth it.”

“Never get offended by someone else’s centuries-old blood feud, that’s what I always say.”

He rolled down his window. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Resolving this situation in an appropriately dramatic way.” She pointed to the side of the road. “Pull over.”

“Never fuck with redheads.”

Hallmark had an extended line of cards for magical towns, but he suspected this situation was too niche even for them.

He’d never been the type to attend concerts, and that was before he’d hit his thirties and discovered many of the things that had been theoretically fun in his twenties were actually noisy and exhausting, including live music and social gatherings that began after eight p.m.

It didn’t matter how much an abuser said they loved someone—or even if they truly believed they loved that person. An abuser would always consider themselves the hero or heroine of their own story. But their love was a broken facsimile of the real thing, not worth having, and it wasn’t worth wasting time feeling sympathy for someone like that.