The Vampire Bat Shifter’s Mate

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

DON’T. BITE. THAT.

Someday, I was going to be the one to sit there scrolling while some other loser did all the work.

I sighed. No, I wasn’t. I didn’t have much, but I had a good work ethic.

Lot of good it did me. Here I was closing out for the night at the diner when it was supposed to be Kristi’s night.

But she didn’t know how. Pout. Whine. Excuses.

I knew she didn’t know how because she usually worked mornings and never opened.

What she was doing here tonight, I didn’t know, but I was fine with showing her what to do like the nice guy I am.

But what was I supposed to do when all she did was sit there screwing around on her phone and ignoring me? Yell at her? Throw the trash at her? Nope. Because as much as I was trying to be good person, to take pride in my work, and do my best in all things, I was also fucking tired.

“I’m out,” Kristi announced before practically sprinting out the front door. I literally didn’t have time to do more than open my mouth, and she was gone.

“Odd,” I said to myself, “despite the time, it doesn’t look like the diner is properly closed down for the night. I wonder why the only employee who’s supposed to be here no longer is.”

The trash bag in my hand didn’t reply.

I headed through the kitchen to grab the other bag. I still had four hours to work at the bar down the road to make sure I could afford rent and food this month. Eight hours would be better, but they hadn’t been willing to give me that many this time. Three jobs and I was still struggling.

Was America great yet? Fuckers.

Out the back door with two huge bags of trash and my arms trembling, I marched over to the dumpster.

I dropped the bags with a groan. Twenty-four but I felt like eighty sometimes.

My back ached. Like, seriously? I honestly didn’t want to throw the bags into the dumpster because it was so much effort.

But I would do it anyway.

Opening the squealing side panel on the huge dumpster had me cringing from the ear-piercing noise.

A second later, though, I flinched back and nearly screamed as a blur of fur dashed out of the darkness inside the dumpster and flew past me.

My heart was about to bust out of my chest, and I couldn’t quite catch my breath as I flopped back against the metal.

A raccoon. Little bastard had the audacity to look over its shoulder as it ran away like I was the problem.

That burst of adrenaline helped me heave the trash into the dumpster, though.

Goddamn, I was all twitchy now! Cringing all over again at the noise, I closed the panel and took a moment to shake my hands out and take a deep— Oh, nope, we’re not taking deep breaths beside this rotting corpse of a trash pile. Shallow breaths.

I turned around and gasped, adrenaline spiking yet again because there was a man in all-black tactical gear standing there.

“Who the fuck are you supposed to be?” I snapped, balling my fists. “I’m a citizen, you piece of shit, and don’t you dare demand proof.”

Well, that answered that question. My first encounter with an ICE agent and I got uncharacteristically aggressive and confrontational. Cool. What was it that got pepper spray off you? Milk?

“Wiley William Winslow?” the goon asked.

Okay, that was unexpected. “Uh. Yeah?”

He lunged at me, grabbing my upper arms and mashing them against my sides.

I gasped and squirmed, not sure what to do—I’d never been in a fight before—and then another gestapo loser ran up.

That one grabbed my hair and yanked my head sideways.

I yelled for help as something bit into my neck muscles.

Something like a really fucking big needle.

The world rocked sideways like we’d somehow gotten on a boat in a storm. Weeble wobble and pitching to the side, I landed face down on a metal floor. Floor? All I could see were black boots. I pulled back, afraid someone was about to kick me. But no, all the boots stayed still.

Whatever they’d injected into me had me feeling…

drunk? Sort of. My mind was clear, I knew what was happening and that I was in a commercial-type van, but wow was my body not cooperating.

I could see the back doors of this van and wanted to get to them and escape, except my right arm didn’t want to participate and my left couldn’t find the floor.

What the hell? Right and left legs were no longer attached to my body—maybe?

—because I couldn’t make them crawl. I was moving enough to notice, though, because someone saw fit to grab the waist of my jeans and pull me back.

I rested, cheek pressed to the cool floor.

I really should do something. This was bad.

I hadn’t heard of ICE abducting people with drugs, but that didn’t mean I was the first. I’d also thought the fuckers worked normal business hours once, too, and that hadn’t been true.

Maybe they’d gotten tired of their abductees fighting back.

“You’re all losers,” I said but it was possible it came out, “Yeralossas.” So my mouth wasn’t working any better than the rest of me. Great.

The van went over a bump, and I bounced on the floor, hitting my face. I tried to sit up but only managed a kind of slow sea lion undulation thingy. The grabby hand was back again to pull me down.

I wasn’t getting away any time soon.

We came to a stop, and my face squeaked across the metal floor as I slid backward.

I hollered in surprise when someone pulled me out of the side door.

Then—yerp—he threw me right over his shoulder like I weighed fuck all.

Something square and pokey was digging into my stomach.

I had to get off of it or I was gonna puke.

The dude carrying me punched my ass. “Knock it off, asshole.”

Again, my head was all for kicking his ass even though he was a big fucker, but my body was like, nah.

And then we were going into a place so bright, I immediately thought it had to be that light we’re supposed to go into when we die.

But, no, there was a floor because their boots were squeaking on it.

I couldn’t keep both eyes open at the same time or as more than a tight squint, but I could hear fine.

“Who’s this?” some guy asked as we stopped.

“Winslow.”

“Right. Room six. Use the prods because he’s been testing boundaries again.”

The dude carrying me snorted. “My three-year-old’s been testing boundaries. The wife’s gentle parenting him.”

“Yeah, well, your kid’s not a seven-foot-tall bat creature who’s real fucking hungry. Literally no one’s going to give a damn if he eats twice tonight. Use the prods.”

A seven-foot what?

We got moving again, and my captor muttered, “Asshole.”

Another guy murmured, “Be a shame if somebody shoved him into a cell someday.”

“Right? His clipboard won’t save him then.”

They had a nice little laugh between them.

Was I about to die?

Oh, hey, my right hand was rejoining the chat. I managed to hit this dude on his lower back.

“Fuck’s sake,” he said before I went flying.

Or just got thrown down onto a…gurney? Goddamn, the lights were so bright!

I kind of smacked myself in the forehead while trying to shield my eyes, but it was something.

Were the drugs wearing off? Was that good?

Because if I was about to die from something hungry, maybe I’d be better off drugged up to my eyeballs.

“Hey,” I managed to actually say when several hands started ripping at my clothes. “No!”

“Shut the fuck up,” someone snarled.

I tried to stop them, but I only had one hand partially working, and then I got smacked. Hard.

“Nobody’s enjoying this, you little blood bag. Don’t piss me off.”

Or what?

Like, how could this get worse? Death before the thing that was maybe going to eat me actually ate me? Oh, no, what a shame! Fuck him and fuck it. I kicked out and might’ve caught someone’s soft bits. Big hands grabbed under my arms and lifted me like what I’d done hadn’t hurt.

“Socks…” the other guy said like it mattered.

“I give a fuck.”

Yes, I still had my socks on as the pissy bitch who’d carried me picked me up again.

This time he held me around my waist and kind of beside him, my feet totally dragging.

He did it that way no doubt to avoid having my junk touch him.

Fragile masculinity much? He probably drove a swastitruck as a pathetic attempt to compensate for his teeny weeny.

“Teeny weeny,” I said and chuckled at myself.

“I’m going to enjoy watching him drain you.”

Was I about to get a blowjob? Because that was about the only time anyone drained me of… Oh, wait a minute. He’d called me a blood bag. Clipboard man had said a bat creature. Was there a giant vampire bat about to make a meal of me?

“Bats?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

He grabbed me by my upper arms and made me stand up.

I felt weak as a newborn kitten, but I managed to stay upright mostly on my own.

We were in front of a door. Another guy in uniform moved in front of us with a metal stick with a set of prongs on the end.

Electricity briefly arced between the prongs.

A second dude grasped the door’s ship-wheel type handle and spun it.

The T-rex from Jurassic Park growled from the other side of the door.

The guttural sound tripped something primal inside me that said I had better fucking run and right fucking now, but of course my body was still like what? Who said that? So we weren’t going anywhere.

Well, until my abductor shoved me into the room.

I managed one lunging step to try and stay on my feet, but then I was crashing to the floor like someone cut my strings.

I just crumpled and actually whacked my face again because my arms were not fast enough to stop me from hitting the floor at full speed.

I lay there for a moment, dazed, and thought about pushing myself up.

I put some speed into it when I heard that growl again. Jesus fuck, what was that?!

A yelp flew from my throat as something grabbed me by my left leg and lifted me right up off the floor.

Like all of me. I was literally dangling from the grip it had on my ankle.

And what I saw confirmed a few things, like the fact that this was a beast of enormous size and I probably was about to die.

The creature had thighs like a body builder with muscles bulging everywhere. Its skin was a muddy sort of rusty red color and smooth on both thick legs. A big ol’ bush of ginger fur covered its groin and then there was a whole street of cobbled abs up to a set of pecs so wide—

I choked as it grabbed my throat, moved the hand from my ankle to my knee, and slammed me back against the wall.

The massive fucker pinned me sideways, and I felt claws biting into my skin.

I couldn’t see what it was doing, but I could feel hot breath on my inner thigh.

Was I about to lose my leg? What kind of teeth—

Oh, fuck me, it had fangs! I tried to scream, but it wasn’t very loud since the beast was strangling me while it bit into my thigh.

I managed to grab its wrist with both hands, but it felt like I was trying to move a bulldozer off of me.

This creature wasn’t going to let me go.

And I was pretty sure it was drinking my blood from the artery in my leg.

I kicked out, struggled, as my vision got a black ring around it.

Was I about to pass out from lack of oxygen or blood?

Couldn’t tell. I almost welcomed whichever came first. I didn’t hurt exactly, but I didn’t want this to go on forever either.

This giant vampiric beast was killing me with every wet slurp against my leg.

Wait a minute. Was I seriously getting a boner right now? That was how I was gonna die? If it was some kind of fear response, I fucking didn’t appreciate it one goddamned bit. Not fair!

Except… Bubbling under the panic of what was happening to me was a weird heat of arousal. I wasn’t getting hard because I was afraid. The fuck? I did not have a fetish for blood and getting choked. Did I? So not cool to discover that seconds before I died.

The beast pulled back from my thigh and licked me before turning its breath to puff against my damn dick.

If it bit that off, I swore to god… I struggled again, not at all wanting to be dickless as I met my end.

For some reason I couldn’t fathom, the creature relaxed its grip on my throat. I took a huge breath.

A cool, damp snout pressed against my groin and breathed on me. Was it sniffing me?

“Don’t. Bite. That,” I managed to say.

It…laughed. A throaty, gritty sound, but that was laughter.

And then it licked my dick.

I squealed and kicked because that sensation was both even more arousing and absolutely terrifying. “Please!” I hollered, clawing at the big hand still holding my throat.

Suddenly, it swung me around to stand up even though its hand kept hold of my neck and made me stay up against the wall. I finally got a look at its face.

What was the cute kind of bat? A fox? Flying fox?

Because this creature had a long-ish snout with a dog-like nose, huge solid black eyes, and more of that ginger fur.

Huge ears were pointed right at me. A pink tongue slipped out and licked black lips, flashing a white fang. And then the beast grinned.

“Let me fuck you.”

I blinked in disbelief. “Excuse me?”

“I won’t ask again.”

“You haven’t fucking asked at all.”

He laughed again before he spun me around to face the wall and tucked himself all along my back. Turned out I wasn’t the only one with a boner.