About Vampire Protection
Author: Julia Talbot
Word Count: 20000
Page Count (pdf): 84
ISBN: 978-1-942831-79-2
Price: $2.99
Pairing: MM
Series: Midnight Rodeo Book 8
Genre: Paranormal
Date Published: January 16 2018
Publisher: Turtlehat Creatives
Heat Rating: 
File Types available: PDF, Epub, Mobi
This title has been temporarily removed to Kindle Unlimited.
Summary:
Vampire Peyton gets into trouble. A lot. When he offends an entire East Coast clan of vampires up Boston way, he decides he needs a place to hide out for a bit. So he goes back to his Texas roots and calls upon his best friend, Cody Knight, to help him stay safe. Cody runs the Midnight Rodeo, Darque and Knight, and happily agrees to let Peyton come along, even assigning him a bodyguard.
Grizz is a bear shifter, big, strong, and maybe a little… well, bearlike. Who better to watch over Peyton and keep him out of trouble? If Peyton gets out of line, Cody figures, Grizz can just sit on him. Grizz has no idea how much work Peyton will be, or how Peyton will invade his heart. The problem is, Grizz is pretty sure he doesn’t need a beautiful vamp complicating his life. Can he and Peyton find their happy place before it’s too late, or will Peyton’s past catch up with him?
Excerpt:
Peyton Langtree rarely made phone calls. He had the most recent iPhone with all the bells and whistles, of course, but he didn’t love the weird, dislocated feeling of talking to someone hundreds of miles away.
He came from a more… concrete time. A time when, if you wanted to talk to someone and could not travel, you sent a very laboriously drafted letter. Calling seemed too easy, as if black magic were involved and you would pay someone far more dire than AT&T later. Peyton had seen too many people who were forced to cover the cost of their magical bargains. He wasn’t into that at all.
In the case of today, at this very moment, calling was necessary, so he pulled out his sleek, fancy phone and dialed someone he’d known too long.
“Hello?” The voice was pure Texan, deep and drawling, and as familiar as yesterday, even though it had been ten years easily.
“Cody. How are you?”
“Peyton? Is that you?” His dear friend sounded pleased, which was handy. He would have had one hell of a time if Cody had been angry about the way they had parted the last time. Peyton did tend to bring trouble with him.
“It is. I know it’s been a while.”
Cody snorted indelicately. “It always is when you get to be our age.”
“You’re still just a baby.”
“You wish. These hooligans I work with make me older every day.” The fondness in Cody’s voice was obvious. He clearly loved his job.
Yes, Cody worked in a large paranormal rodeo company, and all those supernatural beings in one place had to be challenging. “Mmm. Where are you now?”
“Dallas, heading toward Lubbock. Why? Are you still in Boston?”
“I’m in Maine right now,” Peyton murmured. Brr.
“You’ll be a block of ice, you cold-natured bastard.”
“I know. I was hoping to…” To what? Get Cody to find him a place in Texas? To get transport to Mexico? He needed help.
He swore he could hear Cody’s eyebrows gyrating. “Hoping to?”
“Find a place to hide.”
“Really? What did you do?”
Peyton sighed, thinking how hard he’d fucked up in the last month or so. “Well, for a start, I killed a vampire who attacked me. In Boston. How was I to know he was the overlord’s son?”
“Oh dear.”
“And I didn’t know that that same overlord’s wife would come avenging her born son…” Peyton shook his head. Of all the luck.
“Oh hell. A woman scorned. So, you went to Maine?”
“I was going to go to Canada. Then I thought of you and took a day or two off from running while I got the nerve up to call.”
“I suppose I should be pleased I was only second in line,” Cody said drily.
“Ha ha.” He rolled his eyes. “Canada was amorphous at best.”
“And I am more specific, I take it?”
“Yes. You’re also mobile and cloaked by warlocks.” He had to get the hell out of Dodge, find a place where a decidedly old-fashioned Southern guy could hide. In the dark. Sunlight bad.
“Well, you’re welcome to come travel with us for a bit. We’re a motley bunch so you ought to fit right in.” Cody’s drawl lengthened, his old friend laughing at him.
“You know full well that you and I were neighbors on the ranch, you butthead.” He could cowboy up, at least in the old-west way.
“Mmm. You were rich and I was a hand.” Cody chuckled. “I ain’t bitter. I had the better deal.”
“Indeed.” Cody had never been whipped near to death for being found with a man in a compromising position. Still Cody had saved him, brought him into a world of lust and blood and eternity, and he was grateful.
“So, come on, and we’ll get you hid, honey.” Cody made it sound so easy, which he supposed it was in this day and age. So much easier than having to travel in an airtight coffin for weeks in a wagon…