Soul to Keep Read online

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  What Reviewers Say About Rebekah Weatherspoon’s Work

  By the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  About the Author

  Books Available from Bold Strokes Books

  Synopsis

  With every commitment comes sacrifice …

  College junior Jill Babineux knows where her priorities lie. Between a full course load, her blood pledge to feed a certain vampire, and all the community service hours she’s got to log with her sisters in Alpha Beta Omega Sorority, the last thing on her mind is finding love, especially with an immortal.

  Which works out just fine for Miyoko “Tokyo” Hayashi who’s been so busy enjoying her wild days and even kinkier nights, she’s never had a reason to speak to the tiny know-it-all. But after a random run-in and a few carefully plotted encounters, Miyoko learns that there’s more to the sorority’s least favorite member.

  Miyoko never thought she’d actually start to like the girl, let alone love her, but when true evil comes for Jill, Miyoko finds herself willing to do anything to protect her. Anything.

  What Reviewers Say About Rebekah Weatherspoon’s Work

  Better Off Red

  “Rebekah Weatherspoon has crafted a feisty little debut that forever changes the image of sororities in lesbian literature.”—The Rainbow Reader

  The Fling

  “I loved this book from start to finish and I’m so glad I have more of Ms. Weatherspoon’s books to read.”—Rainbow Book Reviews

  At Her Feet

  “Indeed, the more I read At Her Feet I came to realize that it is the best and most original book that I have read in any genre for a very long time.”—Jim Lyons, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  Soul to Keep

  Brought to you by

  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Soul to Keep

  © 2016 By Rebekah Weatherspoon. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-617-3

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: March 2016

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  By the Author

  Vampire Sorority Sisters Series

  Better Off Red

  Blacker Than Blue

  Soul to Keep

  The Fling

  At Her Feet

  Treasure

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to the team at Bold Strokes Books. Cindy, Sandy, and Rad, thank you for putting up with me and my weak comprehension of the word deadline.

  Dedication

  This one is for you, the readers, who have been waiting for this next installment. Thank you for being patient with me while I got to know Jill and Tokyo.

  Alpha Beta Omega Sorority

  Founded 1863

  Community Through Sisterhood and Service

  Pro Maius Bonum

  Chapter One

  Jill, October, Fall Semester

  Dr. Miller,

  Thank you for your prompt response, but I do not believe “this is something we should revisit some other time.” When you offered to let your classes come up with presentations covering topics of health and public safety in place of a final, I did not for one moment think that you meant this to be a fruitless exercise to keep you from grading papers or exams. You are asking that we put in a tremendous amount of effort in designing these presentations, and I—

  “What are you typing?” Camila asked.

  “An email.”

  “To who? You’re about to type the keys right off that thing.”

  I liked Camila, but I kind of wanted her to mind her own business. “No, I won’t. I just have to get a point across.”

  Camila came over to the chaise I was sitting on and peered over my shoulder. For a vampire who could read anyone’s thoughts, it seemed unnecessary and rude. “Here.” I stopped just long enough to turn the screen in her direction. She only needed a second to glance at the response I was sending to my Human Sexuality professor.

  Camila stood there as I kept typing.

  —am simply asking for assistance in creating a presentation that can actually be implemented at the university as a program with ongoing potential to educate thousands of students for years to come.

  I do not need to reiterate how the majority of students attending Maryland University come from schools, both public and private, who had nothing of a sex ed program. I also do not think I need to tell you that while the number of HIV infections in some populations are on the decline, rates of STIs such as chlamydia are in fact on the rise. The number of cases of HPV on this very campus has tripled in the last ten years. It took me over four man hours, fifteen phone calls, and five in-person visits to the university health center to acquire this information, so you can see when a program such as the one that I’ve outlined for you in my previous—

  “You sure you want to send that?” Camila asked. I should have finished this in my room, but when your vampire calls, you come. Camila was not my vampire. If she were, I wouldn’t have been short with her for being so nosy. If she were, she would be feeding from me at that moment instead of asking about private business between my shortsighted professor and me.

  “Of course I want to send it. I wouldn’t waste my time typing it up if I was going to keep it all to myself and my trash bin.”

  “Red can’t keep you from getting booted from a class, ya know.”

  “Babe, leave her alone. And, yes, I can.” I looked up as Ginger came into the room. My heart skipped a beat. It always did when I saw her. My blood actually rushed in my veins, no exaggeration there. When my future sorority sisters tried to explain the power of their connections with their vampires, I didn’t fully believe it. I didn’t believe my body or my heart would react so strongly, but once our covenant was sealed with blood and a kiss, I couldn’t imagine having any other reaction to Ginger. Just the sight of my blood-bound supernatural being made my chest seize on itself from pure excitement, and for a split second I couldn’t breathe. That reaction, the intense clarity of it, defined what it meant to be claimed as a feeder. But the feeling faded the moment I saw what Ginger was wearing.

  “You’re not even dressed! At least Camila’s dressed.” They stood there, looking at me, Camila draped in a long black robe,
and Ginger, completely naked. I stared back at them.

  “Jill, sweetie. We’re leaving as soon as I feed.”

  “Okay, I just need to finish this e-mail. It’s more than a grade. This could change the whole new student orientation program and boost the overall wellness of the entire university.”

  “Jill. We have to go. Just pause for two seconds with the typing and then you can turn this whole school around. You can change the world.”

  “Where are you going again?” I asked.

  “Samantha is becoming one of us tonight. It’s her rebirth,” Ginger said.

  “Why now? We just finished initiation. The new girls are barely acclimated to how we do things. Wouldn’t you rather stay here with them?” I asked.

  “You mean wouldn’t I rather stay here with you.”

  “No. Bonding with you was important for me. I’m sure the new girls want that too.”

  From what I understood, humans didn’t become vampires very often. Clearly, it was a special occasion, but this semester’s fall pledge class had just joined Alpha Beta Omega Sorority. It seemed like a horrible time to bring a fresh vampire into their fold. I glanced up at Camila as the thought crossed my mind. She wasn’t very subtle with the way she glared in my direction, but I think she agreed with me.

  “We’ll bond plenty.” Ginger picked me up and swung me effortlessly into her lap, then she took my laptop out of my hands. “Sam is going through the biggest change of her life, and I need to be in top shape for the occasion so give me that neck.”

  “I don’t know why you’d want to change her. She’s not very nice.” I hadn’t seen Samantha in two years, but she’d been horrible to me my freshman year. That wasn’t something I would ever forget.

  “She has a point,” Camila said.

  “Both of you, please. Shut up. Jill. Vein. Now.”

  I tilted my head to the side with a bit of a groan, but still offered her my neck.

  Our feedings seemed to always start out the same way. Ginger interrupting me and me being frustrated with being interrupted. School and the sorority kept me busy, but I’d made a pledge and a promise, and Ginger needed sustenance so she wouldn’t go crazy from blood lust and kill us all. I understood. I really did, and I was grateful to serve her, but I hadn’t applied to schools in the States, enrolled in Maryland University, and left my dad and papa behind in Montreal to join a sorority whose only function was to feed a select group of vampires. That just sort of happened.

  It was an ingenious cover. Stash your vampires at select schools all over the world so you can discreetly funnel more humans into your food chain. Plus the sorority would look great on my med school applications, but I had a lot of studying to do, and I had to get this situation with Dr. Miller taken care of before she wasted more of my time.

  I tried to think of how to drive my point home with my professor, and then Ginger’s fangs pierced my throat. I came instantly, forgetting all about Dr. Miller and our frustrating back-and-forth.

  Ginger’s fangs were huge—thick, sharp points that made clean incisions into the carotid artery. I asked her about it once, how it worked and how she managed not to kill one of us with every feeding. It would have been so easy. Once she was in, I was useless in her hands, a pile of writhing mush for the taking. She could have easily ended my life or the lives of any of her humans, because we never wanted her to stop. Though I supposed that would defeat the purpose of having dedicated feeders.

  The bond and the orgasms brought me back, three times a week, giving her what she needed to take. Something in their saliva, or something in the magic that made them what they were, triggered that initial climax. And that climax continued, not in waves though. It was more like a loop. While she fed, I just kept coming and coming and coming. I was bound to her by that magic, but the chemicals that flooded my body with each drop of blood I gave up were like drugs that kept me coming back.

  Sometimes she touched me over my clothes, but tonight I just let her hold me until she was done. When her lips released my throat for a split second, I tried to remember what I had to do next. Everything was a little foggy until I looked up and saw Camila standing in their bedroom doorway. They had somewhere to be, and I had an e-mail to finish. And an Arabic exam to study for and a lab report to finish.

  I held on to Ginger, let her hold on to me, even after the final wave of pleasure rushed over my body. I felt her tongue seal the punctures in my neck and then she kissed me. Same as always, a few soft, gentle kisses on my lips and my cheeks as she thanked me. When I pulled away, her green eyes had a slight glow to them and her freckled face was flushed. She glanced from me to Camila, as she stroked my back.

  “I should have fed you after,” I said. She didn’t look like she was in any condition to go anywhere. And I knew when she was giving her wife the “Do Me Now” eye. I didn’t have sex with Ginger the way some of the other girls did when it came to their vampires, but I did like cuddling with her after she fed. Camila would join us a lot of the time, and they would tease me about making a Jill sandwich. Until I remembered I had work to do and ditched them so I could study and they could hump each other.

  Ginger kissed my forehead then set me on my feet. I was still a little wobbly. “If you’re up when we get back—”

  “No, don’t bother,” I said, waving her off. “I have my eight a.m.”

  “I’ll come say good night when I come back anyway. Or you can stay down here.”

  I shrugged in agreement and flopped back down on the couch. I really just needed to catch my breath and get my mind together before I got back to my e-mail. My body was still coming a little. Ginger and Camila finished getting ready, buzzing about the room, almost forgetting I was there. Ginger was worried about Samantha, she told Camila.

  I stretched, squeezing my eyes shut, thinking of how I could help make things easier for Sam’s rebirth, even though I knew I couldn’t. When I opened my eyes, our sister-queen Faeth appeared. Then Omi, Natasha, and Kina followed behind her. They were all naked. Well, basically naked. They wore these loincloth type things made of black diamonds, and ornate black diamond necklaces. They’d worn similar jewelry for our initiations, but instead of black diamonds, their bodies were draped in rubies, like the teardrop ruby I wore around my neck, the symbol of my commitment to Ginger and the rest of the girls. The second they noticed me on the couch, they all greeted me with warm smiles and hellos.

  Camila came out of the bedroom, securing her own necklace. “All good?”

  “All the girls are in the house, and Pax and Malcolm will be keeping an eye on things while we’re gone,” Omi said.

  “Where’s Tokyo?” Ginger called from the bedroom.

  “Uh…”

  “What the fuck?” Ginger said, storming into the living room. She handed her own adornments to Camila and turned around so Camila could connect the shiny chain of diamonds around her hips. “She knew we had to leave exactly at ten.” The clock on their cable box said nine fifty-five.

  “Faeth,” Ginger said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Please go get her.”

  “Oh, do I have to? I hate going down there. Moreland’s gonna try to get me to stay.”

  “Faeth,” Camila added. Ginger was in charge, but everyone, all the vampires, me, and the girls included, knew how things worked. Camila always backed Ginger up.

  “Fine.” Faeth vanished, the sound of her sighing trailed behind her.

  Ginger came back over to the couch and kissed me one more time. “We have to go. Don’t stay up too late.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Love you,” she said with a wink.

  Then they all vanished, off to their vampire business.

  I looked around the sprawling living room, thinking about the even larger apartment attached to it, and the six other apartments, and the winding hallways and other rooms and corners that were home to our sister-queens. Thousands of square feet hidden underneath the school’s Greek Row. I thought about just how empty t
hose rooms were at the moment, and suddenly, I didn’t see the point of staying on the bottom floor all by myself. I grabbed my stuff and headed back up toward my room.

  And then I remembered it was Monday night, aka Alpha Beta Omega Sorority’s designated porn night. It started as a joke to freak out incoming freshmen, but now it was a weekly event where the girls would gather around the Apple TV to find the grossest, weirdest, most ridiculous porn to pick apart for an hour or so before they remembered it was Monday and we had class the next day. Things upstairs would be loud and out of control for a while longer. And then at some point things would turn serious, and the girls would pair off or into their feeder clusters and act like sleeping with each other was something they would do even if they weren’t magically blood bound, inhibitions stripped.

  I flopped back down in the closest armchair so I could finish my e-mail in peace.

  Chapter Two

  Tokyo

  “Why’d you stop?” I growled, pissed as hell. “I was almost there.”

  “Well, quite suddenly, we are not alone, my dear.” Moreland’s Southern drawl came next to my ear, right before she nipped my shoulder with her fangs. We’d been at it for a few hours, my vampire friend and I, pushing the pretend boundaries of our sexual limits. If there wasn’t somewhere I was required to be by vampire law, we’d have gone at it until sunrise. But responsibilities and all that bullshit.

  I loved my girls. All of my feeders, but at least three times a week, there was something—a meeting, a curfew check, another meeting, a rebirth ceremony—something that required me to put my life on hold so I could show up and be counted. I got it, okay? Being immortal was pretty fucking sweet. The perks were endless. The sex was amazing, and when we weren’t on a conference call about what the girls needed or some pointless event, or mundane happening, that amazing sex was practically nonstop.