Present Tense (Out of the Fire #3) - Candace Blevins

Blurb

Kelsey is a baby vampire. She was turned at twenty-five and she’s thirty-seven. She was born, raised, and turned in Australia, and managed to keep her original identity after she became a vampire, but now it’s time for her first new identity. She’s a hacker, and a security company in Tennessee has hired her under her new name.

The Fabulosa trio — Fabio, Eunice, and Collosa — have been asked to house the new uber-hacker Drake Security recently hired. They’ve been warned she’s agoraphobic and terrified of her own shadow. Most twelve-year-old vampires haven’t figured out their powers yet, and this one is no different. However, she’s figured out how to hack brains as easily as she can hack a computer, so it isn’t as if she’s completely helpless.

Grizzly, leopard, mongoose, and vampire. Join this kinky foursome as they learn each other’s foibles and quirks, and figure out how to live together in the present tense.

1

Kelsey held her breath while the plane lined up to land, and worked hard not to break the arms of the seat with her vampire strength. The plane finally touched down on solid ground again, and she took a breath she didn’t need and then sat in her seat and waited to be told she could exit. Vampires rarely puke, and she hadn’t fed in nearly twelve hours, so there wasn’t an actual danger of her throwing up, but she felt as if she might. Some human idiosyncrasies were harder to put into the past than others.

No one had told her how freaking expensive everything would be once she was a vampire. Well, it hadn’t been at first, because she’d been taken care of.

Unfortunately, her maker had tired of her within a few years of her regaining her sanity, and as soon as she could be trusted not to lose control and kill humans, she’d been on her own. Thankfully, there’d been room for her in the coterie house, but the rent to live there was way more than rent for a normal apartment. But most apartments are aboveground with windows, and don’t come with nonflammable, secure daytime quarters.

She’d been pretty wealthy before she’d agreed to be a sex slave to the Master Vampire in exchange for him eventually turning her, but she’d stowed that wealth away with the expectation she wouldn’t need it for another fifty to eighty years — and it’d only been seventeen years since she moved into the Master Vampire’s mansion. Twelve years since she’d been turned.

Every penny she’d made in the past eight months was going into this move. New identities aren’t cheap, and neither is a vampire-safe chartered flight half-way around the world. The plane brought her as far as a single-runway airport in Ocala, Florida. Apparently, there aren’t many private airports with a runway long enough to land this plane. Nine passengers were on the chartered flight, and all were either vampires or their food. She’d paid the ticket add-on to drink from a werewolf on the flight, and that should last her the night.

A grizzly bear named Collosa was supposed to pick her up. She’d be sharing a house with him and two other coworkers, but she’d lived in a coterie house for years. She was good with only having three roommates, rather than dozens.

The plane finally slowed and then came to a stop, and she took yet another breath she didn’t need. She’d landed in her new country. Her new life, where Christmas happened in the winter. It was going to be odd.

Collosa watched the huge plane land from inside the comfort of the Drake Security Chevrolet Suburban. He hadn’t been able to drive his Wrangler because she had too much luggage. Four huge suitcases in the luggage compartment and three carry-on suitcases because she wanted her computer equipment to stay in the climate-controlled portion of the plane.

He walked out to the plane when it stopped, and waited for Kelsey. Her picture showed her as being a knockout times a thousand. Her hair was light brown with blonde highlights, and she had boobs for days. The picture hadn’t shown her from the back, but he assumed the view would be nice from any direction. Vampires turn people either because they’re beautiful, powerful, or smart. This one was supposedly a genius hacker, but her looks had likely been the icing on the cake for the vampire who turned her.

She exited the plane with three large rolling suitcases, a huge backpack, a cross-body messenger bag, and a purse over her