Excerpt of The Vampire...in My Dreams by Terry Lee Wilde

MARISSA “Watch well, witch,” the woman called back to me as she squeezed Dominic’s throat. Dressed in a black spandex shirt, matching jeans and a pair of high-heeled, thigh-high boots, she looked like a regular teen.My heart lodged in my throat while my blood turned to ice, but I wouldn’t run and hide.“See what I will do to you next!” She turned her attention to Dominic. “Do you think a scrawny thing like her can kill me? Do you? She’s trembling in her sneakers as we speak. Well, as I speak.”I froze to the concrete sidewalk, unsure what to do next to save Dominic from the vampire. I wanted to pound her into the ground, but the way she held Dominic tightly in her grasp, I knew I couldn’t physically best her. I suspected none of my spells would work against an ancient vampire, and though the woman looked only to be my age, seventeen, she seemed older than time in her actions and speech.She leaned over and licked Dominic’s cheek, and his expression turned from concern for me to hatred for her.None of Dominic’s own words had emotionally stirred me to save him like the unbridled actions of the vampire at his throat. Lynetta bared her wickedly sharp pointed canines and hissed. Her long black hair hung wildly to her hips, tangled and teased by the breeze. She was petite like me, but as strong as a male bodybuilder, her grip on Dominic remaining iron tight. Her soulless black eyes, vacant and without a care, really ate away at my heart.I surveyed the yard for any kind of a weapon I could use against the vampire. My heart surged when I spied a colorful whirligig attached to a wooden stake embedded in my mother’s pampered pansy garden nearby. Without a second’s hesitation, I dashed for it and yanked it out.Running at the vampire, I screamed at the top of my lungs, “Death to the bloodsucking vampire!” Which gave me some courage. It wasn’t every day I had to beat one vampire off of another, when they didn’t even really exist. Who’d ever thought I’d have to tell Kate she was so right?All I could think of was aiming the stake at the vampire’s heart—at least that’s what the books said would work on them—except Lynetta used Dominic to shield her. I ground my teeth, dancing around them, taking aim at the vamp anywhere that I could strike, praying I wouldn’t hit Dominic by accident.