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

  Rebirth

  Copyright © 2012 by Rebecca Royce

  ISBN: 978-1-61333-267-2

  Cover art by LFD Designs

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

  Look for us online at:

  www.decadentpublishing.com

  Also by Rebecca Royce

  Another Chance

  Behind the Scenes

  Initiation

  Driven

  Embraced

  Eye Contact

  1Night Stand Stories

  I’ll Be Mated for Christmas

  One Night With a Wolf

  Stories in The Edge - Shifters & Bikers Series

  Unwanted Mate

  Bar Mate

  Mate By the Music

  Out of Place Mate

  Rebirth

  A 1Night Stand Story

  Rebecca Royce

  ~DEDICATION~

  For Valerie and Kate, for making 1Night Stand possible.

  Chapter One

  Agoston Barabás.

  Carly Penn stared at the name on her text message. Who has a name like Agoston Barabás? She bit her lip. This whole endeavor could be a huge mistake.

  The small crowd around her cheered and she raised her head, forced to pay attention to the present. Her brother had just married her best friend. The beauty of the day wouldn’t have happened without the help of the 1Night Stand dating service run by Madame Evangeline—who now wanted Carly to meet someone named Agoston Barabás.

  Her brother, Joe, and his new bride, Kaylee, or mate as he liked to call her thanks to his werewolf status, walked out of their home to wave to the twenty-odd guests who had driven to Joe’s remote cabin in upstate New York for the festivities. Catching Carly’s eye, Joe walked over to embrace her. They’d been close as children, and it had always been a gift to her that they remained that way as adults, too.

  He gripped her for about three seconds before a grimace crossed his face and he started to choke before backing away. “I meant to ask you this earlier, Carly-girl.” She couldn’t help but smile at his use of her childhood nickname. “Did a perfume factory explode around you? When did you start to drown yourself in such processed scents?”

  She shrugged like she hadn’t spent ten minutes mixing four different kinds of strong, factory-manufactured aromas together before spraying herself down to smell horrendous. When in reality, it had been a conscious decision to keep him from smelling on her what she didn’t want him to know.

  She was dying.

  Had been for months, prompting her decision to help Madame Eve introduce Joseph and Kaylee while she could. Joseph had been so alone, and so for that matter, had Kaylee. They’d needed to meet and Carly helped arrange their date. When Madame Eve suggested the match, it was so obvious they should be together. And there they were, three months later, celebrating the union of two people clearly born for each other.

  Clouds moved above them, covering the sun from their view and camouflaging, she hoped, her red face at his words. She didn’t like the scent of death on her skin either. A two-bit prostitute who needed to cover up the stink of the men she had been with the night before smelled better than Carly.

  “Did you forget about my werewolf problem? I can’t stand strong smells. Go wash off.”

  Years earlier, a group of werewolves had attacked Joseph in the Nevada desert. Although Carly had been raised to be rational and not believe in fairy tales, watching her brother shift into a wolf form had been enough to show her there were lots of truths in the world—lots of things happened that most people didn’t know about. But she hadn’t been able to abide the thought of Joe being alone after she died. Not when he changed into a wolf once or twice a month and no one else had any idea that it happened. Someone else needed to know. Needed to take care of him when she was gone.

  “Maybe I just like the way I smell. Maybe regular guys don’t mind it, big brother.”

  Not that she would know. Since she’d gotten the big C diagnosis, she hadn’t exactly been searching out dates. Most guys were not interested in thirty-eight-year-old women with an upcoming expiration date. Tears filled her eyes at the thought, and she banished them before they could fall.

  God, I’ve wasted so much time.

  Joe’s sharp eyes appeared concerned. She might be able to hide the cancer smell from him with large doses of disgusting scent until even her non-werewolf eyes burned, but he could still see her. To keep her secret hidden, she had to pretend better.

  He placed a hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”

  “Yep. More than okay.” She threw her arms around him although the stench had to be destroying his senses. “Just so happy for you and Kaylee.”

  Stepping back, she forced a grin. Her heart overflowed with love for him and his new wife. When the doctor had given her the prognosis of stage four ovarian cancer with a grim outcome that it had spread, and didn’t leave much in the way of treatment, the sense that she couldn’t leave Joe all alone had filled her soul.

  She’d taken care of that. He was married. But nothing about her own situation had changed. Even doctors doing experimental treatments didn’t want to touch her.

  So it was over.

  “Go on, big brother. Go greet your guests. Go be with your bride. I have to get back to the city.”

  He gripped her shoulders. “You can’t take a day off work to see your brother get married?”

  “I did. You’re married.” She patted him on the shoulder then removed his hands from hers. Another few minutes and she would break down. That couldn’t happen, not if she intended to stay silent until after he came back from his honeymoon, if she told him at all, which she still debated. “Now, I have to get back. Love you. So happy for you two.”

  “All right, but you’re coming back to see us when we get back from Hawaii or I’m going to come back to New York City, shift into my wolf form, and drag you up here for a visit, kicking and screaming, if I have to.”

  “It’s a deal.” She kissed him on the cheek. “Tell Kaylee I love her and I’m sorry I have to run.”

  “I will.”

  Joe acted like he wanted to say more, which was exactly why she practically ran for her car. Her life might be over, but she could still have one night. If Madame Eve could help Joe find forever then she could help Carly have one perfect evening of incredible, mind-blowing sex. The kind of experience she could hang onto when the pain became too much for her to bear.

  Madame Eve was an expert in love. If she said this Agoston Barabás matched with her, well, then she would believe her. In any case, she’d find out shortly since, if she got there on time, she’d meet him at the newly purchased Castillo hotel in downtown New York City that very evening. For one more night, she would pretend all was well.

  ***

  Agoston Barabás pressed his forehead against the glass pane of the window in
his hotel suite. It had been two hundred years since he had seen the sun, but New York City could make him believe daytime lasted all through the night. The streets were always lit up, always busy. He craved their magic like he craved only one other thing: Dorika. Since the universe had not seen fit to give her back to him, even after two centuries of waiting, he would take the bright lights of the big city as a means to fill his endless nights.

  He’d signed up with a dating service. The idea would be preposterous except that he’d actually done it. Every single encounter he had existed only for one night. To do otherwise would be to betray Dorika. She had promised him she would find a way back to him, and he believed her. That’s why he’d liked this service. It promised one great night. That fit his parameters perfectly.

  Truthfully, he had no other choice but to hold onto faith because the day he gave up the idea that her soul would return to him would be the day life ceased to matter. And then he would truly become the monster humanity named him.

  Creature of the night. Drinker of blood. Vampire.

  He hated the last one. Vampire seemed so soulless, so heartless—and so untrue since his own heart had been breaking for two centuries.

  His date hadn’t arrived on time. He sighed. No matter. He could go out and obtain a woman for the night if she truly stood him up, and Madame Eve most assuredly would refund his money. She ran a reputable business that had many positive reviews on the Internet.

  The door to the hotel room opened softly, and he turned to regard the female standing there. She smelled clean and sweet, like she’d recently showered with unscented soap. He preferred women to smell just as they were. Already, he thought highly of his unnamed date.

  Stepping forward, he bent his head to nod. A pretty girl—she stood about five-foot-five—with nearly black hair and dark brown eyes. Her skin tone appeared to be tinged with olive. Someone in her background had been Mediterranean. Curvaceous as a woman should be, she approached him with her head held high, confidence in her every step.

  He took her hand and bent over to kiss it, surprised by the little gasp she released. Her reaction told him she did not spend much time with old-fashioned men.

  Opening his eyes to the power he’d been given when he’d been made a vampire, he examined the woman’s soul. Humans didn’t realize that a light force surrounded their bodies—oh, some called them auras—but in reality, what he saw was a touch of their soul in that light. Everyone had one, even him, which was how he knew that although he no longer lived as a human, he still existed in the light of divine.

  He’d seen Dorika’s just once before she’d died. They’d had one night together before the vampire who’d changed him had taken her life in an episode so violent he’d never seen the like since—and he’d seen a lot of horror. With her last gasp of air, she’d whispered to him that she would be reborn. Now, in her honor, he checked the soul of every woman he came in contact with. That had proven to be a lot of people and not one of them Dorika.

  He checked his date’s so-called aura, expecting to glance quickly and get on with the night, when the air suddenly disappeared out of the room.

  There it was, in all its bright, gold glory. Sprinkled with purple and blue.

  He hadn’t seen its like since Dorika left the world. Tears sprang to his eyes.

  The woman who held Dorika’s soul stared at him with wide eyes. “Are you okay?” The sounds of New York City tinged her low, husky voice.

  “Yes.” He swallowed. “You’re here.”

  “I am.”

  She eased her hand away and the temperature in the room dropped five degrees. At least for him. He needed to get control immediately before he blew it and she ran from the room in horror. Not that he would ever let her go. Now that he’d found her, he would be certain he could locate her anywhere from sheer force of will alone. If she didn’t want him, he’d stay in the shadows and watch her from afar. Anything to be in her presence.

  “I’m Carly.” She raised her eyebrows. “And you must be Agoston?”

  Maybe if he had looked at the card Madame Eve sent him, he would have also known her name, but as he had expected her to simply be another one-night stand, he hadn’t bothered to pay attention. “Gus.” He nodded, taking a step away to get some perspective—he hoped. “I’ve always been Gus.”

  This woman had his love’s soul, but she didn’t know him. She might not like him at all. Nor could he expect her to know anything about him.

  “Well.” The timbre of her voice spoke of bland pleasantness. That didn’t bode well for things. She walked toward the window he’d been standing next to earlier. “Do you do this often?”

  “This?” Find my soul mate in the body of a woman who has no idea of our connection? No.

  “Dating services?” She whirled to stare at him, apparently uninterested in the view. Her interest seemed to be on him and not the goings-on outside. That filled him with joy. Still, he couldn’t shake the sensation that a cross-examination would likely begin any second. With the thought came the realization that her career must be that of an attorney. If nothing else, two centuries of living had given him intuition when it came to people and their various jobs.

  “Are you a litigator?” He’d struggled to come up with the word. He spoke five languages fluently, but he would only put English as semi-fluent. The longer he lived as a vampire the more challenging he found it to truly master other languages. His brain seemed to be crying out that it had reached its maximum capacity. Or, maybe he really didn’t care anymore. He’d been in the United States for a short time, not enough for him to have a true mastery. Not when things changed so quickly.

  “I am.” She smiled, a beautiful blush crossing her cheeks. “How did you know? Am I doing that thing that men hate where I sound like I’m ready to put them on the stand?”

  He leaned back against the wall, hoping to appear relaxed instead of lightheaded. “I just had a feeling. To answer your question, no, I have never done a dating service before. But the premise, szerelmem, intrigued me. One night. Why? Have you? Done this a lot?”

  Met strange men in rooms? Had lots of sex with others when you should have been with me?

  He pushed away the thoughts. They wouldn’t help anything. Better to stay in the present if he didn’t want the night to end before it began. And he had to watch the use of words like szerelmem. What would he do if she asked him what it meant? He couldn’t very well translate the word for her correctly. Telling a woman you’ve just met that you called her, my love, would not go over well in this century.

  “No. This is my first time. But Madame Eve helped me introduce my brother to his new wife a few months ago. In fact, they got married this morning.”

  He sensed the way her eyes darted to the floor that the brief explanation she gave didn’t tell the whole story. “And now this is what you are seeking, yes? Marriage?”

  Family—the one thing he couldn’t really give her. Himself—she could have that for eternity. Money—they could never spend what he had accumulated over his long years. But family? It would always be just the two of them. Perhaps it wouldn’t be enough for her. Dorika had wanted children. Lots of them.

  “No.” She walked toward him, her arms resting at her sides. “I do not want marriage.”

  When she’d gotten close enough that he could smell her fresh scent, he dared to whisper. “What is it that you want then?”

  Her eyes transfixed him and he wondered if they’d traded places, if she had the magical abilities instead of him. He was a vampire. No way should he be falling under her spell so fast. If anything, it should be the other way around. Except that she had the most beautiful soul he’d ever seen. Just her existence made him want to fall to his knees and weep.

  “One perfect night.” She touched the side of his cheek. “You shaved; you have no stubble on your face at all.”

  He couldn’t grow hair of any kind. He had been clean-shaven since the day he’d been changed.

  “I can give you one p
erfect night.” He could do that and so much more. An eternity of them if only she would have him. But he must not say that yet. He wouldn’t let himself tell her even if it tore at him not to speak the words he longed to utter.

  “I bet you can. You’re very handsome.” She raised an eyebrow. “Even if you’re hiding something.” She grinned and showed him two dimples she’d been hiding. With his index finger, he caressed one. “Don’t try to hide it—I can always tell.”

  “You can?” He raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s one of my many talents.”

  “I want to hear about them.” All of them.

  She shook her head. “How about I show them to you instead?”

  A lump formed in his throat. “What did you have in mind?”

  She slipped the sweater covering her shoulders onto the bed. “Well, one of the things I can do is a really, really hot striptease. I took a class. Did you know that stripping is a great cardio workout?”

  He had not known that. Carly intrigued him. She had his lost love’s soul—he had no doubt about that—and yet she behaved very differently. A sexy dance? Dorika would never have been so bold. There are benefits to this new century. “I did not know that. Show me.”

  She laughed, yet, her eyes were serious. The date meant something to her. She wanted him to find her attractive—she’d accomplished that simply by walking in the room. With the level of confidence she displayed, he doubted she could be unaware of her own appeal. So what did her dance really mean? Some kind of control?

  Her hips shook to a music only she heard. He wished he shared it with her. She closed her dark eyes, gyrated back and forth in a semi-circle and his cock grew even harder. She swished, her long black skirt creating a light sound as it touched the ground.