The Vampire In The Room: Paranormal Women's Fiction: Death Dealers Curse (Magical Midlife Death Book 14), page 26
THE VAMPIRE IN THE ROOM
A MAGICAL MIDLIFE DEATH NOVEL
TIA DIDMON
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
No Pain, No Vampire Chapter 1
No Pain, No Vampire Chapter 2
Also by Tia Didmon
About the Author
The Vampire in the Room
Copyright © 2026 Tia Didmon
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written consent of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either products of the authors imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, or actual events is purely coincidental.
I love hearing from my readers so please contact me at:
https://tiadidmon.com
Other books in this Series
Forever Forty
Forty Proof and Dead
Forty Shades of Dead
Forty Days and One Vampire Night
Forty Reasons to Die
Forty Deaths till us Part
Forty is the New Dead
Foolish and Dead at Forty
North of Forty and East of Dead
Forty Licks and Still Dead
Wrong Side of Dead at Forty
Tis the Season to be Forty and Dead
The Vampire in the Room
No Pain, No Vampire
It's All Vampires To Me
Curiosity Killed the Vampire
Let Sleeping Vampires Lie
Don’t Judge a Vampire by her Fangs
More books are coming in this series. Check out https://tiadidmon.com/book-list/ for the complete list.
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CHAPTER 1
CASS
The leather seats of the limo still carried the faint scent of smoke and glitter from Club Spice—don’t ask me how glitter managed to cling to everything, including my leather cat suit. Raven was glowing, her laughter bubbling like champagne as she replayed the night’s events. I leaned back, smirking at the stoic figure beside me.
“You do realize,” I said, tilting my head at Constantine, “half those drag queens were ready to haul you backstage and never let you out again. Gal Glamour practically purred when you walked by. I’ve never seen sequins bow in surrender before.”
Constantine sighed the way only a thousand-year-old vampire with zero patience for nonsense could. “I have no intention of taking any of them up on their… offers.” His pale eyes cut to me, but the effect was ruined by Raven’s snort.
Rene’s lips twitched, his hand absently smoothing down Raven’s hair as though her laughter was the only music he needed.
“Oh please,” Raven chimed in, her violet eyes sparking. “Don’t forget Darcy. He hit on both you and Cass. Twice. At the same time.”
I grinned, unbothered. “Persistent men deserve some props. It takes guts to throw yourself at two killers and hope for the best.”
That earned me another sigh from Con, but it was worth it. Raven and I dissolved into laughter, my shoulder brushing Con’s as I leaned toward her. Even Rene allowed himself a smile. Constantine, of course, remained carved from stone, every line of his face unmoved. Typical. That was Con for you.
The limo slowed, the laughter fading as the looming gates of Shadow Bone rose ahead. Duty waited, as heavy and cold as the steel fence that swung open on its ancient hinges.
The door clicked open. I adjusted my jacket, boots hitting the gravel as I stepped out into the night air, my spear at my side. Constantine followed, tall and severe, his shadow stretching long beside mine. Raven slipped out after me, Rene’s hand at her back, his smile fading into something darker as the mansion’s lights bled across the drive.
The gravel under my boots crunched as we started toward the mansion doors, but the night split open before we could take another step.
A white light shimmered into existence—no slow build, just there, as if the darkness had torn itself apart. It expanded, blinding, a column stretching from ground to sky until it was impossible to tell where it began or ended. The air around us rippled with heat, sharp and electric, prickling across my skin like a thousand unseen claws.
“Stay back,” I muttered, already moving ahead of Rene and Raven. Constantine was beside me in the same breath, his presence solid and unyielding.
The spear slid into my hand with a whisper of metal, the compact shaft lengthening as I willed it alive. Blessed steel caught the glow, throwing off its own fire as I angled the tip toward the pulsing light. Constantine drew his sword in a single, deliberate motion, the blade gleaming like liquid moonlight.
The white blaze coalesced, folding inward on itself, shape forming where there hadn’t been one. A figure stepped through—tall, lean, dark hair falling around a face that looked carved more than born. His silver eyes caught the last flare of light before it winked out behind him, leaving only shadows at his back.
Rene’s voice broke the silence, low and edged with something dangerous. “What are you doing here Valarian?”
Of course it was.
I tightened my grip on the spear. Constantine’s sword caught the glow of the mansion’s lamps, controlled and sure at my side. Whatever game Valerian thought he was about to play, he’d learn quickly that we weren’t in the mood for entertainment.
The spear thrummed in my grip, hungry, but I held it steady. Constantine’s blade stayed leveled too, though Valerian didn’t spare either of us a glance. His eyes—those unnatural shards of silver—fixed only on Rene and Raven as though we were shadows, not flesh and blood.
“What do you want?” Rene’s voice cut through the night, calm but carrying a weight that could flatten stone.
Valerian tilted his head, studying Rene like he was a puzzle left unsolved for too long. “Want?” he repeated, as if testing the word on his tongue. “Such a small question for something so… vast.”
My jaw tightened. I hated evasiveness.
Rene didn’t flinch. “Spare me your riddles, warlock. You didn’t crawl out of your pocket realm for tea. State your purpose.”
Valerian’s gaze slid, deliberate and slow, to Raven. His smile was as sharp as glass. “Your bride. She carries more than herself in those veins. Tell me what you know of her family? Her bloodline?”
Raven stiffened at his words, but Rene shifted, a fraction forward, his presence wrapping around her like a shield. “That’s not your concern.”
“Ah, but it is,” Valerian murmured, ignoring the warning in Rene’s tone. “There is old magic here. Lines twisted together, some frayed, some knotted tight. I can smell it, even from here. Tell me, Rene—do you know what you’ve bound yourself to?”
Rene’s jaw clenched, the mask of patience slipping just enough for me to catch the flash of his temper. “I don’t care where she came from. She is mine.”
“I need to know.” Valerian’s smile widened, all amusement and no warmth. “And I will have my answers, one way or another. You should know by now, Rene—questions left unanswered have a way of unraveling everything you think you’ve built.”
“Enough.” Rene’s word cracked like a whip, his eyes burning brighter, his frame taut with restrained fury. But Valerian just laughed, low and cold, as if Rene’s anger was the very thing he’d been waiting for.
And still not a flicker in our direction. To him, Constantine and I might as well have been the dust at his boots.
Valerian moved closer without ever seeming to touch the earth. His dark velvet robes, threaded with silver, billowed in a wind that didn’t exist, fabric whispering like restless spirits. Each step was too smooth, too fluid, as if the ground bent to carry him instead of resisting his weight.
Raven’s voice trembled against the silence. “How… how can you be here?”
Rene’s jaw hardened. He shook his head once, the motion betraying more than words. He didn’t know.
My fingers flexed on the shaft of the Serenity Spear, the urge to strike thrumming like a heartbeat I couldn’t ignore. “What do we do?” I asked, eyes never leaving Valerian’s gliding form.
Rene’s pale-blue gaze cut to me, then to Constantine. A subtle shake of his head. Stand down—for now.
That alone sent a ripple of unease through me. If Rene wasn’t certain, then we were playing blind against a man who’d created his own reality when he didn’t like the one he lived in. I’d heard the stories of his pocket realm, of the immortality granted at his whim. I never thought I’d see him outside it.
The mansion
I motioned to them, palm flat. Hold.
Val’s dark eyes narrowed but he froze on the steps, leather gleaming under the lantern light. Quinn’s expression was as unreadable as ever, but his hand tightened on the hilt at his hip. Both men radiated the same thing I felt in my bones—one wrong twitch here and Shadow Bone would be drenched in blood.
So I stood my ground, spear at the ready but not raised further, my gaze locked on Valerian as he drifted closer, the night bending around him like it knew better than to resist.
This wasn’t a battle yet. But it could be—fast.
Valerian’s gaze never wavered from Raven, silver eyes glinting with something too sharp, too hungry, to be mistaken for admiration.
“When she arrived in my realm,” he began, voice silk over steel, “I did not realize who—or what—she truly was. A curiosity, I thought. Another piece for the collection of oddities that come seeking my favor.” He smiled, though it carried no warmth. “But when she left… I could not stop thinking about her.”
Raven stiffened beside Rene. Her fingers twitched at her side as though she wanted to reach for him, but Rene was already there, his presence a wall between them.
“You admit it, then.” His tone was ice. “She is unusual. That’s why you covet her. You collect rare things—relics, people, souls—and lock them away until they rot under your attention.”
Valerian’s smile deepened, eerie in its calm. “No. She is more than that to me.” His voice dipped lower, almost reverent. “She is the thread I thought long severed. The answer to a silence that has haunted me for centuries.”
A growl rumbled from Rene, low and lethal. “You walk dangerous ground coming to my home and speaking of my bride in such a way.”
The warlock’s expression didn’t falter. If anything, it sharpened. “I believe she chose you because I was no longer in this realm. I have altered that reality.” His silver gaze cut to Raven, then back to Rene. “And I have come to claim what is mine.”
The air thickened, charged with a current that pulled at my skin.
Rene moved, and in the span of a heartbeat he was no longer the man in the immaculate suit. His body lengthened, shadows clinging to him like armor as the night bent to reveal what he truly was.
Wings erupted from his back—vast, black, and leathery, the membrane stretched taut between ridges like some ancient predator dragged from the depths of legend. They unfurled with a snap, blotting out the torches, the stars, the very sky above us.
His eyes ignited crimson, glowing like coals fanned by fury, and his face honed into something both regal and terrible. His presence slammed into the courtyard like a physical blow, the kind of power that made even Constantine adjust his stance and forced Val and Quinn into stillness.
I’d seen Rene in battle, seen his temper, but this… this was the vampire king unmasked. No suit, no civilized veneer. Just raw, ancient dominance, a nightmare wearing flesh.
He spoke, voice deeper, harsher, vibrating with the strength of centuries. “You walk dangerous ground, warlock, speaking of my bride as if she were a bauble to be traded, and you will find the cost too steep even for you.”
Valerian only smiled, robes whispering in that unseen wind, as though he hadn’t just provoked a monster who could crush him like a gnat.
My hands tightened on my spear as I glanced at Constantine.
He shifted closer, sword raised, his stance braced for what might come. Val and Quinn stood as taut as bowstrings before us.
But none of it mattered. Not me, not Constantine, not the two best killers at my back.
This was Rene’s fight, and every soul present knew it.
Valerian didn’t so much as blink at the crimson blaze in Rene’s eyes or the shadow of those vast, leathery wings. He only smiled, calm as if this were some parlor visit instead of a standoff outside Shadow Bone.
“Settle down, Rene,” he said smoothly, voice carrying the cadence of a man who had lived too long and feared too little. “I am not here to take Raven. That would be… unsporting. And I cannot bind her to me while her heart belongs to you.” His silver gaze flicked to Raven with disarming gentleness. “Since she has put her trust in you, and in the vampires who surround her, you will all be given a chance to keep her.”
My grip on the spear tightened until my knuckles ached. “What are you talking about?” I snapped, frustration spilling past the measured calm I usually prided myself on.
For the first time, Valerian’s attention shifted to me. His eyes—bright, unearthly, endless—slid across me like the edge of a blade. “Ah. The death dealer… no, that’s not all, is it? The warrior. Interesting.”
The words punched through my chest, though I forced my face to remain calm. I wanted to demand how he knew, but everything I’d learned of Valerian told me he could find out anything he pleased. The entire coven of witches hadn’t been able to contain him. Their strongest bindings had been little more than amusements to him.
And Rene, now in his full king form, was holding himself back. He wasn’t eager to fight Valerian, which told me everything I needed to know about the danger we were standing in.
Valerian’s lips curved with the slightest twitch of amusement. “I propose a game,” he said at last, as if offering us hospitality instead of menace. “And Raven…” He let the pause stretch, silver eyes glittering as they cut back to her. “…is the prize.”
The words hung in the courtyard like a death knell.
My heart pumped once, hard, but I lifted my chin, ready to answer.
Because if Valerian thought for a second I’d let him toy with Rene’s bride—our bride in name and loyalty—he was about to find out just how sharp a death dealer’s spear could be.
CHAPTER 2
Raven’s voice broke the silence first, trembling but steady enough to carry across the courtyard. “How are you here, Valerian? I thought your realm couldn’t exist without you.”
Valerian’s smile was slow, deliberate, like a man savoring a secret before revealing it. “That is true,” he said, silver eyes glittering under the torchlight. “And so, I collapsed it.”
The words were delivered so casually that, for a beat, none of us moved. Even Rene, wings unfurled and eyes burning red, tilted his head slightly, as though he hadn’t expected that answer.
Valerian spread his hands, robes whispering in their phantom wind. “The realm’s power was mine to wield, mine to recall. Those within its boundaries existed because I allowed them to. And when I chose to draw all of that back into myself, the realm unraveled. Their souls, their power, their essence—reclaimed.” He leaned forward a fraction, as if confiding something intimate. “That is proof, Raven, of what you mean to me. I dismantled a world for you.”
Raven’s face drained of color, her violet eyes widening in horror. Her voice cracked as she choked out the words. “You killed all of them?”
I heard the repulsion in her tone, saw the disbelief twist her mouth. She might have hated vampires once, but she had never reveled in cruelty—never stomached needless loss.
Valerian’s smile remained, but it thinned into something sharper. “Cerise is still with me. She has useful skills and is completely loyal. I had no need of the others.”
The casual dismissal sent heat up my spine. He had erased lives, entire existences, with less concern than I’d give swatting a fly.
“You monster,” Raven hissed, stepping forward before Rene’s arm swept out to bar her path. “They trusted you. They lived in your world, bound to you, and you threw them away like they meant nothing!”
Valerian didn’t blink. “Your opinion is irrelevant, my dear. In time, you will learn who you truly are. And then—” He paused, his smile honing to a blade’s edge. “You will understand why it was necessary.”
Raven recoiled, her breath catching in her throat. The defiance in her eyes didn’t waver, but I could see the pain his words caused her.
I tightened my grip on the spear, every instinct screaming to drive the blade through his chest. But Rene’s wings shifted, blocking both Raven and me from stepping closer. His silence was thunderous, his restraint more terrifying than any rage.
