Book Three in the Sons of Midnight
mini-series
Harlequin Nocturne
ISBN-10: 0373618794
ISBN-13: 978-0373618798
Ignorant of his true heritage, half-breed
vampire Slade Donovan is fated to feel like an outsider among his clan. Until a
mysterious woman arrives with the ability to unlock his secrets—and make him
crave a future he never believed he could have….
As a Game Warden, Raina Ravenwing has
only one mission in the Cascade Mountains : to track down a pack
of rare wolves that is terrorizing her tribe. Her instant attraction to Slade
is a distraction the beautiful wolf whisperer can't afford, unless she agrees
to let him help her. Yet working so closely together only intensifies their
passion…even as the unfolding truth of Slade's identity threatens everything
Raina holds sacred and could potentially destroy both their worlds.
Excerpt from THE HALF-BREED VAMPIRE
Total bliss only lasted four hours.
Hey, Donovan. You got a visitor. The
sound of his commander, Achilles Stefano's voice echoed in his head, waking him
from a dead sleep and leaving his ears ringing.
Slade grimaced, turned over in his
tangled sheets. Talk about lousy timing. Can it wait?
No. Get your ass in here.
What vampire on earth would want to speak
to him at this ungodly hour? Either something was wrong, or was going to be.
Slade grumbled. He grappled the sides of his sleeping spot, a double-wide
grave-sized hole carved out of the gray bedrock, the black satin sheets pooling
around his hips as he sat up.
He phased himself a fresh-showered look
and clean fatigues so he'd at least look presentable, then focused pulling his
energy together at his core, visualizing the security room inside the clan
headquarters, so he could transport.
An image of pale green smooth walls and
military issue furniture circa 1950 filled his mind, accented by the musty
smell that pervaded the room despite the heat thrown off by the banks of
flat-screen computers. A pull, centered at his navel yanked him by the balls
inside out as he transported from his position in the Cascade Mountains to the complex system
of passages and rooms fifty feet below the asphalt streets and buildings of Seattle
The minute his particles knit back
together he could see exactly why the hour was so damn late, or rather so damn
early. His visitor wasn't a vampire. It was the woman from the woods, only now
she was in full uniform for a state police officer - a pair of olive green
pants, a short-sleeved khaki shirt with matching olive green breast pocket
flaps and epaulets, a standard issue gun belt, ugly black shoes, and her
glorious ebony hair pulled back in a no-nonsense bun at her nape. Damn. Double
Damn. The cop.
Before being brought into the clan, he'd
had his share of run-ins with the law and still felt uncomfortable around cops.
Even pretty, strawberry-scented ones. He glanced at Achilles. His commander was
one-hundred-percent pure golden Spartan warrior, but his modern military-short
hair cut was starting to grow out. His hard jaw didn't flex in a smile, but the
wicked twinkle in his unnaturally green eyes said he knew something about this
woman Slade didn't.
Slade shifted, crossing his arms over his
chest, forcing himself not to wince at the sharp sting in his ribs that were
still a little tender. "Can I help you?"
She extended a slender hand. Her nails
were short and mostly clean, only a few had fine traces of dirt underneath.
"I'm Raina Ravenwing, Mr.
Blackwolf." She said smoothly, extending her hand. There was no sign of
recognition in her dark brown eyes. "Fish and Wildlife Officer with the
state wildlife department." She clarified, just in case the emblem on her
sleeve didn't do the job.
He stared at her hand but didn't take it,
and she let it drop. "Sorry, wrong guy. Last name's Donovan. If that's it,
I'm out of here." He turned on his heel, giving her his back as he headed
for the door.
"So you go by your mother's maiden
name?"
That stopped him cold. His mother's
maiden name? He didn't know whose name it was, let alone why he'd used it for
as long as he could remember. The only glimpse of his mother - at least he
thought it was her - were distorted slow-motion images he saw in his daymares.
Dark hair, wide brown-sugar eyes. A
wide-generous mouth, which smiled one moment and screamed the next. A wash of
red blood and the howl of wolves.
To think Officer Raina Ravenwing knew
something about him that he didn't even know about himself rankled. He turned
slowly, facing her once more. "Couldn't tell you. Don't know."
The petite woman widened her stance,
pulled her shoulders back and stiffened her spine. "Well, Mr. Donovan,
I've been told you're a wolf expert of sorts." Her gaze flicked to
Achilles briefly, disbelief evident in the firm set of her generous mouth.
The dark hairs prickled all along Slade's
arm. Somehow, gut deep, he knew she wasn't here to talk about just wolves.
"I guess."
"Don't let him fool you Officer
Ravenwing. There's not another vampire who can track better than Donovan."
It was true. Slade's senses were more finely tuned than most of the other vamps
in the clan. That's why he'd been tapped to be in the security detail by the
commander himself. While his technical specialty was explosives, tracking came
in a close second. Very close.
She stuck her chin out a bit, almost
daring him. "What do you know about unusually large wolves in our
area?"
Slade brushed at the slowly healing cut
at his scalp line. Good. She didn't remember a thing. Weres weren't something
you talked about in polite vampire society, let alone with mortals. They were
less than mortal. A cruel joke of the gods. A cross between an unpredictable
animal and an unsympathetic mortal.
"Why?"
"There've been reports of some
rather unusual wolves causing trouble in the edges of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness
Area. The people are getting lathered up about it and ready to go on a wolf
hunt."
"So let them."
Her eyes narrowed. She crossed her arms
over her chest, making her B-cup breasts jut out enticingly. At least he
thought they were B-cups. They might be just a shade larger, but he wouldn't be
able to tell unless he got his hands on them.
Whoa. Where had that come from? Slade
flexed his fingers, reigning in his wayward thoughts. She wasn't even his type.
Of course, who the hell did he think he was kidding? Female was his type. It
was police officer that wasn't.
"My job as a Game Warden, Mr.
Donovan, is to protect these animals and enforce the laws in this state. The
fact that they've returned at all and may be migrants from the reestablished
packs in Idaho Montana
The scrape on his scalp was beginning to
itch like holy hell and he wasn't really interested in her long-winded eco
lecture. "Lady, the wolves aren't in any danger. If you want my advice,
you'd do better to worry about keeping people away from them."
"It's Officer Ravenwing, Mr.
Donovan, and that's about what I expected from a vampire." She said the
last word with such distain that Slade could smell the sulfur of it like rotten
eggs tainting the air.
Achilles stepped closer placing a huge
hand on her delicate shoulder. "Officer Ravenwing, Donovan will be happy
to help you with whatever you need to bring your investigation to a
close."
Slade glared at his commander. What the
hell? I don't want to be anywhere near her.
Achilles glanced back at him, his words
echoing loud and clear in Slade's head. She's part of the mortals' law
enforcers, so we will cooperate fully. We don't need them digging up problems
with the Wenatchee Were Pack to put at our door. You'll help her or you'll be
pulling day shift for the next decade. Do I make myself clear?
Yes.
Yes, what?
Yes, sir.
Achilles gave the game warden a nod, and
she relaxed. "If you'll excuse me, Officer Ravenwing, I have another
pressing matter." He grasped her free hand and lightly brushed the back of
it with a brief kiss. "I'll leave you to fill Donovan in on how you want
this handled."
She gave Achilles a generous smile that
pissed off Slade even more.
She blushed slightly. "Thanks for
your help."
Achilles vanished in a swirl of dark
particles as he transported from the room leaving Slade alone with the cop.
He glared at Officer nature girl. Just
because he had to help her didn't mean he had to like it. "What do you
need?"
"I need your help tracking one of
them down so I can find out if they've established a new pack from the groups
further east, or if they are a new breed or rare mutation. And find out what's
really going on with this rash of incidents."
Damn. Double Damn. Sure, waltz in on the
Were territory and give them a 'hey, whatz up?' Why didn't she just ask him to
go stake his balls to the ground and sunbathe nude? That would be less painful.
Well, maybe. "So you want me to go on a nature hike with you?"
Raina restrained herself from making a
smart-ass comeback. If nothing else she was a professional. She would have
preferred to have Achilles go with her. At least he could be trusted and had
some respect for her badge. With Donovan it was a whole other matter.
Everything about him shouted 'danger',
from the rumble of his deep voice and dark good looks to his tiger-like topaz
eyes. But it was his broad shoulders encased in black tight black t-shirt and
military cut camo fatigues and wide jaw bisected by a devil-may-care dent in
his chin that made him appear intriguing, which were an even greater danger to
any female in sight. That was, if he'd been her type. Which he wasn't.
Something at the edge of her mind nagged
her. She'd seen him before. He'd done something horrible. But no matter how
hard she concentrated it floated in her memory just out of reach.
"It's a bit more complicated than
that. There's an investigation currently underway. I need to track one down and
put a locator on it."
He glanced away, sending not so subtle
uninterested signals her way. "I'm sorry am I boring you, Mr.
Donovan?"
He shook his head. "Locator. Please
continue."
Raina was slightly surprised he had
actually been listening. "I need to know if there's only one, or if there
are more and if so, what the pack's territory is so I can advise the state game
department of potential impact on the local farmers and the game in the
area."
She didn't like the way he narrowed his
eyes. The air around him swirled with a potent mixture of testosterone and wild
side that were too intense to be comfortable. While his commander was at least
polite, Slade Blackwolf, or Donovan, or whatever he wanted to call himself, was
barely civilized.
He reeked of bad boy, something she'd
tried scrupulously to avoid since graduating the police academy. If she got
close enough she could probably smell motorcycle fumes and leather on him if
she tried. But she had no intention of getting that close, now or ever. Getting
mixed up with a bad boy was career suicide for a cop, especially a young female
cop, no matter what department she worked in.
This was business, plain and simple.
Being a game warden offered her an opportunity to help out her tribe in a
practical way instead of all the hocus-pocus they kept insisting she was
somehow tied to as part of their hopelessly outdated beliefs.
From what she'd been able to discover he
was her best chance at finding the elusive wolves. So far everything else she'd
tried had gotten her squat. And if things went on much longer it wouldn't be
just the state she'd have to deal with, the Feds would get involved since her
investigation was criss-crossing areas of the Wenatchee National Forest
"Sounds like a lost cause. Can't
prove something's perfectly harmless when it's not."
Raina didn't like his belligerent
attitude any more than his bad-boy demeanor. "Look, if you aren't capable
of helping me-"
Between one breath and the next she found
herself wedged up against the wall. A hard male body too dangerously close to
her own in front and the rough edges of a cold brick wall digging into her
back. Power, like smoke billowing from a forest fire, rolled off of him in
waves. He pinned her, his arms on either side, a lethal look in his golden eyes
that was mesmerizing like a wild animal's. She'd never been this close to an
actual vampire before and it scared the hell out of her.
With an audible flick his sharp fangs
appeared out of the gums just above his very normal looking teeth. His voice
came out low, almost a growl. "I'm perfectly capable of doing anything you
could possibly need done, Officer Ravenwing. But let's get one thing straight.
You came to me. You need me. So if I tell you to jump when we're out there
bushwhacking, you don't ask why, you just jump. I don't want have to explain to
my commander why I came back with a dead game warden. Are we clear?"
Rania managed to gather enough moisture
in her dry mouth to swallow, but words were beyond her. All she could manage
was a nod, her heart pounding so hard her pulse throbbed in her fingers and
toes.
All the resolve she'd made to keep good
and gone from bad boys of any kind began to dissolve, running like heated honey
through her veins. He was too close and it was too confining. She tried to push
against him, her hands on his broad chest, and found herself falling forward
and stumbling.
He'd dissolved beneath her touch into
nothing but smoke, then reappeared on the other side of the room, in less time
than it had taken her to blink. His large hand was where hers had been a moment
before, his eyes darker than before.
His voice came out almost a growl.
"Next time you touch me, it had better be because you want to."
Copyright © 2012 by Theresa Meyers
Permission to reproduce text granted by
Harlequin Books S.A.
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About Theresa Meyers:
Raised by a bibliophile who made the dining room into a library, Theresa
has always been a lover of books and stories. First a writer for newspapers,
then for national magazines, she started her first novel in high school,
eventually enrolling in a Writer's Digest course and putting the book under the
bed until she joined Romance Writers of America in 1993.
In 2005 she was selected as one of
eleven finalists for the American Title II contest, the American Idol of books.
She is married to the first man she ever went on a real date with (to their
high school prom), who she knew was hero material when he suffered through
having to let her parents drive, and her brother sit between them in the
backseat of the car. They currently live in a Victorian house on a mini farm in
the Pacific Northwest with their two children, three cats, an old
chestnut Arabian gelding, an energetic mini-Aussie shepherd puppy, several
rabbits, a dozen chickens and an out-of-control herb garden.
You can find her online on Twitter, Facebook, at her Web site or blogging with the
other Lolitas of STEAMED!
The Half-Breed Vampire
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I am so wanting to read this book.
ReplyDeleteI want to know what happens next. I've been trying to follow the tour because I want this book. :) Thanks for sharing Theresa.
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Would love to win and read this story. Theresa is a new author for me and always looking for new books to check out. Thanks for the giveaway. Love the coffee cup and yummy chocolates.
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