Category Archives: paranormal romance

As part of my Paranormal Pandemonium 2011 Blog Tour, I’m going to be posting the first FIVE chapters of my next release, Forbidden Blood. I posted chapter one last week.

Forbidden Blood is a dark vampire romance novel, and the first book in the Vampire Venators series. I’ll be posting more information about the series closer to the release of Forbidden Blood. In the meantime, here’s chapter two, and here’s a link to the previous chapter: Chapter One

Forbidden Blood
Felicity Heaton
In a dark world where vampires exist and where Source Blood, a rare human blood type, can bestow godlike powers upon them, the vampire Venators of the Sovereignty fight to protect the humans by banishing those who drink it to the endless dark.

Exiled from his family and with only his duty to sustain him, Kearn has been on the trail of an elusive Source Blood abuser for three years. When he saves a beautiful human female from the vampire’s grasp, it turns out she’s the lead he’s been waiting for. Amber is a Source Blood and the perfect bait, but for who?

As they race to catch the vampire and survive the cruel games he plays, Amber is pulled deeper into Kearn’s world and discovers the painful secrets he hides behind his handsome but emotionless exterior—hurt that she has the power to heal if she is brave enough.

Forbidden Blood is book one in the Vampire Venators series and a dark, sensual tale of betrayal, revenge and a love that knows no bounds.

genre: paranormal vampire romance
length: 126000 words
rating: sultry
released: June 18th 2011
Book 1 in the Vampire Venators series

Kearn closed the door to his apartment behind them and locked it. It wouldn’t stop the man from entering if he wanted to reclaim the woman, but it would make her feel safer. He walked past her where she stood in the middle of the large white open plan room holding her black leather handbag and pointed towards the living area to his right beyond the modern fireplace that divided it from the study near the door. She followed him and stopped near the back of the long low black couch that faced the wide bank of windows, setting her bag down on the cushions. She stared out of the windows, her hazel eyes bright with fascination. He had grown bored of the view of London from his apartment a long time ago. He rarely looked out at the rooftops now.

He looked at her instead. She reached up and removed the band from her messy ponytail, freeing her long brown hair. It fell down in loose waves over her shoulders and blended into her black suit jacket. Its rich shade contrasted against her pale face. The colour was gone from her skin, the only visible sign of her ordeal. She placed the band around her wrist and then stood with her left hand clutching her right, the palm of that hand turned upwards, crimson staining it. She remained still and he frowned after a few minutes. Had she slipped into shock? He couldn’t sense it in her.

She seemed incredibly calm considering everything that had happened to her and her situation. A little too docile for his liking. He studied her. It wasn’t normal for a human to be so unafraid after everything she had experienced. He had expected her to put up more of a fight about remaining with him and coming up to his apartment.

The man had given his blood to her. She was under his influence. It would explain why she was so at ease and why not a trace of fear laced her scent. The man wasn’t afraid, so she wasn’t either.

Kearn kept his guard up and approached her. She wasn’t herself and wouldn’t be until her body had eradicated the man’s blood from her system. She had flitted between afraid and angry during the journey here and in the garage. The man was using his blood to control her.

“Make yourself comfortable.” He stripped off his holster and then his white shirt.

Her gaze moved to him. It roamed unabashed over his body. He headed back to the door and tossed the ruined white shirt onto the floor of the beech wood kitchen. When he turned around, the woman didn’t take her eyes off him. She continued to stare at his torso. He touched his ear and then frowned at the blood on his fingers. Without looking at the woman, he crossed the room to the bedroom door and opened it. He dropped the holster and his gun onto the deep brown duvet covering his double bed to his right and then flicked the light on. The dark earthy walls and low lighting in his bedroom soothed his tired eyes.

Kearn touched his ear again and walked straight through the gap between the foot of his bed and the built-in wardrobe, heading for the door across the room. He flinched when he turned the light on in the en-suite bathroom. He needed to put a dimmer one in at some point but it always slipped his mind. The white tiles bounced the light around, making it too bright for him. He looked into the large black-framed rectangular mirror that occupied the wall above the wide black sink cabinet in front of him. The cut had already started to heal but he still needed to help it along, if only to stop it from bleeding down another shirt.

He washed the blood off his neck and chest, watching the red swirl down the drain of the white oval sink. The cut began to bleed again. He took a small dark brown hand towel off the side of the black cabinet, dabbed his ear to dry it, and set it back down. Before his earlobe could bleed, he spat on his index and forefinger, and rubbed the saliva into the nick. It stung. The man hadn’t been aiming at the woman. He had wanted to use her distracting him as a chance to kill him.

He should have realised sooner that the woman was under his control.

Kearn stared in the mirror, through his bedroom to the main room of the large open plan apartment. The knife in his car would yield nothing. Only her blood had been on it and the man had been wearing gloves. The woman was his only clue, and the best one he’d had since he had started hunting this man three years ago.

He looked at his reflection and cursed the sight of it. It was still strange to him. Not himself staring back at him but someone else. He hadn’t seen himself in the mirror for over one hundred years, and he never would again.

He crouched, opened the two doors on the sink cabinet, and took out anything that would help a human heal. There wasn’t much. He could only offer bandages.

Or he could help her heal.

Kearn shoved that thought away.

It wasn’t going to happen. The woman was a lead and that was all. Her wound would heal with time. He didn’t need to interfere. If she were a Source Blood as he suspected, then drinking from her would be dangerous.

He grabbed a fresh black shirt from the built-in oak wardrobe in his bedroom and then walked out into the living room. The woman looked up from the couch facing the window, her hand still held in front of her. It was bleeding badly, filling his apartment with the sweet scent of blood.

Kearn stopped beside the couch that lined the wall between the living area and his bedroom.

He wasn’t sure what to do with the cut or with her. He had never worked with a human before nor had this sort of contact with one. Normally they were dead by the time he met them. The thought of tending to one was disgusting, but she was the lead he had been searching for. He was sure that the man who had attacked her was part of the group he was after, if not the leader. They had been testing her in the side road, and the man had been powerful enough to control her and make her try to drink her own blood even at a great distance. He would have to be a Lesser Noble or a Noble to be able to determine through their connection alone whether she was a Source Blood.

The woman continued to look at him, a dull edge to her hazel eyes. The man’s blood was still affecting her. Kearn scanned the separate areas of the room. There was nothing she would be able to reach before him and use as a weapon, and she was only human so the furniture posed no threat. She wouldn’t hurt him if she used her fists, although she had done a good job with her knee back in the garage. He placed the bandages down on the large square wooden coffee table in front of her.

Her gaze followed him across the room, unmoving from his back as he went into the kitchen. He filled a clear bowl with warm water and placed it down on the black granite work surface while he unravelled a wad of paper towel from the roll. He crossed the room back to her and placed the bowl and paper towels down next to the bandages. She watched intently as he put his black shirt on, leaving it unbuttoned, and then looked at her hand when he came to sit beside her.

This close to her, the smell of blood was overwhelming.

Kearn clamped his teeth shut and held the change at bay. It had been too long since he had smelt anything like her and it pushed at his control. He had been able to subdue the effect of her scent when he had been at a distance from her, but he couldn’t contain it now. His gut clenched and twisted, saliva pooling in his mouth and his fangs itching to extend as hunger to taste the blood that went with the divine scent tore through him.

“Keep still,” he said from between his teeth and soaked some of the paper towel.

Kearn took her hand in his and forced himself to focus. Her skin was warm and soft, and he used his senses to see how much vampire blood was in her system. Enough to keep her under control and stop her from answering his questions. He had promised that he would make her feel better. He only had one way of doing that and he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go through with it or not.

He wiped the blood from her hand. It mixed with the water and covered his, ran down his arms in beautiful rivulets, soaking into his shirtsleeves. He slowed without thinking, fascinated by how her blood blossomed on the surface of the cut and savouring the warm alluring smell. He swallowed the burning ache in his throat and focused. She inhaled sharply when he wiped the blood away again and he grabbed the bandage. He wound it around her hand as quickly as possible and pinned it on her palm. The smell of blood lessened but it was all over his hands. He licked his lips. The fiery thirst in his veins begged him to quench it. Did he really want to do this?

“Why did he make me do that?” she whispered and Kearn looked at her. There were tears in her eyes as she stared at her hand. They trembled on the brink of falling. Her feelings travelled through their joined hands, filling him with a sense of fear and confusion. He released her fingers and sat back.

“There is a reason he made you drink his blood. It will help him find you, which is why I need to keep you with me.”

She didn’t seem shocked by what he had said. He had expected her to react with disbelief or horror. Perhaps the blood in her veins and what she had witnessed was enough to make her believe him.

“Why did he cut me?” She raised her hand and toyed with the bandage. The blood was already soaking into the edges of it.

Kearn looked down at the scarlet ambrosia coating his hands. “Your blood may be of a type which is valuable to his kind.”

He curled his fingers into fists. They shook.

“I must wash my hands.” He stood and headed straight through his bedroom and into the white and black bathroom. He stared at his hands. The blood looked even redder against the white sink beneath them. They trembled uncontrollably.

Did he really want to do this?

He needed answers and to get them he needed to eradicate any control the vampire might have over her.

Kearn lifted his hand to his nose and sniffed the blood. It smelt strong and enticing. His mouth watered. He took a deep breath followed by another two, trying to prepare himself. This could be a grave mistake.

Closing his eyes, he tentatively reached out towards his fingers with his tongue. The moment the blood touched it, a jolt rocked his body. She was definitely a Source Blood. He hadn’t tasted forbidden blood since becoming a Venator but he hadn’t forgotten the effects.

He licked his finger and swallowed. The jolt became an intense buzz and his fangs extended. His eyes shot open and familiar red ones looked back at him from his reflection, a fragment of the real him that he didn’t often see. He grasped the edge of the cabinet with his other hand to steady himself and then licked the blood off his other fingers, gaining pace. He needed more. Just a little more, so he would be sure of his ability to command her and clear her blood of interference. That was the only reason he had to suck each of his fingers clean. It had nothing to do with the delightful way her blood made him tremble, made his breath stutter and his heart beat faster, at an almost human speed.

He went to lick the blood from his palm and stopped himself. Unpeeling his fingers from the edge of the cabinet, he forced himself to turn on the tap. The water ran fast and hard down the drain but he couldn’t bring himself to put his hands under it and wash the blood away. He only wanted a little more. A warm pulsing feeling relaxed every muscle in his body and his head felt light. His eyelids fell to half-mast and the warm buzz became a hot inferno in his blood, an ache to feed and give in to his animal instincts. His breath shuddered. Just a little more.

No.

Stop it.

Kearn forced his head under the water instead of his hands but it did nothing to stop the hunger gnawing his stomach and the hard ache in his trousers. He groaned under his breath and kept his head under the freezing water, begging it to clear. He didn’t want to remember.

High laughter. The scent of sex. The mindless lust. The painful betrayal. The blood on his hands.

He didn’t want to remember any of it.

He didn’t want to feel that way again.

Kearn squeezed his eyes shut and shoved his hands under the water the moment he pulled his head out of it. The scent of blood instantly diminished and his control came creeping back. He focused on it, trying to expel the effects of her blood on him. It was difficult. Her blood was more potent than what he had experienced before. He had never had blood direct from a Source, only diluted from another’s veins. He closed his eyes and kept his hands under the water, gradually clawing back a sense of calm and shutting his rampaging feelings down.

The cold water numbed his hands. He kept them there, not trusting himself. If any trace of her blood remained on his skin, he would be tempted to lick it off, and it would undo all the work he had done to regain some control over himself. He grabbed the bar of soap from the side of the basin and washed his hands with it, erasing every drop of crimson on his pale skin. When he had been washing them for nearly ten minutes, he turned off the tap.

He glanced at himself in the mirror.

His eyes were still red.

The colour of blood.

Kearn focused on thinking over everything that had happened tonight. The woman was lucky that he had been patrolling the area and had smelt the blood. It had been the vampire’s blood that had caught his attention, carried on the night air in a rich vein that had been easy to detect. Unfortunately, he couldn’t use its scent to recognise the man. Vampire blood all smelt the same. Heavy and strong.

Human blood was a light fragrance. He resisted the temptation to take a deep breath and see if he could smell her blood. He was almost in control again.

The knife, the vampire’s blood, the man’s appearance, none of it was the break he needed.

But she was.

He looked at himself in the mirror again. Green eyes welcomed him back, cold and empty, familiar in their darkness. He turned away from them, hating the sight, and walked back through the bedroom to the living room.

The woman was still fraying the ends of the bandage around her right hand. Her gaze fixed on him and she frowned. Water dripped from the jagged tips of his silver hair and soaked into his black shirt. He raked his hair back, picked up the bowl and paper towels, and walked past her to the kitchen area. Her eyes followed his every move, her focus intent on him. She could look all she wanted. She wasn’t going to figure him out, not even with her blood in his veins.

“Are you feeling any better?” Kearn ignored the warm sedated buzz in the depths of his bones that constantly switched between whispering hungry words to him and making him want to smile. He felt normal. There was no reason to get ideas about her blood. He was in control and she was nothing but a lead.

Not dinner.

He couldn’t kill a human.

“Just now.” Her voice ran as deep in his veins as her blood, teasing his senses. The soft sound of it wrapped around him, caressing him and making him want to look at her. He ignored it too. It was just her blood affecting him. “My head feels clearer.”

That was what he had wanted to hear. It was difficult to use her blood in his veins purely to control the effect of the vampire’s on hers rather than controlling her, but he would keep it up for as long as he could. Soon her blood should have cleared enough that the vampire wouldn’t be able to control her at any great distance.

Kearn filled a glass with water and carried it back to her. He placed it on the coffee table in front of her and then sat beside her again. The smell of her blood drifted on the air and flowed down into his lungs with each breath he drew, pushing at his restraint. He had never smelt anything as alluring and tempting.

The connection between their blood shattered.

“What was he?” she said without any hint of trepidation.

“I’m sorry?” He tried for confused while he struggled against her blood and the vampire’s. The bastard was pushing for control.

The woman scratched at the bandage. Kearn kept an eye on her. If she made any move to open the bandage, he would stop her and restrain her. Until then, he would keep fighting the vampire’s hold over her.

“I’m not crazy, and I know what I saw would make me sound as though I am, but I wasn’t imagining it.” Her hand left her other one and settled on her thigh.

He made the mistake of looking at it. There were damp spots on the black material of her trousers. Blood. Delicious, fragrant, blood. Diverting his eyes before they changed again, he stared out of the window.

She leaned forwards into view and frowned at him. “That man had fangs. They couldn’t have been fake. It all felt so real. He wanted to drink my blood… I felt it inside me. Some dark hideous hunger. He had some sort of power over me. Now either tell me I’m insane and heading for a spell at the nearest asylum, or tell me the truth. He’s a vampire.”

Kearn’s silver eyebrows rose. There was no point in lying to her if she had already figured out what she was up against and believed it.

He nodded.

She gasped and grabbed his hand. The contact sent a sharp jolt through him and pushed at his control. Her blood called to him. The same dark hideous hunger she had sensed in the man. He fought his desire to look at the smooth column of her throat, knowing that if he did he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from licking it and acting out his desire to sink his fangs into the soft flesh and drink his fill of her.

Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on her face and was struck by a different sort of hunger.

She was beautiful.

He had never paid much attention to humans. They had been nothing more than a mission to him for centuries and only a meal before that, but now he had stopped to look at one and some part of him wished he hadn’t because she mesmerised him.

Her wide round hazel eyes were fascinating. The overhead lights of his apartment played on them, highlighting the flecks of gold and green. Long wavy brown hair caressed her face, cascading over slender shoulders. Rosy lips spoke to him and he didn’t hear a word they said. He watched the way they moved and the sensual shapes they made, and the tiny flash of soft pink tongue against straight white teeth.

“What’s a Venator?”

That question broke his reverie.

“Me.”

“You?” She stared blankly at him. No, through him. She was trying to remember something. “I knew that word. I wanted you to kill that man and then I wanted to stop you. I knew you. There was something else too. I wanted to taste my blood.”

She sounded as confused as she felt.

“The man desired to test you to see if you were a Source Blood.”

“Source. I knew that word too and that it meant something different. You said my blood is valuable.”

“It is.” He picked up the glass and offered it to her. The water would thin her blood and lessen the vampire’s control over her, but it would weaken his too. It was a risk he had to take. “It is very valuable on the black market but also extremely illegal. My job is to find those who dare break the law by attempting to purchase, sell or harvest the blood.”

No fear touched her features but he could feel an underlying sense of nerves in his veins that belonged to her.

He studied her blood and the strength flowing through it surprised him. Her blood within him, and the vampire’s within her, was enough to convince her that she wasn’t going insane and that everything that had happened tonight was real. She understood and accepted it, and had even found some sense of resolve to face it all. He had expected her to be more fragile and sensitive, to panic and plead him to protect her. Her calm acceptance of the situation made him reassess his earlier thoughts about her. It wasn’t the vampire’s blood in her veins that made her unafraid. It was her own natural strength, and it only added to her beauty.

“Why is it worth so much? Are all humans Source Bloods to vampires?” She took the glass, tilted her head back and drank some of the water.

Kearn refused to look at her throat.

“No. Source Bloods are very rare. It refers to a specific gene in your blood that affects vampires. Vampires believe that millennia ago, they branched away from humanity and evolved separately. At that time, the same gene in their blood was stronger. Over the generations, it weakened to what it is today and has remained that way.”

She frowned and lowered the glass. “So I share a gene with vampires?”

He nodded. “Your bloodline did not evolve and gain the ability to use the power that gene gives you.”

She swallowed and a sense of unease ran in his veins. Her blood. It was potent. He was constantly aware of it and how it mixed with his, stirred it to a frenzy of hunger and need. Kearn shifted his focus back to her, using all of his strength to keep it pinned on her and not his blood.

“I’m like a vampire?”

“No, you are human, but different. Special.”

A hint of colour touched her cheeks and she dropped her gaze. He raised an eyebrow at her reaction and cocked his head to one side. Her blood whispered warm words at him, teasing him into submitting to her. She had watched him earlier when he had removed his shirt and sometimes her pupils dilated until they darkened her hazel eyes. Desire? Was she attracted to him? A human? As though he could desire such a weak creature in return.

The colour on her cheeks deepened, sending a gut-tugging jolt through his blood, and his lips parted. He swallowed when she shyly raised her eyes and looked at him through her dark lashes. His body burned with the desire to sweep her into his arms and taste her again. Kearn forced his eyes down to the floor. It was just her blood commanding him to do as she wanted. It wasn’t his desire.

It couldn’t be.

He cleared his throat and frowned, trying to make sense of the feelings running riot in him. Not all of them could be hers. Some of them had to be his.

“Do vampires only drink from people like me?” Her voice shook and he was tempted to touch her hand again to reassure her, but restrained himself.

If he did such a thing, he would have a hard time resisting pulling her against him and slaking his growing thirst for her. Taking her blood had been a mistake. He had less control over himself than he had anticipated. He had forgotten how potent Source Blood was.

“Vampires gain sustenance from all human blood. Source Blood is different. It is a drug to vampires. Most only drink enough to produce a natural high that makes them giddy and removes their inhibitions.” He battled his need to look at her throat. “Others are seeking something more sinister. In a large enough dose, it temporarily restores the strength in the shared gene, enhancing them and reinstating the devastating power they once commanded. With enough Source Blood in their veins they would become living gods.”

His gaze slid to her neck and he turned away, cursing himself for tasting her. He had needed to be sure that she was a Source Blood though and needed to calm her enough to get answers.

“That man knew I was a Source Blood and that’s why he followed me?”

“No.” Kearn shook his head, as much to clear it of the whispered command to feast on her as to answer her. “Source Blood is difficult to detect if the human is not bleeding. You said he gave you his blood. He was seeking to turn you compliant so he could kill you. When his blood joined with yours, he realised that you were different. Your blood saved you.”

“It doesn’t feel as though it saved me. I feel as though it damned me.”

Would she rather be dead than in this situation? He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. He couldn’t sense any fear in her, but there was an edge to her eyes, a look that said she was desperately trying to be strong but everything was beginning to take its toll on her.

“I will protect you,” he said and felt her look at him. He couldn’t meet her gaze, not yet, not until the need to look at her throat and taste her blood had passed again. “If you help me, we can find the man who hurt you. I have been searching for him for three years. If we can capture him, you can go back to your life. No one else will know what your blood contains.”

“What will happen to him?”

“He will be sentenced.” He looked at her now, trusting himself not to change and frighten her. She wasn’t likely to help him if she knew that he was also a vampire.

“Are you a cop? Is that what a Venator is?”

“No—sort of. I have to carry out the sentence on the people whose names are given to me by my… bosses.” He had never needed to explain his position before. It was difficult to put it into words that didn’t sound medieval or make him a murderer. He hunted those the Sovereignty deemed had broken the law. He sentenced them to eternal darkness. Usually they knew the name of the law-breaker. This time there wasn’t one. There had only been a location to start looking. “Will you help me?”

He didn’t really need her to answer. Either way he wasn’t letting her leave. He needed her and she was going to help him, although he would prefer that she did so of her own free will. Forcing her wouldn’t solve anything but he would if she left him no choice.

“He’ll come after me.” She looked down at her hands, playing with the bandage again. Her pulse began to pick up pace and he sensed her rising panic. Was she remembering what had happened to her? Her blood inside him whispered of fear and death. She looked up at him, blinked away her tears and nodded. “I’ll help you if you promise to keep me safe.”

“It is a promise.” Kearn tried to think of how humans made deals. He held his hand out to her.

She slipped hers into it and shook it a single time, and then her hand lingered in his.

And his eyes fell to her neck.

“Do you remember anything else?” he whispered, those words distant to his ears as he perused the gentle sloping grace of her throat.

Her hand left his and he dragged his eyes away, forcing them up to hers. They were watching him again, giving him the impression that she was looking for a secret or trying to see past his exterior and down to his heart. It wasn’t going to happen.

Kearn stood and walked around the square coffee table to the windows. He placed his hands behind his back. The rooftops of London stretched into the distance, lights twinkling in the darkness. It was barely past midnight. The night still lay before him.

“The man was in a courtyard. They’re always cleaning it with disinfectant in the morning. The other two, the ones who held me, were there too, carrying black sacks over their shoulders.”

Kearn frowned.

A storehouse?

He turned to face her.

“I need you to show me this place,” he said and she nodded. “And we need to lure the man out. The man will want to finish what he started and test your blood. He will come looking for you. I will keep my promise and see to it that nothing happens to you. Would you be willing to act as bait?”

She didn’t look so sure now. She was silent and a myriad of emotions flickered in her hazel eyes.

A sense of resolve laced his blood. Her resolve.

She nodded.

“If it will get rid of that man, I’ll do anything. Just keep me safe.”

Kearn nodded.

He wouldn’t let anything happen to her.

A voice deep inside him said that it wasn’t only because he needed her as bait. There was something else at work here too.

She really was beautiful.

But she was forbidden blood.

And he had tasted her.

Enjoying the story so far? I’d love to hear what you think, so don’t be afraid to leave a comment.

As part of my Paranormal Pandemonium 2011 Blog Tour, I’m going to be posting the first FIVE chapters of my next release, Forbidden Blood.

Forbidden Blood is a dark vampire romance novel, and the first book in the Vampire Venators series. I’ll be introducing you to a whole new world and a whole new type of vampire, and I hope that you’ll enjoy the book and want more in the series.

Forbidden Blood
Felicity Heaton
In a dark world where vampires exist and where Source Blood, a rare human blood type, can bestow godlike powers upon them, the vampire Venators of the Sovereignty fight to protect the humans by banishing those who drink it to the endless dark.

Exiled from his family and with only his duty to sustain him, Kearn has been on the trail of an elusive Source Blood abuser for three years. When he saves a beautiful human female from the vampire’s grasp, it turns out she’s the lead he’s been waiting for. Amber is a Source Blood and the perfect bait, but for who?

As they race to catch the vampire and survive the cruel games he plays, Amber is pulled deeper into Kearn’s world and discovers the painful secrets he hides behind his handsome but emotionless exterior—hurt that she has the power to heal if she is brave enough.

Forbidden Blood is book one in the Vampire Venators series and a dark, sensual tale of betrayal, revenge and a love that knows no bounds.

genre: paranormal vampire romance
length: 126000 words
rating: sultry
released: June 18th 2011
Book 1 in the Vampire Venators series

She shouldn’t have looked.

Amber hurried through the dark side streets of central London, heading for the nearest Underground station. She glanced back over her shoulder. The man from the courtyard of the redbrick factory building stood on the other side of a busy road. The hood of his black coat obscured his face but Amber could feel his eyes on her—intent and cold.

She turned away, huddled up into her thin black suit jacket, and carried on walking. She could feel the man still staring at her.

The courtyard flashed across her mind. Two men with sacks and another sweeping disinfectant out into the street. She had never seen the wooden gates open before, but there was always a puddle of disinfectant outside in the mornings. What did they have in those bags? What were they trying to wash away?

Car headlights snapped her out of her thoughts. A white Audi sports car purred past her, rear lights flashing bright crimson in the darkness as it stopped at the junction ahead and then turned and roared away.

Amber undid the button on her jacket and one on her white shirt, hot from her leaving party and panic. She had to get a grip. She glanced back again, shifting her handbag on her shoulder. No one was there save a few Londoners making their way home from the pubs or going to nightclubs. She hated walking around the city so late at night. It always got her jittery and the few drinks she’d had with her work colleagues at the pub weren’t helping.

It wasn’t far to the Underground station. If she focused on thinking about good things, she would be there before she knew it and then she would feel foolish for being so nervous. She smiled when she thought about her leaving party. She had worked for the company for years, but it was time for a change and she couldn’t wait to start her new life. In only a few weeks, she would be working in Paris. She would be able to see her brother more often and would be able to soak up a different culture. It seemed like a dream and she was so caught up in it that she didn’t care about all the work she still had to do—the crash course in French, even though it was a British firm she was going to work for and there would be English speakers there, all the packing and things she had to arrange.

Amber turned down a narrow one-way street. A light on the wall of a building above her blinked on and off. Footsteps rang out behind her, echoing along the road. Pleasant daydreams about her future life in Paris disappeared. She walked faster, her heart beating quicker now as fearful thoughts crowded her mind.

She had almost reached the other end of the road when two men appeared, walking towards her. She went to cross the road to avoid them but they split up and motioned to each other. Her hazel eyes shot wide when she recognised them from the courtyard. She turned to go back the other way.

The hooded man stood at the other end of the street.

Amber searched for a way to get past him. Why had he followed her? Her heart beat harder. Long heavy black sacks. Pink disinfectant.

Bodies?

Blood?

A hand around her wrist sent a jolt through her and she tried to pull free. One man twisted her right arm behind her back and the other grabbed her left wrist. They pulled her backwards into the shadows.

Amber kicked her legs and opened her mouth to scream. A heavy gloved hand covered it. The smell of leather filled her nostrils and she breathed hard through her nose, staring wild-eyed at the man in front of her. The hood obscured his face but she could see his jaw, see the hint of a smile on his lips.

He nodded to the two men behind her and their grip increased. Amber flailed, desperate to escape. It was impossible. She stamped on their feet, kicked their legs, wriggled with all of her strength, but they wouldn’t let her go.

The man motioned to one of the others holding her. The moment he removed his hand from her mouth, another covered it, keeping her silent. She tried to call out anyway, her eyes darting between her attackers and the street. The hooded man smiled at her, as though amused by the muffled sound and her panic.

Amber stilled when he reached inside his long black coat and pulled out a knife. Her eyes went round and her heart raced, fear thundering in her veins.

He was going to kill her.

She shook her head and didn’t stop, not when the man took another step back and not even when he raised his left hand and drew the knife down the palm of his leather glove, cutting into his flesh beneath. Not a trace of pain showed on what she could see of his face. Was he trying to frighten her by showing how strong he was? She was already petrified. He stepped towards her and she redoubled her fight against the men, kicking with all of her might.

“Hurry,” the man to her right said in a low voice as her heel connected with his shin. “Get to it already.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks and a chill swept in constant waves over her skin, stealing her strength. She shook her head again and begged the man not to hurt her, but the other man’s hand over her mouth turned her words into nothing more than a frightened murmur. Futile.

The hooded man stepped up to her, balled his cut hand into a fist, and raised it towards her face. What was he going to do? She kept her eyes fixed on the knife in his other hand, afraid that he would stab her if she dared to look away from it.

She gasped when the man holding her mouth released it but didn’t have time to call out for help. He pressed his fingers into her cheeks, forced her mouth open and tilted her head back. Her gaze snapped to the hooded man’s hand. He held it above her and drops of blood trembled on the edge of his black glove.

He was going to make her drink his blood.

She tried to move but couldn’t. The men’s grip on her increased again, fingers pressing hard into her arms, bruising her. The drop fell, landing on her tongue, and another quickly followed it. The hooded man tightened his fist and more dripped into her mouth. She tried not to swallow, didn’t want to taste his blood. It slid down her throat, one drop after another, until she wanted to be sick.

And then she felt strange.

A hollow feeling opened inside her and her mind emptied.

His hand hovered above her, feeding her blood, and it no longer felt repulsive or frightening. It tasted good. Thick, heavy fog rolled into her mind, weighing her head down. She closed her eyes and then struggled to open them again.

The men behind her released her arms.

Amber stood there facing the hooded man, her shoulders relaxed and her head tilted to one side. He wavered in her vision as he raised the knife and licked the blade. It didn’t scare her. Her handbag slid down her right arm to the crook of her elbow as she raised her hand. She held it out to him, palm up, and blinked languidly.

He took it in his, so gently that she smiled, and ran the knife over her palm. The sting of pain was pleasurable, flooding her with hazy warmth from head to toe, awakening blissful awareness of his touch and his hungry intent.

The man lifted her hand towards his mouth and dipped his head. Was he going to kiss it better? She continued to smile, amused by his chivalry.

What a nice man.

His tongue came out. White lights flashed across him.

They blinded her and she flinched away, afraid of the bright light that drowned out the world. The man released her hand and was behind her in an instant. Her handbag dropped to the floor and she tried to blink away the white spots in her vision and they multiplied.

The sound of footsteps echoed in her mind and she cursed the other men for fleeing. They would pay for leaving her here to deal with this Venator.

Her hands tightened into fists.

She couldn’t risk fighting the Venator but she had to taste the blood. She raised her hand towards her mouth. This was an unexpected twist but she could work it in her favour. First, she had to be sure she was a Source, and then she would take care of the Venator.

What was a Source?

She stopped with her hand mid-way to her mouth. Blood pooled on her palm, black in the low light.

What was she doing?

The door of the white car opened and Amber looked at it. It was the Audi. A man stepped out and she moved back. Damn interfering Venator.

Amber frowned at her thoughts. What was a Venator? What was going on? She tried to remember but her thoughts became tangled with others, ones she didn’t understand. They didn’t feel as though they were her own.

She turned towards the hooded man. The car lights shone on the lower half of his face, highlighting his jaw and mouth. A tilt of a smile touched his lips. She needed to taste the blood.

“Get in the car,” a male voice said behind her, deep and intense.

She refused. She had to taste the blood and then leave. She raised her hand and poked her tongue out. A taste was all it would take. Then she would know.

“Now!”

Amber jumped, startled by the volume of that word. She looked at her palm, horrified by what she had been about to do, and then at the hooded man. He continued to smile at her and she felt compelled to do as he silently wished.

“Car, now!” the man behind her said. He was right. She had to get away from the man who had cut her but she couldn’t move.

Her thoughts became strange and distant again, and no matter how many times she told herself to run, her feet wouldn’t cooperate. She wanted to go with the hooded man, even though she knew he would kill her.

Her head spun.

She took a step towards him, her mind heavy and thick again.

Someone grabbed her arm from behind and then a bright blue flash burst out of the corner of her eye. She stared at the silver handgun beside her head and the strange blue marks on the man’s hand. They glowed. Shiny. Amber reached out to touch them.

The new man moved his arm away from her and pulled her back, so she was almost behind him. She tried to focus on his arm and the gun. The fog descended on her mind again, swamping everything, turning her numb and empty. Her gaze moved of its own accord, shifting to the man’s face. Silver hair. Green eyes. Damned Venator.

She struggled against his grip, clawing at his hand.

“Calm down.” He glanced at her and then back at the hooded man. “Lower the knife and come peacefully.”

“Peacefully?” She yanked on her arm in an attempt to free herself, twisting her wrist in his tight grip and not caring that it hurt. She had to get away from him. The silver-haired man turned her way, his vivid green eyes bright in the car headlights and boring into hers. She sneered. “I will never come peacefully, Venator.”

“Let her go,” he said and she shook her head.

Amber kept shaking it, trying to clear the weird dull feeling and get her mind into order. How did she know this man? The knowledge she sought shifted and evaded her grasp, as though it was a living thing and could anticipate her. The haze in her head lifted long enough that she saw the silver-haired man clearly at last. His eyes were cold as he stared into hers, pupils narrowed and an edge of darkness about his handsome face.

“I said, let her go.” He turned to the hooded man.

Amber looked there too. She couldn’t see them, but she could feel his eyes on her, and could feel him inside her head and her body. She scrubbed her throat with her hand, her mouth, trying to get him out of her. The silver-haired man held her tighter. What was he waiting for? Shoot him. He had tried to kill her. He had put something inside her and now she felt strange.

The silver-haired man started to pull the trigger.

“No!” she screamed and knocked his hand away. She stared at his raised gun and her outstretched hand. What the hell was she doing? She wanted the man dead, so why had she stopped him?

The man holding her shoved her backwards and then ducked away from her. A silver streak shot past her wide eyes. The knife clattered to the floor a short distance behind her and a thin dark line flowed down the man’s neck from his ear, soaking into his white shirt. He raised his gun again but she grabbed it and pulled it around to point at her.

He froze.

The hooded man laughed.

Amber’s gaze shot from the barrel of the gun to him. She stared at his mouth.

Fangs.

He grinned and it felt as though he was looking straight through her. Whispered voices filled her head, clashing with each other so she couldn’t make out what they were saying. She tried to focus on one of them but couldn’t. The clamour in her mind rose and a deep sense that she wasn’t alone washed through her. Someone else was in her head with her. The hooded man’s smile widened. Him. How? One of the voices rang out above the rest and her questions fell away, leaving her docile again. He knew something about her that she didn’t. Something important. She had to know too.

She took a step towards him and he was gone, leaving the street empty in front of her. Why? She went to walk after him and frowned when her arm lagged behind her, held fast by something. Her eyes drifted to her wrist and the hand tightly grasping it.

“Are you all right?” the silver-haired man said and her head suddenly felt lighter.

Her gaze ran up his left arm to his shoulder. A trail of blood stained his white shirt and she followed the drips and dashes downwards to the black holster around his shoulders. His gun was in it but not secured. If she made a lunge for it, would he reach it before her? Amber shook that thought away. This man had saved her. Why would she do such a thing to him? Because he was dangerous. She didn’t want to go with him. She wanted to find the man. The feeling ran deep in her blood, flowing through her veins, compelling her. She needed to find the man.

This Venator would be her downfall.

Amber shook her head again and the haze in her mind dissipated for long enough that she felt her normal self again. Her panic and fear returned full force, crashing over her. What was happening to her? She kept thinking about things she wasn’t familiar with, like Venators and Sources, and wanted to do things that went against her nature, like injuring someone.

The man held his bleeding ear with his right hand. There were pale tribal markings on it. They wove down over his wrist and under his white shirtsleeve. Those markings had glowed ethereally earlier. She couldn’t have imagined it.

“You need to come with me,” he said, and before she could take in what was happening, he dragged her to the white Audi R8 and pushed her into it on the passenger side.

He closed the door, picked up the knife and her handbag from the pavement, and rounded the car. Amber sat there, thoughtless and empty, her eyes fixed on the spot where the hooded man had been. She should have gone with him.

No. She shouldn’t have. She didn’t know what she was thinking anymore.

The car moved and she became gradually aware of the man next to her. Her gaze slid to him. He was handsome, his green eyes fixed on the road now, shadowed by a frown of concentration, and the messy finger-length strands of his silver hair brushed back out of his face. He didn’t look old enough to have such white hair. He seemed barely five years her senior.

Venator.

It echoed in her head, as though something inside her knew it applied to him even when she had never heard the word before tonight.

“What is your name?” His deep voice soothed her, easing away some of her tension even when she felt she should be on alert, or escaping.

Amber didn’t reply. Her eyes dropped to the gun tucked under his left arm when he clipped the leather strap over it, securing it in place. It unnerved her but not as much as the fact that she wanted to use it against him, or the fact that his arm had glowed blue and the other man had fangs. None of that made sense, even when she felt it did.

The man looked at her and she glanced up, meeting his gaze. The streetlights flashed on his face, stealing all colour and warmth from his eyes. They were so cold that she couldn’t tear hers away. She stared into them, chilled by the detached air that he emanated but fascinated by him at the same time. Was he as empty inside as his eyes? She had never met anyone who looked as hollow and emotionless as this man did. Something terrible must have happened to him to make him look this way.

She remembered the way his arm had glowed.

Inhuman.

Her head spun.

Venator.

She wanted to get away from him. Her priority was to escape, not fall under a spell.

They pulled to a halt at a set of traffic lights and her hand went straight for the door. She shoved it open and the man grabbed her, pulling her back against him. The door slammed shut without her touching it and the locks clunked into place. She elbowed the man in the ribs, struggled out of his grip and lunged for the door again, frantically tugging on the handle. It wouldn’t open. Her eyes darted over the moulded leather of the door. No way of unlocking it. The Venator would stop her before she could find the button on the dashboard that would unlock the doors. She spat out a curse. Never mind. If she couldn’t escape, she could at least taste her blood.

“You cannot leave. You are in too much danger out there.”

Amber stared down at the cut on her right palm. It had bled all over her trousers.

She had to lick the blood and taste it.

She raised her hand but the man caught her wrist.

“What happened?” He frowned at the cut.

Amber tried to get her hand back but his grip was vice tight. Interfering Venator. She gritted her teeth and twisted her arm. He didn’t let go. Her stomach turned when she saw the blood on her palm and her vision distorted. She stopped struggling and looked at the man. His expression was soft, silently reassuring, and the longer she stared at him, the calmer she felt, until the sense that she wasn’t in control of herself disappeared again.

Amber tried to remember what had happened to her hand but it slipped through her fingers every time she came close, as though she didn’t really want to recall it.

“He gave you his blood, didn’t he?”

That memory popped to the forefront of her mind and she nodded. The man had made her drink his blood. It had been disgusting and she could feel it inside her.

“Hold on.” He released her hand, put the car into gear and roared off the white line.

Amber did. She grabbed the edge of the seat with her left hand as they raced through the streets of London so fast they were a blur. She couldn’t take her eyes off the road and the cars as they swerved around them, barely missing each one. Her heart lodged in her throat, her right hand trembling where she held it out in front of her. What was happening? It felt as though she had slipped into some dreadful fantasy world and she wanted out.

He turned the car around a corner so sharply that the tyres screeched and she slammed against the door, and then they were going down a slope towards an underground garage. The car spun around in the brightly lit space, coming to a halt facing the exit, and the engine cut out. A grey shutter slowly rolled down, eclipsing the world outside.

Amber stared at it, still trying to catch up.

The man had given her blood, and then he had cut her. She needed to taste her blood before the Venator stopped her. She was about to lick her palm when the door beside her opened and he pulled her out of the car.

“Damned Venator!” She kneed him in the groin and ran for the garage door.

He reached it before her and stood in her path, his eyes darker and colder than ever. He glared at her and drew his gun.

“Let her go,” he whispered, voice strained.

She grinned, satisfied by the pain in his voice.

“No.” Amber tried to pass him.

“You do not want to leave, woman. You do not want to do as he bids.”

Amber stopped. “As who bids?”

The strange feeling inside her grew worse, something telling her to keep going and not listen to him. She had to get past the man and drink her blood. That was all that mattered now.

“Listen to my voice.” He put the gun away and stepped up to her.

The moment his hands touched her shoulders, Amber felt different. She stared into his eyes and her thoughts fell into better order, enough that she could recall things clearly again.

Her heart pounded.

“The man made me drink his blood… I saw him in that place with the gates and the disinfectant and then they were after me. He cut me.” She held her hand out and it trembled between them, fluttering in time with her heart. “I just want to go home. I want this nightmare to end. Please? I can’t take this. Please?”

The man stepped back, his eyes still fixed intently on her face, the frown not leaving his.

“The man will come for you.”

“Fangs,” she whispered and her eyes widened. Her heart missed a beat and then slammed painfully against her ribs. “He had fangs. He was going to drink my blood.”

“I will not hurt you. You must ignore your instincts and listen to me. I will not allow him to harm you. You will be safe here,” he said, so calmly and softly that the deep waves of fear surging through her eased to gentle ripples. “He will find you if you leave. I can protect you. I will not allow the man to harm you.”

Amber looked at the closed garage door and then back at him.

There was honesty in his green eyes and her options were limited. Either she stayed here with him, or she ventured outside where there were monsters. If she did that, and the man found her, she wouldn’t escape him a second time. He had fangs. He had been about to drink her blood.

Something inside her said that she would be fine outside, and that she wanted to find the hooded man again. She wanted him to taste her blood. Desired it more than anything. This man was lying to her.

No. Amber closed her eyes, battling the compulsion to leave, and then looked back into the silver-haired man’s eyes.

The other man had wanted to kill her and drink her blood. This man had saved her. He said he could protect her.

“I will bandage your hand and make you feel better if you come upstairs,” he said in a low voice, one that soothed her ears and quelled her fear. The desire to escape him drifted away, replaced by a need to remain.

“Will you tell me what’s happening to me? I feel strange.”

He held his hand out, pointing to his left. “If you come with me.”

Amber looked at the dark grey metal door far to her right across the empty garage and then back at the man. His gaze held hers, cold but honest, and she ignored the voice inside her that was screaming for her to leave and taste her blood.

She nodded and went with him.