Cupid’s Choice Blog Hop!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

The Blog Hop is now over. Thanks to all who participated!

Welcome to the Cupid’s Choice Blog Hop!! The hop kicked off at http://justromance.me so head over there if you haven’t already. Hope to see you all at the chat on Sunday. 

In celebration of this day of love, I have chosen an excerpt from the upcoming 5th book in the Huntress series, Death Wish. Wishing you all a wonderful Valentine’s Day.

Warning: The following excerpt contains an adult scenario. 18 and over only please. 

Excerpt:

Once I turned my full attention to Arys’ memories, recorded decades ago on old, worn paper, I was caught up in his words. Everything else fell away but that night captured on the pages in my hands.

December 5, 1849

They were lovely really. Like usual, Harley’s choice. He has a weakness for virgins. Personally, I prefer a woman who knows what she’s doing and can appreciate the things I do to her. The virgins…they tend to scream. A lot. Of course, I have found virgins to be very quick to beg. And that I just can’t get enough of.

It was easy enough to lure them home. It always is. The right word or gesture and they’re more than happy to sneak away from a party before their companions notice their absence. Harley can sniff out a virgin anywhere. He claims virgin blood to be the nectar of the gods but I find it to be a little too pure for my tastes. These women though, they were divine. A blonde and one with deep scarlet hair who was surprisingly eager when I had her spread-eagle on the chaise longue. 

Once Harley’s shy little blonde began shrieking, things really became interesting. Everything had been going splendidly. My little virgin temptress writhed beneath me as I pleasured her with my mouth. She begged for more and I savored the heat of her womanhood against my tongue as I fed on the burning energy of her desire. It was intoxicating, a prelude to the moment when I would taste her blood.

I had to pause, to focus on taking a breath. I realized I’d held mine while reading. The words sprang to life, pulling me into the scene as Arys’ memory of this night crashed into the front of my conscious thoughts. I was seeing it through his eyes, reliving it as if I’d been there myself.

Screams rang out and my innocent beauty became alarmed. I assured her that there was nothing to fear. Drawn into the lull of my manipulation, she pulled me close, offering herself to me. Harley would have his victim screaming for hours if he could manage it. I wasn’t ready yet to make mine fight for her life. All in good time.

Tight and warm, her body was resistant when I took her. The pained sounds she made as I filled her sent ripples of pleasure throughout me. Her soft whimpers gradually became cries of joy. I was drowning in the waves of her excited energy, drinking it in. I itched to bury my fangs in that delicate throat of hers. Patience is not a virtue I possess. I waited, hoping to time the moment with her climax, preferring to take all that she had to give at once.

I sensed that she was close. My control snapped and I bit deep into her neck. She screamed and I laughed. Blood gushed from the wound and I drank of it greedily. The spell was broken. Free of my thrall, she thrashed violently. I bit her again, pinning her arms above her head. I drank hungrily, her blood coated my tongue deliciously. Though aware that she was in a fight for her life, she couldn’t help but respond to my careful manipulations of her body. Buried deep inside her, I felt her inner muscles clench as climax shook her and euphoria claimed me.

I could taste her. She was mine and I couldn’t wait to taste her death. To be the bringer of it, the master of all that she was. I heard the shallow gasps for breath but didn’t recognize them as my own. I ceased reading as the memory took over.

Arys had drained her completely. Her screams had accompanied those of her friend and the vampires drank their fill of blood and sex. She begged Arys for her life, pleading and promising. It only encouraged him. Her pleas were like fuel on an open flame. Arys killed her and he loved every second of it.

The scent of her was thick in my nostrils. Fear, lust and blood all entwined in one storm of sensation to overwhelm me. I was suddenly beside myself with need.

“Alexa?” Arys’ voice was a distant echo, as if he was far away. “It’s not real, Alexa. Don’t lose yourself in my past.”

I wasn’t seeing him anymore. He had faded along with the rest of the bedroom as I spun headlong into a memory that wasn’t mine. I saw the candlelit room with the cream colored chaise longue and the shrieking woman upon it. She was young, eighteen perhaps. She fought hard once she broke free of Arys’ powerful mesmerism. Some victims would smile happily as they died under his thrall. But others, they fought until that very last breath.

There was a rush of white noise, almost deafening in my ears. I was lost in my kill, Arys’ kill, and my sense of reality shifted. My four fangs filled my mouth and I reached with clawed fingers for a victim that wasn’t really there.

I’m not sure how long Arys shook me for, trying desperately to get me to come back to him. “Come on, Alexa! You’re not part of that world. I was. I need you here and now.”

I mumbled something incoherent. Harley’s devious laughter echoed all around me. I heard his victim wailing. I wanted him to make her stop. To just shut her up. I couldn’t take much more. The screams, the blood and the erotic flavor of terror, it was all driving me into a frenzy.

I was caught between myself and Arys. Feeling his hunger for her and his deep rooted satisfaction when he drained her life away, it conflicted with the need I felt to be the one he claimed in such a powerfully intimate manner. My vision swam, alternating from Arys’ past to the present. I had always been a part of him. Even then, when I had yet to be born.

Arys’ voice was firm when he demanded, “Do you want her? Or do you want to be her?”

It took a few moments before awareness hit me. I was lying flat on my back. Arys straddled me, holding my arms pinned above my head. It became clear what he was asking. He was offering me release from the grips of his horrid memories.

I was flushed with desire for both body and blood. I couldn’t form a response. My mind was a mess of blood stained images. I don’t know what Arys saw in my eyes but he didn’t wait any longer for a reply. True to his nature, he made me the victim.

He slipped a hand between my legs, finding me ready. A dark light shone in the depths of his eyes and a smirk tugged at his lips. “Hell, if I’d known that journal would make you so hot, I’d have given it to you months ago.”

“You did this to me. You made me a monster.” I was rambling without thought, saying whatever danced onto the tip of my tongue.

Arys leaned in close, his lips brushing mine as he spoke. “You were always meant to be a monster. I just make you enjoy it.”

His kiss was gentle and soft, so contradictory to the tension I felt emanating from him. Nudging my legs apart with a knee, he positioned himself between them so that I was comfortably pinned beneath his weight. Every time I closed my eyes I saw her, the redhead sprawled out before him, bleeding and begging even as she enjoyed his touch.

“Look at me.” Arys’ demanding tone startled me. “I want to see terror in your eyes before I bleed you.”

I almost choked on the stifling sensation that flooded me. Fear. Only one other time had Arys frightened me during such an encounter. That same time he’d also threatened me. Once again the promise of pain in his words made me ache for him.

Burying his face in my hair, he pressed his lips to my neck and breathed deeply of my scent. He was encouraging my fear with the taunt of his fangs against my vein. I tensed, uncertain. The thick swell of his erection against me was both exciting and intimidating. I felt him draw on my energy, feeding on my bloodlust, fear and desire.

Arys slipped inside me with a rough thrust, forcing a cry from me. He groaned as the power rose up to engulf us. His mouth was hot on my skin. I could feel him shaking with the strength it took to keep from biting me. Holding out for the right moment when it would throw us both headlong into the abyss that sought to claim us.

There was a change in him, a shift in our dynamic that made Arys the aggressor. He often was but never did I truly feel like a victim with him. Not until now. He peered down into my eyes and all I saw was the predatory gaze of the wolf looking back at me. My wolf. It was an unsettling reminder that Arys had as much of my monster inside him as I did of his.

“Please, don’t,” I heard myself say. I wasn’t sure what I was asking him.

With every slick stroke of his body into mine, my panic began to subside. The energy binding us grew and writhed, wrapping us in its magnificent hold.

He showered me with kisses on my lips and along my jaw. “You know me. You always have.”

There was conflict within me as anguish over his words warred with comfort. Until I really knew what that meant, I couldn’t find either solace or regret in that.

I gripped him with claws that cut deep red ribbons into his flesh. Every time he filled me brought me closer to the edge. He was aggressive, as if he couldn’t possibly get deep enough. We were as close as we could physically get and still it wasn’t the union I ached for. Despite the fervor in which he made love to me, his kisses were soft caresses. But only until his patience ran thin.

With a hand tightly entwined in my hair, he forced my head to the side and bit deep. My heart thundered in my ears at a deafening level as my blood poured into Arys’ mouth. I had a moment of clarity and I wondered if my life would end in his hands. Maybe not today but one day. If our destiny was to destroy each other, it may only be fitting.