Why We Love Vampires by Barbara Elsborg (@BarbaraElsborg)

October 15, 2014Guest Bloggerbarbara elsborg, erotic romance, erotica, lightning in a bottle, loose id, paranormal, supernatural, things that go hump in the night, trueblood, vampiresK D Grace

thingsthatgohump300x200 Vampires have always repulsed and fascinated, these days they more fascinate than repulse. The fact that vampires are human-like creatures enables us identify with them to a certain extent, letting us believe we can understand the way they think and behave, or at least explain it in human terms. They’re pure predators. They deal in death. They consume the substance that keeps us alive. They have superpowers – super speed, super hearing, super sexual recovery (!) and can read minds. They’re stronger than us, more powerful than us and therefore can exert control over us. They’re dead and yet still with us, which might strengthen belief that death is not the end.

The vampire is probably the most popular fictional monster ever created. How ironic that these super-strong, human-like creatures who are able to seduce with a few words and might suck their victims dry can be repelled by the smallest cross and a whiff of garlic, and unless invited in cannot enter a private dwelling. In the early days, that is. The first vampires in fiction were true monsters and really did terrify readers. Dracula is a story of sexual seduction and rape. It must have been comforting to know that with a simple stake through a vampire heart — they die, though of course, it’s never quite that easy. Even now, vampires in horror movies continue to terrify — Let the Right One In and Thirty Days of Night had me cowering behind the couch.

So are we obsessed with blood, sex, death, fangs? More likely we are fascinated by the idea of a life that can go on forever but without our bodies aging, a life unencumbered by problems of ill-health or any sort of weakness. Yet how could we cope with the loneliness when those around us die and we live on? Vampires give us an insight into what life would be like if we could indeed live forever. Anne Rice is the master at exploring the tortured vampire psyche. LeStat remains my favorite vampire of all time. While Christine Feehan’s vampires, though they might go through hell to reach their mate, are assured of a happy future. There’s room for all sorts of vampires and there always will be.

Modern vampires are more sophisticated and have evolved to suit our needs, and that, I believe, is the key to our continued fascination. In literature, we’ve mostly turned them into gorgeous tortured guys on the fringes of society, who never age and are brilliant in bed, especially if they’re feeding at the same time. We dress them immaculately in black, make them enigmatic, and in need of rescue from their torment by the love of a worthy woman. Once they find their mate, and they’re prepared to spend centuries looking – how romantic is that? – they are the ultimate romantics, devoting themselves to their partner’s happiness. We’ve created an anti-hero that can go on forever- literally.

There are no longer any ‘rules’ about what a vamp can and can’t do. They might even sparkle! Garlic is no longer a problem, they laugh at crosses, some can go out in daylight, they don’t have to sleep in coffins, they don’t have to drink human blood, they’re not all beautiful and yet they’re still compelling.

But they’re the ultimate bad boys and we all know how much we love those.

Lightning in a Bottle

Lightning is the third in my Trueblood series about a vampire family but all the books are standalone. The link being that a sibling appears in each book, so you don’t have to read one before another – though the last does sum everything up at the end. The vampire in Lightning is Erin – but she has a slight problem. She doesn’t remember that she’s a vampire.

Blurb

Felix feels like he’s been hit by lightning. After successfully avoiding responsibility for most of his life, it’s thrust upon him when his parents die. As the thirteenth Earl of Sherbourne, he inherits Pevenhurst Castle, the home that’s been in his family for four hundred years – and when he can’t afford to repair it, he’s forced to sell.

Lightning isn’t supposed to strike twice, but when the electrifying Erin Markov whirls into Felix’s life she gives him more to worry about. Erin’s exciting and unpredictable, in and out of bed, if only he could get her to stop dancing in thunderstorms, rollerblading in the middle of the night and leaping around on unsafe roofs. Plus she has this annoying habit of biting his neck.

Erin wishes she could remember who she is. The couple who claim to be her parents leave her in a dilapidated stately home with supplies of a revolting energy drink and instructions not to go out in the sun. Then she discovers sculptor Felix living next door and life becomes far more tasty.

Until the day Erin finally remembers who she is and wishes she hadn’t.

Buy Links

Amazon UK
Amazon US
Barnes & Noble
Loose ID

Excerpt

Felix’s hollow fibre duvet had never seen so much action. It bucked and heaved as he writhed beneath it. The faster he moved the better. The harder he thrust the better. Felix groaned and flung out his arms and legs like a frenzied starfish before he curled up into as small a ball as possible. The chill crept back. Nowhere near energetic enough. He needed to keep moving. Felix rubbed his chest — and, oh shit, by default his cock — against the bottom sheet. Before he grew overexcited, he flipped onto his back and kicked his legs in a bicycling action. He was warmer now but exhausted. Ah, and horny.

The flash of heat resulting from his acrobatics was so fleeting Felix might as well have saved his energy. The bedroom window was closed, the thick curtains drawn, but the arctic wind blasting the coach house had managed to find a way through every crack to torment him. Felix could see bursts of transient ghosts each time he exhaled. With no warm body to cuddle up to and no spare cash to install central heating, he’d end up freezing to death before the will was sorted and he received his share of the money.

Too cold to stay in bed, yet Felix had no desire to get up. Doing so would mean acknowledging Black Friday had started. He pulled the duvet tighter around his shoulders and rolled over, wrapping himself in a blue cocoon. Maybe he wouldn’t get up. Maybe he’d lounge in bed all day, and while he slowly turned into an ice pop he’d pretend he had plenty of money, a faithful girlfriend, and a flashy sports car.

Felix gave brief consideration to what he’d like most and had to admit it was the car. How sad was that? Yeah, well, while he was frozen in de-Nile, he’d also need to pretend he hadn’t signed away his ancestral home, the place that had been in his family for almost four hundred years.

He threw the duvet over his face and cringed. For the first time in his life, he was glad his parents were dead. Lucky for him he didn’t believe in an afterlife, so there was no chance of them looking down in disappointment from heaven. Still, he did believe in hedging his bets, and just because he didn’t believe, didn’t mean his parents weren’t reclining on clouds, clutching gin and tonics and scowling down at him.

“Sorry,” Felix turned to mutter into his pillow. “Sorry I let you down. Again.”

Though this time, the mess he was in wasn’t entirely his fault. The fact that Felix had remained in blissful ignorance of how far things had deteriorated in his absence brought guilt he had to live with, but if his father were alive, Felix would have strangled him. Fucking inconsiderate to get himself killed before Felix had a chance to do the deed.

Bio

Barbara Elsborg lives in West Yorkshire in the north of England. She always wanted to be a spy, but having confessed to everyone without them even resorting to torture, she decided it was not for her. Vulcanology scorched her feet. A morbid fear of sharks put paid to marine biology. So instead, she spent several years successfully selling cyanide.

After dragging up two rotten, ungrateful children and frustrating her sexy, devoted, wonderful husband (who can now stop twisting her arm) she finally has time to conduct an affair with an electrifying plugged-in male, her laptop. Her books feature quirky heroines and bad boys, and she hopes they are as much fun to read as they are to write.

Links

http://www.barbaraelsborg.com

https://www.facebook.com/barbara.elsborg

https://twitter.com/BarbaraElsborg

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2856948.Barbara_Elsborg

*****

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Fierce Enchantments by Janine Ashbless

October 14, 2014Guest Bloggererotica, guest blogger, halloween, Janine Ashbless, Sweetmeats Press, things that go hump in the nightK D Grace

thingsthatgohump300x200 Inspired by my love of M R James – and by a bunch of like-minded friends – I started writing ghost stories years before I wrote any erotica. The very first story I wrote (Wah!) was about a man who murders his wife by throwing her into the sea. She doesn’t stay there. This is how it ends, as he gets into bed with – he thinks – his lover:

After a few days of being unoccupied the air here in the master bedroom was, he thought, a bit stale. Tomorrow he would see to that, but it wouldn’t matter while they slept.

He blew out the candle. Darkness thickened around him.

“Goodnight, love, he said softly, as he pulled back the coverlet. Then Richard climbed into bed with a woman in whose hair was the smell of the sea.

From the start, it now occurs to me, I was combining Bed and “Boo!”

When my erotica career kicked off, I made sure to include at least one ghost story in every one of my collections. From Cruel Enchantment (2000) comes Montague’s Last Ride (See what I did there?), in which a very icky revenant is summoned from his tomb by the power of lust:

“My poor Lord Montague,” she murmured, “lying there all alone in a cold bed. No warm body to hold you close. I’ll bet that never happened to you when you were alive.”

Then she discovered that, standing, her mons was directly on a level with the top of the tomb slab. Where she stood now the corner of the stone pressed into her groin, and she could rub her swollen, needy sex against its cold thrust.

Dark Enchantment (2009) includes two ghost stories among all the gods, monsters and other scary mythological creature. Pique Dame is about a ghost who haunts a theatre and possesses two opera singers:

What if he comes back? I asked myself. Would he stand and watch, delighted, or would he pull up the back of my skirt and wrench down my knickers and stuff me hard from behind with his eager cock, just as I deserved?

Reflected behind me, in the shadow behind the costume rack, two eyes glinted. A dark figure stirred.

Whilst Cold Hands, Warm Heart is about a night in a haunted house that goes incredibly wrong for the two upstanding Edwardian gentlemen who dare it:

Directly at my shoulder, barefoot in the pool, stood a young woman. She had not been there a moment before; she was there when I turned. My heart nearly flew out of my mouth. She wasn’t looking at me; she was staring up at Morgan, her eyes wide and unblinking. She was soaking wet. That was what you noticed about her first of all: she wore a sleeveless white linen shift of some sort and it was so sodden that it clung to her body and had turned half transparent on her pale skin. Her long dark hair was plastered to her shoulders.

This autumn Fierce Enchantments (Sweetmeats Press) is being published and I’ve included stories about a zombie apocalypse, a group of traumatized vampire-hunters, Shakespeare’s Tempest, a Russian water-demon … and At Usher’s Well, a Scottish-set tale of three brothers who come home after being lost at sea for weeks:

‘Meg, stay here and serve at table. Bring them anything from the kitchen that they choose. My sons are to have all they desire, tonight.’ She turns away and walks off down the hall, leaving me alone with the dead men.

There’s a long, unpleasant silence. I know there’s no point in offering them food. The three men watch me from eyes filled with the grave’s darkness.

‘So Meg,’ says Rory quietly, pushing out his chair. ‘Will you sit on my lap, for old times’ sake?’

His thighs are as broad as ever, though his slowly drying clothes are stained with salt. I remember his playful embraces and the rasp of his hairy skin, rough as bark, against mine. I shake my head. ‘I think not, Master Rory. Your lap has grown cold since last I knew you.’

He doesn’t react, except with the slightest inclination of his chin. He doesn’t even blink. Not one of them has blinked since they arrived, I’m suddenly sure.

I fold my hands before me, determined to wait it out. The platters of wasted food steam.

‘Pretty Maggie,’ says Allan, with something approaching expression in his voice and—to my horror—a movement of his grey and bloodless lips that approximates a grin, ‘will you play at bob-apple between my thighs once more, for old times’ sake?’

Oh how well I remember the fever-heat of his lithe body beneath mine, and the unaccustomed narrowness of his bucking hips, and the urgency of his thrusts.

‘I will not, Master Allan,’ I answer him. ‘That’s a fruit that does not keep well in salt water.’

He nods.

Finlay presses his hands to the table and bows his head, and then lifts it to look at me directly. ‘Will you kiss me, my Margaret?’ he asks, his voice as stripped and thin and strange as sea-worn driftwood. ‘For auld lang syne?’

Oh Lord, help me.

His kisses had always made me blush, unaccountably. They’d been nothing like his brother’s straightforward pecks, but instead gentle, lingering creatures of breath and warmth, caresses bestowed on my mouth and throat that seemed to have no other purpose than their own pleasure. They’d made me feel almost uncomfortable. I feel a tear escape and run down my cheek, which I don’t doubt is as pale as theirs.

‘The taste of your clay-cold lips would be awfy strong now, Master Finlay,’ I say. My voice is hoarse, but I try to speak gently. ‘It would do me terrible harm, I fear.’

He doesn’t reply, but his expression holds me. I don’t know what to read in his still, harrowed face. It seems to me that there is pain there behind the mask of cold flesh: an ache that cries for respite. But whether it is the fires of Hell or the gnawing cold of the sea that torments him, I cannot tell.

I want to stroke back his damp locks. I want to see peace in those troubled eyes.

‘I’ll go fetch more wine,’ I mumble, though they have done no more than touch their full cups to their closed lips until now. But I cannot bear this. I have to get away. My insides are knotting under my ribs.

I get as far as the passage to the kitchen before my Mistress blocks my way. ‘Meg!’ she cries forlornly. ‘Their bedchambers are damp and drear—the rain has entered and ruined the linen. I didn’t know!’

‘Wheesht now,’ I say, daring to place my hand upon her arm. ‘It’s the weather; it’s not your fault.’

‘I wish them to sleep in my own great bed tonight. It’s warm and dry. We will make shift elsewhere tonight.’ Her voice, so weak and plaintive, becomes suddenly stronger as she pulls away and looks me in the face. There is something in her eyes—something that burns, that hurts, and that frightens me far more than the darkness in the open, watchful eyes of the dead brothers. ‘Go pile the fire in my room high, Meg. Don’t stint with the wood. I want them to be warm.’

No, I want to say. But she is my Mistress, and she is so alone, and love has broken her heart and her mind. I bite my lip and I nod. And I go out to the woodpile.

Up the dark stairs with the log-basket on my back I go, as I have done a thousand times. But not like this night. When you lay a corpse out for a vigil you normally keep the room cold, for obvious reasons. But not tonight.

On my knees in the split ashes, I build up the fire, coaxing the flames with my breath until they roar. The blaze scorches my pale cheeks. My insides are in turmoil. I don’t know what to feel. I am torn between horror and exultation at this dreadful miracle. I am torn between pity and a wicked, secretive pleasure I will not confess to anyone until my dying day: the joy of looking upon a face thought lost forever, a face longed-for and hotly desired. I am outraged that God has let them walk again—and yet, in my deepest core, sick with gratitude.

I am so afraid.

But not just of the dead.

Then I hear their feet, heavy and measured, upon the stair, and my heart nearly climbs out of my throat and bolts across the room. What do I do? I cast about myself in panic. I don’t want to be cornered here in their bedchamber. But to go to the top of the stairs as they ascend—to see those corpse-faces looking up at me through the darkness, while they tramp slowly toward me—that I cannot bear. There’s no other way out, only a door to the tiny garderobe. I might go hide in there all night, crouched over the draughty, stinking hole. Would I be safe in there? I’m as sure as I can be that they have no need for such facilities.

Ach—I have dithered too long. Their tread is at the door. My heartbeat punches me in the entrails, over and over and over.

The door creaks and falls back with a slam.

I look up. I have to. All pretence is over.

The dead men stand, all three of them, beyond the foot of the bed. Finlay is a little to the fore, his brothers to either side. There is no sign of my Mistress; perhaps she kissed them goodnight downstairs. They are still as posts, still as earth: no breath, no flicker of an eyelid.

* * * * *

I love writing spooky. Have a very happy Hallowe’en season!

xxx

Janine Ashbless

*****

Cover Blurb for “Fierce Enchantments”

Inside the covers of this, Janine Ashbless’ third collection of erotic short stories, you will find delight and terror and lust – and perhaps even unexpected tenderness.

The wayward daughter of Shakespeare’s sorcerer Prospero; a runaway slave who becomes king only for as long as he can stay awake; a servant girl whose three dead lovers return for one last tryst; vampire-hunters haunted to the point of madness by what they have been through; warriors in a desperate future war for the survival of humankind – and one very dangerous frog prince – all appear in this collection of erotic stories that will take you to the edge and then pull you over into the glittering darkness beyond.

Weaving worlds of fantasy, Janine Ashbless draws from fairy stories, history, myth and the darkest depths of her imagination to bring you tales of passion and desire that will enchant, shock and dazzle you.

Buy-links for Fierce Enchantments:

Amazon US

Amazon UK

*****

Bio:

Janine Ashbless is a writer of fantasy erotica and steamy romantic adventure – and that’s “fantasy” in the sense of swords ‘n’ sandals, contemporary paranormal, fairytale, and stories based on mythology and folklore. She likes to write about magic and mystery, dangerous power dynamics, borderline terror, and the not-quite-human.

Janine has been seeing her books in print ever since 2000, and her novels and single-author collections now run into double figures. She’s also had numerous short stories published by Black Lace, Nexus, Cleis Press, Ravenous Romance, Harlequin Spice, Storm Moon, Xcite, Mischief Books, and Ellora’s Cave among others. She is co-editor of the nerd erotica anthology Geek Love.

Her work has been described as: “hardcore and literate” (Madeline Moore) and “vivid and tempestuous and dangerous, and bursting with sacrifice, death and love.” (Portia Da Costa)

www.janineashbless.blogspot.com

Goodreads

Janine Ashbless Facebook

Amazon UK Author Page

Amazon US Author Page

*****

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Werewolves: Scary or Sexy by Sommer Marsden (@sommer_marsden)

October 13, 2014Guest Bloggererotic romance, erotica, excessica, guest blogger, paranormal, shifters, Sommer Marsden, supernatural, things that go hump in the night, werewolvesK D Grace

thingsthatgohump300x200 When I was growing up werewolves were definitely scary. They were never portrayed as hot, buff men with raging libidos and a secret tender side. There were only Werewolf in London werewolves. And then, eventually, in the 80s, we got Teen Wolf werewolves. But a lot of time when werewolves were mentioned, they brought to mind the Wolfman. And that wasn’t sexy.

Boy, how far we’ve come. We have hot werewolves everywhere in fiction and in TV shows. I’m a happy girl. I’ve always been more about claws than fangs (not that werewolves don’t have fangs, mind you, but I’m referring to the vamp versus wolf debate). I want warm and hard and fast and strong not cool and smooth. I guess, technically, they share the fast and strong thing. Okay, you got me.

I came up with the idea of Ellis Bach on a walk. His name was a magician’s trick performed by my brain triggered by a sign for local politics. I took the last name of one man—Ellis and the last named, which I truncated, of another—Bach(man).

And once I had the name my imagination took off. What it supplied me with, all those years ago, was a handsome, big, kind wolf who had a past. Physically, Ellis was inspired by Scott Conant, celebrity chef, because—truth be told—writers and chefs are my rock stars. I gave him the same hair of indeterminate color—sometimes brown, sometimes red, sometimes a bit of a lighter shade shines through. And I gave him his soul mate—Ruby.

Talking about Ellis brings to mind a few of my favorite werewolves now. You can’t go four feet without tripping over them—it’s true. I’ll name just a few:

Alcide on True Blood. Um…yeah. What’s not to like?

Derek Hale on Teen Wolf. Yes, please!

Isaac on Teen Wolf. I must say, when I found out the actor who played him was 26 I was relieved. Because a girl could feel like a weirdo crushing on a teen wolf. But he’s not a teen so…whew.

Scott on Teen Wolf (yeah, yeah, we watch a loooooot of Teen Wolf)

Garrett from my book Base Nature. Yeah, it’s cheating but I wrote him because I lusted after him, so technically it’s cool.

Lucian from Underworld. See, now I would have, upon a glance, cast him as a vamp. Until I really started to pay attention and then…Yeah!

George from Being Human. I must admit to loving that girly pitch his voice hits when he’s startled. It’s brilliant considering he’s a bad ass killer when he sprouts fur.

Josh from Being Human (USA version). Adorbs.

Jake Marlow from Glen Duncan’s The Last Werewolf. The grittiest of all listed. And I love it.

Those are mine. For now, I’ll leave you with a blurb and a passage and wish you a Happy Halloween. Be on the lookout for big, furry men with glowing eyes and bulging pecs. If you see one, by all means, call me!

XOXO

Sommer

*****

Blurb:

Lust according to Ruby:

You read those books where they explain it all away. They make it fine with rationalization. But what if I just want to? What if that’s my whole reason? My life is not a romance novel. I don’t need justification. I’m a grown woman who knows what she wants.

I want Ellis. And I want Tyler.

And I won’t apologize…

What’s worse than wanting both your best friend who’s a vampire and the just-back-in-town alpha werewolf you find yourself fixated on? Finding out that the werewolf in question wants you, too. But he isn’t too keen on the sharing part. Oh, and by the way, you’re his dead mate.

Okay, okay, dead is harsh—reincarnated.

What’s worse than that? Realizing that you believe the whole crazy tale of reincarnation. Because it seems to be true.

And yet you still want them both—together. Vampire and werewolf and you in the middle. Stuck between two predators who want you and only you. To complicate it all, you find out that you can have it. With your new/old mate’s blessing. But just one time before he claims you as his.

Are you brave enough to take it? That one shot?

Well…Are you?

*****

EXCERPT:

“I need to go back,” I whispered.

Ellis gave a short nod. He looked a lot of things at that moment. Happy, sad, angry, determined. His personality was so big, his presence so huge. He scared me on so many levels and many of them good. In a moment of impulse, I turned and kissed him. Pressing my hands—shaking and freezing in fingerless grey gloves as if they could help me—to his rough cheeks. I held his face as I kissed him. He growled low in his throat. A constant drone of aggression and want as a back beat to the kiss. Ellis grasped my hips with strong fingers, sank them in so I worried I’d bruise—hoped I’d bruise.

Without thinking, I clasped my hands behind his neck and brought my legs up to wrap his waist. He had only three inches on me and maybe thirty pounds. He was strapping and burly but not bulky, I was curvy and solid but not fat. Our bodies pressed together in the perfect meld and I felt the hard ridge of his cock pressed the cleft of my pussy.

“You’d better stop or I’m taking you right here,” he said. His voice was rough and righteous and I believed him beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I stroked my tongue down over his and tugged the finer hairs at the nape of his neck and the growl turned dangerous. He started to move, to lay me down and I let go of him—falling away as quickly as I had latched on.

“Not yet, not yet!” I said, my hands up in mock surrender.

“Ruby,” he drew the word out and made it sound dirty and sexy and fine.

“I’m sorry. I am. Soon. I will. I just—” I didn’t know what so I shook my head instead of finishing that sentence.

“I can smell the lust on you. It’s thick and smells like lilacs.” When he grinned at me, I wanted to change my mind.

“I know you can.”

“I don’t scare you being a lycan but my want of you does?”

“And the whole dead mate thing,” I said, turning so fast my coat swept open for an instant. I hurried through the dry and brittle grass with Ellis right on my heels.

“Why are you drawn to me? Certainly not because I came into your store and bought sausage as Tyler explained.”

I snorted, shaking my head. How stupid that sounded but in a way it was true. “That’s when you caught my attention. That’s when I started…” I blew out a breath.

“Coveting me?” he chuckled, taking three big steps and grabbing my hand in his big warm one. Heat baked off of him like I was standing close to an oven or a grill. It felt good, that heat. I swore I could smell him even above the cold winter wind. He smelled like a man. Campfires and tobacco and earth.

“Coveting, yes.” My hood flew back off my head and my hair rose up. Tendrils got caught up in the wind and swirled around my head.

“But you want Tyler too,” he said and tugged me so I had to stop.

“Yes, not as…” I stared at my beat up boots until he pushed my chin up with his fingers.

“Not as…?”

I had been about to say not as much as you but realized that wasn’t so accurate. More like “In a different way.”

“He’s your friend?”

I nodded, pushing my unruly hair back even as the wind yanked it away and tossed it asunder again.

“But you want to fuck him?” He grinned.

I felt a stain of embarrassment flood my cheeks but I forced my shoulders back and my head high. “Yes,” I said defiantly.

“Okay. I can live with that. For now.”

I wanted to ask Ellis why the hell I would care if he could live with it. But I did. Why I’d want his approval. But I did. And why it mattered that he accepted it. But it did.

So I simply nibbled my bottom lip until he pulled my hood up and pressed my hair under it. He kissed my nose and said “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

Buy Links

Excessica | Barnes & Noble | All Romance eBooks | Amazon UK | Amazon US

*****

Bio

Professional dirty word writer, gluten free baker, sock addict, fat wiener dog walker, expert procrastinator. That sums it up.

Sommer Marsden has been called “…one of the top storytellers in the erotica genre” (Violet Blue), “Unapologetic” (Alison Tyler), “…the whirling dervish of erotica” (Craig J. Sorensen),and “Erotica royalty…” (Lucy Felthouse). Her erotic novels include Restricted Release, Restless Spirit, Boys Next Door, and the Zombie Exterminator series. Sommer currently writes for Ellora’s Cave, Xcite Books, Harper Collins Mischief, Pretty Things Press, Excessica and Resplendence Publishing.

You can find Sommer’s short works in well over one hundred and twenty-five (and counting) erotic anthologies. Visit her at Unapologetic Fiction http://sommermarsden.blogspot.com

Media Links

Blog: http://sommermarsden.blogspot.com

Twitter: @sommer_marsden

Facebook: http://facebook.com/sommermarsden

Goodreads: http://goodreads.com/sommer_marsden

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/sommermarsden

*****

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Things Go Hump in the Night in Suz deMello’s Vampire Stories (@suzdemello @MFRW_ORG #vampires #vampireromance)

October 12, 2014Guest Bloggerblood is thicker, Ellora's Cave, erotic romance, erotica, guest blogger, paranormal, supernatural, suz demello, things that go hump in the night, vampireK D Grace

thingsthatgohump300x200 Why do we love vamps?

In a word: they’re hot

Like great chocolate, vampires are smooth, seductive and dangerous. They’re invariably wealthy because they prey upon whoever they please and can steal for a living if they choose. Anne Rice’s Lestat is the classic example.

And many female fans enjoy the fantasy of losing control to a sexy, dominant male. On top of that, our culture worships the young and the beautiful.

In my writing, I emphasize not only the vampires’ sensuality, but also their unnatural strength and speed. In Blood is Thicker… my heroine works as a PI. In one scene, she leaps with ease onto the roof of an apartment building.

Here’s an excerpt from Blood is Thicker…, a vampire tale set in northern California. A paranormal action-adventure, it features two vampires, one selkie and a kidnapped baby.

I cannot begin to describe the communion that’s created when two immortals connect. Kissing is like an orgasm not only of the body, but of the mind and soul as well. Yes, we have souls, unnatural though they may be.

I tugged him closer, frantic to feel his chest against mine, desperate for his cock to enter me. It had been so long… Besides, up close and personal, John’s sheer masculinity overwhelmed me. I’d forgotten how seductive lust could be. I could become addicted to his kiss, the hard planes of his body beneath my questing fingertips, his raw animal blood-scent.

If you like what you read, find the complete short story here:

http://www.ellorascave.com/blood-is-thicker.html

About the author:

Best-selling, award-winning author Suz deMello, a.k.a Sue Swift, has written seventeen romance novels in several subgenres, including erotica, comedy, historical, paranormal, mystery and suspense, plus a number of short stories and non-fiction articles on writing. A freelance editor, she’s held the positions of managing editor and senior editor, working for such firms as Totally Bound, Liquid Silver Books and Ai Press. She also takes private clients.

Her books have been favorably reviewed in Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and Booklist, won a contest or two, attained the finals of the RITA and hit several bestseller lists.

A former trial attorney, her passion is world travel. She’s left the US over a dozen times, including lengthy stints working overseas. She’s now writing a vampire tale and planning her next trip.
find Suzie’s books here:

http://www.tinyurl.com/SuzDeMello (publisher’s site)

http://www.suzdemello.com (website)

*****

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Instalment 16 of DEMON INTERRUPTED: A Lakeland Witches Story

October 11, 2014BlogDemon Interrupted, Lakeland Witches Trilogy, paranormal erotica, serial, things that go hump in the nightK D Grace

I hope you’re all enjoying Things that Go Hump on the Night as much as I am. What a fabulous line-up of the very best erotica writers we’ve had, and will continue to have all through October! It’s a month-long feast of paranormal chills, thrills and total sexiness — not to mention fabulous giveaways. And DO be sure to check out the fabulous giveaways and take advantage of lots of chances to win on the rafflecopter at the end of this post.

Also, if you’ve missed any of the exciting posts and chances to win from the first 10 days of Things that Go Hump in the Night, follow this link to the Calendar of Events, and here is the link to Day One.

BUT today, it’s my turn to bring you another instalment of Demon Interrupted.

As you’ve probably noticed, there has been more than one episode of Demon Interrupted, every three weeks recently. That’s because, like most
stories, DI took on a life of its own and would not be wrapped up quite as quickly and as easily as I planned at the beginning. That means that instead of the fourteen episodes I had originally planned for this serial, there will be seventeen. The series will still end on Halloween, the last day of Things that Go Hump in the Night.

And enjoy the scary, sexy, excitement of Things that Go Hump in the Night. Remember, the fun lasts all through October.

If you’ve missed the previous episodes of Demon Interrupted, find the links at the bottom of this instalment.

Enjoy Chapter sixteen, and thanks for joining the fun with this Work in Progress. If you want to read more about the Elemental Coven’s sexy adventures, check out the Lakeland Witches Trilogy: Body Temperature and Rising, Riding the Ether and Elemental Fire. Happy, reading!

Chapter 16

The Undoing

‘Elaine! Elaine, please wait!’ He shoved his way into the bothy behind her, but inside, he found himself looking into the eyes of a young shepherd, who stood over the hearth cooking porridge.

The shepherd nearly upset his cooking pot and fell back against the meagre stone ledge that served as a bed. ‘Milord, what are you doing here?’

It was then that Ferris realised he was wearing Farringdon’s body. The man had tried to run from his nightmares, but Ferris had taken advantage and rode him into the woods and into a cave. There he’d led the man deep into the winding tunnels and let him believe he was lost there in the dark, that no one would ever find him except for the demon that he ran from. As long as Farringdon clung to life, he would never be free of the demon. And in truth, the man would not live much longer. Ferris had become bored with his incessant grovelling and whining and grew impatient to get back to his little witch.

‘Milord?’

Ferris turned his attention back to the shepherd. ‘They all think you’re dead. They think she killed you and done away with your body. They come for her last night and took her off to the gaol, they did.’

The flesh that he wore suddenly felt icy and the heart in the chest he now controlled beat a wild tattoo. ‘They have taken her? They have taken Elaine?’

‘Yes milord. They thought you was dead.’ He squinted at Ferris. ‘In truth you don’t look so good, milord, shall I serve you some porridge.’

‘As you can see, I’m not dead. I’m perfectly fine.’

‘They don’t know that, do they? Everyone knows you think she’s a witch. Everyone’s afraid of her, and the way you look, who knows what vile magic she worked on you, even if she didn’t kill you.’

‘There is nothing vile about Elaine!’ Ferris backhanded the poor shepherd, who fell back on the bed and covered his bleeding nose with his hand.’

‘Please, milord, I meant no disrespect.’

‘I’ll return to High Moor and when they see that I am unharmed, they will release her into my care.’

The shepherd sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘Then you best hurry, milord. The elders are talking to hang her for her crimes. They think she’s cursed, ain’t that what you always said, milord? They think she’ll curse them all and their worldly goods and their seed.’

‘What crimes? She has committed no crimes!’ He grabbed the shepherd by the collar and shook him until his teeth rattled. ‘She is innocent. If anyone deserves their hatred, it is I.’

‘I’m sorry, milord! I’m sorry. Please! I meant no harm.’

He shoved the shepherd back hard against the wall and ran for the door. It was nearly half a day’s journey by horse back to High Moor House. Though alone, Ferris could make it easily in an instant, he needed Farringdon to prove that Elaine had not killed him. Though the man was deserving of death, which he would soon get, Elaine should not suffer for helping to rid the world of him any more than a farmer suffers from killing the vermin in his field.

He rode the horse at a murderous pace. Fortunately Farringdon had a taste for good horse flesh, and during the journey, he ended Farringdon’s worthless existence and chased his spirit from the vessel, which he needed in order to free Elaine, and which would be of more use to him purged of its evil. Any further tormenting of the toad’s soul paled in comparison to Ferris’ need to reach Elaine. He had to reach Elaine. His whole world, his whole existence had become only the need to be with her again, only the need to hold his dear little witch in his arms and whisk her away from this dreadful place. Yes, he would have to come to her as Farringdon, but once she was safe, he could quickly discard the vessel, and he would take her somewhere far away, somewhere warm and exotic, somewhere that they could be together and be happy.

Happy? The concept twisted his heart. In all his endless existence he had never thought about happiness. He had never contemplated what it might mean to be more than himself by virtue of giving himself to someone else, but since Elaine had summoned him he thought of little else. He urged the horse on still faster. He had not realised that the pleasures of the flesh hung in such a fragile balance with the frailties of the flesh. His heart ached, his stomach knotted, and the breath he now needed to keep the vessel viable raked at his chest like fire. He could not lose her! It was intolerable even to contemplate such a thought. He understood the frailty of flesh, he understood the delicate frailty of Elaine’s flesh, and he knew just how tenuous the life force was that animated all flesh. He feared that the frailty he now felt had little to do with the flesh he wore and had everything to do with frailties he had no idea a demon could experience.

The horse threw a shoe when he was but a short distance from High Moor. Cursing at the top of Farringdon’s lungs, he dismounted the lathered horse and continued afoot pushing the man’s weakened, unfit flesh beyond what it would survive if it were not animated by a rider. But even so, he could not save Elaine without the lump of flesh he wore as proof of her innocence and, indeed in his eyes her innocence shone like the sun. The rasping for breath, the hammering of the heart, the aching of muscles were easy enough for him to ignore when his plan was to discard the flesh of Patrick Farringdon as soon as Elaine was safe and away from High Moor. He prayed to the goddess of all things good, though he doubted she would listen to one such as he, he prayed on Elaine’s behalf. Surely the Divine would not deny one so vibrant, one so worthy, one who had already suffered so much. But he knew in the selfish depths of his demon’s being, that he prayed to a deity in whom he had little faith for one reason and one reason only. He could not lose her! He could not lose Elaine!

*****
‘His fever’s dangerously high,’ Ferris heard Sky’s voice as though it came to him through a long tunnel as he ran, endlessly ran, on Farringdon’s cursedly weak legs. ‘What the hell is he doing? We’ve got to bring it down. It’s almost like he’s rejecting his body.’

‘It’s not his body,’ Tim Meriwether said.

Ferris viewed them as though they were all looking down at him through a mist.

‘He’s dreaming.’ He felt his lovely Cassandra nudging at the edge of his consciousness, trying to ease her way into his dreams. ‘If I could just get in, maybe I could help him.’

‘Then hurry,’ Tara said. ‘If you don’t, there may be no choice but to…’

As the wall of High Moor appeared from the top of the hill, Ferris forced all thought from his head except reaching Elaine. He had to reach her on time. The burning in his chest, he knew beyond a doubt, was from far more than his efforts to push the flesh he wore beyond its endurance. Something was wrong, something that he should know, something far too important for him to have forgotten. The feeling of wrongness pushed at his sternum like a leviathan trying to escape, and he ran, stumbling and falling, ignoring bruises and cut, ignoring the hammering of the heart taxed nearly to failure as he raced down the stony road that led to the village.

‘He will not like this.’ He could barely hear Lucia’s voice above the roar of his efforts to breathe. ‘It was never my plan for him to go through this again, and alone. But he would not listen to me. He would not yield.’

She mattered not: nothing mattered but getting to Elaine. As he shoved his way into the gate, stumbling in the dust, the village was quiet. He saw no one on the streets and the feeling of wrongness tightened around him. A skinny cat blinked at him from its post atop a wood shed. As he rounded the corner into the square, he nearly ran into an old woman carrying water from the well.

‘Milord!’ the woman shrieked, dropping her water bucket. ‘You’re not dead!’

‘Where’s Elaine,’ he shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders and giving her a shake. ‘Where is my wife?’

The old woman yelped and dropped to her knees covering her head. ‘Please milord, don’t hit me. They thought you were dead. We all thought you were dead. We all thought she kilt you.’

‘Where is she?’ He screamed.

‘Oh dear goddess, please, mother, please don’t make him see this again,’ Cassandra cried out to Lucia.

‘I cannot prevent what he must do,’ the Lucia said.

He ignored their voices, even as the truth of it crashed around him, even as he forced his way to the village green hoping against hope that he was not too late.

‘Dear goddess, there must be something we can do,’ Tim cried out. ‘Cassandra, can’t you help him? Lucia? Damn it do something.’

The crowd stopped jeering when they saw him. They parted for him and the world went deadly silent as he stumbled forward to see what he never wanted to see, what he had blocked from his memories for 300 years.

‘Fill the tub with ice,’ Sky commanded. ‘We’ve got to bring his fever down.’

‘If this isn’t really his body,’ Tim said, ‘then he must be rejecting it. Is that what’s happening?’

‘He rejected it a long time ago,’ Lucia said. ‘Trust me, rejection of the vessel he wears is not an issue now.’

The silence dissolved into an endless roar long before he realised it was he, screaming his anguish to heaven. Four men lay dead at the foot of the oak, the last managing to cut her down before Ferris ran him through with his own sword. He kept no count of those he killed or injured in his rage before someone cut her down. Would that everyone in the village was dead and the place burned to ash and razed to the ground. Their lives he would gladly trade for the beating of a single heart. His own life he would gladly trade to feel once again the breath of the woman he cradled in his arms. But she was gone, and even he with all of his great power could not return her life force to her.

Cassandra sobbed in empathy.

‘Let him finish the dream,’ Lucia called out. ‘He has to finish the dream if he is to heal.’

But he would never heal. There was no balm for the depths of his wound, no comfort in the Ether, the Dream World or any realm beyond. The heavens opened and the rain poured turning the village green into a sponge and the streets of the village into a swamp. He did not remember when those who had come to watch her die had left. Surely they must have fled in fear for their lives. He remembered once pushing the battered flesh of Farringdon beyond its limits as he carried his beloved Elaine to a place on the hillside covered in heather and riddled with caves. There above the village in a remote place, he buried her near a stream that tumbled from a spring in the caves.

Two nights later, he attended the meeting of the village elders in the meeting hall. By then the rage in his belly had turned to ice. Only he walked away from the flames. From the side of her grave, he watched the blaze long into the night, heard the anguished cries of the villagers as they struggled to put out the fire and identify their dead. In his mind they were, all of them, already dead. They would sleep soon, and he would return to the village. If Elaine could not live, then neither could they, after all it was their actions that cost her life.

‘I don’t care! We have to get the fever down now,’ Sky said.

‘The ice bath is ready,’ Kennet replied.

But it was fire he watched, fire that burned, fire that avenged and yet it was the icy cold of death and emptiness he felt in his belly.

‘Come back to them, my darling Ferris.’ Cool lips pressed against his.

‘Elaine?’ He opened his eyes and found himself alone in his bed with Elaine leaning over him, caressing his burning cheek. ‘Elaine my darling, I told them! I told them you were here.’

‘No, my Rider, you are hallucinating once more. I am not real.’

Once again he sat on the hillside by her grave watching the flames rise in the night sky below.

Elaine sat down next to him and took his hand. ‘If you kill them all, every last one of them, and their livestock, even those from the next village who came to watch me hanged, I shall be no less dead. And you will live on, my darling Ferris. ‘You will suffer endlessly alone. I do not want that for you. I never wanted that for you. Go back home. They wait for you. They love you, and this world you see is now nothing but dust. It has been dust for a very, very long time. Remember it, for you must. Mourn it, for you lost much, but you cannot undo it, not now, not ever. Go home, my love, and remember that you are much loved by your little witch.’

He wanted to hold her, but she had no substance, like the mists that rose up from the high meadows at night.

‘Go to the Fire Demon, my Love. She will help you. She has use for you. Time does not hold her as it does me. Go with her, my love. Go with her and heal. Wait for me at Elemental Cottage, and when the time comes, when you have healed, I will come for you. We will be together again’ She blew him a kiss, then turned and walked into the hills.

He woke with a gasp of blessed oxygen as though it had been an age since he drew breath. The ice was no longer in his belly, but all over his body. The giant tub in his bathroom had been turned into the arctic and he was naked and shivering in its depths with the three strong men of Elemental Coven holding him in place while he struggled, Cassandra held his hand in an unyielding grip and Sky shouted, ‘hold onto him. Keep his head up! Keep his head up, damn it!’

‘I remember.’ He forced the words through chattering teeth. ‘Goddess help me, I remember.’ And then he wept as he had not wept in 300 years.

Don’t miss the sizzling final episode of Demon Interrupted coming October 31st!