Available on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble! This 80+-page episode begins to illustrate how the vampire virus is responsible for not just zombies but also the feared werewolf species.
Evan and Kayla fight for their lives, while Thomas prepares the dangerous wolf-satiate ceremony to save his beloved queen, Belinda.
Here's a small excerpt:
Screams
emanated from one of the brick corridors leading to the right, the larder.
Apparently, the cooks were playing with the food again.
Having
no patience for minutiae, he ignored the shrieks of terror and descended
another stairway that ended at a concrete hallway—Death Row as some members of
the clan had come to call the burning chambers. An apt term.
He
marched past several guards and stopped in front of Belinda’s steel door. The
guard readily moved aside.
“How
is she?”
“A
lot of screaming, sir, but there are still words.”
Thomas
pounded. “Belinda, can we talk?”
“Fuck
you!” came her shrill voice. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!”
“I’ll
take that as a ‘yes.’” He opened the door and likened the odor to condensed
sewer air pumped through a hose.
At
least a dozen corpses were piled against one wall. Blood and gore covered the
entire room. Limbs from at least three humans littered the furniture, floor and
bed.
One
head had been stripped and now, stark white, smiled at him from where she held
it in her lap. She sat in a lotus position on the floor with her back against
the farther concrete wall.
The
skin on her face was black and cracked, and her arms had open wounds that were
well beyond healing. At that moment, Thomas would gladly have cut his own
arteries to feed and heal her if it would have helped.
I don’t know how you have managed to remain
conscious, my love, but thank heaven you have!
Belinda
placed the skull on the floor beside a clump of intestines and got to her feet.
Her movements still retained a certain grace.
She
stretched as if waking from a deep slumber. The movement caused skin to crack
and slough off both her arms.
She
wiped the bloody flakes away like dried residue from a mud bath. Her once
crystal blue eyes were now speckled with red.
She
stared at him.
Thomas
bowed. “Your Highness, it is good to see you.”
“Much
as it would be pleasant to look upon road kill,” she snapped.
“You
will always be perfection to me,” he said with utter sincerity.
It
gratified him to see a fleeting smile cross her cracked lips.
“I
don’t know how much longer I can fight, Thomas.”
“You
have been so brave, Your Highness. Just a little—”
“Bullshit,
bullshit, bullshit!” she screamed. The cords of her neck rose as she struggled
with emotions that he could not begin to imagine. “It’s time to light the
fires. Burn me before I lose every shred of dignity!”
“Never!”
Thomas stated.
She
snarled and crouched, ready to leap at him. Though her chains were still
intact, he almost didn’t care.
He
had pledged his never-ending loyalty and love to this woman, and her valiant
fight against the burning made him realize all the more why it was imperative
that she live. She would be a magnificent queen when the vampires wrested power
away from the humans.
“We
found the rogues.”
A
dozen expressions of anger crossed her face before she was able to regain
control.
“I’m
beyond fantasies, Thomas. My time has arrived.”
“Your
Highness, we found several, maybe an entire clan of rogues in Groacherville,
Maine. Carlson is with them now. I have dispatched other teams to join him.”
“Carlson
needed others?” Her lips curled with revulsion.
“I
believe he has and continues to perform his duties admirably.” He paused.
Thomas hated to give her reason to doubt, but Belinda deserved the whole truth.
“But the rogues have captured him. The other two members of his team were
killed.”
Her
eyes widened.
“They
possess the secret?” she asked with an awed hiss.
“It
appears so, Your Highness, which would explain how they defeated our soldiers.
Longevity equals strength.”
A
charred tongue swept across blackened lips. “So it’s true. All these years…”
“I
am attempting to negotiate with the rogues now, but if that fails, by morning I
plan to attack.”
Belinda
raked a hand through snarls of dark hair. She pulled out a clump and flung it
to the floor.
A
piece of attached bloody scalp made a splattering sound. Thomas averted his
gaze.
“My
mind is like a mine field,” Belinda hissed. “No matter what I think about,
focus on, it wants to explode.”
“I
hope to have the rogues in custody by morning.”
“I’ll
be a raging, mindless monster by morning!” Her shrill voice could have
shattered glass. “Willpower is no longer enough!”
Thomas’s
eyes shot up to stare into her bloodshot orbs. “You’re not suggesting…”
“Bring
me a satiate, Thomas. And you better do it fast!”
“It’s
forbidden. If the Council—”
“Whether
you believe I am needed for our clan’s salvation or not, I am hours from the
burning.”
“If
it got out, the Council would destroy everyone in Boston. The whole clan—”
“Our
clan, Thomas! Had you and I not held this group together after the uprising,
there would be nothing. The Council owes me—owes us—this much!”
With
that, Thomas’ beloved grabbed the chains that kept her at a secure distance
from him and screamed. Her arms tightened with muscle she had acquired over the
hundreds of hours they had sparred…and played…together.
The
cords on her filthy, bruised neck sprang out like wings. Impossibly, the chains
snapped and danger crouched like a demon between them.
He
was only three steps from the door, but she could easily have reached him
before—
“My
mind,” she said, “all that I am, hangs from the tiniest scrap of flesh.” She
grimaced. “Rage boils like an angry river in my mind, my love. I could kill
you. I. Need. To. Kill. You.”
She
dropped to a seated position and hugged her knees.
“But
you have always been my salvation, Thomas, the only thing that has made this
brutal life worth living. Leave now—and bring the wolf-satiate or not. Either
way, know that—I. Love. You.”
“Your
Highness.”
Her
body shook violently.
“Belinda—”
“Go,
fool,” she said through gritted teeth. “Go now!”
Thomas
blinked away a tear and bolted for the exit. In movements too fast for a human
to follow, he surged through and slammed the steel door behind him.
A
body struck the other side. Belinda’s wails of fury accompanied sounds of
pounding fists and claws scoring across steel.
Thomas
turned to the startled light-haired vampire. Average height, maybe in his
late-thirties, the guard had a boyish look to him.
“You
have been with the clan for one month, two?” Thomas asked.
“I
was turned seventy-three days ago, sir.”
“Good!”
Thomas grabbed his chin and squeezed it painfully. He stared into dark amber
eyes and pushed against the new vampire’s will. “You are going to do something
for me and will say nothing to anyone in or outside of this clan. Do you
understand?”
The
guard’s eyes had glazed over. He nodded.
“You
will drive to the forest…”
Thanks for reading the excerpt. Angelica and I are very proud of this series. You can get the first three episodes (it says only Episode One, but you'll find bonus Episodes Two and Three inside) right
here at Amazon:
And Episode Four--over 80 pages--is just 99 cents!
