Day Five – November Contest

Thank you all so much for the great word of mouth Lisa is getting for the next book in her fabulous Vampire Wardens series HOT VAMPIRE TOUCH!

Today I’ll be giving away another $10 iTunes gift card.  I love these things and give them to everyone.  Between songs and apps, having the g/c is easy to make sure I – and the kiddos – don’t spend too much.  lol.  They’re great stocking stuffers, too!

So, all you have to do to be entered is:

• Blog about HOT VAMPIRE TOUCH
• Blog about this contest
• Review HOT VAMPIRE TOUCH
• Buy HOT VAMPIRE TOUCH, because its awesome!

And then come back here and tell me what you’ve done to be added into the contest!  Don’t forget to drop by Lisa’s for her side of the contest!

Here’s an excerpt to get you going on this cold December morning. 🙂

***Cassie is handcuffed to Troy in this excerpt

She’d saved him from death, but it was clear to Cassie that she’d far from saved Troy’s life. His pain, his anger, his hatred of her as a wolf, were damn near palpable. But he was here now, and he was alive, and that is what mattered. That is what she planned to make count.

Cassie turned down the volume on the radio. “Troy, I -”

He growled, and jerked her attached wrist with him as he tried to turn the music back on.

Cassie covered the knob with her free hand. “Don’t even think about it,” she warned, her brows knitting together as she computed the growling sound he’d just made, and how very wolf-like it had been. But that was impossible, he was a vampire. She shook off the odd thought, insisting, “We have to talk.”

“We had a conversation back in the parking lot,” he ground out, his tone clipped. “That’s all the conversation we need to have until I say otherwise.”

“You mean those few words we spoke right after you slapped a handcuff on me and before you gave me a piggy back ride? That’s what you call a conversation?”

“When you need to know more, you’ll know more.”

“Well, consider the need to know now. I came with you willingly, Troy. I’m here because I want to be.”

“Willing or unwilling,” he said. “You were coming with me.”

“Since when did you become the big bad caveman?”

“I reserve my caveman side for wolves.”

“Well then,” she said. “I guess I’ll just have to dedicate my inner bitch to the vampires. Or rather – one vampire, because you’re starting to tick me off.”

“Next time I’ll bring you flowers with the handcuffs,” he said, cutting her with a crystal blue, unnatural stare that stole her breath.

“How is this possible?” she murmured. Now that she could really study him, she realized that he wasn’t disguising his black eyes with contacts, as she had assumed. “Your eyes-“

“Aren’t the only thing different about me. I told you that. Believe me, blue is a recent improvement. Before that, they glowed silver more times than they didn’t. They were a real attention grabber, I’m sure you’re sorry you missed.” He whipped the truck into the parking lot of a small apartment complex only a few blocks from the strip and pulled into a parking spot. He used their joined hands to shift the truck into park and turned to her. He shoved open the door. “Let’s go.” He snatched the key and stepped out of the truck, dragging her with him.

Cassie slid towards him, the cloth of her skirt riding up, yet again, in the process. She slid down to the ground, trying to keep it from going to her waist with only one hand to contribute to the effort. Thanks to the chain between her and Troy, her normal wolfish grace escaped her. She fell into Troy, her hands flattening on his chest, her body pressed to his harder one.

Powerful arms wrapped her waist, and her eyes locked with his, the familiar connection they’d always shared intensely present, but there was something else familiar there as well. “I’m done being punished for something she did. I’m not her.”

His eyes sharpened, so blue, so angry, they cut like crystal blades. “No,” he said in a voice so soft, which was somehow more lethal. “You’re far more dangerous than she ever was.”

The next thing she knew, he was dragging her towards the two-story brick building, lined with sidewalks and shrubs. An elderly man came out of the first doorway they passed and gaped at the handcuffs. Troy glanced at the man, and compelled him to see something that wasn’t there, “I’m just taking my groceries inside,” he said, using his vampire ability to control human minds.

“I’m not your groceries,” she grumbled, thankful werewolves were immune to vampire mind manipulation. She not only wanted to remember what was happening, she wanted Troy to remember the things he’d forgotten, the things that happened before the night he’d almost died. So Cassie followed Troy, even in his clearly rage-driven mood, more than willingly. She wasn’t afraid of him and she didn’t want to fight him. She wanted to fight the past that had made him this way, which had clearly changed him in far more ways than she’d realized.

The minute they were inside the small, bottom floor apartment, four doors down from the old man’s, Troy slammed the door shut and locked it. She turned to inspect the place, only to be dragged past an absolutely bare living room free of furniture, to a tiny rectangular kitchen.

He stopped at the fridge and yanked it open, then snatched a nearly empty bag of blood from inside which he instantly tilted back and began drinking. Shock, and a fizzle of unease, slid through Cassie. In the year that she’d hunted with him she’d never seen him feed or drink blood. As in, ever.

Vampires had evolved to eating human food, with blood playing the role of supplement. Or, she thought with concern, a drug to gain added strength and power that, when abused, created bloodlust. That Troy was drinking blood now, in front of her, gulping it like there was no tomorrow, and that there was a primal, out of control, unnatural edge to him, where there had always been lethal calm, had her own blood freezing.

He tossed the bag in the sink, and now his blue eyes were glowing a kind of silvery color that she’d never seen before on anyone. A chill of warning raced down her spine. He was in trouble. Big trouble, that was far worse than she had imagined possible. Or maybe she was in trouble. Maybe, she really was his groceries. Her blood was richer than that of humans, a delicacy to vampires, which had long made them targets for their rogues.

“Ah,” she said finally, when he just kept staring at her. “Can I make you a sandwich for desert? Or maybe a steak served rare?” Still, he just looked at her, yellow bleeding into the silver. She clung to hope with the absence of red. “I take your silence as a ‘no’.”

She wet her lips. His gaze followed and she felt the hunger in him, and this time it wasn’t for blood. It was for her, and it wasn’t the first time he’d look at her like this – okay, not exactly like this, not quite so… primitively. Her body heated, awareness rushing through her where perhaps there should have been fear, especially with the threat of bloodlust. But she was a wolf with a primal side of her own, one this man called to more than any other she’d ever known. Still, while she didn’t fear him, she was afraid for him.

“What’s happening to you, Troy?”

“That’s the question of the year,” he said, grabbing her hand beneath the cuff and headed out of the kitchen. “Let’s go talk about that.”

Cassie grimaced at the bite of the silver on her wrist, at him tugging her around like a dog, or in this case, a wolf on a leash. She cared about Troy, but this part of their meeting was wearing on her nerves.

“Is the cuff necessary?” she asked, realizing they were headed down a hallway to what she was pretty sure was the only bedroom in the place. He didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t. Why did she think he would answer when he clearly had grown some aversion to conversation?

A few more steps and they were in a small, dimly lit bedroom with a king sized bed and nothing but plain white sheets. She wasn’t beyond admitting she’d had more than a few fantasies about his bedroom and none of them looked quite like this. The place was a dump and she wondered why. All the Wardens were paid, and paid well.

He stopped by the broken down nightstand and unlocked his cuff, his long blonde hair draping his face. She reached up and gently shoved it away from his face, and his gaze slowly lifted to hers, his eyes glowing silver, all remnants of yellow now gone. “What’s happening to you?” she repeated, then rephrased. “What happened to you?”

“A wolf happened to me,” he said, and then moved abruptly.

Suddenly, her hand was over her head, and her wrist was attached to the bedpost.