Category: the calling

This Wicked Wednesday is for all the fans of THE CALLING vampire novels! Coming in March 2009 is FURY CALLS, a story about a vamp drug that is wreaking havoc in the Manhattan vampire underworld courtesy of a Kiang-shi — a Chinese vampire named Sun-Tze Lee. Diana, Ryder, Diego and others will need to work hard to find out who is responsible for the drug before it destroys the vampire underworld they know.

You will hopefully love seeing the return of sexy punk vampire Blake Richards and NYU Coed turned immortal Meghan Thomas. I’ve been dying to write their story since I first introduced them in TEMPTATION CALLS.

In FURY CALLS, I’ll also be introducing Otro Mundo, an upscale restaurant with private dining rooms owned by Diego Rivera and Ryder Latimer.

So, without further ado, here’s a sneak peek at FURY CALLS!

Her deadly kiss was near, but he welcomed it.

He buried his fangs deep in her breast as she held him the way a mother might cradle a child while he fed on milk-spiced blood. But then she gently eased his head back, enough to expose the rising pulse beating at his neck. Bending her head, she sank her fangs through the fragile barrier of his skin.

Blood rushed, hot and sweet, awakening the kind of passion that only vampires could share. The little love drug he had added to their drinks earlier that night also ramped up the passion surging through their bodies. As his partner murmured a growly complaint that she was still hungry, he said, “It’s the juice. It’ll pass once you sip a little more.”

And once he had a little more, he thought as he tried to sate his need from her sweet
breast. When they finally ripped away from each other their bodies were supercharged — sexually and violently. Fangs stained crimson from their feast retracted as they surged together for a kiss, bodies naked and heated from the torrent of immortal blood rushing through their veins and the potent chemical mix of the drug.

Over and over they kissed, licking the last remnants of blood from their lips, but soon that wasn’t enough once again.

He pulled away from her, unseeing of anything other than the perfection of her body as he trailed his hands across warm skin, flush with the life bestowed by his blood. He kissed the tip of the breast where he had been feeding just moments earlier.

There wasn’t even a hint of his bite there since she had already healed.

He suckled the tip and she moaned, reached down and unerringly found the head of his erection and stroked it, pulling a needy groan from him.

Their passion was too great for prolonged foreplay, he knew. Besides, his blood seemed to be sizzling in his veins from the demand to devour every part of her in every possible way.

He dragged her beneath him and onto the plush cushions of the settee in their private dining room and without further delay, drove into her, seeking satisfaction.

His thrusts grew stronger, more violent, yanking a strangled gasp from her as the craving to feed rose again, potent and more demanding than anything he had ever experienced before. For a fleeting moment, he wondered how long it would take for the kick of the drug they had ingested earlier to subside.

He shook his head, nearly lightheaded from the strength of his medicated lust, so great that he felt that if he didn’t taste her life’s blood again, he would die from the want of it.

As his gaze met hers, he realized she was feeling the same overwhelming pull of hunger.

Surging toward one another, they bared their fangs once again and attacked, fury replacing any other wants, driving them to the darkest corners of their immortal kind.

With a flip of her wrist, Meghan Thomas tossed the porcini mushrooms in the saute pan. The brandy she had added to the pan flared up with a quick flash of fire before it burned off.

She placed the pan back onto the flame and was just adding some cream to reduce with the mushrooms for a sauce when she sensed it.

Meghan didn’t really know what “it” was, but her vampire powers were telling her that something very wrong had occurred. The other vamps in the kitchen sensed it as well. From the bus boys to the waiter who paused by the doors to the other vamp chef a few stations down, they all had become aware of something odd. It had to be something powerfully wrong for the vampires of all ages, even someone as new as her to the undead world, to feel “it”.

She took the pan off the flame and put it to the side just as Diego Rivera, part owner of the restaurant and her mentor of sorts, pushed through the door into the kitchen. Diego looked around as if to see if the source of the disturbance had come from within and then he faced her.

“Is everything okay in here, Meghan?”

Wiping her hands on the towel tucked into her apron, she walked to him and said, “Yes, but you feel something as well, don’t you?”

At his abrupt nod, she laid a hand on the sleeve of his expensive silk suit jacket and asked, “What was it?”

She had hoped that with his greater vampire age and therefore stronger powers, he would have known what had been the sensation that all of them had experienced, but the look on his face told her otherwise.

“I’ll find out,” Diego said, worry stamped onto his fine features. A deep furrow was etched between his brows as he pivoted on one heel and out of the kitchen, Meghan right behind him.

When he realized she was following, he stopped. “There’s no need for you to come with me.”

She searched his features and realized he was just trying to protect her much as he had for over four years now. Although she had appreciated that assistance before she had resigned herself to her new immortal life, it was long beyond the time for her to start being a help rather than a hindrance. “I can watch your back if need be. I’m not a newbie anymore.”

For a moment Diego appeared ready to protest, but then he turned and strode along the edge of the restaurant’s main floor and as he did so, she shot a quick look around.

Most of the diners were intent on the meals before them, but a couple of heads turned their way and she recognized some familiar vampire faces. They had all sensed the disturbance as well, but remained in their seats. They had human partners at their tables and might not want to reveal their undead status. At least, not yet, Meghan thought.

Diego entered the hallway which led to the private dining rooms along the first floor, but she discerned nothing unusual there as they walked past the pair of doors. At the end of the hall, Diego nearly vaulted up the stairs to the next floor.

The feeling grew stronger here, but Diego didn’t pause, as if he already knew the answer to their question rested on the uppermost floor of the building where the last two private dining rooms were located. As young as she was in vampire years, even Meghan perceived the pull of that weird something dragging them ever upward.

When they stepped from the stairs into the hallway on the top floor, the smell of blood assaulted them.

Meghan immediately experienced a burst of heat in the center of her body. Before she could control the reaction, the heat traveled through her like fast-moving lava, summoning the vampire she hated and had struggled for so long to learn to control. Her fangs exploded from her mouth, dropping down to mid-jaw and all around her, things jumped to life as her vamp senses went into overdrive. From the glow of the sconces to the muffled sounds of their feet along the thick Oriental carpet, her immortal senses registered every little nuance that a human couldn’t.

That she couldn’t have sensed before being turned years earlier. Fury rose inside of her, much as it did every time that she was reminded of what she no longer was. Her anger was fueled by the violence of the vampire that had assumed control thanks to the too strong smell of blood.

Diego shot a concerned look at her, his brows furrowed over crystal blue eyes which were bleeding out to the strange neon-green of the undead, but nothing else gave away what he was. He was mastering his transformation and as he noted that she hadn’t, and maybe even picked up on her anger, he said, “Niña, you need to collect yourself. There are others around.”

Others meaning humans, she realized. Others not like me anymore.

The doors to the private dining rooms were closed and she was certain that if there had been any vampires there — any live vampires that was — they would be out in the hallway investigating the source of the disturbance and the overwhelming aroma of blood.

With a deep breath, she gathered herself and forced back her fury and blood lust, summoning the human to return. But even after reassuming control, the scent of death and the frisson of fear that something otherworldly was wrong lingered.