Seduced by Blood. Laurie London
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Dear Reader,
I’m beyond thrilled to share the fourth installment of the SWEETBLOOD series, which centers around a group of vampire warriors based in the Pacific Northwest. The world is a deadly and seductive one, where Guardians fight to protect humans from Darkbloods—vicious members of their race who still kill humans like their ancestors did and sell their blood on the vampire black market. The rarest, called Sweet, is very addictive and commands the highest price.
It’s hard to believe that just last year the series began with Bonded by Blood. Don’t worry if you haven’t read the other books, though. I wrote each one to stand alone.
When I first met Tristan Santiago, the region commander, he stormed onto the pages of Bonded and stole the show. He’s hotheaded and very hard to ignore.
Because I own horses, I was reminded of the dynamics of herd behavior as I wrote Santiago’s story. In a nutshell, the horse that persuades the other horses to move their feet and get out of his way is the dominant one. I had a horse like this once. He was sweet to my daughter and me, but when he was around other horses, he expected them to move out of his space. And if they didn’t, he bit or kicked them.
That’s Santiago. If he gives you an order, he expects you to obey, and if you don’t… Well, let’s just say it’s not going to be pretty.
Once, my horse encountered another who seemed immune to his authority, who didn’t care that my horse thought he was in charge. It really threw the poor guy for a loop. He was confused and wasn’t himself for a while.
Guess what? Roxy Reynolds has that same effect on Santiago. Unlike everyone else around him, she isn’t impressed with his authority and does things her way. She doesn’t jump when he tells her to jump. She gets under his skin like no one else has ever done, which upsets his entire world and sense of self. And then, of course, he falls madly in love with her.
As you can imagine, I had a great time torturing Santiago with Roxy. I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
All my best,
Laurie
Seduced
by Blood
Laurie
London
To Tyler. I’m very proud of you!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I’d like to thank you, the readers of the SWEETBLOOD series. Without your enthusiasm, this would not be possible.
Thanks to my critique partner, my sister Becky, who lovingly and gently tells me when I suck. And my beta readers, Janna, Mandy, Kathy, Shelley and Kandis, whose shrewd and thoughtful assessments have saved me a lot of heartache down the road. I love you guys!
To my wonderful editor, Margo Lipschultz, who seems to “get” me even when I don’t “get” myself. To all the people behind the scenes at Mills & Boon® Nocturne™, thanks for all that you do. And to the talented folks in the art department who make the awesome SWEETBLOOD covers: you rock!
Much thanks to Cherry Adair, Delilah Marvelle, Larissa Ione and Alexis Morgan for your friendship and your words of wisdom. I am so very grateful.
To the Cherryplotters, thanks for your creativity and inspiration.
To my GIAM buddies, my friends at Romance
University, my GWRWA chapter mates and the
Bookinville ladies, thanks for all your support.
And finally, to my husband, Ted, and two children: I love the three of you very much.
Also available from Laurie London
BONDED BY BLOOD
EMBRACED BY BLOOD
“ENCHANTED BY BLOOD”
in A Vampire for Christmas
TEMPTED BY BLOOD
CHAPTER ONE
WHEN ROXANNE REYNOLDS rounded the corner in her rental car, the last thing she expected to see in the headlights was a half-naked man stumbling on the side of the road.
She slammed on her brakes, pulled the car to the shoulder and fumbled to find the emergency flasher switch. Not only was this section of the Sea to Sky highway a terrible place to stop, but it wasn’t exactly somewhere a sane person would be taking a walk, especially after midnight.
With his shirt ripped down the front and one of the sleeves missing, the man held up a hand to shield his face from the glare.
Her first thought was that he’d been involved in a car accident. But when she noticed he wasn’t wearing shoes, she nixed that conclusion. Maybe a wild animal had attacked him. Given how remote this area was—the last town she passed had to be ten miles back—it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine. She wasn’t certain what sorts of predators lived in this part of British Columbia, but surely a bear or a mountain lion would be capable of taking down a full-grown man.
She found the switch and jumped from the car. But when she got her first big whiff of the cool night air, she knew instantly that it wasn’t an animal.
Although some would argue that a vampire was an animal.
The sweet smell of the man’s blood assaulted her senses, making her gums ache as her fangs prepared to drop. Running toward him, she automatically shut down her body’s natural instincts to his very rare and highly addictive blood-type and the sensation dissipated. Given her work as a scent tracker, she’d followed the trail of many sweetbloods, but unlike most vampires, she could control how they affected her without much difficulty.
The guy stumbled and fell to his knees just as she got to him, his legs clearly unable to support his weight any longer. He must have been running on pure adrenaline.
“Are you okay?” she asked, pulling him back to his feet. “What happened to you?” She’d come all the way from Florida to help out a friend, but this seriously wasn’t how she’d expected her stint in the Northwest to begin.
Blood splatters covered what was left of his long-sleeved shirt, scratches crisscrossed his exposed skin—including his scruffy, somewhat pimply face—and an IV line dangled from a piece of tape on his arm. The fact that he was young, barely out of his teenage years, didn’t surprise her. Sweetbloods rarely made it past the age of twenty, thirty at the outside, before a vampire somewhere came across them. The Darkblood Alliance made buckets of money selling vials of Sweet on the vampire black market. With just one taste, even those who had never killed a human before were likely to get carried away. A fact she knew firsthand but wished she didn’t.
“They tried…to kill me,” he choked, leaning heavily on her arm.
She didn’t need to ask who—she had a pretty damn good idea who’d do something like this. “Where were you being held? How far away?”
“I don’t know. It feels like… I’ve been…running forever.” He put his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. “A few kilometers on the other…side of the creek…just past those trees.” Without