Chapter One of Dracula's Desires

 What in hell was a Fallen Angel doing in Geneva, Switzerland?

That caustic brimstone stench could warn a city of half-dead humans with nose colds busily shoveling manure, let alone a solitary vampire minding her own business. Valerie Tate set aside her ancient manuscript about vampires and looked out her cheap hotel room’s filthy window to take stock of the newcomer.

Aching from yesterday’s long drive from Amsterdam to Geneva, she put her hands on the small of her back and stretched, counterbalancing the weight of her six-months’-pregnant stomach.

She wasn’t interested in being a mother, but her curiosity demanded that she see what happened. Right now, an emissary from Lucifer was happening.

The Fallen appeared as a handsome young man. His sleek swimmer’s build combined with pale skin, and cornflower blue eyes gave him an innocent, wistful air. If he’d been human, she would have contemplated the taste of his blood. Unfortunately, his aura was a sickeningly depressing shade of beige. He had no passion, no flavor. He was a follower.

Valerie preferred fiery men. A man like Lance Soliel, whose aura crackled with ardor, whose hot mouth and hotter intellect had captured her dead and frozen heart.

Her eyes stung with tears. Lance’s angelic blood and her subsequent pregnancy had weakened her. Not physically—she was still as strong as ever. In fact, Lance’s painful gifts had increased her powers. But it had humanized her as well. Now she wept. Wept! A six-hundred-year-old vampire crying at the slightest provocation? She had executed her own wife without a single moan. Now, she whined like a hungry puppy when she remembered how Lance left her behind. That was nothing compared to her past.

 She drew back her arm to punch the thin wall by the window, sick of her fragility. As her fist arrowed to shatter the cut-rate plaster, she regained her self-control. Her knuckles lightly tapped the faded gray of the wall.

Stop it. Six months of her pathetically weak will letting her think of what she no longer had. That was then. This was now.

Lance wasn’t worth any more of her time. There was a Fallen Angel to watch. She had to stay focused.

In addition to his dull aura, his overly neat, shiny Italian suit and highly fashionable skinny tie betrayed his vanity. The high-end narrow jacket emphasized his sensual build. Honesty forced her to admit that the Angelic Host didn’t exactly have what could be called fashion sense. All that gleaming white could get old for the flamboyant sort.

His lack of originality told Valerie that this was not one of the Fallen who had chosen to ride the Wheel to redemption. He had remained loyal to Lucifer. In short, Lucifer’s cannon fodder. His slow ramble toward her dilapidated room did not reveal any danger. He might be insipid, but he also might be good for a laugh.

The dusty gravel cracked and rolled under his feet. His suit rubbed against itself, the expensive fabric shushing in a pleasing fashion. He was making sure she knew he was there. If he’d been coming to kill her, he would have materialized in her room and destroyed her as she lay resting.

As the Fallen neared her door, his innately chaotic nature tugged at her already-sensitive nipples. Paranormal beings had been created to keep the Fallen company. Perhaps this one came to provide solace for her heartbroken state, one lost creature to another. She wouldn’t love him, but at least they would understand each other.

Besides, she had heard the best way to get over someone was to get under someone else. She doubted it, though. Since the 1400s, Valerie had bared herself to only two lovers: her wife, Ilona, and then Lance. Each of them had destroyed her, freezing her emotions with devastating regret and fear.

Sadly, she set aside any thoughts of a distracting seduction.

As he neared her door, he reached inside his suit jacket. Like a magician pulling a chainsaw from a top hat, the former angel drew a pistol the size of Valerie’s forearm.

Valerie raised an eyebrow. Or he could be the universe’s stupidest assassin.

She assessed her situation.

     Him: Older, meaner, with the advantage of calling high-powered backup.

     Her: Pregnant, tired, hungry, pissed-off, and trapped in a small enclosed space.

     The odds were bad.

     Just the way she liked it.

    

     “You do love me!” the fetus crowed, making its voice known for the first time. Obviously, angel blood bred true. What other being would worry if its mother loved it?

“Shut it, kid. I’ve got a moron to take care of.”

Valerie could attack the would-be killer, disarm him, hurt him in ways not even Lucifer could imagine. She could dig her hungry fangs into his neck and feed on his immortal blood. Her claws could rip his brain out of his skull. He was stupid, slow, and careless. Even as ungainly as she was now, she would completely dominate him in hand to hand, until his limbs were scattered from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.

“Stop wasting time,” the growth inside growled. “Kill him and get us out of here.”

Valerie spared an approving thought toward her uterus. Perhaps this child was a Dracul as well as an angel.

Reaching into the back waistband of her pants, she drew her much more practical firearm.

Her spine tall with family pride, Valerie Tate shot the world’s dimmest Fallen Angel right in the head.

 To buy:

Dracula's Secret, Blood Wings #1
Dracula's Desires, Blood Wings #2
Dracula Unleashed, Blood Wings #3, to be released March 21, 2013