Hunger, the latest
book in Felicity Heaton’s vampire romance series, Vampires Realm, is now
available in ebook and paperback. To celebrate the release, she’s holding a
FANTASTIC GIVEAWAY at her website.
Here’s more
about Hunger, including an excerpt from this action-packed hot vampire romance
novel.
Hunger (Vampires Realm Romance Series Book
8)
Felicity Heaton
Betrayed by one of her own and turned into a vampire, hunter Eve is consumed by
her hunger for vengeance and has spent five years surviving hell, driven to
take the life of the man she once loved. But just as she is about to close in
on the hunter-turned-vampire, an event is set in motion that threatens to see
him slip beyond her grasp forever—the leader of her bloodline has sent an
escort to bring her to the family’s mansion. To a nest of the very creatures
she once hunted and loathes.
A vampire assassin hardened by centuries of
service, Tor is a man of discipline and loyalty, never straying from his
mission or the rules set out for him, and has purged all his weaknesses,
including his emotions.
But the moment he meets the broken, fiery
female he is to escort to Oslo, something dangerous awakens in him, something
possessive and powerful, and when he is pulled into a deadly game of cat and
mouse with the man who betrayed her, Tor discovers he will do anything to
protect the woman slowly claiming his heart and give her the vengeance she
desires—even break all the rules.
Can Eve embrace her new vampire nature in
order to have her revenge and find a reason to live again in Tor? Can Tor and
Eve stop the man who betrayed her and the deaths of thousands of innocents? Or
will he succeed in creating a new army of hybrid vampires who will rise up
against the purebloods?
Hunger – Excerpt
Eve cast him a pained look and turned her
back on him. She wrapped her arms around herself again and shook her head. She
looked smaller like that. More vulnerable.
It was strange for him, but Tor found
himself drawn to stepping closer to her and gently asking, “Don’t you want to
see your sister?”
“I do,” she said and sighed. “I do want to
see her… but I don’t know how she’ll react to seeing me again. She thought I
was dead. It’s been five years, Tor.”
The sound of his name rolling softly off
her tongue shocked him almost as much as the news that she had turned five
years ago and hadn’t seen her sister in that time. He hadn’t known, but now
that he did, he understood her reluctance to jump on a plane and meet her
sister again.
It wasn’t the only reason behind her
reluctance though.
He could see the cold hunger in her again
as she turned to face him and her dark eyes locked with his. She hid it well,
but it was there, layered with purpose and determination, and a drive that
seemed familiar to him.
On top of that burning need that drove her
ever onwards was one that held her back.
The need to avoid accepting what she had
become at all costs. At the Vehemens mansion, she wouldn’t be able to hide from
it any longer. The hunter would have to face the truth. She had become a
vampire. She had become the very creature she once hunted and loathed.
Movement out of the corner of his eye drew
his attention to the front of the hangar. The stewardess and co-pilot placed
their long dark coats over their heads to shield them from the downpour and
rushed across the small strip of tarmac to the plane.
The jet’s staff made it on board.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
Not the distance.
Not thunder.
His senses focused and everything slowed to
a crawl.
A violent growl filled the silence,
beginning in the belly of the jet, and grew in volume to a deadly roar.
Brilliant blinding light drove the darkness back, orange and white flares
stinging his eyes.
Tor reacted on instinct to the split-second
warning, turning away from the coming blast.
Eve stood immobile, her eyes widening in
horror as the eruption tore the Cessna apart, the inferno illuminating her face
and warming her pale skin.
Tor lunged for her as the heat of the blast
rolled over him and pulled her into his arms, pinning her close to his body and
taking the brunt of the explosion on his back. Shards of metal sliced into his
skin and flames licked at him, only his damp sweatshirt stopping them from
burning him. He lifted Eve in his arms and bolted into the dark hangar, not
slowing until he was close to the other end, shrouded in the shadows.
He set her down behind a stack of crates to
conceal her, dropped their bags, and began checking her over, working
methodically from her head downwards. His back stung, every laceration burning,
but he ignored his own pain, shutting it out as he focused on Eve.
“What happened?” she whispered, her eyes
glazed as she stared ahead into the darkness behind him. “What happened?”
She asked that question ten times over
before he had even reached her wrists in his visual check of her.
A shudder went through her and she shook
her head. She trembled beneath his fingers, her bare skin clammy and freezing
to the touch. Shock, and it was hitting her hard.
“We could’ve been killed… we could’ve been
killed… and I never would have had my revenge.”
Tor’s head snapped up and he stared into
her wide dark eyes as she looked beyond him. Suddenly, the emotions he felt in
her and that showed in her eyes made sense and he knew why they felt familiar.
He understood how powerful a need for
vengeance could be. He knew how it could drive a person to great lengths, make
them do things they would have found objectionable in the past, and make them
live with something that would have normally torn them apart.
Eve wanted to bathe her hands in cold blood
and annihilate someone. Who?
Tor took hold of her shoulders and shook
her, trying to get her to shift her focus to him and come out of her trance.
“Who do you want revenge on, Eve? Could
they have done this?” It had to have something to do with her. None of his
enemies knew that he was here. The attack at the club had to be about her too.
Someone wanted her dead. The same someone she wanted dead. “Could they have
done this, Eve?”
She jerked her head up, her eyes shooting
to meet his, and stared blankly at him for long seconds, shaking beneath his
grasp.
She swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Yes, they could have?” He needed to be
sure.
She nodded. “I think… they sent the
vampires who attacked me at One too. They want me dead.” A mirthless bark of
laughter escaped her soft lips. “Feeling’s mutual. Got to make them pay.”
She began rocking and he held her tighter,
tried to keep her focus on him so she didn’t slip back into shock. He looked
past her, to the burning wreckage of the plane. Someone really wanted her dead.
Tor cursed.
“Why do you want them to pay?” he whispered
and smoothed her tangled hair from her face, accidentally smudging soot across
her cheek. “Tell me, Eve.”
Her eyes met his again and a flicker of red
ringed her irises. “He betrayed me.”
Cold stole through Tor’s veins in response
to the anguish in her eyes and the hurt in her voice. He clenched his teeth and
suppressed his desire to growl.
He knew a little about betrayal.
Tor slung their two bags over his shoulder
and lifted her back into his arms, settling one around her back and one under
her knees. She sank against him, her head on his shoulder. The feel of her
weakly clutching his black sweatshirt, tugging it into her fist, only served to
darken his mood.
He hoofed it out of the back entrance of
the hangar, pausing only long enough to scan his surroundings and ensure no one
was watching them. Rain lashed down on him, soaking him in an instant, and Eve
began chanting things about betrayal, revenge and the explosion, muddled things
that warned she was slipping away from him again.
He held her closer to him, trying to shield
her from the worst of the weather as he sprinted across the quiet airport,
heading back towards the city. He slowed when he reached the perimeter fence
and Eve trembled against him.
Tor looked down at her and something in the
region of his heart melted a little at the sight of her soaked to the skin and
clutching at him, muttering incoherent things to herself.
He needed to keep her focused and he only
knew one way to do that, and it went against his nature.
He needed to talk to her and let her know
that he was here, with her, and knew intimately what she was going through.
Tor swept his gaze over his surroundings,
got his bearings, and began walking towards an area of Paris he had stayed in
before and knew to be safe.
He drew in a deep breath, his lungs burning
at the sudden invasion of oxygen after so long without him using them. He had
long ago given up the pretence of breathing, but he needed air now, so he could
do something else he hadn’t done in a very long time.
He exhaled hard to give himself the
strength to go against his nature and do what was necessary to keep the
beautiful woman in his arms with him.
“I know a little about betrayal.” The words
came out quiet, a soft admission that part of him hoped she didn’t hear.
No luck there.
She lifted her head, that dark gaze landing
on his face and not moving from it. It burned into him, making him intensely
aware of her and every spot where she pressed against him and where his hands
clutched her. He wasn’t sure when he had begun holding her so tightly, so close
to him, his fingers pressing into her ribs near to her breast and into her soft
supple thigh.
He cleared his throat, derailed his
dangerous train of thought, and focused on their destination.
“I was betrayed by a fellow vampire once.
He left me to die at the hands of a hunter.” Tor almost smiled when Eve tensed
in his arms, a glimmer of fear going through her. “I almost lost my arm and
came close to losing my head.”
“What happened to him?” she whispered.
“The hunter?” He frowned down at her and
she shook her head, the edge to her eyes saying she knew what had happened to
the man who had been foolish enough to try to kill him. She wanted to know what
he had done to the one who had betrayed him. “I hunted him down, and I did what
he failed to do to me. I took his life. I killed him with my bare hands.
Justice was served.”
“Justice.” She drew the word out and her
expression softened, her dark eyes brightening, as if she liked the sound of
that.
He liked it too. He liked the thought of
dishing out justice to the man who had betrayed her trust and the vampire who
had done this to her, shaking her world, turning her into something she
despised, even though it wasn’t his place.
The thought was sweet though and too
tempting to ignore. Things that had bothered him about her fell into place like
puzzle pieces and spelled out the reason behind many of the emotions he had
felt in her and her behaviour.
She had agreed to come with him because she
had seen him kill, had seen what kind of man he was, and had viewed him as an
opportunity to seek out the vengeance she needed.
Under normal circumstances, he would have
disappointed her and told her that his mission came first, but as he stared
down at her, he began running through everything that had happened tonight and
everything he knew about her, and normal went out of the window.
He couldn’t take her back to Oslo when she
had vampires on her trail. A small voice, a tiny sliver of his heart that
wasn’t dead to the world and all feeling, whispered that his concern about the
safety of his bloodline wasn’t the real reason he was going to do something he
had never done in three centuries of life as a hunter—bend the rules.
Tor told himself he wasn’t bending the
rules. He was simply taking a different meaning from his mission parameters. He
had been charged with her safety and Lincoln had warned she might need
protecting from herself.
If he could help her mete out her own brand
of justice, it might help her come to terms with what she was now and might
help her say goodbye to what she had been in her human life.
He might be able to convince her that life
as a vampire was worth living, that her new life could be something good and
there was reason for her to go on.
The ferocity with which he wanted that
astounded him.
Something about the determined yet delicate
woman in his arms had him going against everything, every rule and every
instinct.
Her dark eyes locked with his, focused and
sharp, making his heart kick in his chest.
He looked away and ignored the strange
feeling and reaction, shutting it down. She was beautiful, but she was a
mission. Nothing more. She could never be more and he was a fool if he thought
she could be. He wasn’t going to delude himself. This reaction was purely
physical, a need born of a solitary life, and one he refused to act on with
her. He would deal with it later. Right now, his mission was top priority.
She wanted revenge and he was just a tool
she would use to achieve it. He would be that for her and nothing more. The
moment she was safe from her betrayer, he was handing her over to her family
and that would be that. She would become their Chosen Daughter. He would move
on to the next mission and bed the first woman he came across.
“What happens now?” she whispered softly,
her voice curling around him, stroking his ears and threatening to undo the
work he had done to harden his heart.
Tor refused to look at her.
His eyes betrayed him and fell back to her
face, taking in the luscious curves of her lips and the soft sweeping line of
her jaw. He dragged his gaze away and locked it on the distance, determined not
to let her bewitch him anymore.
She was a mission.
He had a feeling this was going to be the
hardest mission in his long life.
It was going to push him to his limit and
might just be the death of him.
“Tor?” she said in a low, cautious voice,
and he pretended not to notice the way the cold abyss in his chest warmed
whenever she spoke his name, unsettling him and tipping him off balance. “What
happens now?”
Tor narrowed his eyes on the distance and
set his jaw, dark thoughts of what was to come swirling through his mind and
destroying all of his soft feelings as it painted a delicious picture, a
tempting and satisfying portrayal of death.
“You get your revenge.”
Hunger can be
read out of order with the rest of the series and is available from Amazon
Kindle, Kobo Books, Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple iBooks stores and other
retailers. Also available in paperback.
Books in the Vampires Realm paranormal romance series:
About Felicity
Heaton:
Felicity Heaton
is a USA Today and international
best-selling author writing passionate paranormal romance books. In her books
she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense
emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly
vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot
demons!
If you're a fan
of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena
Showalter and Christine Feehan then you will enjoy her books too.
If you love your
angels a little dark and wicked, the best-selling Her Angel series is for you.
If you like strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm
series or any of her stand-alone vampire romance books. If you’re looking for
vampire romances that are sinful, passionate and erotic then try the
best-selling Vampire Erotic Theatre series. Or if you prefer huge detailed
worlds filled with hot-blooded alpha males in every species, from elves to demons
to dragons to shifters and angels, then take a look at the new Eternal Mates
series.
If you want to know more about Felicity,
or want to get in touch, you can find her at the following places:
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