Vampire vampire, p.1
Vampire, Vampire, page 1
Vampire, Vampire
by Heather Killough-Walden
Copyright 2012 Heather Killough-Walden
Smashwords Edition
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Heather Killough-Walden Reading List
The Lost Angels series:
Always Angel (eBook-only introductory novella)
Avenger's Angel
Messenger's Angel
Death's Angel
Warrior's Angel (release date TBA)
Samael (release date TBA)
The October Trilogy:
Sam I Am
Secretly Sam
Suddenly Sam (October 1, 2013)
Neverland Trilogy:
Forever Neverland
Beyond Neverland (release date TBA)
Never Neverland (release date TBA)
The Big Bad Wolf series:
The Heat (no longer available separately - purchase in the Big Bad Wolf Romance Compilation)
The Strip (no longer available separately - purchase in the Big Bad Wolf Romance Compilation)
The Spell
The Hunt
The Big Bad Wolf Romance Compilation (all four books together, in proper chronological order)
The Kings - A Big Bad Wolf spinoff series:
The Vampire King
The Phantom King
The Warlock King
(future The Kings books TBA; at least 13 total)
The Chosen Soul Trilogy:
The Chosen Soul
Drake of Tanith
Queen of Abaddon (release date TBA; 2013)
Redeemer (stand-alone)
Hell Bent (stand-alone)
Vampire, Vampire (stand-alone)
A Sinister Game (stand-alone)
The Third Kiss series:
Dorian's Dream (release date TBA)
Aleksei's Dream (release date TBA)
(future The Third Kiss books TBA; open-ended series)
Note: The Lost Angels series (not including Always Angel) is available in print and eBook format. All other HKW books are currently eBook-only.
Vampire, Vampire
By Heather Killough-Walden
Visit Heather’s Facebook pages at:
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VAMPIRE, VAMPIRE
By Heather Killough-Walden
Two scorchingly hot, sweet and savage
stand-alone vampire romance novellas
(Total word count approx. 70,000 words)
Thorn and Grace
By Heather Killough-Walden
In the completely reconstructed Thorn and Grace, an old tale of historical romance is given a very dark make-over. The story of knight meets maiden becomes twisted and shadowed, be-fanged and fallen. A prince turned predator hunts for the one who has betrayed him, in turn becoming a king corrupted by the bitterness within. Will the one he his hunting escape him? And if she doesn't, will she be able to reach the man inside the monster before it's too late?
Relentless: The Patrick Sinclaire Story
By Heather Killough-Walden
In Relentless: The Patrick Sinclaire Story, readers are treated to the re-visioned border-line erotic telling of the tale of a handsome, world-weary vampire sovereign and the woman he would literally do anything to claim as his queen. Intensely arousing, stimulating, and both emotionally and physically provoking - this is not a story for the shy. Seriously, it’s not a love story – it’s a masturbation story. Don’t read it if you’re looking for some deep relationship to develop here. Go read The Notebook instead.
VAMPIRE, VAMPIRE
book one
Thorn and Grace
By Heather Killough-Walden
A word from the author:
A few years back, I decided to write a short fantasy romance. I wanted to see if it was possible to have an actual fantasy novel, replete with swords and sorcery, that was built on a plot almost purely based on romance, sex scene and all. I did it. It averaged about 40,000 words, and I was pretty happy with it. The good guy wasn’t too good, and he was definitely hot. The bad guy was despicable. The heroine was kind but tough. Thorn and Grace sort of kicked butt.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d left something out, that I’d only told half of the story. And every time I read it, my fevered author’s brain pictured the indomitable Christopher Thorn… with fangs.
I realized what was missing. Thorn would be SO much hotter as a vampire! The image of him making that infamous change and becoming the veritable monster consumed me. I saw the reflection of his Empyrean eyes at night, heard the dark magic in his deep voice, and could smell the leather of his black armor as he waited – hungry – in the shadows.
Eventually I couldn’t take it any longer! He had to be a vampire! Thorn was born to be a vampire!
Turning this fantasy romance into the paranormal fantasy romance it was meant to be came with almost supernatural ease (big smile).
It was kismet.
Get accustomed to the edge of your seat, start reading, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
- Heather Killough-Walden
Thorn and Grace
By Heather Killough-Walden
Prologue
She didn’t know he was there. She hadn’t yet made the change, so her senses were muted compared to his. She was alone for once, the prince who was her nearly constant and shadowing companion having been relegated to matters of state this morning.
Rafe smiled a nasty smile, revealing the tips of fangs that he’d been told would soon disappear. It was one of the prices he would pay to get what he wanted.
He’d sacrificed much for this. But looking at the princess now as she sat alone in her little grass field, he was once more convinced that it was worth it. She’d managed to lose her entourage again, no doubt slipping stealthily past a handful of chaperones in order to make her way here without a guard. She was wild like that, carefree.
It was stupid. And he was living proof.
She came here often. This was her favorite field. She stopped here to pick flowers before visiting whatever family she would be assisting for the day. She liked to take them fresh blooms. Rafe was surprised her guard hadn’t yet figured that out. Or maybe they had, and her doting companions allowed her to slip away on purpose. Because it made her happy. And everyone in the twin Kingdoms of Empyrea wanted to make Princess Darianna Grace happy.
Oh, this was too perfect.
Everything was coming together. His plan was already in motion. A month more, give or take a few days, and he would be ready. And she would never be alone again.
*****
One month later….
Christopher ran a smoothing hand over the front of his thick brocade coat and stilled, studying his reflection in the tall mirror before him. Dark hair, thick and wavy, brushed the top of his royal collar. A strong chin, broad shoulders, impressive height and trained stature matched him to his station. Eyes dark as night sparked with a touch of pulsing glow at their pupils, a testament to the desires smoldering within him and to what he knew awaited him in the sacred hours of this very special night.
“You look like a king, my lord.”
Christopher’s powerful gaze shifted in the mirror to fall upon the man who stood in the doorway behind him. He’d sensed him coming, had heard him half-way down the hall. Not much was capable of surprising Christopher.
“Your father would be proud,” the old man said.
“Jonathan,” Christopher greeted him, turning to face the doorway. Jonathan Arrows was the oldest Empyrean in the employ of the Thorn household, having served for nearly a thousand years. He’d been the king’s right-hand man before his death. And now he was his son’s.
“The princess?” Christopher asked, watching Jonathan’s expression with a keen eye.
Jonathan smiled knowingly and made his way into the room. Despite his tremendous age, he moved with surprising agility and grace.
“Outpost guards spotted her carriage and company at the curve of Whisper Creek, my lord,” Jonathan told him. He stopped a few feet away, straightened, and added with a broad grin, “It would appear that she has decided to play by the rules, just this once.”
Christopher turned away from the man’s bright blue, twinkling gaze and looked toward the window. The sun was just setting. This was the most powerful time for Empyreans. It was the cusp between night and day, the line of twilight where magic lay. It was during this time that Princess Darianna Grace most often became… impish.
Which made Christopher nervous.
“I would just as soon have a contingent meet her half-way and escort her the remaining distance,” he said. It was an order, even if it wasn’t phrased as such. Jonathan knew enough to recognize it for what it was.
“Yes my lord,” the old man rep lied. “I dare say that might be a good idea.” He turned to leave, and palace guards met him at the door to the room as he did. He issued orders in soft tones while Christopher moved to the window to get a better look at the lands below.
Somewhere out there was his bride to be. This night had been three hundred years in the making. He’d been nervous about it for months, but he was willing to bet that the reasons for his own anxiety were vastly different from those men normally experienced prior to their weddings.
Christopher Thorn wasn’t afraid of getting married. He was afraid of not getting married.
Darianna Grace was the princess of Lundarien, Thorn’s neighboring kingdom. When they were children, their parents had been at odds, nearly at war, and Christopher and the young, beautiful tomboy Darianna – or Anna to him – would have to sneak out in order to play together.
She always showed up first. He would hear her stones on his windowsill and peek out to see her wave to him from below. She was unstoppable, and it took almost no effort for her to help him out of his fifth-level room and into the labyrinthine grounds below. She was like that; a wild card, a free spirit, fast, smart and nearly impossible to pin down.
As Christopher gazed out the window and watched his men gallop out of the courtyard on fierce, furious mounts, he found himself remembering the way she’d looked as a child – all legs and wild, long golden hair that appeared as if it had never seen the bristles of a brush. Her eyes were the color of ice in the sea, and vivid as an Empyrean sunrise. Her smile was broad and innocent, and because she was a child, it was yet untouched by the hunger that turned Empyrean incisors into fangs.
And then they got older. As they grew, so did the patient acceptance of their respective countries, until at last they were firmly at peace.
Darianna became a stunning young woman with an outer beauty that was matched only by the loveliness of the spirit that resided within. Rarely was she to be found on the castle grounds; Anna did not feel comfortable or at ease unless she was helping some person or animal. There seemed to almost be a spark of fear inside of her, a nagging apprehension of missing some opportunity to make the world a better place, a kind of guilt that if life didn’t get better in this way or that, she was a part of that problem. Whatever it was, it drove her from one task to another, always with a smile, always with a kind word.
For his part, Christopher took on his father’s image: tall, broad and dark haired, with an unnerving and all-seeing dark gray gaze. His skills as a swordsman, master hunter, tracker, and charismatic negotiator earned him a widely spread reputation.
The children became woman and man.
And between them, Christopher was the first to make the real change. It seemed to happen overnight. One day, they were in a field picking the lavender Darianna loved so much, and he was admiring the way the sunlight reflected in her hair… the next day, he was noticing the pulse in the side of her throat.
His teeth were longer. They were sharper. And every time she threw her head back to laugh, they ached. When she ran from him, as she’d done in play since they were children, every nerve in his body screamed to life, every muscle bunched, and his vision changed. The beast within him awoke, rearing its head.
Darianna Grace was every bit as breathtaking to him as she had always been, but Christopher was no longer the little boy that she’d grown to trust and love. There was suddenly a darkness to him that frightened him… for her sake.
It didn’t get any easier. With the physical changes on Christopher’s outside came changing desires on the inside. The women of the realm readily lined up to satisfy this newly dawning need within him, eager for a few moments in the prince’s bed. But though their flesh gave way easily enough beneath the push and prick of his very sharp teeth, their blood only temporarily slaked the hunger that woke him up every morning – and kept him up every night.
It was Anna that filled his thoughts, burned through his veins, and sang a siren song in his monster’s mind. He found himself withdrawing from her company, never quite trusting the man he was becoming around the girl she’d always been. And from afar, he watched her go through her own changes.
One early morning, in the painful hours before dawn, Christopher stood at the side of his father’s death bed and, with straight back and breaking heart, he bid his old man farewell. Then, after changing and shifting issues of state had kept him castle-bound all day despite his internal grief, Christopher retired to his wing of the castle, made his way to the very same windows he gazed through now, and let his rather fevered forehead rest against the cool glass. His father was dead. Christopher Thorn was king now.
A clinking of stone against the smooth plane of window drew his attention. The vast night beckoned beyond the pane, and Christopher’s eyesight readily adjusted. His kind had excellent night vision.
Five stories down, wrapped in a velvet and hooded cloak of varying shades of purple, Darianna Grace gazed up at him and then beckoned with a single whispered word: “Come.”
He read her lips and heard her summons in the core of him. At once, ever fiber of his being answered the call. Christopher’s gaze shifted into red, he turned from the window and sped through the castle like a wind-borne fury. His long black coat billowed about his booted legs as servants scuttled to get out of the lord’s way. Lamps flickered at his passing; a shadowed breeze seemed to accompany him, forcing candle flames to genuflect, almost going out. A hushed whisper went up, an unspoken curiosity. He appeared the devil, with demons chasing his heels, as he stormed his way through the castle’s front doors and made his way impatiently into the night beyond.
Darianna’s scent called to him: lavender and pine needles and chocolate.
A low growl threatened to let loose into the wrapping, warping shadows as Christopher followed her scent through the courtyard and beyond the stables. The horses neighed and grunted, retreating in their individual stalls, nervous about the strange and determined darkness moving rapidly past. An owl took silently to the skies and something bolted in the bushes when they sensed a predator much larger than themselves had entered on the scene.
There, in the field of green between two cherry blossom trees, Darianna lifted the hood of her cloak and moonlight touched her golden tresses. Before he knew it, he was standing before her, grasping her upper arms in a firm grip, his body towering over hers. The momentum still carrying him, his will still burning like an inferno, he hissed desperate words, “Anna, please forgive –”
He’d intended to beg her forgiveness, to ask for her pardon for what he was most surely about to do to her. It couldn’t be helped. He wanted her so badly, so harshly, there was no escaping him now.
But she pressed her fingertip to his lips, and he tasted a hint of her flesh… so sweet, so promising. His fangs throbbed in his closed mouth, his eyes flashing, his body on fire.
“I know,” she said softly, shaking her head. And as she spoke, he saw them peek from behind her own full, beautiful lips. Perfectly white. Perfectly sharp.
Her own fangs.
And suddenly Christopher not only wanted to taste of her – he wanted her to taste of him. He wanted it more than anything. He would have traded his kingdom for it.
But such a sacrifice wasn’t necessary. For every angel in the multiverse cast her blessing upon him when Anna raised her hands to pull her golden hair to the side, exposing her throat to him. “I know,” she repeated, and her sea blue eyes reflected an empathic understanding. She tilted her head, never breaking eye contact. “Go ahead,” she beckoned. “Take it.” She hesitated, then whispered, “Take me.”
Her will brushed his, connecting them for one fateful moment on thin, wispy tendrils of shared longing.
Christopher waited what was in reality perhaps half a second. But to him, it was the space between forever and eternity, stilled in wondrous indecision, disbelief, and in the intense desire to savor and remember this moment for the rest of his life.
