Samhain Publishing

Love bites when a seventeen-year-old vampire and witch tangle.

The Witch –

Plain and average Marissa Lakeland doesn’t believe in fate—or vampires. When she and her girlfriend chase after a gorgeous hunk of a guy one dark, misty night to prove he’s truly a vampire, she’s forced to face her worst nightmares—in the flesh. Rather, in the not-quite mortal flesh. So why does the thought of tall, dark, and vampiric appeal to her, when there’s no way a vampire can compel a witch to do his bidding? At least that’s what she’s read in vampiric lore. But lore can be mistaken. Utterly mistaken.

The Prince of Darkness –

As soon as he sees Marissa, fledgling vampire, Dominic Vorchowski, knows that she’s the only one who can save him. Only why does she have to be a witch? Humans are easy to compel, but a witch? Fate has thrown him together with the clever, bewitching teen and if he can gain her trust, he’ll have his life back again. Except for that whole eternal thirst for blood thing. And the fangs. Not to mention the aversion to intense sunlight. In any event, he’ll have his life back as normal as it can be. This time, he’ll not mess with girls he knows nothing about. Especially when he’s set his sights on one tantalizing teen witch, who’s totally off the menu.

The Threat –

Lynetta wants Dominic to replace the lover she lost three hundred years ago, and no witch is going to take her guy away from her. Ancient vampires tend to get really cranky when they don’t get their way. Really cranky. Like three-hundred-years-in-the-making cranky. She’s not just after Dominic’s blood, she wants every bit of the hunk. Time is running out while Dominic and Marissa try to find a way to thwart the vampiress and her blood bonds from winning the battle of the night.
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How did THE VAMPIRE…IN MY DREAMS come about? I read the beginning excerpt about two women who broke into a guy’s home to learn if he was truly a vampire.

And that was it. My own story was born. Except it’s about two seventeen-year old witches who want to discover if the guy hanging around the teen burger joint is really a vampire for the fame and fortune it will bring them. Marissa doesn’t think she’s pretty enough, or talented enough to interest the guy of her dreams. Maybe becoming famous will do it! Dominic has no intention of being put on display by some witch and warlock tribunal. And he has every intention of soliciting Marissa to save his life from the three-hundred year old vamp who wants him to replace her lover. Which, if Marissa was strictly human, Dominic could easily use his vampiric charms and persuade her to help him. As a witch, she can’t be charmed in that manner.

That’s what I like to do. Create a female character that is empowered also, while she has doubts and insecurities, which make her human. And a hero who is her greatest fan, who encourages her and needs her more than anyone else in the world.

I’ve loved vampire stories since I was a kid, but back then they were strictly adult, no happily ever afters for the vampires. Even so, I still loved Dracula. My next vampire book to be released in November in digital form first, is DEADLY LIAISONS—strictly adult.

So what do you think of vampires having happily ever afters?

Excerpt: MARISSA

“Watch well, witch,” the woman called back to me as she squeezed Dominic’s throat. Dressed in a black spandex shirt, matching jeans and a pair of high-heeled, thigh-high boots, she looked like a regular teen, except for the darkness in her voice and the demonic glower in her expression.
My heart lodged in my throat while my blood turned to ice, but I wouldn’t run and hide.
“See what I will do to you next!” She turned her attention to Dominic. “Do you think a scrawny thing like her can kill me? Do you? She’s trembling in her sneakers as we speak. Well, as I speak.”
I froze to the concrete sidewalk, unsure what to do next to save Dominic from the vampire. I wanted to pound her into the ground, but the way she held Dominic tightly in her grasp, I knew I couldn’t physically best her. I suspected none of my spells would work against an ancient vampire, and though the woman looked only to be my age, seventeen, she seemed older than time in her actions and speech.
She leaned over and licked Dominic’s cheek, and his expression turned from concern for me to hatred for her.

None of Dominic’s own words had emotionally stirred me to save him like the unbridled actions of the woman at his throat. Lynetta bared her wickedly sharp pointed canines and hissed. My heart nearly stopped when I saw the vampiric teeth. Any doubt I had about the existence of vampires instantly vanished.

Anybody like romantic suspenses with a bite? The Vampire…In My Dreams, the young adult vampire romantic suspense will be coming out August 26 in print and Deadly Liaisons in November, a sexy adult vampire romantic suspense.

Deadly Liaisons—
Dark huntress and rare telepath, Tezra Campbell treads a thin line between being a skilled criminal investigator for the Hunter Council and a renegade. She has an obsessive compulsion to find the vampire who murdered her parents, resulting in severe trauma to her younger sister who’d witnessed the crime a decade earlier.

Prince of the American vampire clans, Daemon, sees Tezra as a danger to herself and to his people if the serial killer vampire terminates her next. He’s also concerned his own brother might be accused of the crime, takes her into custody, and intends to find the killer himself.

Only things don’t work out the way either planned, yet both aim to win the deadly game.

Excerpt from Deadly Liaisons:
“Another killing, Atreides?” Daemon turned away from his twin brother and again studied the SCU investigator, Tezra Campbell. He’d gained her name from the police officers’ discussion of her when she was far enough away not to hear their crude comments. Not a few of them wondered what it would be like to peel the leather from her skin and expose the beauty beneath the armor, to roll with her under the sheets, to find out if she was as hot in bed as she looked crouching at a crime scene.
The petite brunette tucked her hip-length hair behind her ear, the leather pants molding to her curvaceous legs, and the short-waisted jacket showing off one hell of a sumptuous ass. The black turtleneck wrapped around her throat like protective armor. Though Daemon found himself wanting to pull it aside and feel the blood pulsing rapidly through her neck, to taste her tender skin, lap up her warm, sweet blood, and to feel her tremble beneath his fingertips, drawn to his power.
He clenched his teeth, trying to ignore the feelings she stirred in him. Lust, nothing else, he chided himself. Yet, there was something about the woman that drew him in, more than her enticing form, or resolute determination to take on a case that would earn her the death penalty from the vampire who had killed the police officers. Even more than the way she tried to ensure the hunter’s safety should the rogue vampire target him next.
Daemon could have sworn she touched his mind, though normally humans couldn’t do such a thing. Yet, the gentle stroke he had felt hadn’t come from a vampiress seeking intimacy. If it had, she would have pursued him, attempting to solicit his response. The touch he had felt had been different, like the mist brushing his skin, softly, almost imperceptibly, there, but not. No quest for sexual fulfillment, no personal communications meant solely for him. Something secretive, elusive, and intimately seductive.

If you’re looking for some stories with bite, come check out The Vampire…In My Dreams and Deadly Liaisons, coming soon!

When I’m writing a story, I always come up with four things, and only four things, because I can’t plot for the life of me. For me, outlining is an impossibility, so I write strictly from the seat of the pants.

In the beginning, I think of a hero and heroine and what it is they have to have—their goal in the story—their unbending quest. What motivates them to want to reach this goal—their deep secrets that make this so important to them they have to keep trying or die (not literally, but you know what I mean). What time constraint are they under that makes them have to get to this goal now, not twenty years from now—the ticking time bomb? And finally, how the hero and heroine meet in some unique and intriguing way that hooks the reader.

And that’s it. The characters develop as the story progresses, the goals may change as situations evolve, the characters must grow, and they must reach the goal by story end. It might not be the one they started out with…but they accomplish something important enough to satisfy the reader.

In The Vampire…In My Dreams I started out with an idea…girl who is witch, but not a very capable witch, is pushed by her girlfriend to find out if a guy hanging around the burger shop is a vampire. Now the girlfriend is everything that Marissa isn’t, beautiful, athetically inclined, and really good at her potions and witches spells. So we have an underdog type character and at first a reluctant heroine. The hero is the opposite, totally confident—arrogantly so, yet he targets Marissa to help him in his quest. Her goal to start out with was to determine if he was a vampire. But his goal is to solicit her help in stopping the vampiric process from claiming him forever and it has to be done by week’s end. Now, her motivation for trying to determine if he’s a vampire? Fame and fortune will be hers. Her motivation to help Dominic in his quest?

Terry Lee Wilde
Come join Marissa and Dominic and find out!

http://www.terrywildeteenbooks.com

Excerpt from The Vampire…In My Dreams:

Kissing Dominic had been the most profound experience I’d ever had. Every fiber of my being had been on high alert, anxious about his taking my blood. But when he bit me, it was nothing more than a pricking sensation, and then oh so sweet. For once in my life, I, Marissa, ordinary witch who’d never caught a guy’s eye, was loved. Yeah, by a vampire.

But what a vampire…Prince of Darkness, rather. Hmmm, what if I told Kate I had found my very own prince?
Dominic smiled.

I forgot he could read my thoughts, and immediately my face heated with embarrassment. “I guess if you’ve fed enough, it’s really time for me to get to bed. I’ve got to go to school early.”

“Show me the way, princess of my dreams.”

Feeling extremely tired, I led him up the stairs that seemed to grow longer with every step. A charmer, that’s what he was. I loved how he seemed to cherish me. But had he been like that before the vampire got hold of him?

“I’ve always liked girls, if that’s what you mean. You know, the kind of guy who preferred talking to girls over fighting a guy at recess like so many of the clowns did.”

“Ahhhh. Been a lot of girls, have there?”

He chuckled behind me.

After leading him down the hallway, I opened the door to the guest bedroom.

“One too many girls,” he finally said. “The last nearly did me in. Guess I should have stuck to proving how macho I could be fighting the guys.”

He joked as if it didn’t bother him, but I could tell from the wrinkle of his brow and soulful eyes, he hung on to a thread of a life he so longed to have back.

“You will return to the way you were, right after we’re through with her, right?”

“One of the other vamps hinted I’d be much better off. I assumed I’d get my regular life back.”

Pain squeezed my heart like a symbiotic reaction. I leaned over and kissed his cheek, wondering how he had won me over in an instant. Lynetta. I could still envision her soulless eyes narrowed at me and her teeth bared. Even now, chill bumps trailed down my arms, and I shuddered. I knew I had to save him.

The Witch –

Plain and average Marissa Lakeland doesn’t believe in fate—or vampires. When she and her girlfriend chase after a gorgeous hunk of a guy one dark, misty night to prove he’s truly a vampire, she’s forced to face her worst nightmares—in the flesh. Rather, in the not-quite mortal flesh. So why does the thought of tall, dark, and vampiric appeal to her, when there’s no way a vampire can compel a witch to do his bidding? At least that’s what she’s read in vampiric lore. But lore can be mistaken. Utterly mistaken.

The Prince of Darkness –

As soon as he sees Marissa, Dominic Vorchowski knows that she’s the only one who can save him. Only why does she have to be a witch? Humans are easy to compel, but a witch? Fate has thrown him together with the clever, bewitching teen and if he can gain her trust, he’ll have his life back again. Except for that whole eternal thirst for blood thing. And the fangs. Not to mention the aversion to intense sunlight. In any event, he’ll have his life back as normal as it can be. This time, he’ll not mess with girls he knows nothing about. Especially when he’s set his sights on one tantalizing teen witch, who’s totally off the menu.

The Threat –

Lynetta wants Dominic to replace the lover she lost three hundred years ago, and no witch is going to take her guy away from her. Ancient vampires tend to get really cranky when they don’t get their way. Really cranky. Like three-hundred-years-in-the-making

cranky. She’s not just after Dominic’s blood, she wants every bit of the hunk. Time is running out while Dominic and Marissa try to find a way to thwart the vampiress and her blood bonds from winning the battle of the night.