Four brothers. All turned vampires by the same evil Sire. They are the Lords of Blacknall, in this century. Trinity is the second oldest and while starting to investigate the murder of women on London's east side, he suddenly feels a woman in danger. Why can he feel her and why does this one woman's blood set his thirst on fire. Can he save Lady Beth from the monster that hunts her? Can he protect her from his own wicked urges, wanting to devour her?
Lady Beth Winslow never stays home in the evenings. She fears her despicable stepbrother. Then a monster stalks her in the dark woods and she cannot tell beast from savior.
Gothic undertones fill this vampire regency romance novel. If you've read Shirl Anders before you will be surprised. This is a novel length story with much more lengthy romancing.
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Excerpt:
Trinity caught the flashes of
alabaster skin off to the left and in front of where he ran through the
brambles. The woman's screaming had stopped many minutes ago, and he had to
guess the foul beast hunting her had nearly run her to ground.
He veered his headlong sprint
towards the glimpses of pale flesh he kept catching sight of through thickly-grouped
trees surrounded by scattered bushes. His timing to reach the young woman
before the vile monster leapt to kill her was too close to think he'd make it.
The threatening roar he released was of a maddened vampire reverberating
through the night air. The abhorrence would recognize his thundering challenge.
He heard the woman cry out … in
pain this time. Instantly he smelled blood, as he bellowed, "No!"
Then his large body crashed through a small opening in the foliage.
He realized too late he was
moving much too fast to halt his forward motion, when suddenly the woman was
there … as if pushed forward toward his unchecked momentum. He only had seconds
to react and he grasped her against his body. Her long black hair whipped
around them as he turned to take the brunt of an inevitable fall. He landed on
his back with the woman piled on top of him. Then he heard the triumphant howl
of escape from the foul beast fading into the distance.
Trinity held tight to the
voluptuous young woman as he arched his back and shouted his anger at losing
his chance to kill the abhorrence. "I will
find you!" he bellowed.
He became aware of the woman
screaming as she thrashed on top of him. More powerful than her ineffectual
attempts at breaking his hold, while she screamed shrilly into his ear, were
the scents of her fresh blood, choking him. It was a quality of blood scent he'd
never inhaled before.
His savage and barely-controlled
inner hunter snarled to life. Fangs punched past his lips as twin weapons,
gluttonous for the smell of pure virgin’s blood pumping from cuts on the woman's
struggling body. Ravenous hunger clogged his throat as he'd not felt since he
was a young and uncontrolled vampire. Then, before he had any hope of exerting
his willpower over the sudden monstrous cravings, his body turned, flipping the
woman onto her back. He landed, pouncing over her. His fangs ready to strike,
while the veins in his body throbbed for the blood he could smell.
Why was her blood so fucking potent?
The animalistic snarl that lunged
from his throat clashed with the woman's frightened sobs, and her wide eyes
gazed up at him with horror polished in their depths. Her small hands pounded
against his upper chest as her bare hips and legs thrashed, trying to push his
body off. His hard erection beneath his britches pounded for her submission,
ordering his hips forward to press the rigid length down into her soft center,
crushing her lower body's struggle to a halt.
The woman whimpered in fear. Then
she cried, "Oh no! No!"
The strangled animalistic sound
he made choked the woman's cried words into panting silence, as if she believed
halting any motion would make the vicious animal set to strike her miss.
Beth couldn't stand the predator's
gaze of yellow eyes with red glints slashed in the centers. She whimpered with
sheer terror, jerking her gaze to the side, clenching her eyelids. She'd seen
the long white fangs and she'd heard the animalistic snarls that came from the
beast surely set to kill her. First, a monster hunted her and now another
apparition held her captive. Yet the powerful menace against her felt like a
man with hands, arms, legs, and a heavy chest. She felt men's trousers along
her bare legs, and she felt a jacket fallen open over her breasts. Was it a
man?
Why didn't it strike? her mind wailed, as her breath heaved. Was
this the beast that chased her? She thought not. But her questions and abject
terror paled in comparison when she felt a hardened length pressing into her
core … and what that foretold, nearly caused her to fall into hysteria.
"Don't move!" The
commanding voice was a tense baritone with the aftereffects of a growl.
The appearance of human words so
surprised her panicked state, she jerked her gaze toward the sound as her body
quaked in reaction. Had someone come to save her?
"Don't," the beast above her commanded, "Move."
To hear the semblance of a human's
voice in the world gone so mad made her hopes flare unrealistically. Yet they
did all the same. She wanted to live.
"Trinity!" a man's
voice shouted from the forest surrounding them.
The beast's head jerked upward to
look over her head and away from stalking her with its blazing and vulturous,
yellow eyes.
"Stop, brother! Don't bite
her, Trinity!" the voice rang out from the distance.
Beth felt the air she held
suspended leave her lungs as her hands flattened on the chest above her. Bite her? She cringed.
"Virgin's blood," the beast-man above her snarled viciously.
"So potent you can smell it. Never
felt this hunger before!" His voice growled, making her whimper and squirm
against him with the intense need to run.
"Trinity! Brother!"
"I will fight it, Church," her beast-man vowed, half snarled,
half shouted as his chest heaved into her chest. "Move away!" he
yelled.
"For our mother!" the
voice, called Church, returned.
Beth didn't understand anything
that had happened that night. How could she end up nearly naked beneath a
primal man-beast? So many things were beyond the comprehension of her innocent
life. However, she did understand — or perhaps she wanted it so badly to be true
— that the man called Trinity, imprisoning her, was trying to fight the urge to
strike her. He couldn't be the one that had chased her through the night forest
because that presence held a livid and evil malevolence toward her.
"I will rise upward and give
you my jacket," the creature called Trinity said. His voice held strange
inflections through the large fangs extending from his mouth. It also seemed he
promised the action as though to convince himself.
Beth tensed more, trying to slow
her panting breath, halfway certain he wouldn't win the battle as he began to
rise upward. Then, with his arms locked on either side of her, he stopped
moving, but his other worldly eyes didn't stop traveling. He looked over her
face, and then he looked downward toward her bare chest. She gasped a squeal of
embarrassment chasing her fear, as caution be damned, she jerked her arms
between them to cover her breasts.
"You are very
beautiful," his tense voice emitted lowly. His hand rose and she would
have flinched away, but his gaze held her immobile. His fingers touched her
cheek and they felt cold as he curled them and he stroked over the curve of her
cheek with the back of his knuckles.
"Please," she begged
for her life, and the red glints in his eyes seemed to dull within the yellow. His
hand lifted to her temple and he did the most extraordinary thing. He wrote a
cross upon her temple with his fingers.
"For my mother," he
growled lowly.
Beth could feel the incredible
tautness in his body above her. He nearly quivered with tenseness, and then he
continued to rise off her lower body, until the cold night air flashed across
her nakedness.
When can we expect another book in this series?
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ReplyDeleteI have just finished the Trinity books, loved them. Would be great if it was a series with books on the other brothers.So many questions I would love to have answered.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I loved this story and wish it would have sold better so I could continue it. I mean vampires and regency! Who doesn't love that lol
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