Excerpt from MIDNIGHT PROMISE

Through the misty night, I inhaled the bitter scent of olive leaves. Diego. Must have been Spain in him that made him smell like olive branches and tinged his paleness with a Mediterranean flush. Even the ageless pallor could not dilute the taste of ocean breezes on his skin, nor the reach of a flamenco beat in his azure eyes.

The scent led East, to the older part of town with little wooden houses. I roamed like a sleepwalker, driven by power outside myself. I ignored the willies in my chest, which fought to take over. I would not submit. I would not.

While I walked, I remembered his face; how much more beautiful he turned out to be the first time I beheld him with vampire eyes. Dark, shoulder length hair edged his hawk-shaped face. Ice-blue eyes zeroed in on me like on doomed prey, and I wanted to fly into his arms. Even now, that stare affected me, and this time, I could fly. I merely picked up the pace. No need to be obvious. A woman was supposed to play hard to get. Except, I was a vampire, and Diego had let me go for ninety-seven years.

I didn’t have to pretend I was hard to get. Diego said I belonged to him. I laughed him off. I belonged to no man. No man could control me, have my foolish heart in his grasp, especially now that I owned eternity. I could have anyone. I did. This was how we played the game in our minds all these years. Meeting Diego now wouldn’t change a thing.

I followed the scent to a yard protected by a tall rusty gate and hedges. With one leap, I flew over it. A dog barked a few streets away. Across the yard stood a barn, unusually large compared to the house. The gaping hay loft door framed a silent blackness against the steady drizzle.

To fly, I only needed to see myself in the air. Actually, it felt like taking a deep breath that pulled in the sky. I stepped just inside the loft’s opening, listening to the staccato of rain on the old barn roof. Olive tones hung suspended over the musty hay like a haunting afterthought. I crunched straw under my feet, eager for the smallest sound to dispel the hypnotic constancy of raindrops and that other beat that was louder than my will. I could not see Diego, but I could hear his heartbeat. My own raised its tempo.

“Hello, Leela.”

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(Author note: Midnight Promise is not erotic romance, so if you absolutely have to have a 'happily ever after' ending, check out any of the other books on this page.)