I’m running TWO contests.
1) The newsletter contest (see September 16th’s blog for the details) continues until the 30th!!
2) The second is my usual thing. You post a comment here today and you’re eligible for a free copy of this story.

I don’t know if you know it or not, but I wrote three short stories related to the Dark Realm books. They are only available in ebooks. I don’t have an official copy I can transfer, but I will give away a copy of the story in a .pdf file for one winner to read. It was one of the first erotic shorts I ever wrote and I so completely loved doing it that I decided, even though they don’t pay, I couldn’t stop. Enjoy the excerpt! Poor Malcolm is the Revenant who gets the snot beaten out of him at the start of Darkness Captured.

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A lone rogue vampire mingles among his hunters in a blood bar, undetected…until a beautiful woman snares his attention. Suddenly, he’s running, leading her on a chase until she corners him, stake dangling from her slender fingertips. Now he has two choices: play it sexy or safe?

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Malcolm crouched behind a cinder-block pillar of a wrought iron fence, counting the seconds after the last footfalls faded.

Slowly, as the danger passed, his heartbeats settled to a steady rhythm. He drew a deep breath. They’d come close to catching him this time.

He’d been spotted in a known blood bar just outside The French Quarter, a lone rogue vampire among the elite Born trolling for meals with their enslaved, made minions in tow.

If he hadn’t paused to watch one in particular, he might not be in his present predicament.

She’d been playing with her food, ruffling the young man’s hair as she whispered in his ear—and pinned Malcolm with her pale silver gaze.

The challenge in her eyes, along with her feline grace and her strong resemblance to the woman who’d turned him, had caught his interest. The pale hand that smoothed slowly down the chest and stomach of her prey had kept Malcolm ensnared, wanting to see how far she’d take her little game.

She had no interest in the man she teased. When her palm slid down to cup his burgeoning sex, Malcolm had felt the squeeze she delivered all the way to his toes. That same embrace rendered her playmate pliant, rutting into her hand, and ready for whatever she chose to do next.

A quick flick of her slender fingers and she delved inside his trousers.

Malcolm had slipped off his stool then, his dick slowly filling as she slid her lush lips along the young man’s cheek and nibbled on his ear. While the man pulsed his hips, Malcolm tightened, wanting to rake his cock forward and back.

Her lips curved, her eyes narrowed—and Malcolm grew furious with the vampire’s teasing. If she wanted to arouse him, she’d succeeded. If she wanted more than a puling human boy, then she’d played the wrong hand.

Malcolm had forced his gaze away in time to notice she hadn’t been the only one staring at him.

The privileged ones’ gazes had met over the heads of their blood hosts, almost imperceptible nods were shared, and slowly the Born had gracefully faded from the sides of their hosts.

He’d been made. How, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps one of them had recognized him from one of the “mixed” bars, where free rogues and the Born intermingled on neutral ground. However, the how wasn’t important. Escaping was a matter of life or death.

Quickly, without a backward glance at the bitch who’d tried to trap him, he’d slipped out a side door and run like hell.

Malcolm knew better than to tweak the tails of vipers, but once in while in his long, solitary existence he enjoyed reminding them he was there—untethered from their shackles, free to choose his own path just as they did.

He’d been created free, as a human; he’d rejected the tender leash his mistress had offered when she turned him. “Serve me,” she’d pleaded. Although sorely tempted by her beauty and sweetness, he’d refused, knowing the risk, resisting her allure with iron determination. Knowing he’d be forever hunted.

A crisp footstep sounded behind him, and he whirled, straightening to face this hunter.

Before him stood the Born vampire who’d teased him almost to extinction. Now, a long, wooden stake dangled from her fingers.

She was blonde and slender, every muscle honed by her low-carb meals and the activity demanded by her hyperactive metabolism—and sex, lots of it.

Her glittering glance swept down his body, and he braced apart his legs, hoping to reignite the heat he’d witnessed earlier. She’d been hungry, aroused as she’d played with the boy as she’d teased him. He could use that. When her gaze paused over the juncture of his thighs, his lips stretched slowly.

Her fingers tightened around her weapon, and her gaze slashed upward to deliver a glare. Her own thighs, encased in dark sleek leather, tensed as she stayed loose on her feet, ready to pounce whichever direction he chose.

Malcolm remembered well the way her thin silky tee had clung to her breasts back at the bar, ripe little nipples popping against the fabric. “Sorry I interrupted your meal,” he murmured as he leaned back against the pillar, his fingers sliding into the pockets of his jeans as though he wasn’t standing a hairbreadth from death.

Her lips curved, lush and full despite the stretch. “You don’t think I’ll have any trouble finding a replacement, do you?” she asked silkily.

He let his eyelids fall halfway closed as he made a leisurely stroll down her body. “None at all,” he murmured. “But will any one of them satisfy you?”

Her chin rose and pale blonde hair brushed the tops of her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice sliding deeper toward a sultry lisp. “It’s so hard to stop with just one.”

There they were again—those little spikes, stabbing at her shirt. Malcolm eyed them, his lips pursing at the thought of pulling one lush nipple into his mouth. When his gaze met hers again, the hard gleaming challenge had heated.

She swallowed, almost unnoticeably. To draw moisture into a suddenly dry mouth?

Maybe he could earn a reprieve yet. “I was on the prowl tonight,” he said, keeping his voice soft. “I’ve already fed. Maybe we could trade.”

“I have to kill you,” she said flatly.

“Because your coven demands it?” He canted his head. “Do you always follow the rules?”

“You’re a rogue—dangerous if left to roam.”

“Perhaps I’ve never met my true mistress.”

“You’re free. You resisted the allure of the one who turned you, so don’t pretend you’d even consider changing your spots now.”

His lips quirked at her quiet intensity. “I bet you colored inside the lines when you were a child.”

“You think I lack imagination?”

“No, I think you like to please.”

He almost smiled at the scowl that pouted her lips and narrowed her pale eyes. “I could take you. You’re all alone. One on one, I might win,” he drawled, noting the way her glare darkened with the insinuation she might not be the victor.

Her fingers clutched the stake tighter. “You’re not helping your argument.”

“I’m just saying…I’m willing to battle you on different field. If you’re strong enough, maybe you can leash me.”

“A different field? Do you really think I’d let you go anywhere.”

“Follow me.” With that, he spun on his heels and leapt, clearing the fence to stand on the other side of the bars. “My place is just down the road.”

Not bothering to wait and see what she decided, he walked away, nonchalantly, knowing he was baring his back to her stake. However, he’d had a feeling about her earlier when she’d stared above the spiky red hair of her host. Malcolm had felt the air crackle with sensual awareness.

The soft thud behind him made him smile. Her steps trailed his, not overtaking, and he breathed easier.

At another gate, this one enclosing the courtyard of the house he’d rented for the summer, he turned and swung it open, waiting for her to pass.

Her face still tight, her lips crimped into a slight frown, she stepped quickly by him and waited as he closed it, trailing him again when he walked to the front door.

Maybe she was simply waiting to kill him once they were out of sight. But he didn’t think so. The scent of her arousal wafted in the air, mixing with the heavy perfume of roses from the neighbor’s garden. Delicious, sultry—she’d be his, if he was clever enough.

His dick filled again, pressing insistently against his jeans, reminding him that while he’d satisfied his bloodlust that night, he hadn’t had sex in while. Little miss vampire would ease the ache tonight.

Inside, he didn’t bother turning on the lights, didn’t pause to politely offer her a drink of another sort. Instead, he strode up the staircase to his room overlooking the gardens, knowing she’d follow. The stiff steps behind him said she was angry at him and herself for being led by her hungers—unable to contain her curiosity about what exactly he offered.

In the bedroom, he pulled apart the curtains and let moonlight flood the room. He heard her step inside, keeping close to the doorway. With his gaze on the courtyard below, he said, “My name is Malcolm.”

“Do you think by giving me a name to accompany your handsome face I won’t follow through?”

He glanced over his shoulder and gave her a smile. “I’m giving you a name to call when I make you come.”