Dr. Manning is a vampire, medical doctor, in love with single-mother Elizabeth Lockspier, currently being forced to mate with Christiana, the new commander of the Philadelphia Allegiant.
Interviewer: Dr. Armand Brunell, vampire scientist, has been conducting theoretical experiments to turn a vampire back to human.
Location: Private research lab, north of Princeton, New Jersey.
Armand: (sets up the camera) I will have to explain
why I did this, Alexander. People need to know this was your choice.
Alexander: Because it will look like you killed me? (flinches
at the light in his eyes)
Armand: I’ve told you the probability of success of
this procedure.
Alexander: (briefly looks in the camera and snorts)
Yes, I hold Armand harmless. Is that better?
Armand: You know who I’m worried about.
Alexander: (nods) Loren knows what is happening to
me.
Armand: Doesn’t mean he won’t kill me.
Alexander: You’re already dead. We all are.
Armand: Alex, tell me why you want to turn away from
this gift of forever we’ve been given. For the record.
Alexander: I didn’t want to be vampire. If Loren had
bothered to ask me, I would have said no.
Armand: Why didn’t he ask your permission to turn
you?
Alexander: Okay, I was unconscious. Loren told me
later, he was impressed with my medical skills and it would have been a waste
for me to die.
Armand: You had a wife at the time, though.
Alexander: (snarls) No. I was forced to marry
Katherine. That’s what rich families did in the in eighteen hundreds. More than
a century later and I’m being forced again to…
Armand: That’s what’s really burning you isn’t it?
Alexander: Yes.
Armand: And it has nothing to do with Elizabeth?
Alexander: If I make this about Elizabeth then I am
beholden to her. Not that I wouldn’t
mind that. (Smiles briefly)
Armand: Is there anything you want to say to her in
case…
Alexander: (growls) No. This will work, Armand. I
have faith in you.
Armand: I appreciate that. For the record. (looks in
camera). We will be removing most of Alexander’s vital organs and replacing
them with fresh human organs. Removing the lesion we found in his brain, which
we believe controls the vampire venom. The theory is, when we remove everything
vampire about him, he will be human again.
Alexander: It doesn’t sound very promising. But I
trust you. Make me human. I want my freedom and this is the only way. If I’m
not vampire, Christiana has no use for me.
Armand: Francisco will be disappointed to lose you.
Alexander: He’ll get over it.
Armand: Do you plan to keep in touch with any of us?
(laughs)
Alexander: No.
Armand: Something tells me Loren Tagaris won’t let
you go so easily. I’m sure he’ll have some use for you.
Alexander: If I am human again, I become the enemy.
Vampires fear humans. Besides, Loren has enough on his plate. New York is
hunting for Julianna. With me gone, she becomes his sole progeny. He’ll guard
her at all costs.
Armand: Loren vs New York. (whistles)
Alexander: Which is why I can’t be mated to
Christiana from Philadelphia. The allegiants will have to stand again Loren,
the most powerful deadly vampire. I’d rather be sitting on the sidelines for
that one.
Armand: It’s not something I’d like to see happen.
Alexander: You’re smart, Armand. Now let’s do this.
Short Blurb:
HE
WON’T
Dr. Alexander Manning has drawn too much blood from
his beautiful patient. Overwhelmed with thirst for her, he drinks it
immediately. But when she catches him and passes out, he must report what
happened to his allegiant’s Commander. Or…he can deal with her himself. When he
breaks into her house and enters her bedroom to wipe the incident from her
mind, he reads her thoughts first. She wants him as much as he wants her.
BE
DRAWN IN
Elizabeth Lockspier discovers the man she’s so drawn
to is a vampire and fears for her safety and the well-being of her daughter.
When Alexander tracks her down and assures her she’s in no danger and then
kisses her, making her feel like the world has slid off its axis, she has to
make a choice. Turn him away. Play it safe. Deny how she feels. Or…take a risk
where the reward is night after night of blinding ecstasy.
WITHOUT
A FIGHT
But Alex’s past catches up to him when the new
Philadelphia Commander chooses Alex to be her mate. He must decide...go
obediently into the arms of the woman who blackmailed him into years of sex.
Or...fight back. With some magical powers he’s been keeping a secret or
with a little science experiment a colleague is cooking up in a private
research facility.
Excerpt:
Elizabeth:
My skin
tingled reading Alexander’s text on Thursday.
Are you available Saturday afternoon?
He must be as
desperate as I am to figure out what the hell that kiss was about, the other
night. Sooner rather than later. Or, he could want to meet to have a more
thorough discussion of my review of his class. Something we technically never
got to Wednesday night.
Annie’s
father picked her up from school on Friday and drove north to his parents’
house in Connecticut for an anniversary party, which freed up my weekend. In my
reply to Alexander, I didn’t mention all those details; just that I would meet
him in his office at the university Saturday afternoon. If that turned into
dinner, or something else, well he would get a pleasant surprise.
On Friday
late afternoon however, I experienced flu symptoms that hit me like a wrecking
ball. I barely made it through my last class and felt dizzy as I walked to my
car. Thoughts of Alex kissing me flooded into my brain so often, I thought I
brought on my own fever and chills. When I got home Friday after school, I
placed a cold alcohol-soaked compress on my forehead. It reminded me of Alex’s
lips when he kissed me a couple of days ago. In my flu-induced feverish sleep
Friday night into Saturday, I dreamed of him touching me and more.
I woke up
this morning, and the fever has not broken. I have to cancel my meeting with
Alex. I text my situation with an apology and add, that I’ll be at his class
next Wednesday.
He texts me
back in a flash and his reply makes my jaw drop.
I’m coming to your house. What’s your
address?
Stunned, I
type my address into the phone and crawl to the shower. I’m pale and weak, but
my hair will be clean.
The several
successive knocks on my front door suggest anxiety. As if I see him for the
first time, Alexander’s beauty takes my breath away. Before I say hello, he
hurries past me.
“What is your
temperature, Elizabeth?” he asks and places a shiny leather bag on my coffee
table. He actually owns a little black doctor’s bag!
“I don’t
know, Annie’s thermometer got lost in the move and she hasn’t been—” I’m
silenced by a digital thermometer he pulls out of his bag and wedges into my
ear.
“One hundred
and two.” He shakes his head. “That’s pretty high. Have you taken anything?”
“No, I
figured I would ride it out.”
Alexander
sniffs the air and in a tone laced with concern, asks, “Where is your
daughter?”
“Annie is
with her father this weekend.”
“I have
something I could give you.” He rakes over the entire lower floor of my house.
“Where would you be more comfortable?”
Before I can
think of the impropriety, I say, “My bed.”
His eyebrows
inch upward. The kiss we shared created an intimacy between us and neither of
us knows what to do with it.
“Show me.” He
keeps a cautious distance from me as we climb the stairs.
At the top, I
close the door to Annie’s room and when I turn toward my bedroom, Alex and I
awkwardly collide.
“Sorry,” he
says softly. “After you.”
I’m painfully
aware, the presence of my bed might make me forget I have a fever. There’s so
much I don’t know about this man, yet here he is. In my bedroom. Good thing I
changed the sheets.
Gingerly, I
approach the edge of my bed, turn and sit with my hands in my lap. Alexander
takes out a number of items from his bag and places them on my dresser.
The empty
vial with a long thin tub attached, like he used in the doctor’s office, turns
my stomach like it did that day. Next, he removes a wider tube and something
that resembles a meat thermometer, only instead of a dial on top, it’s a round
glass globe. His fingers touch each instrument several times before he turns
around.
Crouching
before me, he says, “I want to give you my blood, Elizabeth.”
“You want to
give me your blood?” I ask innocently surprised.
I figured he
would take a sample of mine to confirm this was the flu or some other common
bug buzzing around these days.
“Yes,
Elizabeth. Let’s not pretend anymore. I know you know what I am.”
I swallow,
fear and panic rise in my throat and make me forget the pounding in my head.
“But, that’s not possible,” I whisper.
“There’s
nothing for you to be afraid of.” He takes my hand to rest against his chest;
hard and cold. No movement beneath his dress shirt.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
His attention focuses on a tendril of hair that fell over one of my eyes and
his nostrils flare.
“Why should I
not be afraid?” I sweep it behind my ear.
“Because I
may be a lot of things, but I don’t murder indiscriminately.”
Buy Link:
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/2tfegK9
Deborah's childhood on Long Island, NY can be described as Cinderella meets Carrie. A latch-key kid, she spent her days after school, cooking, cleaning and looking after her younger brother to help out her very strict working parents. Those hours of nothingness sparked a wild imagination and a few invisible friends.
After years of doing the whole corporate thing, it was finally Deborah’s turn to make the dream of being a published author come true. Her 2017 debut novel, Must Love Fashion, was a 2018 Golden Leaf finalist for Best Contemporary Romance. She writes strong and witty heroines and the heroes fall hard for them. Her novels have received words of praise from RT Book Reviews, Kirkus Reviews, InD’tale Magazine, Library Journal, and Uncaged Magazine. In addition to a great book, she loves pugs, chocolate, and eats her bacon cheeseburgers with a Grey Goose Cosmopolitan.
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