Blurb: Hopeless, pointless. Those were the words on the lips of
everyone still left standing in our small, supernatural community.
The vampire Stealth had barely escaped with his
immortal life after the SHiELD of Humanity attacked his home, a home which now
lay in ruins on the outskirts of Shadow Cove.
The lycan clans were being picked off one by
one, the few remaining remnants scattered to the winds. Entire species and
families were being eradicated—a full blown extermination, for no reason other
than we were different and feared by the humans. Our lives were being cut
short, but we would not stand idly by and watch as our families were destroyed.
We would unite, fight to the bitter end, all
declaring as one: We are no different than the humans, and we have the right to
exist—to live. Battle lines have been drawn, but the war has just begun.
If you love paranormal fantasy packed with
action and romance, then Nicola C. Matthews’ The Red Fang – Book One in the
Before the Sun Rises Series – is for you.
Excerpt:
The
Red Fang
Before
the Sun Rises Series
Book
2
Nicola
C. Matthews
Ashton
Jones was a serial killer. Until he was recruited by the S.H.i.E.L.D.
organization, he had only had the pleasure of torturing humans. Now he’d been
given the very unique opportunity to not only torture, but possibly even kill a
vampire. He was finding the entire experience very much to his liking.
The
young female vampire strapped to the table only looked young. At least, she used to look young. The vampire known as
Jasmine had been starved of blood for nearly a month now. Had she not been
feeding on a regular basis, Ashton’s systematic starvation of the vampire would
not have worked. However, although she might have been nearing eighty years a
vampire, she was still feeding off the blood of the living nearly every day.
The
starvation had made the vampire weaker both physically and mentally, but it
also made her very dangerous. Since her body was used to receiving fresh blood
on a regular basis, the bloodlust had taken hold of her mind about two weeks
into Ashton’s session with her.
Starvation
was a great tool to use when interrogating a vampire, but one had to be
careful. Ashton had been forced to crank up his torture a few notches in order
to drag her mind back from the frenzy it was staying in, due to the starvation
tactic. The female’s bones had been broken so many times they were no longer
healing properly, thanks in part to the lack of fresh blood, and also simply
because they had been broken so many
times. The consistent breaking in the same place so many dozens of times had
now produced unsightly lumps and bulges all over the vampire’s arms and legs.
This
information in itself was useful to the agency, especially since Ashton had
been hired specifically to extract as much information out of the vampire as
possible. The agency had already conducted numerous experiments on the vampire
and werewolf anatomy. What they wanted now was the information their
experimentation could not tell them.
Jasmine’s
sunken brown eyes followed Ashton as he moved toward the table that held the
small bag of human blood. She tried to lick her cracked lips, but her mouth had
stopped producing saliva a few days ago. The only thing that gave her any
relief now were the few teaspoons of blood Ashton gave her from time to time,
either as a reward for giving him the information he wanted or as a way to keep
the bloodlust from taking over her mind so completely.
“Please,
Ashton, I’m begging you. End it! I’ve told you everything I know. Please … Please … kill me already. I simply
cannot bear it any longer!”
Ashton
smiled, although with his back turned to the undead creature, she couldn’t see
the cruelty stamped on his handsome face.
“I
have no intentions of killing you, Jasmine,” he said quietly.
The
vampire let out a high pitched wail. “What more do you want from me?” she
screamed, thrashing around on the table in another attempt to get loose of the
restraints. “I don’t know anything more than what I have already said to you
hundreds of times now!”
She
began crying again, the sobs almost painful to Ashton’s ears. The agency
thought the sound was some type of warning system the vampires could use to
alert each other of danger. It was also a weapon of sorts, as the high-pitched
frequency could really hurt the human ear if it was used right.
Now
the vampire was crying uncontrollably, babbling almost incoherently in between
the racking sobs. “The werewolves don’t carry viruses. The scientists have
already told the world this. They don’t become werewolves or any other type of
wereanimal by being bitten. That’s a bunch of nonsense invented for the
movies.” She continued to pull at the metal restraints, her frightened,
tear-filled eyes darting around the room as she talked.
“It’s
like the scientists say, it’s a gene some of them carry that gets switched on
at some point in their lives. I don’t know how it works. I just know once the
gene is activated the person is no longer susceptible to any type of disease.”
Ashton
turned away from the small table where he had been busy, loving how Jasmine’s
eyes grew wide in terror as she saw the bone saw he carried in his hand.
“The
human scientists already know everything I know about werewolves, and you
people know more than the scientists do!”
Ashton
pushed the button on the bone saw a few times, the high-pitched buzz filling
the room. Jasmine cringed at the sound and began whimpering, her body thrashing
on the table in spasms driven by fear.
“What
about the vampires?” he asked.
She
shook her head violently. “I already told you!” she screamed.
Ashton
turned on the saw again. Jasmine began rattling off the same information she
had already told him a dozen times before in the past few months. “You don’t
become a vampire by being bitten, either! We don’t know it works.”
The
small female vampire pulled her arms against the restraints, the metal digging
so deep into her flesh the bones were close to breaking. She was so desperate
to escape she was causing almost as much damage to her body as Ashton had. Almost.
“If
it’s not a virus, then how do you go about making new vampires?” he asked,
playing with the button on the saw.
The
vampire hissed at the sound, but she kept talking. “Whoever is being embraced
must be drained of blood. They have to be nearly dead for the transformation to
work. Once the human is almost dead, you have to feed them the sire’s blood.”
She kept pulling at the restraints, the bones beginning to fracture under the strain.
The vampire did not seem to notice. “But they have to be almost dead! If they
are not nearing death then it won’t work.”
“Tell
me more about the blood, Jasmine,” he whispered softly, reaching down to grasp
her right arm in his hand. He yanked the arm upward suddenly, forcibly,
snapping the bone at the wrist.
“Be
still, or you’ll break the other one,” he said quietly.
The
vampire’s sunken eyes were huge in her pale face, the pupils dilated so much
there was barely any white visible in them at all. She only groaned when the
bone of her arm broke, her fear so great she could concentrate on little else.
Her
breathing was heavy and erratic as she continued to tell Ashton the same things
that had now been repeated a hundred times. “I don’t know why our blood makes a
regular human stronger when they drink it!” She began shaking her head back and
forth as Ashton came closer with the saw, flicking the button on and off as the
vampire began to shake uncontrollably on the table.
“I
don’t know who discovered the properties of our blood. I don’t know who began
selling it as a designer drug. I don’t
know, Ashton, I swear I don’t! If I knew I would tell you. My sire
abandoned me right after I was embraced. He left me to fend for myself! If I
knew of an older vampire who knew these things I would tell you! I swear it,
Ashton! Please don’t!”
Jasmine’s
screams echoed off the white tiled walls as Ashton turned on the saw and placed
it against her naked abdomen.
“Last
chance to tell me something useful,” he said happily.
“I
don’t know anything else!” she shrieked.
Ashton
only smiled, the sound of the vampire’s screams eventually being drowned out by
the droning of the saw blade as the bits of flesh and blood spattered his face
and hands. God, how he loved his job!
Author Bio: Nicola Matthews was born and raised in southern MS where she resides with her husband of twenty years, their three children, and their pet Yorkie. She loves music and her favourite thing todo to de-stress is crank up the tunes and hit the treadmill. Nicola enjoys reading as well as watching movies, shopping, and meeting new people. Her favourite genres include mystery thrillers and supernatural/fantasy movies and books.
Link to Amazon
Huntsman is a short story/novella about Grimm, a mercenary type known for his ability to track, whether people or animals. He is hired to find a woman Simone who has killed the French king.
