Pure Blooded

by Amanda Carlson

  “Damn right, we believe. Your death is not an option. I don’t care what Fate or Enid think. Juanita has been your champion since the beginning, by her own admission. She knows there’s a way around this and we are going to move in that direction. And once this is all over, the first chance I get I’m squirreling you back to the Ozarks and keeping you under lock and key for a while.”

  I sighed, laying my cheek against his chest again. “That sounds like heaven.” I ran an open palm along his contours. “I fell in love with that place the first time I ever saw it.”

  “I did too,” he grunted. “Kind of like the first time I set eyes on you.”

  “Liar!” My head whipped off his chest. “You disliked me the first time you saw me! Don’t you dare lie. When you carried me out of that bar against my will, I was your burden—not your conquest. Admit it!”

  Before I could blink, he flipped me over on my back and pinned me, wrists over my head. He was grinning, his eyes a kaleidoscope of emotion. “The very moment I saw you, I fell in love. It was instantaneous. Like nothing I’d ever experienced before.” He leaned over and nuzzled my neck. I shrieked as he deliberately grazed his stubble over my chest. He met my gaze with a wicked look. “Now, there’s a possibility I fought some of those feelings for a brief second or two but—”

  “Brief!” I hooted. “You were so not into me. We traveled for two days before—”

  “Wrong,” he interrupted, silencing me with a kiss. His lips lifted off mine as slowly and seductively as he could manage. “From the very moment I took you out of that bar, I was trying to seduce you.”

  “You were not!”

  “I was too. Remember our time in the swimming hole?”

  “Of course I remember, how could I forget? We had to douse ourselves in sulfur water to mask our smell before we could climb up to your cabin.”

  “Wrong.” His face broke out into a huge grin. “That sulfur was just a tactic because I wanted to see you dripping wet in that little white cami. And it was well worth it.” I kicked my legs out, laughing. “It clung to your delicious curves like a glove. I’ve never been so turned on in my life.”

  Before I could protest, he kissed me soundly.

  I lost myself in his lips, and I couldn’t really argue, because I’d wanted to see him without his clothes on just as badly. I finally broke the kiss, giggling. “You’re such a bad boy,” I scolded.

  “Yes, yes, I am. And I’m planning on proving that to you again right now.” He ran his chin down the middle of my chest, abrading me all the way to my belly button.

  I laughed, my hands twining in his hair. “You have until four-thirty a.m., tiger.”

  “And I plan to use every single minute of it.” He winked.

  I licked my lips. “I can’t wait.”

  Acknowledgments

  As always, I want to thank my readers, supporters, and fans. Without you, this entire ride wouldn’t be nearly as sweet. Bill, I love you. There isn’t a more supportive spouse on the planet. You roll up your shirtsleeves and do whatever needs doing. I appreciate that more than you can ever know. To Paige, my college-bound daughter, I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become. May the road ahead be paved with opportunity and unforgettable experiences. To my son, Nat, you are amazing and insightful. I enjoy watching you grow every day. To my daughter Jane, you make us all laugh, and I thank the stars above for it. Sweat is not the only thing you got from me. To my parents, Daryl and Koppy, I love you so much. Thanks for continuing to support me in everything I do. Kristen Painter, you are a rock star, and I’m so happy to call you a friend. Amanda Bonilla, you are my shot of caffeine. Without you, my day wouldn’t be complete.

  And to Orbit and all the great people at Hachette who make this book a reality, I thank you.

  extras

  meet the author

  Photo credit: Paige Carlson

  A Minnesota girl born and bred, Amanda began writing in earnest after her second child was born. She’s addicted to Scrabble, tropical beaches, and IKEA. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and three kids.

  Find out more about Amanda

  at www.amandacarlson.com

  or on twitter @AmandaCCarlson.

  introducing

  If you enjoyed

  PURE BLOODED

  look out for

  SOULLESS

  Parasol Protectorate: Book the First

  by Gail Carriger

  Alexia Tarabotti is laboring under a great many social tribulations. First, she has no soul. Second, she’s a spinster whose father is both Italian and dead. Third, she was rudely attacked by a vampire, breaking all standards of social etiquette.

  Where to go from there? From bad to worse apparently, for Alexia accidentally kills the vampire—and then the appalling Lord Maccon (loud, messy, gorgeous, and werewolf) is sent by Queen Victoria to investigate.

  With unexpected vampires appearing and expected vampires disappearing, everyone seems to believe Alexia responsible. Can she figure out what is actually happening to London’s high society? Will her soulless ability to negate supernatural powers prove useful or just plain embarrassing? Finally, who is the real enemy, and do they have treacle tart?

  SOULLESS is the first book of the Parasol Protectorate series: a comedy of manners set in Victorian London, full of werewolves, vampires, dirigibles, and tea-drinking.

  CHAPTER ONE

  In Which Parasols Prove Useful

  Miss Alexia Tarabotti was not enjoying her evening. Private balls were never more than middling amusements for spinsters, and Miss Tarabotti was not the kind of spinster who could garner even that much pleasure from the event. To put the pudding in the puff: she had retreated to the library, her favorite sanctuary in any house, only to happen upon an unexpected vampire.

  She glared at the vampire.

  For his part, the vampire seemed to feel that their encounter had improved his ball experience immeasurably. For there she sat, without escort, in a low-necked ball gown.

  In this particular case, what he did not know could hurt him. For Miss Alexia had been born without a soul, which, as any decent vampire of good blooding knew, made her a lady to avoid most assiduously.

  Yet he moved toward her, darkly shimmering out of the library shadows with feeding fangs ready. However, the moment he touched Miss Tarabotti, he was suddenly no longer darkly doing anything at all. He was simply standing there, the faint sounds of a string quartet in the background as he foolishly fished about with his tongue for fangs unaccountably mislaid.

  Miss Tarabotti was not in the least surprised; soullessness always neutralized supernatural abilities. She issued the vampire a very dour look. Certainly, most daylight folk wouldn’t peg her as anything less than a standard English prig, but had this man not even bothered to read the vampire’s official abnormality roster for London and its greater environs?

  The vampire recovered his equanimity quickly enough. He reared away from Alexia, knocking over a nearby tea trolley. Physical contact broken, his fangs reappeared. Clearly not the sharpest of prongs, he then darted forward from the neck like a serpent, diving in for another chomp.

  “I say!” said Alexia to the vampire. “We have not even been introduced!”

  Miss Tarabotti had never actually had a vampire try to bite her. She knew one or two by reputation, of course, and was friendly with Lord Akeldama. Who was not friendly with Lord Akeldama? But no vampire had ever actually attempted to feed on her before!

  So Alexia, who abhorred violence, was forced to grab the miscreant by his nostrils, a delicate and therefore painful area, and shove him away. He stumbled over the fallen tea trolley, lost his balance in a manner astonishingly graceless for a vampire, and fell to the floor. He landed right on top of a plate of treacle tart.

  Miss Tarabotti was most distressed by this. She was particularly fond of treacle tart and had been looking forward to consuming that precise plateful. She picked up her parasol. It was terribly tasteless for her to be carrying a para
sol at an evening ball, but Miss Tarabotti rarely went anywhere without it. It was of a style entirely of her own devising: a black frilly confection with purple satin pansies sewn about, brass hardware, and buckshot in its silver tip.

  She whacked the vampire right on top of the head with it as he tried to extract himself from his newly intimate relations with the tea trolley. The buckshot gave the brass parasol just enough heft to make a deliciously satisfying thunk.

  “Manners!” instructed Miss Tarabotti.

  The vampire howled in pain and sat back down on the treacle tart.

  Alexia followed up her advantage with a vicious prod between the vampire’s legs. His howl went quite a bit higher in pitch, and he crumpled into a fetal position. While Miss Tarabotti was a proper English young lady, aside from not having a soul and being half Italian, she did spend quite a bit more time than most other young ladies riding and walking and was therefore unexpectedly strong.

  Miss Tarabotti leaped forward—as much as one could leap in full triple-layered underskirts, draped bustle, and ruffled taffeta top-skirt—and bent over the vampire. He was clutching at his indelicate bits and writhing about. The pain would not last long given his supernatural healing ability, but it hurt most decidedly in the interim.

  Alexia pulled a long wooden hair stick out of her elaborate coiffure. Blushing at her own temerity, she ripped open his shirtfront, which was cheap and overly starched, and poked at his chest, right over the heart. Miss Tarabotti sported a particularly large and sharp hair stick. With her free hand, she made certain to touch his chest, as only physical contact would nullify his supernatural abilities.

  “Desist that horrible noise immediately,” she instructed the creature.

  The vampire quit his squealing and lay perfectly still. His beautiful blue eyes watered slightly as he stared fixedly at the wooden hair stick. Or, as Alexia liked to call it, hair stake.

  “Explain yourself!” Miss Tarabotti demanded, increasing the pressure.

  “A thousand apologies.” The vampire looked confused. “Who are you?” Tentatively he reached for his fangs. Gone.

  To make her position perfectly clear, Alexia stopped touching him (though she kept her sharp hair stick in place). His fangs grew back.

  He gasped in amazement. “What are you? I thought you were a lady, alone. It would be my right to feed, if you were left this carelethly unattended. Pleathe, I did not mean to prethume,” he lisped around his fangs, real panic in his eyes.

  Alexia, finding it hard not to laugh at the lisp, said, “There is no cause for you to be so overly dramatic. Your hive queen will have told you of my kind.” She returned her hand to his chest once more. The vampire’s fangs retracted.

  He looked at her as though she had suddenly sprouted whiskers and hissed at him.

  Miss Tarabotti was surprised. Supernatural creatures, be they vampires, werewolves, or ghosts, owed their existence to an overabundance of soul, an excess that refused to die. Most knew that others like Miss Tarabotti existed, born without any soul at all. The estimable Bureau of Unnatural Registry (BUR), a division of Her Majesty’s Civil Service, called her ilk preternatural. Alexia thought the term nicely dignified. What vampires called her was far less complimentary. After all, preternaturals had once hunted them, and vampires had long memories. Natural, daylight persons were kept in the dark, so to speak, but any vampire worth his blood should know a preternatural’s touch. This one’s ignorance was untenable. Alexia said, as though to a very small child, “I am a preternatural.”

  The vampire looked embarrassed. “Of course you are,” he agreed, obviously still not quite comprehending. “Again, my apologies, lovely one. I am overwhelmed to meet you. You are my first”—he stumbled over the word—“preternatural.” He frowned. “Not supernatural, not natural, of course! How foolish of me not to see the dichotomy.” His eyes narrowed into craftiness. He was now studiously ignoring the hair stick and looking tenderly up into Alexia’s face.

  Miss Tarabotti knew full well her own feminine appeal. The kindest compliment her face could ever hope to garner was “exotic,” never “lovely.” Not that it had ever received either. Alexia figured that vampires, like all predators, were at their most charming when cornered.

  The vampire’s hands shot forward, going for her neck. Apparently, he had decided if he could not suck her blood, strangulation was an acceptable alternative. Alexia jerked back, at the same time pressing her hair stick into the creature’s white flesh. It slid in about half an inch. The vampire reacted with a desperate wriggle that, even without superhuman strength, unbalanced Alexia in her heeled velvet dancing shoes. She fell back. He stood, roaring in pain, with her hair stick half in and half out of his chest.

  Miss Tarabotti scrabbled for her parasol, rolling about inelegantly among the tea things, hoping her new dress would miss the fallen foodstuffs. She found the parasol and came upright, swinging it in a wide arc. Purely by chance, the heavy tip struck the end of her wooden hair stick, driving it straight into the vampire’s heart.

  The creature stood stock-still, a look of intense surprise on his handsome face. Then he fell backward onto the much-abused plate of treacle tart, flopping in a limp-overcooked-asparagus kind of way. His alabaster face turned a yellowish gray, as though he were afflicted with the jaundice, and he went still. Alexia’s books called this end of the vampire life cycle dissanimation. Alexia, who thought the action astoundingly similar to a soufflé going flat, decided at that moment to call it the Grand Collapse.

  She intended to waltz directly out of the library without anyone the wiser to her presence there. This would have resulted in the loss of her best hair stick and her well-deserved tea, as well as a good deal of drama. Unfortunately, a small group of young dandies came traipsing in at that precise moment. What young men of such dress were doing in a library was anyone’s guess. Alexia felt the most likely explanation was that they had become lost while looking for the card room. Regardless, their presence forced her to pretend that she, too, had just discovered the dead vampire. With a resigned shrug, she screamed and collapsed into a faint.

  She stayed resolutely fainted, despite the liberal application of smelling salts, which made her eyes water most tremendously, a cramp in the back of one knee, and the fact that her new ball gown was getting most awfully wrinkled. All its many layers of green trim, picked to the height of fashion in lightening shades to complement the cuirasse bodice, were being crushed into oblivion under her weight. The expected noises ensued: a good deal of yelling, much bustling about, and several loud clatters as one of the housemaids cleared away the fallen tea.

  Then came the sound she had half anticipated, half dreaded. An authoritative voice cleared the library of both young dandies and all other interested parties who had flowed into the room upon discovery of the tableau. The voice instructed everyone to “get out!” while he “gained the particulars from the young lady” in tones that brooked no refusal.

  Silence descended.

  “Mark my words, I will use something much, much stronger than smelling salts,” came a growl in Miss Tarabotti’s left ear. The voice was low and tinged with a hint of Scotland. It would have caused Alexia to shiver and think primal monkey thoughts about moons and running far and fast, if she’d had a soul. Instead it caused her to sigh in exasperation and sit up.

  “And a good evening to you, too, Lord Maccon. Lovely weather we are having for this time of year, is it not?” She patted at her hair, which was threatening to fall down without the hair stick in its proper place. Surreptitiously, she looked about for Lord Conall Maccon’s second in command, Professor Lyall. Lord Maccon tended to maintain a much calmer temper when his Beta was present. But, then, as Alexia had come to comprehend, that appeared to be the main role of a Beta—especially one attached to Lord Maccon.

  “Ah, Professor Lyall, how nice to see you again.” She smiled in relief.

  Professor Lyall, the Beta in question, was a slight, sandy-haired gentleman of indeterminate age and
pleasant disposition, as agreeable, in fact, as his Alpha was sour. He grinned at her and doffed his hat, which was of first-class design and sensible material. His cravat was similarly subtle, for, while it was tied expertly, the knot was a humble one.

  “Miss Tarabotti, how delicious to find ourselves in your company once more.” His voice was soft and mild-mannered.

  “Stop humoring her, Randolph,” barked Lord Maccon. The fourth Earl of Woolsey was much larger than Professor Lyall and in possession of a near-permanent frown. Or at least he always seemed to be frowning when he was in the presence of Miss Alexia Tarabotti, ever since the hedgehog incident (which really, honestly, had not been her fault). He also had unreasonably pretty tawny eyes, mahogany-colored hair, and a particularly nice nose. The eyes were currently glaring at Alexia from a shockingly intimate distance.

  “Why is it, Miss Tarabotti, every time I have to clean up a mess in a library, you just happen to be in the middle of it?”

  introducing

  If you enjoyed

  PURE BLOODED

  look out for

  GOD SAVE THE QUEEN

  The Immortal Empire: Book 1

  by Kate Locke

  Queen Victoria rules with an immortal fist.

  The undead matriarch of a Britain where the aristocracy is made up of werewolves and vampires, where goblins live underground and mothers know better than to let their children out after dark. A world where being nobility means being infected with the plague (side effects include undeath), hysteria is the popular affliction of the day, and leeches are considered a delicacy. And a world where technology lives side by side with magic. The year is 2012.