by
Josh hunts vampires with relentless, cold precision until the night he confronts a gorgeous hunk of vamp in the woods outside Ithaca. Richard destroys all of his prejudices about vampires in the first few moments of conversation and the sexual sparks between them ignite almost as quickly. Richard offers the stability Josh never had. Josh offers the healing Richard needs so desperately.
But it's nearly impossible just to walk away from a life of violence. An attack one evening leaves a friend in the hospital, Richard with a bullet through his chest, muttering about strange creatures, and Josh fighting to piece together what really happened. Are Richard's nightmare attackers real, or is Josh's favorite vamp losing his mind? Is there a reasonable explanation or has the hunter now become prey?
- 3 To Be Read lists
- 7 Read lists
Publisher: MLR Press
Cover Artists:
Genres:
Pairings: M-M
Heat Level: 3
Romantic Content: 3
Ending: Click here to reveal
Character Identities: Gay
Protagonist 1 Age: 18-25
Protagonist 2 Age: Ageless/Immortal
Tropes: Alpha Character, Badass Hero, Big Character / Little Character, Enemies to Lovers
Word Count: 53000
Setting: Ithaca, New York
Languages Available: English
No self-respecting monster did the things this one did. Bastard's toying with me. Has to be. Josh ground his back teeth in frustration.
The bookstore had been bad enough. He'd been itching for a good kill, and his hunting sense had led him straight to Ithaca. In a downtown bookstore, he'd been browsing through the shelves when his internal vamp radar went berserk. The sudden awareness of a monster in the same room with him slammed up from his gut. He spun around to see the vamp at the counter making a purchase. Of a fantasy novel.
Granted, the clouds lay thick over the sun, threatening rain, and it was early evening. Not unusual for an old creature like this one to be out prowling in those conditions, but something struck him as so wrong about the whole scene, a bloodsucking killer calmly buying the latest Lynn Flewelling novel and gracing the clerk with a smile.
READ MORE"Shit. I read those," Josh muttered as the vamp sauntered out into the street. Could the monster know that somehow? Did it know he was watching?
He followed at a discreet distance, waiting for the vamp to pick a meal, to start chatting up some pretty girl or boy. Josh liked to delay until the bastard damned himself, until the triumph shone in those undead eyes. Then he would swoop in and dust him. Not that vamps literally turned to dust like on TV. No, the minutes of creeping decay happened in revolting, Technicolor slow motion.
But this damn vamp, with his perfect, long-legged body and his gorgeous face, stuck his nose right in his book and walked to the nearest public park where he settled with feline grace on a bench to read. An athletic young woman stopped to rest on the bench next to him and adjusted her skates, but he (no, it, dammit!) never looked up.
So it's not hungry. Whatever. Still not gonna make it through the night.
COLLAPSE
