Hunger Untamed H3
Hunger Untamed
By Dee Carney
Book three of The Hunger
Trained to be courtesan for the vampire elite, Lucy Drake is finally free...and dying from the effects of being a blood slave. The vampire responsible continues to collect humans, discarding them at will. Vowing revenge, Lucy is determined to see him meet his end before she meets hers.
A mercenary by trade, battle-scarred vampire Victor Collins usually refuses to work with humans. But when Lucy approaches him for help, his attraction to her is more than he’s able to resist. He agrees to help her with her mission—for a price that has nothing to do with money. And he must stop her from discovering his own dangerous duty...
As Victor teaches Lucy to take out her enemy, their heated training sessions lead to passionate exchanges far beyond their original deal. But with threats from vampires, werewolves and Lucy’s mysterious illness closing in, their tenuous bargain and tumultuous affair is running out of time...and the cost could be Lucy’s life and war among all supernatural kind.
Carina Press acknowledges the editorial services of Rhonda Edits, LLC.
Dear Reader,
You know that moment when you’re reading a great book and you hit around the 70 percent mark and you realize:
this book is going to end
. And then you’ll be done with it. And will have to leave the characters behind. And find another (hopefully equally amazing) book to read next? So you want to slow down but instead you speed up because you just have to know what happens. The next thing you know, it’s done, you’ve got that happy-book-sigh feeling and...now you really do have to decide what book to read next. The great thing about reading is that there
is
always another fantastic book available, and I think you’ll find a few that will help with this issue in this month’s releases, because they are awesome!
Shannon Stacey is one of our most popular authors and her Boston Fire trilogy has not disappointed readers (or her editor)! But I’m particularly excited about
Fully Ignited
because it brings us not only the alpha men of Boston Fire but also a badass female firefighter who is unapologetically good at her job. I love a strong, confident heroine who makes no excuses for who she is, and that’s what we get with Jamie. Scott can’t stop thinking about Jamie, despite the fact that she’s his temporary superior and not sticking around. Chemistry can crush the best-laid plans, though, and while Jamie and Scott might not be each other’s future...there’s no resisting the right now.
Laura Carter debuts with a darkly suspenseful, erotically charged Vengeful Love trilogy that’s a return to the glamorous, jet-setter romances of Jackie Collins and Sidney Sheldon. In book one London city lawyer Scarlett Heath’s neat little world is shattered when she meets Gregory Ryans, the mysterious, irresistible CEO of GJR Enterprises—and her new client. Too late, Scarlett realizes the truth about the hostile takeover she’s been brought in to handle: the man she’s fallen in love with is out for revenge. And he’s taking her with him. Gregory and Scarlett’s story continues across Rome and Dubai in the next two installments releasing in April and May.
A.R. Barley is debuting in male/male contemporary romance with
Out of Bounds
. A line of tape down the center of the room is the perfect plan: boundaries established for college sophomore Jesse Cole and his sexy new roommate, senior Nick Moretti. These two strong-willed men are as opposite as opposite can get. But as their initial friction moves into straight-up dirty talk, who wouldn’t want to cross the line?
Also in male/male contemporary romance, j. leigh bailey’s heroes
Fight to Forgive
as they face family manipulation, past betrayal and an uncertain future to find their second chance at love. Perfect for those of you who love the second-chance trope!
We have two erotic paranormal romances for you this month on two ends of the paranormal spectrum: vampires and shifters! In Dee Carney’s
Hunger Untamed
, a beautiful courtesan must overcome her fear of a beastly vampire mercenary if she’s to avenge her sister’s death. And on the shifter side Laurent, the second-in-command for the Cherchez Wolf Pack, didn’t expect to find his destiny in a roadside café. But there’s no doubt in his mind that waitress-by-day, artist-by-night Rain is his mate. And the urge to be near her, to protect her, to
have
her, is intoxicating. Don’t miss
Sworn to the Wolf
by Lauren Dane.
Speaking of erotic, check out the beautiful cover on Kira A. Gold’s
The Dirty Secret
, and while you’re there, peek inside the covers to find out what happens when an architect with a dirty mouth and a secretive, sensual painter are thrown together and challenged to decorate a house. The real challenge is figuring out how to complete the project while taking every opportunity to discover what’s under each other’s clothes—and behind one another’s personal walls.
This month’s mystery offering comes from Julie Anne Lindsey. In
A
Geek Girl’s Guide to Arsenic
, the resident geek girl puts her high IQ to work uncovering the killer when a man is poisoned at Ye Ole Madrigal Craft Faire. Don’t miss the previous title in this series,
A
Geek Girl’s Guide to Murder
.
Pick up one (or all) of these new releases this month and let us help you solve your book crisis. Giving Readers Their Next Good Book Fix can become our new imprint motto!
Coming next month: a sexy and captivating (literally) romance from Amber Bardan,
Vengeful Love: Deception
with its continuation of Gregory and Scarlett’s story, and a new author makes her debut!
As always, here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.
Happy reading!
Angela James
Editorial Director, Carina Press
Contents
Prologue
Vampire law was vampire law. No one was changed without permission. No one.
—
Hunger Aroused
War is coming.
—
Hunger Awakened
Chapter One
Heart hammering with the speed of a hummingbird’s, Lucy Drake searched the sea of bodies, knowing she would find him here. Needing him here. Every place else she’d looked had resulted in harsh glares and leering inspection from men who’d just as soon drain the blood from her body as smile in her direction. Her stomach threatened violent action every time she had to look any of them in the eye, but she’d heard rumors about the man she needed to hire. To find him, she’d have to get close to his face. She’d have to study the way he looked at her and hope to high heaven that she could stand her ground when she did.
Her lungs burned, each inhale and exhale the equivalent of swallowing glass. Based on everything she knew, the painful symptom symbolized the early stages of illness. She had a long wait of suffering and debilitating ailments to go through before she ceased breathing altogether. Before that happened though, she would get retribution for her life and for the life of her sister, Cindy. For all the humans turned into addicts of vampire drugs and sex.
Swallowing down the hurt, reminding herself to breathe through it and do her damnedest to acclimate to it, she scanned the room’s perimeter. It was where the men who didn’t want to be seen lounged, their backs against the walls, tumblers of untouched blood-laced hooch within reach.
“Young lady, you shouldn’t be in here.” The owner of the voice, full of grit and experience, spoke from behind her. She turned to face him, sweeping her hair away from her neck in a practiced move. Between the strands that fell from her fingers, she sized up the tall cowboy. With limpid eyes and reddened, leathery skin, he should have looked out of place in the dim bar, but the bowie knife hanging from his thin waist suggested that maybe he fit right in after all.
She caught the way his gaze landed on the glyph branded high and against her carotid. His lips drew back, unnaturally elongated teeth extending a fraction. A sight she’d grown astonishingly used to over the years.
If she had to make the sacrifice to get to the man she sought, she would. But she hadn’t come here for this.
“I guess you could belong,” he said. Hunger infused his words. “Junkie?”
Her heart kicked as she lowered her gaze in the manner in which she’d been trained. “I’m here for someone. Victor Collins.”
She peeked up in time to catch his brow lifting a fraction, a snort pushing through his thick lips. “Victor? This oughta be good. Find him over there. Big guy. Can’t miss him.”
“Why do you say that?” From where she stood, all of the men looked like one another. Brooding, dangerous vampires. This wasn’t a place where she expected a warm smile and a firm handshake. The glyph was her only protection. Her biggest curse.
“Hope you have balls of steel, is all. He won’t be gentle.”
Not like I could be
seemed to hover unsaid. He wanted Lucy for himself, a not-uncommon occurrence. Addicts needed—
loved
—their fix, but to a vampire, blood slaves were the best kind of high.
She noticed that he didn’t answer her question though, and that twisted the already churning anxiety in her stomach.
Lucy licked dry lips before dipping her head in thanks. Old habits and all. As much as she’d tried to break herself of them since leaving service, she found that once returned to the presence of vampires, she reverted right back. Some manners, the ones that any decent person would display for another, she didn’t mind so much. But the vampires didn’t deserve her respect, no matter how much training they’d provided her.
Winding through the tables toward the area where Victor should be sitting, every instinct told her to lift her hair. Pin it up and keep the glyph visible to everyone. It was her get-out-of-jail-free card and if the mercenary she came here to hire lived up to his reputation, he might not let her live long enough to use it. If it gave her a few spare seconds, long enough to plead her case, then she’d need to take it.
Maybe that was why she kept her head tilted, carotid exposed, as she paused beside each table. Some men were already in the process of feeding from women and men alike and didn’t stop long enough to notice her. The expressions on the donors’ faces varied from outright ecstasy, lids fluttering, mouths agape, to ill-disguised pain. The latter people clenched their fists, bit down on their own lips until the skin glowed white. Lucy’s pulse raced in empathy and sympathy for all of them.
She kept going, not interrupting any of the vampires as much as she wanted to, and knew the moment she’d found Victor. The old cowboy hadn’t lied. Victor was massive.
He wasn’t fat, Jesus no, and anyone who was stupid enough to think so would be wise enough to keep it to themselves. The T-shirt he wore stretched across a broad chest and threatened to rip down the middle. Long legs extended beyond the table and into the aisle where she might have tripped over them otherwise, but the man exuded such presence that only the rare person could have ignored him. He also threw off menace like a viper coiled to strike. And when her gaze finally swept beyond those large boots, worn blue jeans and faded T-shirt, she forced it up past the thick neck and sculpted jaw to look him in the face.
A gasp escaped her before she could recall it. Now she knew why they told her she’d know him on sight. Now she knew...
Victor Collins was
wrong
. Not just the flat lack of emotion in chestnut-colored eyes, but the droop she found in one that was absent in the other. An aristocratic nose too elegant for the broad face. Lips that turned down on one side. The wholly asymmetric alignment of his features. It was as if someone had thought he possessed too much perfection and brushed an eraser down one half of his face to wipe away the stunning beauty.
“Keep staring if you want. It won’t change,” he said.
Heat burned her cheeks, her gaze dropping at the sudden sound of his voice. “Mr. Collins?” A tremor shook her short inquiry, adding to her mortification. Staring was a rookie mistake, one she’d been broken of a long time ago, yet this stranger brought it out of her all over again.
“Who’s asking?”
“I’m told you’re for hire.”
He moved, the motion enough to make her peer with quiet respect at him again. He sipped from a half-empty glass, and Lucy found herself riveted to the moisture coating his lips. A small dribble escaped the turned-down corner, and he used the back of a meaty hand to swipe it away. “Who sent you?”
She took a deep breath, bringing her gaze up enough to meet his. “I need your help.”
“C’mere.”
Had she been in this place for anyone else, anyone else at all, she might have backed up and hauled ass out of there. For Cindy, she found a sliver of courage and took a diminutive step forward. One that followed his instruction, but kept her well out of his reach.
“Closer.”
“Are you for hire, sir?”
“Closer,” he rumbled. “And I ain’t no ‘sir.’”
Breathing a little harder, she did as commanded. Goosebumps erupted over her skin as she brought herself into his personal space, close enough that she could discern the individual dots comprising the dark stubble of his jaw.
“Now, show me.”
It took a moment to understand, then she complied by tilting her head, showing off the red brand. Breath held and throat so tight she could scarcely swallow, she waited for him to pass his own judgment, for surely that was what he was doing. Instead of focusing on him though, on how much he scared her, on the understanding that he could kill her for a lark, she listened to the sounds of the bar.
Hearing low, throaty moans and the steady din of different conversations kept her from inhaling the vampire as he leaned in close. Concentrating on the length of the crack in the ceiling, just above an ignored cobweb, kept her from curling in her fingers, finding purchase in his clothing and using it to keep herself upright. An immediate attraction to him conflicting with a deep-rooted unease at trusting a vampire. Then again, while Victor scared her witless, once she hired him and he was on her side, she knew with irresponsible certainty that he would be a formidable ally.
“Blood slave,” he whispered. A finger stroked over the glyph with a tenderness she would have thought impossible from such a massive man.
“Free,” she replied just as softly. She lifted her gaze and it went straight to the side of his face where nature had gone wrong. Curiosity curled inside her. He was, perhaps, the first imperfect vampire she’d ever encountered. Every other one glowed with a porcelain beauty and impossible perfection. It was what made feeding them tolerable. When they touched her, slipping nimble fingers between her thighs, she’d never grown aroused from their caresses or fondling. But she could study crystalline eyes and sculpted cheekbones and pretend to be caught in lustful throes. This man possessed none of their loveliness. He was a living nightmare, a threat that almost paralyzed her thoughts.
He abruptly withdrew, leaving her skin warm and tingling where he’d left an imprint. Those long legs shifted as if restless, none of his body language inviting her to sit and join him. “Who sent you? Someone like you shouldn’t be looking for someone like me.”
Lucy sat anyway, ignoring the way his brow deepened. “I’m here of my own accord. I’ve only heard what kind of prices you—”
“I don’t work with humans.”
Face stinging as if she’d been slapped, her mouth parted. It took a moment of recovery to figure out what to say. “You
are
a mercenary, right?”
“Not for your kind.”
She shook her head. “No...you don’t understand. I want you to go after another vampire. One of the Council.”
Some emotion she couldn’t identify flickered across his misshapen features. “Who?”
“Giancarlo Sage.”
He made a noise, something similar to a whistle of appreciation. “Lady, you are high or crazy. First, you come in here, having to know you’re prime pickings for most everyone here, most who’d drain you dry. Then you tell me that you want to off possibly the most elite of the vampire Council? Woman, you don’t got the balls, and I just ain’t that stupid.”
Panic started to flutter in Lucy’s stomach. “Please,” she urged. “I think I know when and how to do it. I just need someone like you to execute the plan.”
“Someone like me, huh?” He shoved away from the table with a preternatural speed, knocking back his chair in the process. Leaning in close, he scowled down at Lucy. “Go on, get out of here before something bad happens to you.”
Fierce desperation gave her the courage to speak. “Please...I need your help. I can pay you.”
“Doubt you got enough money to cover it. Sage wouldn’t be cheap, not even a little bit.” His gaze drifted down her face, prurient male interest darkening his irises. The visual caress paused at her lips before moving on. It stopped somewhere well below her chin before he looked up again, a feral grin creasing one side of his mouth. “Tell you what though. If you ever want a long, slow fuck, come find me. My outward package don’t say much, but it’ll get you what you need.”
A rushing sound filled her ears, and Lucy belatedly realized it was the sound of blood flooding her face and neck in a furious torrent. She knew what she looked like to a vampire, but at least when she’d been a slave, the men and women who’d used her hadn’t treated her like a junkie, despite her appearance. This man, this vampire she needed, with a twisted face and dark soul, made her feel lower than the dirt on the bottom of his shoe.
Hands shaking from cold rage, she tightened her mouth and stood. Without speaking, she gave Victor her best attempt at a sneer before turning on her heel and storming away. She hated that she could feel him studying her as she left.
Hated that she wanted with everything in her to turn around and beg him to help her.
Hated even more that she had no idea what to do next.
* * *
Victor drained his glass, his eyes trained on the little human exiting the watering hole. She was a hot number, light years out of his league. But the fact that her skin had been branded with a blood slave’s glyph made her available to almost any vampire.
Blood slaves were a coveted prize with a physical beauty that rivaled even a born vampire’s. Look at this one. Petite, barely making it to his shoulder. While slender, she possessed enough curves to tempt him to span her waist with his hands. Apple-sized tits. Strawberry blond hair, straight but thick. Perfect for threading into while riding her body. And those lips. Pouty lips that promised the most epic of blowjobs. What held him captive were her eyes.
Maybe that was why he disliked her with such immediate vehemence. Although her body screamed
fuck me
, her eyes, hazel green like dew-tipped blades of grass, were ancient. Eyes that had seen too much. Knew too much.
The story behind why she wanted Sage ate at his curiosity, but not enough for him to take on the suicide mission.
His cell rang just as the door creaked to a close, shutting off the last sight of the desirable woman, which was just as well. A knot of concern firmed at the base of his neck after he pulled the phone from a back pocket and read the name on the display. “Yeah?”
“You’re late.” He recognized the crisp elocution almost immediately anyway. Cicero Nadeem, one of the top lieutenants for the vampire Council’s personal guard. It never boded well that a born and bred Hassassin hired out work to a merc, but Victor wasn’t one to turn down a job from a titled vampire.
“On my way.” He’d been about to leave when the blood slave had detained him. A lovely distraction, in truth.
A single button ended the phone call, and Victor pushed away from the table. He left without looking back or leaving behind payment for his drinks. The running tab he kept would cover tonight’s expenses. What did it say that he’d been spending longer and longer hours sitting there, hunched over high-octane booze? As the days passed, the alcohol content went up at his instruction, while the amount of added blood dwindled. Vampire metabolism kept the alcohol from doing too much damage for too long, but during those short minutes, Victor edged toward bliss.
Didn’t matter much that people stared as he drank, the pink liquid dribbling down the side of his damaged face. He was used to it. Their stares saturated his desire to drink that much more.
