DESIRE THE NIGHT by Amanda Ashley -an excerpt

DESIRE THE NIGHT by Amanda Ashley will be released September 2012.

Amanda Ashley website

A VAMPIRE IN CHAINS
Held captive in a basement prison, wrapped in silver chains, the vampire Gideon is too weak to fight the monster who enslaves him. For years, she’s tapped his precious blood like a fountain of youth—sustaining him with human females she captures for his pleasure. But with the latest victim she brings him, he senses something intriguingly different. Something dangerous, yet oh so tempting.

Kay Alissano is no ordinary woman. Every full moon, she must answer the call of the wild—unleashing the wolf within. As daughter of the Shadow Pack’s Alpha, Kay is extremely powerful—and when she’s offered up to Gideon, she doesn’t surrender easily. In wolf form, she might be able unchain Gideon’s heart and set them both free—if only he can resist the urge to consume her, body and soul, before the next full moon…

PROLOGUE

Gideon Marquet stared into the darkness, his limbs aching from the weight of the heavy silver chains that shackled his ankles to the thick cement wall behind him; his body burning from the inside out, his veins shrinking, his skin tightening with the need for sustenance. So long since he had fed. So long since his thirst had been satisfied.

His eyes narrowed as a tall woman appeared entered the basement. Clad in a shimmering white robe trimmed in white fur, she looked like an angel when, in truth, she was anything but.

The hem of her velvet robe made a soft, swishing noise as she drew closer, then knelt outside the cell.

Gideon groaned inwardly as she picked up the slender, silver-bladed dagger that rested beside a golden jewel-encrusted goblet on a low table. His body tensed as she began to chant, her voice soft, almost hypnotic. He winced as she dragged the blade across his right thigh. Lifting the goblet, she held it under the wound to collect the dark red blood that leaked from the long, shallow gash. When the goblet was half-full, she made a similar cut in his left thigh, chanting all the while. When the cup was full, she left the basement.

She returned a short time later.

Gideon sat up a little straighter, his fangs extending as the cell door opened and a young blond girl clad in a wrinkled brown dress was pushed inside. She fell to the floor, crying out as she scraped her knees on the cold cement. His hands clenched as the warm, sweet coppery scent of blood filled his nostrils.

Blind with panic, the girl, who couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty, scrambled to her feet and ran to the iron-barred door.

“Please!” she cried, her hands fisting around the bars. “Let me out! Please, oh, please, let me out of here!”

But her frantic plea fell on deaf ears.

The girl sobbed hysterically as the woman turned and left the basement.
With her only hope gone, the girl darted to a far corner of the cell, her back pressed against the wall, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Tears flooded her cheeks as she murmured, “Please, don’t.”

But all he heard was the beating of her heart, the whisper-soft sound of the blood flowing through her veins.

“Please.” She fell to her knees, hands raised in supplication.

But that wouldn’t save her.

Nothing could save her now.

It was feeding time.

LINKS TO pre-order:
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