Demimonde Series
Bleeding Hearts, #1
Blood Rush, #2
Wolf’s Bane, #3
by Ash Krafton
Date of Publication:
October 13th 2016
Publisher: Ash
Krafton
Cover Artist: Red
Fist Fiction
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Bleeding Hearts
Demimonde, #1
BLURB
Sophie Galen is an advice columnist whose
work leaves her neck-deep in other people's problems. Thanks to her compassion,
her gut instinct, and her magnetic charm, Sophie really knows how to attract
little black clouds.
Marek Thurzo is no little black cloud; he's a
maelstrom. Marek is Demivampire, a race with the potential to evolve into
vampire. A warrior who's taken his share of spiritual damage, he hovers
dangerously close to destruction.
He seeks salvation. She's driven to save him.
But what if he can't be saved?
Sympathy for his plight becomes true empathy
as Sophie's hidden nature is revealed. Marek suspects she may be one of the
Sophia, oracle and redemption of the damned Demivampire. She alone can turn
back the evolutionary clock.
All she needs is the courage to face her
fears. Can she save him from Falling?
Buy Link: Amazon
Bleeding
Hearts: Book One of the Demimonde
Chapter
One
"Well,
Sophie, you've been busy." My editor placed the typed sheets on her desk
and pushed her reading glasses to the top of her head, smiling in a way that
suggested she wasn't simply commenting on my productivity.
Barbara
Evans was definitely fiftyish but her exact age remained a secret closely
guarded by her mother and the clerk at the Department of Motor Vehicles. No
gray, no dye. No kidding. The wrinkles around her eyes were laugh lines;
gravity had yet to wage war on the softer parts of her body.
I
made a noncommittal noise as I fooled around at the coffee station in her
office at The Mag. I swore I kept
this job just so I could drink her coffee. An invitation to Barbara's office
for coffee was like receiving royal honors.
"Unfortunately,
I felt really inspired this week." I took a shallow sip of the coffee so I
didn't scald my tongue. Carrying the mug over to her desk, I flopped into the
big red leather chair across from her.
"I'll
say. These letters make, what..." She shuffled through the perpetual piles
on her desk until she found what she wanted. Barbara was old school, preferring
paper to electronic files. "Seven. You made the regular issue as well as
the summer bonus. I'm impressed."
Nodding,
I reached for my cup. The summer bonus was a pain, if anyone asked me. However,
I got paid to do it. Money was nice, so I kept my opinion to myself. I had yet
to master a passable poker face and Barbara was a champion player.
"But
you don't look like someone who's free and clear until next issue," she
said. "You look more like you expect someone to jump out at you."
"I
just... eh, it's nothing." I tried to downplay it but her assessment was
dead-on, hopefully no pun intended. Her slight frown insisted she wanted a
better answer and I grimaced, knowing she wouldn't like the answer. "I've
been thinking about Patrick."
"Him
again?" She clucked her tongue and walked around the desk. Perching on the
edge, she softened her firm tone with a sympathetic look. "He needed
professional help and you told him so. You did what you could."
"I
don't feel like I did."
"Enough.
You're not a psychiatrist. Let it go."
Barbara
was right. I was an advice columnist. People sought me out because they wanted
my help. Didn't help matters that, before joining The Mag, I'd spent more than
a decade in nursing. I was driven to help, to care, to make things all better.
Didn't
I have an obligation to help them? "But—"
"But
nothing," she said. "I know you like to dwell. At least dwell on
something cheerful. Think about those you help."
I
scowled into my cup. She was right—I did get too hung up on people and their
problems. It was just the way I was wired.
"What
brought him up, anyway?"
"I
got a letter from him yesterday," I said.
She
gave me a careful look as if she were determining whether or not our friendship
would survive a phone call to Crisis Intervention. "You mean from someone
who sounds like him."
"No,
him. His handwriting, his signature."
"I
thought you said—"
"I
did." I scooted on the slippery cushion so I could look up at her.
"You saw the obituary."
"Dead
is dead, Sophie." Barbara flipped through the stack in her inbox before
selecting several pages from the middle. She tugged a paperclip free and
dropped it into a tray as she reclaimed her seat. "They don't come back.
Maybe he sent it before he—you know."
I
cradled the cup, feeling the sting of heat through the ceramic. The warmth
failed to travel past my palms and I tucked my arms to my chest. "It was
postmarked this week."
"Do
you want the column mail screened?"
"Wouldn't
help. It was mailed to my apartment."
Now
I had her attention.
She
sat back in her chair, papers forgotten. "How could anyone have gotten
your home address?"
"Beats
me. The column mail comes here and I use a post office box for freelance
subs."
"Anything
else? Phone calls? Hang ups?"
"No.
Just the letter." After a brief deliberation, I added more. Might as well
spill all the beans and not just the ones she'd believe. "And the feeling
someone's... waiting for me."
Barbara's
expression said Okay, I think you finally
cracked but her mouth issued more diplomatic words. "Seriously? Maybe
you're being stalked."
"No,
I don't think so. Just a vague feeling, like someone's waiting for me to... I
don't know, open my eyes. See them." I didn't ask if she ever had that
feeling. Most people didn't get impressions the way I did. I'd stopped asking
that question a long time ago.
However,
this was the first time a simple impression worried me. It was a solid,
hovering kind of expectancy that killed my concentration and made me look over
my shoulder wherever I went.
"That's
probably because the letter came to your apartment." The phone rang and
Barbara poked the voice mail button. "You feel vulnerable. Keep your eyes
open and try to ignore it."
I
half-agreed with her, raising the cup and hiding my mouth behind it. I couldn't
shake the distinct feeling something awful loomed. The sense of foreboding was
like wearing a turtleneck—a constant, constricting pressure. "Maybe I'll
take self-defense classes."
"Never
a bad idea for a woman living alone in the city. Then again, you might not need
them. Your witticisms are sharp enough to draw blood."
I
grinned. "Eh, it's a defense mechanism I developed from working with
Donna. I used to be such a nice person."
"Speaking
of her, she's looking for you."
I
slid down in my chair so my head wasn't visible from the door. "Maybe I'll
just stay in here while I finish my coffee. Wouldn't do to be caught out in the
open."
Barbara
removed her glasses and tossed them onto her desk. "What did you do
now?"
"Nothing,"
I protested. "Just--that Expo thing. She's in charge."
She
pressed her lips into a stern line. "Haven't you signed up yet?"
"Heck,
no. I have stuff to do. Me stuff."
"Your
job is me stuff."
"Easy
for you to say. You're salaried. Saturday is my day off."
"Well,
I won't blow your cover." She glanced over my head toward the door before
she waved her pen warningly. "But she'll get her claws into you. One way
or another."
I
scowled and took a double mouthful of coffee so I wouldn't have to respond.
Claws, Expo, anything Donna—they all topped the list of Things I Wanted Least.
I
stayed long enough to complete my hedonistic coffee experience before slinking
back to my desk. This was work, after all; I wouldn't remain a staff writer if
I didn't act like one.
I
lived in Balaton, a harbor-dependent city halfway between Philadelphia and
Wilmington. Halfway was an apt
description in more ways than one. Big enough for a downtown but lacking the
sprawl of a mega-city. Too small for a subway but wide enough for several bus
routes. Taxes weren't as high as Philly but we didn't get a free ride on sales
tax like glorious Delaware, either.
We
weren't a major tourist destination, just another city people passed through on
the way to somewhere else. I guessed that was why I never left. Balaton was
midway between point A and point B—just like me.
This
job was the closest fit I'd felt in a long time, even if the inseam wasn't
quite right. I had a leg up in the game, at least. My inner voice. My gut
instinct. My compassion.
The
job was easy. All I had to do was tell people what they probably already knew.
Nine times out of ten it was what they wanted to hear anyway, but they didn't
trust themselves enough to follow their own advice. If people were brave enough
to listen to the spark of wisdom that lived in each of us, I'd be out of a job.
Thank
God for that one out of ten who actually needed my advice; they went a long way
to validate me. Only problem was, they were the ones who kept me awake at
night.
I
sighed and plucked my mail from the basket hanging outside my cubicle before
dropping into my chair. My position at The
Mag was a haven for me. At least, it had been until Patrick's needy letters
arrived. Damn those depressed men who get attached to the first sympathetic
person they encounter. Damn the way they kill themselves and leave the rest of
us to feel like it was our failure, not theirs.
Damn
them for coming back.
I
knew it couldn't be him. I knew dead was dead. Plenty of dead had happened
around me in the past and never once had it been undone. Patrick could be no
exception.
Question
was: Who? Who now? Who was going to yank my heartstrings, get me completely
tied up in their emotional plight, and bail on me at the end? Who would be the
death of me?
I
didn't want to find out.
Buy Link: Amazon
Blood Rush
Demimonde, #2
BLURB
Sophie doesn't believe in happily ever after.
These days, she'd settle for alive after sunrise.
Advice columnist and newly-appointed oracle
to the demivampire, Sophie Galen has more issues than a Cosmo collection: a new
mentor with a mean streak, a werewolf stalker she can't shake, and a
relationship with her ex's family that redefines the term complicated. And then
there's her ex himself, who is more interested in playing leader of the vampire
pack than in his own salvation.
Becoming a better oracle is tough enough, but
when Sophie encounters a deadly enemy - one she never dreamed of facing - it
will take everything she's ever learned in order to survive.
Buy Link: Amazon
Wolf's Bane
Demimonde, #3
BLURB
Since becoming oracle to the demivampire two
years ago, advice columnist Sophie has battled werewolves and survived a
vampire attack (or two). However, not only was she powerless to save her lover
Marek when he slipped to the brink of evolution, she also witnessed his
transformation into a falcon, the symbol of Horus United.
Sophie’s quest to save Marek is further
complicated when rock star Dierk Adeluf – who also happens to be the king of
the Werekind – invites her backstage after a concert. Just when it seems she
will find respite from heartache, Sophie is bitten by a werewolf and Dierk
decides she is destined to be his queen.
Sophie is caught between the demivamps she
loves and the Were who commands her to love him. Throw in his jealous wanna-be
girlfriend—a true bitch if ever there was one—and an ambush by witches, and
there you have the big mess that Sophie calls her life. And, hello? Her soul
mate is still a bird.
Buy Link: Amazon
Author Info
Ash Krafton writes because if she doesn't,
her kids will…and NOBODY wants that. A speculative fiction girl through and
through, Ash writes paranormal romance and urban fantasy novels as well as
poetry and short fiction. Her work has won a bunch of awards and was even
nominated for a Pushcart Prize. When she's not writing, she's practicing Tai
Chi, listening to loud rock and metal, or crushing on supervillains.
Most recently, she's re-released her urban
fantasy trilogy THE BOOKS OF THE DEMIMONDE because she never really left the
world of Sophie and her Demivamps.
Author Links:
Hosted by
Presented by
No comments:
Post a Comment