Seduction in Scarlet
Christina Quinn
Publication date: April 15th 2017
Genres: New Adult, Paranormal, Romance
Sadie graduates in a handful of days, and when most of the people around her in class are worrying about finals, she’s more focused on if she’ll survive to walk across the stage. Byron, her vampire lover, brings Sadie to a medieval style tournament thrown by the region’s Master. His hope is to take her mind off the stresses of the tests and essays–not to mention the vampire who wants them both dead. However, while taking in the festivities Byron discovers that Sadie has some dark secrets of her own.
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EXCERPT:
“Would you like to play a game?” He cooed to me, nipping at the tender flesh around his bite from that morning.
“W-what kind of game?”“I call it no touching.”
“Will I be able to get my dress back on before dinner?”
“Depends on how carried away we get.”
I swallowed. “Okay. How do we play?”
He took a step back from me and started stripping. “You just stand there.”
“That doesn’t seem like much of a game.”
“It will,” his voice was heavy and thick with the darkness that his devious smirk boasted as he dropped his doublet to the ground. Something ruffled my gown, and I spun around finding nothing.
The ribbon holding the lace collar on tugged itself free, and the soft froth of delicate fabric fell to the floor behind me. The sudden cool air on my neck made me shiver as the ribbons at the sleeves of my dress started to do the same.
“This really isn’t much of a ga—” I turned to face him and the sight of his naked body—as always—rendered me a deaf mute.
“Trust me,” he whispered pulling the comforter and pillows from the bed.
I couldn’t find my voice as both sleeves slipped off. I was only in the bodice, corset, petticoat, and skirt now. Byron was already completely nude and lounging on the blanket on the polished wooden floor. He left the cushions for me.
“How can I win?” I was eventually able to ask as he stared up at me and I felt the bodice slowly start to gape open revealing the cream-colored corset beneath.
“You don’t touch yourself, or me.”
“Honestly, that sounds like everyone loses to me.” I giggled nervously.
“You’ll see.”
I licked my lips as at once my skirt drifted to my feet. Something about standing before him with just his eyes on me heightened my senses. The familiar heat started building, and he hadn’t laid a fingertip on me since agreeing to play the game. He was affected too, as I gazed down at his nudity I was greeted by the sight of him, seemingly growing harder and larger under my gaze.
“Remember,” he practically growled. “No touching.”
~~~~~
AUTHOR'S INTERVIEW
1. Please tell us your name and a little about your background.
I’m Byron Ravencroft, I was born May Day 1538, that’s the first for those who don’t know. I’m a vampire—obviously—low in the hierarchy. I don’t really like to talk about my past. It’s fairly complicated, and I’m not that person anymore. Right now, I’m just some guy who works protection. I specialize in asset recovery and guarding special targets during high-stress situations. Occasionally, I do take the arm candy jobs, it’s trendy for celebrities to have bodyguards who are vampires or some kind of shifter.
2. What is your greatest fear?
Losing my girlfriend, and I don’t mean in the normal sense of her walking out on me. I’m dating a human. I know it’s cliché to be the multi-centennial vampire who insta-loves a human girl but… it happened to me. Unfortunately, being a lower ranking vampire means I’m beholden to my sire. Essentially, Gabriella—my sire—is my boss… if my boss controlled every single aspect of my life. She doesn’t like the idea that I might find happiness and is determined to take it from me.
3. Whom do you trust the most?
Myself, but I know that’s not really an answer. As a vampire, we go through phases with trust. When you’re first turned til around roughly one hundred give or take, you trust no one. Then you slowly start to open up after that initial period. I’m approaching my fifth century, which means I’ve learned that betrayal can only hurt as much as you let it hurt you. I trust some people, but that list is incredibly small, as in two maybe three people. Tristan, the Master of the Pacific Northwest, I knew him when he was mortal we weren’t friends then, but we’ve developed a close friendship over the centuries. He’s probably the only person I trust implicitly, but if you can’t trust a friend you’ve had for over four hundred years who can you trust? I trust Sadie, my girlfriend, but our relationship is fairly new so that trust is still in its infancy. Lastly my friend Kennedy, however, her background as a pirate makes it hard to trust her though we’ve been friends for years.
4. What is your greatest weakness?
Ha. Trick question, right? You expect a vampire to tell you their greatest weakness? I’ll share something benign to be a good sport. Love. Behold the obvious answer in all its glory.
5. What is your greatest strength?
My instinctive protective nature. I was raised to be a Knight as well as a courtier. When I was a little boy, my father would put me on his knee when I visited him at court and say it was my duty to protect my family because my brother and sisters would need someone with a sword who they could trust. That’s always stuck with me, the drive to protect others.
6. Is there someone special in your life?
Sadie Angelina Fatima Rizzoli. She is… everything. Have you ever met someone who looks like all of your wildest fantasies brought to live? That’s what my Sadie is to me. She has this long garnet hair that falls to her waist in haphazard waves. The deepest, darkest, most soul-devouring black eyes. Plush full lips that would send any man’s mind into the gutter and skin that is the softest warmest shade of gold. She looks so alive, like an ancient sun goddess in the flesh. Then there’s her body, she has an exaggerated hourglass with a tiny waist, broad hips and a more than generous endowments. On top of all that she has this indomitable strength and an astoundingly quick mind. She’s everything, I couldn’t dream up a more perfect woman for myself if I tried.
7. What obstacles stand in the way of your happiness?
Everything. Not really but it certainly feels that way. First, there are the normal hurdles of a Vampire and Human relationship. No one wants you to be together, not humans and certainly not vampires. Then there’s the more specific obstacle of my Sire, who doesn’t want to relinquish any sort of claim over me—even if she was virtually ignoring me until I started seeing Sadie.
8. What is the worst thing you ever had to do and why did you feel compelled to do it?
I murdered a servant in their sleep when I was sixteen. One of the kitchen girls caught two of my family members in a compromising position and threatened to tell everyone if Edward—who was king at the time—didn’t give her land and money. I snuck into her room that night and smothered her with a pillow. It was the first life I ever took and really the only one that bothers me. At the time, I convinced myself I did it to maintain the family’s virtue—that I was doing what my father would have wanted. But I didn’t have to smother them, I didn’t have to be so close when I took their life. I wanted to do it that way, I wanted them to suffer. I don’t like that side of myself, so I try to keep it in check as best I can, but it's always there lurking under the surface like a shark in calm waters.
9. What would you sacrifice to be with your special someone?
Everything, as long as she’s safe. Catch that qualifier? It’s extremely important. Her safety is paramount.
10. Do you believe in love at first sight?
Yes, and no. I’m going to be truthful and say that I didn’t before. I thought it was garbage and the closet that you could get to it was lust at first sight. Since seeing Sadie for the first time, I have since changed my tune, obviously.
11. If you could travel back in time to change one thing in your past, what would it be?
I would have told Sadie who I really was in the beginning, and I don’t mean the whole vampire part. I’d say more, but it’s a secret.
12. What's the future hold for Byron Ravencroft?
You’d think that would be an easy question to answer, but it isn’t. I hope it holds a long life with Sadie, maybe children one day if we’re safe enough. Beyond that, I’m at a point where I don’t want to hope for too much.
Author Bio:
An avid reader and lover of literature, Christina Quinn, has always wanted to be an author for as long as she can remember. She spends most of her days with a coffee cup or wine glass within arm’s reach as she labors at her laptop weaving incredible stories.
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