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Madeline Baker/Amanda Ashley
Home of Romance Author
Madeline Baker/Amanda Ashley
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In The Works. . . . .Possible new story............. Prologue His favorite lair was in a castle that had been built only a year or so before he had been turned. Every fifty years or so, he moved away until all the people who had known him were dead and buried, and then he returned with a new name and a new wardrobe. Standing in the pouring rain, he ran his hand over one of the ancient walls. Even though the castle was inanimate, he felt a kinship with it, for they had both endured much in the course of their long existence. He had survived angry villagers who wanted to burn him alive; mercenaries who wanted to sell vials of his blood to the highest bidder; the king’s guards, who wanted his head on a pike; and pious minions of the Church who wanted to redeem his soul before they drove a sharp wooden stake through his heart. The castle had been ravaged by fire and flood, pummeled by rain and hail, struck by lightning, buried in an avalanche, and yet both he and the castle remained, still strong and nearly indestructible. Sometimes he thought of tearing the place down, but it had been his home for centuries. Destroying the castle would be like destroying himself. And maybe ending his existence wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Perhaps he would find peace in true death. He might even find forgiveness. At the least, he would find an end to his hellish thirst, to the loneliness that could never be assuaged by brief encounters. An end of the meloncholy sadness that came from watching the rest of the world grow and develop while he remained forever the same. He stared at the village below. It had grown since last he had seen it. The houses were made of sturdier materials now, set farther apart. The streets were wider, no longer lined with refuse. Many of the older shops remained – cobbler, tin smith, weaver, tailor, carriage-maker. New, more modern shops had been built around the fountain in the square – the Three Stags Inn, the Honeymead Ale House. The blacksmith shop had been rebuilt and was now twice the size it had been. He frowned when he noted the brand new brick building at the far end of the town. The law had come to Honeymead. A hand-lettered sign proclaimed it to be the Offices of Leland Cosgrove, Constable, and The Honorable James Douglas, Barrister. He growled an oath as the hunger stirred within him. It was time to hunt. MARA'S STORY (Last in the Night Series, maybe. Or maybe not) Chapter 1 Mara stood on the balcony of her home in the mountains, staring out over her domain. In the silvery wash of the moon’s light, everything looked peaceful. The people who lived in the small town located in the valley below would all be sleeping now, dreaming their innocent mortal dreams, blissfully unaware that one of the Undead lived in the sprawling old house on the hill. After a time, she let her mind expand, homing in on the few people in the world that she cared for. Roshan DeLongpre and his witch wife, Brenna, were somewhere in Italy. Vince Cordova and his wife, Cara, were strolling the dark streets of their city. Their son, Raphael, and his bride, Kathy, were in bed, wrapped in each other’s arms. Raphael’s twin brother, Rane, had finally made peace with what he was. He and his wife, Savanah, were sitting in the moonlight, trying to decide on names for their unborn daughter. Mara told herself she wasn’t jealous, that she didn’t envy any of them the love they had found, but she knew it for the lie it was. She was Mara, the oldest of her kind, and she was growing increasingly weary of her self-imposed lonely existence. She had taken mortal lovers from time to time, but she had loved none of them. Afraid to fully trust any man, mortal or Vampire, she had always withheld a part of herself, never letting any of the men she had known get too close or see too much. Until she met Eric Bowden. She had been in awe of his artistic talent, and she had fallen for him, as giddy as a school girl, charmed by his innate sweetness, by the sincerity and adoration in the depths of his deep gray eyes. She had given him her heart, something she had sworn she would never do, had trusted him with the truth of what she was, and seen the love in his eyes turn to revulsion She lifted her face to the sky, to the moon that had become her sun. Even though she could walk in the sun’s light if she was so inclined, she was most comfortable in the enveloping darkness she had inhabited for thousands of years. For the first time, she felt the weight of centuries on her shoulders. There was little that surprised her any more, little that she hadn’t seen or done. Perhaps it was time to end her existence, to find out what, if anything, waited on the other side. It would be a new adventure, she mused, something she had never tried before. Was there another life, another existence, after this one? She had seen no evidence of an After Life. If one did exist, would her soul find rest in some heavenly paradise, or eternal damnation in the bowels of a cruel and unforgiving Hell? She closed her eyes as thoughts of her past emerged from the depths of her memory. She had been raised as a slave in Pharaoh’s house in Egypt in 990 B.C. Perhaps that was Hell enough… She had been a month shy of her fifteenth birthday when Pharaoh presented her to one of his trusted advisors as a reward for a service well done. Mara had not taken kindly to being a slave in Shakir’s household. He had been a cold and cruel man, one who demanded instant obedience, one who did not hesitate to wield the lash at the slightest provocation. Shakir had allowed only female slaves under his roof. Many in Pharaoh’s household mocked him, saying it was unseemly for a man of Shakir’s position to have women working in his stables, caring for his armor, preparing his meals, acting as his butler, but Shakir had ignored their taunts. He refused to share his quarters with male servants. There were no eunuchs in his household staff, no stallions in his stable. Shakir claimed to love women. Old and young and in between, he professed to love all the female slaves in his household. And he bedded them all, willing or not, eager to prove his manhood by the number of children he sired. His touch had made Mara’s flesh crawl. Sensing her distaste, she had soon become Shakir’s favorite. He had found her loathing amusing, her temper tantrums entertaining. Desperate to escape his bed and his whip, she had run off many times in the next five years until, finally wearying of her constant attempts to leave him, Shakir had put her in chains. Mara had thought her life a hell before, but now it was much, much worse. Shakir kept her in chained in a small cell in the bowels of his residence. Food was delivered once each day, unless old Xx forgot. Shakir refused her the ease of a pallet, the warmth of a blanket, the comfort of a light. He even denied her the opportunity to bathe except on those nights when she was brought, still in chains, to his bedchamber. Once she was bathed and powdered and perfumed, he chained her to his bed and used her as he saw fit. She had begged the other slaves in his household to kill her, or to bring her a knife that she might take her own life, but the other women feared their master’s wrath too much to help her. And then one night, when she was huddled in a corner of her cell, sobbing in despair, the candle outside her cell sprang to life and a man appeared beside her. One minute she was alone in the dark, the next he was there, a man of medium height with wavy brown hair and eyes that glowed in the darkness with some inner fire. “Who are you?” she had asked, scrambling as far away from him as her chains would allow. “How did you get in here?” “I go where I wish,” he replied. “No one can keep me in, or out.” He took a step toward her. “Are you happy here?” “Of course not.” She recoiled when his hand brushed her cheek. “Leave me alone!” “And if I don’t, what will you do? Cry for help? Who is going to hear you down here, I wonder?” “Who are you?” “I am Dendar, master of the night.” He moved closer. She could see little in the near darkness of her cell. And yet she could see his eyes, red and glowing, like Hell’s own light. When he put his arms around her, she struggled a moment, and then went still. She had prayed for death, and Death had come for her. With a sigh, she closed her eyes and waited. Soon, her misery would be over. Soon, she would discover the Great Mystery that awaited everyone. There was a moment of pain, and then there was pleasure beyond anything she had ever known. She felt weightless, as though she had left her body and her spirit was floating in the air. She had no fears, no worries. There was only sensual pleasure she hoped would last forever. And then he was gone, and she was alone in her cell, confused by what had happened. Had she imagined him? Had it all been a dream? She lifted a hand to her neck, shivered with revulsion when she found the two tiny wounds. Near dawn, pain unlike anything she had ever known engulfed her body. She writhed in agony on the cold stone floor until she pitched headlong into a chasm deeper and blacker than anything she had ever known. Her last conscious thought was that, at last, death had found her. When next she opened her eyes, she was lying naked on a slab, about to be mummified, no doubt to be put into Shakir’s burial chamber where, upon his death, she would serve him through all eternity. She didn’t know who was more surprised to find that she was alive, herself or the handful of men who ran screaming out of the chamber when she sat up, her whole body aching, hungry in a way she had never been hungry before. She hadn’t known what she wanted until, in his haste, one of the fleeing men tripped and cut his hand on a sharp stone. The warm, coppery scent of fresh blood filled the air, sweet, tantalizing. She had pounced on him before he had time to scream. It had taken her fifty years to hunt down the Vampire who had turned her against her will. But she had found Dendar, and she had destroyed him. Mara smiled faintly at the memory. She had prayed for death and the Fates had granted it to her, only not quite in the way she had imagined. “Be careful what you wish for,” she murmured to the man in the moon, “lest you get it.” JUNTITLED Prologue When Skylynn McNamara came home to bury her grandfather and settle his estate, she was surprised to see that the house across the street was still vacant. The big, old, three-story house, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, sat on a half acre lot. It stood out like a giant amidst midgets, surrounded as it was by newer, smaller, more modern homes. The owner of the old house had refused to sell to the real estate developers, and so they had built around him. Granda had told her that Mr. Thorne had moved away shortly after she left for college. Oddly, the house hadn’t been sold. She wondered what had happened to Mr. Thorne. He had been a strange one. He had collected his mail and his newspaper at night and always mowed his front yard after the sun went down. He had gone to the high school football games, but only the ones held at night. Sky remembered the first time she had seen Kaiden Thorne. She had been five at the time. It had been early one summer evening and she had been sitting on the front porch playing with her dolls when a moving van pulled into the driveway of the house across the street. Curious, she had watched two men in gray overalls jump out of the cab and begin unloading the truck. There hadn’t been much in the way of furniture, just a black leather sofa and a matching chair, a couple of glass-topped end tables, a dresser and a chest of drawers, and a big-screen tv. The last thing the movers had unloaded was a large oblong box. Skylynn had frowned when she saw it. What on earth was in there? Her interest in the new neighbors soon waned when she realized there would be no playmates her age moving into the house, just a tall man with thick black hair. At five, she had thought him an old man. She realized now that he had probably been in his mid-thirties. Her second memory of Kaiden Thorne occurred when she was six. It had been Halloween, Sky’s favorite holiday, except for Christmas, of course. Everyone in the neighborhood decorated their house, each family trying to outdo the other, but none of them could hold a candle to Mr. Thorne. His yard had looked like something out of a horror movie. There was a coffin that looked as if it was a hundred years old, a skeleton that also looked so real, it had given Sky the creeps. Ancient torture devices lined his driveway. A scary-looking clock that would have looked at home in a Vincent Price movie chimed the house as assorted ghouls and monsters popped up out of old pirate chests and from behind weathered headstones. Sky remembered the first time she had gone trick-or-treating at the Thorne house, along with her older brother. Sam had told her a vampire lived in the house, but Sky hadn’t believed him because Granda had told her there was no such things as vampires, witches, ghosts, ghouls, or skeletons that walked and talked. But when Mr. Thorne opened the door, Sky had taken one look at his blood-red eyes, his gleaming fangs and long black cape, and screamed bloody murder. Her brother still teased her about the way she had turned tai and run back home just as fast as her legs would carry her. She’d had nightmares for weeks afterward, even though her grandfather had persuaded Mr. Thorne to come over and explain that it was just a costume. As time passed, Granda and Mr. Thorne spent more and more time together. They made an odd couple – her short, gray-haired grandfather and the tall, dark-haired Mr. Thorne. As far as Sky could tell, they had nothing in common. Granda was a retired doctor who dabbled in chemistry and alchemy in his lab in the basement. He had often kidded her that he was looking for a universal cure for disease. As for Mr. Thorne, she didn’t know what he did for a living. For all she knew, he, too, was retired. The two them spent a lot of time locked up in the basement. Occasionally, Sky overheard the two men chatting, but their talk of plasma and platelets and transfusions meant nothing to her. The summer Sky turned thirteen, she started spying on Mr. Thorne. She wasn’t sure why. Curiosity, perhaps. She bought a notebook and made copious notes about his habits and the clothes he wore. He rarely had visitors, but when he did, she wrote down the color and make of the car and the license plate and descriptions of the people who came and went so infrequently. Sam thought he was a drug dealer. Sky had always had a flare for art and she drew numerous pictures and portraits of the elusive Mr. Thorne. A faint white scar bisected his right cheek. He had another scar on his back just left of his shoulder blade. She had seen it one night during a scavenger hunt. An old newspaper had been the last item on her list and she had gone to Mr. Thorne’s house in hopes that he could help. He had answered the door wearing a pair of swim trunks and nothing else. He had invited her to step inside while he went to fetch the paper, and she had glimpsed the scar as he turned away. As she grew older, she began to wonder how he had gotten those scars. By the time she was fifteen, she had a full-blown crush on the mysterious Mr. Thorne. And then an odd thing happened. For no apparent reason, he stopped staying inside during the day. She would never forget the first time she had seen him outside when the sun was high in the sky. He had been mowing his yard, wearing only a pair of jeans and sunglasses and looking sexier than any man had a right to be. But that had been ten years ago, and she was no longer the wide-eyed innocent child she had once been. POSSIBLE SEQUEL TO DEAD PERFECT...NO TITLE Prologue The dream came every day and it was always the same. And even as it unfolded, never changing, Jim Hewitt wished that was all it was, a dream…. He followed the vampire and the woman home, intent on destroying the one and rescuing the other. And he had come so close. Armed with a bottle of holy water and a sharp wooden stake, he had attacked the vampire as they arrived home. The holy water had done its job, burning the vampire’s face, giving Hewitt the window of opportunity he needed to drive the stake into the vampire’s back. He hollered at Shannah to run away as he twisted the stake in Ronan’s back. The scent of fresh hot blood wafted through the night. But Shannah didn’t run away. With a scream of rage, she grabbed him by the arm. Startled, he glanced at her. “What are you doing?” “Stopping you!” She yanked his hand away from the stake, her fingers curling around his wrist in a grip like iron. “Are you crazy?” Hewitt exclaimed. “He’s a vampire!” “Yes,” she said, baring her fangs. “And so am I.” Startled, he could only stare at her, and then he lashed out as fear and fury swept through him. She laughed as he struggled in vain to free himself from her hold. And then she trapped his gaze with hers. “Stop fighting me,” she commanded. Unable to resist the preternatural power in her voice, his arms fell limply to his sides. Helpless to move, he watched her drop to her knees beside the vampire and pull the stake from his back. A torrent of dark red blood flowed from the nasty wound. And then the vampire sat up and uttered the most chilling words Jim Hewitt had ever heard. “Bring him to me.” The nightmare grew worse even from that point on. Shannah released him from her spell and dragged him effortlessly toward the wounded vampire. Fear spiraled through Hewitt as he gazed into the vampire’s blood-red eyes. “I warned you,” the vampire said. “You should have listened.” Hewitt struggled in vain as the vampire’s fangs sank into his throat. For a time, he seemed to be drifting between this world and the next. And then, as from far away, he heard the vampire’s voice. “Listen to me. You have only a few minutes to make up your mind. Do you want to live or die?” Hewitt stared up into the vampire’s face. How could he be expected to make such a decision? He was a vampire hunter. How could he choose between death or spending the rest of his existence as a vampire? “Your time is running out,” Ronan said curtly. “Make your choice!” “Live.” Hewitt forced the word from the depths of his soul. “I want…to live.” With a feral cry, the vampire bit into his own wrist. “Then drink,” he said, and his voice was like sandpaper over steel. Hewitt grimaced as dark red blood – vampire blood - dripped from the wound in the vampire’s wrist into his mouth. He choked down the first taste, hating what he was doing, hating the creature who had brought him to this. And then, to his amazement, he latched onto the vampire’s arm with both hands, drinking eagerly, afraid the vampire would make him stop. How could something so repulsive taste so good? “Damn you!” he said hoarsely, and then he pulled the vampire’s wrist to his mouth again and took his first step into another life. Chapter 1 Jim Hewitt jackknifed into a sitting position, the dream still fresh in his mind. Not for the first time, he wondered why he was plagued with the same dream every day. He was a vampire now, and everyone knew that vampires didn’t dream. If he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the horror of waking that first night and realizing it hadn’t been a dream. Even now, a month and a half later, he sometimes woke feeling lost, disoriented. He was supposed to hunt and destroy vampires, not hide from the hunters. As he did every night on waking, he cursed the vampire who had turned him although, to be honest, he had no one to blame but himself. If he had left the damned, blood-sucking creature alone, none of this would have happened. He blew out a sigh. He had hunted vampires his whole adult life, had thought he knew all there was to know about them. Just proved how wrong a man could be, he thought bitterly, and once again, he cursed Ronan for turning him and then leaving him. A sire was supposed to stay with his fledgling for at least a year, help him adjust to his new life, teach him how to hunt, how to find shelter, how to defend himself, if need be. A sire wasn’t supposed to abandon those he turned. Hewitt swore softly. Sure, he knew about hunting vampires. He knew how to find them, how to immobile them, how to destroy them. What he didn’t know was how to be one. “Dammit!” He hadn’t only lost his humanity, he had lost his family as well as the few friends he’d had. There was just no way in hell his old acquaintances, mostly hunters, would accept him as he was now. Not that he’d had that many friends. Being a hunter hadn’t allowed him the luxury of staying in one place long enough to really get to know anyone. From time to time, he had thought about contacting Carl Overstreet. Not that he and Overstreet had been friends, exactly, but they had shared some hairy moments. Overstreet was a reporter. He had written a series of articles titled “Vampires Among Us ~ Truth or Legend?” for a national magazine. He had met Overstreet in a bar one night where they had struck up an alliance of sorts. Jim had been hunting a vampire. Overstreet wanted a chance to interview the vampire before Jim took his head. Overstreet had gotten his interview and quit the field. Hewitt raked his fingers through his hair. If only he had done the same. All text on this page Copyright Madeline Baker 2006/2007/2008/2009 |
ExcerptsIn The Works
What I'm working on now Coming Soon
LOVE'S SERENADE
2-book anthology Amanda's Vampire Romances
NIGHT'S PLEASURE
Sequel to Night's Master NIGHT'S MASTER
Sequel to Night's Touch DEAD PERFECT
Vampire Romance NIGHT'S TOUCH
Sequel to Night's Kiss DESIRE AFTER DARK
Sequel to After Sundown AFTER SUNDOWN
Sequel to Shades of Gray SUNLIGHT, MOONLIGHT
Alien/Vampire Cerridwen Press
Books in Print
Time Travel
Signet Historical Romances
Leisure Historical Romance Series
RECKLESS EMBRACE
Includes covers and cover copy for Reckless Heart, Reckless Love and Reckless Desire Futuristic
Leisure Historical Romance
CHASE THE WIND
Sequel to Apache Runaway COMANCHE FLAME
The first book I wrote Fantasy
Anthologies
Anthologies
The complete list |
