Saloman. The name sends shivers of delight – and trepidation – down your spine once you get to know him. You understand Elizabeth’s plight when in one moment she wants to stake the arrogant vampire and then love him into oblivion the next. He evokes powerful and sensual emotions. He’s a hero you won’t soon forget.
Elizabeth is caught between that darned old rock and a hard place – she has the blood of vampire hunters running through her veins but she can’t resist, as much as she tries, the ancient being she awakened after a three-hundred-year sleep. I say, “Why keep trying, Elizabeth??!!” But that’s just me. Elizabeth has to do her own thing. And she does. Much to Saloman’s amusement.
If you haven’t read a good vampire story lately, try this series. I know you’ll fall just as hard as I have.
Summary:
Even if you walk in the light, you can dwell in the dark.
Months after her dangerous encounter with vampire overlord Saloman, Scottish academic Elizabeth Silk is still trying to cope with both the demands of her ancestral bloodline—which marks her as a vampire hunter — and the overpowering desire she feels for the immortal she brought back from the grave. But she is not alone in her fascination with Saloman.
When Elizabeth tracks down a distant cousin from America, she learns he possesses an antique sword that has caught the interest of the Grand Master of the American hunters. It is the ancient and mystical sword of Saloman — a treasure of vast occult powers and a prize beyond measure to both vampires and humans. Now the race is on for possession of the sword.
Even as her enemies and allies shift their allegiances and battle for supremacy, Elizabeth must decide which will rule her own perilous fate: unwanted loyalty or unholy love.
“My,” Travis said, moving around the table toward them. “My, oh, my. What do we have here?” He sniffed the air around them, and Elizabeth was suddenly reminded of her first encounter with the Hungarian vampire Zoltán, who had behaved in much the same manner and then laughed, as if he’d recognized her by the very smell of her blood. Although Travis didn’t laugh, there was no doubt of his recognition.
“Powerful human blood,” he observed, his mouth so close to Elizabeth’s ear that she wanted to scream. She held herself rigid, unmoving. “Elizabeth Silk, the Awakener . . .”
Josh yanked her away from him, staring down his nose at the vampire, who paid him no attention whatsoever.
“Okay, boys,” Travis said. “Two descendants to play with, and the victim was Saloman, so no gulping. Share the boy and hold the Awakener for me.”
Josh, who seemed to have finally picked up that the “men” surrounding them were dangerous, took a step backward. Before he could draw too much attention, Elizabeth glared at the vampire who grasped her arm.
“Gulping?” she said. “Without an introduction, I don’t even allow biting.” And she whipped out the stake, plunging it into his heart. At the same time, she spun in the cloud of his dust and kicked the vampire nearest Josh hard enough to knock him into the table. “Josh, run!” she yelled, and lunged at Dante, grabbing his wrist and yanking him after her. “Go!”
It was desperate; it probably required a miracle to make it work; but at least its suddenness gave them a chance. Unfortunately, Elizabeth had reckoned without Josh’s recent skepticism, which she’d just blown sky-high with the vampire. He stood rooted to the spot, blinking at where the creature had last stood. His lips moved, making no sound.
“Get them,” Travis snarled. Elizabeth gave Dante one last tug after her to make her point and grabbed Josh’s arm instead. She couldn’t drag both of them and fight at the same time.
“Josh!” she cried. “Move!”
He stumbled in her wake, but she had to punch the vampire who had hold of him and dragged him to the ground. As Elizabeth leapt and staked the fallen vampire, she could see that their moment had passed. The vampires were closing in on all sides. More were emerging from the office beyond, from the doorway to the car park. Wildly, she scanned the room for an escape route, holding fast to Josh’s arm. He was breathing like a steam engine. Dante backed away toward Travis, who, however, ignored him. The vampire leader’s attention was all on Elizabeth.
“Sir, do we have an agreement?” Dante shouted.
“Not now, Senator.” Travis smiled and walked forward into the circle. “It’s feeding time.”
Dante strode the length of the room toward the exit, and began to run, shoving past the vampires who were not remotely interested in him when the blood of two descendants, one of whom was also the Awakener, was up for grabs.
“I’ll fight, Josh,” Elizabeth said shakily. “But I can’t win. If you can manage it, get out—they want me more. Find Adam Simon and tell him what happened here. Do you understand?”
There was no time for any reply. The vampires approached, beginning at a walk and advancing quickly to a run. Elizabeth raised her stake and released Josh in order to have both arms free.
“Straight ahead,” she breathed, and launched herself at the first vampire with a scream of pure rage.
But something was louder than her cry—the crashing of falling masonry as the ceiling began to cave in. Her chosen victim’s distraction gave her an easy kill. Whirling, she spun to face the vampires closing behind her, and found their backs to her. They were watching in stunned amazement as someone fell—no, stepped—through the hole in the ceiling as if descending a staircase.
He still wore the business suit, minus the constricting jacket. From his long, loose black hair to his shining shoes, he was dazzling. He advanced on those who stood between him and Elizabeth and Josh.
“I’m Saloman.”
*
Elizabeth closed her eyes. In that moment, she understood him so completely it hurt. She knew his loneliness as if it were her own, and this was all there would ever be for them, snatched nights when circumstances beyond them dictated they could be together for twenty-four hours. For a being thousands of years old, that was less than a drop in the ocean.
This is all there is. Don’t waste it, Silk.
She rose from the bed before she could change her mind, pad¬ding the few feet across the soft-pile carpet to his side. Still he didn’t turn from the window, but by the city lights reflected on his face, she glimpsed his faint smile.
“Is it all illusion with us, Saloman? Is none of it real?”
“It’s all real, just . . . fleeting.”
He wanted more; he still wanted more. It should have appalled her; it should have sent her scurrying back to bed with the sheets drawn up to her chin in protection. She should not have continued to stand there in her sexy nightdress, and she certainly shouldn’t have taken his hand, threading her fingers through his as she gazed with him across the blackness of Central Park. The sounds of traffic and partying were faint, but audible.
“I never expected New York to be this beautiful,” she observed.
“It has its own charm, as all places do.”
“You have been here before!”
The smile came back briefly and vanished. “Not since it was like this. A long time ago, before it was called America.”
She accepted that. One day, perhaps even tomorrow, he would tell her about it. Tonight, it seemed, he didn’t want to talk. So she lifted their joined hands to her cheek.
“I wish it was different, Saloman,” she whispered, and then, before the tears came, she dropped his hand and turned away.
But she moved too slowly. Before she had even taken a step, he’d seized her wrist and swung her against him. His arms were hard around her and his head swooped like some bird of prey. There was no time to protest before his lips crushed hers.
Her mouth opened wide in shock; she might even have intended to object, but as he took possession, she gave up and sank into his embrace with a muffled moan of relief and joy. He bent her body backward, grinding the hardness of his erection into her abdomen, and she flung her arms up around his neck, grasping his hair between her fin¬gers. As he deepened the kiss, she welcomed his tongue with her own, and when she felt the graze of his dangerous fangs, she licked them greedily.
Saloman spoke inside her head, presumably so that he could keep kissing her. Did you come to offer me your blood or your body?
Either. Both.
I wish I’d thought of showing you weakness before.
At that, she tore her mouth free, tugging at his hair in a feeble attempt to prevent him from doing exactly as he wanted to. “You think this is some kind of weird, misplaced pity?” she whispered.He didn’t answer, simply took her mouth back, and her tugging fingers relaxed in his hair, holding him to her. You don’t like pity, she reminded him.
I like sex with you.
