Book Title: Blood Winter
Author: S.J. Coles
Publisher: Pride Publishing
Release Date: December 29, 2020
Genre/s: Contemporary M/M Paranormal/Vampire Romance
Trope/s: Forbidden love, enemies to lovers, stuck together, rural romance
Themes: Healing, belonging, finding acceptance, alternate reality
Length: 71 797 words/ 266 pages
There is a sequel planned.
Buy Links
Pride Publishing | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Vampires are attempting to integrate into human society.
When Alec MacCarthy first meets a ‘haemophile’ in the flesh, it’s not the obvious dangers that frighten him.
Blurb
Alec MacCarthy, Lord of Aviemore and largely-forgotten descendent of a once-proud family line, keeps the wolf from the door of the crumbling family mansion by restoring classic cars.
He leaves the real world alone and wishes nothing more than for it to return the favor. But in a reality where haemophiles—still colloquially known as vampires, despite the publicity campaigns—have come out of hiding and are attempting to integrate into human society, the real world is rapidly becoming a disrupted and conflicted mess that threatens to trouble even Alec in his remote Scottish hideaway.
When he unwittingly attends a Blood Party to please a friend, he has his first meeting with one of these mysterious and dangerous beings. Terje is like nothing he has ever encountered before…literally. His reactions are as troublesome as they are undeniable.
Alec’s snap decision to help the haemophile rather than sample his sense-heightening and addictive blood sets them both on a path that will lead them into a tangled web of intrigue with consequences that will change their lives—and the world—forever.
Reader advisory: This book contains scenes of violence, murder, kidnapping, blood stealing, drug use, addiction and blood drinking.
The temperature changing made my skin tingle. I was lying on something soft. My wet clothes were stripped away, making my muscles convulse. My hands and feet pulsed painfully, my injured wrist screaming. I murmured protests and pushed at the hands on me, but they were strong, and I was weak and I could barely see or breathe.
“Alec, you must eat.”
A hot mug was being held close to my face. I smelled the savoriness of soup. The mug was held by a smooth, white hand. I knocked it away, hearing a crash, willing the blackness to return. Finally, I was allowed to collapse into the tangled bed clothes. The blackness rose, tempting me away, offering me an empty, quiet place where nothing hurt any more.
“Alec…”
I was racing away from all feeling, then became aware of a smell—a rich, heavy smell. Autumn fruit and syrup, bonfires and the best, darkest wines threaded through with sharpness of hot metal. It sent threads of sensitivity shooting through me. When it touched my tongue, sensation flooded my body.
I couldn’t fight. I swallowed. Heat and pleasure rolled through my flesh like waves of a warm, tropical sea. My extremities throbbed just on the edge of pain. Every cell in my body seemed to be set alight. My nerves were wires sparking with electricity. My brain and groin pulsed with every beat of my suddenly-powerful heart.
I blinked, my eyes watering, the rich smell filling my senses. Through a dizzying mist, I watched Terje rise from the edge of my bed, holding an empty tumbler. Thick residue, a red so dark it was almost black, stained the glass. He pulled his sleeve down to cover a small cut in his wrist, which was already healing.
I searched for horror, for anger, for bitterness and fear. But my consciousness wavered and I faded into warmth and comfort and the feeling that every inch of my body was filled with light.
“Sleep, Alec.”
My eyes closed. I slept.
Dreams came—senseless, formless but loaded with sensation, filled with heat and a burning need I’d never known, not even at the dawn of adolescence when my hand and my imagination had first opened a new and entrancing world to me.
I woke with my heart racing, my skin on fire, my breath heaving. Every inch of me buzzed and begged to be touched. My pulse pounded in my neck, my chest, my groin. I was painfully hard. Even the feel of the sheets against my skin was overwhelming. I pushed them back.
The air was warm. The stove in the next room was blazing. My skin prickled in the heat. I was in nothing but my underwear. I reached for myself, gasping at the contact, and I brought myself off in seconds. I groaned as I came, hot seed spilling into my hands as waves ran up my body like rays of an autumn sun. But when the blaze of the orgasm faded, I was left with simmering heat that had only been stoked by my climax.
I closed my eyes and tried to visualize hands on me—David’s…or Brody’s. But my mind skidded away from thoughts of them both. Instead, it was a pale face with a fall of white-blond hair that rose before me. I saw burnished silver eyes, deeper than wells, ageless and heavy but filled to the brim with knowing, looking at me like they knew and understood me better than I did. I groped for the nightmare that had made me run or the memory of Brody being ripped apart that had dampened and confused my desires the day before. But the images wouldn’t form.
All I could think of was Terje touching me. I grew agonizingly hard once again. I lay, panting, my blood thundering in my veins, staring at the ceiling as I pumped my cock, but it wasn’t enough. I sat up. I was trembling, but not with cold. I moved through the kitchen in a sort of dream. The feel of the linoleum against my bare feet sent shivers through my over-sensitized skin.
Pulling open the door to the main house let in a rush of frigid air. My skin quivered but the fire underneath it was stoked still hotter. I padded out into the dining room. I could smell the dust, smell the dead leaves on the floor, smell the very age of the darkened room like some kind of heady perfume. There was a low, warm light and the smell of a wood fire and good wine. It threaded through my flesh and pulled me forward. I drifted through the hall, past the stairs, feeling the drafts play against my skin like sighs. The hairs on my arms and legs stood up like a cool hand had been run over the skin. I swallowed thickly, blinking heavy eyes.
S.J. Coles is a Romance writer originally from Shropshire, UK. She has been writing stories for as long as she has been able to read them. Her biggest passion is exploring narratives through character relationships.
She finds writing LGBT/paranormal romance provides many unique and fulfilling opportunities to explore many (often neglected or under-represented) aspects of human experience, expectation, emotion and sexuality.
Among her biggest influences are LGBT Romance authors K J Charles and Josh Lanyon and Vampire Chronicles author Anne Rice.
Author Links
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