Yeeha!

Desprite Measures is ready to go 🙂

So here is another little excerpt to keep you going until release on Friday:

“Cassie, meet WynterRain,” said Gloria.

WynterRain. Yeah, right.

“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” said the witch. Despite its lyrical Irish lilt, her voice was as rough as the rest of her. “I believe we almost met earlier today.”

She’d noticed. I was under no illusion; she could see right through my human shape to the sprite beneath.

“Likewise.” I kept it short, not confirming her supposition. Gloria already looked too interested for my liking, and I had no intention of relating my earlier humiliation.

“Wynter is going to help us with our little problem,” said Gloria. “Aren’t you, Wynter?”

Wynter glanced nervously towards Alastair, and I wondered what hold the vamp had over her.

Alastair maintained his silence. I stared at him in suspicion. He was quivering, the minute, rhythmic clenching of his fists visible in the firelight, and I wondered when he’d last fed.

Alarmed, I turned back to Wynter and found my answer. Even in the half light, the peculiar mixture of fear and desperate longing that twisted her face was unmistakeable.

Wynter was a vampire junkie.

“Oh, do get on with it,” snapped Gloria. “We’ll wait out here.”

Neither of them needed a second invitation. Wynter started to turn back into her van, but Alastair was on her before she completed the move. He buried one fist in her untidy thatch of hair and yanked her head back. She uttered a little scream as his fangs sank into her neck, but there was no real protest in the sound, or fear.

Wynter moaned and squirmed in Alastair’s arms. The vampire’s body jerked sporadically, and loud suckling noises interrupted the quiet of the forest. It felt obscenely like watching someone being raped, yet their enjoyment was all too apparent.

I wondered what it must be like, to be so desperate for something that you were willing to surrender your whole self, mind, body and purpose to another’s control. Was the pain worth the adrenalin rush and the aphrodisiac in the vamp saliva? Or was pain an integral part of the whole thing?

Wynter uttered a groan that rose to a shriek. Consumed by a bizarre envy for an experience I was never going to have, I averted my face.

To be stopped cold by the sight of Gloria, her eyes riveted to the unfolding performance. Flames reflected in glittering splendour across the surface of her eyes, and something even hotter writhed in their depths. Her perennial scorching scent over-rode even the smell of the burning logs.

It was my turn to gasp. This time in recognition of my utter blindness.

Alastair was Gloria’s lover. It was so plain I couldn’t believe I’d missed it before. Pain stabbed through me. It had never occurred to me that she might have a regular lover. How stupid was that?

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