Blood Wine

By Stephanie C. Tejeda

A tale of a past life, lost loves, betrayal, and the sheer horror when humans enter the supernatural world of vampires.

Sasha Reed is a screenplay writer living in New York City. She crosses time and space when she reunites with her life mate, Devin Delrosse, a five-hundred-year-old vampire. She discovers her true past life and destiny as a warrior with memories in present modern times that she thinks she imagined to create her new screenplay.

On an evening when she falls asleep in her office after a long day of auditions, she thinks shes alone until Devin appears explaining to her that he lost track of time after being cast for the lead role. Little did she know that he is really there to protect her from an impending death by an assassin of his kind. Their attraction will either save or destroy her, either way taking them on a path in a totally different direction. When all hell breaks loose, Sasha is faced with losing her humanity to join the fight in an ancient, centuries-old war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781493106882

Stephanie C. Tejeda

Stephanie C. Tejeda A paranormal fiction writer who loves creating erotic vampire stories, breaking away from everyday life to explore characters of her imagination with dark worlds of passion, intrigue, and mystery. She has previously published her works of poetry named Sanctuary: Life’s Poetic Inner-Sanctum and is also registered with the International Library of Poetry, where her poems are also displayed with other talented poets in “Honey of the Soul.”

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Stephanie C. Tejeda.

ISBN:      Softcover   978-1-4931-0687-5

                Ebook       978-1-4931-0688-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 10/08/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1:   Beginnings

Chapter 2:   While She Slept

Chapter 3:   Dahlia

Chapter 4:   Night of the Party

Chapter 5:   Things Not Being as They Seem

Chapter 6:   Castles!

Chapter 7:   Devin’s Story

Chapter 8:   Dangerous Liaisons

Chapter 9:   The Awakening

Chapter 10:   Battle Lines Are Drawn

Chapter 11:   Corrah

Passion is powerful and lethal in the wrong hands.

Introduction

My brother and I decided to separate to cover more ground; we were still following the scent although everything had become quiet. While walking on the trail, I looked up to notice that the one thing that stayed constant for over five hundred years was the stars in the sky. I suddenly became distracted with the noise that was coming from the property next door. There seemed to be some sort of celebration going on. With a lingering menace lurking about, I wanted to make sure that the danger would not spill over in that direction. That was not what I needed to deal with at this moment—another bloodbath to clean up. Newbies could be difficult; their new strength seemed to go to the head, making them go on killing sprees due to the shedding of the last traces of human blood being absorbed into the new vampiric body.

As I continued my way through the woods, I caught a new scent.

Pulling my hair back as I inhaled deep, taking in the scent, I glanced in that direction, and there she was—a fair-skinned petite young woman with long crimson hair—walking through the trail that connected to our property. Even with my keen vision in the darkness, the night’s shadows seemed to hide her face from full view. She must have strayed from the party and seemed to be looking up, admiring the night sky. Either way, she seemed lost and should not be here. I looked back up to also notice that every star was out in this summer night’s end. There was a brave innocence about her with the way she strolled through the darkness without fear. I suddenly felt protective over her and wanted to guide her to safety.

The scent was strong, and I knew our kind would pick that up. I watched her, intrigued, until she stopped at the pond. Something caught her attention.

All I could hear now was her pulse becoming frenetic. She was on my hunting grounds and was too close to the labyrinth where the new ones were allowed to roam.

In the distance, I saw the crazed minion I was hunting down charging toward her. He suddenly changed direction. He found that the trail of her scent was closer than that of the intended target—the party at the house next door.

With his speed, she didn’t see him coming, and I feared I would not get to her on time.

The instant the crazed minion grabbed her, my brother ran past me and decapitated him. As his head rolled onto her feet, she was now saturated. There was blood everywhere. She looked down to see that she was standing in a pool of blood. When I got to her, she was in shock, not talking or moving. I quickly assessed that she wasn’t wounded. I sensed her obvious fear, but there was something else. Then her eyes locked with mine, and I willed her to stay calm.

With one gentle touch of my cold hand grabbing hold of the warm and very soft, delicate skin of her arm to help her out of the pond, my world came crashing down. Then it hit me, intoxicating me and tantalizing my sudden curiosity. Awaking and tainting every dead cell of my being with arousal, it was her scent. It was as if I were looking into the face of a ghost of my very distant past.

Corrah.

Welcoming the distraction, she looked away as my brother spoke.

I guess it’s too late to ask him who his sire was, Vince said with a snicker, distracting me. It was not from our territory, and I didn’t recognize the scent signature.

I will call on the others to clear this mess, my brother declared, bringing me back to our current situation.

He turned to me and noticed my concern for her. As he turned to really take a look at her, he then shot me a look and then understood. He saw the same ghost as I did.

He put her in the pond to wash the blood off her.

Devin, she will not remember any of this.

He assured me of this without saying anything more. He sat her down next to the pond and rearranged her memory of this evening.

Once we were all cleared out, despite my brother’s demands, I returned to her. When she spotted me, she was startled; then our eyes connected. Whether it was curiosity or desire, its grab had a firm hold on me.

Hello, have we met?

She tried to ask bravely, looking into the bright blue pools of my eyes, unable to look away.

No. This is my property. Are you okay? After taking in her slender muscle tone, I noticed her fair skin glistening with the beads of water from her falling into the pond. I smiled, deflecting her question earlier and breaking the connection.

I was running, and I fell in the pond.

As I helped her up, she explained that she was renting the property next door for the summer and had strayed off, going for a walk because she couldn’t sleep.

I’m okay, thanks. After she smiled, she paused in her speech. Sorry, I didn’t notice I wandered off this far. I guess I should be heading back, she said in one breath, and then she turned, walking toward where she was staying. I wanted to walk with her to know more about her, but I could not. So I followed her in the distance, making sure she got back to her place unscathed.

Once back to her place, I heard her explain to another lady that was staying with her the version of the story we had her remember. The others came out to see where she had wandered. They seemed to be there to celebrate the end of the summer before she went away to school in London. I felt uneasy that she would not remember what really happened this night.

Chapter 1

Beginnings

After a few years studying overseas in London, I was glad to be back in New York. By the time I reached the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, looking over toward my city of lights, I noticed the calmness of the cool autumn air.

My day started at night in a small old playhouse that we rented on Cherry Street.

Sam and Alison were going over the script for the casting tomorrow. I wonder what kind of auditions we are going to get for the lead roles, I thought.

With my schedule being as busy as it could get as I was overseeing the set, the lighting, and the wardrobe, I was lucky to have Sam. He assured me that there were others that could look after that kind of stuff, but with me being the control freak that I was, he knew better.

I met Sam when he was my professor for theatrical arts in London. I was studying archaeology and English literature when I caught interest in a class that I felt could tame my passion for the arts. He was in transition to move back to New York,