Waking Love’s Hunger (An Illicit Seattle Novella)

By Jeff D. Ellis

This novella introduces the shadowy world of Illicit Seattle. Content Warning: Explicit love scenes, spicy characters, and heart-pounding paranormal world action. Intended for mature audiences.

Hidden in the Seattle underground, a clan of Vampires sells sex, power and information, controlling politics and influencing an illicit world of human-looking creatures with incredible powers and intense hungers...

Henry was just doing another job for another well-to-do client. Being a spy came easily to someone with his special abilities. Planting bugs, gathering intel, watching and waiting in the shadows had made him a very rich man. Spying at Thorne Technologies was cake. Until he met Kat. Suddenly, all his special skills were his enemy. Guilt and worry consumed him. He couldn’t let her find out his secrets.

Kat was winning awards at Thorne. She had gotten herself through college and had a promising career. Being a Vampire made it easy to convince clients to buy and give. With a touch of her hand and a small sip of their energy, humans were putty in her hands. Feeding her hunger was controllable. But she would never be free of the Clan. Or the Clan’s laws.

Seattle looks like a normal, modern-day city, but hidden in plain sight, supernatural beings roam and feed. Anyone – your neighbor, co-worker, or even the homeless person you walk by – could be one of them. That stranger who brushed past you on the street might be a Vampire feeding off your energy in that brief moment of contact. And then, it's an addiction....

In this series of spicy, paranormal romances, come explore the lives and loves of many supernatural creatures and the exciting adventures that show the illicit side of Seattle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeff D. Ellis
• Release date: Sep 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005914578

Jeff D. Ellis

My novels are usually classified as paranormal romance or urban fantasy, but they're really all over the place, always with a great big dose of action and adventure. I've written two series set in modern day Seattle: Illicit Seattle (vampire romance and shady paranormal business dealings) and The Protectors (monsters and urban paranormal action).I grew up with a steady diet of reading fantasy and science fiction novels and writing computer programs. Later my tastes ran to the likes of Ian Fleming and Tom Clancy. Some of my current favorite authors are Jim Butcher, Craig Johnson, Daniel Silva, Michael Connelly, Larry Correia, Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, and Neil Gaiman.I'm a fun-loving guy with a degree in Psychology and Computer Science, with more than 30 years experience working with computers and managing IT departments. I enjoy being creative with writing, 3D printing, and woodworking. I've also been an instructor of 3D animation. One high point was being introduced by Stan Lee as part of a team at ComicCon for work on 3D animation for Iron Man and Fantastic 4 back in the 1990s.I live in Auburn, WA (Seattle area) with my wife, one demanding cat and two ferociously protective dogs.

Book preview

WAKING LOVE'S HUNGER

An Illicit Seattle Novella

Jeff D. Ellis

WAKING LOVE'S HUNGER

Copyright © 2020 Jeff D. Ellis

All rights reserved.

Published by DragonSight Publishing, LLC

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 author.

This is a work of fiction.

Any resemblance to reality is entirely coincidental.

First Edition: January 2020

V1.0

Your dedication here.

Time for a break

It was 4:00 a.m. and Seattle finally slept. The target was the CFO’s office of an investment banking company, on the top floor of a thirty-two-story building in modern Belltown. Its neighbors shined in bright glass and mostly housed Seattleites wanting to live downtown. The service entrance was the best way in, but he had no idea what waited for him this time of night. He snuck in and took the elevator. A security guard was making rounds at the far end of the hall.

He found the door he needed. Crap! A Medeco high security lock. They weren’t easy to pick quickly, and a destructive entry would leave evidence he couldn’t afford. The light was dim, but he didn’t need it. Like most experts, he worked by feeling the pick between his fingers and the torsion wrench.

Henry looked over his shoulder for the guard. The security guard’s light shined down the hall, coming toward him. He had two choices: try to finish picking the lock and enter in the seconds it would take the guard to reach him, or move away and start the process all over.

He moved away silently, against the wall opposite the door. The guard walked right past him and didn’t notice a thing. The flashlight bobbed down the hall and disappeared around the corner. Henry went back to work. He felt the last pin click into place, turned the cylinder and entered, right before hearing the guard coming nearby again. Henry took a deep breath.

Now that he was inside the office suite, things would get easier, but he still needed to move fast. He found the office for the Chief Financial Officer of the company. Quickly moving behind the desk, he set his bag down and retrieved the PC. He installed a keyboard logger inside, and inserted his special USB boot device that installed malware. It would send everything the CFO typed to a remote server. This would give his customer, Scotty, all the information he needed to decide if he was going to attempt a hostile takeover of the company. He put things on the desk back the way they were and wiped down any fingerprints, and easily snuck out into the dark night.

With the job done, Henry headed back to his empty house to submit his report. Once the adrenaline wore off, it left him depressed and lonely with no one to share his victory with.

Wanting More

Henry sat in his dark house and listened to the busy sounds of birds outside. His was a life full of mystery and loneliness. Like his parents before him, he used his abilities to create magical illusions for industrial espionage and was a private investigator in his spare time.

To protect himself, he used many aliases and appearances. No one in his life knew what he actually looked like. Sometimes to help build his aliases, he would people watch.

At times he liked to hang out in downtown Seattle appearing to be homeless. It was amazing how people ignored him. He could sit right behind people while they had conversations with friends or co-workers, saying things they would never want a stranger to hear.

Sometimes he would go to a nightclub and appear as a rich man in an Armani suit with a Rolex watch, to see how people would interact with him. It brought out the gold diggers in the club. One-night stands with these women didn’t feel bad, but the meaningless hookups didn’t make him feel any less alone.

He owned several houses, though lately he had been staying at his house in suburban Kirkland, not far from the waterfront. It felt remote, surrounded by trees, but close enough to the marina that he could hear the water lapping at the dock sitting on his balcony. He spent the day dozing in his lounge chair, listening to the water as if on a sailboat.

It was time for some dinner and people-watching. He decided to get outside and hit the Wilde Rover Irish Pub. It was a short walk from his house, and he went as Henry Lancer, the alias he used for jobs requiring a computer specialist. He wore the Seattle nerd professional uniform of a polo shirt and jeans. The illusion wasn’t much different from how he actually looked, but made him appear a few inches shorter, with short brown hair instead of long black hair, and brown eyes instead of his glowing blue eyes. Normally he worked out several hours a day on weights and he added a few pounds to his looks in the illusion. His other aliases looked much different.

He opened the pub door. Sounds of laughter and music assaulted his ears. It was a full house tonight. Service would be on the slow side. Then he saw her. That beautiful redhead was holding court at the bar. People were buying her drinks as she told stories. Her laugh was infectious.

They locked eyes for a moment and with a smile, she lit up his world and made his heart beat faster. With a turn of her head to answer a question, the moment was over, but oh what a moment it was.

Watching her expertly manage the men and women who bought her drinks was one of the reasons he came here. He imagined she was a con artist or someone famous. There had to be some explanation for the sway she had over people. He really needed to know how she did it.

They had never met, and he didn’t even know her name, but this time she noticed him watching. That hadn’t happened before, and he quickly looked away. Now he needed to learn more about her for his own protection.

The server came by and interrupted his train of thought. The waitress smiled and pointed at the menu and he gave his order for a cheeseburger and a beer. When he looked up, the crowd had dispersed, and the redhead was gone. The room grew quiet as her