HAPPY RELEASE DAY TO ME!
Today’s the day I have been waiting FOREVER for! His Haven is now available in ebook on Secret Cravings Publishing’s website! It will be available on other online vendors (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookstrand, Allromance, etc.) on Monday.
I also added His Haven on Goodreads, so if you have a Goodreads account, make sure you add it to your “Want to Read” shelf.
Excerpt:
“When I found you there in the corner of the room… heart barely beating, I…” He paused and pressed his lips together to stop himself from continuing. His sympathy and compassion made something inside her spark to life. It began at the bottom of her belly, and like a candle’s flame, the warmth grew in size and power, stretching upward into her chest and settling at the center. She wanted to reach out and touch him, tell him that she understood his fear.
Still unsure, she kept her hands tucked under the warmth of her cloak. She felt dizzy suddenly. Was it possible that Avrum actually had a heart, and that he did want to help her? If so, that meant that Emma had been right. Avrum did care about her.
What was she going to do now that Keagan had been assigned to her? She would rather die than be Henri’s pet forever.
Maybe I can’t do this on my own…
“Help me,” she told him, realizing it was her only real option. “Help me leave… You can help me now. Together, we can get to my father and we―”
His disheartened expression made her stop.
“You can never go back to your father,” he said. “It will be the first place Keagan and Henri will look for you.”
Terror made her mind race and her hands tremble. There had to be a way for her to get out. “You can bring me and my father somewhere safe,” she blurted out in desperation. “Please, there has to be some way. I can’t stay here.”
Avrum’s eyes drifted over her shoulder to where the manor laid quiet and still. He inhaled. “You have been bitten,” he said.
Haven took a slight step back.
“I saw the wounds when I found you,” he replied to her perplexed look. “Your blood is now entangled with Henri’s. For as long as they are together and flowing through his veins, you will be connected to him. He will know where you are, no matter how far.”
She gasped, her hand flying to the place on her chest where the two pierce wounds laid underneath. “How do you know this?”
“It is something we all learn when we are first changed.”
“Have you ever killed?” she asked but then hesitated. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know the answer to that question.
“No,” he replied. “I have taken blood from humans before, when I was first turned, but I have made sure to never harm any of them. Now, I drink from a stock supply of human and animal blood in the manor cellar.”
The thought of consuming a person’s blood made Haven nauseous. “Can you ever stop? Never drink it again?”
Avrum let out a short laugh. “I have asked the same questions,” he said. “I still have to be reminded that I am no longer like you. I cannot stop the drinking because I am no longer fully alive. The living blood replaces what I have lost during the change.”
“What are you, exactly?”
“We are called vampires.”
She couldn’t speak. She had never heard the name before, but for some reason, it made her voice freeze in the pit of her throat.
“With your blood still coursing through Henri’s veins, you can be tracked. I need to get you back to the manor before he wonders where you are and realizes you’re gone.” Avrum held out a hand to her. She stared at the open palm with wide, fearful eyes. The skin there glistened against the amber lights of the manor windows. It was marked with faint scars. Each one seemed to overlap the others.
“We keep the scars we have earned as humans,” he told her, as if reading her thoughts. “I have many of my own to bear.”
For some reason, his words made the warmth in her chest grow even more and the pains in her body ease. She stretched her own hand out, the raw and marred marks around her wrist standing out against the paleness of her skin.
Avrum offered her a tender smile―a smile that told her that this time she wasn’t alone. “Come back with me,” he told her. “I will protect you with everything I am. I swear it. Please…”
Haven hesitated for a moment, their hands hovering close. In the space between them, all her doubt and fears lingered. Could she really trust him? He was one of them after all. A vampire.
She sucked in icy night air and, taking a step forward, placed her shaking hand in his.
~H.A.B.
2 Responses
Huge congrats… I’m so excited for you:) Going to share this on facebook and twitter 🙂
Reblogged this on Mandi Rei Serra and commented:
It was my pleasure to be a part of a workshop with Harper A. Brooks. Give it a read, has my thumbs-up!
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