Introduction

Dante Gabriel is starving. What he craves is red gold?human blood. After being held captive as a blood slave to a female vampire for years, he has finally escaped. Unchained at last, he follows his nose to the nearest blood bank to sate his hunger.

ER nurse Erin Hamilton expects just another busy night shift…until she finds a gorgeous stranger vandalizing the hospital blood bank. Though her logic tells her to turn him in, she’s pulled by stronger and unfamiliar emotions to protect the man who seems oddly infatuated with her scent. Chemistry sizzles between them, but Dante, plagued by nightmares of his time in captivity, fears he won’t be able to control himself…especially when he discovers a secret she doesn’t even know she’s hiding.

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Excerpt

Chapter One

Dante

Somehow—still, as I crouched in an alleyway, starving for blood, I didn’t know how—I’d drawn on all my adrenaline and broken the bonds that had detained me for so long. I’d stumbled a little getting out of the compound, but my muscle memory had now returned.

Unchained.

Finally.

Free from her.

I’ll find you, Dante. You’re mine forever.

Get out of my head!

You are and always will be…mine.

With the last shred of strength I possessed, I forced her out of my mind.

My guts churned and my gums itched. Hungry. So fucking hungry. I’d scavenged some scraps from a dumpster to stave off the hunger in my stomach, but they lacked all the nutrients necessary for my diet.

I needed blood.

I’d caught and released not one but five different stray animals since my escape. Their blood would have sustained me, but they were so small that they wouldn’t have lived through my feeding.

I would not take a life.

Never. I would not violate another living being. Not after the way I’d been violated. I’d survived hell. I could go a few minutes longer to find a source that wouldn’t require killing something.

I hid in the shadows, avoiding the all-night commotion of Bourbon Street. The music and voices were muffled in my mind, as my sense of smell and my hunger overrode everything. Humans slid by, each taking the shape of a giant beating heart. I breathed through my mouth so as not to be tempted by the earthy and unique scent each one possessed. But the fact remained.

I had to stop one of them.

I had no choice.

I needed clothes, shoes, money.

Blood.

When I pounced on a homeless man, so ravenous that I was able to glamour him into submission, I promised myself I’d take only his garments and cash.

But the pulsing artery in his neck proved too delicious to resist.

Only a few drops, just enough to get me to a better source. Just enough… The itching in my gums intensified as my canine teeth elongated. I suppressed the growl so as not to draw attention from anyone.

Before I punctured his skin, though, a beaming light shone in my eyes.

“Hey, you there. What’s going on here?”

I quickly retracted my teeth and shielded my eyes against the illumination. The man was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, but he held up a badge.

A cop. A fucking cop. I inhaled. Dark chocolate, blackberry, and copper. Testosterone plus a sliver of milky estrogen. A really good-smelling cop—a cop with a vampire somewhere in his ancestry.

“I asked you a question. I’m Detective Jay Hamilton, NOPD. Is that man okay? Why doesn’t he have any clothes on?”

Close your eyes.

The homeless man complied.

“I…don’t know, Detective. I found him like this.”

“Looks like he’s out cold. I’m going to need to ask you a few questions, sir.”

Despite the heat of the night, a chill swept over the back of my neck. I suppressed an urge to look behind me.

“Not a good time.” I fled past, hoping I was still strong and quick enough to get away and that the cop would stay to help the homeless man.

The detective didn’t follow me, thank God, and a block later, I picked up a scent.

A blonde. No, a brunette with dark-blue eyes. A child. Not a child. Couldn’t do that. Now an older woman, a bad clotter. Iron and tin. Witch hazel and African violet. Traces of methamphetamine…

The tingles in my gums began again.

Blood. Lots of blood in a cramped space. A hospital or a blood bank was near.

I raced toward the aroma.

I raced toward life.? view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

A theme is a universal idea explored within a book. What themes did you pick out in Unchained?

Discuss the setting of New Orleans. What made this setting unique or important? Could the story have taken place anywhere?"
What was your initial reaction to the book? Did it hook you immediately or take some time to get into?

How do the vampires in Unchained differ from traditional vampires? Do you like the way the author portrays vampires? Why or why not?

Discuss the blood bond. What do you know so far about it? What do you think it means for Erin and Dante?

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