Heartbreaker Blog Hop Starts 2/8

Ah yes, love is in the air and Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Starting today, almost 300 bloggers have giveaways and posts about those men we love! This blog hop is sponsored by Carrie Ann who is fabulous at coordinating these events!

How Do I Enter to Win?

First things first! This blog hop has some outstanding prizes you may win, 3 prizes actually. So let’s talk about those and how you can enter to win first.

We have THREE grand prizes. You as a reader can go to EACH blog and comment with your email address and be entered to win. Yep, you can enter that many times! 

Now what are those prizes?

 1st Grand Prize: A Kindle Fire or Nook Tablet

2nd Grand Prize: A $100 Amazon or B&N Gift Card

3rd Grand Prize: A Swag Pack that contains paperbacks, ebooks, 50+ bookmarks, cover flats, magnets, pens, coffee cozies, and more!

(Please Note that Carrie has said some shipping cost on your end may apply for the above prizes.)

How Do I Win?

To enter to win one of these prizes, leave a comment on this blog article and include your email address. Carrie Ann and her volunteers will be stopping by to collect everyone’s entries.

Almost 300 Blogs Participating

There will be almost 300 Authors/Bloggers participating in this event. If you want to enter more than once you can do so. Actually you can enter that many times by posting a comment (with your email) on each blog that is participating in this blog hop. Go to Carrie Ann’s Heartbreaker Blog Hop page to see a list of ALL THE BLOGS and get started. But first, leave a comment here on my blog article please, after you read on.

Good Luck Everyone!

Tell Us!

Are our heroes heartthrobs or heartbreakers? Or are they just the same thing? Yummy right? Valentine’s Day is just around the corner for this blog hop and we’re gearing up to see what exactly is a heartbreaker. Is the song playing in your head like mine? “Cuz he’s a heartbreaker!” We love those sexy men, but what about those times in the story when they aren’t perfect. Because come on, we know they aren’t perfect. What makes those men heartbreakers? What can those guys do to make it better? Is there a way to grovel? Come on! Tell me about your heartbreaker!!

Enjoy the blog hop today! It runs through Feb. 11th. Leave a comment on this article with your email address and then be sure to visit all the blogs participating and leave a comment on their article as well so you can increase your chances to win!

My Giveaway

Grace is led astray by her sinister boyfriend, Nathan into a world of bloodletting and vampirism. When she awakes realizing he has harmed her, she understands her lover is destined to ultimately be her greatest enemy, and she must find a way out.

An excerpt from Fanged Love: The Prequel is below. You can read the full story on Amazon for Free.

Near Death

“How did I get here?”  I saw Nathan’s shadow come into view.  I could barely see him through the darkness, just the outline of his tall, slender frame, but I knew it was Nathan.

Confusion and disorientation flooded my mind.  Where was I?  Where was everyone else?  A faint, white light flowed towards me.  Then his voice called to me, the light touch of his whispering tone, almost a hissing sound, the insistence and urgency for me to speak to him.

“Grace? Grace?  Can you hear me?  We’re ready to begin,” he said.  “I’m here.”

I tried to focus on his voice.  Waves of warmth drew me to him, as if his breath was inches from my ear.

“Listen to me, Grace.  You’ll be okay, but we have to do this or you’ll die.”

I looked down at my body.  My black T-shirt was bloody, ripped and hanging onto me in shreds.  As I felt the wounds pulsing with pain, the slashes, bit marks, and deep cuts, I remembered who had given them to her.  “You sliced me up? Why?”  My voice died away, gurgling into silence.

“No, my love.  Listen to me!  It’s nothing like that.  It’s part of your rebirth.  I’ll explain it to you,” Nathan answered calmly.  “Listen to me.  You’re weak.  You’ve lost a great deal of blood.  Just relax and focus on my voice.  We will heal you.  Don’t fall asleep.  Hear me!  Please, don’t fall asleep.”  His voice was low and smooth.

Then I remembered what had happened.  Nathan and his friends had attacked me.  I’d been part of his bloodletting ritual, some ceremony or initiation.  I didn’t understand it all.  I couldn’t gain the strength to open my eyes.  The pain was rising.  My wounds screamed at me in agony, mocking me for what I had allowed to happen, what I had allowed my boyfriend to do.  Finally it dawned on me that I was dying.

Images from the night before saturated my mind as I struggled to stay awake.  Nathan had asked me to stay the night with him at his studio.  Somehow the common ritual of exchanging droplets of blood after our lovemaking had turned into a fiendish nightmare.  His friends had been lurking in the shadows watching us.  They had appeared out of nowhere and had attacked me.  It had been his plan and he had joined in.

“She’ll be glorious,” he had said.  “Vampires on Earth!  And the love of my life will be one too!  We all will be.  We will be the future!”

I didn’t understand, but the others did.  Their cheers and yells confirmed that.  They reveled in Nathan’s idea.  Wasn’t it like inviting the devil into your home?  Vampires among us?  I shuddered at the thought of it.  It was too much to process.

Nathan had been so kind as of late, so gentle when we had made love, something that was so unlike him that it took my breath away.  I had hoped he had changed, found his way, but that obviously wasn’t the case.  I hated to admit it, but Nathan had never been the great love of my life.  He wasn’t even a great lay unfortunately, despite my encouragement.  He was too aggressive, too harsh, too into himself to worry about my needs.  If he had been nice to me without the sex, that would have been enough.  It was a struggle to love him even though I tried to because I thought that was what I was supposed to do – endure his love.

When I saw him holding a silver knife in his hand, I knew our relationship was over.  He had looked into my eyes and said, “I love you, you and no other.”  Then he had slipped the cold steel of the knife into my left side.  Over and over he had sliced into my chest and stomach, licking my body as the blood poured from my wounds.  His friends joined in.  I couldn’t get away from them.  I screamed and scratched at them like a caged animal.  They cheered and laughed, their celebration rising to new heights of insanity.  These people were not my friends, but my enemies.

And now Nathan was calling to me.  Why?  Why was he letting me die if he had loved me so?  Why had he attacked me?  Why?  Oh here was an idea!  Take me to the hospital, punk!

But it didn’t matter.  I didn’t care.  I just wanted to sleep and end this nightmare.  I wanted peace.  Drowsiness started to tug at me.  “Yes,” I thought.  Let my fantasy guy (the one I used to imagine during Nathan’s sexual advances) come to me in my dreams.  I need him now.  I need him so much.

Instead, I saw Nathan standing in front of a white light, keeping the rays from getting near me.  The light encircled him, whirling around him.  His body shined an iridescent green, laced with shades of golden brown, the color of old guacamole.  It was disgusting.  His muscles flexed and expanded, filling his slender frame to a well-defined shape.  And then I saw his face.  It was fiendish.  I wanted to cry, run, escape, but I was frozen, witnessing his transformation.

His features morphed into that of a reptile, a large snake, as his cheeks hollowed out, and the skin around them sunk into his skull.  His nose tightened to a point.  Long sharp teeth fell over his lips.  His eyes blazed a brilliant green.  His gaze surged towards me, enticing me to look at him.  It was hypnotic and frightening.  I heard him say, “This is who I am now, and this is who you will become.  Let’s destroy this world, and begin again.  We’ll create a new world and a new race.  This is why I summoned you tonight.  WE, Grace, are the future!”

A horrible roaring sound interrupted the vision.  Had it been real?  Suddenly I felt the floor again beneath me.  I wasn’t dead.  I was hanging on.  Nathan stood over me, patiently waiting for me to regain consciousness.  I groaned when I felt the pain rising in my chest with the few moves I tried to make.

“Let me slowly roll you over on your back.  I’ve got to clean your wounds.  Don’t worry.  You’ll be okay now,” he whispered.

Then his voice announced to the others, to someone else hovering nearby, “I think she’s ready.  Can we do this?”

***

While I was lying with my back against the floor, I wanted to open her eyes.  But I couldn’t.  The pain was so brutal.  A surge of coldness started to take hold of me again.  My arms and legs had grown cold.  All I could do was roll my head to the left, attempting to open at least one eye, so I could see everyone.  Had Nathan changed as in my dream?

Close to my ear, Nathan hissed, “You won’t die, but we have to heal you.  She’s here.  You will be one of us.  I know what to do.”  I could feel his warmth, the energy radiating from him as he held my hand and circled his thumb around and around the inside of my palm.  Slowly I felt such peace and oneness with him that I couldn’t say no.  I wanted him to love me.  Would this act of my acceptance draw us closer?  Would he fall in love with me all over again?  This had to be right.  How else could I live to see another day if I didn’t say yes?  I blinked my eyes in agreement, slightly nodding as much as I could.  I surrendered myself to him.