08/21/2017
FEATURED PROMOTIONS FOR 08/21/2017
******Ronna Gage Vampire Chronicles Book 1: One Bite Away****
Blurb
Martin Novak insisted that he’d never change another person’s life for love and his pleasure. For centuries he lived by that self-imposed code. Now, he is contemplating a change of heart for not only his own pleasure, but to save the life of the woman he loves. Carleena loved life and lived it to the fullest. Love and happiness fills her now that she’s found her perfect man. But when she learns she is sick, and it could keep them apart, her life is further complicated by the secret Marty has been keeping. Will he truly be the perfect man for her? Will he love her to the end? Is her hope for everlasting happiness only…One Bite Away?
Prologue
1791
Martin sat stoically, his mind deep in thought. His back straight, his chair faced the five members of the council. The council of vampires wasn’t here for a light hearted meeting. They were there to determine Martin’s future. Their sole job was to make and execute new bi-laws to serve as guidelines for a vampire to live in human society—in secret. Each one, a vampire for more than one hundred years, had many life experiences to give as some precedent or another to assist the taming of a new vampire. Collectively, the men had five hundred and fifty years of practice. Four of the members looked at him with some sort of pity, others gave him quiet sympathy from time to time, but none could give him empathy—for none had a wife who tried to kill him.
“This council finds no other choice but to give thee, Grace Novak, a verdict of guilty!” The speaker of the council read the verdict.
Martin looked at the council members one by one and none showed any sign of the emotions they felt inside.
“You will serve thy sentence post haste for the crime of attempted murder on a fellow vampire, your husband, Martin Novak.” He looked at the man to his right. “Master of Arms, take her out of this room.” The speaker slammed the gavel down on the table ending the late night trial.
Grace giggled hysterically at the group of men. “You don’t have the guts to stand up to a woman,” she claimed, in a voice that Martin had heard her use only once before. It was almost sadistic, challenging, hate-filled. One he knew almost too well. His long lineage to Scottish lairds traced back to the Civil Wars between Scotland, Ireland and England in the 1600’s. Great grandfathers, uncles and cousins relayed by mouth the many victories and defeats between the kingdoms. Foul language and spite were not uncommon in the tales. Martin watched as the Master of Arms and two other men led her away. She didn’t look back or say a word to him on her way out the door. She instead flirted shamelessly in front of him, with the two younger men at her arms. For the life of him he had no idea what turned her against him. One day she loved him and would do so for eternity, and then another day she called him a heathen, a bastard son of Satan, and a Godless creature of the earth. In the two decades he’d known Grace; he didn’t foresee her sweetness would turn into bitterness. It crumbled his soul to know she blamed him for her eternal existence.
Martin’s old guardian, Astor Depardieu, the second in command of the council, walked toward him. He had a grim and somber face. This isn’t going to be good. At this difficult moment in his life, and with the deep and painful burden of heartbreak, Martin wanted nothing more than to reach out and have the old man hold him like he did when he was a child. The pain almost took his breath away.
Astor laid a soothing hand on Martin’s shoulder. “Martin, thou hath made the right decision this night,” the lead council member told him in a soft, comforting voice.
“Then why do I feel unwell?”
“If thou had not crippled her efforts, she would have killed thee the next time such a chance was given.”
Guilt ridden, Martin closed his eyes to the fact before him. He wanted to believe in truth and justice, but he also wanted to believe in love and happily ever after. Images of Grace, his wife of a decade, sitting over him with a raised wooden stake in her hand and blinding hate in her eyes replayed in his head. He heard the shouted curses of disdain from her lips reverberate in his mind. All went dark, and then the next thing he remembered was a burning pain in his chest. His mind focused on self-defense, he hardly recalled grabbing the dagger, but when it was over, she lay at his side with the sterling silver knife sticking out of her chest, her lungs heaving from the exertion, but her eyes were closed and her mouth was shut. If not for the silver in the blade to physically paralyze her limbs and silence her, she would have found renewed strength to finish what she started. Martin covered his face with his hands. How could she? I loved her. I thought she loved me too. “May haps, but knowing that doesn’t help me,” Martin confessed softly. “Did I over react to her madness? Did I succumb to the female’s wiles and let her too close to my heart?”
“A woman’s heart only sees what it wants, dear boy. When it loves, she doeth so with her whole heart and when she hates…well, sadly it’s the same. I’ve seen it many times over my one hundred and fifty years.”
The wisdom of the older man’s words couldn’t have been truer and they did help justify his actions, but the remorse was too strong to bear. “I have learned one lesson this eve.”
Astor perked up. “Tell me of thou’s learning.” Astor’s fatherly encouragement seeped into Martin’s broken heart and liberated him to speak. The members of the council sat at the bench writing down on parchment paper with quill pen the outcome of the proceedings.
“I will never turn another human into what we have become.”
Astor sighed deeply. “Ahh…never is a long time my friend.” He stood and looked down at Martin. “But, thou will think twice before thou acts again upon passions of the heart. The broken piece of wood in thy wound will stay. It will serve as a reminder to thee that loving another can have consequences. I know it is harsh punishment but thou cannot go around turning others for thine own’s pleasure.”
Martin looked at the bulging wound above his heart which didn’t heal as most wounds did for a vampire. His finger stroked it. A hard, raised bump was all that was left of the makeshift weapon…stuck in his chest.
“The order will stand.”
He looked up at Astor. The fear of not knowing what would come of his wife outweighed that of knowing. “What will become of Grace?”
“Thou need not concern thy self with—”
“Astor, please! The not knowing will be the worst. I’d rather not spend this life, or any other, looking for her to finish me off. I beg thee, tell me.”
“Dos’t thou love her, Martin?”
Martin considered the question for a few minutes. “I guess a part of me will always love a portion of our life together, but would I take her back? Nay. Do I love her? Nay. We had been separated for a few years before she came back to me this morning. I think the love was gone a long time ago.”
“I see.” Astor grabbed the lapels of his cape, and twisted his foot on the wooden floor of the council room. “She will be put to death by the council.”
“How?” Martin would never call himself a killer, but in essence he didn’t really kill her. He only paralyzed her so she could be convicted…and then put to death by others.
“She will be cleansed by fire and her soul released of the non-dead commitments.”
“Will she feel pain?”
“Nay, she will feel nothing.”
“What happens to her soul then?”
Astor gnawed on his bottom lip. He hesitated for a short time. He looked first to the council, then to the door leading out, and finally back to Martin. “She will live out eternity in Hades.”
Martin je**ed up from the chair. “What? But she was a Christian before I changed her. Why does she have to be sent to hell?”
“She chose, of her own free will, to become one of us. And it was her own free will that she tried to kill thee.”
Tears filled Martin’s eyes and flooded his vision. This is all my fault. “If I had been a better husband and went to look for her when she first disappeared none of this would be happening. Or if I helped her more during the transitions…”
“It would matter not, my boy. Grace wanted to live forever, but not with you.”
The burdening ramifications of failure oozed into his pores and increased to the point of a physical heartache. “But she didn’t kill me. She does not deserve this kind of death.”
“Mayhap thou has a point, but she did choose it. It has been this way since the beginning of the vampire’s existence.” Astor took Martin’s elbow. “Come along boy, tis time for thee to go about your life. And we have work here to do this night.”
“Can I not say good-bye to my wife?”
Astor took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Grace wishes not to see thee.”
Another stab at his heart by the woman he loved, or thought he loved. He allowed Astor to guide him to the door.
“Fare the well my son,” Astor said gently. “The morrow will bring a brighter future.”
Numb and confused Martin walked out the door into the darkness. He heard the bolt slide behind him, locking him from Grace and the ex*****on awaiting her. “What have I done that has been so wrong?” he asked the stars in the cloudless sky.
The wound above his heart ached in answer. We loved the wrong girl.
Sorrow almost brought him to the ground. “Never again.” He staggered over a step and then fell forward onto his knees. “Grace!” he cried out, “I am sorry for not giving you the happiness you deserved.” He sobbed for the end of his marriage, the torment his wife must have endured to take such drastic measures, and most of all, he cried for the loss of a future and someone to share it with him. “I vow this night that I will never change a person’s existence for love.”
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