Serafina and the Silent Vampire (Serafina’s, 1) Available now, $2.99 from Amazon US, and Amazon UK Silence has never been so sinful… Welcome to Edinburgh's unique psychic investigation agency, Serafina's. Serafina MacBride is psychic - but not strictly honest. While staging a hilarious vampire attack at a client's party, Sera is stunned to encounter a real vampire - annoying, gorgeous and inaudible to everyone but her. When her client's son is found dead with puncture wounds in his neck, she tracks the silent vampire to his lair. But the amoral and seductive Blair is also on a mission - to find and kill a nest of young vampires who've invaded his territory. Soon Sera is drawn into the bizarre world of the undead, where danger lurks in the shadows along with forbidden sensual delights - and a murderous conspiracy to flood the world with financially astute vampires who talk.

Supported and hindered by Blair's eccentric, undead friends, and by her own motley crew from Serafina's, Sera and Blair uncover surprising truths about each other and about the mysterious Founder from whom all vampires are descended.

In the end, Sera draws on powers she never knew she had in a frantic fight to defeat the forces of evil and preserve the strange, complicated being she's trying so hard not to love.
 

Reviews:

"Holy Smokes! This book is excellent!!... The heat between Blair and Sera is so undeniable... am really anticipating Serafina, Book 2 and hope it continues the greatness that is Sera and Blair." 5 Hearts, Sapphyria's Steamy Book Reviews.

"I absolutely love the premise of this series... It was really hard to put this book down... I highly recommend the book and give it 5 couples." 5 Couples, Confessions from Romaholics

"This great story had all the things that you need for a great mystery/romance... I LOVED Blair!…. Yep, best vampire ever!" Place of Reads

"a fun read!... humorous and intriguing... a great start to what promises to be an exciting series." 5 Paws, What the Cat Read.

"hooked me from page one... Excellent!... wanted it to never end. Sigh... Excellent!... I loved it." 5/5, Bookgirl Knitting.

"I loved Blair... I loved the two of them together... a series to definitely watch." B, Smitten With Reading.

"Marie Traenor did a phenomenal job of retelling the age old story of a vampire falling in love with a human, with a few interesting twists.... definite chemistry between Sera and her silent vampire... this promises to be a great read and it does not fail." 5 Stars, Cocktails and Books

Excerpts:

  It was hardly a deep, dark forest, but the lights outside the house didn’t stretch this far, and Sera quickly felt enveloped in blackness. She delved in her jacket pocket for the pencil-thin flashlight and shone it in front of her feet as she walked, occasionally darting it around to search for Tam. It was ridiculous, losing him in a bunch of trees, but she didn’t want to phone him in case the ringing was heard elsewhere in the garden and ruined her carefully prepared spooky atmosphere. On the other hand, she couldn’t afford to take too long or Ferdy would be herding his guests inside from the late evening cool, and her moment would have passed.

She felt her way around two intertwining apple trees and found Tam.

She stopped dead with shock. His large frame was unmistakable in the flashlight beam, but she’d never before seen it slumped in the brutal hold of an attacker who seemed to be strangling him or squeezing him to death. Which would be quite an achievement considering the size of Tam’s muscular body. And the fact that his opponent, although about equal in height, was far lighter and leaner in weight. And wearing a kilt, as if he was, or was pretending to be, one of the Bells’ guests. Tam’s arms flailed as if trying feebly to fly free. That was terrifying in itself: Tam the Tank physically helpless.

Sera’s hand wavered, and the beam from her flashlight shifted over a shock of dark chestnut hair.
There was a tiny instant when she imagined she’d steeped herself too deeply in this vampire nonsense, because it almost looked as if the stranger had his face buried in Tam’s throat. It sent a weird, almost sensual shiver down her spine before she yanked her brain back into line.

Who the hell was this? Ferdy’s stalker? Sera didn’t wait to find out. As he began to turn his head, granting her a glimpse of his shadowed face and gleaming eyes, she hurled herself at him feetfirst. Both her boots connected jarringly with hard flesh; her whole being jolted as if she’d been shot.

It took an instant to realize that she lay on the ground on her back, winded, while Tam’s attacker, and Tam himself, remained upright. Jesus, she couldn’t have lost her touch to that degree! She’d slammed into him. She should at least have knocked him off balance! But then, she should have landed on her feet, not her back, and been ready to jump him before he recovered.

As she struggled to rise, her blurred vision cleared enough to show her, by the crazily waving beam of the torch, that the kilted thug had released Tam, who leaned one massive shoulder against the tree, shaking his head as if to clear it. Thank God, at least the bastard hadn’t killed him. And now they were two against one, however strong this maniac was.

“Tam! Now!” she commanded in an urgent stage whisper and ran at the curiously still figure of the enemy.

Tam muttered something that might have been, “Don’t, Sera.”

Her quarry sidestepped her with a blur that surely spoke more for the intensity of her previous winding than for his genuine speed. Whatever the cause, it was enough to unbalance Sera. Fortunately, Tam leapt and caught her in his muscled arm—all that prevented her from falling over again.

She whirled around, poised to face a counterattack, snatching the only weaponry she carried in her pocket—one of the ridiculous pointy sticks—and for the first time looked into the shadowed face of her enemy. Remembering belatedly about her flashlight still clutched in her bruised left land, she shone it directly into his face. The eerie crisscrossing of shadows on his skin disappeared in the golden glow, but he made no effort to hide from the light. Two large, dark brown eyes stared at her from a lean, still face. There was no doubt he was good-looking enough to turn heads, with a high forehead, long, thin nose, and full, expressive lips, all framed by a shock of thick, dark hair streaked with auburn. The combination of high, broad cheekbones and leanness gave him a slightly cadaverous look that somehow didn’t detract in the slightest from his male beauty.

All these jumbled impressions Sera absorbed in an instant. But chiefly what caught and held her attention was the trickle of red blood running from the corner of his mouth and down the side of his chin.

“Oh for f…!” Sera hurled the pointy stick to the ground. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she raged. “This is our show.”

*

Although the scary glow didn’t vanish from his eyes, they seemed to soften. His body didn’t. It still pinned her helplessly to the wall. He lifted his hand and touched her cheek, trailing his fingertips down her jaw to her throat. She gasped.

“Serafina,” he murmured in her head. “Some things are just stronger than you. They don’t necessarily hurt you, and they won’t necessarily defeat you.”

Distracting her from his surprising words, the bulge in his jeans was hardening, both alarming and exciting her. After all, he had the kind of face and body to die for. Sera had no intention of dying.

“Okay, celebrate!” she spat. “You’re stronger than me.”

His lips twitched. “I was thinking of Nicholas Smith. But now you mention it, yes, I am.” His fingers lingered over her vein, stroking. She shivered, trying not to feel the spurt of physical pleasure that was in danger of drowning out her alarm, especially when he swayed his hips in a slow, sensual caress. His erection rubbed against her tummy, and she had an insane urge to stand on tiptoe to feel it grind between her legs. “And, you know, I like that too.”

“Why?” she got out, reaching wildly for the smart comment that somehow eluded her.

His fingers slid upward to her face once more, and he traced the outline of her lips. “Because I can kiss you without you feeling the need to stop me.”

She narrowed her eyes threateningly, although her heart seemed to plunge right through her stomach to her womb. “It won’t be the need that’s lacking,” she managed.

“But you like the way I look,” he pointed out, pressing gently on her lower lip to part it from the upper. “I’ve read it in your mind.”

“Doesn’t mean I want you slobbering all over me!” Oh Jesus, what would it feel like?

“I won’t slobber,” he promised and bent his head.

She couldn’t have avoided it. She refused to dent her dignity further by trying. So she glared into his face, daring him, while her heart thundered in treacherous anticipation. His lips hovered over hers for an instant, just long enough for her to panic that perhaps he was changing his mind and wouldn’t do it, after all. She felt an urge to close the distance herself—only to break the tension, of course. And then he did it, sliding his fingers away from her lips to cup her face and sinking his mouth into hers with blatant, wonderful, terrifying sensuality.

There was none of the buildup she was used to, the gentle brushing of lips, the soft, quick kisses that grew deeper and longer. It was an outright assault on her senses, and it was devastating. His lips were cool and firm as they moved on hers, savoring, almost as if he were drinking from her. Oh shit, don’t think drinking here! He opened her mouth wider for his tongue, which swept around her teeth and curled around her own, drawing it into his mouth. She tried to speak, but the attempt got lost in the shock of his long, sharp teeth under her tongue. Blood drummed in her head, a tattoo of fear all mixed up with wonder and sheer, unadulterated lust.

A weird sound came from her mouth, and he deepened the kiss, almost grinding his mouth into hers, demanding the response she found it impossible not to give. There had never been a kiss like this one, fierce and overwhelmingly sexual, driving all thought from her head but the gratification of desire. She melted into it, opening wide for him, winding her tongue around his, sucking and biting his lips, drawing him deeper in.

At some point, he’d begun to grind his hips too, rubbing himself against her, and she found herself moving with him, standing on tiptoe and pressing back to try to assuage the aching need between her thighs.

When she almost ran out of breath, he broke the kiss and smiled. “Oh yes,” he whispered in her mind. “All night with you. All night and day, and all night again…” His words drove her to fever pitch, eliciting a helpless mewl of desire as she reached for his mouth once more.

He gave it with enthusiasm. His hands were on her hips, stroking down to her thighs and dragging upward inside her jacket and over the sides of her breasts. She moaned into his mouth, felt his thumbs caress her desperate nipples over and over. She wanted them on her naked breasts. She wanted no clothes at all between them. She wanted him buried deep inside her, pounding her to the greatest, sweetest orgasm of her life. More than that, she yearned to blast his control to hell, to make him lose himself in the pleasure she could give him. She was sure no one had ever wanted her this much before.

She squirmed against him, dragging her arms free at last to loop them around his neck and comb her fingers through his soft hair. His hands cupped both her breasts, making her gasp, and swept downward to the fastening of her jeans.

She tore her mouth free to gasp, half laughing, “Oh stop! We can’t! This is a respectable street! People are bound to pass.”

“I don’t care. I want you now. Just for starters. I want to make you scream as you come the first time, see your face in the open air as you fall apart around me. Oh yes.”

She caught his head as he plunged back for her mouth, his fingers determinedly unfastening the buttons of her jeans. “Blair, no!”

He paused and raised his head, his eyes black and clouded with lust. “Admit it. You want me to fuck you.”

She caught the golden flash in his dark eyes, glimpsed the pointed fangs between his parted lips, and swallowed hard. “Does it come with blood drinking?”

“Oh yes…”

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