Dear Reader,
I’m thrilled to share with you the third book in the SWEETBLOOD series, Tempted by Blood, Jackson and Arianna’s story. The world is a deadly and seductive one, where a team of vampire Guardians fights to protect humans from Darkbloods—vicious members of their race who kill like their ancestors and sell the blood on the vampire black market. The rarest, called Sweet, commands the highest price.
If you’ve not read the first two books, don’t worry. The Sweetblood world is new to Arianna, too, but as you’ll find out, she’s not new to it. The owner of Paranormalish, a blog that checks out paranormal happenings, she’s learned to ask a lot of questions, dig beneath the surface and take a lot of pictures, which gets her into all sorts of trouble.
And that’s where Jackson comes in. He’s a charmer and a playboy, but he’s hiding a terrible secret. When he’s assigned to protect Arianna from Darkbloods, she ignites in him those dark cravings he’s been struggling to control. Tempting him as no other could, she awakens what he fears is the real enemy—the one buried deep inside him.
This is a story about secrets—everyone has them. But it’s what we do with them that matters … because some are more dangerous than others.
Happy reading!
Laurie
Also available from Laurie London
BONDED BY BLOOD
EMBRACED BY BLOOD
“ENCHANTED BY BLOOD”
in A Vampire for Christmas
And stay tuned for an all-new, sizzlingly sexy
Sweetblood novel, coming soon:
SEDUCED BY BLOOD
Tempted by Blood
Laurie London
MILLS & BOON
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To mom, for your endless love and encouragement,
and your incredible example.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, first of all, to my wonderful readers. A year ago when my first book came out, I was surprised and humbled that so many of you took the time out of your busy lives to contact me. I’ve loved “meeting” so many of you.
To the fun and sometimes zany online book bloggers and reviewers, thanks for your support and enthusiasm. I’m continually amazed at your creativity, professionalism, dedication and love of the romance genre, particularly you rabid paranormal fans. You make it cool and exciting to be a reader and an author in this digital age.
To Becky, Mandy, Janna, Kandis, Kathy and Shelley, thank you so much. I’d be adrift without you. Thank you to the Cherryplotters for the great ideas and for confirming when I’m on the right track … or not.
Thanks to my friends Julia, Eric and Marc, for tidbits that I twisted for my own evil purposes, and to Kevin, for help with a local urban legend that inspired a few of the details.
Thank you to my wonderful editor, Margo Lipschultz, for all your support and encouragement. You breathe life into my ideas and know just what needs to be done to make them better. Thank you to everyone at Nocturne™, including the awesome digital team and art department, for all your behind-the-scenes work. Thanks to my agent, Emmanuelle Morgen, for believing in me.
To my husband, Ted, and my two “babies” who are taller than me, thanks for putting up with crazy. I love you.
CHAPTER ONE
WHEN SHE SAW the number of vehicles parked in the second driveway on the left, Arianna Wells tensed and almost turned her car around. She hated having an audience for these things.
With her eyes forward, she drove past the house, then a dozen others in the neighborhood, and parked the old Cadillac under a streetlight around the corner. Out of habit, she scraped the wheel rims against the curb. Her father had loved this car and was so proud of himself when he gave it to her for her sixteenth birthday. Problem was, she’d been nineteen at the time and he’d mixed up her birthday with one of his many ex-girlfriends. Adding a new scratch when she was frustrated or pissed off always made her feel better. She shoved the transmission into Park and it lurched into a rough idle.
She stretched her arm over the seat and peered out the back windshield. Maybe that wasn’t the right place. All the houses had the same mirror-image design, painted one of three colors with identical rows of box hedges lining the walkways. Roads to the left and right led to similar cul-de-sacs. Everything was confusingly similar. It’d be easy to turn down the wrong street and knock on the wrong door.
She pulled the address from the front pocket of her jeans and realized she still needed to change her shoes. She’d gone in to work today for an unscheduled meeting and hadn’t thought about tonight until she was already at the office. Hopefully, she had a spare pair of boots in the trunk. If they went to the site of the disappearance, traipsing through wet bushes in flip-flops would really suck. From what she’d learned about getting to the Devil’s Backbone, even wearing hiking boots, it wouldn’t be easy.
She opened the folded scrap of paper: 4112 Maple Grove Avenue.
Yep, that was the right house. The one with all the cars.
She crumpled the scrap into a ball and threw it on the seat. Thanks to rush-hour traffic in Seattle, it had taken an extra hour to get here and she really didn’t want to reschedule. The hems of her jeans were damp from running into the office and she was still chilled. She supposed she could’ve parked in her company’s garage today, thus avoiding the rain and the wet sidewalks, but she didn’t have a pass and paying forty bucks for a two-hour meeting was just wrong. She could have asked Carter, one of her coworkers, to hack into their building’s property-management company and print her a parking pass, but unlike him she had principles. Although on a day like today, she wished she didn’t.
She grabbed her phone, hit Redial, and a young man answered on the first ring.
“Look, Blake,” she said, not bothering to hide her irritation. “I told you I don’t do this with a bunch of people around.”
“Is this Icy Shadows?”
He only knew her by her screen name and Arianna preferred to keep it that way.
“Yes, and don’t tell me your mom is hosting her book club.”
She heard the low murmur of male voices, a muffled curse, and she was pretty sure someone in the room with Blake said, “Do you see her yet?”
Good thing she’d parked around the corner.
“It’s just me and the guys who were with me that night. That’s all. I figured you’d want to talk to them, too.”