I've been working on getting the second book of The Vampire Guard, Quarry, re-released. So far I've decided to add some scenes to one of the earlier chapters. Here's a little bit...


Vampires might be able to withstand tremendous damage to their bodies, and recover, but that didn’t preclude pain. Declan could honestly say his recovery from some injuries were worse than the injuries themselves. And he’d never suffered anything even close to Blair’s current wounds.

Thanks to his empathic-near-psychic-connection to Blair, poor Jonas was feeling almost as much pain and fear and whatever else Blair was experiencing. Jonas needed assistance to walk, twice Declan carried him. He was breathing erratically, which supported Lucas’s thoughts about a punctured lung, and at times was incoherent. Blair was his friend and Declan was quite fond of him, but he and Jonas had a damn near two-hundred-year relationship. For Declan, his priority became Jonas. With Kai and Ori’s help, Lucas tended to Blair.

They loaded Blair into the surveillance van, laying him in the back and rolling him to his side so Lucas could clean and dress the rebar wound. Jonas collapsed in one of the seats, his head tipped back against seat and his arms flopped limp at his sides. His breath hitched and he made a half-hearted attempt at rubbing the right side of his chest, opposite where the rebar had pierced Blair’s back. He dropped his hand to his side again and mumbled, “Can’t breathe.”

Jonas reached for Declan’s hand, which was freely offered, and squeezed, his grip was feeble at best. Declan kept a firm grip and that’s when he heard an odd sucking, wheezing sound coming from Blair’s chest.

Kai was navigating the van through the streets at the highest speed they dared. Ori had some medical training and already pulled their field kit, normally used for injured humans, from one of the compartments and was handing supplies to Lucas. They must’ve been the correct supplies because Lucas wordlessly took what was offered and applied something to Blair’s back. The odd sound died away, Jonas pulled in a deep breath and relaxed ever so slightly but didn’t let go of Declan.

Blair moaned and mumbled something then was unconscious again.

“We’re hours from home,” Jonas choked the words out.

“No. We’re not.” Kai talked but never took his eyes off the road. “There’s a chopper meeting us to transport all of you back to your safehouse.”

“He’s going to need help getting over this unscathed,” Ori said and sat back. He looked from Jonas to Declan to Lucas. “Vampires that experience such excruciating injuries heal physically, but sometimes not emotionally or mentally.”

“Not without help,” Kai added. “I’ve seen it before. They can become very different people. And not in a good way.”

“I know,” Declan said softly. Lucas looked up, shock all over his face. “Jonas does as well.”

Jonas had been watching Blair, but now he shifted to look Declan in the eye.
​
“I’m not sure a TENS machine will help much. He’s too badly hurt,” Lucas said.

Code Name Jack Rabbit (book 1 of  The Vampire Guard ) was released on January 12, 2021. It's available on Amazon in eBook and in Kindle Unlimited. This series is a spin-off from The Sleepless City, an urban fantasy/paranormal romance written with Anne Barwell.

The Vampire Guard is an urban fantasy series with romantic sub-plots but is not a romance.

We have The Sleepless City Facebook group dedicated to this shared universe and would love to see you there!

This is from Code Name Jack Rabbit which will be released on January 12, 2021!

Forge nodded. “I get it. With a little….” He held up one finger and frowned. A quick look around the room and Forge’s gaze settled on a man and woman. Lucas leaned closer so he could hear what was being said through Forge’s earbud.
​
“We can’t identify that couple. They weren’t here earlier, and they’re not on our list. Do you know them?” It was Samuels’s voice.

Lucas met Forge’s gaze and shook his head. Forge turned so it looked like he was talking to Lucas and said, “No, neither Dr. Coate nor I recognize them.”

Tapping Forge’s forearm, Lucas dipped his head at Declan and grinned.

“We’ll get you some ID. Give me five minutes,” Forge said. He pressed the earbud and removed it, dumping it in his pocket. The wristband followed a second later. “It’s better they don’t know about this part.” He stood, straightened, and whispered, “Declan. See the woman in the red dress and the man with her at my three o’clock?”

Across the room Lucas watched as Declan casually turned, gaze sweeping the area before he tugged on his sleeve once.

“That’s a yes,” Forge told Lucas. Using two fingers he pretended to reach into Lucas’s pocket, then said quietly, “On both.” Reaching out, he put one arm around Lucas’s shoulders and guided him toward the door near where the couple stood. “You must have eaten a bad crab cake.”

Lucas made a big show of slouching against Forge and making retching noises. A few people looked at them and moved out of their way. He got a glimpse of Declan leaning in to talk to Blair. Then they both looked at the spot between Forge and Lucas and the couple.

Coughing and holding his stomach, Lucas stumbled away from Forge and into the woman. “Oh, I’m…sorry…I….”

The woman turned and with lightning speed Forge reached out and bumped her elbow, causing her to upend her drink all over herself. Lucas’s gaze shifted to Declan and Blair. They were in one spot across the room, and in the next instant the exit doors on the other side of the room swung shut.

“The ladies’ room is right through there.” Lucas pointed the way. He tried wiping her off with napkins he snatched from the bar, but she stormed off, her gentleman friend following her.

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This is a little bit from my next release. Code Name Jack Rabbit is book 1 of The Vampire Guard, a spin-off of The Sleepless City series written with Anne Barwell.

Release day is January 12, 2021 and it's available for pre-order on Amazon. I'll put the links under the excerpt.

“Let me see if I have this straight.” Simon paced back and forth in the living room. “The Secret Service wasn’t the Secret Service, but some intelligence-gathering clandestine society, populated mostly by vampires, a few humans, and one or two werewolves, none of us have ever heard of before?”

Declan nodded. “Yes.” He shrugged. “Except we all in a way have since they sometimes work under the auspices of known organizations such as the Secret Service, Mossad, and MI-6 to name a few examples.”

“And apparently sometimes the Boggslake, Ohio, PD,” Forge added.

“Said organization, the….” Simon stopped and put his hands on his hips.
“Akhkharu Nasaru,” Blair said. “They said considering how all of us”—he made a circle with one hand indicating the lot of them—“work together, you and Ben could be trusted with some information about them. Besides, we need you two to help us cover the fact we more or less vanished for two days.”

“Vampire Guard.” Lucas held up the travel mug Ori had given him. “See, it’s on my mug. I have to admit these guys have branding down to an art.”

“As I was saying, this Vampire Guard is the reason the four of you were gone for nearly two days? They used a recording of a completely shifted vampire scream to knock Declan, Forge, and Blair out and you, Lucas, were hit in the back of the head. You came to on an airplane and saw a hologram of the Secret Service agent who isn’t really a Secret Service agent, but an operative in this Akh—” Simon threw his hands in the air. “Vampire Guard?”

Forge nodded. “That about sums it up.”

“How does a person who can’t be seen on film or in a mirror appear in a hologram?” Ben asked.

“Oh, it’s pretty cool,” Lucas said and looked around at the others. “Apparently they discovered it’s possible using certain equipment after someone’s cat kept hissing at a mirror that didn’t have a reflection, though a woman who was a vampire was in the room and in front of the mirror.” He stopped and pulled in a deep breath.

“They want us to go work for them,” Blair added. “It was intense at first, but after we were there for a bit and saw more of the facility, even these two”—he jerked his thumb in the general direction of Forge and Declan—“chilled out.”

Anne and I have a new group for The Sleepless City shared universe. We have an "I Am Writing" day every Sunday where we'll share WIP excerpts. We welcome other authors to post an excerpt from their WIPs as well.