Danita Minnis

Check out Layla and Quinn’s love story in my new vampire romance novel Dark Love Rising.

Dark Love Rising

By Danita Minnis

Excerpt:                                                                                                                                              
Padding into the living room, she watched as the door across the suite opened and two men walked in. The first man was big and round enough to block her view of his thinner companion. Though she chose to remain visible facing them across the large living area, they had not yet seen her standing in front of the bedroom door. The second man closed and locked the door behind him.

They didn’t belong here in this pure, white living room which gave the impression of being up in the clouds. They wore stiff, dark clothes like Aurelius, but they were not like him at all. She could smell hatred. There was no other feeling in them. They had killed many, and they were here for Aurelius.

Ah, praises to Anubis. They are ripe.

She sighed and closed the bedroom door behind her.

The murderers turned.

“Where is Quinn?” The heavy man smiled, while his silent companion went around the room closing the drapes on the panoramic view of Luxor.

Quinn; the name suited Aurelius in this life, nimble and smart, as her Roman commander had been.

“He is bathing.” She smiled as if the two jackals had just come for a visit.

“And what is your name, love?” The heavy man strolled across the expanse of white carpet to walk around the u-shaped sectional sofa. His bulbous red-veined nose bore the colors and marks of a trade route freshly drawn on papyrus. His blood would not be sweet, he drank spirits too often, but there would be enough to satisfy her craving.

“I am Lay-laah.” She met the man half-way, near the sofa, keeping her hands to her sides. She must not alarm them. But she could not stop the bloodlust, she needed so much more blood, and her fingers flexed in excitement, aching to tear him open.

“Well, Lay-laah.” The man chuckled, trying to mimic her accent. “Quinn’s got good taste,” He glanced over his shoulder to his companion, who now held something in his hand. The thin man pointed the metal spear at her.

“Well, this is unfortunate,” the heavy man said. “We came for Quinn, but we’ve got two for the price of one.” He took a similar metal spear out of his jacket and pointed it at her. “It must be fate.”

“Fate. Yes-sss.” Layla grabbed him by the neck. The motion was so swift the man still smiled at her while she sank her teeth into his leathery flesh.

She experienced a moment of discomfort as the heavy man’s metal spear struck her in the chest several times. She rose above him and he toppled backward with a shout and fell over the low glass table in front of the sofa.

The thin man rumbled in disbelief at what must be to him an unexpected turn of events.

It was ever this way; humans could not fathom a being like her, they did not believe in monsters. Neither had she, long ago. But there were many things in the world – seen and unseen – that this killer would fear if he knew of them.

Blurb:

Former MI6 agent Xavier Quinn would say that you’re daft if you think he will stop killing for a living. But that is exactly what is about to happen. Very soon now, Quinn will start killing to stay alive. On the run after taking out the wrong man, Quinn would die a happy man if he could just live long enough to ruin the Parliament member who set him up.

Layla, a 2,000 year old vampire with a moral code, has other plans for the contract killer. When she awakens to the sound of a dark rising, she enlists Quinn to join her on a mission to save humanity from her twin sister Tamara.

But Quinn is just the kind of man that a cold-blooded killer like Tamara needs in her world. A man like Quinn, who never believed in humanity, has only one belief; self-preservation. Being a vampire sounds much better than staying human in the game of kill or be killed. Will he stay alive long enough to find out how Layla’s love can change the equation?