Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series)

Released September 2012

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission from the copyright owner.

Cover Art by Claudia McKinney

Cover Design by
Miranda Wheeler

For
more information please visit:
 
http://fatefixed.blogspot.com/

DEDICATION

As always
,
this story is f
or
my husband
Jerry
. I could never write about long lasting true love without having found it with you.
Miranda, Justin,
and
Bobby – you
are
the peanut butter to my jelly and the best part of my life. My happily ever after is
a life
with the four of you.

This novel is for
book bloggers and frie
nds of indie writers everywhere.
Without you – no one would ever hear about our work.

Special thanks
my sweet sister in Christ Johanna Buckley for her encouragement and
to my Facebook pal
s all over
the world
who I call
my friends – especially Leah
Buchanan
Mertzlufft
,
Taneesha
Freidus
,
Barbie Beck-
Montalvo
, Mandy Anderson
and Karen
England
.

“
The truth, as the light, makes blind.”

Albert Camus

1

LIZ

The large house was empty. Liz peeked through each room carefully b
efore unpacking her
bag of groceries in the kitchen. Why she insisted on spending the afternoon in the old manor house was a mystery, even to her. After all, the two dead werewolves she found in the basement on the evening she arrived would have been a turnoff for anyone else.

W
isps of
black hair fell across her eyes as she
rinsed a pile of
Yukon gold potatoes under a stream of cold water
. She had never made potato salad for a coven of half-vampi
res before, but she was
up for trying new things.
Other than the statement that they didn’t drink human blood, their dietary needs weren’t discussed in detail. If her Aunt’s salad recipe didn’t tickle their taste buds, Liz couldn’t help them. It was one of the few foods she knew how to cook.

Glancing around the sizable room, it was pretty easy to guess where Lexie’s mom
,
Ruby
,
would have stored her pots and cutlery. After spend
ing years hanging around
Lexie’s childhood home, Liz had learned that Ruby was a creature of habit. Saucepans were always kept under the sink, just like knives and forks would be in the drawer closest to the stove.

The last forty-eight hours certainly created a new slant on the way she viewed her world.  Liz thought things were tough enough when Lexie moved fr
om Connecticut to live in
Maine, but
after two weeks of Lexie’s absence and only being able to contact her t
hrough snail mail
, Liz
had enough.  Climbing
in her old Chevy Cavalier
, she headed to Erris determined to make
her best friend move back
to Connecticut
for her final year of high school.

If that didn’t work
, she had a backup plan
– she would insist upon staying with Lexie in Erris until Christmas vacation. 

When she arrived on Lexie’
s doorstep
, Liz expected a warm welcome from
her
best friend.
But when she entered the
house, she
only
hear
d
a mournful wail coming from deep within the basement. Instantly, she was alarmed. Her mind went through a list of possible scenarios before assuming Maxim hogtied his family for laughing at h
is unibrow or something else
perturbing.

When she worked her way down the creaking steps, Liz found Ruby buck naked and shaking violently next to the crumpled form of her new husband
,
Dragos. Ruby tried using her old flannel nightgown to stop the bleeding from her husband’s lethal wounds – but it was hopeless. The man was clearly dead.

The nu
de body of his eldest son
w
as sprawled out next to him. Maxim’s
chest was a gaping mess –
the culprit,
a sterling silver cake knife, o
nly a foot away
.

Liz rolled the potato in her hand as it danced with the paring knife. The skin shards fell in a heap in the sink. She never was a fan of Lexie’s new stepfamily, but she never would have guessed in a million years that they weren’t human.

Wer
e
wolves?
Really?

All of them were a bit off. It wasn’t just because they were built like linebackers and had the same stee
l gray eyes.
They were intense and a
lways surrounding Lexie and her sister El
la. For reasons Liz couldn’t figure at the time,
they didn’t want
either girl to ha
ve a life outside of the house.
Every time Liz stopped over to visit during their month-long stay in Torrington, the brothers would be peering at them from around doorways and listening in on their conversations.

They made weird look normal.

Sh
e dropped
the potato into the pot. If she had arrived just a tad bit earlier, she could have lost her life as well.

Thank God Lexie got away,
she’s the closest thing to
family I have.

Lexie, Ruby and Ella were all alive and accounted for, but none of them would ever be the same. Of Dragos and his three sons, only the youngest
,
Nicolai
,
got away.

None of them knew if the young were
wolf would return or if he was
a threat. Ella insisted Nicolai
was nothing like the others
, but she was thirteen and wasn’t there when her homicidal stepbrother, Alik
,
decided to become alpha of the pack. As far as Liz was concerned, all bets were off when it came to the youngest Serov.

Better to be safe than sorry…or dead. 

It was right after Liz discovered a disoriented Ruby that Braden burst through what remained of the cellar’s hatchway. She wasn’t sure who was more shocked at that moment – her for seeing
a six foot tall blond with mesmerizing white eye
s
and fangs, or him
discovering a black haired
stranger
rocking a bloody and hysterical
Ruby next to two dead guys
. 

Liz always believed vampires w
ere out there. Too many legends existed
for her to accept they weren’t real. But she was expecting more of the fictional brooding Salvatore brother – the kind of vampire that was a little dark and a whole lot mysterious. Instead, a clean cut
,
preppy boy with arms and pecs like
David Beckham
was her first glimpse of the undead.

S
he
was quick to learn
Braden resented being referred to as undead.
He informed her that the technical word for his kind was damphyr and he had two pounding hearts in his chest to prove it.

Despite lacking the bad boy vibe, he had beautiful blue eyes once his vamp face returned to normal. He also had a body only a girl without a pulse would pass up.
Even fully dressed she could tell he had chiseled abs and a nice butt. But, Braden
wasn’t Liz’s type. She preferred an artistic guy with a musician’s build, lots of tattoos and
jet black hair. Although the
damhyr
was only friend material, she wouldn’t mind using him for eye candy,
maybe his
cousins, too.

She smiled thinking of Lexie’s new man. A hal
f-vampire like his cousin
, Torin saved Lexie from being turned into a werewolf when Alik chased her to his mating den.
The retelling of the story went beyond anything she could wrap her human brain around. What she did know for sure was Torin saved Lexie from a fate worse than death. He was willing to give his life for her. Good thing it didn’t come to that.

Liz
wasn’t entirely sure wh
at was happening between her clos
est frie
nd and the gorgeous
damphyr, but eve
r since
her arrival
, the two
had been together. Something more than puppy love sparked between them and Liz could feel it
the moment she checked in on Lexie after Braden and Cian locate
d her and Torin together out in the woods.

When Braden
found Lexie, the petite brunett
e was
in shock after
suffering a severe beating and a broken ankle. Torin was in some
kind of daze himself. Because he drank
blood when he tore open the werewolf’s neck –
he thought he would be
forev
er
cursed to darkness. Sit
t
ing
in stunned amazement
, he held Lexie in his lap, while marveling over the
sunrise
as it
spilled light upo
n him without causing his death
.

             
Thank God for small favors.

Liz looked down at her potatoes. She had efficiently washed and chopped the entire bag while lost in her reverie. All
she had to do now was boil them up with some eggs as she prepped the final ingredients.