QSFer Elizabeth Noble has a new paranormal book out:
Chaos reigns in The Sleepless City, and it’s really beginning to piss Detective Jonas Forge off. He’s got inner demons to battle and a life to build with his new soul mate, Blair Turner. Nothing is going right, and he already feels the universe is conspiring against him when a turn of events he never saw coming flips his world upside down.
Hallucinations grip the town and everyone in it, threatening to tear their precariously built family apart, and the only way forward is to bare all to each other. This means Declan and Blair need to learn to accept one another. Lucas Coate has to move forward without ties to his werewolf pack and live a monogamous life with Declan.
But while Forge and Declan confront horrors from their shared past, Simon learns a terrible truth about vampires—one he couldn’t have imagined in his worst nightmares.
The Sleepless City: Book Four
Excerpt
THE FULL moon had always been a pain in the ass as far as Declan was concerned. A few nights remained yet before it peaked; nevertheless, it was already illuminating his dreams….
BORN ONE of France’s elite in the early 1700s, Declan had been expected to become a man at a young age. In the circles in which his family traveled, men hunted, gambled, dueled, and had mistresses.
Declan painted.
His build was too thin for his height and, without muscle and bulk, he was too effeminate in appearance. His father wanted him to be a man, so he arranged meetings with various “ladies” to teach Declan lessons of passion. Light from a full moon was shining through the window the night he learned a different lesson. Lying in bed with a lovely female stranger, gazing out the window at the full moon, he’d realized almost immediately he hated this life and wanted something else. So on nights when a full moon did not threaten to reveal him he pursued much different interests. That was when he’d sneak away from the family estate and slink the back alleys of Paris, spying on the men who roamed the streets.
Watching the rough and tumble men of the streets had enthralled him. They were exciting men, working men, uncouth and uneducated, with heavy muscles and bad manners. Declan always felt a thrill run through him when he saw their bodies, even mostly clothed. Nearly three hundred years later, the memories still made his blood run hot.
One of those excursions, on a night lit by a partial moon, had led to Declan leaving France and journeying to what was considered at the time an entirely different world. That night he’d been caught—seen and cornered by the men he spied upon. They touched him, let him touch them, and Declan realized how deeply he desired men. Nothing about that time was kind or gentle, but it wasn’t so bad as to frighten Declan away. He might have been too skinny for his height, with the look of a woman, but there was little that frightened Declan.
A week later his father arranged for Declan to marry a daughter of a prominent family. He was trapped, miserable, and desperate. He couldn’t go against his father’s wishes, but he couldn’t stand being in the same room with his betrothed. His honor prevented him from telling anyone the truth.
As soon as the full moon waned, Declan returned to the backstreets of Paris and offered himself to some men, hoping they would kill him. What one did instead was offer him an adventure of a lifetime. Sail the seas to the New World, an untamed place filled with savagery to be conquered. There he could earn his own riches.
Fourteen-year-old Declan went from the pampered son of a noble family to the private cabin boy of a ship’s captain in the blink of an eye. In the twenty-first century, pirates were idolized and romanticized, but Declan knew the truth. He’d lived it. They were brutal, violent men, but they’d needed to be. Crossing the Atlantic on a ship was dangerous. More men died than survived. Conditions were foul and fraught with fear. Declan spent more time in pain than not. The men of the streets of Paris were kind and gentle compared to the men on the ship.
The skinny boy with visions of grandeur and adventure who’d started the sea crossing left the ship at sixteen a resourceful and, when necessary, brutally ruthless man. Soft flesh had been replaced by lean muscle. He’d learned to use a blade in self-defense and had his initial taste of killing for survival.
The first time he saw a vampire was when the crew of his ship tried—and failed—to raid another vessel. Four of Declan’s shipmates fought to take the man down. His eyes changed to a solid, pale gray, and his teeth grew to pointed fangs. Cold, raw hate, terrifying and alluring at once, radiated from the preternatural creature masquerading as a man. Those four men died, and Declan survived by offering himself as a prize. Repulsed, the man screamed at Declan in a language he didn’t understand and threw Declan into the cargo hold. Later, when he was dragged out, he and the few others spared because they were needed to manage and sail their captive ship worked fifteen-hour days and lived on meager rations and little sleep.
Days melted together. He didn’t know how many drifted by before the ship sailed into a port. Declan had no idea where he was. It didn’t matter. When they hauled him ashore, Declan saw his chance. The man with the strange eyes wasn’t around, and the others were ordinary men. Declan slit the throat of one, broke the neck of another, and took off.
He had no way of knowing it at the time, but he’d come to North America. He would have died that first year in the snow and cold, the extent of which he’d never experienced in Europe, had he not been taken in by kind strangers.
These people, the Algonquin, had ruddy skin, black hair, and the darkest eyes Declan had ever seen. They were free-spirited, beautiful, sexy, and different from any other people he’d ever known. He learned their language and ways. From them he discovered the strange man on the ship was a vampire. Vampires and homosexuals were accepted by this society, revered and welcomed. Declan became one of them. They taught him to survive, to fight, skills he relied upon to this day. Most importantly, they showed him how to accept himself.
He made a home with a man in the tribe: a man who was very old, yet looked young, a man who was a vampire. Kitchi was kind and gentle, and he loved Declan. He made Declan feel safe, and that led to Declan returning Kitchi’s love. Declan owed the man he became to Kitchi.
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Author Bio
Elizabeth Noble started telling stories before she actually knew how to write, and her family was very happy when she learned to put words on a page. Those words turned into books and fanfiction that turned into a genuine love of M/M romance fiction. Being able to share her works with Dreamspinner is really a dream come true. She has a real love for a good mystery complete with murder and twisty plots as well as all things sci-fi, futuristic, and supernatural and a bit of an unnatural interest in a super-volcano in Wyoming.
Elizabeth has three grown children and is now happily owned by an adorable mixed breed canine princess and her sidekick, tabby cat. She lives in her native northeast Ohio, the perfect place for gardening and winter and summer sports (go Tribe and Cavs!) and stargazing all year long. When she’s not writing she’s working as a veterinary nurse, so don’t be surprised to see her men with a pet or three who are a very big part of their lives.
Two of Elizabeth’s books have received Honorable Mentions in the Rainbow Awards.
This book sound enthralling and I can’t wait to read it.