QSFer Roan Rosser has a new MM urban fantasy out, Changing Bodies book 2: Bloodline of the Ancients.
Sleepwalking may be the death of me… again.
I thought things would get better now that I no longer had assassins after my head. Although it’s fun eating people who misgender me, I’m just so thirsty all the time. And until I improve, I’m barred from seeing Jack, my were-jackal boyfriend.
My babysitter, I mean ‘vampire mentor,’ isn’t much help either.
As if things weren’t bad enough, the amulet that started this mess is whispering to me. Calling me somewhere. I think it might be my mysterious maker. Judging by the trail of bodies they’re leaving across the globe, I don’t want to know what will happen if I can’t keep resisting.
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Excerpt
The swinging door to the men’s room banged against the wall at my touch. I winced; I hadn’t meant to shove it quite that hard. A man stood at the urinals and he looked around at the loud thud. I fled past him into one of the two empty stalls and slammed the door behind me. Leaning back on the door, I bent over and put my hands over my face, letting the tears start to fall. I missed Jack. I missed the sun. And I missed being able to do normal human things like having a beer with friends. Not that I considered Lin or Trevor friends, but maybe, hopefully, eventually I would, or this was going to be a long few years.
A pounding fist on the door of my stall, vibrating the door against my back, brought me back to myself. I wiped my sleeve across my face and turned around to open it. The man from the urinals was there, giving me a sympathetic frown.
My mouth went dry at how close he was. The warmth of his breath on my face.
“Hey, you okay?” He was short and pale, wearing an expensive-brand button-down and a lot of large, tacky gold jewelry. Flaunting new wealth.
Because of the lingering chance of tears, and the fact that if I opened my mouth I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop my fangs from coming out, I just nodded.
“You must have been really out of it, miss. You came into the wrong bathroom. This is the men’s room.”
“I’m a guy,” I snapped, glaring at him. As I’d feared, my fangs popped out, slurring my words.
The man let out a disbelieving laugh, his eyes widening. I saw red. Before I could think too hard about it, I grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and yanked him into the stall with me. I used my hip to swing the door shut while I pressed the man up against the side of the stall. He let out a startled cry and tried to push away, but with my vampire strength he was no match for me. I shoved him back and to the side, so that he fell into a sitting position on the toilet seat. I let myself be pulled along with him and tumbled into his lap, embracing him like a lover.
Mouth hovering over the pulse of his neck, I took a brief moment to breath in the scent of him and bask in it before sinking my teeth into the side of his neck. I moaned as the taste of the blood danced along my tongue, driving away the last remnants of the sour beer. Despite Lin’s failure tonight, she had at least given me a few tips on the drive over— ways to time how long I should feed so I didn’t take too much from my victim. But with the man’s pulse pounding against my cheek, and my head swimming with the overwhelming taste of the blood, I lost track of time almost immediately.
The squeak of the swinging door to the men’s room brought me back to myself. When I retracted my fangs and sat back up, the man was unconscious. The stall door had swung open behind me and was resting against my back. The stall was so tiny that meant only a small gap was left between the door and the frame, not enough that whoever had come in could see into the stall, but still I mentally cursed at myself for being so careless as to not make sure the door was latched before feeding.
His eyelids fluttered and he slumped back as I climbed backwards off of him, licking my lips, pressing the door closed with my body. Crossing my arms, I frowned as I regarded my meal. It didn’t feel right leaving him here.
A shadow darkened the gap at the bottom of the stall as whoever had come in took up position at one of the urinals next to the stall. A belt buckle rattled, then a zipper unzipped, and finally water splashed on the porcelain. Of the entire line of four urinals in here, he’d chosen the one closest to the stall.
I looked at the shadow, then at my feet and the feet of my victim clearly visible to anyone outside, and remembered where I’d been when the person had entered the bathroom, and how long it had taken them to travel from the door to the urinal—a distance of less than a few paces. Great. They probably thought we were in here getting it on. I suppressed a sigh. Better than them knowing the truth, but still, I didn’t want to get banned on my first visit here.
I bent down and pulled my victim’s arm around my shoulder, holding it in place with one hand and using my other arm to lift him up. Not bad. Probably looked like I was helping a drunk friend walk. The effects of vampire venom did look a lot like intoxication. As I hoisted him to his feet, the jostling woke him up enough that he blearily opened his eyes and began shuffling his feet as I dragged him out of the stall.
Ignoring the man at the urinal, I “helped” my victim out of the bathroom and down the hall back into the bar’s main room. Lin, Stephen, and Lance were still at the booth—Lin and Stephen back to making out while it looked like Lance well on his way to drinking the entire contents of the bar, judging by the empty mugs scattered across the table.
Author Bio
I escaped from the bowels of Utah (namely Provo) and now live in the sunny Pacific Northwest United States.
My urban fantasy novels mainly feature the trans and queer protagonists grappling with things like identity and found families that I wished I could have read about growing up.
When not writing, you can probably find me beating up pixel baddies or in front of one of my sewing machines adding to my overstuffed closet or my army of homemade plush dolls.
If you find yourself blinded by the vivid colors and loud patterns of my homemade shirts, know that I’m only trying to warn you that I may be poisonous. Or venomous? Or both? Probably both.
| Author Website | http://roanrosser.com |
| Author Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/roanrosser |
| Author Twitter | https://www.twitter.com/roanrosser |