Bonnie Vanak | A Werewolf Tale

Alpha werewolf leader Damian Marcel has a small problem. Her name is Jamie. She’s a computer geek who is into World of Warcraft and is dying of a spell turning her into stone. She also happens to be his destined mate, who tried killing him with a poison kiss. He’s faced with searching through New Orleans to find an ancient book of magick to save her life, figuring out what Jamie means when she talks about cosplay, and fighting Morphs that want them both dead.

Here’s an excerpt from Enemy Lover, a November release from Silhouette Nocturne.

Jamie sat on the couch as she typed on a laptop. Damian nearly dropped the fruit. Elongated purple elfin ears stuck comically out of either side of her head.

She glanced up as he set the peaches down on the coffee table. A question in his eyes, Damian sat beside her and playfully tweaked an ear.

“I’m a warrior Night Elf,” she said, yawning. “I’m too tired to wear the rest of the outfit. Cosplay makes me feel better. It’s comforting.”

“I thought women liked dressing in old sweats to get comfortable.”

Her mouth turned down. “When I cosplay, I am Celyndra, my elf. She’s a tough fighter, courageous and doesn’t fear much.”

“Ah, she’s your alter ego,” he said softly in understanding. A frown puckered his forehead. “Such an imagination. Where did you get the idea?”

She grinned at his expression. “Haven’t you ever heard of WoW?”

“Wow?”

“World of Warcraft. My avatar is a female Night Elf Warrior. Some who were in my alliance used to meet at the square Saturday nights to hang out and cosplay.”

Jamie’s grin deepened. “Don’t tell me you never heard of cosplay either. Everyone knows what it is. What are you, 100?”

“Eighty,” he muttered, feeling as old as an ancient mage. Merlin, maybe.

“Eighty! You look like you’re in your twenties. No wonder you don’t know what anything is.”

“I know what hanging out is,” he said defensively.

“Cosplay is costume play. You dress as a character from a book or game and role-play. World of Warcraft is an online video game. You pick a character and fight battles. It’s a lot more complicated than that, but…”

“Battles?” he echoed. Damian narrowed his eyes. “You learned to fight and organize an army? This skill you taught the Morphs came from a game?”

“I did learn some skill from it. But that’s nothing compared to some guys I know. Former Marines, Army guys. Friends.”

Raphael’s pack had checked out all her friends in New Orleans. Jamie had few. A terrible suspicion seized him.

“Guys you know from where?”

“Online. I met them on MyPlace.”

Alarms screeched in his head. Jamie was involved in a dangerous world he knew nothing about. “You have a MyPlace page?”

Damian’s glance fell to her opened laptop. He picked it up, rapidly surfed through it. He found her page. Jamie Walsh, in lavender, with beautiful illustrations of fairies in the background. If he weren’t so furious, he’d admire the intricate artwork and the delicate simplicity of the winged creatures. Damian scrolled down, shocked at the personal details. She liked fantasy books, alternative music, designed web pages and was a self-professed geek.

People she’d like to meet. “Anyone with real magick because I need magick in my life,” she’d written. The sentence sounded a little wistful. He scrolled down to her friends. Her top friends were former military types. But… Damian zipped through the last friends she’d acquired. Names like Wolfeater, Draiconhater.

Online predators. Morphs. “You’re an open target with this, Jamie.”

“It’s my page. My friends are there.”

“Friends? Will they come to your aid if you need them? Not these bastards. They used you, Jamie. You don’t need friends. You’re my mate and you have a pack, my pack and my family here as well. They’re much more important. Family will always be there when you need help.” Reining in his emotions, Damian kept his face expressionless.

“Delete it,” he ordered.

“No. And I don’t need your pack. I do just fine on my own. Go to hell” Defiance flashed in her gray eyes.

Damian stared at her as his hands slowly crushed the laptop, splintering it in half. Her jaw dropped as the crumbled pieces fell to the floor. A strangled squeak arose from her throat.

“You won’t do that again. Try defying me and I’ll break every single computer you have. Your enemies, and mine, are on that page. Who do you think infected you with this spell? You’re turning to stone, Jamie. From the inside out.”

“Kane had no reason for it, ” she protested, but her voice shook considerably.

“You’re my draicara, my mate. Reason enough. He used you to try to kill me. He used a safeguard as well. A slow-working spell that would eliminate you.”

“All I wanted was to learn magick,” she said, looking crestfallen. “It’s something I wanted my whole life. Is that so wrong?”

Damian cupped her chin in one strong hand. “Then look, little one. Look and learn. I will teach you magick. Good magick.”

Releasing her, he waved his hand, summoning a ball of white light. Iridescent sparks glimmered from it. It hovered in the air, danced as Damian created patterns with his palm. Jamie gasped in delight. A wide smile touched her smile. Damn, he’d do anything to keep her looking like that. Happy. Young. Carefree.

She leaned forward to study the orb, her slender arm stretching out. Her expression turned to awed wonder as she touched the ball with one finger. The light flashed, turned gray, then black. Before his astounded eyes, it shriveled, then vanished.

“Oh! Oh… I killed it,” she whispered.

Her mouth wobbled precariously. Jamie seemed to shrink inside herself. Moving closer to her, he clasped her hand in his. Cold, so damn cold. Like blue ice.

“It’s not you. It’s what’s inside of you,” he said gently. “When the dark magick is gone, the light won’t vanish from your touch.”

A tremulous smile touched her mouth. “I wish I could believe you.”

I wish you would as well. He picked up the bag of peaches. “Eat. You need your strength.” Damian frowned as he glanced around. “When did Renee leave? I asked her to stay with you.”

“Said she had to get back to the shop.” Jamie dug into the bag and withdrew a peach. “Thanks. I’m so hungry, I could eat an orchard.”

She brightened, a smile touching her pixy face. The sight lifted his own spirits. He steeled against the temptation to kiss her again. “Why did Renee go back?”

Jamie went into the kitchen. Her voice trailed out to the living room. “You should know. She said you’d called, asked her to bring another gris-gris to the house.”

Damian went utterly still, the hair on the nape of his neck rising. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move from here,” he ordered.

A horrible suspicion crested over him. Damian raced out of the house. Sprinting down the street, he reached the voodoo shop.

The door was ajar. Cautiously he stepped inside. The scent slammed into him with the force of a hurricane. Blood. Death. Lacing through it was the faint scent of honeysuckle.

A black cat greeted him, mewling pitifully. Damian crossed the room, started for the back and ground to a halt. Anguish spilled through him like acid.

“Oh damn. Damn, I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Mama Renee lay in the corner, her eyes wide open in terror. Blood splashed over the pretty flowered dress, splattered the walls.

Someone had torn her heart out. Morphs. They reserved the act to lick up each last drop of fear.

Grief and rage twined together. Damian closed his eyes. Renee had been a last connection to his parents. How many more of his people must die, sliced down by evil? His family. Members of his pack back in New Mexico. How could they ever hope to stop this and protect those who looked to him to keep them safe?

He pushed aside sorrow. Grief was for later.

The stench of death made him gag. Damian murmured the ancient Draicon blessing for a departed soul. He spotted the altar to Marie Laveau.

Darkness had extinguished the candles.

The police would question, snoop around. Couldn’t risk them finding out about his world. He needed a motive. A hate crime, and robbery. Damian withdrew all the money from the cash register and stuffed it into his pocket to later burn. He left the drawer open. He glanced around, found a permanent marker and scrawled on the wall.

DEVIL WORSHIPPER.

The mewling at his legs grew louder. The cat held the scent of an ordinary feline. Picking it up, he studied the animal. “You already used one of your nine lives. Let’s get you somewhere safe.”

Tucking the cat in his arms, he looked around. Waving his hand, he dispelled all evidence of his fingerprints. The cops would question Jamie, though and…

Jamie. He’d left her alone.

Damian tore down the street, frantic with fear for his draicara. He unlocked the gate, banged it shut behind him. Releasing the cat, he took the stairs two at a time.

She was sitting on the couch. His knees went weak with relief.

Then he took a closer look. Terror shaded her expression as she stared at her hand. Seeing him, Jamie thrust out her palm at him. It trembled violently.

“Damian, look at me. Look at me, oh God, what’s wrong with me? I can’t bleed. I can’t bleed!”

Shock filled him as he looked at her hand. A knife and fruit slices lay on the coffee table. She’d been cutting a peach. Then the knife slipped and hurt her.

Peaches scented the air, but he smelled no coppery scent of blood. A shallow laceration on her palm showed no crimson. Instead, a sluggish gray matter leaked out.

Gray, like granite.

She was turning to stone before his horrified eyes.

Enemy Lover is now available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble online.


Bonnie Vanak
The Scorpion & the Seducer, May '08
Enemy Lover, Nocturne, Nov. '08
The Lady & the Libertine, Leisure, May '09
www.myspace.com/bonnievanak
www.bonnievanak.com/

Bonnie Vanak | The Healing Power of Romance

My December Nocturne, The Empath, is dedicated to my dog, Tia. Someone I know thought that was strange. I didn’t. Tia wasn’t just a pet, but a loyal friend.

One year ago, Tia died from liver cancer. When my husband and I got the diagnosis, our hearts broke. Our wonderful, lively pet who barked with joy when we came home, used to howl when my husband howled with her, jumped in my lap when I wrote and rested her head on the laptop (ever try to write with a 24-pound Shih Tzu hogging the keyboard?) was dying. Typical of Tia, as I sat there crying, she pushed her nose into my face and tried to cheer me up.

I grieved, and began to write.

The story became The Empath. It started with a woman who tries to find a cure for the mysterious disease killing her beloved dog. Gradually the story shifted. The woman developed into Maggie, a veterinarian. She was a Draicon, a werewolf, and the pack’s long lost empath, unaware of her ability to heal. The hero strolled into the story, a powerful warrior werewolf tormented by a dark secret, who longed for peace but forsake it to kill the enemy destroying his pack. The enemy became the Morphs. They were former Draicon who embraced evil to gain power and shapeshifted into any animal form. They turned into army ants, a fire-breathing dragon and bees to attack Maggie and Nicolas.

Maggie finally discovers her ability to heal through touch, and realizes the person in greatest need of emotional healing is Nicolas, her mate. Then I created the mating lock, in which they come together sexually in a pure moment of communion, and exchange thoughts, emotions and powers, the two halves made whole.

I wrote non-stop, sometimes sitting on the back patio, Tia resting her head between her paws while lying at my feet. The story became my balm those months while I visited the vet for new medication to keep Tia comfortable, experimented with food and coaxed her to eat when her appetite waned, and waited, watched and prayed. Not for a miracle, but for strength when the time would finally come for us to make the hardest decision of all.

That decision came December 7. She was in extreme pain. It was the hardest thing in the world, harder even when my mom was dying of cancer. My husband drove the car, as I cradled my whimpering friend in my arms. When our vet went to give her the shot, Tia reached up and licked my husband’s face.

And then she was gone. It was so quiet, except for the sounds of all of us crying.

In The Empath, Maggie’s tremendous powers cure her beloved dog, and heal Nicolas’s spirit, giving him the peace he’s sought for ages. It’s pure romance fiction, a world where the impossible becomes possible, and dreams and hopes come true with the help of love and magic.

For me, that’s the healing power of romance. When all around you is falling apart, and your heart is breaking, you can create a world in which everything turns out all right. And where a friend who was loyal to the end lives on forever in the pages of your book.


In memory of our beloved Tia. (Nov. 1995-Dec. 7, 2006)

http://www.bonnievanak.com/

Bonnie Vanak | When Romance Authors Cheat On Their Heroes

The heroes of Bonnie Vanak’s Egyptian books stood outside their creator’s house. Jabari of The Falcon & the Dove gave the door a blank look.

“What’s wrong?” asked Graham of The Panther & the Pyramid.

“I do not know what to do,” Jabari admitted. “I live in a tent.”

Kenneth of The Cobra & the Concubine rolled his eyes. “You knock, you bloody fool.”

“Do not call my father a bloody fool,” warned Tarik of The Sword & the Sheath. “You once lived in a tent.”

"Do you think we should formally announce ourselves?” asked Ramses of The Tiger & the Tomb. “After all, she is not writing and may not want to see us.”

The men exchanged glances. “You’re right,” said Thomas of The Scorpion & the Seducer. “We should just walk in and surprise her.”

They went inside, walked down a hallway and entered a bedroom. Bonnie was sorting through laundry. Shock dawned in her eyes. “Not you guys again!”

“We came here to recharge your creativity,” Thomas explained. “You haven’t written since my story was finished. I’m not published until next May, so you have time to write your next Egyptian historical.”

Bonnie laughed. “What time? Come with me. I have been writing.”

She led them to another room. Bonnie opened the door. “Go ahead, look. But watch out. They bite.”

The six romance heroes stepped into the small office. Bonnie pressed a button on the computer. Suddenly two tall, handsome men materialized. They were muscled and looked menacing. They shapeshifted into two sleek wolves.

“You’ve been unfaithful,” Tarik protested as Nicolas and Damian growled at him. “Werewolves? Whatever happened to Egyptian warriors and English noblemen?”

“You guys are for my Dorchester historicals. Nicolas and Damian are for my paranormals for Silhouette’s Nocturne line. The Empath, Nicolas’ book, is out in December. Look, please leave. I need to concentrate on Damian and his internal conflict.”

“A werewolf with internal conflict? Ridiculous,” Thomas declared.

Nicolas and Damian shapeshifted back into human form. “Show respect for my pack leader,” Nicolas warned.

“Bonnie put me in a fierce mating heat and hasn’t allowed me to have sex yet in order to build the sexual tension. Fighting you would relieve some of my frustration.” Damian growled at them.

The six historical romance heroes stared balefully at the two snarling werewolf heroes. Bonnie held up a hand. “Enough! Damian’s book is due in less than two months. I need to think about New Orleans and magic. You guys can come back when the next Egyptian historical is due. Now go!”

She hustled them out of the bedroom, closing the door behind Nicolas and Damian. All six heroes muttered as they left Bonnie’s house.

“Bloody werewolves, think they’re so special,” Thomas grumbled. “Why couldn’t she be happy enough writing about me, an English earl who falls in love with an outcast Egyptian woman? I gave her enough internal conflict!”

Jabari put a hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “I do not know, my friend. Let us hope Bonnie gets through this and returns to her Khamsin warriors of the wind. Perhaps it is a passing phase that will not affect us.”

“I hope so,” Ramses said morosely. “I wouldn’t look good in a fur coat.”

For more information on Bonnie’s historicals and paranormals, check out her website at http://www.bonnievanak.com/