Anya Bast

Hi All! Today’s Snippet Saturday theme is Seduction FAIL. My characters have many seduction fails, when one character (generally the hero) is trying his best to tempt the heroine into bed with him and she’s resisting. This is the first meeting scene between Daria and Alejandro of The Chosen Sin and the first of a few seduction fail scenes for them. (Daria has much more will power than I ever would.) Enjoy!

In this sensuous and lust-filled otherworld, the Chosen are vampires fighting for their very existence.

It is Daria’s destiny to become one of them…

Daria Morris is a special forces agent with one obsession: to wreak vengeance on the brutal vampire who nearly destroyed her. Now she’s finally about to get her chance, on one condition. She must become something she detests: a vampire.

Her fate rests upon one man’s lethal bite. His name is Alejandro Martinez, and he can help her infiltrate a highly guarded group of the Chosen. But Alejandro is also a distraction for Daria. Because thirteen years ago, they shared a scorching night of passion neither has forgotten.

Now, while Daria struggles against her newfound bloodlust, the two must slip into the shadows to bring a monster to justice—even as their desire threatens to consume them. But under the cover of night, they’ll discover that it’s the darkness within that may stand in the way of their hunger for retribution…

Excerpt from The Chosen Sin ~ © 2008 Anya Bast

Daria pushed the door open and stepped into the Blood Spot. Her pupils adjusted to the dim light and her nostrils flared at the heavy odor–a combination of Darpongese booze, the bitter smoke from rashish cigarettes, and the metallic scent of blood. The pounding beat of the club’s music assaulted her eardrums.

There were vamps in here. She could feel them. This sleazy club in the outreaches of the Darpong was well known as a place where veilhounders, blood donors who were psychologically addicted to a vamp’s veil and physically addicted to the chemicals secreted by a vamp’s bite, hung out, waiting for a vampire to grace them with their presence…and their fangs. The edges of her mouth curled down in disgust.

If it was up to Daria, veilhounding would be illegal everywhere. She found the practice abhorrent, despite the supposed joys of having a vampire sink his or her fangs into you and unfurl their illusions within your mind.

There were addiction clinics all over the Angel System. For the love of the quad planets, you’d think people would learn not to get their kicks this way.

There were even isolated cases of vampires trafficking in the sale of addicted humans they called blood slaves. Sometimes they abducted veilhounders from places just like this one and sold them into it.

She shook her head, glancing around at the people that filled the building. The fools.

Daria’s hand rested on her patrol-issued pulse disruptor, a weapon capable of briefly preventing muscular impulses, or the cessation of synapses firing in the brain, depending on the setting. The weapon worked on most species, even the Chosen. She was not a willing blood donor and she’d be damned if anyone mistook her for one.

Her pupils finally adjusted to the dim light and she sought out Alejandro Martinez. She hadn’t seen him in over seven years. All the same, she spotted him right away since he still looked like sin made flesh.

A black leather dune-biker jacket sheathed broad shoulders and his muscular arms and chest. Thick black hair framed a face hewn in masculine lines, with a strong chin, chocolate-brown eyes, and a mouth made for kissing…and other things. She filled in from memory what she couldn’t see, since his face was currently buried in the neck of a tall redhead.

Daria hung back, watching him sway and dip the woman in his arms, a veilhounder most likely, his pelvis moving sensually against hers. The rhythm to which they danced was a lot slower than the music. They looked like they were in the throes of a slow, pleasurable fuck, oblivious to everyone around them.

Daria shook her head. It had been far too long since she’d had one of those. Everything looked sensual to her these days. Although, Alejandro had always exuded confident sexuality, even before he’d been Chosen.

What the hell was he doing biting a human? That was against GBC regulation.

She worked her way around the edge of the room, picking past entangled vampires and donors and stepping in sloshed beer and other substances she didn’t care to identify. Finally, she entered the crush on the dance floor and elbowed her way to him

“Alejandro?” she queried loudly, competing with the music. “It’s me, Daria.”

No reaction. Just that irritating sway and thrust.

“Alejandro,” she repeated, louder this time.

He raised his head. His dark eyes were heavy lidded, and a hank of black hair had fallen across his forehead. Dark stubble graced the square jut of his jaw and shaded the skin around his well-formed mouth. Those beautiful lips twisted. “Your turn?” he drawled in his Spanish accent.

He released the veilhounder redhead who stumbled back drunkenly with a smile on her face. Daria stepped away, but he grabbed her around the waist and drew her close.

Her protest died on her tongue as his hot breath caressed her throat. Some strange quirk of vampire chemistry made a Chosen’s breath consistently sweet. Their non-human bodies took the blood they drank and transformed it into pure energy, pure life. Scientists had hypothesized that it acted as a mild tranquilizer, lulling their human victim.

Daria held her breath, trying not to inhale it. Alejandro bussed his lips across the bare skin between her collarbone and shoulder. The hard rake of fangs followed the sensation.

That broke her momentary stupor. She pushed him away and hooked her leg around to sweep his legs out from under him. He went down hard on his back, scattering the bar’s patrons around them.

Daria knelt beside him, drawing her pulser and pointing it at his temple. It whirred up, readying to fire. The light on top that was connected to her brain wave patterns flared red. “I told you, Alejandro. No fangs.”

Want to read more? These authors are also participating in Snippet Saturday today. Check them out.

Cynthia Eden
Sylvia Day
Leah Braemel
Shelli Stevens
Michelle Pillow
Jaci Burton
Anya Bast
Juliana Stone
Moira Rogers
Vivian Arend
Shelley Munro
Lacey Savage