Product Description

Néomi Laress, a famous ballerina from a past century, became a phantom the night she was murdered. Imbued with otherworldly powers but invisible to the living, she haunts her beloved home, scaring away trespassers -- until she encounters a ruthless immortal even more terrifying than Néomi herself.

To prevent him from harming others, Conrad Wroth's brothers imprison him in an abandoned manor. But there, a female only he can see seems determined to drive him further into madness. The exquisite creature torments him with desire, leaving his body racked with lust and his soul torn as he finds himself coveting her for his own.

Yet even if Conrad can win Néomi, evil still surrounds her. Once he returns to the brutality of his past to protect her, will he succumb to the dark needs seething inside him?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3984 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 384 pages

From Publishers Weekly
A New Orleans ballerina in the 1920s, Neomi Laress had her life cut short by a murderous fiancé. She has haunted her estate, Elancourt, for the past 80 years, desperately seeking contact. Conrad Wroth is a self-loathing vampire mercenary with serious bloodlust. His brothers bring him to Elancourt to try to make him sane again, but he soon gets drawn into Neomi's difficult world, and the two fall for each other. But since Neomi isn't embodied, they can't touch. And that's just one of their problems. The banter of secondary characters, particularly Mariketa the Witch, distinguishes this standard story of an unattainable woman who needs saving and a rageful man who needs taming. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Stay sane, act normal, he chants to himself as he strides down the rickety pier. On either side of him, water black like tar. Ahead of him, muted light from the bayou tavern. A Lore bar. A lone neon sign flickers over flat skiffs below. Music and laughter carry.

Stay sane...need to dull the rage. Until the endtime.

Inside. "Whiskey." His voice is low, rough from disuse.

The bartender's face falls. Like last night. Others grow skittish. Can they sense that I ache to kill? The whispers around him are like metal on slate to his ragged nerves.

-- "Conrad Wroth, once a warlord...madder than any vampire I've seen in all my centuries."

-- "A killer for hire. If he shows up in your town, then folks from the Lore there'll go missing."

Missing? Unless I want them found.

-- "Heard he drains 'em so savagely...nothing's left of their throats."

So I'm not fastidious.

-- "I heard he eats them."

Distorted rumors. Or is that one true?

Tales of his insanity spreading once more. I've never missed a target -- how insane can I be? He answers himself: Very fucking much so.

Memories clot his mind. His victims' memories taken from their blood toll inside him, their number always growing. Don't know what's real; can't determine what's illusion. Most of the time, he can scarcely understand his own thoughts. He doesn't go a day without seeing some type of hallucination, striking out at shadows around him.

A grenade with the pin pulled, they say. Only a matter of time.

They're right.

Stay sane...act normal. Glass in hand, he chuckles softly on his way to a dimly lit table in the back. Normal? He's a goddamned vampire in a bar filled with shifters, demons, and the sharp-eared fey. Christmas lights are strung up in the back -- through the eye sockets of human skulls that frame a mirror. In the corner, a demoness lazily strokes her lover's horns, visibly arousing the male. At the bar, an immense werewolf bares his fangs, bowing protectively as he tosses a small redhead behind him.

Can't decide if you should attack, Lykae? That's right. I don't smell of blood. A trick I learned.

The couple leaves, the redhead all but carried out by the Lykae. As they exit, she peers over her shoulder, her eyes like mirrors. Then gone. Out into the night where they belong.

Sit. Back against the wall. He adjusts the sunglasses that shade his red eyes, dirty red eyes. As he scans the room, he resists the urge to rub his palm over the back of his neck. Watched by someone unseen?

But then, I always feel like that.

He swoops up the drink, narrowing his eyes at his steady hand. My mind's decayed, but my sword hand's still true. A ruinous combination.

He takes a liberal swallow. The drink. The whiskey dulls the need to lash out. Not that it has disappeared.

Small things enrage him. An off look. Someone approaching too quickly. Failing to give him a wide enough berth. His fangs sharpen at the slightest provocation. As though a living thing hungers inside me. Ravenous for blood and a throat to tear. Each time he acts on the rage, others' memories blight more of his own.

He still has enough sanity to stalk his targets -- his brothers. He will mete out retribution to Nikolai and Murdoch Wroth for doing the unspeakable to him. Sebastian, the third brother, was a victim like him, but must be slain -- simply because of what he is.

And my time grows nigh. Like an animal, he recognizes this. He's found them in this mysterious place of swamps and haze and music. He's seen Nikolai and Sebastian with their wives. He might have felt envy that his brothers laugh with them. That they touch them possessively, with wonder in their clear eyes. But hatred drowns out any confusing jealousy.

Offspring will follow. He'll kill their females as well. Destroy them. Destroy myself. Before my enemies catch up with me.

He adjusts the bandage under his shirt on his left arm. The slashed skin beneath it will not heal. Five days ago, he was marked by a dream demon, one who tracks him by this very injury. One who promised that most coveted dream and most dreaded nightmare would follow the mark.

His brows draw together. The hunter will soon become the hunted -- his life is nearing its end.

A whisper of regret. The thing he regrets most. He tries to remember what he covets so dearly. Another's memories bombard him, exploding in his mind. His hand shoots up to clasp his forehead --

Nikolai enters the bar, Murdoch behind him. Their expressions are grave.

They've come to kill me. As he expected. He thought he could draw them out by returning here again and again. He lowers his hand, and his lips ease back from his fangs. The bar empties in a rush.

Then...stillness. His brothers stare at him as if seeing a ghost. Insects clamor outside. Rain draws near and steeps the air. Just as lightning strikes in the distance, Sebastian enters, crossing to stand beside the other two. He's allied with them? This he hadn't expected.

He removes his sunglasses, revealing his red eyes. The eldest, Nikolai, stifles a wince at the sight, but shakes it off and advances. The three seem surprised that he'll stay to engage them, that he hasn't traced away. They are strong and skilled, yet they don't recognize the power he wields, the thing he's become.

He can slaughter them all without blinking, and he'll savor it. They haven't drawn their swords? Then they walk to their doom. Can't keep them waiting.

He lunges from his seat and hurdles the table, knocking Sebastian unconscious with a blow that cracks his skull and sends him flying into the back wall. Before the other two can raise a hand in defense, he snatches them by their throats. One in each tightening hand as they grapple to free themselves. "Three hundred years of this," he hisses. Their struggles do nothing; their shocked expressions satisfy. Squeezing --

Wood creaks behind him. He shoves back and heaves his brothers at a new enemy. Too late; that Lykae's returned and slashes out with flared claws, ripping through his torso. Blood gushes.

He roars with fury and charges the werewolf, dodging claws and teeth with uncanny speed to barrel him to the ground. Just as his hands are about to meet around the Lykae's corded neck, the beast claps something to his right wrist.

A manacle? Clenching harder, he grates out a rasping laugh. "You don't think that will hold me?" Bones begin to pop beneath his palms. The kill is near, and he wants to yell with pleasure.

The werewolf cuffs his left wrist.

What is this? The metal won't bend. Won't break. They goddamned mean to take me alive? He leaps to his feet, tensing to trace. Nothing. Sebastian on the floor, pouring blood from his temple, has him by the ankles.

He kicks Sebastian, connecting squarely with his brother's chest. Ribs crack. He whirls around -- in time to catch the bar rail the Lykae swings at his face.

He staggers but remains on his feet.

"What the fuck is he?" the Lykae bellows, swinging the rail again with all his might.

The brutal hit takes him across his neck. A split second of faltering. Enough for his brothers to tackle him.

He thrashes and bites, snapping his fangs. Can't break free...can't...They attach the manacles at his wrists to another chain. He kicks viciously, stunned when they trap his legs as well.

Choking with rage, he strains against his bonds with all his strength. The metal cleaves his skin to the bone. Nothing.

Caught. He roars, spitting blood at them, dimly hearing them speak.

"I hope you came up with a good place to put him," Sebastian says between ragged breaths.

"I bought a long-abandoned manor," Nikolai grates, "place called Elancourt."

Chills course through him even through his fury; pain erupts from the injury on his arm. A dream. His doom. He can never go to this Elancourt -- knows this with a savage certainty. He's too strong for them to trace him -- there's still time to escape.

If they take him there, they won't take him alive...

Under a clouded nighttime sky, the spirit of Néomi Laress knelt in the drive at the very edge of her property line, gazing hungrily at the newspaper, lying wrapped in wet plastic.

Today the deliveryman -- that capricious fiend -- had missed the drive again, this time tossing the bundle squarely onto the desolate county road.

Néomi was starving for that paper, desperate for the news, reviews, and commentary that would break up the monotony of her life -- or her eighty-year-long afterlife.

But she couldn't leave the estate to seize it. As a ghost, Néomi could manipulate matter telekinetically, and her power was nearly absolute at Elancourt -- she could rattle all the windows or tear off the roof if she wanted to, and the weather often changed with her emotions -- but not outside the property.

Her beloved home had become her prison, her eternal cell of fifteen acres and a slowly dying manor. Among fate's other curses, each seemingly designed to torture her in personal and specific ways, Néomi could never leave this place.

She didn't know why this was so -- only that it was, and had been since she'd awakened the morning after her murder. She recalled seeing her haunting reflection for the first time. Néomi remembered that exact moment when she'd realized that she'd died -- when she'd first comprehended what she'd become.

A ghost. She'd become something that frightened even her. Something unnatural. Never again to be a lover or friend. Never to be a mother, like she'd always planned after her dancing career. As a storm had boiled outside, she'd silently screamed for hours.

The only thing she could be thankful for was that Louis hadn't been trapped here with her.

She stretched harder. Must...have that...paper!

Néomi wasn't certain why it continued to arrive. A past article had recounted the problems inherent with "recurrent billing of credit cards," and she supposed she was the ben...

Customer Reviews

Love this series~
I have been reading romance novels since I was 15, so a good 20 years now. In my mind nothing like a cup of tea and a good romance novel to escape and unwind at the end of a day.
Just to give a sample of my taste, other authors I enjoy are: Jen Holling, Connie Brockway, Johanna Lindsey, Julie Garwood, Christina Dodd, just to name a few.

This entire series is such a page turner. I had a hard time putting any of the titles down. More evenings than I care to admit I stayed up way to late "just to read one more chapter".

I love that the brothers are all together in this book working to save a fallen brother. Love that they are doing what they can to save the one vampire that most likely cannot be saved. The sparks between Neomi Laress and Conrad are just fantastic from the beginning. I could not find out fast enough how on earth these two could be together.

I enjoyed the glimpse of supporting characters so you felt that any of them would be enjoyable to read about in their own series. The entire series is fast and there is not a lot of review of what happened in a prior book. You open the book and off you go. These are not slow moving. I laughed, I cried, I blushed. Boy Ms. Cole writes some steamy scenes. Wow! And I am amazed that nothing repeats. Each book is so different, the plots are so different and the way the main characters relate is so different. Yes they do all have hansom men and lovely ladies. But the dynamic relationship between the main characters is simply fire from page 1 to the end. Out of all my years reading romance. I have never read modern romance before. I can say without a doubt that these are the best romance books I have read and that is truly saying a lot considering how many authors works sit on my shelf.

Ok but not Kresley's Best
I love Kresley Cole and couldn't wait for this book to come out. I was pretty disappointed. It seemed very slow. I loved Neomi but I really wasn't too crazy about Conrad. Maybe I just like Lykaes better that tortured vamps? Sadly her next book Dark Desires After Dusk was just as meh. I could take it or leave it. To many books are being written, I wish Kresley would slow down and take her time. Her next one is out Jan of 2009, lets hope it's better. Kiss of a Demon King.

Kresley Is A Drug!!!
The worst part of reading a book by Kresley Cole is the intense high and then intense low when it's done. I finished this book in 6 hours and threatened my husband and son with no dinner if they did not leave me alone in my cone of silence. Kresley has quickly become my drug of choice.

Once again she has nailed it. I was afraid that the story line would be hard to wrap my head around. But the relationship between Conrad and Neomi was intriguing, enthralling, very sweet and more of what we love about Kresley Cole.

Neomi and Conrad certainly had all of the tools to NOT make a life together. He's mad from drinking the memories of all his "kills" and being on the run for 300 years and she's a ghost with no bodily form. The quintessential if a bird and a fish loved each other, where would they make their home. But the duo find sweet ways to connect and learn to appreciate each other and what they both bring to the table and along with the other characters we have all come to love the relationship works out for the best. The style of writing, the intimacy, the total alpha male descriptives one he "Blooded"... Whew.

I look forward to Cadeon's book and will stare at if for a few more months before I dive in because I know Kresley Coles next release is not until 2009.