Forever Friends by Amanda Kimberley Teaser and Book Giveaway

 

Forever Friends Teaser Copyright 2014

Alec ordered another shot of Scotch and chased it with a beer before looking at his watch. He was becoming impatient with the wasted minutes he used up at Backtrax. Hunting for Raine and his bitch was becoming rather annoying. He needed to find them, and now. The time to claim revenge for his lover was fast approaching. He needed to know quickly where they were so he could put his plans in place.

Raine’s scent was becoming harder and harder for Alec to track. There was little doubt in Alec’s mind that Raine had become more versed in the craft and probably came up with a detracting spell. Raine’s cunning was becoming quite aggravating. The planetary alignment would happen soon and if he could not find Raine and Skye by that time, his spell to vanquish them would never work. He hoped he could pick up their scent by asking for help from an old friend. Alec knew of a medicine man around the New England area that specialized in hunting down witches. 

Medicine men played an integral role in finding the witches who performed the dark arts during The Were Rebellion. One witch that was tracked was Obsidian and it was unfortunate because her spell was not considered dark arts to the gods. If it were, they would not have allowed her to be with child. She, of course, suffered death, but many witches were not as lucky. They were turned during the rebellion. And since they became either part werewolf or vampire, it became harder to track a hybrid. Tracking a pure blooded witch was much easier.

Raine and Skye were pure blooded, but Raine must have found a way to mask himself from Alec with the blood binding they had both performed centuries ago. He must have figured out some way to use that spell against Alec. It was an unfortunate mistake on his part, but Alec now knew better. Raine’s cloaking couldn’t last long, Alec would see to that.    

Alec befriended a particular medicine man and sorcerer named Zhan Li. He helped Zhan during the rebellion by vanquishing as many werewolves and witches he could find. Zhan was not particularly fond of vanquishing witches because they were as close as kin. He remained a neutral sorcerer and favored no side in the rebellion. He felt that each magical and supernatural race had a hand in trying to overthrow the world. But it was the werewolves that Zhan had the most disdain for during the rebellion. They allowed their emotions to get the best of them in battle. Zhan was not fond of their lack of focus.

Many, though, did look up to the werewolves in the magical community. They were one of the few creatures that could defeat a vampire that turned rouge. That respect alone should have been reason enough for them not to start the fight. Instead, they tried to enlist the help of unknowing witches. These witches, who always fought for the greater good, were tricked by the werewolves into performing the dark arts against their own kind. They then turned these unknowing witches for their own selfish mating purposes. 

Vampires were not innocent in any of this either. They too, turned witches for their own selfish reasons. Though, it was worse when a witch turned vampire. Their power was far greater than a Werewitches because they had magic on their side. There were legends of Lilith-Vampires trying to come to power during the rebellion, creating an army out of witch fledglings. It was, however, a myth in Alec’s eyes. He knew first hand, not to believe these legends, Lilith’s only protégé was himself at the time.

Once Obsidian had died in The Were Rebellion, Alec had no intentions of fighting for the greater good, nor was he doing anything for the races out of the kindness of his own cold, dead heart. His only intention was to hope that Zhan would eventually track down the werewolf of Strega descent that killed his beloved Obsidian. Despite the ulterior motive, Zhan, felt he owed Alec a favor for defeating as many rouge witches and werewolves as he did. Therefore, Zhan never protested Alec’s motives.

Alec took the last swig of his beer and motioned the bartender to give him another. He snickered at the thought of being able to pound as many beers as he could in an evening. It was something most mortals could not do, let alone a vampire. It wasn’t hard to hide the fact that a vampire did not eat or drink. A vampire merely used their dark arts to persuade a mortal into thinking they saw the undead engage in food and drink. But for Alec, it was an annoyance to constantly have to keep up appearances, especially for what was considered prey. 

Alec wasn’t into this kind of pallor trick. Magic like this wasted time, which is why he had little need for hiding. Another annoying trait Alec had little patience with was The Dark Sleep. He knew that if he had any hopes of hunting Raine, Alec had to be considered part of the living. The king of the Vlad Vampire clan needed a way to blend into the human society if he wanted to kill Raine. And though he hated pallor tricks, he used them to persuade a Dynion Mwyn Witch to cast a glimmer spell that would allow him to eat, drink, and walk among the living freely. He detested the fact that he needed a witch to do it and redeemed himself by breaking her neck. Sucking her dry would have made his stomach turn.

Despite losing Raine’s scent for about a week, Alec knew Raine liked bars. It was one of Raine’s downfalls. Raine always seemed to like the night life. And even though Alec could walk in daylight, the bar scene made things much easier on him when it came to prey. He needed to feed, and unsuspecting, drunk humans suited him just fine. 

Alec, in his fledgling days, used to be of discerning tastes. He relished the blood of a virgin over anything vilely tainted. But since the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, many of the humans lacked any sense of restraint. Drunkards were more common than any other prey in these times. He still tried to relish taste and preferred the wine drinking women over the beer guzzling men. The women tasted much sweeter, but beggars could not be choosers, and either one was fine just as long as he kept his eye on the real prize.

The planetary alignment would soon be upon him, leaving little room for error when it came to locating Raine and Skye. Alec hoped he not only could destroy the heads of the Kersh Gypsy clan, but he also wanted the added bonus of neutering the werewolves.

It was a known fact that werewolves were the only supernatural being that could defeat a vampire. Whether they were a young fledgling, or older, did not matter, they could defeat a vampire. He wasn’t really into preserving himself or his own race, but neutering them would be pleasurable because it would punish the race for killing Obsidian. Sticking around a bit to revel in the fact that he avenged his lover’s death through defeating the entire werewolf race was just a pure bonus in his book.

There was talk of the werewolves trying to start another revolt, but it seemed it was just talk at this point. Not every pack wanted to get involved, especially since there was no pious reason to. Those pups were loyal to a fault and needed some sort of greater purpose to fight. It was rather vexatious to listen to them since a vampire didn’t care for anyone’s greater purpose but their own.

Zhan, whom Alec had met during the Ming Dynasty, didn’t want to work with the vampires after The Were Rebellion. He was firm in remaining neutral, and siding with a selfish vampire made that task tough. The bond still remained, though, because he not only had a shared interest in magic amongst the Vlad Vampires and witches, Zhan also knew it was possible for the werewolves to revolt again. He had seen a vision after The Were Rebellion. Since the hatred for the werewolves was great, and Zhan knew the pups needed to be silenced for the greater good of all the races, Zhan agreed to resurface before this alignment of the planets and help as best as he could. All Alec needed to do was find him. 

There was a particular spell that was in Zhan’s possession that would eliminate the threat of werewolves all together. It would transform them into harmless watch dogs. The werewolf’s human half would disappear, leaving only their wolf side intact. Their bruit strength and power to tear human or vampire flesh would be gone, though. They’d be nothing more than a house dog, still loyal to the humans they’ve so desperately wanted to protect from vampires throughout time, but they’d be rendered helpless and hopeless to the human race.

Alec had to hope that Zhan would keep his word about helping to defeat the werewolves, but he could only hope. He did not feel Zhan would live up to this promise since that spell could backfire and shift the balance of good and evil. Zhan obviously wasn’t predictable, or biased, something Alec was not used to.

Human prey always was biased, however. And usually to what suited them and their likes, something Alec could admire. On occasion, though, Alec would run across human prey that was righteous. He wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole. Their blood was awful, tasted like Holy Water. Holy Water had no effect on him due to the Dynion Mwyn glimmer spell, it didn’t kill him, or burn him, but the taste was vile. 

Unlike many humans, Zhan was not biased due to his likes, preferences, or even needs. He truly was a purely neutral sorcerer. From time to time he’d switch his stance, but he wasn’t a flake, he was just firm on neutrality. His stance would only change if destiny did. If someone were to change their course of action, they’d change the course of destiny, and that’s why Alec could not be so sure that Zhan would aid the vampires in neutering the werewolves.

The lights in his most recent bar hop called Backtrax, started to brighten. Alec knew that was the signal to exit for the evening.  He had usually had a piece of arm candy to feed off of by this point, but his deep thoughts had prohibited this. Hungry, Alec scanned the bar for prey. His eyes settled upon a rather young woman in her early to mid-thirties with ebony hair. She smelled like peonies. It was a delightful scent.

Alec hadn’t seen such a tasty number lately, and this one intrigued him. She appeared to be alone, a good sign for him. He took another swig of his drink, placed it on the bar rail, and proceeded to walk over to her.

“Hello.” He said plainly and directly. 

Alec learned in the early 80’s that mortal women didn’t take kindly to the one-liners of the 60’s or 70’s. After they got jobs and felt liberated, they seemed to demand sophistication. The 60’s and 70’s were filled with woman that had to be wined and dined. It felt like it took forever to hunt woman prey during those decades. But these Millennials were different. They were direct and knew what they wanted. That suited Alec just fine. He liked being direct, it saved him time. A smile came across the woman’s face as she said hello back.

“The name is Alec, Alec Cirino, and you are?” he stated. 

Alec took in a deep breath hoping to partake in the smell of peonies once more, but what he wound up taking in interested him even more. He could smell the faint scent of Skye on this one. A rather interesting find, indeed. If he were still walking among the living, his body might have tingled with excited rage. Right now though, he was just intrigued in knowing that this one might be worth more to him alive, rather than dead.

“I’m Morgan Walker.” She said with a smile. “Is this your first time here?”

Author Bio:

Amanda Kimberley has been writing for three decades and is a no nonsense nonfiction writer named Kimberley Linstruth-Beckom by day, who focuses mostly on the health condition known as Fibromyalgia, due to her own diagnosis in late 2005.

By night, she dons her bathrobe and enjoys typing out paranormal romances at her white marble desk. She likes to nibble on chocolate, nuts, and potato chips while drawing out her characters with music from her iPhone in the background.

 

Book Giveaway:

I'll be giving away an autographed copy and poster of Forever Friends and 2 autographed copies with bookmarks. Follow the link to enter!

https://www.facebook.com/authoramandakimberley/app_228910107186452