Crave Read online

  The men and women she passed snarled at her, baring their fangs in her direction and leaning to one side in an attempt to see past her. She muttered her apologies, trying to move quickly so they didn’t attack her. Elizabeth made that impossible. She moved slowly and with grace in her long scarlet dress, her head held high and no apologies leaving her lips. Her sire was old enough to stand against these vampires should they choose to attack but Sera wasn’t. It would be years before she had the strength of her sire. They reached the last person and broke out onto the wide strip of red carpet that lined the edge of the theatre.

  “Antoine,” Elizabeth called and he paused and swung back to face her.

  Sera’s heart almost stopped when his deep crimson gaze briefly flickered to her before returning to her sire.

  Her nerves rose as he strolled up the incline to meet Elizabeth and Sera slowed, the gap between her and Elizabeth growing larger by the second. What was she doing? It had taken months for her to convince her sire to do this for her and now she had finally agreed, her nerve was going to fail? She wanted this man’s eyes on her, wanted to be alone with him, and the only way to get what she wanted was to get a job at the theatre.

  If she made it past the interview, then Antoine would have to meet with her. Elizabeth said that he spoke to each new performer and ensured they were suitable for the theatre. She just had to get the interview out of the way and then she would have the chance she wanted. Once they were alone in his office, she would take a shot at convincing Antoine that she was the woman for him. Whatever the outcome of that meeting was, she would quit her role as a performer. She didn’t intend to perform at the theatre. Hell, no. She didn’t have the right sort of personality for that. She wanted to blush whenever she chanced a glance at the black and red stage set and saw what the couples on it were doing. If it weren’t for Antoine’s presence in the theatre and her sire’s insistence that they have a little fun, she would never come to such a place.

  “Callum,” a deep male voice called out, sharp with authority, and Sera stopped dead. Sweet mercy, he had a voice that could tame even the wildest of angels. That voice was a drug. It went straight into her heart and raced through her veins, the effect sweeter than any amount of blood.

  Sera turned towards her sire and Antoine, only to see that he was walking away, leaving her sire with another man. He was handsome, full of smiles as he spoke to Elizabeth, far warmer and more amiable than Antoine was but nowhere near as alluring. Elizabeth signalled her to join them and she did, moving past the vampires now spilling out of the stalls and watching Antoine leave at the same time. She’d had a chance to meet him and she had blown it. If she had only kept up with her sire, she would have been close to him, maybe would have caught his attention this time and had his eyes on her at last.

  “Is this her?” the vampire called Callum said and ran a glance over her. Sera kept still, feeling as though she was for sale as he moved around her, his eyes on her body, inspecting and scrutinising every inch. He came back to stand before her and looked at Elizabeth. “The summer season will end soon so we’ll have time to train her before the winter one begins but we need someone with natural talent. Does she have what it takes?”

  Sera opened her mouth to speak but Elizabeth beat her to it.

  “Absolutely. She’s my child, Cal. It’s all in the blood.” Elizabeth smiled broadly at him, red lips curving perfectly. Her deep brown eyes shone with warmth and she swept her dark red hair over her shoulders, exposing their bare curves. “You know I am one of your best ever performers.”

  Callum nodded and the longer lengths of his cropped black hair fell down over one emerald green eye. He frowned and raked it back, and then ran a hand around the nape of his neck, drawing Sera’s eyes to a set of dark marks on it. A bite mark. It looked deep and fresh too, no more than a night or two old. Did he have a lover?

  He looked at her again and Sera’s gaze leapt to his. She swallowed the desire to confess that her sire was lying and she had no natural talent for the sort of thing that he was talking about. She smiled instead, trying to look every bit as seductive as her sire. Elizabeth had been Vampirerotique’s star female performer until she had decided to quit her job and return to her family instead. They had met shortly after that, and Elizabeth had turned her into a vampire. That was thirty years ago now.

  “Come by tomorrow night when we’re closed,” Callum said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  “Thank you,” Sera said and he smiled at her, nodded, and then disappeared into the crowd.

  Their excited chatter filled the theatre, the people passing her by discussing the show and the finale. Other elite vampires were still in their seats, enjoying the lingering scent of blood and sharing an intimate moment of their own with their partners. Sometimes the kissing that happened post-performance in the stalls was more erotic than what occurred on stage. Sera dragged her gaze away from one couple near the front who were going at it with wild abandon. They looked as though they wouldn’t make it out of the theatre before they succumbed to their desire and took things a step further.

  She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Elizabeth. “Does Callum have a lover?”

  “I thought you had set your sights on Antoine?” Elizabeth laughed when she blushed and then her expression darkened. “A wife... and I’ve heard rumours that she’s a werewolf.”

  A werewolf? She had expected the owners of an erotic theatre to be quite liberal and wild, but marrying a werewolf? She definitely hadn’t expected that one.

  “You’re serious?” She never could tell with her sire. The woman enjoyed a joke more than was natural. Sera supposed that you needed to have an easygoing attitude when you chose to spend fifty years participating in an on-stage orgy with people you hardly knew.

  Her stomach turned.

  Thank the Devil she wouldn’t have to do such a thing to get her chance to speak with Antoine. Just an interview that she would ace thanks to her sire’s tuition and then she would be in his office, alone with him. Just the thought stirred heat in her veins. Since her sire had agreed to help her, she had spent every night trying to figure out how to win Antoine. It wasn’t going to be easy. She knew that much. She had never pursued a man before. Elizabeth had laughed when she had confessed that and had told her that she should probably start with easier prey and work her way up to someone like Antoine. That gave her the feeling that she was going to fail. What sort of woman would he desire? He ran an erotic theatre and watched the beautiful women performing on his stage without the barest hint of desire in his expression. If they couldn’t arouse him, what hope did she have?

  Maybe he wasn’t interested in women who worked at his theatre. If that was the case, was she only shooting down what slim chance she had with him by interviewing for a position as a performer?

  “I need a drink, and you look as though you could use one too,” Elizabeth said and grasped her wrist. “Come along, my pupil. You have a lot to learn before tomorrow night if you’re going to have a snowball’s chance in Hell of impressing that man.”

  Sera trudged along behind her sire, heading up through the theatre towards the exits at the back, weaving through the lingering crowd. Elizabeth’s warnings rang in her ears, one louder than the rest. She glanced up at the three storeys of elegant boxes that lined the theatre. The gold on the carvings on the curved cream low walls that edged the private boxes reflected the warm lights that illuminated the heavy red velvet curtain now closed across the stage. Matching curtains hung at the back of the boxes, some of them open now that the performance had ended. Many of the boxes were empty but beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen still occupied the others.

  She spotted Antoine amongst a group in one of the lower boxes. He was smiling. She had never seen him smile. It looked forced to her. Hollow. Even among his own kind, he was still distant, his eyes devoid of emotion as he put on a grand performance of his own.

  Sera wasn’t going to overcome the challenge of winning Antoine’s
heart just by meeting the man.

  First, she had to break through a barrier that was beginning to look impenetrable.

  He was an aristocrat, and an old one at that. Although he looked barely a day over thirty, he was in fact over a thousand years old. His brother, Snow, was almost twice his age.

  Sera was an elite.

  To an aristocrat, she was some sort of filth they scraped off their shoes and nothing made that clearer than the theatres. The aristocrats sat in their boxes, looking down on the elite gathered in the stalls, separated and distant from those they saw as commoners and mongrels.

  That disdain for her kind was the reason why Antoine looked so glacial whenever he had to greet the more important members of the elite, and why he had failed to hear her when she had tried to speak with him. He wanted nothing to do with the elite vampires outside the small circle that were part of the theatre. He would certainly want nothing to do with her. Not only was she an elite, but she was a turned human. She was the bottom rung of the social ladder and he was the top. The elite that he deemed worthy of a moment of his time, that he greeted with gritted teeth in order to maintain good relations with her kind, were all born as vampires into families that had turned humans within their ranks. None of them were turned humans themselves.

  Even Elizabeth was born of a vampire father and turned mother.

  If Sera wanted to shatter Antoine’s armour, she would have to convince him to see beyond the fact that she was a turned human.

  Elizabeth had taught her a few things, weapons that she hadn’t held in her arsenal before, but she wasn’t sure if she was brave enough to risk using them on Antoine.

  Could she do what Elizabeth had said it would take to shatter his defences?

  Could she really seduce such a powerful man?

  Sera curled her fingers into tight fists and stared at him. He paused in the middle of saying something to the aristocrat vampires in the box with him, slowly turned towards her and then lowered his eyes to meet hers. He had felt her watching him. Her heart beat harder, thumping against her chest as her blood heated, but she held his gaze, refusing to back down.

  The next time she saw him, she would be alone with him.

  And she would seduce him.

  Seduce (Vampire Erotic Theatre romance series #3)

  Bloodlust runs in his veins, a dark master waiting for the day it will reign over him. Now a woman with a pure soul and wicked intentions has him in her sights and is determined to crack the ice around his heart, and she might save or damn him.

  Antoine stands apart from the world around him, a dangerous and broken soul who must maintain rigid control at all times or risk his dark addiction finally seizing hold of him. The shadows of his past haunt him and he sees his bleak future each night when his brother wakes screaming, his blood addiction turning him savage. He cannot allow himself to feel, but when Sera walks into Vampirerotique, the erotic theatre he runs with three other vampires, to audition, she awakens dangerous desires in him—hungers that could spell the end of both of them.

  Sera has wanted Antoine since the night she first saw the gorgeous aristocrat vampire. She can’t ignore the deep carnal hunger he stirs in her or the ache to know the heat of his touch. With the help of her sire, an ex-performer at Vampirerotique, she sets in motion a game of seduction, one designed to thaw the ice in Antoine’s veins and make him burn for her.

  When Sera discovers the shocking truth about his past and the darkness that lurks within him, will she be strong enough to seize his heart with both hands and win him forever or will she lose him to the ghosts that still haunt him?

  Available from 23rd June 2012

  About the Author

  Felicity Heaton writes passionate paranormal romance books as Felicity Heaton and F E Heaton. In her books she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot demons!

  If you're a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine Feehan then you will enjoy her books too.

  If you love your angels a little dark and wicked, Felicity Heaton’s best selling Her Angel series is for you. If you like strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm series she writes as F E Heaton or any of her stand alone vampire romance books she writes as Felicity Heaton. Or if you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful, passionate and erotic then try Felicity Heaton’s new Vampire Erotic Theatre series.

  In 2011, four of her six paranormal romance books received Top Pick awards from Night Owl Reviews, Forbidden Blood was nominated as Best PNR Vampire Romance 2011 at The Romance Reviews, and many of her releases received five star reviews from numerous websites.

  To see her other novels, visit: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk

  If you have enjoyed this story, please take a moment to contact the author at [email protected] or to post a review of the book online

  Follow the author on:

  Her blog – http://www.indieparanormalromancebooks.com

  Twitter – http://twitter.com/felicityheaton

  Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/felicityheaton

  Goodreads – http://www.goodreads.com/felicityheaton

  Paranormal Romance Books by Felicity Heaton

  Stories in the Vampire Erotic Theatre romance series by Felicity Heaton

  Covet

  Crave – out March 10th 2012

  Seduce – out June 23rd 2012

  Enslave – out August 4th 2012

  Stories in the Her Angel series by Felicity Heaton

  Her Dark Angel

  Her Fallen Angel

  Her Warrior Angel

  Her Guardian Angel

  Her Demonic Angel – out September 15th 2012

  Stories in the Vampires Realm series by F E Heaton

  Prophecy: Child of Light

  Prophecy: Caelestis & Aurorea

  Prophecy: Dark Moon Rising

  Eternity: The Beginning (free short story available at the VR website)

  Spellbound

  Reunion

  Seventh Circle

  Winter's Kiss

  Hunter's Moon

  Masquerade – out May 12th 2012

  Stand alone paranormal romance novels by Felicity Heaton

  Love Immortal

  Ascension

  Forbidden Blood

  Heart of Darkness

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2012 Felicity Heaton

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The right of Felicity Heaton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First printed March 2012

  First Edition

  Layout and design by Felicity Heaton

  All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover by Felicity Heaton

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Seduce - Chapter 1

  About the Author

  Paranormal Romance Books by Felicity Heaton

  Copyright

 

 

  or reading books on Archive.