The Reckoning — Kimberly Van Meter

::RITA-NOMINATED ROMANCE AUTHOR::

ISABELLA BECKETT IS A TOP-LEVEL SCIENTIST ON A MISSION...
Driven to avenge her family, she uses the only weapons at her disposal--the power of science--to study and destroy vampires.

BUT ISABELLA ISN'T THE ONLY ONE BENT ON REVENGE.
It's been decades since Julien de Valsan has felt anything but pure boredom with his long life so when the pretty scientist puts him in a cage for study, he's intrigued...until she starts slicing into his flesh.

EXCEPT FATE HAS OTHER PLANS.
Together, they discover revenge isn't always sweet...it's dangerous.

EXCERPT:

Impossible...how? Her throat worked convulsively on a scream that wouldn't budge. The slow, terrible smile on his finely aristocratic mouth caused her to take a faltering step back until she touched the shower door. No escape, her mind cried though she kept her lips seamed shut until she quieted the fear under a blanket of iron will. "How did you get out?" she asked, mentally going through the exhaustive fail-safes that somehow, he'd managed to circumvent.
A muffled twittering sounded from his pant pocket and he fished out a cell phone with a wicked curve of his lips. She gasped when she recognized Mary-Ellen's cell phone.

"I've always found the modern age with its gadgets and technology to be tedious and tiresome with all their beeps and bells but I must confess, your assistant's device was most helpful in finding you. I might have to get one of my own. Or I could just keep this one. Mary-Ellen won't be needing it any longer." He crushed the phone in his palm and dropped the fragments to her floor as he advanced. "Enough with the pleasantries. There will be a reckoning between you and I, and I do not wish to delay my gratification a moment longer."

Her eyes watered. "What did you do to Mary-Ellen?" she asked, knowing her own death stared at her through the eyes of the man stalking her, yet she had to know what had befallen her assistant. The memory of her parents' death bloomed in her mind and her knees threatened to buckle. "What did you do to her?" she cried, hating him, hating his race of monsters.

In an instant he was on her, ripping the damp towel from her body and yanking her against him, her frantic struggles as she beat his chest and kicked with her bare feet did little to loosen his grip. If anything, her attempts at violence seemed to spark a hunger that had less to do with sustenance and more to do with sex and dominance. His face so close to hers, she could feel his breath on her cheek, could see the irregular black spirals in his pale blue iris that gave away his alien nature. Yet, as horrific as it was, there was a hypnotic beauty that sucked at her, seduced her with its difference. Noooo, she wouldn't succumb to die at his leisure. She ceased her useless flailing to conserve her strength and lifted her chin to stare into those deep, fathomless eyes, daring him to kill her now or forfeit his chance.

"Likely a platoon of heavily armed Marines are canvassing this house this very minute," she said with a calm that was only surface deep. Inside something quivered and shook, but not entirely from fear. She pushed aside the obscenity, not willing to examine it more closely. "If you wish to live, you will leave me and go. You have only a few minutes before the sun rises. We've watched you long enough to know that you cannot withstand the sun."

He ignored her statement for the moment and chose instead to inhale deeply at the junction where her shoulders met her neck. She couldn't quite quell the shiver that followed. "I could kill you and be gone within seconds," he murmured, his lips touching her bare skin with the softest touch until something sharp grazed and she realized with a shudder he'd raked her flesh with his canines. "The question is...do I slake my hunger now with little preamble or finesse, or do I take you with me to savor for many nights to come?"