I've done a number of blog tours over the years, posting on different sites. Now I'm bringing them to you!
Originally published February 25, 2014 for My Odd Little World
Thank you to Nancy and My Odd Little World for having me here again!
The Ancient One
Biting Love vampires are powerful, dark creatures. They only get more so as they age. My heroes range from hundreds of years old to thousands, each with their own challenges and strengths. Ric Holiday is turned as a boy of ten in Beauty Bites. He bursts from the soil only to flop in the moonlight like a newborn bird—thank goodness savvy twelve-year-old Aiden is there to help and guide him. Logan Steel, blond hair brushing his broad shoulders, has acquired the insouciant grace of his four hundred years by the time Biting Me Softly takes place. Black-haired black-eyed maestro Dragan Zajicek from new release Downbeat and lawyer Julian Emerson from Biting Nixie are both well over a thousand, and have mastered the advanced vampire fighting technique of shapeshifting. Spartan warrior Nikos wears his several millenniums like sharp-studded armor.
Then there’s the Ancient One.
His voice is deep, dark and cool as a cave. He seems damned near omniscient.
And that’s all we know about him to start.
Gradually through the series we learn more about him. His name is Mr. Elias. He loves to bargain. He has a ward. His first name is Kai. He has a personal history with Nosferatu, the leader of the Coterie. He’s the most dangerous being on the planet.
He’s one of the oldest vampires walking the earth. He’s head of the Iowa Alliance, vampires who live in harmony with humans, treating them as equals (as opposed to the Coterie vamps who would treat humans as blood cattle). Assassin Aiden Blackthorne will say about the Ancient One in Assassins Bite: Strange, when he thought about it. The oldest among them behaved most like he’d kept his humanity.
After six books and three short stories, in Downbeat, we get to meet the Ancient One in the flesh. Acres of hard-muscled flesh. I can’t say much without spoilers, except that this is a scene I’ve been waiting and wanting to write since 2008.
But Elias has been waiting a lot longer :)
Is he a good guy or bad? An anti-hero like Zajicek? Will the Ancient One have his own story or be forever dark and alone?
I’m waiting to tell.
He’s waiting too. Not patiently, but like a volcano, apparently placid, but powerful and seething underneath.
