Please welcome D.B. Reynolds!
Sometimes it’s difficult to remember exactly where my vampires came from. I wrote Raphael late in 2007. His book was my NaNoWriMo project that year. So, even though I did a lot of revisions after that first manuscript, Raphael, and all the other vampires, feel like they’ve been with me, well, forever. It’s sort of the way you remember your parents bringing home a younger brother or sister, but you really can’t remember much of life without them. Although to be fair, I definitely don’t think of Raphael or any of the others in a way that is even remotely brotherly! Like, no way!
I do remember the inspiration for the character of Raphael. It was the scene that ended up being the opening chapter of the book, Raphael, the one with Alexandra, although she wasn’t Alexandra yet. When the scene first popped into my head, it was just this female vampire character who suddenly finds herself betrayed by someone much stronger than she is. She knows she can’t fight him, but, even so, her almost sorrowful response to her betrayer is, “He’ll kill you for this.” She’s completely certain of the outcome and warning her betrayer not to go down that road, even though it’s obviously too late. I wanted to create a character who could inspire that sort of certainty in the female vampire. And that character became Raphael.
So, first and foremost, he had to be incredibly powerful, and he had to be possessive in a way that would drive him to destroy anyone who dared touch someone he cared about. I also knew from the very beginning that while all of my vampire lords would be powerful, Raphael would be the most powerful among them. And that set up the Vampire Council scene in the first book, which established the territorial, aggressive nature of the vampire lords, in that they could barely sit at a table with one another.
After that, the story of Raphael flowed from my keyboard as if I really had known him forever. His intellect, his sexiness, his sexual aggression and dominance. Even when he and Cyn are being playful, he has to be in charge. The other vampire lords have similar qualities. They’re all incredibly powerful, all aggressive and dominant, but some of them have been around humans more than others, and that tempers their behavior. They know how to mimic human behavior, or maybe they choose to mimic human behavior, whereas Raphael deals with humans as little as necessary.
The physical or magical characteristics of my vampires, like their glowing eyes, their special abilities . . . those evolved over time. I knew I didn’t want any of the religious stuff, no crosses or holy water taboos, something I demonstrate very early on when Raphael is taken in by the monastery in his first flashback. And my vamps aren’t risen from the dead, either. They’re infected by a sort of virus, which changes them, and each vampire is individual in the way his or her body responds to the “infection.” Most of them experience only the basic package—virtual immortality (which is very nice), enhanced hearing and smell, speed and strength. But beyond that, they live pretty ordinary lives. But some very few become powerful enough to be vampire lords and that’s who my stories are about, because they’re the most interesting. They’re uniquely and scarily powerful, but they still live among the regular human population with very few people aware of who and what they really are. If humans truly appreciated what walks among them at night, the things the vampire lords could do . . . But I won’t tell them. Will you?
Please not this is an 18 and over Excerpt below.
Hot Excerpt:
She cupped her breasts, squeezing and releasing, scraping her fingernails around and around her nipples, until they begged to be suckled, until blood streaked the round perfection of her breasts and drops hung poised on their very tips. She leaned forward, her hands to either side of his head as she moved, sliding herself up and down his aching cock. Colin growled, grabbing her hips and holding her in place as he began to thrust upward, delving deeper inside her with every stab of his cock into her welcoming body. She leaned closer and he fastened his mouth over one breast, sucking hard, tasting her blood on his tongue, feeling it hot and slick as he swallowed. Sophie cried out, her inner walls shuddering around him in warning. Colin grinned, tightened his grip on her hips, and switched his attention to the other breast, taking it in his mouth and sucking until it was bright pink and swollen.
Sophie had closed her eyes, her body swaying above him as if in a trance. Colin could feel her orgasm building around his shaft, could feel the tremors in her belly, the tightening of her inner walls as they began to ripple along his cock, caressing him, urging him to give up his seed. He grunted softly, trying to hold out a little longer, wanting to feel her climax, her wetness soaking his cock and dripping out of her swollen sex.
“Colin,” she gasped. “I can’t . . . I can’t last much longer.”
