Mon­day ¹¹⁄₂₃, Tri­na M. Lee’s book The Wicked Kiss will be released to the world.  I’m post­ing this now so that just in case you haven’t yet, you have time to read the first in the Alexa O’Brien series Once Bit­ten.

The Wicked Kiss is not your daugh­ter’s vam­pire sto­ry. These guys don’t live on V‑8 and iron sup­ple­ments. They are mon­sters. Hence the word “Vampire”.  Alexa can hold her own though. See the two men behind Alexa? Shaz is a sweet but alpha were­wolf, and Arys is a (not so sweet and) pow­er­ful vam­pire, but he does have a soft spot for Alexa. Even from the cov­er you can sense the ten­sion between the trio, and with three pow­er­ful pro­tag­o­nists, you’ll be won­der­ing, who’s pro­tect­ing who?  Fol­low­ing is a blurb and excerpt straight from the author. The buy link will be active Mon­day evening. Keep your­selves busy until then by read­ing Once Bit­ten. Also, on Mon­day at 6:30pm EST, I’ll be join­ing the author in a release day chat. Please stop by and visit!

When two men share the heart of the same woman, it doesn’t take long for the dra­ma to esca­late. Alexa O’Brien’s two lovers have been at each other’s throats. The fact that one is her wolf mate and the oth­er a vam­pire bond­ed to her by pow­er, only increas­es the ten­sion. She fears being forced to choose between them, know­ing it’s some­thing she can­not do.

Due to the bond she shares with her vam­pire lover, Arys Knight, Alexa has more pow­er than she knows how to han­dle. It isn’t long before pow­er hun­gry crea­tures are drawn to her, includ­ing Arys’ sire, Harley Kayson. Believ­ing he is enti­tled to her, Harley makes it his per­son­al mis­sion to get a taste of Alexa for him­self, whether she likes it or not. If he doesn’t kill her, she just might wish that he had.

But that’s just the begin­ning… Alexa’s wolf mate, Shaz, feels the need to prove his dom­i­nance after a nasty dis­pute with a fel­low were­wolf. The bat­tle for Alpha Male ensues, a posi­tion left unclaimed since the death of the for­mer pack leader. Despite fear­ing for him, Alexa has no choice but to sup­port the man that has loved her uncon­di­tion­al­ly, even when at her worst.

Alexa feels as if noth­ing remains with­in her con­trol, least of all the pre­car­i­ous co-exis­tence between her two men. It’s when she learns that there is one poten­tial way to pro­tect her­self from Harley that she is faced with the biggest deci­sion yet. But can her lovers put aside their dif­fer­ences when it mat­ters most? Because this is one sac­ri­fice that will for­ev­er alter her very mortality.

When my con­scious mind became aware that some­body was in the house, I was wide-awake, on full alert.

My instinct had me swing­ing before I’d iden­ti­fied the intrud­er. All at once, I real­ized it was Arys, but he had already deflect­ed each of my blows, catch­ing my wrists tight­ly in his grasp.

“Alexa,” he whis­pered loud­ly. “It’s me. But, a word of warn­ing. Don’t fall asleep with the front door unlocked.”

I stopped strug­gling against him and sat up on the futon. Arys leaned down over me; his face, more bat­tered and bruised than it had been pre­vi­ous­ly. He released my arms and stepped back as I pushed my disheveled hair from my face.

“What hap­pened to you? That’s not from Shaz.” I reached out to brush a fin­ger across his bruised eye­lid but he caught my hand in his, kiss­ing it softly.

“No. I saw Harley tonight. At The Wicked Kiss.” He stared at me with an inten­si­ty I felt in my toes.

Arys looked wor­ried, almost afraid. He wasn’t the fear­ful type in any way. He pulled me into his arms, bury­ing his face in my hair and inhal­ing my scent. I tried to pull away, push­ing on his chest so he had to look at me.

“Tell me what happened.”

He stud­ied me, his jaw clench­ing hard. “We had a lit­tle con­fronta­tion. It didn’t go so well.”

“You don’t say.” I cocked my head to the side, tak­ing in his bat­tered appear­ance. “Start talk­ing, vampire.”

He reached out for my hand, and I sur­ren­dered it but didn’t aban­don my stiff posi­tion. That had nev­er deterred this vam­pire though, and it cer­tain­ly didn’t now. Arys advanced on me, tip­ping my head up with a hand under my chin, kiss­ing me with a fer­vor that I felt in my loins.

“That’s not going to get you out of trou­ble, mis­ter. Start talk­ing. I want to know about Harley.” I man­aged to pull away though I would have loved to let him con­tin­ue as if noth­ing else mattered.

He tensed notice­ably, look­ing away from me to stare at the grue­some hor­ror flick that played qui­et­ly. His avert­ed gaze told me plen­ty. I had to bite my tongue so that I didn’t ram­ble on in an attempt to pry the infor­ma­tion out of him.

When his pierc­ing, blue gaze swung back to me, there was an angry fire burn­ing in their depths. He ran his hand through his always bed­room-messy hair, a sign that he didn’t want to tell me. I chewed my bot­tom lip ner­vous­ly. If he didn’t start talk­ing, I was going to burst.

“He’s bad news, Alexa. He wants to see what could pos­si­bly be so tasty that even I can’t get my fill.” Arys eyed me close­ly as he spoke. I felt his gaze like a weight. “He wants to sam­ple you for him­self. His exact words were a lit­tle more crude, which result­ed in the punch in his face that start­ed our lit­tle brawl.”

I swal­lowed hard around the lump that had sud­den­ly formed in my throat. Ok, now I was a lit­tle nervous.

“You’ve got to be jok­ing.” My hand went to my mouth, and for a moment, I thought I might throw up. “What is it with peo­ple from your past want­i­ng a piece of me? Why? What did I ever do to them?” My voice took on a fran­tic, high-pitched lilt.

“Oh, Cather­ine was noth­ing worse than the jeal­ous-high-school-girl type. Harley is like the evil car­toon vil­lain that nev­er dies. But worse, because he’s real.” Arys light­ly touched a fin­ger to one of the bruis­es lin­ing his strong cheek­bone, a thought­ful expres­sion on his eter­nal­ly beau­ti­ful face. “He seems to think you’d make a great toy. And, I know he’s ego­tis­ti­cal enough to think he can have what­ev­er he wants. But, he can’t have you. I’ll kill him first.”

I drew him to me, a hand trac­ing the line of his jaw. “We have noth­ing to wor­ry about. The very thing that he wants from us is what will give us the upper hand. I’ll be ready for him.” I pressed my lips to his in a kiss that had him want­i­ng more, if his reac­tion was any indication.

Arys crawled up on the futon so that he hov­ered over me on his hands and knees. Each of his legs was on either side of mine, and his hands came to rest on my pil­low with my head caught between. The posi­tion forced me back so that I had to tip my head back to meet his eyes.

“You can’t under­es­ti­mate him, Alexa.” He nipped light­ly at my bot­tom lip. It sent a hot tin­gle through me, from head to toe. He had a way of always rous­ing the most sav­age ener­gy with­in me. “He’s pow­er­ful and so fuck­ing sadis­tic, it turns my guts to think of him touch­ing you.”

There was a sharp pain as he bit my low­er lip; the blood welled instant­ly. Before it could spill down my chin, he caught it against his tongue. The warm, moist touch against my wound­ed lip was heavenly.

“I know that, Arys. But, don’t under­es­ti­mate me. I take out vamps like him all the time.” It irri­tat­ed me that he spoke to me like I was defenseless.

“I’m sor­ry, Alexa, but you have nev­er dealt with a vam­pire like him. I guar­an­tee it.” He pressed a kiss to my bleed­ing lip. “And, don’t you dare make this into a damsel in dis­tress sce­nario. You know it’s not like that.”

The pow­er rose around us in response to the blood and sex­u­al ener­gy. It danced along my body like a strange sec­ond skin. His tongue slipped inside my mouth, and I tast­ed my own cop­pery blood. It made my heart race, and I sought to pull him clos­er, need­ing to feel him pressed against me.

“Don’t start with me,” I said, even as I gasped breath­less­ly. “It’s always like that with you. I’m not a break­able item that will crum­ble into dust at the wrong touch.”

“Yes,” he growled down at me. “You are. I’m not argu­ing about your safe­ty. Nobody is safe when Harley sets his sights on them.”

Just when I loved where we were head­ed, he pulled back, a seri­ous expres­sion on his face. “I need you to promise me that you’ll stay away from The Wicked Kiss. And, watch for Harley. Seri­ous­ly. Just until I know how far he’s will­ing to take this.”

“Arys…” I want­ed him to stop talk­ing about dan­ger and get­ting killed. It was real­ly cramp­ing the mood we’d started.

“I mean it. Don’t make me beg.” He gave me an implor­ing look, and it was enough to unset­tle me.

“This isn’t like you,” I com­ment­ed, try­ing for casu­al. “What’s with the extreme wor­ry? He’s not going to kill me.”

His wane smile grew sad and accept­ing all at once. “That’s what scares me most. Harley has a pen­chant for col­lect­ing things, most of them being peo­ple. Like me. If he gets his hands on you, that’s what you’ll be. Anoth­er toy. But, what’s fun for Harley is nev­er fun for his toys.”

The creepi­est chill crept over me as he uttered the words. Harley loved tor­ture, and if he got his hands on me, I’d be pray­ing for death instead.

“Stop,” I whis­pered, sud­den­ly afraid to speak any loud­er. “I don’t want to go there right now. You have to leave before sun­rise. Let’s not spend our time talk­ing like this.”

A small bead of blood over­flowed from my lip, down my chin. Arys’ eyes fol­lowed it, and his lit­tle fin­ger was quick to catch it.

“Alright.” He brought the lit­tle crim­son splash to his lips; his eyes glazed with the rush of ener­gy, which he open­ly embraced. “For now, it’s all about us.”

BUY THE WICKED KISS 11/23/09