Skip to content. Toggle navigation. He comes to her more dead than alive, a huge black-clad stranger mortally wounded and rapidly losing blood. As she struggles to save him, vet Tess Culver is unaware that the man calling himself Dante is no man at all but one of the Breed, vampire warriors engaged in a desperate battle. But in a single erotically-charged moment Tess is plunged into his world - a shifting, shadowed place where bands of Rogue vampires stalk the night, cutting a swathe of terror.
Haunted by visions of a dark future, Dante lives and fights like there is no tomorrow. Tess is a complication he does not need - and yet his touch has awakened in her hidden gifts and desires and a hunger she never knew she possessed Lucan was first-generation Breed, his blood flowing with the genes of the Ancients, those vicious otherworlders who came to this planet millennia past, bred with human females, and started the first line of the vampire race.
Gen Ones like Lucan were few now and remained the most powerful—and most volatile—of all the Breed. Tegan would probably kill the agent outright, just because he annoyed him. And Niko, while a capable warrior, does not have your years of experience on the street. You never have. Dante could only stand there for a moment, his jaw clamped so tight his molars burned with the pressure.
Holy hell, had he been wrong about that. Little Angels running around. I tell you, I had no idea! And my poor smoochie-puss, coming home every night looking like a prizefighter, that pretty face of his torn up and bloody. Or in his other apparent pastime.
Ay, but that boy is a wild one. Now, what do I owe you, dear? Even though she was well past retirement age, Mrs. Corelli cleaned houses five days a week, Tess knew.
Corelli had become the sole provider for her household. Whenever Tess felt tempted to sulk because she was strapped and struggling, she thought about this woman and how she soldiered on with dignity and grace. So your grand total for today is twenty dollars. Just after four. One more appointment, and then she could get out of here.
Although why she was so eager to race home to her empty apartment, she had no idea. She felt edgy and exhausted at the same time, her entire system buzzing with an odd kind of disquiet. Something about a fancy art thing tomorrow night? The MFA dinner exhibit is tomorrow night?
Well, it sounds like fun anyway. Oh, and your four-twenty vaccination called to cancel. She wanted to reschedule for next week. Will you call her back and rebook the appointment for me? You feeling okay? Ben told me what happened. Fell asleep at your desk again, eh? Maybe subconsciously you wanted to call him. Hey, maybe I should try that one night. He seems like a really great guy.
More than one, in fact. Actually, she was beginning to think she might not be cut out for the whole relationship thing with anyone. When she looked up, Nora was gaping at her. Who the hell are you, and what have you done with my workaholic boss? Do something fun, for crissake. Enjoying the sudden freedom—her every sense seeming more alive and attuned than ever before—Tess took her sweet time, making it to the bank just before they were closing and then catching the subway home to the North End.
Not even the frequent horn blasts of impatient drivers or the squeal of vehicle brakes on the streets below her place ever really bothered her. Until now. Tess jogged up the two flights of stairs to her apartment, her head ringing with the din of street noise.
Kicking off her brown leather loafers, Tess padded into the living room to check her voice mail and think about dinner. She had another message here from Ben. Which was tomorrow night, she reminded herself again, wondering if there was any way for her to wiggle out of it.
Ben had bought the tickets specifically because he knew she loved sculpture, and the works of some of her favorite artists would be on display in limited engagement. It was a very thoughtful gift, and backing out now would only hurt Ben. She would attend the exhibit with him, but this would be the last time they did the couple thing, even just as friends. With that matter as good as resolved in her mind, Tess flipped on her television, found an old rerun of Friends, then wandered into her galley kitchen in search of food.
She went straight for the freezer, her usual source of sustenance. Which orange box of frozen boredom would it be tonight?
Tess absently grabbed the nearest one and tore it open. As the cellophane-covered tray clattered onto her counter, she frowned. God, she was pathetic. Was this really how she intended to spend her rare evening out of the office? Do something fun, Nora had said. Tess was pretty sure nothing she had on her personal schedule right now would constitute fun. Not to Nora, anyway, and not to Tess herself either. Too damn long, she decided, and swept the stuff off the counter and into the trash.
Dressed like he was now, Dante could almost forget the guy was civilian. Dante led him to a brand-new basalt-black Porsche Cayman S and clicked the remote locks open. The two of them climbed into the coupe, Chase looking around the sleek interior with clear appreciation as Dante fired up the engine, hit the code to open the hangar door, then let the sweet black beast begin its stealth prowl out into the night.
He exhaled an amused chuckle. With his right hand, he flipped open the center console and pulled out a leather satchel containing a small cache of weapons. The best thing you can do through all of this is sit tight, shut up, and stay the hell out of my way.
Although Dante could tell Chase was not accustomed to taking orders—especially from someone he might consider a few steps beneath him in the social order of things—the Darkhaven male kept his irritation to himself.
He rigged up in the hardware Dante had given him, checking the safety on the pistol and then shrugging into the leather chest holster. At seven-thirty in the evening, they still had about five hours to kill before any activity around the location would prove out the tip one way or the other.
But Dante had never been one to abide that kind of patience. A breeze kicked up, sending a smatter of leaves and city dust skating across the hood of the vehicle. When it had passed, Dante slid the window down and let the coolness come inside. He took a deep breath, dragging in a lungful of the crisp, late-autumn air.
Something spicy-sweet tickled his nostrils, sending every cell in his body into instant alert. The scent was distant and elusive, nothing manufactured by man, Breed, or any of their collective sciences.
It was dusky warm, like cinnamon and vanilla, although to call it such only captured the smallest fraction of its mystique. The scent was something exquisite and singular. Dante knew it at once. Dante opened the car door and got out. Do you see something out there? And keep your eyes and ears on that building. All he knew was the scent of that perfume on the night wind and the realization that the female was near. His female, came the dark reminder from somewhere inside him.
Dante tracked her like a predator. Like all of the Breed, he was gifted with heightened senses, super speed, and animal agility. When they wanted, vampires could move among humans undetected, nothing more than a cool breeze on the back of their necks as they passed them by.
Dante used that preternatural skill now, navigating the clogged streets and back alleys, his senses trained on his quarry. He rounded a corner onto the busy main street, and there she was, across the width of the pavement, on the other side. Dante went still where he stood, watching as Tess shopped in a lighted open-air market, carefully selecting fresh greens and vegetables. She dropped a yellow squash into her canvas shopping bag, then perused a bin of fruit, stopping to lift a pale cantaloupe to her nose and test its ripeness.
Thinking back on the moment he first saw her in her clinic, even through the haze of his injuries, Dante had recognized that she was beautiful. But tonight, under the strand of small white lights illuminating the produce bins, she looked radiant. Dante moved up his side of the street, keeping to the shadows, unable to take his eyes off her.
This close, the scent of her was inebriating and lush. He breathed in through his mouth, letting the spicy sweetness of her sift through his teeth, relishing the way it played across his tongue.
God, but he wanted to taste her again. He wanted to drink of her. He wanted to take her. Before he knew what he was doing, Dante stepped down off the curb and into the street. He could have been at her side in half a second, but something strange caught his eye. A human stood in the shelter of a building entrance just a few doors down, peering around the casement at the market in an attempt to not be seen as he observed Tess finishing up her shopping.
Then again, neither had Ted Bundy. Tess paid for her groceries and wished the old woman a good night. The instant she started to step away from the lighted awnings of the produce stand, the human carefully came out of his hiding place. Dante seethed at the idea that Tess might meet with harm.
What are you doing here? Dante pulled back at once, easing off into the flow of pedestrians milling about the shops and restaurants. I had business up here, and I thought maybe we could have dinner or something.
More than adoration; Dante detected the sharp tang of possessiveness radiating off the human male. Dante understood it now. This was the boyfriend Tess had called at the clinic last night. The one she had turned to out of terror for what Dante had done to her. Jealousy curdled in his gut—jealousy he had no true right to feel. But his blood said different. His veins were alive and burning. The part of him that was not human at all urged him to plow through the crowd and tell the female that she was his, and his alone.
Whether she knew it or not. Whether or not either of them willed it. But a saner part of him lashed a collar around that beast and dragged it back. Forced it to heel. Never had, never would. Dante watched Tess and her boyfriend stroll off ahead of him, their casual chatter all but lost amid other conversations and the general buzz of street noise swirling all around him.
He hung back for a minute, blood pounding in his temples as well as other, lower regions of his anatomy. There had indeed been a rave at the old, empty building, but the partygoers were just a lot of humans. Not a Rogue in sight, and no sign of any Darkhaven vampires, let alone any misguided Breed youths jacked up on Crimson. Maybe it should have come as a relief that the city was quiet for a few hours, but after a patrol that had netted zero action all night, Dante was a good long way from relieved.
He was frustrated, tense, and in severe need of some chill. The cure for that was simple enough. He knew of about a dozen places topside where he could find a willing female with juicy veins and a warm, welcoming pair of thighs, and after dropping Chase off at his Darkhaven residence, Dante drove to an after-hours nightclub and parked the Porsche at the curb. At least Harvard knows how to follow orders, even if he seems the type to prefer being in charge.
Perched on steep platform heels, she rolled toward the closed window with a practiced strut that suggested she was a pro. When she leaned down and shot him a glimpse of fleshy tits, a street-hardened smile, and heroin-vacant eyes, she removed all doubt. Dante ignored her. Even a live-for-the-moment libertine like himself had certain standards. He hardly noticed as the prostitute shrugged, dejected, and moved on up the street. A dinner or something like that?
Tomorrow night, seven-thirty. Their date. Not that he should care what the female was doing, or with whom. Burying himself inside her body. Nothing like that. Never figured you for the highbrow shit. His irritation was only slightly improved when he noticed he was being sized up again.
College girls, he was guessing, based on the fresh faces, perky twenty-something bods, and torn, faux-vintage designer jeans. They were giggling and trying to act unimpressed as they approached the car on their way into the club. You on your way back to base now? Maybe two. A couple more and it would be daybreak, not that he would feel much like sleeping.
At the moment, he felt like talking to someone. Of course, the first to come to mind was Elise. But at this hour she would be retired to her quarters, preparing for bed. She was fragile and sweet, a widow going on five years now. Elise would never pair with another; in his heart of hearts, he knew that. And part of him was glad for her refusal to love again—the right of every Breedmate who lost her beloved—because while it meant he would live in the misery of wanting her, he would not have to accept the even more crushing blow of seeing her bonded to another male.
But without a male of the Breed to nourish her with the time-altering gift of his blood, Elise, born human like every other Breedmate, would one day grow old and die. This was the thing that saddened him the most. He might never truly have her, but it was a certainty that one day, probably no more than a scant sixty or seventy years from now—a blink of time, to those of his kind—he would lose her completely. Perhaps it was that idea that made him want so badly to spare her every hurt that he could.
He loved her now, as always. It shamed him, how much she affected him. Just thinking of her, his skin felt tight and too warm. She made him burn inside, and she could never know the truth of that. She would despise him for it, he was sure. To be naked with her, even just once.
Chase stopped his pacing and dropped down onto the large sofa in his den. He sat back, thighs spread, head back on his shoulders, staring up at the tall white ceiling some ten feet above him. She was there, in that bedroom over this very space. If he breathed deeply enough, he could catch the faint rose and heather scent of her.
Chase sucked in a long draft of air. Hunger coiled in him, stretching his fangs from his gums. He licked his lips, almost able to imagine the taste of her. Sweet torture, that. He imagined her padding barefoot across the carpeted floor of her room, unlacing the ties of her flimsy nightgown. Letting the silk fall near the bed as she climbed onto cool sheets and lay there, uncovered, uninhibited, her nipples like rosebuds against the paleness of her skin.
His pulse kicked into a hard drum, blood flowing hot through his veins. His cock was stiff within the confinement of his black jeans. He reached for the ache of his sex, palming his erection over the thick fabric and straining buttoned fly.
Stroking himself the way Elise never would. He rubbed more urgently, but it only made the need worse. He would never stop wanting He yanked his hand away and got up with a hiss of anger, denying himself even so much as the fantasy of bedding his perfect, unattainable Elise.
It climbed higher, over his hips and torso, snaking up his spine and around his shoulders. Relentless, consuming, the heat pressed deeper, like an unstoppable wave crashing over him in slow-motion torment. It burned ever stronger, growing ever hotter, all but engulfing him. All he knew was the fire. And the fact that it was killing him. Flames were twisting all around him now, smoke churning black, searing his eyes and scorching his throat with every futile, gasping breath he tried to take.
No use. He was trapped. He felt his skin blistering. Heard the sickening crackle of his clothing—his hair too—catching fire while he registered it all in stark, debilitating horror.
There was no way out. Death was coming. He tried to move, but something held him down. A slight weight draped across his thighs. Another lying limply across his chest. Both females stirred on the bed, one of them making a purring noise as she nestled against him and stroked his clammy skin. Dante extricated himself from the tangle of naked limbs and put his bare feet on the floor of the unfamiliar apartment.
He could hardly catch his breath yet, his heart still hammering hard. He felt fingers running up the small of his back. Irritated by the unwanted touch, he got up off the sagging mattress and began searching for his clothes in the dark.
All he wanted right now was to be moving. Long enough for death to come looking for him. Far from it. It was a glimpse of the future. His own death. He knew every agonizing second of his final few moments of life; all that remained unanswered was the why, the where, and the when of it. He even knew who to credit for the curse of his vision.
Some eighty years after her death, outside a crowded meeting hall in the Rome Darkhaven, Dante had lost his father just as his mother had described. The females pawed at him as he came near, their movements drowsy and fumbling, their minds still sluggish from the thrall of his earlier bite. Dante reached out and put his palm against the brow of one girl, then the other, scrubbing all recollection of this night from their thoughts. If only he could do the same for himself, he thought, his throat still dry with the taste of smoke and ash and death.
Although the simple, resale-shop halter was a favorite, she was the only one wearing color amid the general sea of black. She felt out of place, conspicuous. Not that she was used to fitting in among other people. She never had, not from the time she was a little girl. She was always Instead, she tried to fit in—pretended she did—like now, standing in a crowded room of strangers.
The urge to bolt from the crush of it all was strong. Actually, more and more, Tess was feeling like she was standing at the front of a rising storm. As if unseen forces were gathering all around her, shoving her out onto a bare ledge.
She thought if she looked down at her feet, she might find nothing but chasm beneath her. A steep fall with no end in sight. She rubbed her neck, feeling a dull sort of ache in the tendons below her ear.
Knowing how much you enjoy sculpture, a few months ago I put a bug in his ear about scoring me a couple of extra tickets for this reception. She knew that Ben often mingled with some questionable people.
Nothing shady. There were hundreds of pieces of sculpture, representing thousands of years of history, all encased in tall Plexiglas kiosks. This was more his crowd than hers. Born and reared in Boston, Ben had grown up around art museums and theater, while her cultural background had been limited to county fairs and the local cinema. What she knew about art was modest at best, but her love of sculpture had always been something of an escape for her, particularly in those troubled days back home in rural Illinois.
Her stepfather had made sure of that. He was none of those things. But he was dead almost a decade now, her estranged mother recently dead as well. As for Tess, she had left that painful past nine years and half a country behind her.
If only she could leave the memories there too. Tess refocused her attention on the handsome lines of Endymion. As she studied the eighteenth-century terra-cotta sculpture, the fine hairs at the back of her neck began to tickle. A flush of heat washed over her—just the briefest skate of warmth, but enough to make her look around for the source. She found nothing. The pack of gossiping women moved on, and then it was only Tess at the display.
There, on the other side of the clear kiosk, stood a man. Tess found herself looking into whiskey-colored eyes fringed with thick, inky-black lashes. If she thought she stuck out like a sore thumb at this ritzy event, she had nothing on this guy. Six and a half feet of darkness stared at her with hawkish eyes and a stern, almost menacing air of confidence.
He was a study in black, from the glossy waves of his hair, to the broad lines of his leather coat and body-hugging knit shirt, to his long legs, which appeared to be outfitted in black fatigues. Despite his inappropriately casual attire, he held himself with a confidence that made him seem like he owned the place, projecting an air of power even in his stillness. She was gaping, she realized, and quickly glanced back into the case to avoid the heat of his unwavering gaze. Her heart was racing inexplicably, and that strange tingly ache was back in the side of her neck.
She touched the place below her ear where her pulse now throbbed, trying to rub it away. The first edition of the novel was published in , and was written by Lara Adrian.
The book was published in multiple languages including English, consists of pages and is available in Mass Market Paperback format. The main characters of this romance, paranormal romance story are Gabrielle Maxwell, Tess Culver.
The book has been awarded with , and many others. MacDonald pdf. The book has been awarded with Booker Prize, Edgar Awards and many others. One of the Best Works of Jennifer Estep. Please note that the characters, names or techniques listed in Crimson Frost is a work of fiction and is meant for entertainment purposes only, except for biography and other cases.
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