Half Blood: Prologue

March 06, 2016


Prologue

James Vincent’s earliest memory of his mother was ripply—distorted as though looking through warped glass. He could see her standing above him, looking at him—not with love in her eyes like a mother should, but rather with malice. Her anger towards him was as palpable as the hand holding down his small body. His arms and legs were flailing around aimlessly, looking for purchase, but finding none. 

Then he was able to breathe again. When the water cleared from his eyes, James found his father holding his mother away from the bath tub. They were screaming at each other, but James couldn’t make out the words over the chattering of his teeth. His father’s strong arms were suddenly around him then, lifting him out of the icy water and holding him close to his warm chest. 

He was placed on the bed, blankets around him, watching his father pack a big suitcase for himself and a small one for James filled with his toys. James didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but he understood his mother’s look of smug triumph when his father carried him out the door that same night. 

When James was ten, his father died in a car accident leaving him no choice but to go back to his mother. By that time though, his mother was no longer the secretary for a failing tire store, but a hooker turning tricks to make ends meet. 

The shame of selling her body broke his mother. Her desperation to cleanse her soul and her body came in the form of a whiskey bottle. After she doused the fire of regret from her body, she took to beating James—cracking multiple ribs at a time, opening up new cuts that spilled crimson tears down his cheeks, or breaking his fingers during her many alcohol-fueled rages. 

When James was twelve, his mother dragged him to the seediest bar in the next town over to sell her body to anyone willing. She’d brought James along because he’d started running away from her whenever she left the house. The evening was slow. She’d only managed a few blow jobs in the bathroom, but she had earned enough cash for a cheap bottle of whiskey. When she’d finished that bottle, she needed another. Desperation drove her to sell James to a complete stranger for another opportunity to get numb.

James managed to escape and a few days later, the police found James wandering the streets, looking through garbage bins for food scraps. He was returned to his mother, not telling the police the real reason he was out on the streets. His mother punished him for “running away” from her in the only way she knew. This was the first time she sexually abused him, tying him to the bed, forcing him into arousal then telling him he was a disgusting boy for enjoying it. 

For years, the vicious cycle was perpetuated by liquor and self-loathing until James was old enough to fight her off and defend himself. At the age of seventeen, James came home to find his mother passed out on the couch in front of the TV with a pool of vomit on the floor next to her. She’d spent the entire day drinking again. Disgusted with the sight of her, he went to his bedroom wishing he could have unseen what he’d seen, but there was always that pull to still help her when she drank herself into a stupor.

When he went back through to the kitchen, he heard gagging coming from the living room. He stood in the doorway and watched his mother choke on her own vomit—her eyes bulging and desperate, her air supply running out quickly. The low, desperate noises she was making down in the back of her throat called to him. Against everything that roared through his body to just leave her there, he stepped into the room. Her wide eyes darted to him, begging him to help her. James felt himself being torn in two, like the very fabric he’d been cut from was violently ripping in half. With a shudder, he refocused on his mother. He took a step forward, one part of him wanting to help her—she was his mother after all—but then there was another part of him, this darker, hidden part that wanted her to suffer every cruelty she had ever inflicted on him. 

 His mother died on their sofa, surrounded by cooling vomit––her son watching on with a cruel smile twisting his lips. 


A FIGHT FOR THEIR LIVES


A battle for werewolf territory
and rights has Rhett fighting for his life and for the survival of the pack. The last Half Blood --a half human, half vampire hybrid--has been found and Rhett has been chosen as her unlikely Guardian. The pack's survival hangs on her completing her transformation, but a Sicarii--a vampire assassin--is hunting her to ensure that never happens...


A DARK SECRET REVEALED


Indigo's hard exterior is nothing compared to the dark secret she carries within her. Her haunted eyes alone tell of her struggle and desire to live. But what she doesn't know is that she is hard-wired for survival; the very blood in her veins and the legacy of her father demands it. But when her life takes a violent turn, her heritage and her fate may be the very thing to get her killed...






If you love vampires, werewolves and a bit of intrigue, "Half Blood" is the book for you!

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 230 pages
Price: $2.99



 


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