Posts Tagged ‘horror author’

 ‘Do you like vampires, but are sick of the lovey, sappy (and sparkly) kind? You like evil vampires, don’t you? Would you like to go back to a time when vampires were sexy, but feared and not treated like cuddly puppies? No need, for you will find them in the best selling horror novel, ‘Dead Seed.’’

This is a gripping vampire story that will have you deeply immersed by chapter five. You will be emotionally connected with the main character Aralyn after experiencing her emotional difficulties due to the accident where she lost her mother and sister and living with her father who drank to cope with his loss. You will fully sympathise with her thoughts of suicide and hope that things get better for her, but do they?

Rescued from the brink of rape, Aralyn is held captive by a torturous vampire named Aimeric who has his eye on Aralyn becoming his queen. Aimeric is so evil and blood thirsty and loves to inflict torture and domination on his pets and Aralyn is not safe.

‘Dead Seed’ is a fantastic read and explores the forbidden desires of vampire erotica. It’s chilling yet you can’t help feeling the emotions of all the characters and you find yourself getting drawn in deeper and deeper as each chapter ends and a new one begins.

You will not predict the ending of this book and I whole heartedly recommend that you purchase a copy today.

To accompany this story, you can read the prequel to ‘Dead Seed’ titled ‘Dare’ for free as part of a Halloween promotion by clicking here.

Reyanna Vance is a horror and fantasy writer and you can find out more about her by visiting her website by clicking here.

Below you will find the prologue and first chapter of ‘Dead Seed’ to tempt you.

Prologue of Dead Seed by Reyanna Vance

October 17^th

Near Middletown, Rhode Island

The air was chilly and thick with nearly impenetrable fog. In the middle of black night it was almost impossible to see, the smoky beams of the headlights only making a few feet visible in front of the small car. A light mist fell from the heavy clouds above, making the road wet and very dangerous.

In the backseat Aralyn was sleeping peacefully. Her sister was in the passenger seat and on the verge of sleep herself, and their mother commanded the steering wheel. The three were returning from a day at the girls’ grandmothers, who only lived a few hours away. After spending the day helping her paint her small kitchen, they ate dinner and chatted with her until realizing it had gotten so late. They would have stayed the night but the girls had school the next morning.

In one terrifying moment Aralyn was jolted awake by the frightened screams of her sister and the violent swerving of the car. The tires screeched along the slick pavement. Her mother was trying to correct the mistake, swirling the steering wheel around as the car fishtailed. She hadn’t seen the sign that indicated a sharp curve ahead and lost control of the car. Despite her attempts to right the vehicle’s path, it careened off the road, sliding into the prison bars of the dark forest that lined the highway.

It sounded like an explosion when the car hit the tree. Aralyn flew forward, the seatbelt digging into her neck and chest but keeping her from slamming into the seat in front of her. When she fell back, her head hit the window hard. She felt a burning sensation above her right eye and then warm blood trickled down her face, the gooey substance flooding her vision. Her head felt heavy and she was drowsy. Before she could check on her mother and sister and make sure they were okay, she blacked out.

When she woke up again, it was to a dragging sound. Like something heavy was being pulled from the seat in front of her. She struggled not to fall asleep again. The air reeked of blood. She had to find out if her family was okay. But she had no strength left in her body, she couldn’t even lift an arm. Her eyes fluttered open and closed as she fought unconsciousness.

As she started to give in, she sensed someone. Or something. It was staring at her with striking eyes; ice blue and cruel. It touched her face, tracing her cheek slowly as if enthralled.

Sirens sounded in the distance and it dropped its chilly hand from her face. The dragging sound continued for a few seconds and then it was gone. Everything was gone.

* * *

Aralyn found herself in a hospital bed the next morning with her father sitting beside her, waiting for her to wake up. She knew by the grief in his expression that there wasn’t good news on the way.

The blood she had smelled the night before belonged to her mother. Upon impact the windshield had shattered and one of the larger pieces had been thrust into her mother’s neck. She died before the ambulance arrived.

Since she had been unconscious for most of the post-wreck, Aralyn and her father had to rely on the authorities’ report:

Claire, her sister, had used her cell phone to call 911. Barely conscious herself, she reported the accident and just after she gave the location, her voice cut off. By the time the police and ambulance arrived, she was gone, nowhere to be found. All that was left of Aralyn’s sister was a crimson trail leading from the passenger seat into the forest.

Over the next several weeks investigators speculated Claire had been delirious from blood loss and crawled out of the car. After searching the woods and not finding her, they concluded she had been carried off by wild animals.

Aralyn knew better. How could Claire have been delirious when she had been able to call the police? They didn’t find her because she was still alive, Aralyn was sure of it. As she recalled the eyes she had seen, she realized they had been human. Whoever was in the car that night had kidnapped Claire. The police were either lazy or covering something up.

But what they might be hiding, she didn’t know.

Chapter One – Reflection

The sun was shining brightly, breaking into the window of Aralyn’s small bedroom in Middletown Rhode Island. The lightweight rose-colored curtains didn’t even attempt to armor the pane and welcomed the light inside, filling the room with warmth. Aralyn had just come from the shower, dressed in khakis and a long-sleeved dress shirt.

Placing the prongs of a black cord into the electrical socket in the wall, she sat at the vanity and began blow-drying her long raven hair.

Her features on her pale face lacked emotion as she stared at the reflection in the mirror, watching as the hot air made her hair billow. As usual her mind was on that night. Memories of the blood in the car, the missing body of her sister, the mangled metal of the hood and the shattered windshield. The screech of the tires and Claire’s screams. Her mind constantly reminded her, showing these scenes—night and day; asleep and awake.

Aralyn had escaped the crash with only a concussion and a cut on her forehead that was fixed with a butterfly stitch. Often she felt guilty for surviving, especially with such minor injuries. She wondered why she had lived and her mother hadn’t. Why Claire had disappeared and she was left to go home.

She had tried pleading with the police, begging them to further their investigation. Claire was alive, she knew it. Numerous times she recounted to them the pair of eyes she had seen and the fingers she had felt on her face. She was convinced that the kidnapper was nearby and doing God knew what to her sister.

They hadn’t believed her. They kept telling her she hadn’t really seen anyone, that she had also been delirious from the concussion. They said the eyes had just been her imagination and, soon, she had been forced to give up her desperate search, not knowing what else to do, who else to turn to. At first her father believed her and joined in pleading with the authorities, but shortly he, too, was convinced Aralyn’s mind had played tricks on her. She herself was even starting to believe it; perhaps she had imagined that someone else was in the car that night. She doubted it, though. But still, even if she was right, she didn’t think Claire would have been kept alive this long by a kidnapper. If Claire hadn’t been dead before, she probably was now. It had been almost a year since the crash.

The blow-dryer slowly died as she switched it off and then unplugged the cord. She ran a brush through her hair a few times to calm the wild strands and then stood up. Today she had a job interview at a local restaurant as a waitress. It was only a few days until the one year anniversary of that night and she wanted to stay busy. A bustling waitress job would help to alleviate some of the depression she already felt.

She had lost two jobs that year, both on the grounds that she wasn’t enthusiastic enough about her work and that several customers had complained she wasn’t polite to them. Not that she had been rude; she never talked to any of them. She had also missed several days of work, sleeping too late and missing half her shift before realizing the time.

As she started towards the door an oddly shaped silhouette caught her eye, hiding on the other side of her curtains. Not again. Her stomach dropped as she walked to the window and pulled back the curtains, confirming her suspicions; she thought he (or she) had given up on her. Lying on the outside of her windowsill was a single blue violet. Another gift from her stalker.

About nine months ago she started receiving gifts like these from a mysterious giver. Sometimes they were violets, other times lavenders. One time, in early spring, her admirer had even written her an anonymous note in elegant handwriting that told her to bundle up that night because a snow storm was on its way. Sure enough, it had snowed ten inches and Aralyn needed the extra blankets in her closet to keep warm.

Her admirer liked to play with her. Sometimes he would leave her flowers every day for a week, stop for two weeks and then come back every other day with a new flower. He was unpredictable.

Today was the first time she had received a gift in six weeks; the longest span to go by. She hadn’t told anyone about her admirer because she thought they would just brush off her concerns like they did before. She didn’t want to appear paranoid or crazy. He seemed harmless, only giving her flowers and warnings about the weather. If he was going to try anything else, she would have thought he would have done it by now. Still, the occasional gifts gave her the creeps because it meant someone was watching her.

Sighing, she closed the curtains and left her bedroom, passing through the messy house and to the front door. She went around to the side yard where her bedroom window was and snatched the flower off the painted wood. She glanced around the yard, peering into the jumbled forest of orange, red, and yellow trees that fenced the property. Scurrying up one of the trees was a red squirrel. A Sparrow chatted nearby.

As always, she saw nothing suspicious. No sign of the admirer.

Just in case he was watching she made a show of tearing the petals off the flower and then depositing the remains on the ground. As she walked away, she desecrated it once more by stepping on the felled bits of green and blue and twisting them into the grass with the heel of her shoe.

She went back inside to grab her car keys off the kitchen counter and then drove the ten minutes to the restaurant in silence.

A little while later she was sitting in a crowded office behind the kitchen of Larry’s Diner. Larry wasn’t the interviewer. Mildred was; an older woman with a snotty attitude.

“Do you have any waitress experience?” she asked in a rigid voice.

“No. I would have put it on my application if I had.” Aralyn’s voice was probably too curt in responding, but the woman’s bad attitude was rubbing off on her already melancholic mood.

The woman gave her a look of reprimand and then glanced through the thin framed glasses that rested at the bottom of her nose, searching the paper she was holding in her wrinkled hands.

“You’ve had two jobs in the last six months: Dollar Saver and We Do Brakes. What were your responsibilities?”

“I was a cashier at Dollar Saver and a receptionist at We Do Brakes.”

“Mhm.” Another scornful look. “And why are you no longer working at those places?”

Aralyn shrugged. “They didn’t work out.”

“And what makes you think this job will ‘work out’?”

“I don’t know, it’s different?” She knew that her sarcastic responses weren’t helping her, but it didn’t matter. She caught bad vibes when she first walked into the small establishment; she had the feeling she wouldn’t get the job anyway. Plus, she was pretty sure she had bombed already.

The woman put on a fake smile and held a hand out for Aralyn to shake. “Well, Miss Montgomery, I think that will be it. We’ll call you in a few days.”

Translation: We never want to see you again. Thanks for wasting your time and ours.

“Right,” Aralyn mumbled, briefly obliging the hand shake and then standing from the old metal chair she had been sitting in for the last five minutes.

She didn’t give the woman another look as she escaped the foul restaurant.

Aralyn had never been much of a talker. It was kind of funny, ironic even: Claire had always been more outgoing than she was. Always the one to approach people with confidence and strike up a conversation about anything. Sometimes it seemed Aralyn was the younger one. Claire had even been protective of her when they were children, threatening to beat up anyone who tried to hurt her even though Aralyn was more tomboyish than Claire.

Before the crash, nothing traumatic had ever happened to Aralyn; she was just naturally shy. A dreamer. There wasn’t much room for reality in the mind of an artist. And that’s what she was: she played the violin and liked to write poems and songs, she had even considered taking up painting. By her own choice she didn’t have many friends and the ones she did have had first been Claire’s; people she had become accustomed to hanging out with and then became close with herself.

Of course she didn’t have those friends now. After Claire supposedly died, they tried to be there for Aralyn but she had become distant and now barely spoke to any of them.

She drove home and changed her clothes, slipping into a pair of blue sweats before she crawled into bed and closed her eyes.

The sun was setting when the front door slammed, jolting her awake. Once again the day had been wasted. She slept more hours than a cat.

“Aralyn!” her father’s slurred voice called. Drunk again. Every day after work at the local lumber store he would stop at the bar and have a few drinks before coming home and yelling at her for not doing anything “productive.” Like he could talk.

He had changed since the accident, too. First, he started drinking away his depression and then lost his comfy office job for coming into work intoxicated one too many times. He had to settle with his new low paying job, which added to his misery. He was always in a bad mood these days.

They had always been so close before. Claire used to tease her, all in fun of course, for being a ‘daddy’s girl.’ Aralyn and her father used to go fishing, watch football, and drive into town for ice cream while Claire and their mother went shopping and got their hair and nails done. It wasn’t that one parent had each chosen a favorite daughter and ignored the other. Aralyn got along with her mother just fine and Claire sometimes did things with their dad, too. Not to mention, they all did things together as a family should.

She missed that feeling of innocence, that closeness, that picture perfect family that used to be a big part of her life.

Her father called her name again and she somehow managed to force her body to move. She ran her hands through her mussed hair and kicked aside a dirty shirt in the hallway on her way to the living room where her father was.

“What?”

“Didja get a job?”

“I doubt it.”

“All you did was sleep again, didn’t ya?”

“What else is there to do?”

“You could clean up this pig sty! Hell I come home every night and nothin’s been done. There’s trash layin’ everywhere, the dishes are piled up. You don’t do anything…”

Aralyn turned away, mumbling, “whatever” as she left her father to his angry ramblings. He would pass out soon enough, he always did. She thought about going back to her room but she could still hear his voice coming from the living room; he hadn’t noticed she left.

Slipping into a pair of shoes, not bothering to tie the laces, she grabbed a coat and stepped outside into the cool air. The sun was almost completely drowned by the trees now, the sky darkening.

There was a little park just a five-minute walk from the house so she went there to get away. The tips of her shoes ruthlessly kicked the small pebbles confined in the large box of play equipment and she sat down on one of the swings. The cool chains caressed her fingers as she barely twisted in the seat, drawing letters and small pictures in the rocks with her shoes.

She was starting to think she would never feel better. She had no motivation, every day and every night was exactly like this. She had no control over anything anymore, not even her own thoughts because no matter what she tried, they would always go back to that night.

A cold chill ran up her spine, making her aware of her surroundings. The wind had picked up, a typical autumn change. But there was a figure in the trees. A silhouette. And the light from the almost full moon reflected off of something. A pair of eyes. The menacing orbs glowed and she felt the fear of being watched. Was this her admirer? Was the think looking at her now even human? There were wild animals in the forests, she knew that. But the eyes were too far off the ground for a four legged animal. Unless it was in a tree.

She stood, glowering at whatever it was. If it was an animal, she knew it would be intimidated by her size and confronting it. Or so she hoped anyway.

Her heart jumped and another chill numbed her back when the thing flashed its white teeth in a sardonic smile before it turned and was gone. She stood there in a stupor, gazing hard into the foliage. She could have sworn the teeth were elongated as fangs at the corners of the creature’s mouth. But it had been as tall as a human.

Whatever it was ran away, crunching over the leaves that had already fallen, headed deeper into the forest.

Aralyn didn’t wait around to find out if it would come back. She returned to her room, still feeling the chills on her spine.