✨ Guest Post ✨
Hello everyone 😊 Thank you, Addison, for allowing me back on the blog! I’m Holly Day, and I write gay romance stories for special days. Days like Cinnamon Roll Day, for example. I most often write paranormal, but I sneak in the occasional contemporary story.
The day I’ve written a story for this month isn’t Cinnamon Roll Day, but it’s a huge thing here in Sweden where I live. We’re a bit obsessed with cinnamon rolls and on October 4th, everyone is having some. Many companies give their employees cinnamon rolls, and if they don’t, you have some with friends or family.
You must have at least one cinnamon roll on October 4th, so don’t forget that next year!
The story I have written for this month goes pretty well with Cinnamon Roll Day, which might be why they share a date. National Coffee with a Cop Day is also on October 4th, the day I’ve written Vampire’s Delight for.
Vampire’s Delight is my thirty-fourth story, and up until now, all of them can be read as standalones. This one? I really think you’d enjoy it more if you read The Blood Witch first.
Vampire’s Delight is about a new couple, so I guess you could jump in without missing anything in the romance arc, but the events in The Blood Witch play a pretty big part in Vampire’s Delight.
Since we’re celebrating National Coffee with a Cop Day, we have to have a cop, right?
Duncan is a blood witch, but he poses as a human, and he has no plans whatsoever to let anyone know he’s part of the supernatural world. The reason he’s in Norbridge is that he heard about the power struggle a year ago (which you can read about in The Blood Witch) and asked to be transferred there.
Normally, after someone has tried to take the throne, there’s a calm period, and that’s what Duncan wants. He wasn’t expecting to have to investigate a murdered shifter the moment he sets foot in town. And he isn’t pleased to learn that the body has been dumped on the doorstep of the king’s nightclub.
Things don’t get any better when he realises the king’s second in command is a vampire. A werewolf king shouldn’t have a vampire as his second, and yet he does.
Urien is still struggling to get over what happened last year, and if he had his wish, he wouldn’t leave his house. You can’t be the king’s second and not be seen, though. And when the police come asking questions, Urien reluctantly cooperates.
But there is something going on with the new detective. Urien can’t say what, but he’s hiding something, and he wants to find out what.
Neither Urien nor Duncan wants to spend time with the other, but as bodies are piling up – perhaps piling is the wrong word, there aren’t that many – they have to cooperate. Trust doesn’t come easy for either of them, but Urien is reluctant to see Duncan go, and Duncan, who swore never to be close to a vampire again, trusts Urien to have his back when things go south.
If you’re in the mood for vampires, blood magic, and power struggles, check it out!
Vampire’s Delight
by Holly Day
Genre: Gay Paranormal Romance
Length: Novella / 43,105 Words / 165 Pages
🛒 Purchase Links
Vampires, blood witches, and murders!
Blurb
Vampires, blood witches, and murders!
All Duncan Caddock wants is to make people believe he’s human, and for the most part, he succeeds. He’s working as a detective and is solving human crimes. But he’s not a human; he’s a blood witch. The life of a blood witch isn’t pleasant, though, and he refuses to live like one. It all works out great until he outs himself by using his powers on a vampire.
Urien Sayer wants to hide in his house, but as second in command in the kingdom of supernaturals, he has to be seen. Then one night, he accidentally tries to take a bite out of the town’s new detective, only to realize the detective isn’t as human as he pretends to be.
Blood witches are valuable, and Urien wants to keep Duncan in the kingdom and preferably in his bed. Duncan isn’t sure staying in Norbridge is a good idea, but when people are starting to get murdered, he gets dragged further into the world of the supernaturals than he’d ever planned on. And if he’s gonna solve murders on the supernatural side of society, who better to have by his side than the top vampire?
Excerpt
Duncan shivered in the October evening. He should get out of town. The only reason he wanted to come to Norbridge was because he believed there would be a calm period. This didn’t feel like a calm period. “Is Conri on good terms with the queen in Oldglen?” He believed they had a queen.
“Callidora? No. She aided the lions in the uprising last year.”
“Fuck.”
Urien’s eyes jumped to his, and for a second, he believed he’d smile. He was gorgeous, or would be if he got some rest, and as silly as it was, Duncan wanted him to smile at him. A vampire. He was losing his mind. Clearing his throat, he broke eye contact. “I should get going.” He should. He’d leave, resign once he was out of here. If the captain let him go without fuss, he could be a detective in some other city.
He gently tapped his fingers against the windowpane. “Will you burn it for me?”
He didn’t look at Urien again as he stepped away from the window. He’d placed his coffee on the patio table and reached for it again. “Stay safe.” His mumble into the phone was low, and he ended the call.
As he stepped off the patio, the door behind opened. “Caddock?”
He turned and looked at Urien. The light from the kitchen fell over him, and Duncan winced. His hair was tousled, the dark circles under his eyes a testament to lack of sleep, and there were bands of seeping wounds around his wrists.
“Yes.”
“You’re leaving?”
“Mm.”
Urien moved fast and was in front of him before he could blink. Fear clotted his throat at the same time as Urien slapped the notebook against his chest. “You’re gonna run?”
“I could never outrun you.”
Urien blinked. “No. I meant you’re gonna run from town? Like a coward?”
Duncan placed a hand over the notebook, touching the icy tips of Urien’s fingers as he did. “It’s not my fight.”
Urien’s lips flattened as he stared at Duncan. “Isn’t it? Isn’t it everyone’s fight? Only because you’re human doesn’t mean this doesn’t affect you. If Callidora takes over, it will affect you. If someone’s trying to create a war between the cities, it will affect you. If someone is trying to take Conri’s place, it will affect you. And you were the one who punched Sutton.”
He had punched Sutton, but it didn’t mean he wanted to be sucked into a war. They didn’t know who the enemy was. “You should get some rest and find a willing donor. You should’ve fed yesterday. Those wounds would’ve been healed by now if you had.”
Urien looked at him and the air grew static. Duncan suspected he was using vampire charm, which was his cue to leave. Vampire charm worked on humans, not on witches. “That’s not me. I’m not the willing donor.”
Urien huffed and the static disappeared. “Edith is right, isn’t she?”
Duncan didn’t have a clue, but he’d better get out of there. His skin was prickling, and the familiar panic of being at the mercy of a vampire came creeping. He had to control it until he got away from Urien. Vampires didn’t have noses as good as shifters’, but they could detect fear, anger, and lust. They might be able to detect other emotions too, but those three he knew from experience.
He wasn’t anemic now. He could fight Urien if he needed to. The reminder allowed him to pull in a breath. He wasn’t trapped. He wasn’t weak. He wasn’t Urien’s plaything.
“About?” His voice wasn’t as steady as he’d have wanted, but it would have to do.
“You having a shifter girlfriend.”
Duncan stared at him, then a small chuckle climbed his throat. “Oh, honey, I’ve never had a girlfriend.” He winked and backed away.
Urien huffed. “Boyfriend then. You have a shifter boyfriend, which means this is your fight.”
“We don’t know who we’re fighting.”
“You’re not denying it.”
Duncan sighed. “I’m single, Mr. Sayer. Though I don’t see how it’s any of your business.” And he had no idea why he was sharing information. “I’ll leave now. Do you want me to forward the information about the panther maybe belonging to Oldglen to the station, or do you want to keep it to yourself until they figure it out?”
“You’d withhold information?” Urien took a step forward, and Duncan took one back.
“I’m not withholding anything. I’m suspended. This is me as a civilian. And we don’t know, do we?” He was quiet for a second. “They won’t let me back into the investigation, and we both know, or suspect at least, they’ll drop it, claim they have no leads, and it’ll be yet another unsolved murder.”
Urien narrowed his eyes. “Why did you want me to look at it?”
“Curiosity. Most of all, I wanted the notebook. Don’t want to leave anything behind.” There were other kinds of witches, and he didn’t like leaving things that could be used. His writing could be used to form a connection to him even if it was only a few scrawled down sentences.
“You’re hiding something.”
Fuck. “Nope. I don’t want anything left behind to find its way into the wrong hands.”
Urien took a step back. “If you say so.”
Duncan gave a small nod, not liking the look in Urien’s eyes. Shit, he needed to get the hell out of here. Out of this garden and out of this town.
About the Author
According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.
Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.
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