GUEST POST :: Grave Witch by Holly Day #Excerpt #GuestPost
✨ GUEST POST ✨
Hello, everyone! Thank you, Addison, for allowing me to steal another spot on your blog.
I’m Holly Day, and I write MM Romance stories for specific days. You know the kind, National Peanut Butter Cookie Day, or Give Someone a Cupcake Day, or some other day. This time around, we’re celebrating National Lemon Day.
For the most part, I write paranormal, but it happens that a contemporary story slips out now and then.
The book I’m here to talk about today is called Grave Witch, and it’s the 6th story in the Within the Walls Series. It’s my longest series, and to be honest, I don’t see an end to it. I know there will have to be one at some point, but we’re not there yet.
Every story features a new couple, but all of them take place in a close-knit community. The world we’re in has supernaturals and humans, and the humans rule. Through different laws, they’ve more or less forced all shifters, vampires, and magic users into tiny, closed-off communities.
The community in Myrfolk is walled in. Gertrude, a tiger shifter and the community’s leader, owns the land, and human law does not apply within the walls. If the inhabitants ever need to put a toe outside the wall, they do, however, need to follow the law, and since vampires feed on humans, Gilbert has no choice but to leave the safety of the walls from time to time.
All Gilbert wants is to be left alone. He doesn’t want to be around people, doesn’t want to talk to anyone, but he has to feed. Sadly, someone reported having seen a vampire steal a motorcycle to the police, and now they want to talk to Gilbert.
Detective Kage Marrone doesn’t give a damn about some stolen motorbike, but this is his chance to interrogate the people inside the walls. He moved to Myrfolk to follow up on a lead of a missing woman who was kept as a bloodslave, and he’s certain the vampires know something they aren’t telling him. Convinced. And he is willing to do whatever it takes to get the truth out of Gilbert.
As I mentioned below, there is a new couple in every story, but they’re best read in order. In the community, there are vampires, shifters, and magic users. Magic users are rare, but there are a few.
The first book is Vampire Food, which is about Rue, a magic user, and Noah, a vampire. Then we have Easy, Kitten, which is about Chaton, a latent ocelot shifter, and Asher, another vampire. Book three is The Jaguar’s Knife, which is about Jagger, a jaguar shifter, and Ty, a magic user. Then we have Disguised as Human, which is about Jasper, a vampire, and Oscar, a magic user. Next up after that is The Panther’s Escape, which is about Jinx, a panther shifter, and Namir, a leopard shifter. Aaaand then you’ve reached Gilbert and Kage’s story.
So if you like to read about different couples fighting the injustices of the world, give it a try!
Grave Witch
by Holly Day
Series: Within the Walls (Shared Universe – Book 6)
Genre: Paranormal Gay Romance
Length: Novel / 54,175 Words / 204 Pages
Heat Rating: 4 Flames
🛒 Purchase Links
Blurb
What does a vampire have to do to be left alone?
Kage Marrone has been looking for a magic user who’s been missing for years. His latest lead takes him to Myrfolk, where he’s pretending to be human while working as a detective. When a witness claims to have seen a vampire steal a motorbike, he sees his chance to get inside the walls of the local supernatural community and ask questions.
Gilbert Neumann only wants to be left alone. He has a house within the walls, and the more days he can spend sitting on his wrap-around porch looking out over his garden and not talk to anyone, the better.
Kage is sure Gilbert knows something. He’s a vampire, and you can’t trust vampires. Plus, he lets a detail slip that has Kage convinced he knows more than he lets on. All Gilbert wanted to do was to help, not have a cop harassing him. Maybe the best thing he can do is help Kage find the person he’s looking for. It should give him his calm life back, right?
Excerpt
Gilbert pressed himself into the corner of his bedroom. He should go, should leave the community. It wasn’t safe here anymore. His hands shook as he slid them over his face. The scar an ugly welt underneath his fingertips.
Most often, vampires didn’t scar. They healed too fast, but he’d been starved, more starved than now. He’d tried to feed, and a group of people had attacked him. The man he’d been with had pretended to want it, and Gilbert had been too out of his mind to realize it was a trap.
Too famished, too sluggish, too afraid to think straight.
He wasn’t as bad off now. He needed to eat, needed it badly, but he hadn’t entered the sluggish period yet. There was still time. Time to leave, find someone to feed from, and then disappear.
They wouldn’t get him this time.
He stared at the wall in the corner of the room. What was he doing standing there? He had to get a move on.
The scent of blood still clung to him. He had to get rid of it or he’d be too easily tracked.
A knock came from the front door, and the air in his lungs turned to lead.
They were here.
It was over.
“Gilbert?” Oscar called from outside. He and Marrone had come to get him. Had come to lock him up.
“Gilbert? Are you in there?” Silence for a second or two. “I brought the peas, okay?”
Gilbert stood frozen, unable to move. He’d trusted Oscar. Not at first, no one had, but he considered Jasper a friend. They didn’t hang out, but Gilbert didn’t hang out with anyone. If he needed help with something, Jasper would be one of the first people he’d consider asking.
“Are you okay?”
Gilbert looked at the window. Could he climb out, or did they have the house surrounded? He’d always loved this house, but he wasn’t safe here anymore.
The sound of the front door opening reached him, and he remained unmoving. Why wasn’t he running? His feet were glued to the floorboards.
“Gilbert?” Oscar appeared in the doorway to the bedroom. Alone. His expression was grim. “Hey.” He raised his hands in a placating manner. “It’s only me. Marrone is with Gertrude.”
Gilbert heard his words, but they didn’t register. He looked behind Oscar, searching for Marrone’s dark hair.
“I’m sorry I left you with him. I believed… I don’t know. He’s been acting saner lately, so I believed you’d be okay.” He shook his head. “Are you okay?”
Gilbert couldn’t form any words.
“Hey, Gilbert.” Oscar waved a hand. “Do you need anything? Are you still bleeding?” He gestured at his jaw, and Gilbert dumbly touched the scrape. It was healing.
“You need to feed, man. Do you have anyone?” Oscar stepped closer. “Anyone you can call?”
Gilbert shook his head, which made Oscar frown. “It’s not safe for you to allow it to get this bad. It’s a scratch, it should’ve healed right up.”
Gilbert cleared his throat. “It’s healing.”
“Way too slowly.” Oscar moved closer still. “Come on, if you can’t get hold of blood right now, have something solid to eat at least.” He gestured for Gilbert to move out from the corner.
Gilbert hesitated. Was it a trick?
“Do you have eggs or something? Quick protein.”
The world swayed, and Oscar hooked his arm through Gilbert’s. “Come on.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Oscar huffed. “I don’t care. You need to sit. Not used to having people pull a gun on you, huh?”
Gilbert shook his head. “Haven’t been attacked in decades. I do my best to avoid people.”
Something he couldn’t name stole over Oscar’s face, then he nodded. “Yeah, I’ve noticed. Come on. Kitchen. Let’s get some sugar into you if you don’t want to eat. Do you have any elderflower syrup left from the crate yesterday?”
Gilbert nodded. “Refrigerator.” He allowed Oscar to guide him to the kitchen as if he were injured for real. He mixed a glass of water and elderflower syrup and placed it in front of Gilbert.
“I don’t know what to do.” He pulled out a chair and sat across from Gilbert. “I want to quit. Come and live here full time and not give a shit about what the cops are up to.” He cradled his head. “But then idiots like Marrone get hired, and I feel like I have to be there to do damage control.” He looked up at Gilbert. “If I quit, no one will look out for community members. I can most likely continue to pretend to be human, get the perks of shopping without added fees, and all that shit, but I want to be able to protect Jasper should anything happen. I want to be able to help you all.”
Gilbert sipped on his drink. He didn’t know if Oscar wanted an answer, and if so, which kind of answer did he want?
Silence stretched, and Gilbert drank some more.
“I put the peas on the table on the porch.” Oscar got to his feet and put a hand on Gilbert’s shoulder as he passed him. “Get someone to eat.”
“Too dangerous.”
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.
