Tales of the Demimonde

  Pleased with their interlude it circled once more before soaring back toward the forest. It wasn't a complex mating and would never yield any young. But it was life, and that brief glimpse of her had given it such a feeling of fullness that its expectations for life were exceeded, and it was satisfied.

  And now, to hunt.

   

  WOLF’S BANE: Accidental Swinger

  (How a Vamp Chick Fell For the Wolfman)

   

  I’ve always had a thing for vampires.

  Long ago, I knew the allure of these creatures of the night. When I was a kid, it was Dracula. Vampires were for horror stories, but there was still that lure of power and endless possibilities. When Anne Rice gave us Louis and Lestat, I was done for. She did what no one had done for me before: gave me an emotional connection to the characters.

  Vampires were becoming more than alluring. They were seductive. Some were downright sexy.

  I’ve always been intrigued by new twists in vampire lore—even that weird stuff HBO’s True Blood put out last season. (Truthfully, I would have put up with A LOT of weird stuff for the sake of Eric Northman. Can I get an amen?)

  I suppose my hunger for new vamps is what led me to write the Demimonde series. I can get all the vamp action I want, as twisty as I want it—which I happily did when I created my demivampires with mythologic Egyptian origins.

  When I wrote Bleeding Hearts, my focus was on the race of demivamps. Actual vampires were soulless and bad. There was no confusion as to whose side I was on.

  There were werewolves, too. Werewolves were lawless and yucky. Again, I’m Team DV. I never really got into werewolves—most of the films I’d seen had hairy, grotesque, misshapen drooling mutts. Not sexy. Not seductive. Just—I don’t know, squishy. Even Buffy’s pal Oz was a kid hunched over in bad makeup. Tiny bit lame.

  The only werewolf that did anything to keep me interested was Michael Sheen’s character in Underworld. All credit goes to his awesome self for giving lycans a fighting chance in my whole vamp vs. were grudge war.

  As I continued the series, Sheen’s lycan character reminded me that werewolves were creatures, too—they had their quirks, their powers, and just as many possibilities as vampires. If I could twist vampires to give me the exact character I wanted, why couldn’t I mess with the laws of were-nature and make the kind of wolves I wanted?

  Thus, Toby came along, the Big Bad Wolfboy that becomes Sophie’s next stray. Blood Rush give a little insight to Were nature from a decidedly Toby perspective. While my characters slowly warmed up to the fuzzy guy, I personally wasn’t having any of it. I was straight for the vamp side. Vampire hetero. Were phobic. Whatever you want to call it. I was a die-hard vamp chick. And, as a Were, Toby did squeamish Were things. Hey, that’s the way the ball bounces.

  And then…

  The third book began to brew. If you haven’t guessed by now, there’s a lot of Were action in this one.

  Even as I wrote and edited the first two books, I planned on having a central Were conflict. Every book needs conflict, a struggle, a choice—so a Were character seemed like perfect fodder. It wasn’t until I really got submerged in writing that I realized that the conflict wasn’t coming out black-and-white, good versus evil, the way I’d pictured it.

  And it wasn’t until I was near completion that I realized the conflict was so much more complex than that. If we knew definitely what was right and what was wrong, we’d have no trouble making our choices. The conflict became complex because the author was experiencing conflicts of her own.

  My feelings towards Weres had changed. How it pains me to write this.

  Wolf’s Bane lacked matted fur and werewolf glue. The Were were beautiful creatures who followed their nature, and they were led by a man who wanted them to strive toward civility, not beastial baseness. Sophie was forced to re-evaluate Werekind and to face her prejudice and her fears.

  In writing it, I was forced to face my own, as well.

  It certainly helps that Dierk is the man he is—the rockstar, the leader, the gentleman suitor. Whatever Sophie came to feel for him during the course of the story, it’s a pretty fair thing to say it’s because I felt the same thing.

  Never figured I’d turn out to be a swinger. I’m definitely a one-guy, one-species kind of gal. But if I were a character in the Books of the Demimonde, maybe…just maybe.

   

  Ocean’s Daughter

   

  Lyrics by Turn of the Wheel

  Featured in WOLF’S BANE (Demimonde #3)

   

  "Beware," he said, the minstrel grey

  beside the fire bright.

  "Beware the tales we only tell

  'neath cover of the night.

   

  "Certain words and certain tales,

  the secrets that they hold—

  you'll only hear them whispered

  when the ale's made us bold.

   

  "Listen close, I'll spin a tale,"

  the wizened minstrel said,

  "about the day I met my love

  and wished I'd woke up dead.

  Better off, I would have been,

  if never born instead.

   

  "It was a dark and stormy night

  so very long ago.

  It's how this sort of tale begins

  (it sounds cliché, I know.)

   

  "I'd always been a lonely wolf

  who only chased the Moon.

  Hers was the only voice I'd heard,

  my only lover true.

   

  "One night, I spied a lady white

  the brightest blue of eyes.

  I followed her through forest deep

  despite the Moon's sad cries.

   

  "The lady gave me thrilling chase;

  I followed like a fool.

  She led me farther from myself

  and I forgot the Moon.

   

  "'Take my soul,' the woman cried,

  'my breath, my flesh, my blood—'

  and as I drank deep from her lips

  the pain surged like a flood.

   

  "And in the morning she was gone.

  She'd left without a trace.

  If only we had never met!

  I curse my twisted fate.

   

  "When she had given me her heart,

  what she took in return

  was something I could not replace,

  for which I'd ever yearn.

   

  "That night the Moon rose fair and round.

  I waited for Her call.

  I listened for that sweetest sound.

  I heard nothing at all.

   

  "That part of me that felt Her touch

  from somewhere deep inside

  was now as if it'd never been

  and bitterly I cried.

   

  "Although the lady had been fair,

  she was more bane than boon

  for she was Ocean's Daughter—

  and she has killed the Moon.

   

  "So now I wander place to place,

  a stranger to myself.

  The wolf is gone, that lived in me,

  a bitter empty shell.

  Without the Moon, without her touch,

  my life's a wretched hell.

   

  "And so I warn you, lonely wolves—

  my message carry on:

  Don't turn your back upon the Moon

  For one day, She'll be gone."

   

  WOLF’S BANE: Cheating on My Book Boyfriend

   

  When I first started writing BLEEDING HEARTS (Demimonde #1), I wrote in secret. Early in the morning, late at night, and every stolen moment in between—if I had time to type of my daydreams, that’s exactly what I did. No one but me knew about a tall, dark, and brooding demivampire and the woman wh
o was determined to be his sunshine.

  Then, one day, my husband came across my (not hidden well enough) Word document. He cleared his throat and asked me, “So, ah, wanna tell me who Marek is?”

  My face caught fire and I tried to shrink into my shoulders when I heard his tone. I felt like I got caught cheating. I hurried to explain it was a story, plain and simple. Marek was just a product of my imagination.

  And to my eternal surprise, my husband actually let me keep my book boyfriend.

  Maybe it was because he came to identify with the character. Marek did have a tendency to sound like my husband at times, after all. Instead of telling me I needed to leave my daydreams behind, he supported me. He read my pages, became my first-pass editor, and turned out to be a champion word cutter when it came time to get my synopsis to fit on one page. My husband became my critique partner, my beta reader, my very first fan.

  That’s real love.

  He encouraged me to pursue the second book, BLOOD RUSH, perhaps because he did identify with Marek so much. Although he’s too much the jealous kind to ever be Team Rode (I heard his condescending snort in my head as I wrote that), it’s safe to say he was just as invested in the Books of the Demimonde as I was.

  When it came time to show him the first draft of WOLF’S BANE, I hesitated. I hadn’t talked much about the story, other than it was Were-centric. Just as I had way back in the beginning, I’d written this one more or less in secret.

  Not because I didn’t want him to know I was writing—that cat was so far out of the bag, the cat had already forgotten its grudge. Instead, it was the story itself. I felt…guilty. Like I was cheating.

  Not on my husband—but, rather, I felt like I’d cheated on my book boyfriend. And that really sat in my stomach like a greasy boulder.

  See, in WOLF’S BANE, Marek is kinda really out of Sophie’s picture. When the book opens, Sophie is struggling with two terrible options. Marek is so damaged that she either has to do the impossible and figure out a way to save him…or do the impossible and move on.

  That’s when Dierk comes into her life and grabs hold of her destiny. You’d think that circumstances going out of her control would actually make it easy for her, let her off the hook, allow her to just roll with things.

  But, no. Of course not. Mule-stubborn Sophie, that’s her.

  While Sophie fought against Dierk and his destiny, however, I grew sweet on him. I found myself thinking about him as I drove to work. I imagined the sound of his voice, gravelly-soft with that lovely German accent and the way his lashes looked when he was sleeping.

  I swear, I didn’t mean to. After all, I’m Sophie’s biggest cheerleader. Whatever she wants, I want, too. She loves Marek. I want her to love Marek. See? We’re like sisters from another mister.

  God, I could just hang my head, I feel so guilty thinking these thoughts about Dierk (although it has yet to stop me from crushing on him.) But he’s just so…sigh.

  I’m shameless. Snap out of it, Ash. *smack*

  Maybe I should talk to a priest or go to couples therapy or something. Like Sophie, I will never give up on Marek. I have hope. I have to, for my heart’s sake.

  Just do me a favor. Don’t tell Marek. My husband may have begrudgingly accepted Dierk’s place in my life (I mean, books) but please, please PLEASE don’t tell my book boyfriend. I can’t imagine what he’d do if he ever caught me cheating.

  That’s a page I never want to write.

   

  Afterword: Fourth Book in a Trilogy

   

  That title wasn’t supposed to make sense. So why does it make us readers so happy when we find out our favorite series is coming out with another book?

  When I started the Books of the Demimonde, I more or less had a clear idea of where the series would go—a major story arc would span three books. Considering I can’t follow a road map and stray from well-meaning outlines and pretty much make stuff up as I go along, I actually accomplished what I set out to do.

  The Demimonde series was meant to be a trilogy. So why haven’t I stopped writing?

  I’ve lived in the fictional city of Balaton, PA for more than eight years already. Technically, you can say that, like our heroine Sophie Galen, I’ve carried around an oracle in my head—I wrote the series in First Person POV and would spend weeks at a time submerged in Sophie’s character, even when I wasn’t actually typing anything. I approached her story the same way a method actor would, pouring everything I had into her and hoping it came out upon the page.

  Although I’ve worked on other stories, other novels, other characters, Sophie has become a sort of baseline for me when it comes time to rest my writer’s brain. Now, as I dive head first into my latest project, I don’t emerge from Victorian gothic back into the real world. I come back to Sophie. It’s my happy place.

  Maybe that’s why some series are so long lived. One of my favorites, the Anita Blake books, struck a visceral reaction with me from the very first book. I once read that Laurell K. Hamilton has actually caught herself shopping for her characters. When I read that, I originally thought, How sweet.

  Now I think, I totally get that.

  And I do get that. You can’t live with someone for eight years and act like they aren’t real. And real people keep going as long as they live, don’t they? You just can’t close a book on them and make them go away.

   This week, one of my readers lamented the end of the series. Part of me said that’s okay—I have so many books to write! I’ll make something else for you to love.

  But that happy place in my writer’s brain just drops a wink and smiles and said are you really sure it’s the end?

  That’s the nice thing about being a writer. It doesn’t end until I say so.

  But none of this “Book Four of a Trilogy” nonsense. I’ll have to come up with a better line than that.

   

  ABOUT THE BOOKS OF THE DEMIMONDE

  An urban fantasy trilogy by Ash Krafton

   

  Bleeding Hearts (Demimonde #1)

   

  She’s saving the world…one damned person at a time.

  A shy advice columnist-turned-oracle must find a way to save her dangerous demivampire lover from the fate that threatens each of his race: evolution and the destruction of his soul.

  When advice columnist Sophie meets dark and alluring Marek, she learns life-changing secrets about them both—he’s a demivampire struggling to avoid evolution and she’s an empathic oracle destined to save him. Sophie possesses the rare ability to reduce the spiritual damage that causes a demivamp to Fall, making her the only thing that stands between a DV and evolution. However, as Marek's dangerous past propels him toward his desperate fate, his enemies make darker plans for him: once vampire, powerful Marek would be second only to the Master himself. The vamps want to cause Marek's Fall and they intend to use Sophie to do it.

   

  Blood Rush (Demimonde #2)

   

  Sophie doesn't believe in happily ever after. These days, she'd settle for alive after sunrise.

  Advice columnist and newly-appointed oracle to the Demivampire, Sophie Galen has more issues than a Cosmo collection: a new mentor with a mean streak, a werewolf stalker she can't shake, and a relationship with her ex's family that redefines the term complicated. And then there's her ex himself, who is more interested in playing leader of the vampire pack than in his own salvation.

  Becoming a better oracle is tough enough, but when Sophie encounters a deadly enemy—one she never dreamed of facing—it will take everything she's ever learned in order to survive.

   

  Wolf’s Bane (Demimonde #3)

   

  She’s supposed to be the girl with all the answers, but Sophie needs more than a little advice—she needs divine intervention.

  Since becoming oracle to the Demivampire two years ago, advice columnist Sophie has battled werewolves and survived a vampire attack (or two). However, not only was
she powerless to save her lover Marek when he slipped to the brink of evolution, she also witnessed his transformation into a falcon, the symbol of Horus United.

  Her quest to save Marek is further complicated when rock star Dierk Adeluf – who also happens to be the king of the Werekind – invites her backstage after a concert. Just when it seems she will find respite from heartache, Sophie is bitten by a werewolf and Dierk decides she is destined to be his queen.

  Sophie is caught between the demivamps she loves and the Were who commands her to love him. Throw in his jealous wanna-be girlfriend—a true bitch if ever there was one—and an ambush by witches, and there you have the big mess that Sophie calls her life. And, hello? Her soul mate is still a bird.

   

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

   

  Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who lives with her family in northeast Pennsylvania. In addition to poetry, she also writes novels and short fiction for adult readers. Some of those titles include:

   

  The Books of the Demimonde: an urban fantasy trilogy

   

  Bleeding Hearts (Demimonde #1)

   

  Blood Rush (Demimonde #2)

   

  Wolf’s Bane (Demimonde #3)

   

  Stand-alone paranormal romance

   

  Words That Bind

   

  Ash also writes New Adult fantasy novels as AJ Krafton. The first book in this new line is a NA gothic paranormal called THE HEARTBEAT THIEF, which will be released in June 2015.

   

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  Where to find Ash Krafton

  Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Pinterest | Instagram | Authorgraph

   

  Dedication

  For my beloveds

  My husband, my children, my family

   

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  BLEEDING HEARTS: Rise of the Demivampire

  Scent of Hope