The Cowboy and the Vampire:
A Very Unusual Romance
by
Clark Hays and Kathleen McFall
Prologue
“I cannot believe one person is worth this much trouble.” She leaned forward and tapped her clove cigarette into the ashtray. Julius patted the back of her hand. The scented smoke irritated his sinuses, as she was well aware, but he smiled frigidly through the haze of it and through her pettiness.
“Elita, my dear, jealousy is so unbecoming.”
“Julius, I have known you a great number of years, too many perhaps.” He maintained his smile, but it failed to reach his eyes.
“And you know I have nothing but respect for your judgment,” she said, pausing long enough to measure the effects of her remarks. No change was visible on his pale countenance.
She shrugged her shoulders, a delicate motion. “Why not simply take her and be done with it? Why make such a fuss out of it?”
“Fuss? You have adapted well to the clichéd words of this era, my dear.” His expression abruptly changed and, smooth as the velvet texture of his words, he leaned forward, drawing her close with a fierce stare. “I wonder, Elita, how you can question me at all.” His voice reverberated with buried passion. “You, of all people, should fathom the importance of her blood. In her veins run two thousand years of royalty. The first family. And with it, the power of the uncreation. Our people will have their due, and I shall be the one who gives it to them. We will honor the past by seizing the future.” He leaned back into his chair and luxuriantly sipped a cognac.
“Elita, my dear, jealousy is so unbecoming.”
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“Julius, I have known you a great number of years, too many perhaps.” He maintained his smile, but it failed to reach his eyes.
“And you know I have nothing but respect for your judgment,” she said, pausing long enough to measure the effects of her remarks. No change was visible on his pale countenance.
She shrugged her shoulders, a delicate motion. “Why not simply take her and be done with it? Why make such a fuss out of it?”
“Fuss? You have adapted well to the clichéd words of this era, my dear.” His expression abruptly changed and, smooth as the velvet texture of his words, he leaned forward, drawing her close with a fierce stare. “I wonder, Elita, how you can question me at all.” His voice reverberated with buried passion. “You, of all people, should fathom the importance of her blood. In her veins run two thousand years of royalty. The first family. And with it, the power of the uncreation. Our people will have their due, and I shall be the one who gives it to them. We will honor the past by seizing the future.” He leaned back into his chair and luxuriantly sipped a cognac.
“This,” he waved futilely, setting the snifter on the table, “this centuries-old Diaspora will end. The Adamites had their chance. We let them play their little games and live their little lives in the sun. We have hidden away from them as if they were to be feared.”
He reached across the table and stopped her hand in midair as she moved her cigarette toward her lips. “My dear, I have seen the future and the future is Elizabeth Vaughan. Are we clear on this?”
She nodded sullenly and stood. As she did, every man in the bar stopped to study her: the pale skin, the silky black hair falling to her shoulders, the cling of the dress to her narrow hips, the erotic strength flowing from her. Women turned too. Elita, aware of the eyes but heedless, ran her fingers through her hair, arranging it behind her ears to reveal her slender throat. Bending toward the table, she stubbed her cigarette and brushed at imaginary lines in her dress as she straightened.
“Very clear,” she said. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of your machinations. As if I could. Elizabeth Vaughan. Such a tedious name. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
He tilted his head in agreement, his lips forming a dismissive but appreciative smile. Elita turned and walked toward the door. Pausing by the bar, she laid her hand on the shoulder of a young man sitting alone. Leaning close to him, her lips brushing against his hair, she whispered in his ear. He nodded vigorously, gulped at his beer and slammed the glass down. Quickly he stood, marveling at this turn of extraordinary luck.
With eyes mocking her young victim’s adoration, Elita twined her arm around his waist. Smiling over her shoulder at Julius triumphantly, she disappeared into the night, hips swaying, her conquest in obedient tow.
He paused, savoring the taste of his own words, and then dropped his voice to a low, soft growl, a mesmerizing tone. “That is about to change,” he said. “I caution you, lovely Elita. It would serve you to remain on the winning side. Should you take it upon yourself to make some misguided effort to turn back this tide, well, I would miss you.”
End of Prologue
Back page book summary for A Very Unusual Romance (Book 1):
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Welcome to LonePine, Wyoming, population 438, where the best of the west faces off against the rise of the undead. It's a love story for the ages when a broke cowboy and a glamorous big city reporter fall lipstick over boot heels in love. But she carries a 2000-year-old secret in her veins that will test their unusual romance to the very edge of death, and beyond.
Saddle up for a hilarious, sexy, existential gallop through the dying American west with an army of ancient bloodsuckers in hot pursuit.
First published in 1999 and now re-released in its third printing, the definitive author's cut,” The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Very Unusual Romance is the first book of The Cowboy and the Vampire Collection. A genre mash-up that deftly navigates the darkest sides of human nature while celebrating the power of love, it's been called everything from a campy cult classic to a trailblazer in its own new genre: Western Gothic.
Let 'er buck!
Review quotes:Saddle up for a hilarious, sexy, existential gallop through the dying American west with an army of ancient bloodsuckers in hot pursuit.
First published in 1999 and now re-released in its third printing, the definitive author's cut,” The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Very Unusual Romance is the first book of The Cowboy and the Vampire Collection. A genre mash-up that deftly navigates the darkest sides of human nature while celebrating the power of love, it's been called everything from a campy cult classic to a trailblazer in its own new genre: Western Gothic.
Let 'er buck!
“Pour yourself a
shot of the good stuff and settle in for a wickedly good read. It’s sexy, it’s
funny, it’s scary, and it will get your heart jumping like a pickup truck on an
old county road.” East Oregonian
“A
thrilling page-turner…an outstandingly entertaining series. Introducing racial
issues isn’t the only adjustment the authors have made to the vampire mythos,
but it’s more than just the details that set this series apart. Rather, it’s
the way the authors utilize those details to create meaningful conflicts and
world-altering choices for the characters.”Kirkus
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