Liana's Dilemma: A Helena's Family Novel

The man with the crossbow pointed it toward me and fired. Before the bolt could strike home, Helena appeared by my bedside as if by magic. She snatched the bolt in mid-flight, turned and in the blink of an eye closed the space between her and the man who had fired, and jammed the bolt into his eye piercing his brain. He dropped to the floor, dead I assumed.

The man with the knife took that second to attempt to stab her. Her hand stopped his motion. She slowly forced the hand holding the knife under his chin and pushed the knife upward through his palate until the hilt was pressed against the bottom of his chin while the blade showed through the top of his skull. He too fell to the floor.

She pulled the knife from the man's skull and wiped the blood on his shirt. She used the knife to free me from my bonds and helped me stand. "Are you hurt?" she asked softly as she examined me and rubbed my wrists.

Not as badly as I fear I was about to be," I replied. "How did you...?"

My question was cut off by the emergence of the young woman charging with rapier drawn. Helena stepped between me and the attacker, deftly brushed the blade aside with a lighting quick move of her hand. She grabbed the woman's hair in one hand and the front of her shirt with the other pulling the woman's head back exposing her throat. Helena's face changed into something inhuman, terrifying, yet beautiful. Her eyes glowed brightly and her canines elongated. Fangs. She lifted the woman off the ground and sank her fangs in the woman's neck.

I was mesmerized as I watched this gorgeous aristocratic woman hold her prey immobile as she drank blood from the wound she had opened. The scene lasted a few moments until Helena stopped drinking and looked the woman in her eyes."Who are you?" she demanded."

"You know sodding well who we are, you Vampire abomination. We know where you live and we will destroy you and your followers. Your filth cannot be allowed to defile humans." growled the young woman. "Now that you've made me an abomination like you. I will use that new strength to destroy you, then kill myself."

"Hunter," Helena snarled. "You know so little about what you so thoroughly hate. Simply being bitten is not sufficient to turn you. Even if it did, I would not allow you to live as a Vampire any more than I will allow you to continue to live as a human." With that, she snapped the woman's neck and dropped her dead body on the floor.

Helena turned to face me as she tore a piece of the woman's shirt to wipe the blood from her mouth. I finally found my voice. "What just happened here? Who are those people? Who the ... wait ... WHAT the hell are you?"

The author of 'Dying For Love presents the 2nd book in the Helena's Family series. 'Liana's Dilemma' tells the story of Liana, a shopkeeper in a village near Paris in the early 18th century. One day, a mysterious woman enters at sunset offering a contract for Liana's services. That sets off a chain of events that draws Liana into a world she was unaware existed, one that has placed her life in jeopardy, The only safe course of action might be for Liana herself to become a Vampire.