Broken Heart 09 Only Lycans Need Apply (30 page)

*Jessica Matthews:
Widow (first husband, Richard). Mother to Bryan and Jenny, and to adopted son, Rich Jr. Stay-at-home mom. Vampire of Family Ruadan. Mated to Patrick O’Halloran.

Charlene Mason:
Deceased.
Mistress of Richard Matthews. Mother to Rich Jr. Receptionist for insurance company. Vampire of Family Ruadan.

Linda Beauchamp:
Divorced (first husband, Earl). Mother to MaryBeth. Nail technician. Vampire of Family Koschei. Mated to Dr. Stan Michaels.

MaryBeth Beauchamp:
Nanny to Marchand triplets. Vampire of Family Ruadan. Mated to Rand.

*Evangeline LeRoy:
Mother to Tamara. Teacher at night school and colibrarian of Broken Heart and Consortium archives. Vampire of Family Koschei. Mated to Lorcan O’Halloran.

Patricia “Patsy” Donovan:
Divorced (first husband, Sean). Mother to Wilson, and to
loup de sang
triplets. Former beautician. Queen of vampires and
loup de sang
. Vampire of Family Amahté. Mated to Gabriel Marchand.

Ralph Genessa:
Widowed (first wife, Teresa). Father to twins Michael and Stephen, and to daughter Cassandra. Dragon handler. Vampire of Family Hua Mu Lan. Mated to half dragon Libby Monroe.

Simone Sweet:
Widowed (first husband, Jacob). Mother to Glory. Mechanic. Vampire of Family Velthur. Mated to Braddock Hayes.

*Phoebe Allen:
Divorced (first husband, Jackson Tate). Mother to Daniel. Comanages The Knight’s Inn in Tulsa. Vampire of Family Durga. Mated to Connor Ballard.

Darlene Clark:
Deceased.
Divorced (first husband, Jason Clark*). Mother to Marissa. Operated Internet scrapbooking business. Vampire of Family Durga.

*Elizabeth Bretton née Silverstone:
Widowed (first husband, Henry). Stepmother to Venice. Socialite and jewelry maker. Vampire of Family Zela. Mated to werejaguar Tez Jones.

*Direct descendents of the five families who founded Broken Heart: the McCrees, the LeRoys, the Silverstones, the Allens, and the Clarks.

G
ERMAN
W
ORDS/
T
ERMS

Deutsches Reich:
German Reich also known as the Third Reich

Liebling:
Darling

Mein kleiner Frechdachs:
My little cheeky monkey (rascal, scoundrel)

Nein und abermals nein:
A thousand times, no

Schätzchen:
Little treasure

Schwarzwald:
Black Forest

Was zum Teufel:
What the fuck?

Wehrmacht
:
Unified armed forces of Germany from 1935–1945

G
AELIC
I
RISH
W
ORDS/
T
ERMS

a ghrá mo chroi:
Love of my heart

a stóirín:
My little darling

a thaisce:
My dear/darling/treasure

aiteacht:
Inexplicable sense of thing or place that is not right

bard
:
Poet-druid (see:
Filí
). Storyteller and singer of Celtic tribes

céardsearc:
First love/beloved one

damnú
air:
Damn it

deamhan fola
:
Blood devil

draíocht:
Magic

droch
fola:
Bad or evil blood

druid:
The philosopher, teacher, and judge of Celtic tribes

Filí:
(Old Irish) Poet-druid (see:
Bard
)

Go dtachta an diabhal thú:
May the devil choke you (Irish curse)

Is minic a bhris béal duine a shrón
:
Many a time a man’s mouth broke his nose

Leamhán sléibhe:
A Wych Elm (the only species of Elm native to Ireland)

mo chroi:
My heart

Ná glac pioc comhairle gan comhairle ban:
Never take advice without a woman’s guidance

Níl neart air:
(lit. There is no power in it) There is no helping it

Ovate:
Healer-druid; healer and seer of Celtic tribes

Solas:
Light

Sonuachar:
Soul mate

Súmaire Fola:
Bloodsucker

Tír na Marbh:
Land of the Dead

Titim gan éirí ort:
May you fall without rising (Irish curse)

O
THER
W
ORDS/
T
ERMS

Centurion/Centurio:
Professional officer in the Roman army in charge of a century, or
centuria
, of men

Century/Centuria:
Group of 60 to 160 men in the Roman infantry led by a centurion

Durriken:
Romany boy’s name that means “he who forecasts”

Fac fortia et patere:
Latin for “Do brave deeds and endure”

Gadjikane:
Romany for “non-Gypsy”

Muló:
Romany for “living dead”

Roma:
Member of nomadic people originating in Northern India; gypsies considered as a group (Also the term used for cousins of full-blood lycanthropes who can only shift during a full moon and who hunt rogue vampires)

Romany/Romani:
The language of the Roma

Strigoi mort:
Term for Romanian vampire

Ancient:
Refers to one of the original eight vampires. The very first vampire was Ruadan, who is the biological father of Patrick and Lorcan. Several centuries ago, Ruadan and his sons took on the last name of O’Halloran, which means “stranger from overseas.”

banning:
(see:
World Between Worlds
) Any one can be sent into limbo, but the spell must be cast by an Ancient or a being with powerful magic. No one can be released from banning until they feel true remorse for their evil acts. This happens rarely, which means banning is not done lightly.

binding:
When vampires have consummation sex (with any person or creature), they’re bound together for a hundred years. This was the Ancients’ solution to keep vamps from sexual intercourse while blood-taking. There are only two known instances of breaking a binding.

Consortium:
More than five hundred years ago, Patrick and Lorcan O’Halloran created the Consortium to figure out ways that parakind could make the world a better place for all beings. Many sudden leaps in human medicine and technology are because of the Consortium’s work.

Convocation:
Five neutral, immortal beings given the responsibility of keeping the balance between Light and Dark.

donors:
Mortals who serve as sustenance for vampires. The Consortium screens and hires humans to be food sources. Donors are paid well and given living quarters. Not all vampires follow the guidelines created by the Consortium for feeding. A mortal may have been a donor without ever realizing it.

Drone:
Mortals who do the bidding of their vampire Masters. The most famous was Renfield—drone to Dracula. The Consortium’s code of ethics forbids the use of drones, but plenty of vampires still use them.

ETAC:
The Ethics and Technology Assessment Commission is the public face of this covert government agency. In its program, soldier volunteers have undergone surgical procedures to implant nanobyte technology, which enhances strength, intelligence, sensory perception, and healing. Volunteers are trained in use of technological weapons and defense mechanisms so advanced, it’s rumored they come from a certain section of Area 51. Their mission is to remove, by any means necessary, paranormal targets named as domestic threats.

Family:
Every vampire can be traced to the one of the eight Ancients. The Ancients are divided into the Eight Sacred Sects, also known as the Families. The Families are: Ruadan, Koschei (aka Romanov), Hua Mu Lan, Durga, Zela, Amahté, Shamhat, and Velthur. Please note: At this time only one known vampire of the Family Shamhat exists.

gone to ground:
When vampires secure places where they can lie undisturbed for centuries, they “go to ground.” Usually they let someone know where they are located, but the resting locations of many vampires are unknown. Both the Ancients Amahté and Shamhat have gone to ground for more than three thousand years. Their locations have yet to be discovered.

Invisi-shield:
Using technology stolen from ETAC and ancient magic, the Consortium created a shield that not only makes the town invisible to outsiders, but also creates a force field. No one can get into the town’s borders unless their DNA signature is recognized by both the technology and magical elements.

loup de sang
:
Translated as “blood wolf.” The first of these vampire-werewolves were triplets born after their lycanthrope mother was drained and killed by a vampire. For nearly two centuries, Gabriel Marchand was the only known
loup de sang
and also known as “the outcast.” (See:
Vedere Prophecy
) Now the
loup de sang
include his brother, Ren, his sister, Anise, his wife, Patsy, and his children.

lycanthropes:
Also called lycans and/or werewolves. Full-bloods can shift from human into wolf at will. Lycans have been around a long time and originate in Germany. Their numbers are small because they don’t have many females, and most children born have a fifty percent chance of living to the age of one.

Master:
Most Master vampires are hundreds of years old and have had many successful Turnings. Masters show Turn-bloods how to survive as a vampire. A Turn-blood has the protection of the Family (see:
Family
or
Sacred Sects
) to which their Master belongs.

PRIS:
Paranormal Research and Investigation Services. Cofounded by Theodora and her husband, Elmore Monroe. Its primary mission is to document supernatural phenomena and conduct cryptozoological studies.

Roma:
The Roma are cousins to full-blooded lycanthropes. They can change only on the night of a full moon. Just as full-blooded lycanthropes are raised to protect vampires, the Roma are raised to hunt vampires.

soul shifter:
A supernatural being with the ability to absorb the souls of any mortal or immortal. The shifter has the ability to assume any of the forms she’s absorbed. Only one is known to exist, the woman known as Ash, who works as a “balance keeper” for the Convocation.

Taint:
The Black Plague for vampires, which makes vampires insane as their body deteriorates. The origins of the Taint were traced to demon poison. After many attempts to find a cure, which included transfusions of royal lycanthrope blood, a permanent cure has been found.

Turn-blood:
A human who’s been recently Turned into a vampire. If you’re less than a century old, you’re a Turn-blood.

Turning:
Vampires perpetuate the species by Turning humans. Unfortunately, only one in about ten humans actually makes the transition.

Vedere prophecy:
Astria Vedere predicted that in the twenty-first century a vampire queen would rule both vampires and lycans, and would also end the ruling power of the Ancients. This prophecy was circumvented by a newer proclamation that the lycan crown prince would take a mate and rebuild his pack. Please note: Patsy was granted only seven powers out of the eight. No one is sure why.

World Between Worlds:
The place between this plane and the next, where there is a void. Some beings can slip back and forth between this “veil.”

Wraiths:
Rogue vampires who banded together to dominate both vampires and humans. Since the defeat of the Ancients Koschei and Durga, they are believed to be defunct.

Read on for a peek at the very first book in Michele Bardsley’s Broken Heart series,

I’M THE VAMPIRE, THAT’S WHY

Now available in eBook!

T
he night I died, I was wrestling a garbage can to the curb.

I had a perfectly healthy fourteen-year-old son, who should have taken out the garbage after dinner, but he, and let me quote him directly here, “forgot.”

Every Sunday and Wednesday night we had the same conversation, usually five minutes after he crawled into bed. Here’s the script:

Enter the Mother into the Pit of Despair. I refuse to walk more than a foot into the Pit because I’m afraid a radiated tentacle might emerge from a gooey pile of papers and clothes and drag me, screaming and clutching at the faded carpet, into the smells-like-lima-beans clutter. I open the door, try not to inhale any noxious boy-room fumes, and delicately scoot one Keds-protected foot inside.
Cue dialogue.

“G’night, honey. And, Bry? Did you take out the garbage?”

“Oops.”

“It’s twice a week. It’s your only chore. I pay you ten bucks every Friday morning to do it.”

“It’s a heinous chore.”

“I know. That’s why I pay
you
to do it.”

“Sorry, Mom. I forgot.”

At this point in the twice-weekly argument, variations occurred. Sometimes, Bryan faked snores until I went away, sometimes he actually fell asleep mid-lecture, and sometimes he whined about how his nine-year-old sister, Jenny, didn’t do chores, and I still paid
her
five dollars every Friday morning.

So, yet again, just after ten p.m. on a Wednesday night, I found myself pulling first one, then the second thirty-gallon garbage can down the driveway, and trying to align the grimy plastic containers near, but not off, the curb. Do
not
get me started on sloppy, lid-flinging, half-trash-dumping garbagemen who are extraordinarily picky about the definition of “curbside pickup.”

When huge, hairy hands grabbed my shoulders and heaved me across the street and into Mrs. Ryerson’s prized rosebushes, I didn’t have time to scream, much less panic. The whatever-it-was leapt upon me and ripped open my neck, snuffling and snarling as it sucked at the bleeding wound.

Good God. What sort of man-creature could hold a grown woman down like a Great Dane and gnaw on her like a favorite chew toy? It slurped and slurped and slurped . . . until the excruciating pain (and, honey, I’ve suffered through labor
twice)
faded into a feeling of weightlessness. I felt very floaty, like my body had turned into mist, or like that time in college when I took a hit of acid and had the “Tinkerbell” episode. I knew that if I just let go, I’d rise into the night sky and free myself from gravity . . . from responsibility . . . from Bryan and Jenny.

Just thinking about my kids slammed me down to earth. My husband had passed away a little more than a year ago in a car accident. Don’t feel too sorry for me, though. I was in the middle of divorcing the son of a bitch.

I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t lift my arms. I couldn’t open my eyes. But I felt my body again, every aching, pain-throbbing inch of it. The heavy, smelly thing pressing my limp body into thorny branches and noisily smacking against my throat grunted and rolled off. Dry grass crunched and leaves rattled as it moved, growling and groaning like a well-fed coyote. I didn’t flicker an eyelid for fear it would try for a killing blow, though if the state of my neck wound was as bad as I thought, I was dead anyway. Then I heard the sounds of bare feet slapping against pavement and realized the thing was running away. Fast.

I don’t remember how I disentangled my sorry self from the bushes. I have vague memories of the roses’ too sweet scent as I crawled across the street and collapsed near my knocked-over garbage cans.

For those who know me, meeting my end amid muttered curses and spilled refuse was not a great shock. But, shock or not, it was still a crappy way to go.

•   •   •

Some people believe that dying ends all possibilities of humiliation.

Not so.

When I awoke, I wasn’t standing at the pearly gates of heaven. Well, not unless the religious definition of “pearly gates” was way,
way
off base.

I was latched onto the velvety inside of a muscular male thigh, my teeth embedded in the flesh near his groin, my mouth soaked with warm, very tasty liquid.

No, the man was not wearing pants. Hell, he wasn’t wearing underwear. Who am I kidding? The man didn’t have on a stitch of clothing.

I wish I could say that the embarrassment of my cheek brushing against his testicles outweighed my need to suck his blood—and yeah, I know,
ew
—but it was like . . . it was like . . . a half-off sale at Pottery Barn. No, better. It was like eating, without gastrointestinal or caloric consequences, a two-pound box of Godiva’s champagne truffles. No, no . . . like . . . oh God, like
finally
fitting into that pair of skinny jeans that taunts every woman from the back of her closet.

Uh-huh.
Now
you know the ecstasy I’m talking about.

After another minute or two of sucking on the stranger’s thigh, I felt firm, long fingers under my chin.

“That’s enough, love,” said an Irish-tinted voice. “You’re healed now.”

With great reluctance, I allowed the fingers cupping my jaw to disengage me from the yummy thigh. I sat up, licking my lips to get every dribble of blood
(ew,
again) smeared on my mouth.

“Where am I? What happened? Where are my kids?”

“Ssshhh. Everything will be explained.” He tilted his head, looking me over in a way that caused heat to skitter in my stomach. “Your children are fine. Damian is watchin’ them.”

Damian? Who the fuck was Damian? Whoa, girl. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Well, crud. The whole breath thing wasn’t working. I didn’t even want to think about my lack of heartbeat. I had to stay calm. I focused on the room and realized I could see everything clearly. What the hell? I had been relying on glasses to see past my nose for almost ten years. With this kind of vision, I probably could see all the way to Canada.

“So . . . with all the, uh, blood-sucking, I’m guessing I’m a vampire now.” Just saying “I’m” and “vampire” together was so ridiculous, I wanted to giggle.

“Yes. We Irish vampires call ourselves
deamhan fhola.”
He grinned at me. “It means blood demon.”

“Oh. Well, that’s certainly . . . descriptive.” In a bad, yucky, soulless way.

We were in a small white room. It had a long, uncomfortable steel slab sticking out from the wall and we were on it. About six feet from the steel slab on the left side of the room was a door without any visible knob or handle. I looked down at myself. I was in a white hospital gown and I smelled like antiseptic.

I was a vampire.

Jessica Anne Matthews. Vampire.

The stupid giggle erupted and I nearly snorted and snarfed myself into a seizure. “Me. A vampire.”

“Yes.” The guy who’d been my lifesaving snack was leaning against the wall, his knees drawn up slightly. Raven black hair feathered away from his face, the ends of it curling on his shoulders. He watched me with the strangest eyes I’d ever seen. He looked like Pierce Brosnan in his
Remington Steele
days, except for the color of those eyes. “With eyes like the sea after a storm,” I muttered, quoting one of my favorite lines from
The Princess Bride.
Those strange eyes were an ever-changing silver that seemed to eddy and swirl like a fast-rising river.

Given his size, my guess was that he was just about six feet tall. He was muscular and trim like an athlete, rather than bulky like a gym freak, with a light dusting of black hair on his chest and thighs.

I might’ve been delirious or crazy or dreaming, but I checked out his package. It was impressive, too. From a patch of black hair sprang a large erection. His testicles tightened underneath my blatant scrutiny and I remembered the soft feel of his balls against my cheek as I suckled his flesh just inches from his groin. His gaze dropped to his penis, his lips curving upward as his eyes met mine again. He seemed to ask, “Want a ride, little girl?”

And you know what? I did.
I wanted a ride.
I hadn’t had sex in eighteen months. Sessions with the battery-operated boyfriend did not count. The last man I trusted to touch me, to bring me pleasure, had betrayed sixteen years of marriage by doing the same lovely, naughty things to another, younger woman. Then, before I could seek proper revenge, he had gotten killed in a car accident. I always thought it had been a mundane way to go for a man who had ripped out my heart and then stomped it to bloody bits with his cloven hooves.

But I digress.

“Do not have sex with Mr. O’Halloran.” The command echoed around the room. Even with my new vision, I couldn’t spot the speakers.

The Pierce Brosnan look-alike rolled his eyes. “She fed on me like I was the last Twinkie in the box. A little thanks might be in order.”

“If you have sex with Mr. O’Halloran,” said the voice, obviously unimpressed, “you will be mated to him for the next hundred years.”