Featured Author: Brandon Hill

Welcome Today's Featured Author

 Brandon Hill!!

 Double-Cross My Heart

"Turned at a tender age, and left with no memory of her human life, Elisa, the beloved adopted daughter of Talante, has had many obvious difficulties in her near two centuries of life, but none so frustrating as her inability to find love - that is until a dire mission leads her to Derek, another vampire turned in his formative years, and the de facto leader of a clan of vagabonds: vampires who choose to take no sides in the war. But her happiness is only a prelude to heartbreak as she learns secrets of a past she thought erased, which may cost her the trust and love of the one who holds the greatest portion of her heart."

Purchase link for Double-Cross My Heart:

http://www.amazon.com/Double-Cross-Heart-War-Millennium-Night-ebook/dp/B00ZPPZXBQ

Excerpt:

I caught the scent before I could even turn back towards the direction of the camp. It came on the breeze, sudden, clear and unmistakable. Its savor was so irresistible that my fangs extended until they hurt. I was suddenly a great deal hungrier than I had first felt, and this was just what I needed. Slinging my satchel over my shoulder, I set to follow the scent with the tenacity of a beast to a fresh spoor.

            It was male, young, and very close.

            Had the lights from the camp attracted the human? I wondered as I moved with all the silence my kind could muster, bounding from tree to tree above the brush line, allowing the scent to draw me further on. I recalled that the map grid had showed a nearby gravel road about half a mile to the east. This confirmed what I’d supposed; the lights from the camp would most likely have been visible from that area. I could not remember the last time I’d needed to hunt a human for food, but to say that it was like riding a bike would not be a proper comparison. Despite how my clan abhorred the act, it felt inexplicably “right” to do this. This wasn’t just second nature; this was our nature: atavistic and primal. It was nothing that we needed to learn. As much as we hated to admit it, Lothos, for all his twisted nature, lies, and megalomania, had been right with one thing: We were apex predators, the things that hunted humans. All our powers, our senses, our speed, our titanic strength, our physical beauty -these were inborn tools to locate, attract, and subdue our prey. Father had managed to train himself to use those powers for a higher purpose, one that would benefit humankind. He subdued the bloodlust that rages within us all and chose instead, to thrive alongside humans, rather than be merely facilitators of death. Restraint was an unbelievably difficult choice, as it went against our very core nature. But through it, he learned things that he could never have known had he taken the path of least resistance. One of these discoveries was how the toxins in our saliva actually served a quasi-beneficial purpose in humans. Though they became irrevocably “addicted” to us, humans gained a greatly increased lifespan and near-perfect health, in addition to increased strength, stamina, and speed. Thus, Father shifted the paradigm, changing what would have been a predator-prey relationship into one of mutuality. We obtained a renewable supply of food, and at times, companionship, and our human friends obtained a higher quality of life, paid only in a portion of blood. Many of them, their lives and families joined to our own in that mutual relationship, understood the fact that this war was just as much for their survival as our own, and used the gifts our kiss bestowed upon them to rally to our cause.

            But in times where we found ourselves in need, we could still hunt. It was distasteful, but a matter of satiation versus the madness of starvation. Still, there were rules we followed in doing this. First, we were never to drink more than a pint. This was the minimum amount that would sustain us and would leave the host only slightly weak. Second, we were to always erase the memory of the experience from the host, so that he or she would be able to live their lives as normally as possible afterwards.

            I was only a few feet from him when I stopped my forest trek. I grasped the trunk of the tree hard, sinking my claws into its firm bark and stopping myself. Despite the fluidity of my movements, I made a tiny rattle in the branches above. The human nearly spotted me as he swept his flashlight beam in my direction. Had I not shifted myself quickly onto the opposite side of the tree, my hunt would perhaps have become messier than intended.

            Judging by his uniform, the walkie-talkie at his hip and the tranquilizer gun slung over his back, I deduced that he was a park ranger of some sort. I stayed where I was, keeping watch as his gaze swept suspiciously over the lay of the land. Barely breathing, I waited until doubts began to creep into his heart over what he’d heard.

            “Must’ve been my imagination,” I at last heard him mutter. “But I could’ve sworn I ... Maybe some kind of mosquito swarm? Nah, guess I was just hearing things.”

            His words explained it. He must have been attracted by the buzzing noise that the booby trap modules made as they floated to their positions. It had been rather loud, even to a human who would happen to be driving by, but I thought that Derek and his clan had pitched camp far away from civilization? Of course, moving all those RVs and trailers would have still required a nearby road, which I did not see connecting to the camp on the map grid. But hadn’t I seen a bunch of felled trees upon my arrival here? True, our kind, if they worked as a team, could have brought trees down and moved them quickly, and without making much noise in the bargain, but a road would still have been needed. It then occurred to me that Derek and his clan must have carved their own pathway into the forest for extra safety. If this was the case, then I was impressed. They possessed more elegance and finesse than I had given them credit for.

            I waited patiently, watching the human, feeling the distant agony of my hunger growing with his closeness. I restrained myself as I anticipated the right moment to strike. If he spotted me before the deed, I would frighten him. This I could deal with when I would erase his memory, but perhaps not well enough. Fear was a particularly tenacious emotion, the memory of which being especially difficult to remove. If I left a deep enough memory of that fear, it might evade erasure, and keep him coming back, despite having remembered nothing else. The worse scenario, however, the one I wanted most to avoid, was the possibility that I might be too slow in my subduing him. If that happened, he might have the chance to use his walkie-talkie and alert his colleagues before I could take him. I needed to bring him down swiftly and suddenly in order to avoid that.

            My mouth watered at his pervasive scent, and the cornucopia of toxins in my saliva was primed and ready to take him over. I remained still and silent for several moments more, waiting until the exact moment when he would be the least wary. He was alone, and the night, at least to his less sensitive ears, was dead silent. And by measures, his certainty decreased.

            At last, it came. Discouraged at last, the ranger turned away and headed back for his jeep, which lay a few hundred feet down the road. His thoughts broadcasted his belief that he had come out here for nothing, that he’d only been hearing things, and this was my cue. Making barely a deathwatch’s click, I rounded the tree, and leaped from its boughs onto the back of my prey.

            He gasped only once before I bit him. He had intended to scream, but my toxins drowned his initial feelings in bliss that was as profound as it was unexpected. Humans always expect the first puncture to hurt, but it rarely does. Our toxins erase the pain before the brain has a chance to register it ... then comes the euphoria, which takes us both.

            I felt him try to grab me, to try and struggle in order to throw me off -not that he would have succeeded-, but my toxins quickly sapped him of the will to fight. More out of reflex than fright, his fist pounded uselessly upon my back only once. I felt him grasp the back of my blouse, then felt his grip loosen, and his arm slumping back down to his side. I held on steadfastly as he staggered to his knees; the euphoria flooded through him, and I relished that moment as the full effect of his blood suffused me. I swallowed several delightful gouts, feeling my muscles tighten in reflexive bliss. My eyes rolled back as I licked over the wounds from my fangs, the chemicals in my tongue speeding healing to his flesh so that the punctures partially sealed. This stanched the blood to a languorous flow, allowing me to take my time with him. I overlapped my mind to his own, shielding him from any effects of fear, and whispering sweet words as my drink sank him deeper into a mellow, sweet oblivion.

            Everything will be all right, my dear. There’s nothing to fear. You will not die from my kiss. Be happy and don’t fight. You’ll wake up in your jeep, having dreamed a sweet dream. There, now ... just fall asleep. Asleep ... Asleep ...

            I may not have liked the method it took to feed from him, but I had to admit that his blood was exquisite. I must have sighed aloud several times as I continued to drink, wistfully regretting having to make him forget. National parks were sometimes haunts for Lothos’ disciples, and there were too few of my clan to patrol them all, report the vermin, and clean them out. I considered informing Father of this human at a later time, to have him visited for recruitment into our clan for just that purpose, though my intent, admittedly, would not be entirely altruistic. I would have loved to have tasted his blood again. But for now, that plan would have to be shelved for the sake of my mission. He would remember this only as a sweet dream before it faded from his mind.

            I drank my fill, which for my size, was somewhat less than a pint, then sealed the wounds completely. Still, I admit that I had overindulged just a bit. An advantage to my size is that under normal circumstances, I am too small to ever be in danger of taking a grown human’s life; however, I knew that my drink would give him quite a row with illness as his body purged my toxins throughout the next day or so. This was the downside to taking a human who was not already a host. To that nameless ranger, it would be a mysterious, short-lived bout with nausea and tremors after a very pleasant dream that evaded any attempt to recall. Otherwise, he would be fine. I hefted him onto my shoulders and returned him to his jeep, where I sat him in the driver’s seat to wake up none the wiser. I then used my Jewel to erase the path we made in the gravel road, and kissed his cheek before retreating back into the woods and towards the camp, leaving as soundlessly as I came.

About Brandon HillBrandon Hill is a native of Louisiana and current resident of Lake Charles, LA. An avid and frequent reader of science fiction and fantasy, he began writing in the eleventh grade. Of himself, he says, "I am a 'classic nerd' and prolific writer who has had dreams of authorship since childhood. I sketch perhaps even more prolifically than I write, and have drawings of just about every character my warped imagination has come up with. I hope to continue sharing these ideas, characters, and stories with others for years to come."





Social Media: 

http://brandonhill.deviantart.com

http://wildspacesaga.deviantart.com

My webcomic:
http://www.tapastic.com/series/WildSpaceSaga

My blog:

http://theworldsofbrandonhill.com

My Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/authorbrandonhill

Interview With Brandon Hill:

1.    Can you tell us a little about your books?

My books tend to be purely sci-fi, fantasy, or a mix of both.  I'm a guy who likes to have fun with the genres, so two of my published books are "sci-fantasy" mashups in a series that I call The World of Five Nations, where dragons, elves, and magic coincide with high tech gadgets and androids.  That world has a rich history, which will be unfolded with each book that is released.  But other books that I have are purely sci-fi, such as my compilation work, "Lifemates," which focuses on the relationships between humans and an alien race that exists in my webcomic series, "Wild Space Saga," and takes place in a distant futre, where humankind has settled the stars.  And my purely fantasy fare is generally my War of Millennium Night series, which are basically vampire romances.  

2.    How many books have you written? Which is your favorite?

I've completed a total of six books, though I have several others that are in varying stages of completion.  My current favorite is perhaps Double-Cross My Heart. It was one of the most difficult for me to right due to content and the gruesome nature of some of the adventures of the protagonist in my efforts to make it an emotional roller-coaster.  It took its toll on me, but looking at it completed gives me a great sense of satisfaction.  Even now, I pick it up and thumb through it quite frequently.

3.    For someone who hasn't read any of you books yet, which one would you suggest they read first?

It all depends on the reader’s taste.  My most recent book is Double-Cross My Heart, so as a personal recommendation, I would suggest that, since it is my longest novel to date, and the story I am proudest of.  But if vampire romances aren’t your thing, I would recommend either Lifemates, or either of my World of Five Nations books.  

4.    Do you work with an outline, or just write?

Sometimes, I do, but I tend to use it as a guideline of where to start, more than directives on where to take the story.  For the most part, I wing it, with only notes scratched down in order to help me through more difficult places.

5.    Do you have a favorite spot to write?

My office, on my drafting table, or at the local coffee shop tend to be my favorite nooks for writing.  The latter gives me more reason to concentrate, but you can’t beat the peace and quiet of your home as well.  But there’s more temptation to surf the web there.

6.    Do you have a favorite food or drink you must have nearby when writing?

If I do drink while writing, it’s usually either water or tea, iced or hot.  If it’s hot tea, then it’s Earl Grey.  

7.    Do you listen to music while you write?

Not often.  But when I do, it’s usually Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.  That’s my thinking music.  But I’ve found that any instrumental music will do.  Music with words tends to get in the way of my writing process.

8.    What is your favorite thing to do when you're not writing?

Either surfing the web, watching anime, or playing video games.  Also, I do like to go take walks by the lake in my hometown.  

9.    What are you working on next?

I have two books that I’m working on.  One is a new book in my War of Millennium Night series; the other is a unique fantasy tale called The Tribute, about a spoiled prince who is punished by being forced into marriage with a blind princess of a race of fantastical creatures.  That one, especially has tested well with my critiquers.