Ancient Blood by Rie McGaha-Introduction

Hi everyone! Thank you so much for dropping by the Coffee Time Romance Blog, and I want to thank Coffee Time for having me today. For those of you who have no idea who I am, (probably all of you!), I am an author, editor, reviewer, and more commonly, chief pooper scooper around home. I’m married to a wonderful man named Nathan, who treats me like the queen I’ve always believed I am. We have 12 kids and our 29th grandchild, a boy who will be named Cruz, is due to arrive in September. We now have 4-legged kids at home. Harley Davidson, a French bulldog is my baby, while a Deer head Chihuahua named Sonya. We also rescue animals and try to find homes for them, the ones who don’t go to homes remain with us. Bonnie and Big Boy are the only rescues we have permanently. We also have a brindle pit named Prince who belongs to our son, and Zevon, a border collie who belongs to our youngest daughter. When not messing with dogs, visiting grandkids and kids, we like to get away on our Honda Goldwing GL1500SE, and we plan on making the run to Sturgis for the 70th anniversary party in August.

I currently have a dozen or so books out, and the most recent is Ancient Blood, which premiered today. Ancient Blood is the sequel to Blood Line, which came out in ’08, both are from Noble Romance Publishing.  Blood Line came from a dream Nathan had while on the road, he’s a truck driver, but he’s also a huge sci-fi fan and has interactive dreams! He told me about the dream he had of hitting what he thought was a big dog, but when he stopped to see if it had died, it attacked him. It was a werewolf. So I took that dream and wrote Blood Line. I had no intention of writing a sequel, but everyone loved a secondary character named Ganda, and wanted to know her story and insisted she get a happy ending. So Ancient Blood was born and picks up right where Blood Line left off. Now you don’t have to read Blood Line to understand and enjoy Ancient Blood, but I do think reading them in order will help. While I was working on Ancient Blood, another character who also appears in Blood Line, Garan, (Ganda’s uncle), began whispering in my other ear telling me his story. Although it isn’t written yet, the title is Blood Bond, and I hope will be the last in this series! But who knows, when the voices start talking, it can be hard to get ’em to shut up!

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BLURB: Truck driver Joshua Kaine and his wife, Jessie, enjoy the freedom of the open road, until the night Josh is attacked by a rabid dog. Josh kills the animal, but his and Jessie’s troubles have only just begun.

Following the attack, Josh becomes deathly ill, but three weeks later he’s feeling much better – much stronger – much more alive. When the moon rises full and bright, Josh experiences the change for the first time, his body morphing into that of a large, gray wolf. His appetite – for both food and sex – is enormous, and he spends every waking moment feeding his hunger.

Jessie doesn’t know what’s come over her husband, but she’s not complaining. At least, not until a clan of werewolves comes after her and her family, intent upon seeking revenge for the death of their leader.

From a remote mountaintop to the swamps of Louisiana, Josh searches for a solution to their dilemma, but time is running out. When the absolute worst happens, Josh is forced to turn the tables and the hunted becomes the hunter.

EXCERPT-ADULT:

They ate outside over pleasant conversation. Jess and Terri told stories about one another from their childhood as Josh laughed and ribbed them both.

Darkness began to fall as they cleared the table and carried everything back into the kitchen.

“I’m tired,” Terri said. “I think I’ll go to bed now.”

“Okay, sweetie.” Jess hugged her. “Have sweet dreams.”

“G’night,” Josh said as she left the room. “Leave the dishes,” he told Jessie

and took her by the hand, leading her outside again. “Let’s go for a walk.”

They walked passed the barn, hand in hand, with no destination in mind.

Stopping in the middle of the pasture Josh plopped onto the ground, then drew

Jess to him, cradling her against his chest. He kissed her softly, brushing his lips

over hers, barely making contact. Electricity sizzled between them.

Jess pulled back. “Josh, I want to talk to you.”

“Okay.” He kissed her again.

“Well, I can’t talk when you kiss me,” she said and pushed against his chest.

“Okay.” He pulled her back up against him and used his teeth to tug on her lower lip.

“Josh, listen to me!” She laughed.

“Okay.” He cupped her breast.

“Josh.” She bit his lip. “I—”

He kissed her deeply, but she pulled back.

“I want—”

He slid his mouth over her throat.

“I want you—”

He pulled her shirt up, exposing her breasts.

“I want you make me—”

He stopped short and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Don’t say it, Jess, don’t even think it!”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say!”

“Yes, I do, and don’t ask me to do it. I won’t.”

“What do you think I was going to say?” She challenged him.

“I won’t make you what I am.”

She lowered her head, slid off his lap onto the grass beside him, and then blew out a breath. “Why not?”

“Because I love you too much. Because I wouldn’t do this to anyone. Because I don’t want to be this,” he said, gesturing with one hand, and then raking his fingers through his hair.

“It’s because I love you that I want you to do it. I want to be with you forever. If you don’t make me like you are, do you understand that you’ll watch me grow old, get sick, die?”

He shook his head. “Dammit, Jess, please don’t do this, baby. Please don’t ask me to do this!”

Jess looked at him, saw the pain in his eyes, and died a little inside to know she was the cause. But it couldn’t be helped, and she was about to make him furious. She took a deep breath, and gathered her resolve. She was more determined to spend eternity with him, under any circumstance, than he was to make sure she didn’t.

“Come here,” she said, and pulled him down on top of her. She kissed him with all the passion she held within her. He didn’t hesitate, just as she’d known he wouldn’t. She’d known him too long and she knew just how to get him where she wanted him. She knew just as well that he might never forgive her for what she was about to do, but that was a risk she was willing to take. Their tongues mated as their hands roamed over each other’s bodies, pulling at clothes, tossing them carelessly aside. He slid on top of her, tried to enter her, but she stopped him.

“Not yet,” she said breathlessly.

He rolled, bringing her on top of him, and taking her breast in his mouth.

He slid his hands up and down her back, squeezed her ass, moved his mouth up her neck, and sucked her skin where her shoulder curved. She held her breath, waited, but he didn’t bite her. Clenching her teeth, she turned around so that her mouth was at his cock, and his mouth at her pussy. She drew him into her mouth, as deep into her throat as she could take him, and felt his mouth cover her. He sucked her clit, flicked it with his tongue.

She was using him, and not just his body. She’d never used sex against him before, but she knew there was no other choice this time. She refused to go through life knowing that she would die, and that he would live on throughout eternity without her, unable to take another mate, unable to find happiness. The idea was more than she could bear. He would be angry, she knew, but he would get over it because he loved her. She hoped.

She drove him higher, ruthlessly sucking him from base to tip. The grip he had on her thighs tightened, his fingers dug into the soft flesh, and she felt his body go ridged. She stopped. He growled low in his throat, and when she felt his body ease a little, she went down on him again, pulling him deep into her throat, sucking faster and faster until she’d nearly pushed him over the edge. But before he went, she stopped again. He swore loudly. She caressed him, kissed his inner thigh, stroked his balls. Blew a cool breath over his heated, swollen cock then swallowed him whole. Again and again, she ruthlessly drove him to the edge of madness, each time pulling back before he came in her mouth.

“You’re killing me!” he said breathlessly.

Swallowing him one more time, she felt him spiraling upward, and knew he couldn’t hang on much longer. Releasing him, Jess slid off him and onto her hands and knees, and shouted, “Take me as the wolf!”

Half out of his mind with need, his body a vibrating pool of desire, Josh didn’t need further convincing. He made the change and then plunged into her from behind. She screamed, but he held her by the shoulders, unable to control himself. Screaming his name as he ravaged her, Jessie lay pinned beneath him.

His claws cut into her tender skin and the scent of blood—of human blood, of female human blood—filled his nostrils. The scent of her blood—he’d been told it was intoxicating, he’d been told it was near irresistible, and now he knew why some of his kind went past the edge of reason. Why they took the entire human and why they were unable to stop.

The scent curled through his nostrils, into his head, into his blood, into his senses. He knew what she was doing; he knew it even as she screamed when the orgasm slammed into her. She’d done it on purpose, he knew in his all-too human mind that she had, but the wolf was in charge and the madness she’d ignited within him was beyond his ability to control. Her teasing had sent him too far past reason. He felt as if he was in the midst of an out-of-body experience, and no matter how his mind tried to fight what his body was doing, he had no control over the wolf.

The heat settled deep inside him, coiling around his balls like a snake, squeezing his testicles, and the only thing he wanted was to taste her blood. He could smell it; he could hear it speeding through her veins. Rich, intoxicating, like a drug he’d never imagined, and he sank his teeth into the side of her neck as he came inside her.

He fell onto the ground beside her as she screamed out in pain. Clutching his chest, he forced himself to change back to the sanity of his human self, though the wolf wanted more as it licked Jessie’s blood from its lips. Josh struggled to raise himself to his knees, and examine the damage he’d wrought.

Blood trickled from the cuts he’d left on her, while bruises in the shape of his paws were already showing on her white skin. He looked at her, overwhelmed with horror, and rage rose within him. The skin on her back had numerous cuts from the wolf’s claws. There were bruises on her shoulders, on her arms, and around her neck. Bruises covered her chest and breasts. Blood covered her thighs, and he stared with wide eyes trying to think, trying to remember what the wolf had done.

God, he‘d ripped her open when he entered her. His cock was so big when he was the wolf, yet he had no way of controlling himself. He didn’t know how he could have let her drive him to that point of madness. He could have easily killed her.

“Dammit! Dammit! Dammit, Jessie,” he shouted at her. Getting to his feet, he staggered around her. “Oh, God, Jess, what have I done? What did you do?

Damn you, Jess, how could you? How could you do this to us?” He dropped to his knees and picked her up, and wrapped his arms around her. He pulled her hand away from the bite on her neck. Blood flowed from the deep gash, but Josh knew there was nothing he could do. He leaned back and the scream that ripped from his throat sounded as if it came from the darkest side of hell.

Jessie opened her eyes, and a tear slipped down her face. “I’m sorry, but . . . .” Before she could finish the sentence, her body spasmed as the full moon began to rise. Josh felt himself change, but continued to hold her gently. Her body jerked in his hands. He was confused. When he’d been bitten, he’d only gotten sick, and had to be hospitalized. It was nearly a full month before he found out what had happened to him. But Jess was changing as he held her.

He watched in amazement as her hands elongated slightly, claws replaced fingernails, muscles developed and bulged. Her fur glistened in the moonlight, a darker blonde than her human hair, and her eyes glowed gold in the pale light.

She stood, stretched, looked at her limbs, amazement showing in her eyes.

She tried to talk, but the sound came out as a howl. Moving away from him, trying out the new limbs, the longer body, the increased height and mass, she walked across the pasture, and then stopped and turned to look back at him. He saw the challenge in her eyes as she dropped to all fours and began to run.

Josh watched her for a moment, then took off after her, caught her, and stayed with her. They ran for miles before she stopped, but he understood what she was going through—the heightened senses, the sounds, the colors, and the scents. She was delighted, amazed, astounded. She threw herself at him, wrapped herself around him, and wrestled him to the ground.

They rolled together on the soft grass, thrashing, clawing, and biting. And he fucked her again. Wolf style. He bit her on the back of the neck, held her firmly in his teeth and slammed his huge cock into her over and over. She welcomed him, encouraged him, and howled her release when she climaxed.

Then she broke free of him and raced off.

He took the chase and she ran through trees, dodged behind a boulder, and when he came around it, she leaped over it. He followed and she dodged another tree, dove under thick brush that he leaped over and then caught her on the other side.

They snarled, growled, and rolled around in a free-for-all that seemed more like mortal combat than a mating ritual, but that’s exactly what it was.

Wrapping his arms around her from behind, he sank his teeth into her once again, and rammed himself roughly into her.

When they finished, they raced off again. Josh caught the scent of deer and waved for her to follow him. Chasing the frightened buck, he showed off his hunting prowess, easily catching the deer, and then releasing it so she could try out her new skills. She, too, caught the deer easily and without hesitation, sank her teeth into the animal’s throat. Josh watched in quiet admiration. His Jessie was no sissy girl, in neither wolf nor human form. She broke the animal’s neck and began tearing off great hunks of meat, as if she hadn’t eaten in days. And

Josh was right beside her.

They spent the night running through the woods, playing games, making love, and when the moon began to set, he led her back to the spot where she had first seduced him. The change came and they were human, naked as the day they were born. The night had slipped away too quickly, and Jessie was unusually quiet.

He took her hand, kissed it, pulled her down to the ground. “We have to talk, darlin’,” he told her.

“I was afraid of that,” she said and snuggled against him. “I only did what

I did because I love you so much.”

“I know that.” He stroked her hair. “But it doesn’t make it right. You made

a decision without me, in spite of me, Jess. You didn’t have the right to manipulate me, or to use sex to get your way. I had my reasons for not wanting it to be this way, and now you’ve taken the decision out of my hands. I’m supposed to be able to take care of you, to protect you, and I can’t protect you when you take things into your own hands without even talking to me first. This is a partnership, Jess, remember? We make decisions together, we always have.”

“I’m sorry, Josh, really I am. I wasn’t thinking in those terms. I was only thinking that you were going to spend eternity alone, because after I died, you wouldn’t be able to have another mate. I would grow old right before your eyes, you’d have to watch me die, and I know you, Josh, I know how much you love me. You’d be like Ganda, spending hundreds, thousands, of years trying to grow old and die and not quite succeeding. What was I supposed to do?”

“You were supposed to trust me,” he said sadly, looking into her eyes.

She looked away, but he turned her to face him and kissed her gently.

When she looked at him, she asked, “Do you forgive me?”

“Not yet . . . but I will.” He smiled gently.

“I know.” She kissed him, but not before he caught sight of her smile.

“Bitch,” he said, softening his statement with a grin.

“I know.” She smiled and kissed him again.

As she pulled back, something shiny on the ground caught Josh’s eye and he bent down for a better look.

“Damn, Jess,” he said, scooping up the little scrap of gold. “Your ring.”

Jessie glanced at her wedding finger and gasped. “Oh, Josh! It must have broken when I changed.”

Josh slipped the ring into his discarded pants pocket. “It’s okay. I’ll have it repaired and we’ll buy a chain for you so you can wear it around your neck from now on.”

They sat in silence as night changed to day and the sun began to peek over the eastern horizon. Holding her close, he nuzzled her hair, kissed her smooth, warm lips.

Jessie rubbed her hands over his legs, her cool fingertips sliding over his muscles.

“God, I love you,” she said, and pulled his mouth to hers.

They made love again, taking their time, letting themselves drink from one another in long, lazy pulls. When they’d satisfied themselves, and each other, they dressed and walked hand-in-hand back to the house.

“What did you think?” Josh asked.

“I thought it was wonderful, indescribable. I was elated.”

He grinned and gave her hand a light squeeze. “I thought so. Just wanted to double-check.”

“Can we do it again?”

“Which part?” He raised a brow.

She giggled. “All of it!”

They walked in the house to find Terri cooking breakfast. “Did you two spend the night outside?”

“We did,” Jess said, grinning from ear-to-ear.

Terri shook her head. “I don’t understand you two. Why on earth you’d want to sleep outside is beyond me.”

“Well, we didn’t exactly sleep,” Josh said with a mischievous grin as he poured coffee and Jess elbowed his ribs.

“Spare me the details.” Terri rolled her eyes as she set a platter of pancakes and sausage on the table, then brought the butter dish and syrup, pulled out a chair and sat. “Let’s just eat.”