ARC Review/Excerpt – Hunter By Night (Chronicles of Yavn #3) by Elisabeth Staab

                                                        Expected publication: June 3rd 2014 by Sourcebooks Casablanca

She wants out

Party girl Alexia Blackburn is only hanging around the vampire compound until her best friend—the queen—has her baby. After that, nothing is going to stop Alexia from getting back to daylight, safety, and feeling like a normal human being. But leaving the vampire world has one big catch...

He needs her to stay

Head of vampire security Lee Goram has hated and distrusted humans for centuries. Feeding on vampire blood has kept him strong...but now it's killing him—and he's horrified to discover that Alexia may hold the key to his cure. He'd rather die defending his king than admit his weakness, but time is running out for the great vampire warrior...

She leaned close to avoid being heard by all the sensitive ears in the room. “We’re out of the literal and metaphorical woods. You can get blood from anyone. I thought drinking human blood was, like, worse than licking bat guano off a wizard’s shoe.”

The softness of his laugh shimmied straight down her spine. Dear merciful Lord. “I don’t claim to understand.” His lips feathered against her ear. “In the cave, the pain abated when I drank from you.” He pushed closer, his breath soft and hot. “Nothing has eased it in a long time. No one. Whatever this… problem… is, drinking from you eased the pain. It’s the one thing I know for certain."

Oh, hell. Only her blood? Talk about making a gal melt in the weirdest way possible. She wanted to be all snarky and make him beg or apologize or something, but fuckballs, that was the most beautiful thing ever. Besides, she wanted to ease his hurt more than she wanted to get even.

Alexia glanced around and pulled him into an empty room next to the nurse’s station. To be safe, she locked the door and pulled the curtain thingy. Two comfy chairs sat by the hospital bed. She tugged one close and offered her wrist. It seemed the fastest way, and this was urgent.

The strike of his fangs hardly surprised her this time. Much like a tattoo or a piercing, you got used to the pinch. Isabel had drunk from her a few times when they’d first become friends, but that had been different. That hadn’t been a two-hundred-and-whatever-pound vampire male in a desperate amount of pain.

Oh, holy… Wow.

The relief was amazing. Fireworks and dynamite. The pressure flowed out of her along with the blood. What rushed in to take its place, though, was a disturbing sense of rightness. In giving herself to him in a way she had never wanted to give to anyone. Somehow her other arm wound around his neck, and either he didn’t notice or he didn’t actually mind. It’s just the blood, like he said before.

But then his fingers crept into her hair. Her body slid down into the large, comfy chair. Lee pressed closer, on his knees now in front of her, her arm held aloft by his efforts as he lapped at her wrist. His tongue trailed down her arm to catch a wayward drip. On his knees with his long legs, Lee’s pelvis pressed against hers through their pants, his erection hard and thick and throwing off heat.

Alexia couldn't stop herself from wrapping her legs around his waist and bringing him closer. Her hand grasped his free arm, which had moved from the chair to her leg. Their fingers laced together.

Lee’s groan vibrated against her wrist.

A knock sounded at the door.

*sigh* Once again, a beautiful thing is coming to an end. One of my favorite series, Chronicles of Yavn, is ending. I am sad, but also satisfied because. Elizabeth Staab concluded the series with the best book yet! Lee gave me some problems at first and I thought I might have to get out my cast iron attitude adjuster.

But Lexi straightened him out all by herself. Lexi was quite the complicated heroine. On the surface, she was a hard partying girl. But she was actually self medicating, and was one of the most loyal, compassionate characters in the series. Lexi was deep, fierce, and not afraid to stand up to a pushy, rigid, and sometimes too closed off vampire.

Of course underneath all the sniping and nasty looks, there is a consuming attraction, that both Lexi and Lee fight with their entire beings. But circumstances, evil plots, enemies from the grave, and just a plethora of nastiness force them together and voila, fantasies become reality and it's much harder to walk away from.

Since this is an ARC review, I am being very, very mindful of not giving anything away, because there are lots of twists and answers to questions from the first two books. Suffice it to say that Ms. Staab does a spectacular job on the final book and if she decides to revisit this world, I will be among her loudest and most ardent supporters. Even if you haven't availed yourself to the other books, you could still fall in love with Lee and Lexi's story. But it would kind of be like eating the cake without the frosting. The cake is very good, but with the frosting, it is simply ORGASMIC. You have proven yourself worthy, Elisabeth Staab, and may take your bow! Bravissima!

Elisabeth Staab still lives with her nose in a book and at least one foot in an imaginary world. She believes that all kinds of safe and sane love should be celebrated but she adores the fantasy-filled realm of paranormal romance the best. She lives in the Washington DC area with her family and one big scaredy cat, where she loves to spend time with good friends, go dancing, collect wacky coffee mugs from which to drink her favorite beverage, and sing off-key in her kitchen (when she isn’t making characters fall in love, that is).






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