Enlightened Promo

Title: Enlightened
Author: Melissa Lummis
Genre: Paranormal
Tour Host: Lady Amber's Tours

Synopsis/Blurb
Loti Dupree’s meager healing abilities have been more a curse than a blessing. What’s
the point if she can’t even save her husband from cancer? Harboring a painful secret,
Loti flees the life they had in a small Appalachian town for the ashram, the spiritual
retreat where she trained to be a yogini. But she finds herself running from more than
grief when an ominous nightmare sets her on a dangerous path of self-discovery that
challenges everything she believes, and threatens her life.

While dodging psychic attacks from an unknown assailant, Loti races to understand
who and what she is before her enemy can catch up with her. To make matters worse,
events throw her into the arms of a handsome but frustrating vampire. Love and light are
waiting for her—if she can only figure out how to stay alive.


Tag Lines
What do you get when you mix vampires, yogis and healers? Enlightened!

Author Bio:
Melissa Lummis considers herself a truth seeker, a peaceful warrior, a paranormal and fantasy writer, an avid reader, a thru-hiker GAàME ’98, a wife, a mother, and a free thinker. She believes the universe conspires to help an adventurer. And if we live our lives as if it is a daring adventure (and it is!), then everything we need will find its way to us.

The author lives in rural Virginia with her husband, two children, an Alaskan Malamute and a myriad of forest creatures. The nature of her mind dictates that she write to stay sane. Otherwise, her fertile imagination takes off on tangents of its own accord, creating scenarios and worlds that confuse the space-time continuum. Namaste, dear friends.

Author Links - Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Blog
Buy Links - Amazon  Smashwords


Excerpt


Wolf stared at the full moon as if it might reveal the answers he sought. He dug a pack of
Camel’s from his shirt pocket and lit a cigarette with a wooden match. Shaking out the flame,
he dropped the burnt stick and returned his apprehensive gaze to the sky. 500 years had not
prepared him for what he felt at that moment—the overwhelming urgency and need to go back in
the house right now, to her. Taking a drag, he glanced back at the little house; the bedroom lights
were still on and his sharp hearing picked up the women’s soft voices. Rachel reassured Loti that
she was fine and that the nest at Marksville would help her figure this out. Wolf assured her they
were different, she said. How? Loti asked. Wolf closed his eyes and inhaled—he could still smell
her. Her unique female scent laced with fear and arousal, her blood salty and sweet, and the
something else he couldn’t identify. He had smelled something like this before, but only faintly
from another woman; it hadn’t been a one-hundredth of what he smelled now. This was so much
stronger, yet delicate. It called to him, coaxing him to return, to stay, to stop, to not walk away
this time.
He opened his eyes, looking down at his hands. His fingers thrummed with the sensation of
soft skin over firm muscles. And what was that damn jolt every time he touched her? And the
other thing? Squashing the barely smoked Camel under his boot, he pinched off the filter and
sprinkled the uncharred tobacco in his palm. Holding some between thumb and forefinger, he
faced the east, kissing his fingertips.
“Spirits of the east,” he said, extending his pinched fingers, then sprinkling the tobacco. He
turned to the right. “Spirits of the south.” He repeated the gesture, addressing each cardinal point
in the same way, then lifted another bit to the sky. “Father Sky.” He knelt, touching the ground.
“Mother Earth.” His eyes closed, and he touched his chest. “Hear my plea. This creature needs
your guidance.” No thoughts in his head, he waited, his spine still crawling. Longing surged
through his heart and mind, palpable, pulsing, and heavy.
Flinching, he opened predator eyes. He leapt into the air, racing through the woods like a
wraith, his feet barely touching the ground. A blur in the dark, his humanity faded away. The
vampire instinct led him to the acrid scent of burning wood and meat, and the sweet smell of
human blood. He covered two miles in under 30 seconds. He zipped to a stop ten yards from
the firelight, where he held unnaturally still, watching the small group and listening to their
conversation.
“I’ll bet you could rig up the batteries two at a time,” one man said.
“Oh, yeah. It’s not hard to do,” the second man responded, taking a swig off a bottle and
passing it.
Wolf sniffed. Honey whiskey.
“Especially now,” the woman who took the bottle said. She drank and handed it over. “Well,
we can always figure something out.”
Tea tree oil, sour milk? Yogurt, Wolf corrected himself. And mother’s milk. His pupils
dilated.
“How much does one cost?”
Lavender and eucalyptus and honey.
“About $550 for the actual generator, but there’s the tower and the battery bank, and the
batteries themselves.”

The conversation continued, but Wolf wasn’t listening anymore, his focus on the lactating
woman. There were four people sitting around a low fire, and the small breathing sounds of
young children came from two big tents twenty yards away. Quite young. Urine. Breast milk. He
turned his attention back to the adults, specifically the dark-haired woman, the mother, who was
standing up and stretching.
“I need to pee,” she announced. “Where are the headlamps, Max?”
Max pressed something into her hand as she bent to kiss him lightly on the mouth. Adjusting
the headlamp he’d given her, she headed for the trees, and Wolf stepped silently behind an oak
as she picked her way along a fresh-cut path. She ducked into a copse of Russian olive trees and
out of sight. Wolf balled his hands into fists and ground his back teeth together as the smell of
her blood, laced with mother’s hormones and milk, taunted him. His fangs clicked down. He
waited for the woman to put her clothing back in order, and when she looked up, his eyes glowed
with a dark light. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
“Shhh,” Wolf soothed, moving toward her.
Paralyzed by fear and his gaze, she didn’t try to run or scream, but her hands began a fine
trembling.
“Relax.” His voice filled her chest as he ran his hand along her shoulder to her neck, lifting
the heavy curtain of wavy, dark hair. The woman stopped shaking, but she never took her eyes
off his as he dragged her to him and spun her around. He tilted her head to one side, exposing
her white neck and stretching it into a long, tight line. Resting his mouth over her jumping pulse,
he bit. She jerked beneath him, her eyes fluttering and drifting closed. He gripped her tighter,
drawing sweet blood in quiet gulps. It was sweeter than usual, and he flashed on a mental image
of his own mother: young, strong, dark, and beautiful, but all mothers were beautiful to their
sons. Was she as beautiful as he remembered? Or had time and memory worked their magic,
softening the rough edges and creating an aura of nostalgia? Had 500 years edited his memory?
His mother held a small, dark berry out to him, the sun blazing behind her in a clear, blue sky.
“Taste it, Wolf. It’s perfectly ripe.”
Her voice echoed down the years, waking up his humanity. He yanked his fangs from her
neck. What was he doing? He blinked. She was tranquil in his arms, breathing deeply, relaxed
in the vampire’s spell. As sharp guilt cut through Wolf, he fortified himself against the warring
wants. With a practiced detachment, he licked the bite wounds until the blood coagulated and the
skin and tissue knitted back together. By morning it would itch like a bug bite and with the two
faint marks, she’d think they were bug bites.
“You went into the woods to relieve yourself and noticed how unusual the moon is tonight,”
he whispered into her ear.
She nodded. “The halo is beautiful. What is it?” Her voice thick with magic.
“It’s the wolf moon.”
He nudged her away until she walked on her own, her vacant face tilted up. The spell
dissipated and awareness firmed her eyes as she looked to her left then right. She hesitated,
looking up at the moon once more and glanced over her shoulder, but Wolf was gone. She had a
vague sense of well-being mingled with fear and arousal. What a strange sensation, she thought.
He’d taken the memory from her. It was his alone.