Dance with Darkness (The Clann novella)

"I know what you are..."

As a prima ballerina for the Houston Symphony Ballet Company, Lorena Childs is used to having people stare at her after a performance, especially when on tour with her company. But when she meets the dark stare of Conor Blake, a parent of one of the kids she’s been guest teaching at a local dance studio, she doesn’t find the usual fan’s adulation. If anything, Conor looks furious, despite his polite words. And when he shakes her hand before leaving, the shock that races up her arm is anything but normal chemistry between a man and a woman. Then he shows up during her company’s rehearsals the next day and says the words she hears so often in her nightmares…”I know what you are.” Can she convince him not to take away her only remaining happiness and the last tie to her former human life?

As a descendent of a local group of blood-born witches, Conor grew up hearing the warnings about how vampires would always crave his blood above another human’s due to the powerful energy his kind are able to draw up. But even though the existence of day walker vampires is generally accepted now, they usually prefer to stay in the closet and try to appear as normal humans. And they certainly never came to the East Texas town of Taylorsville. So he never dreamed that his own daughter would be in dangerous proximity to one, especially not at her dance studio. Yet not only has one of the loveliest predators come to their town, but she is actually guest teaching innocent children every day. He intended to confront Lorena and threaten to reveal her secret to the public if she does not immediately leave her ballet company and stay away from all children. But once he is alone with her backstage, the pull she creates within him becomes stronger than his original plans, leaving him to wonder…how will he protect his loved ones and the innocents of his town when he can’t even seem to protect himself from Lorena’s powerful attraction?