Today on my blog I have The Nightlife San Antonio blog tour. On my stop there is a spotlight, excerpt, review, and giveaway.
The Nightlife San
Antonio is violent, sexy, and occasionally violently sexy.
All she wanted was to escape
the police. All he wanted was to get laid. They both got more than they
bargained for.
EMT on call, Adrian Faulkner
resuscitates a beautiful woman after a Mexican mafia shootout. He can't explain
why he picks her up in the hospital parking lot three days later and then ducks
the San Antonio police and the Feds. Well, the hot sex might have something to
do with it.
She needed to hide. With no
memory of even her name, she didn't know from who. She only knew she wasn't
safe.
Adrian soon learns she is much
more than a damsel in distress, and he’s stuck with her. It isn't long before
the past she cannot remember begins to catch up with them both…
THE NIGHTLIFE SAN ANTONIO
is a non-stop thrill ride through the shadowy borderworld of mafia politics and
vampires – and sex.
Excerpt:
Perspiration dripped from his forehead and stung his eyes
while the rest of his body hummed from the flush of blood coursing through
well-used muscles. He felt good, sore, but loose and slightly less edgy. He
strolled out to the gym parking lot in the fading sunlight. His internal clock
counted down the minutes to sunset as he sped towards the I-35 frontage road,
and home to his apartment. If she wasn’t awake and ready for him when he showed
up, there would be hell to pay.
This was not the deal he had made, this funky obsession. She
was supposed to hide out, suck on his blood once in a while, bang him until she
could barely walk, and generally be a decent house guest. By the time he pulled
into the covered parking in front of his apartment, right at sunset, he was so
anxious to dash inside he almost missed the blue Camaro that pulled in after
him. Out the corner of his eye he caught the driver’s arm hanging out the
window, wife-beater tank top, with a distinctive solid black handprint tattoo
on his shoulder.
Any other day, that wouldn’t have meant anything to him, but
today, Adrian had seen that same guy, same tattoo roaming around Planet
Fitness, not doing much of anything but checking him out. Now he conveniently
shows up at Adrian’s Apartment? Just so he could roll past all slow and easy,
looking cool in his old-school Camaro?
The tattoo worried Adrian the most. He knew of a certain
group of people who wore those tattoos for a reason, and he wanted nothing to
do with them.
Suddenly, he wasn’t in such a hurry to get inside. Adrian
shut off the truck, wiped his face and hands with a wet wipe, and tried to look
casual about watching the Camaro as it parked a few cars down from him. He had
that feeling again, that yucky feeling when something just wasn’t right. Why
the hell would this guy be following him, and who the hell sent him?
He slipped from his Chevy truck and assessed the advancing
darkness. Just far enough into twilight he might be able to catch the guy
unaware. Adrian snagged a roll of quarters he kept in the ash tray and wrapped
his hand around it tightly. He walked past the Camaro, away from the front
porch of his apartment. The man sat in his car, hadn’t made any moves like he
intended to get out. Adrian walked further down to the end of the apartments,
near the alley, and heard that sound, the clang of a car door closing. He went
straight to the door of the last apartment, and stood at the porch pretending
to look for his keys. Wifebeater wasn’t much for stealth. Adrian could hear his
footfalls along with his breathing.
Adrian grumbled to himself about forgetting his damn keys
and turned around to go back to his truck, heading straight for Wifebeater who
shot him a squinty-eyed look of suspicion, but kept advancing on him.
The man feigned a pretense of casual movement. “Hey, I need
to make a phone call. Can I use your phone?” The casual look evaporated as his
face morphed into a menacing grimace and his hand emerged from behind him with
a gleaming, black semi-auto pistol.
With a fistful of quarters, Adrian smashed through
Wifebeater’s nose like so much useless flesh. The guy went up in the air, almost
floating, and then dropped to the sidewalk on his back with a grunt.
“Motherfucker.” His voice sounded wet with blood from his busted face.
Adrian stomped on his gun hand. A meaty crunch was followed
by a little squeal of pain. The gun wasn’t going anywhere, probably a couple of
broken digits in there. He glanced around to see if anyone witnessed his little
altercation and then scooped up the pistol and slipped it into his sweatpants’
pocket. He didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some nosy
a-hole hiding behind his window blinds calling the cops right now.
The cops were the least of Adrian’s worries at the moment.
The Black Hand on the ground spitting blood and cursing Adrian’s mother was the
real issue. Adrian grabbed his foot and dragged him off the sidewalk, the back
of his head bouncing on the asphalt. He pulled him all the way around the
corner into the entrance of the alleyway. No one could see them unless they
actually came down the alley. No floodlights anywhere.
Wifebeater started to catch his wits and struggle, kicking
to free his foot. With a two-handed grip, Adrian twisted to the left.
Wifebeater did what they always do, he fought that momentum. Then Adrian did
what he always did, reversed the twist to the right in a snap-back motion.
Working with the tension of the man’s fight, his ankle spun all the way around
and gave way with a sickening crack. The body can’t spin fast enough to go with
it, so the ankle pops.
Wifebeater cried out, like they always do when their ankle
breaks in his hands. The guy wasn’t going to be jogging anywhere for a while.
“Motherfucking puto! I’m gonna kill you. Chinga su madre,
I’m gonna fuck you up. That’s a promise.”
They don’t usually talk so much shit with a broken ankle and
fingers. This guy proved an exceptional shit-talker.
Adrian held pressure on the break, bringing the shit-talker
to a slow, whining silence. “You’re not going to kill anyone, not tonight.
There’s two ways this goes down. One, you tell me what I want to know, and you
can crawl home to whatever rock you came out from under. Two, you don’t tell
me, or you lie, and you never see home again. This alley, and my face, will be
the last things you ever see in this world.”
When he spoke to a man under such an exhilaratingly intense
situation, Adrian made sure his voice was calm, quiet. He made sure they
understood the gravity of the moment. Never let it be said he didn’t give a man
a chance to talk.
“I don’t care what you say, puto. You and that bitch, La
Reina, are already dead. La Eme got a contract, and they sent me here.”
Adrian cranked his ankle hard to the left and then right.
The grinding of broken bones and tendons accompanied the man’s whimpers. Even
tough guys whimper under this kind of pain. He wasn’t sure how far to go. Here
in civilian land, there were no rules of engagement. He’d never had to worry
about it in Iraq or Kuwait. They’d told him when to go, and who to grab, and he
did as told.
“Aye chingao madre! You coulda walked, cabron.” Blood and
spittle flew from his mouth as he groaned in agony. “But no, not when La Eme
sees what you did to me. You wanna die to protect that bitch? The word came
straight from the Generals. La Reina goes down, no matter what. If you know who
she is, you’d know this ain’t no business for gringos. La Eme viene para ella,
and there ain’t no stopping them soldiers. I came to find out what you know.
But you got me all fucked up.”
That’s exactly what Adrian was afraid of. Though he might be
a bit extreme in moments like these, he wasn’t an idiot. He knew when he was
holding a poisonous snake with real bite. This man was a serious problem. He
would become a much bigger problem if he ever spoke of this encounter.
Wifebeater wasn’t giving Adrian any reason to let him live.
At Adrian’s silence, the man pushed his agenda harder. “Do
you know her? Did she speak to you? Talk to me, maybe you can live. Maybe.”
This was not working out so hot. The guy was supposed to be
begging. They all beg. These Black Hands were hard bastards. Fuck!
A voice called out of the dark. “Adrian, is that you? What’s
going on?”
Shit, Crenshaw! No time for anything else.
Adrian leaped atop the man and grabbed his head in both
hands. A hard jerk left, then right, then the telltale crunchy-crack of a broken
spinal column. The man’s breath slid out in a slow hiss as his body relaxed,
unconscious. Death would soon follow.
The neck breaks easier than the ankle.
Adrian stood up and stepped away just in time for Crenshaw
to come around the corner and catch him staring down at the body of a Mexican
Mafia.
Review:
I have no words for how much I love this series by Travis. I
devour every book when they are released. It’s just that amazing!
This is a standalone in the series so you don’t need to read
them as this book follows two different characters from the original set. But I
highly recommend you read them all as you won’t be disappointed. These books
are action packed, erotic, and have gore in them which is what makes his
vampires stand out from a lot of others. Don’t get me wrong I love the romance
vampire books but sometimes I want the nitty gritty down and dirty vampires and
Travis definitely delivers with that and then some. 5/5 Bloody Fangs
Travis
Luedke is a husband, father, and author of Urban Fantasy Thriller, Paranormal
Romance, Contemporary Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction, and Sci-fi. He is currently
catching a 3rd degree sunburn in San Antonio, Texas, and loving every minute of
it.
As the author of the
Nightlife Series novels, Travis lives very vicariously through his writings. He
invites you to enjoy his macabre flights of fancy, but be warned: The Nightlife Series is violent, sexy, and
occasionally violently sexy.
Thank you for stopping by my blog today. I would also like to say Thank You to Travis for letting me review your book and say Thank You to RBTL for letting me participate in this tour. Don't forget to enter the giveaway below.