Yesterday, D.N. Bryn released their new book, Bite Your Neighbour, a m/m paranormal romance (tropes in the image below). I loved Bryn’s other books so I’m really excited about this one! I already knew I’ll fall in love with the characters because Bryn has a gift for writing interesting characters and relationships. They all feel incredibly real to me. Danny was kind enough to allow me to share a short excerpt of the book, so read on and meet Vincent!
Blurb
Vincent Barnes has suffered four years as a vampire, and they’ve been the most miserable years of his pathetic life. Too poor for black market blood, he feeds from sleeping humans to survive. He tries to never intrude on the same prey twice, but after a single delicious taste of a long-lost childhood neighbor, he can’t help returning for seconds.
Wesley Garcia has been waking up with fang marks. Lucky for him, he needs a vampire—to use as bait. He’s certain Vitalis-Barron Pharmaceutical killed his mother, but to gain access to their covert research labs, he has to bring them a bloodsucker for their experiments.
Step one, a dramatic offer: Stay, and you can bite me.
Vincent leaps at the chance to gobble Wesley up.
Wes’s plan is perfect. He’ll befriend the vampire, then trick him into coming to the lab. No fighting, no fuss. But Vincent is more than Wesley has bargained for: sweet and shy, with intoxicating fangs that awaken new desires in Wes. As the two bond, Vincent believes he might have finally found someone worth putting his trust in… and Wes fears neither of them will survive the betrayal he has planned.
Content Warnings
Violence, including murder/man-slaughter.
Medical experimentation, not conducted on or by the point of view characters.
Non-consensual blood sucking.
Non-consensual drug-induced sleep.
Implied and contemplated semi-explicit sexual acts.
Excerpt
Any vampire with a firmly placed moral backbone would tell him that sneaking into a stranger’s home to drink their blood while they slept was rude, illegal, and, above all, a terrible portrayal of the vampiric community. The problem was, back when Vincent had associated with the vampiric community, none of those vampires had turned out to have a moral backbone. And Vincent was starving.
Dealers of bagged blood charged as much as rent—which he already couldn’t afford—and existed in tight black-market clichés he didn’t have the social prowess to hunt down. Seducing some drunk fool into letting him have a quick nibble went far beyond the limits of his flirting expertise. Straight up attacking a human in a back alley? Vincent could feel his panic rising just thinking about it, not to mention all the other terrible vampire stereotypes it would perpetuate.
So that left home invasion: the vampiric equivalent of that old game show with the doors. What’s behind door number one? An empty bed, or an elderly lady wearing three bottles of perfume, or an angry naked fireman with an ax? Vincent hadn’t realized it was possible to have horny nightmares, but after the fireman encounter he didn’t sleep through the day for a month.
He stared at the small suburban house he’d chosen for tonight and hoped for a slightly less angry, less ax-murderous, abs-bared fireman behind tonight’s door. With its three-bedroom floorplan and tight side yard, it didn’t look like much, but it sat just far enough back from the aging streetlamps that its deep shadows and ancient locks made it a perfect game-show-style hunting ground. Vincent’s ‘door’ in question was technically a large second story window with a slightly bowing screen and an incredibly tiny ledge outside.
If he’d been any taller than five-foot-nine he wouldn’t have fit. With one bare foot curled around the sill and the other wedged into a lump in the stucco, he fiddled with the screen. The fraying strings of his fingerless gloves dangled in the starlight and he flicked his head to dislodge a chunk of shaggy hair from his eyes as, with a final finessed pop, the screen slid free.
His bare feet made only the softest rustle as he lowered himself inside. The gentle swish of his dark clothes blended into the white noise of the distant highway. He breathed slow and deep, waiting for the first sign of a twitch in the night. Despite the moonless sky, Vincent could clearly make out the room’s contents in his monochromatic night vision. An open closet revealed a tornado of clothing. The desk and dresser held a cluttering of books, games, and other knickknacks. A collage of photos had been pasted across the far wall. And halfway between the window and the door was a queen-sized bed bearing Vincent’s prey like a silver platter: a single human soundly asleep beneath the blankets. The man’s pillow was bunched underneath him, his head already tipped to reveal the crest of his neck below the lazy curls that flicked around his ears.
This was, undeniably, the best door of the month.
As Vincent stepped closer, he corrected himself. This was the best door ever, or at least since Vincent had become a vampire during his first and only semester of college four years prior. Even the most average humans—those who took regular showers and didn’t wear cologne to bed—all tasted and smelled a bit different. In most cases, different meant a unique brand of mediocre. But Vincent could already tell this particular human’s blood would be absolutely delicious. He even smelled delicious. The scent wasn’t like something, not sandalwood or fresh bread or motor-oil, but the natural musk of him was better than any signature fragrance, a dark, lovely aroma that urged Vincent to press his nose to the man’s skin and just breathe.
The thought almost made him turn tail and run. He was here, breaking into people’s homes while they slept, because not doing so would mean starvation and eventually death. He was not here to creepily think about how wonderful they smelled while staring at their perfect cheekbones and the gentle flutter of their long lashes and… oh god he was still fawning over this complete stranger.
Vincent pressed his lips together and steadied his thoughts. Feed and get out. Feed and get out.
