Tori Minard

The Wind and the Darkness Tori Minard

Publisher Marketing: A dreaded assassin The young woman he saved The empire that wants them dead The Dark Empire, the largest and most powerful vampire society in the world, despises rogue vampires-those who've transformed themselves through magical rituals rather than submitting to the rule of Daranda, the vampire empress. All rogues must die. Kayla Chandler-formerly Britney Peach, a victim of unspeakable child abuse-has carved a new life for herself, a life that threatens to fall apart when she buys a strange, hand-lettered book called The Words Of The Vampire. The book seems to have a life, and a mind, of its own and under its influence Kayla performs the rituals that will transform her into a vampire. When Daranda orders her favorite assassin, Obsidian, to murder Kayla Chandler, he's reluctant to kill a woman. But when he discovers Kayla is Britney, the same young girl he rescued from being beaten to death ten years earlier, he realizes he must do more than refuse to kill her-he must escape with her, making both of them a target for assassination. Their only hope is to find two legendary vampires who live in defiance of the Dark Empire-Niko and Laila, said to be thousands of years old and the only vampires Daranda can't touch. The problem is they might be more legend than reality. Contributor Bio:  Minard, Tori Tori Minard wrote her first story in pencil, sans paragraph breaks and quotation marks, for a third-grade class assignment. It was the dark and moving tale of a Halloween pumpkin. Unfortunately, the details of this gem have been lost to time. Her next story featured a large black dog who was really a demon in disguise. Apparently, Tori was born in paranormal mode. Three years later, it dawned on her that she didn't have to wait for the teacher's permission to write fiction. She spent the entirety of her peculiar adolescence writing weird and romantic stories which embarrassed her parents and got her in trouble at school. Unfortunately for her ego, the teachers merely thought she was writing letters to friends. Letters to friends! C'mon, this is dark, creative proto-Goth girl. Why would she write letters to friends when she could bring forth post-apocalyptic romances instead? After a long detour for such grown-up pursuits as working boring full-time jobs (State of Alaska, U. S. Postal Service), getting married and having a child, she returned to her first love-storytelling. She was born and raised in Alaska, and now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, son, and micro-dog. Her novels include The Amaki series, about sexy fae, and a vampire series that includes both pre- and post-apocalyptic romance.