Blood Demands - Raven Belasco

Covered in blood, a knife in one hand and a gun in the other. This rescue attempt has gone terribly wrong.

Picking up from Blood Ex Libris's ending in an explosive-ravaged cave in the desert, Blood Demands takes Anushka "Noosh" Rossetti and Sandu (the supposedly-reformed Vlad Dracula) back to Romania, where Noosh assumes she will settle down to her archivist job for the am'r (vampires). But after the nightmares start, Noosh's life is disrupted yet again when she realizes that Bagamil, eldest of the am'r, is communicating to them that something has gone very wrong. Despite the dangers to one who is only half-vampire, Noosh insists on accompanying Sandu to travel to Argentina, asking the am'r of South America for clues to finding Bagamil. Everything points to Tierra del Fuego, where in a cave system filled with booby traps and two opposing sets of enemies, Noosh must discover how to help a poisoned Bagamil to freedom, and when captured, must somehow outlive her enemies in a melee of revenge-thirsty vampires from South America's colonial past. Despite intriguing allies and a bond with two of the most powerful am'r, Noosh must find her own way to survive in the brutal netherworld of the am'r.

"Raven Belasco brings much to the table: a lively writing style, a fascinating take on the undead, a great deal of discreetly hidden scholarship, and a sheer joy in creativity which can sweep the reader along pell-mell. Come to these books for the hot sexytimes; stay for the sheer quality; linger for the quiet intelligence that underlies it all." - Chaz Brenchley, Author of The Books of Outremer, and the Crater School series