Spartan Resistance
Read Spartan Resistance Online
Authors: Tracy Cooper-Posey
Spartan Resistance
Resisting love is futile.
Brenden Christos was born a son of Sparta, and is over two thousand years old. Now in the twenty-third century, he is the security chief of the Chronometric Conservation Agency. He has no time for fools, humans or anyone who threatens his Agency. Love is at the bottom of his list of priorities.
Brenden doesn’t have much time for Mariana Madison Jones, either. Their clashes escalate, as Mariana works to keep the Agency running smoothly for her vampire employers. Their rocky working relationship heads south when the world’s most eligible bachelor, Laszlo Wolffe, begins to pursue Mariana and has more than a temporary tryst in mind.
Gabriel and his psi-filers strike back at vampires and while the world is reeling from Gabriel’s vicious blow, Brenden learns that Laszlo Wolffe isn’t who he says he is, and begins to investigate, using time travel and a most unexpected ally to wrinkle out Wolffe’s secrets.
Brenden’s discovery and Gabriel’s psychotic demands collide…with tragic results.
WARNING: This vampire ménage romance contains two hot, sexy alpha heroes, frequent, explicit and frank sex scenes and sexual language. It includes heart-stopping sexual scenes between the aforementioned sexy heroes, ménage scenes, and anal sex.
Do not proceed beyond this point if hot love scenes offend you.
No vampires were harmed in the making of this novel.
This book is part
of the Beloved Bloody Time series:
Book 1.0:
Bannockburn Binding
Book 1.1:
Wait
*
Book 2.0:
Byzantine Heartbreak
Book 2.1:
Viennese Agreement*
Book 3.0
:
Romani Armada
Book 4.0:
Spartan Resistance
...
and more to come!
[*Time Twist Tales - short stories and novellas featuring the characters and situations found in the Beloved Bloody Time series.]
These are continuing characters and storylines. Reading the series in order is strongly recommended.
Danger! Adventure! Hot threesomes! MORE DANGER! And a really shifty bunch of individuals who are determined to strike the vampires where it hurts them most. —
R
eading the Paranormal.
Tracy Cooper-Posey continues to bring this fantastic and unique series to life. There is never a dull moment in this book or in the series. A complex and intense read that continues to entertain. I can’t wait for next book in the series. —
The Jeep Diva
The authors ability to weave together the many different locations and time periods in history is amazing.—
Amazon Top 500 Reviewer
Praise for The Beloved Bloody Time series 3
The next book in the Beloved Bloody Time series 210
Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey 213
Chronometric Conservation Agency Headquarters, Villa Fontani, Rome, 2265 A.D.
Mariana didn’t need psi talent to know that tensions around the Agency were unusually high. She just couldn’t figure out why. To her way of thinking, not knowing why proved she wasn’t doing her job.
She had learned so much about vampires in the last few years. It was something she had always wanted to do. But all the knowledge had done was prove to her how little she knew and how much more there was for her to learn. She could go the rest of her life uncovering aspects of vampire life and the Chronometric Conservation Agency in particular and still not know it all.
As a result, most days she felt completely ignorant and stupid.
As Mariana hurried across the grounds of Villa Fontani, heading for the south wing of the central villa, she reflected that today was no exception. It was her job to help keep the Agency ticking over smoothly and to make Nayara’s challenging life as the highly-visible and sought-after CEO a bit easier for her to cope with.
Mariana had been doing this for just over a year, but every day still delivered unique difficulties. This morning, the challenges were centered upon the work being done to the southwest cavedium, which had stood neglected since the Agency had bought the building. As Mariana passed through the main plaza into the long gallery, she began to pass knots of people standing around complex equipment she couldn’t begin to name.
The people were all strangers and, she guessed, all human. Many of them were looking around and over their shoulders, as if vampires might fall upon them the moment they let down their guard.
Which was plain stupid. They would be better off worrying about Gabriel and his psi-filers. They would have no compunction about using humans to further their agenda. Except they wouldn’t fall upon them—they would just reach into their minds and twist. Make them dance a jig or go on a murder spree, just for the fun of it.
There was a man in coveralls, just ahead, who looked like he might have a coronary at any moment. Sweat was gathering at his temples and his eyes were wide. He was looking around fearfully.
Mariana slowed as she drew nearer. She gave him a big smile. “You don’t have to worry, you know. The vampires here all drink synthetic blood.”
He stared at her and swallowed, while the rest of the small group next to him lifted their heads up to look at her sharply.
“But they do really,
really
like adrenaline with their food,” Mariana added. “It’s like honey. A dose of panic will draw them just like flies.”
The man’s mouth dropped open and his gaze skittered about the room as if attack was imminent.
Mariana gave him another wide smile and moved on down the gallery. They had believed her without question.
Fools
! She hadn’t been that ignorant even before she met her first real vampire. In this day and age, when vampires had been a known and accepted part of human society for at least two centuries, not knowing the least little thing about them was willful ignorance and inexcusable.
She shook off her annoyance and cleared her mind. She had better things to do than worry about what the average human thought of vampires. That was Deonne’s job and Mariana was very glad it was so.
Instead, she checked off all the possible reasons she could think of that might explain why everyone seemed to be on edge.
Of course, Nayara was worried about Ryan. She was hiding it well, but with Mariana she sometimes became a bit sharp. That was Mariana’s job, too. Better that Nayara vent upon her than anyone else, particularly humans or the media. There was nothing Mariana could do to help alleviate Nayara’s concerns. Marley was doing everything a body could do and no one else knew Ryan was sleeping again. Not even Cáel Stelios, although that omission had bothered Mariana greatly. She had even questioned Nayara about it.
“Cáel is busy with the current session of the Assembly,” Nayara had replied. “I don’t want him to be distracted. He’ll think he has to hurry home, if he finds out. The session ends in a week. I can tell him then.”
As no one else knew about Ryan, it wasn’t the source of all the angst.
Gabriel had been quiet and invisible for many months, since Adán and Rhydder had snatched baby Jack away from him and his psi-filers. The long silence had worried the entire agency. It was a background tension that had been building every day that Gabriel stayed mute. Everyone was bracing themselves, waiting for his next move and wondering what it would be. But only the top vampires of the agency actively speculated about what he might do, in their strategy sessions. Everyone else just worried it over in their minds, day after day.
Gabriel wasn’t helping make life pleasant. He would probably be pleased about that, if he knew. Perhaps he did know. No one was sure if he was regularly tapping into Agency minds. Now that Pritti had passed, there was no longer a mental shield protecting them. There was anxiety over Pritti’s passing, still—especially as Demyan had not returned to the agency.
Mariana stepped through the double-wide doorway into the cavedium where the bustle and fuss was at its most intense. There were people everywhere. Human people and vampire people, both.
The very center of the storm was off on one side of the cavedium, where workmen were clustered thickly. From among them, unseen because of the size of them, a woman was speaking quickly, her tone peremptory. Every few seconds, another of the workmen around her would hurry away.
As more and more of her staff dispersed, Mariana could see the woman at the center of them better. Mavourneen Beraht was short—shorter than Mariana and she wasn’t exactly tall herself. Not the way Nayara and Deonne were tall. Mariana couldn’t tell if Neena, as she told everyone to call her, was slender or not, for she wore the most interesting clothes. There were layers of color, mixes of materials and sometimes Mariana couldn’t figure out where one layer ended and the other began. Sometimes she couldn’t even figure out if the woman was wearing a dress or trousers. She was wrapped in color and texture from head to foot. Even her hair was a startling and enhanced red, in big loose curls that brushed her shoulders.
Often the color combinations and textures she wore were unexpected and in Mariana’s opinion simply shouldn’t work together, but somehow, Neena pulled it off.
In the two days Neena had been working here, Mariana had found her appearance to be one of the most fascinating things about her. Her energy was the other quality that Mariana found almost exhausting even to simply watch. Neena bounced and skipped and sometimes even jumped when she really wanted to make a point. In a room full of tall vampires with even bigger egos, Neena was the most visible.