SOLVED. A vampire by another name - Adult Paranormal Romance

[Joanna]

Looking for an adult paranormal romance that I read 5-10 years ago. Main characters were a paranormal race very similar to vampires (slept during the day, his from the sun, drank blood) but called themselves something else.

Heroine is rescued by her soulmate after spending several hundred years in captivity by a crazy “vampire.” I believe the first chapter describes her waking up buried under ground (where most of them sleep), feeling her rescuers blood trickling down into the dirt from above to strengthen her. She is significantly traumatized from her captive and needs her SO to make all decisions for her, as she has not been allowed to make any choices for herself since she was kidnapped.

I particularly remember an early scene where her SO presents her with two dresses to choose from, and she is too scared that she will upset him if she picks the wrong one, so he has to reassure her that he likes them both and it doesn’t matter.

As the plot develops, he helps her figure out some of her natural gifts, including speaking mind to mind, transforming into animals (I seem to remember that a bird is one of her first successful shifts), and influencing emotion.

We also find out that her SO is part of an elite group of warriors that is incapable of expericing love or attraction until they meet their soulmate.

Mixed in there are soulmates of some of the other warriors who were human, modern women who are absolutely appalled by the way the SO seems to order her around and make all decisions for her, until they understand that she is impeded by trauma and feels more comfortable this way.

The villain is a group of the same race that have chosen to diverge from tradition in some way, which has made them evil and prone to enjoy pain and suffering of others. The good guys are sequestered in some sort of compound to protect their soulmates, and one of the tactics the bad guys use to bust in is some sort of emotional virus that infects the brains of the warriors and makes them angry and irritable so they will fight among themselves. The heroine is able to identify the problem and heal them with her abilities.

Her kidnapper is also trying to get her back, he is one of the bad guys.

[Sue]

One of the Carpathian series by Christine Feehan- I can't remember which one though, so here's a link to the list. Good luck! https://www.fantasticfiction.com/f/ch...

[Joanna]

That’s it, Sue! Bless you!

[Kris]

Joanna, glad you found your book. What's the title of Christine Feehan's book?