Fangs, Frost, and Folios Audiobook

An all-new holiday mystery for your favorite book-hunting vampires!

Giovanni and Beatrice left vampire conspiracies and supernatural adventures for a peaceful family life. But peace only lasts so long for a vampire assassin and an undying scribe.

The death of an old friend leaves Giovanni with a rare opportunity. He knows that Lady Penelope's library hides more than one rare book, but can he break into her family's ancestral home without raising alarms? Giovanni and Beatrice are looking for literary treasure. Other immortals might be searching for a different and more dangerous haul.

Back in Los Angeles, Ben and Tenzin were put in charge of protecting the family. But can two powerful vampires survive the mercurial mood swings of a preteen girl? Ben and Tenzin could be facing the end… of their sanity.

Fangs, Frost, and Folios is a holiday novella and a brand new adventure for Giovanni and Beatrice, the heroes of the Elemental Mysteries series by eleven-time USA Today bestselling author Elizabeth Hunter.

PROLOGUE

Beatrice De Novo shut her daughter’s bedroom door, pretending she didn’t hear the indignant huff on the other side. Her fangs dropped instinctively as she turned to Dema, Sadia’s nanny and bodyguard. 

“Military academy?” She took two careful steps from the door. “Do they have those for girls?”

“Absolutely.” Dema had been in the military herself, and she didn’t blink. “I can look up options tomorrow.” The woman’s face was implacable, her even features revealed neither amusement nor disapproval. 

“No.” Beatrice closed her eyes and forced her fangs back. “It’s a phase. She’ll grow out of this at some point and I’ll have my delightful and wonderful child back. This is just…”

“Twelve.”

“Twelve.” Beatrice sighed. “Tell me it gets better.”

“It gets better. You don’t remember being that age?” Dema shrugged. “Everything is a drama.”

They walked down the hall and toward the stairs. “You’d think I’d told her she had to cut off her hair and wear sackcloth instead of pick out her clothes for school tomorrow and go to bed.”

“B, don’t you know how she suffers?” Dema was already looking at her mobile device. “I’m logging into the captive portal, so she won’t have wifi in a minute.”

“Just make sure you tell Giovanni this time.” Her husband was accomplished in many things, but technology was not one of them. “Last night he was trying to look at something on YouTube and he—”

“Beatrice!” The vampire in question walked from his study into the living room. “We have a job.”

Dema and Beatrice shared a knowing look. 

“What kind of job?” Beatrice asked.

“Not putting tiny ships together,” he reached for her hand over the banister. “I see the look, Dema. There will be no more models; please tell Zain to take them away.”

“Thank God,” Dema muttered. “Tell me some country lost a national archive or something.”

“That might be more work than we want, but I do know of a missing play.”

Beatrice’s eyebrows went up. Her mate was a dark and dangerous fire vampire, a sixteenth century assassin, and a meticulous scholar. He could also be incredibly charming when he wanted to be. 

“A missing play? I’m listening.”

“A play.” Giovanni led her toward the living room where a fire was already burning. “By someone you might have heard of before.”

Beatrice’s librarian blood was humming. “And that would be…?”

“A lost comedy by the bard himself.” Giovanni led her toward a chaise and waited for her to sit before he bowed over her hand and kissed her knuckles. “Love’s Labour Won.”

“You’re not serious.” Beatrice blinked. “Do you mean—?”

“How would you like to go to the English countryside for Christmas so we can search a vast aristocratic library for something that may or may not exist?”

“If it’s a lost Shakespeare play, yes!”

His deep green eyes were dancing. “I was hoping you’d say that. The library belonged to Lady Penelope Percy-Reed, an old friend of Caspar’s.” He paced in front of the fire.

Beatrice was delighted by his excitement. “How did she end up getting—”

“Allegedly.”

“An unpublished Shakespeare play?”

“Allegedly,” Dema added.

“Indeed allegedly.” Giovanni’s eyes were dancing. “Penny’s great-great something or other was an actress if family rumors are to be believed.”

“Scandalous.” Beatrice’s heart began to race.

“An actress during Shakespeare’s time?” Dema perched on the back of a long couch. “I thought women weren’t allowed to act then.”

“According to Penny, her ancestor was a noblewoman who disguised herself as a young man so she could act the women’s parts on the stage.”

“No.” Beatrice grinned. “Are you kidding? That’s amazing.”

“Appalling family rumors are the only proof, of course.” Giovanni slid next to Beatrice and took her hand. “But the delicious rumor was backed up—according to Penny—by the possession of an unfinished play given to her ancestor by Shakespeare himself.”

“Love’s Labor Won?” The sequel to Shakespeare’s famous comedy had long been rumored, but Beatrice hadn’t found any theories to be convincing.

“I honestly don’t know.” He leaned back. “Penny was always vague when she brought it up. It’s possible she fabricated the entire story—she never let facts get in the way of good fiction—but her great-nephew just sent Caspar a letter letting him know that Penelope had passed and that he expected to find various bequests to friends when the solicitors had finished their inventory of the library.”

Beatrice cocked her head. “Is that standard?”

“To inventory a family library? Not typical, but not unheard of. Particularly when parts of the library are being designated to various institutions for preservation. The lawyers are coming after the holiday.” Giovanni smiled. “My plane can get us there faster.”

Beatrice looked up the stairs. “Would we be gone for Christmas? Sadia is driving me crazy right now, but I don’t want to abandon our child on her holiday break.”

He frowned. “Why not?”

“Gio.”

“If we leave, she might find enough grace in her twelve-year-old heart to miss us.”

Beatrice knew he was speaking from experience. He’d raised two boys to adulthood and neither had cut him off or gone to jail.

At least not for any length of time.

“I think if we’re efficient, we’ll be back in time for the holiday.” Giovanni rubbed her back. “But of course, she will be finished with school next week.” He looked at Dema. “Any plans for the holidays we should know about?”

Dema squinted. “As I don’t celebrate Christmas except in the secular way that everyone in this country celebrates the red-coated festival of capitalism, you know I will be around. I believe Zain told me he was visiting family at the New Year, not on Christmas.”

“And we all know that Zain is about the only person Sadia listens to these days,” Giovanni said. “This is perfect.”

Their house manager was in his late twenties and the only “cool” person in the house, according to their twelve-year-old. Dema was a nagging older sister who worried too much. Her parents were clueless, of course, despite the literal centuries of life experience they had accumulated.

“I have an idea,” Dema said. “You two go to England to look for lost the lost book—”

“Play.”

Beatrice cocked her head. “Folio, perhaps?”

Dema sighed. “All book nerds go to England. Sadia stays here with me and Zain, and you call Ben and Tenzin so they can spend the holidays with her and she’ll have family around if you two get delayed for any reason.”

Beatrice looked at Giovanni. Her husband was nodding his approval.

Adventure. Intrigue. Dusty stacks and hidden corners.

Beatrice felt her blood start to move.

“When do we leave?”