First Bite (Badge and Bite Book 1)

A string of brutal murders. A detective who won’t stop asking questions. A vampire with everything to lose.

Hope Richards has survived 187 years by following one simple rule: never let humans discover what she really is.

In Riverbend, Oklahoma, she’s built a comfortable life behind a carefully maintained disguise. But when a series of gruesome murders threatens to expose the supernatural world hiding in plain sight, Hope finds herself dangerously close to a police investigation.

Detective Nolan Cross doesn’t believe in vampires. He believes in evidence, answers, and catching killers.

Unfortunately, his latest case isn’t playing by the rules.

The victims are turning up with injuries that defy explanation, disturbing amounts of missing blood, and clues that lead nowhere. As the body count rises, Nolan’s determination to find the truth brings him into Hope’s orbit—and neither is prepared for what follows.

Hope knows more than she’s willing to admit. Nolan notices more than she’d like. And somewhere in Riverbend, a killer is making mistakes that could expose secrets buried for centuries.

As suspicion grows and danger closes in, Hope faces an impossible choice: protect the secret that has kept her alive for nearly two centuries, or risk everything to help a detective who might become her greatest threat.

And Nolan is about to discover that some mysteries are better left unsolved.

First Bite is the first book in the Badge and Bite series, blending urban fantasy, supernatural suspense, murder mystery, sharp humor, and slow-burning romantic tension.

In Riverbend, the dead don’t always stay dead—and the living don’t always have a pulse.