Blog Bites with Rory

We’ve got our FANGS in Laura Tolomei’s Rory

Tell us a bit about yourself:
Good evening, I’m Rory, a hunter in Britain, trying to do my best to deal with the horror unleashed in my forest, which the Druid has set down in the pages of Bloody Passion.

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What makes you special? What differentiates you from your kind? Do you have special abilities?
I’m a hunter and that makes all the difference, particularly since I can hunt down special beasts, not just the four-legged ones. My instinct’s trained to smell out evil in whatever shape it hides and, with the right assistant, I can destroy it. But my real talent is to wield the dark forces of nature and turn them into good and that’s what my story’s all about.

Tell me about your most current adventure.
I chose to hunt down beasts and was quite capable of doing it by myself until I came up against one…no, make that two, which required a special helper. To be honest, I had looked for him ever since I realized my true calling was to fight evil, not just regular predators,so to find him was the real challenge. But I succeeded and then…well, Cedric writes of it so beautifully in Bloody Passion, I wouldn’t want to spoil your fun.

EXCERPT PG
“Do you think it’s her?” Rory asked softly.
“What?”
He was kneeling, studying each wound closely, inspecting the measures and depth of each cut. “I said, do you think it’s her?” he repeated.
“Who?”
He turned his head to look at me. I was still standing, unable to bend on my knees to take a closer look as he was doing. “The girl we were with last night. What’s her name?” He frowned in search of a name.
“Beryl,” I supplied, dropping on my ankles next to him.
“Right, Beryl.” He looked at her head. The killer had taken his swings at her face, too, slicing thin red lines on her cheekbones, under her eyes, on her chin and forehead. The final effect though, didn’t convince me at all. At a superficial observation, the killing looked like the consequence of a fit of rage, the murderer striking hard, furious and blind. Yet, despite the dried blood covering the marks, the complicated pattern I glimpsed was hardly casual or random, more similar to a premeditated design than to a madman’s strikes. Anger or cold-blooded murder? I wondered. “It doesn’t look like her,” I said, turning to Rory, “at least as far as I can tell.”
The hunter nodded slowly. “Yeah, doesn’t seem to me either, but she looks a lot like Beryl.”
“Most girls her age look almost the same,” I pointed out tartly.
Rory grinned despite the situation. “I forgot you don’t like women, but I thought you could at least distinguish one from the other.”
“I can’t tell the differences,” I scoffed. “Not my fault they all dress alike and try to look as much like each other as possible.”
Rory sighed. “Maybe you’re right,” he agreed at last, turning his scrutiny back to the lifeless body. “Strange, don’t you think, lover, the way these cuts go?”
“What do you mean?”
“Apparently, they seem to be random, sprung out of a furious rage. But if you study them carefully, there is a sort of—“
“Pattern as if someone was copying a picture from his head.”
Rory nodded. “So you see it, too?”

If you could offer advice to your author, what would it be?
I’d have made Cedric a little bit more…good looking.

Are you happy with the way people perceive you?
Absolutely. They perceive my strength, the knowledge and trained instinct of the hunter, but also the joy with which I live life and its many intriguing pleasures In short, readers have come to know me for who I am so they look up to me for guidance in their darkest moments, knowing I can command the situation to face whatever unknown lies out there.

Is expressing love difficult for you? Why?
I’m not sure I know what love is. I know lust, craving, burning desire, but not love. Or at least didn’t until I met Cedric. Then something happened—I’m still trying to understand exactly what—and I have strange stirrings I never felt before for anyone. But can this qualify as love? I honestly don’t know.

What is the most interesting thing that has happened to you?
To have discovered my calling. It happened when I was out hunting a wolf that had become too smart for his own good. The more I followed his tracks, the more I understood it wasn’t an ordinary animal, but a magical one, full of dark power. And I knew I couldn’t face him alone. It was then I felt the calling, my power expanding to seek its natural ally and Cedric responded from somewhere across the forest. And it was the beginning of a fantastic adventure.

Is there a message you want to get across in this interview?
Nature demands and deserves respect, not just for its survival, rather for our own, petty humans who can think we can make it ours or command it to our will, using it like a worthless or lifeless object. Balancing the energy can be the hardest thing man has to do, but the most necessary if he wants to survive, especially since nature can turn against us anytime for never, ever will we be able to control what escapes us by definition, the beastly side we each carry within.

Do you ever ask your significant other for advice?
He’s a part of it, as inextricably entwined in the dark powers as I am. Without him, none of this would’ve ever seen the light for he’s the magical connection on which I rely to show me the way. Then again, he’s also a great lay!

If you had the chance to meet another character, who would it be and why?
Mylos, the bloody sorcerer of Sacrificial Sex only to understand how he could go through a human sacrifice without apparently displaying no emotions. And he’s only a human!

What is your most favorite thing to do?
To be in the forest, living it, breathing it, controlling it, challenging it.

How many sex partners have you had? How many at one time?
Are numbers that important?
The more to play the game, the better, I always say and all my partners know it.

What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve done? Stupidest? Craziest?
To listen to a Druid.

What was the best sexual experience you’ve had?
With Cedric, deep in the heart of the forest, with the Druid still recovering after our hunt. I’d missed him so much, I couldn’t wait until he was fully on his feet again. No, I craved him far too much, feeling like an empty man without the proper nourishment, seeing him lie half unconscious all day long, too weak to even keep his eyes open. But as soon as I felt him stronger, not to mention burning for my touch, I didn’t waste a second. And by the gods, how sweet it was to feel him again!

What are your opinions on humans?
Mostly worthless creatures who don’t understand nature’s worth or if they do, keep going in their destructive ways, hurting our precious living resources. Bah, I have no love for them, with a few exceptions of course, and would gladly leave them to their faith, if a higher sense of duty didn’t make me help them from time to time.

What are the pro’s and con’s to being a human?
I have a limited force, which many predators could easily overcome, but I’m smarter than they’ll ever be, human cunning far outrunning any beast.

How does one become a human?
Same as one becomes an animal of any kind.

Describe your best kill. Why was it the best?
I’ll let the Druid do that since he’s so good at it.
We were staying near a small community of farmers mostly and they had sacrificed more than their share to the beast. Many of the men had offered Rory their help, but he had refused, afraid they’d spoil his slow developing affinity with Newlyn.
Too bad he hasn’t, I thought, feeling ill at ease glancing around the empty encampment, nearly expecting to see the predator right behind me. Closing my eyes, I almost saw it, a huge wolf with a fur as black as the demons’ favorite night. I felt its hot breath on my neck, but oddly, it didn’t scare me, quite the contrary for I had the distinct impression the beast recognized me enough to refrain from an outright attack. Its red eyes sparkled in the darkness just as a piercing smell of blood clogged my senses. Nauseated, I shook my head to be free from the sensation choking me when all of a sudden, I felt Rory next to me, close, very close…no much more than just close.
I turned to stare at him, unbelieving what my eyes saw. He seemed to be a part of me, his skin adhering perfectly to mine as if I wore him like the legendary wolf skin I craved. But it was impossible because he was alive, even if attached to my body. I opened my mouth to speak, but he closed it with his hand, nodding in the wolf’s direction. Not that I expected him to see anything except an empty space for the beast had probably fled the moment it smelled the second human. Surprisingly though, it was still there, either unaware or unaffected by the hunter hiding in my shadow.
“Bend down, lover,” I heard Rory whisper, his warm breath tickling my ear.
I obeyed and what happened next seemed even more unreal than Rory’s hide-out in my skin. With a feline jump, the hunter was on the wolf, grabbing its neck with one hand while the other brandished the sharp knife he always carried around. I only saw the glint of the blade as it arched swiftly under the wolf’s ear, circling the neck, then reappearing on the other side red and dripping wet, the hand holding it smeared in sticky liquid, too. Without emitting a sound, the wolf collapsed on its hind legs and fell on a side, blood gushing from the slit on his throat, spurting on the ground in angry convulsive throes. Looking at the red, thin line tearing the fur apart, I felt life ebbing out of him as if from my own flesh and my voice couldn’t help crying out his murder, howling pitifully to the wind, unsure if anyone bothered listening, but unable to stop until my body, suddenly bloodless, crashed on the cold, hard earth, lying deathly still.
What kind of abilities do you get when you become a human?
Same I always have.
What makes being with a human the best sexual experience?
Nothing but a human can spend so much time on pleasure alone so you just got to try to feel the difference.

Thank you for joining us today.
Tamara