Sticky Pages

Possess Me At Midnight

2009-10-21T12:45:00.004-04:00

Possess Me At Midnight is the best in Shayla Black's Brethren Series so far. Ice is one hot uber-alpha. Tortured and haunted in ways I had no clue of in previous books, Shayla shines a spotlight on him in this book and she knows how to tug on the heartstrings.

Sabelle is the kind of heroine I love to read about. She's strong, sassy and smart. Sabelle has to make some tough choices in Possess Me At Midnight but she will gladly do anything to protect the ones she loves. *sigh* I love that.

If I had to sum this book up in one word it would be *emotional*. Be ready for the ride as you take a journey through Ice's hauntingly painful past, his forbidden love, smoldering passions, and finally his redemption.

As the war marches on for the Brethren I can't help but worry about what will happen to my men. Will they all survive? Will they all have a HEA? (poor Lucan!) Is Lucan's story next? How's his story going to work out? What about Shock? Is he a bad guy?
Shayla you keep me guessing and I love you for it. Great job and keep them coming!

Doomsday Brethren Series, Book 3 — Ice’s story
Publisher: Pocket Books
ISBN-10: 1416578463I
SBN-13: 9781416578468
Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy Romance
Release Date: October 27, 2009

Pre-Order: Amazon Barnes & Noble Borders Books-A-Million Simon & Schuster Indie Bound Overstock Target
Pre-Order Download: Kindle Barnes & Noble Fictionwise Simon & Schuster

An apocalypse approaches in the new novel from bestselling author Shayla Black’s electrifying Doomsday Brethren series, as a magical warrior and a spirited witch ignite a smoldering passion that could destroy them both.
As a mysterious dark cloud drains the life of her beloved brother, Doomsday Brethren leader Bram, Sabelle Rion can think of little else. Still, every time she meets Ice Rykard’s intense green gaze, her body aches with need for the sexy warrior. Their attraction is explosive, incredible—and forbidden. As dangerous as he is unpredictable, Ice is her brother’s sworn enemy. But as Bram weakens, a more sinister force is gaining power. Evil Mathias and his ruthless Anarki army are on a bloodthirsty hunt for the Doomsday Diary. Sabelle must guard the potent book with her life—and Ice vows to protect the beautiful witch with his. Duty demands that Sabelle deny her lover’s fiery call of possession and mate with a man who can sway the magical Council against the impending rebellion. With the fate of magickind hanging in the balance, will she forsake the burning desires she can’t ignore or turn her back on her people for the courageous man she can’t resist?

Eyecandy

2009-10-12T14:40:00.003-04:00

October Reads

2009-10-03T14:48:00.005-04:00

1.Sarah's Child - Linda Howard

2.Covet - J.R. Ward

3.Dark Lover - Brenda Joyce (Fell in love with Ian)

4.Instinctive - Cathryn Fox (Delish)

5.In The Blood - Adrian Phoenix (Loving this series)

New Moon Posters

2009-09-30T10:01:00.004-04:00

I can't wait! Need I say more.....

Seduce Me In Shadow

2009-09-29T09:22:00.004-04:00

Book 2 in the Doomsday Brethren series gives us Caden's story and I can honestly say without a doubt that If I loved Tempt Me With Darkness, I'm absolutely in lust with Seduce Me With Shadow. The world building in book one was fascinating and flowed seamlessly into book two. I love a story that can so captivate me that I forget that I'm not actually there and Seduce Me In Shadow did that for me in a big way.

Caden is an amazing character. Conflicted feeling about his magical awakening he has been sent to retrieve the stolen Doomsday Diary. Easier said than done when feisty Sydney Blair is involved. Caden is a sexy, protective, tortured alpha male that kept my attention from cover to cover.

We are drawn even deeper into the lives of all the Doomsday Brethren and I must say I've fallen for them all. We get a peek inside several powerful passionate scenes with the warriors that left me breathless. Super hott alpha males that are surprisingly vulnerable at times will keep me coming back every time.

A question I asked over and over before I got my grubby little hands on this book was did she bring us the heat and now I can answer...... Shayla Brought it! : )

Seduce Me in Shadow
Doomsday Brethren Series, Book 2 — Caden’s StoryPublisher: Pocket BooksISBN-10: 1416578447
ISBN-13: 9781416578444
Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy RomanceRelease Date: September 29, 2009

Order:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Borders
Simon & Schuster
Books-A-Million
Overstock

When a villainous wizard escapes from exile, the devastatingly sexy Doomsday Brethren must defend all magickind in the spellbinding second book in bestselling author Shayla Black’s seductive new paranormal series.

Ex-Marine Caden MacTavish has shunned his magical heritage all his life, but he will do anything to heal his desperately ill brother, a Doomsday Brethren warrior in mourning for his missing mate. Posing as a photographer, Caden must convince firecracker tabloid reporter Sydney Blair to reveal the source of her recent exposé on a supernatural power clash. Unfortunately, keeping his hands off the sizzling redhead proves as hard as getting them onto the potent and mystical Doomsday Diary he discovers at her bedside. A bloody rebellion led by an evil, power-hungry wizard is imminent. If Sydney divulges the book’s existence, she will jeopardize magickind’s most deeply guarded secrets and become the ruthless wizard’s number one target. Caden has never trusted magic’s cruel and dangerous powers, but he will protect Sydney with his life and magic—even if it means risking his heart.

Read The First Chapter

Don't forget to read Shayla's free novella Fated

Contest

2009-09-28T12:47:00.001-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-09-24T09:20:00.004-04:00

Georgia Flood

2009-09-23T09:51:00.012-04:00

Only the rooftops are visible in this neighborhood.

As you can see these homes are completely submerged.

This is a highway that the water is flowing over.

Only the roof is above water of this local business.

Flooding In Georgia

2009-09-22T10:14:00.011-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-09-18T13:42:00.002-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-09-14T13:38:00.003-04:00

Hush, Hush

2009-09-10T11:40:00.005-04:00

Hush, Hush was a fun filled ride. Geared towards the older YA crowd (IMO) it was a hit with me. The character development was strong and believable.

I loved Patch. While secretive of his past and himself (who is he?) he is still a fun, outgoing, charismatic guy(no shy or tight lipped hero here) he's all about the excitement.

Nora is a little more conservative than Patch. She's responsible, independent, and smart. After being paired with Patch in biology Nora is filled with questions about him. I had a great time watching the by-play with these two. Patch on any given day drives Nora insane. He's full of secrets and a master at dodging questions.
When Nora starts having visions of things that may or may not be happening she must decide if she can turn to Patch for help or if he's the reason her life is in turmoil.
Great read! I give it 2 thumbs up.

Falling in love was never so easy . . .
or so deadly.

For Nora Grey, romance was not part of the plan. She's never been particularly attracted to the boys at her school, no matter how much her best friend, Vee, pushes them at her. Not until Patch came along. With his easy smile and eyes that seem to see inside her, Nora is drawn to him against her better judgment.

But after a series of terrifying encounters, Nora's not sure who to trust. Patch seems to be everywhere she is, and to know more about her than her closest friends. She can't decide whether she should fall into his arms or run and hide. And when she tries to seek some answers, she finds herself near a truth that is way more unsettling than anything Patch makes her feel.

For Nora is right in the middle of an ancient battle between the immortal and those that have fallen - and, when it comes to choosing sides, the wrong choice will cost her life.

Buy It!

Can't wait for HUSH, HUSH?

Read the first two chapters online at Simon&Schuster.com

September Reads

2009-09-08T09:21:00.013-04:00

1.Possess Me At Midnight - Shayla Black ( Excellent as always. I'm in lust for Ice!)

2.Hush, Hush - Becca Fitzpatrick (Great read!)

3.Heat Seeker - Lora Leigh (Always Hott!)

4.Anybody But Justin - Shelli Stevens - (cute)

5.The Darkest Whisper - Gena Showalter (Love it! )

6.Perfection - Kris Cook (Smokin Hott!)

7.Dreamfever - Karen Marie Moning ( @#$%#@#! )

8.The Wolf And The Dove - Kathleen Woodiwis (sigh)

9.Tortured - Amanda McIntyre

10.Intertwined - Gena Showalter

11.A Rush Of Wings - (Love it)

Hot In Here

2009-08-29T14:03:00.011-04:00

Being someone who almost never cooks (hate it) I wondered if I would enjoy a storyline with a chef as our hero. What would be the selling point for me. Well that answer was easy after reading 10 pages of this book. Witty, sexy, funny and oh so lovable characters.

I fell for Bryce almost immediately. Sexy alpha male who is a little to used to getting his way. Poor guy never knew what hit him when his best friend Jenna decides she wants something more from him than friendship. Trust me when I say Bryce delivers and we're not talking take out.

I love reading about strong assertive women. Jenna knows what she wants and she's going for it. Even if it means she has to play a few games to win the prize. I found myself cheering her on "You go girl, make him beg".

I can't wait for the next book in this series. Bryce has a smokin hott brother I would like to know more about. There's just something about a brooding male I find absolutely irresistible.

I always knew food could be sexy but this book brings it to a whole new level. I think I'll be trying to make Bryce Ryder's Chocolate Caramel Bread Pudding . You never know where it may lead Ha!

Buy It!

HOT IN HERE

She wasn't his dish-until someone turned up the heat.Celebrity chef and infamous ladies man Bryce Ryder can't believe the thoughts he's having about his old friend Jenna McCabe. She's always been the shy girl-next-door, but when some bad publicity threatens everything he's built, Jenna gets down to business-and shows a side of herself that is take-charge and totally irresistible. Soon things are heating up in and out of the kitchen-and all of Jenna's secret fantasies about Bryce start coming true. But will she be the one to tame his heart, or is the sexy chef just indulging another one of his cravings?

Excerpt
Bryce couldn’t think. Hell, he couldn’t breathe. Watching Jenna saunter away in that pretty little chemise was playing havoc with his synapses. He didn’t even blink as he watched her walked away. The ecru- colored lace skimming just beneath the luscious curve of her cheeks commanded his attention, not to mention fueled his imagination.
She had the finest ass he’d ever seen. Full and round, begging to be cupped by his hand. Shit! What was he thinking, cupping her ass? This was Jenna. Safe, little Jenna. The friend he hadn’t had any sexual thoughts about. Well, not since…Okay. He finally allowed the dirty truth to come up. There had been a few times when he’d awaken from a vivid dream, his sheets tangled and wet, his brain burning with images of him and Jenna.
But he’d always laughed it off. Always thought it absurd. He used to tell himself that the dreams were about Jenna because she was the only woman he really knew well. They were friends, had spent a lot of time together. Naturally she’d invade his dreams.
Pressing forward, he leaned over the counter and watched Jenna. Her profile was just as stunning as the back view. Her breasts were just as hot as her ass, and the way they bounced and moved as she reached for the blanket that lay across the back of the sofa had him groaning.
Man, he was hard. And completely fucking losing it.
Jenna was a friend. He wanted that friendship. Depended on it. No way was he going to toss a decade of friendship down the toilet because his subconscious all of a sudden decided to cough up a few instances of past wet dreams involving Jenna.
He couldn’t imagine his life without Jenna in it. She had always been there, to talk to and hang with. He liked just calling her up for no reason and chatting. He liked how they laughed at the same things. If he couldn’t have that anymore, if he ruined the relationship by making it all awkward and heavy with sexual shit, he didn’t know what he’d do.
But what about when she finds Mr. Right, the insistent voice in his head asked. How much do you think he’s going to tolerate your phone calls and late-night visits? Probably about as well as he tolerated the thought of Jenna wearing that skimpy nightie for another man—including Tyson.
God, he didn’t even want to go there. His emotions and thoughts were all over the map tonight and he couldn’t understand why. What was it about Jenna today? What was it about her walk, the way her ass moved, that had him wanting to risk their friendship by taking it into the bedroom? And what was it about her that suddenly had him thinking how damn nice it would be to always have this, this closeness with her?
The relationship word suddenly crept onto his radar and he panicked. Then, thank god, Jenna’s voice squelched the thought before it could become a full blown visual of a picket fence.
“Movie’s starting,” she called from the living room.
“I’m on it,” he answered back, not moving, just watching as she sat on the couch and crossed her legs. They weren’t overly long, but man, they were shapely. The kind that would feel really good and soft wrapped around him. The kind of shapely, womanly flesh he hadn’t felt in all his other girlfriends.
He heard the Psychedelic Furs singing “Pretty In Pink,” and he got his ass moving. Looking through the cupboards, he found two bowls and a couple of spoons, and tore into the still-steaming dessert.
Inhaling the aroma, he savored it, hoping to hell she liked it. This was an untested concoction he’d just created. And poor Jenna was the guinea pig.
Carrying the bowls, he hit the switch with his elbow, killing the light spilling from the kitchen. Candles glowed on the coffee table, and the light from the television screen made it bright enough for them to see.
“Mmm, what’s this?” Jenna asked as she reached out for a bowl. “Smells delicious.”
“Just something I cooked up in honor of your twenty-eighth birthday.”
Jenna wrinkled her nose. “Let’s not talk numbers tonight.”
“Deal,” he said, settling back against the leather sofa. “As long as that also includes my numbers and that plan of yours.”
“Absolutely.”
“God, it’s been forever since I’ve seen this movie. Remember how you loved Blaine?”“Yeah,” she said, blushing.
“I never got that, why you found him so hot. His hair really looked terrible in that prom scene.”
Jenna laughed. “You always say that.”
“Well, it did.”
“I’m sure you had the hots for Molly Ringwald. All the guys did.”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh, the blonde then, the one dancing around in her underwear?”
“Definitely not her. I liked Andie, actually. Not Molly. But the character of Andie.”
Jenna shot him a sideways glance. “She was an outcast and kind of quirky, don’t you think?”
“What’s wrong with quirky?”
“Nothing.” A strange expression flickered across her face before she picked up her spoon and motioned to the bowl. “So, what do we have here?”
“Oh, just a little white chocolate and cream, and caramel filled chocolate squares, with some egg bread I had laying around. I suppose you’d call it chocolate caramel bread pudding.”
“I love bread pudding. I haven’t had a pudding like this since I left home. Although I know my mom never made anything this decadent.”
Bryce found himself grinning, filled with an absurd adolescent feeling of giddiness. He was always like this when someone waxed on about his cooking. He was even more giddy, he realized, when that someone was Jenna.
Jenna’s mom was a phenomenal cook, and Bryce knew that to wow Jenna was a difficult task. She was clearly wowed now, though. She was closing her eyes, savoring the sweet smell wafting up from the bowl.
She dug into the custard mixture with her spoon and was about to raise it to her mouth, when he wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “Wait.” She looked at him, and all of a sudden his heart did this weird flopping thing.
“What?” she asked, her voice so soft and quiet and so very feminine.
“I…” he licked his lips and pressed closer to her. “I just wanted to say Happy birthday.” He bent to kiss her cheek, something he’d done numerous times in their friendship. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Instead, he cupped her cheek and brought her forward, dragging his mouth against the curve of her ear and down lower to her jaw. God, she smelled good. And she felt good, so soft against his hand and mouth.
“Happy birthday,” he said once more, kissing the corner of her mouth, then he pulled away, horrified by his actions and wondering what she was going to say.
But true to Jenna form, she saved his ego by not making a big deal out of his lost control. Instead she smiled and pointed at the bowl with the tip of her spoon. “So what do you call this?”
“It needs a name. If it’s any good, that is.”
She smiled and raised a spoonful to her lips. Catching his gaze, she slid a bit of the steaming pudding into her mouth. With a groan, she closed her eyes. “Good? Bryce, this is awesome. This is…” she blushed and looked away.
He put his bowl down on the coffee table and cupped her cheek. “Tell me what you were gonna say.”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze. Bryce saw some struggle waged in her eyes before she lifted her lashes and looked fully at him.
“This is so good, it could be sex on a plate.”
His heart went into overdrive. Pressing closer, Bryce watched her take another bite. “Yeah?” he asked, his voice curiously hoarse.
“Yeah,” she replied in a rush of breath.
Her breasts pushed against the pink satin, her nipples pressing against the bodice. He watched as a lace strap slid down her shoulder. He reached out, hooking his finger beneath it, knowing he should slide it back onto her shoulder, but wanting to lower it, wanting to expose her breast—needing to feel all that soft flesh in his hand.
Her breath seemed to hitch, and so did his. What was he doing? Hell, what was she thinking, looking up at him like that?
“Do you want a bite?” she asked, her voice a little shy and tremulous.
He swallowed—hard. His fingers were still beneath the strap of her chemise, still frozen, immobilized against her soft skin. They started to move then, to brush the soft downy skin of her upper arm. His body heated as he felt the first flush of her goosebumps erupt beneath his fingertips.
“I want to watch you eat,” he said, feeling his erection harden even more.
She took another bite that was laden with chocolate and caramel. He watched, his mouth dry as she spooned the delicacy into her mouth and closed her eyes in blissful surrender.What would it be like to experience that sweetness as it coated her lips, her tongue? What would it be like to feed her and have her feed him, to taste that warm liquid chocolate as it dribbled its way over her breasts and belly?
Like a voyeur, he watched her eat, conscious of the way his body hardened and his lips parted as if he were eating each and every bite with her.
He wanted her spread on the table like a meal for him to devour at his leisure. He saw himself seated, Jenna spread atop the table, his tongue licking away the sweet rivers of chocolate as she moaned and begged him to eat—other, more pleasurable parts of her body.
Her gaze locked with his, and she held the silver spoon which was overflowing with custard and chocolate out to him. Unblinkingly, he sat forward and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. He put the dessert in his mouth, and didn’t taste the rich chocolate, or the sweet caramel--the only taste he had was that of desire. The sweet, heady elixir was swimming in his mouth.
“Well?” she asked.
This time, he heard the breathless pant of desire in her voice, saw the flicker of awakening in her eyes. He swallowed slowly, then holding her gaze, he brought his mouth to hers until his lips brushed her lower one.
“Taste me, Jenna.”

Eyecandy

2009-08-28T10:51:00.002-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-08-28T10:43:00.001-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-08-26T15:57:00.001-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-08-21T16:00:00.002-04:00

I seem to be stuck on G.I. Joe lately.

The Amanda Project: Invisible I

2009-08-20T14:01:00.009-04:00

The Amanda Project Book 1: Invisible I by:
Stella Lennon, aka Melissa Kantor

Pre-Order Now

Received this book as a ARC. I just finished up and can I just say WOW! I must say I was a little skeptical about this book because normally YA books are hit & miss with me. This one was a hit in a big way. This story is solid, well written and had me intrigued very early on in the book. The characters are amazing and I love the fact we get to see them grow and come into their own. The mystery is deep (I can't wait to solve it myself) and will keep any adult entertained while still being exciting and suspenseful enough to keep young readers engaged. It is well written and with such a light touch I will happily allow my 11 yr old to read it. I'm looking forward to book 2 and can't wait to find out more about Amanda.

Synopsis

Callie Leary has exactly one thing, and one thing only, in common with Nia Rivera and Hal Bennett:They were each chosen by Amanda to be her guide. When Amanda arrived at Endeavor High, she told Callie she moves around a lot and always picks one person to help her navigate the choppy waters of a new school. Why did Amanda lie?Following a course that they suspect Amanda deliberately plotted, Callie, Nia, and Hal piece together some cryptic clues. But they find more questions than answers and quickly realize that before they can figure out what happened to Amanda-the girl who changed their lives-they'll need to solve the most important mystery of all: WHO IS AMANDA VALENTINO?

There's more to the story at . . . . http://www.theamandaproject.com/

August Reads

2009-08-19T10:17:00.005-04:00

1. The Stranger I Married - Sylvia Day (Yummy)

2. Destined For An Early Grave - Jeaniene Frost (Love It)

3. Fated - Shayla Black (Perfect)

4. Laid Bare - Lauren Dane (Must read more by her)

5. Invisible I - The Amanda Project - Melissa Kantor (I'm intrigued)

6. Bad Moon Rising - Sherrilyn Kenyon

7. DreamFever - Karen Marie Moning (*gasp* Major Cliffhanger!)
8.Hot In Here - Sophie Renwick (Yum!)
9.Dance Of The Dragon - Cathryn Fox (Soo Good)
10.Love Slave For Two - Tymber Dalton

Eyecandy

2009-08-18T12:30:00.001-04:00

The Stranger I Married

2009-08-13T11:20:00.008-04:00

This book was a sweet reminder of how much I truly love historical romance. Sylvia is a mastermind when it comes to dealing with rakes, intrigue, bed sport, bold women and tender heartfelt moments. The Stranger I Married takes us on a journey through friendship, lust and love and I was happy to be along for the ride.

Favorite Quote: "You heal me. Perhaps I can heal you too. If you allow me to." *swoon*

Book Description

Lady Pelham could not have designed a husband more suited to her needs. The Marquess of Grayson is a dear and enchanting friend and an unrepentant ladies’ man. Their union is solid; their hearts safe from one another. But every marriage has its surprises…
THEY WERE TOGETHER FOR ALL THE WRONG REASONS…
They are London’s most scandalous couple. Isabel, Lady Pelham, and Gerard Faulkner, Marquess of Grayson, are well matched in all things–their lusty appetites, constant paramours, wicked wits, provocative reputations, and their absolute refusal ever to ruin their marriage of convenience by falling in love with one another. Isabel knows such a charming rake will never appeal to her guarded heart, nor will she sway his philandering one. It is a most agreeable sham…until a shocking turn of events sends Gerard from her side.
Now, four years later, Gerard has come home to Isabel. But the carefree, boyish rogue who left has been replaced by a brooding, powerful, irresistible man who is determined to seduce his way into her affections. Gone is the devil-may-care companion who shared her friendship and nothing more, and in his place is temptation itself…a husband who desires Isabel body and soul and who will stop at nothing to win her love. No, this is not at all the man she had married. But he is the man who might finally steal her heart…

Due to a large volume of reader requests, the mass market reissue includes a bonus epilogue. However, you don’t have to buy the mass market version to read it. You can download it right here. Hope you enjoy!

THE STRANGER I MARRIED (Bonus Epilogue) (292.4 KiB, 237 hits)

Buy It!

Excerpt

“His Lordship is at home, my lady.”
For a great many women such a statement was a common utterance and nothing of note, but for Isabel, Lady Grayson, it was so rarely heard, she could not remember the last time her butler had said the same to her.
She paused in the foyer, tugging off her gloves before handing them to the waiting footman. She took her time with the task, taking the extra brief moments to collect herself, and ascertain that her racing heart was not outwardly visible.
Grayson had returned.
Isabel couldn’t help but wonder why. He’d rejected every missive she sent to his steward, and had sent none to her. Having read the dowager’s letter, she knew what had broken him that day he’d left both London and her. She could imagine his pain, having seen his initial excitement and subsequent pride at becoming a father. As his friend, she wished Gray had allowed her to provide him more than just that one hour of comfort, but he’d turned away from her, and years had passed.
She smoothed her muslin skirts, and touched a hand to her upswept hair. When she caught herself checking her appearance, Isabel stopped with a muttered curse. This was Gray. He would not care how she looked. “The study?”
“Yes, my lady.”
The scene of that day.
She nodded, and squared her shoulders, shoring up her nerve. As ready as she would ever be, Isabel passed the curving staircase and turned into the first open door on the right. Despite her mental and physical preparations, the sight of her husband’s back struck her like a physical blow. He stood silhouetted in the window, appearing taller and definitely broader. His powerful torso tapered to a trim waist, beautifully curved ass, and long, muscular legs. Framed by the dark green velvet curtains, the perfect symmetry of his form stole her breath.
But there was a somber, oppressive air that surrounded him that was so distant from the carefree man she remembered. It forced her to take another deep breath before opening her mouth to speak.
As if he felt her presence, Gray turned before she managed a word. Her throat closed tight as a fist.
He was not at all the man she had married.
They stared at each other, both held motionless in the pregnant pause. Only a few years, and yet it seemed a lifetime had passed. Grayson was no longer a boy, not by any stretch of the imagination. His face had lost that faint remnant of youth, and time had etched its passing in the lines that bracketed his mouth and eyes. Not happy lines, she could see. Frown lines, lines of sorrow. The brilliant blue of his irises that had caused many women to fall in love with him were now a deeper, darker shade. They no longer smiled, and appeared to have seen far more than possible in only a four year span.
She raised a hand to her bodice, dismayed by the rapid lift and fall of her chest.
Gray had been beautiful before. Now, there were no words to describe him. She forced her breathing to slow, and fought off a sudden, desperate flare of panic. She had known how to handle the boy, but this…this man was not tamable. Had she met him anew, she would know to stay far away.
“Hello, Isabel.”
Even his voice had changed. It was deeper now, slightly raspy.
Isabel had no notion of what to say to him.
“You have not changed at all,” he murmured, striding toward her. The previous cockiness of his bearing was gone, replaced by the type of confidence one gained from walking through hell and surviving it.
Sucking in a deep breath, she was inundated with the familiar scent of him. A little spicier, perhaps, but he smelled like Gray, nevertheless. Staring up at his impassive face, she could do no more than shrug helplessly.
“I should have written,” he said.
“Yes, you should have,” she agreed. “Not just to warn me of your intent to visit, but before, if only to say that you were well. I have been worried about you, Gray.”
He gestured toward a nearby chair, and she sank into it gratefully. As he moved to the settee across from her, Isabel noted his quaint garb. While he wore trousers with jacket and waistcoat, the garments were plain, and of common materials. Whatever he had been doing these last years, it apparently had not required the latest fashions.
“I apologize for your worry.” One side of his mouth curved upward in a ghost of his former smile. “But I could not tell you I was well, when I was far from it. I could not bear to look at letters, Pel. It was not because they were from you. For years I avoided any sight of correspondence. But now…” He paused, and his jaw tightened, as if with determination. “I am not visiting.”

Would you like to read more?

Eyecandy

2009-08-12T13:09:00.004-04:00

Cool*er eReader

2009-08-10T09:54:00.002-04:00

Blue Diablo

2009-07-25T11:41:00.004-04:00

Met this new to me author at RT 2009 and wanted her book so bad but I had already blew my budget. What I should have done was scrape pennies to buy it. The story is strong, fast paced, and action packed. The hero is sweet, sexy, and mysterious. The heroine is strong, smart, and sassy. It has everything I want in in a UF. Throw in a wicked sense of humor from the author and I have a great new series to add to my auto buy list. Well done Ann. I can't wait for the next one!

Publisher: Roc(April 7, 2009)

ISBN-10: 0451462645

ISBN-13: 978-0451462640

Order Now
— Amazon— Barnes and Noble— Books-a-million— Borders— Mysterious Galaxy— Powell’s

Get your Blue Diablo gear here and here!

Blurb

Right now, I’m a redhead. I’ve been blonde and brunette as the situation requires, though an unscheduled color change usually means relocating in the middle of the night. So far, I’m doing well here. Nobody knows what I’m running from. And I’d like to keep it that way…
Eighteen months ago, Corine Solomon crossed the border to Mexico City, fleeing her past, her lover, and her “gift”. Corine, a handler, can touch something and know its history—and sometimes, its future. Using her ability, she can find the missing—and that’s why people never stop trying to find her. People like her ex, Chance…
Chance, whose uncanny luck has led him to her doorstep, needs her help. Someone dear to them both has gone missing in Laredo, Texas, and the only hope of finding her is through Corine’s gift. But their search may prove dangerous as the trail leads them into a strange dark world of demons and sorcerers, ghosts and witchcraft, zombies—and black magic…

“Ann Aguirre proves herself yet again in this gritty, steamy and altogether wonderful urban fantasy. Outstanding and delicious. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.”–NYT Bestselling author Patricia Briggs

“Rising star Aguirre moves from outer space to the Southwest in this new first-person series. Corine Solomon peers into a dark world filled with ghosts, demons and sorcerers. With murder, magic and romance, this is an enticingly dangerous journey. Don’t miss out!”-Romantic Times

“An authentic Southwestern-flavored feast, filled with magic, revenge and romance, spiced with memorable characters and page-turning action. ¡Muy caliente!”–Rachel Caine, author of the Weather Warden series

Excerpt
Your first taste is free.

Chance Met
Right now, I’m a redhead.
I’ve been blonde and brunette as the situation requires, though an unscheduled color change usually means I need to relocate in the middle of the night or face people burning crosses on my lawn. I’ve set a new record, going on eighteen months in the same city, no consequences, no demonstrations, and for the last year, I’ve been a respectable business owner to boot. Maybe I should knock wood.
So I do.
But right now, a redhead. I tell myself it goes with the blue eyes, even if my skin is a little too olive for the carpet to match the drapes. And sure, I get a few looks because it’s a true red, Garnier Nutrisse 64R to be exact, not the plum that most women here favor, but I may as well please myself because I will never, ever blend in entirely. The best I can do is to make sure nobody reckons me any crazier than anyone else.
Around here they do call me la Americana loca, but I figure it’s affectionate, as it doesn’t stop them from coming to my shop. Unlike many of the open-air tiendas, I have a front door and a bell that chimes softly when anyone enters my domain, a dim and shady store piled high with junk or treasure, depending on your definition. I have handmade pots and broken radios, alleged religious artifacts and rare books in sixteen languages.
A ceiling fan stirs sluggishly overhead, but it never gets hot inside. The buildings are heavier, solid rock covered with plaster, so it’s cool and shady when the mercury rises and even the lizards are too lazy to move. Sometimes people step in, wanting a break from the sun, or to get out of the deluge during rainy season, but they never leave without buying something. That’s part of my unique gift (and why I always work in retail). At one point I sold furniture on commission but it just wasn’t fair, fish in a barrel.
Ostensibly, I run a pawn shop marked by a simple red and white sign that reads Casa de Empeno, but anyone who lives in Los Remedios along the road to Atizapan will tell you it’s more. They’ll also offer you a fuchsia candy tortilla at the stoplight just before you come to my store; it’s the intersection where a man with a mime’s face juggles fire and a monkey-less organ grinder plies his trade dispiritedly (how he lost the monkey is another story). Don’t eat the tortilla, don’t tip more than twenty pesos, and make a left turn. You’ll find me, if you really need to.
I’m an expert at staying hidden. More than once, it’s been the difference between life and death, so I live lean and keep my head down. So far as I know, I’m doing well here. Nobody knows what I’m running from.
And I’d like to keep it that way.
Unfortunately, our pasts have a way of coming back, time and again, just like our shadows. Oh, there are ways to sever your shadow, and I know a guy who did, but it was a really bad idea. He took sick afterward, died the slow death of a consumptive, and last I heard, his shadow was making a killing in Atlantic City. Literally.
These are dark times, and I just want a quiet place to ride it out.
Unfortunately, things never seem to work out the way I want them.
My first inkling that I hadn’t covered my tracks completely came on a sunny Wednesday afternoon. I was sitting behind the glass case in my shop, eyeballing a pair of hand painted porcelain miniatures I’d bought for two hundred pesos maybe twenty minutes before. Nice, they looked Dutch, and some tourist would buy them by next Friday.
Foretelling isn’t really my thing–well, only as an adjunct to my real gift and only as relates to the object I’m handling. When I touch something, I know what’s happened to an item, who’s owned it, and to a lesser extent, what will happen to it in the future, although that’s less sure, as any diviner could tell you. Such prediction isn’t much use, unless you’re breathless with wondering about the fate of hand painted Dutch miniatures. Most people aren’t.
History, though…yeah, therein lays the magic. And the reason folks never stop trying to find me. If this could talk, people say dreamily, peering at a piece of antique jewelry. In truth it’s generally pretty boring; the item gets worn, and then it goes in a box. Repeat. But once in a while, once in a while an item passes across my palms with a real story to tell.
And that’s where the trouble starts.
Trouble smells like singed horsehair. I’ll never get past that. When I was ten, my pony burnt up in our barn, and I’ll never forget the way Sugar screamed. That was my first look at an angry mob, but not my last. If you think they don’t burn witches anymore, you never lived in Kilmer. And that’s the damnedest thing; those same folks will come creeping after dark to your back door, one by one, begging for the moon, but get them all together, talking, and they start lighting torches.
To this day, when life is about to get rocky, I smell the burning all over again, one of two legacies my mama left me. And on that Wednesday, the shop stunk to high heaven as someone pushed through the door, jingling the bell. I put down the miniatures, already braced to make a break for the door off the alley.
But I didn’t want to leave, dammit. Thanks to the second gift my mama gave me, I made a good living here and sometimes I even went out on Saturday nights. Nobody brought me tiny pierced earrings from dead babies or soiled mittens from missing children. Nobody expected me to do anything at all, and that was exactly how I liked it.
I don’t know if the dark-haired man who walked into my store that day has a name, other than Chance. I’ve heard he came by the tag from the silver coin he likes to toy with, rolling it across his knuckles, tossing it for a hundred and coming up tails every time. Regardless, his presence in my humble shop in Los Remedios, two thousand miles from where I’d seen him last, could mean nothing good.
“You’re a hard woman to find,” he said, leaning up on my counter like he thought I’d be glad to see him. “I could almost be hurt by that, Corine.”
Well, I couldn’t really argue as I’d left him sleeping in my bed when I took flight. “What’re you doing here?”
“I need you to handle something for me, just one job. I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t important.” Pleading, he fixed his eyes on me, striated amber, knowing I was a sucker for that look.
Or I used to be. I wasn’t anymore.
And Chance wasn’t my manager any longer either. I didn’t want to handle, didn’t want to tell people their loved one had been strangled while wearing that sweater. I didn’t want to do that anymore.
My hormones gave a little kick. After all this time, he still had the power to make my pulse skip. Some genius genetics had gone into Chance’s making: long and lean, chiseled face with a vaguely Asian look, capped by uncanny eyes and a mouth that could tempt a holy sister to sin. I wondered if he’d felt the last kiss I brushed against that mouth, eighteen months ago. I wondered whether he’d missed me or just the revenue.
To make matters worse, he knew how to dress, and today he wore Kenneth Cole extremely well: crinkle-washed shirt in Italian cotton, jet with a muted silver stripe, dusty black button-fly jeans, polished shoes and a black velvet blazer. I didn’t need his sartorial elegance to remind me I’d gone native, a sheer gauze blouse with crimson embroidery around the neck and a parti-colored polyester skirt with an elastic waist. I was even wearing flip-flops. They had a big red silk hibiscus on each toe, but flip-flips nonetheless. It was amazing he could look at me with a straight face.
But then, he’d been raised well. His mother, Yi Min-chin, was a nice lady who made great kimchi and pulgoki, but he’d never say who his daddy was, claiming such knowledge granted too much power over him. And his mom went along with it. I figured it was just more of his bullshit, but with Chance, you just never could be sure. He had the devil’s own luck, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Lucifer himself someday came to claim him.
“It’s never just one job with you,” I said then with a trace of bitterness. “I’m a show pony to you, and you never get tired of putting me through my paces. I am out of the life now. Retired. Get it? Now get out and if you ever felt anything for me, don’t tell anybody where I am.” I hated the way my tone turned pleading at the end.
I’d built this life. I didn’t want to have to parlay to keep it.
Without a word, he flattened his palm on the top of the glass case that housed my rare treasures. When he lifted his hand, I expected to see his coin because the item glinted silver. But as I leaned in, I saw something that sent snakes disco dancing in my belly.
Because it meant I had to help him.

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Destined For An Early Grave

2009-07-22T14:48:00.003-04:00

NY Times & USA Today bestselling author

Destined For An Early Grave

Book Four in the Night Huntress Series

Coming July 28, 2009

Since half-vampire Cat Crawfield and her undead lover Bones met six years ago, they've fought against the rogue undead, battled a vengeful Master vampire, and pledged their devotion with a blood bond. Now it's time for a vacation. But their hopes for a perfect Paris holiday are dashed when Cat awakes one night in terror. She's having visions of a vampire named Gregor who's more powerful than Bones and has ties to her past that even Cat herself didn't know about.

Preview Destined For An Early Grave Here

Eyecandy

2009-07-22T12:54:00.002-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-07-16T14:57:00.002-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-07-14T10:41:00.001-04:00

Seduce Me In Shadow

2009-07-11T20:05:00.015-04:00

Caden is an amazing character. Conflicted feeling about his magical awakening he has been sent to retrive the stolen Doomsday Diary. Easier said than done when feisty Sydney Blair is involved. Caden is a sexy, protective, tortured alpha male that kept my attention from cover to cover.

We are drawn even deeper into the lives of all the Doomsday Brethern and I must say I've fallen for them all. We get a peek inside several powerful passionate scenes with the warriors that left me breathless. Super hott alpha males that are surprisingly vulnerable at times will keep me coming back every time.

A question I asked over and over before I got my grubby little hands on this book was did she bring us the heat and now I can answer...... Shayla Brought it! : )

Seduce Me in Shadow
Doomsday Brethren Series, Book 2 — Caden’s StoryPublisher: Pocket BooksISBN-10: 1416578447

ISBN-13: 9781416578444

Genre: Paranormal/Urban Fantasy RomanceRelease Date: September 29, 2009

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When a villainous wizard escapes from exile, the devastatingly sexy Doomsday Brethren must defend all magickind in the spellbinding second book in bestselling author Shayla Black’s seductive new paranormal series.

Ex-Marine Caden MacTavish has shunned his magical heritage all his life, but he will do anything to heal his desperately ill brother, a Doomsday Brethren warrior in mourning for his missing mate. Posing as a photographer, Caden must convince firecracker tabloid reporter Sydney Blair to reveal the source of her recent exposé on a supernatural power clash. Unfortunately, keeping his hands off the sizzling redhead proves as hard as getting them onto the potent and mystical Doomsday Diary he discovers at her bedside. A bloody rebellion led by an evil, power-hungry wizard is imminent. If Sydney divulges the book’s existence, she will jeopardize magickind’s most deeply guarded secrets and become the ruthless wizard’s number one target. Caden has never trusted magic’s cruel and dangerous powers, but he will protect Sydney with his life and magic—even if it means risking his heart.

READ THE FIRST CHAPTER

Chapter One

“We have problems.”
Caden MacTavish rolled his eyes. If Bram Rion thought that was news, it came two weeks too late.
Hovering on the edge of a bottle green armchair, Caden watched Merlin’s grandson slam the door to his palatial home office, locking the Doomsday Brethren into the edgy silence with him. Each were warriors in their own way, most magical. All had the kind of mettle that would have been welcome in the Marine platoon in which Caden had served.
Without Bram’s Hollywood smile, magickind’s Brad Pitt looked both jumpy and grave. In fact, all the wizards, and Marrok, the former immortal and King Arthur’s champion, looked grim. The tension ratcheted up, and Caden’s thoughts drifted to his absent brother Lucan, a Doomsday Brethren warrior.
Please God, let this end soon.
A loud crash upstairs thumped the ceiling, shook the walls. A woman screamed, terror bleeding from her voice. On the upper floor, a door crashed open, the shrieking grew louder, and footsteps pounded above him. She was running down the stairs. Heading out the door.
Tearing out of the library, Caden raced to the shrieking blond woman, ignoring Bram’s shout calling him back. He grabbed the frantic witch by her shoulders. Though likely over two hundred, she looked deceptively young. Her wide green eyes were frightened, as if she’d been playing a game of chicken with a barreling freight train.
“Wait. Please.” He caught her anxious gaze. “My brother—”
“I can’t.” Her voice quivered. “He’s big and feral and—snarled that I smell of another man. He ripped his ch—chains.” Her words broke with new tears. “And lunged for my throat.”
Caden closed his eyes and held in a curse. The fifth energy surrogate Lucan had frightened away in two weeks. Now what?
At the top of the stairs, Bram’s sister Sabelle appeared. Her lace shirt and golden hair were askew, but her demeanor was calm. “I have Lucan under control. Let her go.”
Instead, Caden clasped the witch tighter. If he released her, what would become of his brother? “He needs her. Without the energy she generates…”
Caden couldn’t finish the sentence. The thought.
“He’ll die.” Sabelle sighed. “He misses Anka so deeply that it’s unhinged him mentally. My Aunt Millie says she’s never seen a case of mate mourning this severe.”
More dreadful news. Where was the freaking light at the end of the tunnel? Bram and Sabelle had dragged him away from his peaceful life in Dallas two weeks ago; the hell hadn’t let up since. Frustration ate his gut like acid. He didn’t want to fail Lucan. Years ago, he’d been unable to save his younger brother. Damned if he’d let his older one die, too.
“If Lucan isn’t taking the energy to survive from these women, how can he have enough strength to fight them?”
“Primal rage,” Sabelle supplied. “When the surrogates come, it’s as if he’s defending an attack. It’s a delusion, and we can’t explain otherwise to him. All his senses, except smell, have shut down. Surrogates bring the smells of their other clients along unwittingly. Lucan fights back.”
“Maybe…it’s time to consider that he wants death,” Bram murmured behind him.
Fury slashed through Caden. What kind of friend even thought that? Caden had held the hands of fallen comrades in Iraq and prayed for their recovery…even as some rattled their last breath.
“My brother will not die like this! I will find Anka and bring her back.”
“It may be too late. Let the witch go,” Bram demanded.
“Please,” the scared blonde pleaded.
Caden shook with rage. He wanted to crush something, punch a wall, lash out at magic, which had again screwed up his life. But the sobbing witch in his grasp shrank back in fear, like he, too, was a monster.
For about the two hundredth time since returning to England a fortnight ago, Caden cursed magic. To a human male, the loss of a beloved wife could be emotionally devastating. But as a wizard, Lucan’s loss had reduced a perfectly sane person to a rabid animal. The man upstairs wasn’t the older brother Caden had idolized as a child.
Though he’d left his childhood home a dozen years ago and disavowed anything or anyone associated with magic, now that tragedy had struck, and he might lose his only remaining brother, guilt seared Caden. The thought of never speaking to Lucan again? Unthinkable.
He must restore Lucan’s mental health. To do that, he had to find Anka and return her to his brother’s arms—quickly. And clearly, the witch Caden currently detained couldn’t help.
With a sigh, he released her. “Go.”
She sprinted out and closed the door. Silence reverberated.
“Come back to my office,” Bram said.
Caden whirled on the wizard. “I won’t give up on my brother, damn you!”
With a twitch of Bram’s finger, Caden was magically hauled back into the office. Caden seethed with resentment slammed the door behind them. He opened his mouth to give the wizard a furious earful, but Bram held up a hand.
“I understand your frustration. But our difficulties aren’t merely about you and your family. These problems affect us all.” He gestured to the other three men in the room. “And the rest of magickind.”
“My brother is chained to a bed like a lunatic, Anka is missing, and we haven’t a single clue where she’s gone. We cannot make Lucan whole without her return. Nothing is more important.”
“I wish. Our other problems are many and grave.”
Ice Rykard, another of the warriors, was a big man, but when annoyance stamped his square, hollow-cheeked face, like now, sane people backed away. “You summoned me here to tell me what I already know?”
As Ice rose to leave, Bram blocked his path. “Something new has arisen. Prudence requires that we attend to it. All of us.”
Bram refused to help his brother, then sought his assistance? Caden would have laughed if he weren’t so furious. “I came only to find my brother’s missing mate—”
“Former mate,” Bram corrected. “Their bond is broken.”
“Involuntarily,” Caden stressed. “I’ve no doubt Lucan still regards Anka as his, and they were in love. Why would she not welcome him back? I’m here to find her so they can bond again, not solve your problems.”
Bram sighed. “Lucan is my best friend, and I want more than anything to make him whole again. But that is a mission of mercy. The other matters are of life and death.”“If you do not help me find Anka, Lucan will die!”
“If we fail to act on this new problem, thousands, maybe millions, will die. Including Lucan.”
Sacrificing one for many. Bram had shoved this “necessity” down Caden’s throat before. His patience was wearing thin. Exhaling, he rubbed gritty eyes. Every day, worrying. Every night, not sleeping—he often paced, Lucan’s mad countenance swimming in his mind. Meanwhile, his brother’s “friends” worried about everyone else.
“Please.” Simon Northam, aka Duke, the youngest of the Doomsday Brethren, drilled him with a direct stare. “We need you as much as Lucan. The sooner we tend to these issues, the sooner we can help him.”
Caden felt four pairs of eyes locked on him. Except for the fact Bram had kept a roof over Lucan’s head, he owed these men nothing. He’d known them a mere fortnight, wanted nothing to do with magickind and their problems. But their stares accused him of abandoning them…and Lucan’s cause. Guilt twisted in his gut.
Blast them! He merely wanted peace and solitude since witnessing half his friends dying in Iraq. Of the few who had survived, two had returned home, only to commit suicide. Another was in prison, unable to make the transition from shooting terrorists in a desert shit hole to walking the dog in suburbia. The last had gone missing following a training exercise at his home base. The tragic death of Caden’s younger brother nearly two decades ago had proved that magic’s body count was even more shocking and heartbreaking. He’d had enough of loss, of death. As soon as Lucan recovered, Caden would return to his sedate life as a staff photographer for a Dallas newspaper. No one died taking pictures of city council meetings.
“The Doomsday Brethren means a great deal to Lucan,” Bram reminded.
Manipulative bastard.
“Besides, you may soon need us. Your magic is coming…”
Caden prayed that his sleeplessness was merely anxiety, stress, and not a harbinger of his own coming transition into magic. But there was no denying the electrical surges and flashes of emotion racing through his body of late. He feared the witching hour— in this case, his thirtieth birthday—was approaching. “Not if I can help it.”
“You can’t.” Bram shrugged. “If you have the magic gene, it’s coming.”
Marrok, the human warrior-giant who looked every inch a medieval knight, from the slash of straight hair that reached his shoulders to the sword strapped to his hip, frowned at Bram. “Does this new problem concern Shock? Have we yet heard from the varlet?”
The shadiest member of the Doomsday Brethren had been MIA since their battle two weeks ago with the evil wizard Mathias, who sought to control magickind with the help of his minions, the Anarki. During that skirmish, Shock had suddenly appeared to switch his loyalties to the other side. No surprise there, given the man’s dark background. Because Shock was both Anka’s previous suitor and cozy with Mathias, Bram thought he might be willing to divulge Anka’s whereabouts. Caden disagreed. Mathias had brutalized Anka after abducting her and forcing her to break her mate bond with Lucan. Shock had apparently done nothing to help her.
Bram, Ice, and Duke all shook their heads.
“Nothing? That is vexing,” Marrok snarled. “Surely he has told Mathias much about us.”
“It’s Mathias’s quiet that disturbs me,” Ice cut in. “Two weeks of it… Right dodgy. Makes me itch.”
If Caden cared about magickind, he’d agree. But his only mission was to determine what Mathias had done with Anka and return her in the hopes of restoring Lucan’s sanity.
“During our last battle, Olivia laid a bolt of power on Mathias that should have flattened the bastard,” drawled Duke. Clad head to toe in designer everything, he looked perfectly urbane and wealthy, the artful muss of his dark hair cut perfectly, just like his aristocratic features, all the way down to his cleft chin. “It appeared to deplete his magic and should have prevented him from rising again, but…”
“This is Mathias,” Ice finished.
Exactly. If Mathias regained even half his power, the small but determined cabal of warriors assembled under Bram’s direction were screwed, and every man in the room knew it. How could the Doomsday Brethren kill a wizard who had already returned from the dead once? He had an army of slaves at his disposal. Caden could count the Doomsday Brethren on one hand.
Bram winced. “I’m afraid, gentlemen, our problems are worse than that.”
Marrok muttered, “Would that we knew from whence Mathias found so many disposable recruits.”
Those were troubling, indeed. Mathias had stripped the souls from their human bodies to create walking dead Anarki, for the purpose of helping Mathias enslave magickind and destroy the Doomsday Brethren. During their last battle, the black-blooded zombies had been plentiful—and immune to magic.
“All true,” Bram conceded. “But I called you here to discuss something even more critical.”
Ice cast him a cutting stare. “Your magical signature tells me you took a human mate last night? A problem, indeed.”
Caden’s jaw dropped. Bram, one of the most pedigreed wizards today, had taken a human mate?
“Wouldn’t your grandfather be proud?” Ice sneered. “Merlin prized that pure bloodline. Pity.”
Bram charged toward Ice. “Shut your bloody mouth, you fu—”
“Cease!” Marrok grabbed him and held him back.
Caden was inclined to help. Bram and Ice were always at one another’s throats. If Bram needed wizards loyal to him for the Doomsday Brethren, why the devil had he picked Ice to join?
“Piss off!” Bram growled.
“We can fight no enemy if we are too busy fighting one another,” Marrok advised.
“Beating in the tosser’s skull would make me feel better.”
“What has you on edge?” Duke asked.
Caden wondered the same thing. Bram was usually the voice of sanity amidst all this magical muck. At the moment, he behaved as if he was crawling out of his skin, one step away from the mental ward.
“Where is your mate?” Ice added fuel to the fire. “I’d like to offer her my condolences.”
“My mate is none of your concern. However, the Book of Doomsday is.” Bram hesitated, then rolled his shoulders. “Last night, while I slept, she found it.”
“Found it? Lying about?” Duke demanded.
“It was hidden.” Bram rubbed the back of his neck. “She must have searched for it.”
An ominous gong clanged in Caden’s gut. Magickind wasn’t his issue, but if that book disappeared…everyone, magical and human, was at risk.
“She cozied up to you to find the book?” Ice looked ready to laugh.
Bram didn’t have to answer; the humiliation on his face did it for him.
“Shut up!” Caden glared at the stubble-headed wizard, then turned back to Bram. “What happened? Where is the diary?”
“She took it and disappeared.”
Bram’s quiet admission resounded through the room.
“Fuck,” Ice muttered.
“You have no idea where it is?” Caden struggled to pick his jaw off the floor. “Where she is?”
“None.”
“Double fuck,” came Ice again.
The Doomsday Diary was the ultimate weapon in the magical war. If used properly, it was rumored to grant any wish, up to and including the world’s annihilation. People had died in Mathias’s quest to obtain it. Lucan’s life was in shambles because of it. The Doomsday Brethren had formed and were fighting a war to protect it. If Mathias obtained the book and used it to bring about doomsday—well, that was everyone’s problem.
“I second what Ice said,” Caden muttered.
“You had no magical protections on the book?” Duke asked.
“Of course. Against anyone magical. I never imagined a human would know of the book’s existence, much less that I had it. The only way she could know is if she’s Mathias’s pawn. I worry… What if he has the diary now? What will he do to her?” Bram paced, raking a frantic hand through his golden hair.
Marrok planted a friendly hand on Bram’s shoulder. “Use your bond to find her.”
With a shake of his golden hair, Bram sighed in frustration. “I can’t and I don’t understand why. I should be able to… It’s confounding me.”
“You touched her, aye?” Marrok asked. “Did you not use your powers to read her mind?”
“Yes…and no. I could read her body with my touch, but not her thoughts. I’ve never encountered such a woman before.”
Duke sighed. “What the devil should we do now?”
Panic? Caden kept the thought to himself.
“Not to add to our problems, but have you seen this?” Duke slid a newspaper in the middle of Bram’s desk. The bold black headline screamed Supernatural Forces Battle in South London Tunnel.
Bram glanced at the paper. “Out Of This Realm? It’s a rag. No one takes that rubbish seriously.”
Not true. Back home, several of the reporters at the Dallas Morning News were addicted to the paper’s imaginative stories. They were more creative than The National Enquirer.
“That may change after this issue’s lead article. The byline belongs to a reporter named Sydney Blair. She’s disturbingly close to the truth. Most news outlets wrote off the battle with Mathias as a foiled terrorist act, a gang initiation, or the work of a madman. Ms. Blair calls it ‘an ongoing clash between powerful factions within magickind.’”
Bram’s eyes bulged. “How the bloody hell does she even know there’s a magickind, much less an ongoing battle? Few in magickind know of Mathias’s return.”
Though Caden had eschewed magic long ago, even he knew the necessity of keeping magickind’s existence a secret from humans. Witch hunts, trials for heresy, and burnings at the stake weren’t distant memories for a society whose citizens often lived to be one thousand. The seventeenth century was, relatively speaking, last year. No one was naïve enough to think that technology was any insurance policy against genocide. People still killed what they didn’t understand.
“I consulted Peers and People of Magickind before coming here. I found no mention of her,” Duke said. “She is no witch, nor is she mated to a wizard.”
“Human? Mayhap she’s one of Mathias’s soulless minions,” Marrok suggested.
“If Mathias wanted to influence humanity, he wouldn’t take over a tabloid reporter’s mind to do it,” Bram assured. “Besides, if she’s still leading a human life, she could not do so looking like an undead Anarki. The other humans notice walking cadavers.”
“So she’s fully human,” Duke surmised. “And frightfully well informed.”
“Or perhaps…” Ice glared at him. “She’s getting her information from someone who rejected magickind and would celebrate its end.”
“Me?” Caden jumped in the big wizard’s face. “I’ve no love for magic, true, but I would never advocate mass murder. Besides, ending you all would mean my brother’s death. Would I be here saving him if I was willing to kill magickind?”
Duke nodded, the cooler head prevailing. “He’s right.”
Muttering, Ice backed away. Barely.
Turning back to the newspaper, Duke went on, “Whoever she is, she’s dangerous. The rest of the article is equally disturbing. ‘The bodies discovered in the tunnel are decomposed far beyond expected, given their recent deaths.’”
“This is no secret.” Marrok waved his words away. “The media has been scratching over that like a mongrel with fleas.”
“Listen further,” Duke barked. “‘Out Of This Realm has learned the bodies bear new wounds and fresh traces of gunpowder, suggesting they somehow fought in the battle, rather than merely being left behind as a macabre message. It appears as if they were actually more dead than alive prior to the battle, but able to fight due to evil magic.’”
“She’s guessing,” said Bram.
But even he didn’t sound convinced. Caden winced.
Duke shook his head. “Here’s more: ‘According to an anonymous source, there’s a mad wizard on the loose once more, allegedly fighting social injustice in the magical world. He’ll stop at nothing to tear down the establishment and replace it with his version of anarchy.’”
Caden shook his head. Poor magical bastards.
“Who is this anonymous source?” Bram demanded.
Duke laced his fingers together with quiet concern. “Ms. Blair claims it’s ‘a witch who recently found herself tangled in this magical war.’”
“A witch?” Ice spat. “Who knows so much?”
Caden’s heart stuttered and adrenaline charged. “Anka.”
“Or perhaps any of the other missing women, like Craddock’s daughter,” Ice pointed out. “But what witch in her right mind would spill sensitive secrets to a bloody reporter?”
Who knew? Still… “It could be Anka,” Caden insisted.
And possibly the first clue Caden had discovered to her whereabouts in a fortnight.
“Whoever her source, Sydney Blair knows there’s a magickind, that we’re at war, and that Mathias is supposedly fighting the Social Order,” Duke insisted.
“The moment anyone actually listens, humanity will hunt us. It’ll make the Inquisition will seem like a bloody holiday.” Bram raked a hand through his disheveled golden hair and continued to pace. “And if Mathias reads this, her life may well be in danger. We must handle this situation immediately.”
Bram leaned back against his desk. The morning sun slanted through the office’s open shutters, showing just how much strain the wizard was enduring. He swallowed, then pinned a wily gaze on Caden that made his blood freeze. “I know how we can deal with Ms. Blair. You’ve worked at a newspaper.”
Caden sent him a wary glance. “So?”
“Offer your services as a photographer and shut her up, before she reveals anything more about magickind.”
He didn’t want to get involved. “Why don’t you visit her and do that wizard mind-reading trick of yours?”
“Only works if I’m touching a woman—deeply. Now that I’m mated…well, I can no longer get that close to Sydney Blair, or any woman except mine. So you’ll have to go and pry information from her the human way.”
Caden’s thoughts raced. Perhaps he could placate them and help his brother. If he worked for Ms. Blair, he could discern if her anonymous source was Anka.
Bram smiled tightly. Bloody bastard had Caden by the balls and he knew it. In order to make Lucan whole, he must find his brother’s mate. At the moment, the reporter was his best—and only—lead.
#
“Have we come to the part yet where I spank you?”
Sydney Blair closed her eyes as the last notes of “Happy Birthday” echoed through the small conference room. Had her perpetually-randy coworker, Jamie, actually suggested a little light S&M with the entire staff of Out Of This Realm looking on?
A dozen of the newspaper’s employees twittered with nervous laughter, except her yummy new photographer, Caden MacTavish. Mortified, Sydney risked a glance at him. The taut arms bunched over his wide chest and the chilly blue of his watchful eyes made her wince.
Sydney slowly turned to the office lothario with a glare that let him know how little she appreciated his comment. He merely wagged his brows at her and grinned from ear to ear.
“Have we come to the part yet where you leave?” Caden countered.
The words somehow sounded polite. Caden had that upper crust Londoner sound, though muted by time elsewhere. But he could still say most anything and sound civilized. His current expression, on the other hand, rivaled Attila the Hun’s on a bad day.
“You think you should be first to have a go at her?” Jamie challenged Caden. “I’ve seen how you stare.”
Sydney went hot all over—from more than simple embarrassment. Caden lit her up like a millennium fireworks show. She’d be thrilled if the man had sexual thoughts of her. But in the few days she’d worked with him, he had not appeared to notice her more than professionally, despite Jamie’s delusions to the contrary.
“Bad Karma!” Aquarius, her flower-child assistant, scolded. “Mellow!”
Neither spared a glance for the little waif. Silver bracelets tinkling, Aquarius reached out to Caden. Whether she intended to soothe him or test his aura, Sydney didn’t know. She shot a warning glance at her assistant. Now was not a good time for her healing-crystal/save-the-world routine.
“You may find this concept hard to grasp,” Caden asserted, “but some men are capable of admiring more about a woman than what’s in her knickers.”
Jamie scoffed. “If he’s a nancy boy.”
Sydney smothered a laugh. Caden was definitely not gay. Despite that, she felt certain he’d never considered what went in her knickers. “Stop it, both of you! This is a birthday party, not a brawl.”
“What’s your wish?” asked Leslie from Circulation, trying to smooth the tension.
A romping shag with Caden, but since that wasn’t likely to happen… head reporter had a lovely ring to it. Sure, she worked for a paranormal tabloid that few took seriously, but it paid the bills. Soon, she hoped to make a name for herself writing stories that traditional journalists eschewed. And people everywhere would recognize her once she found proof of the supernatural. Until then she would write about the world she believed must exist—and her parents had utterly rejected. Besides, Out Of This Realm was a scream to work at. Where else could she collect a salary for chasing Ripper ghosts and conducting interviews at the London Psychic Centre?
Her personal life, on the other hand? Disaster. How did one manage to become a sad spinster at twenty-eight? The endless string of dates from her uni days had been replaced with deadlines and staff meetings. Her last boyfriend… His pretty face had failed to compensate for the fact he had the IQ of a dead houseplant and the emotional range of a pea. Perhaps she should wish for a man.
For Caden.
Yummy waves of chocolate hair with caramel streaks, fathomless blue eyes, a body that belonged in magazines—and a reserved exterior that made her long to know the man beneath. Too bad the attraction didn’t run both ways. She sighed.
“She can’t tell us her wish or it won’t come true,” Holly, her editor, pointed out, then faced Sydney. “Now stop fannying about and open your gifts.”
Sydney looked at the gifts on the table, but her gaze strayed to Caden, who continued glaring at Jamie.
He was a puzzle, that one.
From the moment Caden had walked in the door, he’d been fixated on that battle in the South London tunnel a few weeks back. He’d said her story about the magical war was utter rubbish…but asked a load of questions, especially about her source. Not that Sydney would tell him—or anyone else—the woman’s name. Impossible, anyway. She didn’t know it.
Aquarius distracted the tense crowd by shoving a bright pink floral-wrapped box into Sydney’s hands. From the number of packages stacked on the small round table in the conference room, it looked as if everyone had brought her something.
“You shouldn’t have gone to such trouble.”
“We want to show you how much we appreciate you,” said Leslie.
Aquarius started pouring cups of her infamous home-blended herbal tea as Sydney unwrapped gifts. A pair of delicate silver earrings, a relaxing massage at a local day spa, and a sumptuous Italian silk scarf trimmed in blue crushed velvet. Jamie gave her a gift certificate for a large pizza and a Blockbuster card—both of which he’d likely insist on sharing. Caden had given her a somewhat impersonal card and a small box of nice chocolates. She would have preferred a hungry kiss.
Wrapping paper and greeting cards littered the table when Sydney at last got to Aquarius’s package. The young woman was practically vibrating with excitement. “Open this! It’s from me.”
“You baked and organized and still got me something? You shouldn’t have.”
With the butterfly tattoo on her shoulder and her mesh and lace top, Aquarius didn’t dress like a normal assistant and refused to make coffee—too full of chemicals and caffeine. She wasn’t good with a computer…yet. But Aquarius had a knack for stories, for juggling Sydney’s hectic schedule, fielding the editor-in-chief, soothing paranoid readers and keeping internal chaos at a minimum. And despite being total opposites, she and Aquarius had become good friends. Sydney smiled at the thought.
“Are you two going to start snogging or are you going to open that?” Jamie hollered.
After tossing another glare at Jamie, Sydney turned to the gift. It was square and slightly heavy, wrapped in buttery yellow linen.
“Open it. Go on,” she whispered.
An odd anticipation revved through Sydney as she plucked at the silky white bow and tore open the wrapping to reveal…a book. An old-fashioned book. A red leather cover with gilt framing and some sort of scripty-looking symbol on the front. Sydney tried to hide her confusion.
Caden elbowed in and gave the book a very hard stare.
Aquarius laughed and urged her, “Read the card inside.”
With a shrug, she opened the cover to reveal. Hmm… An empty book with ever-so-slightly yellowed pages and a little white square of paper with a formal-looking script that read:
On these magical pages, spill your sensual fantasy,In a mere day’s time, your wishes will become reality.A kiss, a touch, a whisper, whatever you most desire,In the arms of your lover, pleasure will burn hotter than fire.
What? Aquarius believed this book could make sexual fantasies a reality? Sydney would love that, and she believed in magic, but this little unassuming book? In her hands?
Caden prowled close beside her, elbowing in for yet a closer look. He stared at the little journal, and she could smell that musky, woodsy scent of his that drove her mad.
“May I see that?” he demanded more than asked, reaching for the book.
“Certainly,” Sydney murmured, handing it over. The low-cut black jumper she’d worn yesterday had done nothing to snag his attention. This book? He was enraptured.
Aquarius sent her a secretive smile. “Syd, do you understand? It’s—”
“An old book,” Jamie hollered, edging in behind her. “What good is that?”
“I appreciate each gift. Thank you, everyone,” Sydney said through clenched teeth. “I suspect we should get back to work now.” Maybe that would make Jamie shove off.
Around her, the small crowd began to file out. Unfortunately, Jamie lingered. Sydney, her assistant, and Caden, still studying the book, also occupied the dusk-shadowed room.
“If you want something special for your birthday, I’ll make time for you this weekend,” Jamie offered with a leer as he dropped a hand on her hip and slid it toward her backside.
Sydney eased away and opened her mouth to defer to the mountain of work on her desk when Caden grabbed Jamie’s wrist and squeezed—hard.
“Bloody hell!” He jerked away and glared at Caden.
Normally, such high-handed tactics would annoy Sydney. She was a grown woman and knew how to fend off male octopi like Jamie. But if Caden’s unexpected caveman impression put the lazy sod off until she found a more private moment to tell him to get lost, splendid. If Caden was just the slightest bit jealous, even better.
“What the devil?” Jamie cried. “Let go!”
“As soon as you do.” Caden tightened his grip.
Jamie released her immediately. “Ring me this weekend if you want company.”
As Caden watched Jamie’s retreating back, he scowled. The waves of his silent disapproval towered over Sydney like a tsunami. She bit her lip.
“Would you mind speaking to me in your office for a few minutes?” he said.
As always, the tone was polite. She wondered if he thought to warn her about the evils of Jamie. Like an overprotective brother lecturing his adolescent sister?Depressing thought. Did she have to jump on Caden while naked before he understood?
“Fine.” Might as well get it over with.
Caden raised a dark brow at her sharp tone and gestured to the door. “After you.”
“Wait!” Aquarius snatched the book from Caden and gave it to Sydney. “Your gift! I should tell you about it.”
Oh, the “magical diary”. She couldn’t leave without hurting Aquarius’s feelings. Her confrontation with Caden would have to wait.
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
After a long glance at her, then the book, Caden nodded and slipped from the room.
Sydney dug her fingernails out of her palms, so frustrated she feared she would draw blood. Being a petite redhead, she didn’t have a centerfold’s breasts and wasn’t one of those model-like creatures men got all in a froth about. But Caden treated her almost asexually.
“You want him,” Aquarius whispered. It wasn’t a question.
“I couldn’t want him any more than if I’d shot myself with Cupid’s arrow.” She tossed her hands up in the air. “He doesn’t reciprocate.”
“You don’t know that,” Aquarius argued.
“Perhaps. He’s impossible to read. So bloody private.”
“I don’t think he’s as immune to you as you imagine.”
She shook her head glumly. “I’d love to believe that. No, I’d love to experience it.”
“You can.” Aquarius tapped the cover of the old book. “He can be yours for the night.”
Caden could have his pick of women. Besides being good-looking, intelligent, and polite, he had proven dependable thus far. He wasn’t lazy and seemed to truly listen. What woman wouldn’t want a total package? Yesterday’s snug shirt had outlined a positively yummy chest. And he was probably devastatingly good in bed—not that she’d ever know personally.
Or could she?
Sydney frowned. The idea tempted her. Could this journal possibly be magical? It sounded awfully fantastical—not that such a book existed, but that it had dropped into her lap. Supposing it had…would Caden truly be hers for the night after she jotted down a few ideas that involved scented massage oil, a big bed and his naked body?
She cast a gentle glance at her assistant. “You believe this book is real?”
“It made one of my fantasies come true,” Aquarius blurted. “Remember Alex, that yummy neighbor I told you about? He asked me out when I wrote down exactly what I wanted.”
“Aquarius, he had an itch for you, so when his calendar opened up, he rang.”
“And read my mind?” Aquarius challenged. “Until last week, I never knew making love under a waterfall would be so…invigorating.”
“A waterfall? Where did you find—”
“I’ll never tell.” She smiled coyly.
“Let me get this straight: This hunky bloke suddenly appeared and whisked you away to fulfill your fantasy, exactly as you wrote it?”
Dreamy didn’t begin to describe Aquarius’s faraway expression. “It was fantastic.”
Sydney groped around for a chair. “Maybe you need a holiday. You’re past due.”
“I’m completely sane. Though I enjoyed Alex, he wasn’t right for me—”
“No man ever is.”
Aquarius frowned. “There’s a man out there. Somewhere. I’ll know when I meet him.”
Sydney had heard this before.
“Point is, I don’t need this journal.” Aquarius shoved it at to her. “But you…”
“But me…what?” Sydney fisted her hands on her hips.
“Well, if you want Caden, write your fantasy in here.”
The idea was tempting. With her luck, Caden would find the fantasy she’d written. Since she didn’t think he wanted her, mortified wouldn’t begin to cover how bad she’d want to crawl into a hole and wait for a new millennium.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Neither is pining away. Look,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “take the diary with you this weekend and write your deepest desire about Caden. Wait a day or two. If it doesn’t come true, what have you lost? When I return from holiday, I’m sure you’ll have loads to tell me…”
#
Caden marched into Sydney’s office and barely refrained from slamming the door. The fiery sun setting over the jagged London skyline matched his mood. The Doomsday Diary, here? In human hands? He must steal it from Sydney, remove her from danger. He needed a plan. Now.
But he was besieged by an equally strong urge to punch both Bram Rion and Jamie What’s-his-name.
Wanting to beat Bram to a pulp? Caden understood that well. Bram embodied so much of what he despised about magic: the blithe assumption of supremacy, unpredictability, the utter inability to compromise, and the total lack of awareness that it might be required. Magic’s inequality chafed as well. In a human world, anyone could learn to defend themselves and grow stronger each day—or buy a better weapon. In the magical world, a witch or wizard never had more power than they were born with, and if they found themselves at the mercy of someone more evil and powerful than themselves… God help them.
But Caden’s reaction to Jamie he didn’t understand. Nor could he grasp his own drive to possess Sydney so completely that she was unaware another male even existed. He’d done his best to ignore it, hide it, but she’d become a fever in his blood. The urge defied logic. He was on a mission. He was good at those, thanks to the U.S. Marine Corps. Focus. Get in, get out, get the job done, end of story. Don’t do anything stupid.
Falling in life-altering lust with Sydney, particularly now, fell into the stupid category. Yet he couldn’t stop. His assignment was to prevent Sydney from revealing more about magickind—a move that would protect her too—and discover if Anka was her source of information. Unfortunately, he was finding it difficult to focus on more than pushing the saucy reporter against a wall, kissing her senseless, then shagging her into sighing bliss.
Damn it all! He hadn’t been naïve enough to believe that his assignment at Out Of This Realm would be easy, but he’d had little success tracking down Sydney’s source of information while stifling her stories. She was infuriatingly and admirably determined. Throw in the sudden and unexpected appearance of the Doomsday Diary? This had become what his platoon buddies called a cluster-fuck.
Cursing, he pulled his mobile phone from his belt and dialed an increasingly familiar number.
Bram answered immediately. “You have news?”
Did he ever, but first things first. “How is my brother?”
Bram hesitated. “Weak. We’re doing our best, but we’re running out of options.”
The wizard’s words were a stab in the chest. “Don’t you dare let him die while I’m in London doing your dirty work.”
“Believe me, if I had anyone else suited to this task, you would still be gnashing your teeth here at Lucan’s bedside. Matters are too critical for me to be there. Duke can pass as a human, but who would believe that the Duke of Hurstgrove wants a job at a tabloid? That leaves a fifteen-hundred year-old warrior, an attitude-challenged wizard, and you. You alone have both experience in photography and the human world.”
“Your problem is mine only as long as my brother is alive. If he dies, I cease to care. Are you clear?”
“As if you’d drawn me a picture.” Bram shot back. “Believe me, as desperately as we need wizards for this fight, I’ll happily release you when I can. I want only those committed to the cause.”
Bram’s intimation that he wasn’t good enough annoyed Caden. He shrugged it off. What did he care if Bram didn’t see him as a member of the team he hadn’t wished to join?
He’d wanted nothing to do with magic since his younger brother’s death—by his own mother’s magic. An accident, yes. But he’d been just twelve when Westin, barely toddling, had been stricken.
Since leaving home at eighteen, he’d lived happily among humanity. Their ways seemed normal, comfortable. Being back among magickind now merely reminded Caden of all the reasons he loathed it. This gut-wrenching madness of Lucan’s merely underscored everything.
“Rion, do you honestly believe that you and a handful of wizards can defeat the most powerful magical creature in a millennium and his growing army?”
“Perhaps not, but we’ll certainly fail if we don’t try. Why do you care as long as Lucan stays alive?”
“He’d better.”
“I’m against this, but Sabelle insists on being his surrogate. Or attempting.”
Brilliant! Though Bram’s protective attitude was hardly a surprise. But Sabelle was a tough, courageous witch with the unusual ability to make others feel whatever she wanted with a touch. If anyone besides Anka could provide Lucan energy, it was Sabelle.
“Tell your sister I appreciate her more than she can know.”
“No guarantee it will work.”
It had to. “Thank her anyway.”
“All right, then. What news have you to report?”
“I’ve learned little about Sydney’s source of information. She’s guarding the name like a national secret.”
“Seduce her. Charm her.”
Bram’s suggestion made Caden grit his teeth. He didn’t have Bram’s easy way—and he was completely enthralled with the woman he was supposed to bamboozle. He wanted her more than his next breath—and was desperate to bury the feeling.
“Her secret is the least of our issues at the moment. I’m having a devil of a time stalling her next story. Before the bodies were removed from the tunnel, Sydney’s previous photographer took a few pictures. Grainy and fuzzy, which works in our favor, but we know of no one else who arrived in time to snap any, so she’s still scooped every other news source. People will pick up Out Of This Realm in droves, I fear, if she prints it with a proposed story that these men comprise Mathias’s unwilling Anarki army, out to dissolve the Social Order and eradicate the Doomsday Brethren.”
Bram sounded ready to hit the ceiling. “She knows about us? Where is she getting this information?”
“I’d like to know that myself and have no clue. Unfortunately, it gets worse.”
“Worse?”
“Indeed. I found the Doomsday Diary. Sydney Blair acquired it fifteen minutes ago.”
Bram cursed a stream of loud, ugly words.
“On that, we’re agreed,” Caden supplied.
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“There can’t be many old red books bearing Morganna le Fay’s symbol.”
“Send me a picture.”
Bram didn’t trust him. Whatever.
“Bloody hell. Better yet, steal it from her.”
“She won’t let it loose soon. It was a birthday gift from a dear friend.”
“Who?” Bram snapped.
“Aquarius.”
“The astrological sign?”
“Sydney’s assistant,” Caden corrected. “Is she your mate?”
“That wasn’t the name— describe her. Perhaps my missing ‘wife’ uses aliases.”
“Short, almost fey looking. Brown wavy hair to her waist, green eyes—”
“Not even close. Which raises the question, if Sydney acquired the book from this woman who is definitely not my mate, how did she get her hands on it?”
“I was hoping you could shed some light.”
“None. Ask her. Maybe she’ll know how to locate my mate.” Frustration oozed from every syllable. “But we must recover that diary. Now.”
“I have good news and bad news about that. The bad news is that Sydney is a smart, tenacious reporter who’s determined to keep writing ‘fresh paranormal stories,’ in her words.”
“Which means she may choose to write about the diary.” He groaned. “How can there possibly be good news?”
“She doesn’t know its purpose. Yet. She’s been told that writing in the book will grant her sexual fantasies. And I’m not sure she’s convinced it’s real.”
“Pray it stays that way, at least long enough for you to do whatever you must—steal, sweet talk, or seduce her away from that book.”
“I’ll work on that while determining the name of her source. You’re coming to help, right? Use a bit of magic and…”
“Can’t. There was another Anarki attack two hours ago. I’ve just left what was the Pullmans’ estate. Burned to the ground. Their newly transitioned daughter is missing. Everyone else is dead. I have to report to the Council.”
That wasn’t good news. If the Anarki were attacking again, that meant Mathias was on the mend and his power rising once more. Caden didn’t want to care, but… he rubbed his tired eyes with his fingers. After seeing so much war and death in his life, attacks on families, on women, troubled him.
“What will you do next?”
Bram sighed. “What we have been: keep searching for Mathias, not to mention Shock and his brother, Zain, who appears to be the evil bastard’s right-hand lackey.”
“Have you considered telling other magical families about this attack? They have to start protecting themselves.”
“So you’re going to pretend you care about magickind now?”
Caden restrained a growl. “I would not wish what’s happened to my family on another.”
“Rumors are beginning to spread about Mathias’s return, but the decision to officially tell magickind falls with the Council. They approve transcasts and issue edicts.”
“Certainly a few words on how best to defend yourself—”
“Which is why no such edict will be created any time soon. No one knows how to defend against Mathias, and the Council would rather err on the side of silence than inaccuracy. Bloody stupid bastards.”
“You’re one of them,” Caden pointed out.
“The lone voice of reason, I assure you. I’ve long argued that we should communicate magical news via transcasts or the like frequently. But by the time the Council agrees to the verbiage…” Bram scoffed. “It’s old news.”
That didn’t surprise Caden. Dawdling old fools, Lucan had long said, even their Uncle Sterling at times.
Caden was curious why Bram stayed on the Council, likely enduring one frustration after another. But it was none of Caden’s affair. He didn’t want to become more entangled in the magical world. Already, he was in too deep.
“You’ll come to assist with the diary once you’ve helped the victims of the latest attack?”
“As soon as I can,” Bram said. “Keep working on Sydney Blair.”
Caden could think of any number of ways in which he’d like to work on Sydney. Completely naked with her on her back, came immediately to mind. But that couldn’t happen. Now he needed to focus on his brother. “I will.”

Eve Of Chaos

2009-07-10T11:35:00.004-04:00

The third book in the Marked series and S.J. Day pulls out all the stops. This series is action packed so hold on to your hat and enjoy the ride.

The hunt is on and Eve is the prey. She is being bombarded with infernals and will have to use all her training to survive.

S.J.Day has built a solid world with strong characters and heavy emotion. Alec Cain and Reed Able are still fighting for position in Eve's life and on the job. The passion and emotion that these three generate leave you with a visual that is simply breathtaking.

We meet several new charcters in Eve of Chaos. Most notably Adam and Eve. They were a great new addition and allowed us a peek of Cain and Able's past. I truly hope to hear more about them in the coming books.

Being an Urban Fantasy novel in it's true form S.J. Day gives a cliffhanger that will bring you to your knees. All I can say is well done S.J., well done.....

How do you tell Satan that you ran over his hellhound?
Evangeline Hollis has no idea and she doesn't want to find out. Living with the Mark of Cain—and the two sexy brothers who come with it—is trouble enough. She doesn't need to borrow more. Too bad Satan is too pissed to oblige her.

Incensed at the loss of his pet, Satan has put a bounty on Eve's head, and Hell's denizens are converging en masse. The proliferation of Infernals is complicating Eve's hunts and creating chaos in her once orderly life. They've also brought her to the attention of an overzealous reverend who is certain she's Jezebel reincarnate.
How can a Mark drafted by God strike a bargain with the Devil? Eve's about to find out...

A Marked Novel, Book #3Genre: Urban Fantasy

Mass Market PaperbackTor Books - June 30, 2009ISBN-10: 0765360438

ISBN-13: 978-0765360434

Amazon
Amazon.ca Chapters.ca

Excerpt
Chapter 1

Evangeline Hollis watched with clenched jaw as a kappa demon served yakisoba—Japanese pan-fried noodles—to her mother with a broad smile. Eve guessed that the ratio of mortals to demons at the Orange County Buddhist Church’s annual Obon Festival was about fifty-fifty.
After three months of living with the Mark of Cain and her new “job” as celestial bounty hunter, Eve was resigned to the reality of Infernals mingling undetected among mortals. However, she was still surprised by the number of transplanted Japanese demons who had come out to play at the festival. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of them present.
“You want some?” her mother asked, holding out the plate. Miyoko had lived a mostly quintessential American life in the United States for thirty years. She was a naturalized citizen, a converted Baptist, and her husband, Darrel Hollis, was a good ol’ boy from Alabama. But she appreciated her roots and made an effort to share the Japanese culture with her two daughters.
Eve shook her head. “I want yakidango.”
“Me, too. It’s over there.” Miyoko set off, leading the way.
The festival was contained within the gated parking lot of the temple. To the right was a large gymnasium. To the left, the temple and school complex. The area was small, but still managed to hold a variety of food and game booths. A taiko drum was elevated in a yagura tower overlooking a space that would later showcase Bon Odori dancers. Children competed to win prizes ranging from live goldfish to stuffed animals. Adults hovered over displays of trinkets and homemade desserts.
The Southern California weather was perfect, as usual. A balmy seventy-eight degrees with plenty of sunshine and very few clouds. Adjusting her sunglasses, Eve relished the kiss of the sun on her skin and breathed in the scents of her favorite foods.
Then a foul stench wafted by on the afternoon breeze, assaulting her nose and ruining her rare moment of peace.
The putrid smell of rotting soul; it was unmistakable. It was a cross between decaying flesh and fresh shit, and it amazed Eve that the Unmarked—mortals lacking the Mark of Cain—couldn’t smell it. She turned her head, seeking out the source.
Her searching gaze halted on a lovely Asian woman standing across the aisle from her. A yuki-onna—a Japanese snow demon. Eve noted the Infernal’s white kimono with its delicate sukura embroidery and the detail on her cheekbone that resembled a tribal tattoo. In truth, the design was the demon’s rank and it was invisible to mortals. Like the Mark of Cain on Eve’s arm, it was similar to mortal military insignia. All Infernals had them. The details betrayed both which species of damned being they were and what their rank in Hell’s hierarchy was.
Contrary to what most theologians believed, the Mark of the Beast wasn’t something to be feared as the start of the Apocalypse; it was a caste system that had been in place for centuries.
Eve’s mark began to tingle, then burn. A call to arms.
Now? she asked with a mental query, exasperation clear in her dry tone. She was a Mark, one of thousands of “sinners” around the world who’d been drafted into service exterminating demons for God. She was expected to kill at the drop of a hat, but her mother was with her and they were at a house of worship.
Sorry, babe. Reed Abel sounded anything but. You’re in the wrong place at the right time. Her number’s up, and you’re closest.
You’ve been singing that tune all week, she retorted. I’m not buying it anymore.
She’d been vanquishing a demon a day—sometimes two—for the last several days. A girl needed more than just Sundays off when her job was killing demons. Why am I always closest?
Because you’re a disaster magnet?
And you’re a riot.
Reed—aka Abel of biblical fame—was a mal’akh, an angel. He was a handler, a position that meant he was responsible for assigning hunts to a small group of Marks. It was a lot like skip tracing. The seven earthbound archangels acted as bail bondsmen. Reed was a dispatcher. Eve was a bounty hunter. It was a well-oiled system for most Marks, but to say she was a squeaky wheel would be an understatement.
Dinner tonight? he asked.
After that wisecrack, cocky bastard?
I’ll cook.
She followed her mom, keeping an eye on her quarry. If I’m still alive, sure.
In the back of her mind, she heard and felt Alec Cain—Reed’s brother—growl his disapproval. Alec was her mentor. Once known as Cain of Infamy, he was now Cain the Archangel. She and Alec had a history together, starting ten years ago when she’d given him her virginity. Nowadays, his position as archangel had stripped him of the ability to have an emotional attachment to anything other than God, but Alec held on to her anyway.
What means more? he had asked her. When someone wants you because he can’t help it? Because of hormones or some chemical reaction in the brain? Or when he wants you because he chooses to want you? Because he makes the conscious decision to want you?
Eve didn’t know, so she was drifting along with him, trying to figure it out.
She was certifiably insane for stepping in the middle of the oldest case of sibling rivalry in history, especially since the three of them shared a unique bond that allowed a free flow of thought between them. Eve often asked herself why she played with fire. The only answer she came up with was that she just couldn’t help herself.I’m calling dibs on breakfast tomorrow, Alec insisted gruffly.
One-Eyed Jacks? No one cooked them like Alec. Grilled pieces of bread with a hole in the middle to hold a fried egg. Buttery and crispy, and served with syrup. He also toasted the centers and sprinkled them with cinnamon-sugar to serve on the side. Delicious.
Whatever you want, angel.
It was a given that Reed wouldn’t be around for breakfast, since dating two men at once meant that all three of them were sleeping alone at night.
The yuki-onna excused herself from her handsome companion and moved toward the gymnasium, taking the tiny steps dictated by the tight fit of her kimono and the geta wooden clogs on her feet. Eve was at an advantage with her attire. Her stretchy capris and ribbed cotton tank top didn’t impede her range of movement at all. Her Army-issue “jungle boots” were breathable and functional. She was ready to rock. But that didn’t mean she wanted to.
“I have to wash my hands,” Eve said to her mother, knowing that as a retired registered nurse, Miyoko would appreciate the need for cleanliness.
“I have antibacterial gel in my purse.”
Eve wrinkled her nose. “Yuck. That stuff makes my hands sticky.”
“You’re too fussy. How many dangos you want?”
“Three sticks.” The rice cake dumplings were grilled on wooden skewers and coated with sweet syrup. They were a childhood favorite that Eve enjoyed too rarely, which aggravated her disgruntlement. If the demon ruined her appetite, there would be Hell to pay. Seriously.
Eve handed over a twenty-dollar bill, then set off in pursuit of her prey.
She overtook the demon and entered the gym where picnic tables had been arranged to provide seating for diners. Dozens of festival-goers filled the vast space with echoing revelry—laughing, conversing in both English and Japanese, and eating. Mortals mingled with Infernal beings in blissful ignorance, but Eve noted every one of Hell’s denizens. In return, they knew what she was and they eyed her with wary hatred. The mark on her deltoid betrayed her, as did her scent. As rotten as they stunk to her, she smelled sickly sweet to them. Ridiculous really, since there was no such thing as a sweet Mark. They were all bitter.
Tucking herself against the wall, she watched through the tinted glass doors as the yuki-onna approached. From the forward vantage, Eve could see the demon’s feet hovering just above the ground. Backing up slowly, Eve rounded the corner to stay out of sight. A glass case was mounted to the wall at her shoulder, displaying trophies and a lone katana within its lighted interior.
Eve glanced around quickly, noting the distraction of the rest of the gym’s occupants. With superhuman speed, she pinched off the round metal lock with thumb and forefinger, and withdrew the sheathed blade. She held it tucked between her thigh and the wall, hoping it was more than a decoration. If not, she could always summon the classic flame-covered sword. But she’d rather not. Buildings had a nasty habit of catching fire around her, and she had greater proficiency with the sleeker, moderately curved “samurai sword” than she did with the heavier glaive.
Her prey entered the gym and turned in the opposite direction, heading toward the restrooms just as Eve had guessed she would. Closing the women’s bathroom while food and drink were present in copious quantities was always a bad idea, but Eve didn’t have a choice. Her mother was waiting, and she couldn’t risk losing her target.
Her present dilemma was one of the many reasons why Marks weren’t supposed to have family ties. The sinners who were chosen were usually loners easily transplanted to foreign soil. Relatives were a liability. Eve was the sole exception to the rule. Alec had fought to keep her close to home because he knew how much her parents meant to her. He was also motivated by guilt, since their indiscretion ten years ago was the reason she was marked today.
The wheels of justice didn’t turn any faster in Heaven than they did on Earth.
When the bathroom door swung shut behind the demon, Eve followed. The mark throbbed hot and heavy within the skin covering her deltoid, pumping aggression and fury through her veins. Her muscles thickened and her stride altered. Her body’s reaction was base and animalistic, the surge of bloodlust brutal and addicting. She had come to crave it like a drug. Too much time between kills, and she became short-tempered and twitchy.
Despite the rush, her heartbeat and hands remained steady. Her body was a temple now, and it ran like a machine. As she entered the bathroom, Eve was calm and focused. When had she become so at ease with her murderous secondary life? She would have to ponder that later, when she had some privacy and time to cry.
All of the stall doors were slightly ajar, except for the handicapped one at the far end of the room. The stench of decaying soul permeated the space. Affixed to the wall near the door was a tube that held a collapsible Wet Floor sign. She tugged it free and set it outside in the hallway, then closed the door and turned the lock. It wasn’t quite as useful as an Out of Order cone, but it would have to do.
There was no way to stave off the sudden deluge of memories of another bathroom, one in which she had fought a dragon and paid with her life. She’d been resurrected to kill another day because of a deal Alec had made with someone, somewhere. She didn’t know the details, but she knew the cost had to be steep. If she hadn’t been in love with him already, his willingness to make that kind of sacrifice would have sealed the deal. She wasn’t ready to die just yet, despite demon killing and a crazy love life.
One day she hoped to marry and have children, enjoy a successful career and family vacations. But she would have to shed the mark first—either by manipulating someone in power or by collecting enough indulgences to work off her penance.
Of course, there were loopholes in the indulgence system. She’d killed the teenage son of the Black Diamond Pack Alpha werewolf twice, but had only been given credit for the second kill. Bullshit like that really got under her skin. What was a girl supposed to do when even God didn’t play fair?
A soft whimper arrested Eve midstride. The sound had a high, trembling note that sounded childlike. She rolled her shoulders back and waited. Hunting was less about the pounce than it was about positioning. She stood dead center in the most open space in the room. The exit was at her back. The Infernal had no way out but through her. Damned if she would move just to hurry things up a bit.
The mark continued to flood her with adrenaline and hostility. Her senses honed in on her prey, flooding her mind with information. Her stance widened.
“Come out, come out wherever you are . . .” she crooned.
The lock on the handicapped stall turned. The door pulled inward. A child’s face appeared, wan and tear streaked. A pretty girl of Asian heritage in a light summer dress with a watermelon design around the hem. Maybe six or seven years old. Shaking with fear. A moment later, the lovely visage of the yuki-onna appeared above the girl’s head.
Eve growled. “A hostage was a bad idea.”
When she had kids of her own, she wasn’t letting them out of her sight.
“I will walk out of here with the child,” the Infernal said in her lilting, accented voice. She stepped out of the stall with her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Then I will release her.”
The child’s teeth began to chatter and her lips took on a blue tinge. Gooseflesh spread from the point where the demon clutched her.
“You’re going to die,” Eve said matter-of-factly. The yuki-onna had been targeted. Marks would hunt her until she was dead.
“So are you,” the demon retorted. “Do you really want to waste your last moments killing me?”
There’s a hostage, she told Reed, ignoring the standard demon intimidation and bargaining tactics. A little girl. I need you to get her out of here.
A warm breeze moved over her skin, tangible proof that her handler was always with her. He was forbidden to assist his charges in their hunts, but clearing mortals out of the way fell under his purview. On your cue, he murmured.
Eve had no idea where in the world he was, but as a mal’akh, he could shift—or teleport—in and out of a location faster than the blink of an eye.
“I was going to take you down fair and square,” she told the demon, holding the sheathed katana aloft. “I should have known you would want to fight dirty.”
“I have no weapon.” A lie. Demons all had certain gifts, like the yuki-onna’s ability to create extreme weather. Marks had only their own wits and strength. They were celestially enhanced physically—able to heal and react quickly—but lacked any supernatural “powers”.
“I’ll give you mine,” Eve offered grimly, “if you let the kid go.” She ripped the katana free of its sheath and hurled the lacquered wood at the demon’s head.
She reached out to Reed. Now!
The demon’s arms rose to ward off the projectile. The child was snatched by Reed before the yuki-onna caught it.
The Infernal’s cry of rage was accompanied by an icy gust that burst through the room like an explosion. Eve was thrust backward into a heated-air hand dryer with enough force to hammer it flush to the wall. She held onto the hilt of the katana by stubbornness alone. Her booted feet dropped to the floor with a dull thud, and she hit the ground running.
Arm raised and blade at the ready, Eve rushed forward with a battle cry that curdled her own blood. The child’s fear lingered in the air, the acrid scent mingling with the stench of decaying Infernal soul. The combination sent her mark into overdrive. She leaped, slashing down on the diagonal, but the demon spun away in a flurry of snow. The temperature dropped drastically. The mirrors fogged around the edges, and her breath puffed visibly in the chilled air.
Eve pursued her, feinting and parrying against the sharp icicles the demon threw at her. They shattered like glass against her flashing katana, sprinkling the tile with slippery shards.
Crunching across the hazardous floor, she advanced with precision. The beautiful kimono fluttered with the Infernal’s retreat, the thick silk shredded by Eve’s calculated attacks. Once the sorriest swordswoman in her class, Eve had practiced exhaustively until she stopped embarrassing herself. She still wasn’t much beyond passably proficient with the weapon, but she no longer felt hopelessly inept.
She began to hum a merry tune.
As she’d hoped, the demon floundered, caught off guard by the implied boredom. The yuki-onna’s next salvo lacked the speed of the previous ones. Eve caught it with her fist, hissing as the ice splintered its way across her palm. Blood flowed, its scent goading the demon into roaring in triumph, a sound audible only to those with enhanced hearing.
Eve lobbed the icicle back, followed immediately with the katana. The Infernal deflected the first projectile with an icy blast, but was left vulnerable to the second. The blade sliced along the demon’s right triceps, drawing blood before impaling the wall behind her. A crimson stain began to spread through the pristine white of the kimono.“Checkmate,” Eve taunted. “Your blood for mine.”
The Infernal retaliated with an icicle that pierced straight through Eve’s right thigh. She cried out and dropped to one knee. Agonized, she sent up a silent request for a sword. She held her palm open to receive the gift . . .
. . . which didn’t come.
Shock froze Eve. She’d gambled with the loss of the katana and rolled snake eyes. She always feared this day would come. Formerly agnostic, she didn’t show the deference to the Almighty that others did. She wasn’t disrespectful per se, but she might be too forthright in voicing her inability to understand the way God handled things.
She asked again, throwing in a “please” for good measure. The result was the same. Nada. Eve growled, furious that she would be denied the tool required to complete the task she was forced to perform.
The yuki-onna quickly deduced what had failed to happen. She giggled, a lovely melodic sound. “Perhaps he realizes that saving you is hopeless and not worth the effort.”
“Fuck you.”
“It is rare that Sammael sets a bounty so high or allows everyone in Hell a chance to claim it.” The demon grinned. “But then, this is the first time someone has run over one of his pets.”
“What bounty?” Eve hoped she hid the sudden fear she felt. “Is Satan upset that I ran over his dog? That’s hysterical.”
I’m not laughing, Alec snapped.
I know. Eve sighed. My life sucks.
She struggled to her feet, favoring her impaled leg. Reaching down, she yanked the ice dagger free and tossed it aside. Blood spurted from the gaping wound, then gushed. She ignored it for now. She had bigger problems.
“What is funny,” the yuki-onna retorted, “is how you will be ripped apart by everyone in Hell.”
“Everyone, huh?” Eve shrugged. “He’ll have to do better than that, if he hopes to take me out.”
That’s my girl, Alec praised. Never let ‘em see you sweat.
But she heard the unease in his voice. She also felt him poised to leap to her rescue.
I’ve got this, she said, staying him. She wasn’t sure how, but she would figure it out on her own. Damned if some ice bitch in clogs would kick her ass.
“Sammael wants you,” the demon taunted. Her disheveled hair and wide eyes only made her more beautiful. “And I will be rewarded for bringing you in.”
Laughing through her growing panic, Eve made a third request—not quite a prayer—for a sword. Again, she was ignored.
She deflected the demon’s next icicle with her forearm, then darted to the left to catch another. She threw it back. It was knocked off course by a burst of frosty air. All the while, she closed the distance between herself and the wall that held the katana.
“You can take hostages,” Eve taunted, “but you can’t take me.”
Bravado. Sometimes it was all a Mark had.
“I am beginning to think otherwise,” the demon retorted with a malicious gleam in her dark eyes.
Pounding came to the locked door, followed by a string of anxious-sounding Japanese. Not for the first time, Eve wished her mother had taught her the language. All she knew was that someone wanted to come in, and the demon she was fighting was no longer eager to get out. In fact, the yuki-onna seemed energized by the intrusion.Eve took another step closer. Her boot slipped on an ice shard and she skidded, her balance compromised by her injured leg. She was inspired by the near fall, her mind seizing on a possible means to the end.
Dependant upon God’s willingness to cooperate and give her a damn break, of course.
Kicking hard, she sent up a spray of water and ice. As the yuki-onna retaliated with a rapid volley of icicles, Eve shot forward, using the slush on the tile to drop to the floor in a careening, feet-first slide into home plate.
“I could really use that sword now,” she yelled skyward, as the white tile rushed past her in a blur. “Please!”
Nothing.
Time slowed to a trickle . . .
The demon leaped gracefully and was held aloft by icy air currents. Levitating into a prone position, the Infernal’s facade of beauty fell away, revealing the true evil beneath—eyes of blood red, a gaping maw of blackened teeth, and grayish skin with a network of inky veins that spread into her hairline. With arms splayed wide, spears of ice appeared in her hands like ski poles.
Alec and Reed roared in unison, their shouts reverberating in Eve’s skull with such volume they drowned out everything else. In slow motion, she watched the demon hovering like a ghostly apparition, her white robes in tatters, her hair a sinuously writhing mane. Eve raised her arms to ward off the coming attack, then jerked in surprise as a heavy weight forced her forearm to drop to her chest. . .
. . . weighted by the miraculous appearance of a glaive in her hand.
Her grip tightened on the hilt and her back arched up. Hurling the blade forward like a javelin, she struck the yuki-onna straight in the chest. The glaive pierced deep with a sickening thud.
The demon exploded in a burst of ash.
Eve continued to slide until she slammed into the wall. At impact, the katana dislodged from its mooring, twisting to fall point down toward her head. She jerked to the side, rolling to avoid the blade. It pierced the floor where she’d been an instant before. Behind her, the glaive—no longer embedded in the demon’s body—clattered to the tile.
“Holy shit,” she breathed.
A pair of steel-toed boots appeared next to her head, then a hand extended into her line of sight. Looking up, her gaze met eyes of rich chocolate brown. Once, Alec had looked at her with a heat so scorching it burned her skin. She missed that look. Then again, she got hot enough for the both of them just checking him out.
At a few inches over six feet, Alec was as ripped as one would expect a skilled predator to be. He was God’s most revered and trusted enforcer, and his body reflected that calling. His hair, as always, was slightly overlong, but she would fight off anyone who approached him with shears.
“Could God have waited any longer to bail me out of the mess he put me in?” she groused.
“Did you note the lack of fire?” His voice—dark and slightly raspy—was pure seduction, even when laced with the resonance unique to archangels. It didn’t sound that way when he spoke to her telepathically, which was sadly appropriate. Who he was in reality was far different from who he was in her mind.
She blinked up at him. “You bailed me out? What the hell? Was he just going to let me die? Again?”
“Obviously not, since you’re not dead. It was a lesson in faith.”
“More like a lesson in ‘I am God, see me fuck with you.’”
“Watch it,” he admonished.
Eve accepted his proffered hand. As he pulled her upright, his powerful chest and tautly ridged abdomen flexed noticeably beneath his fitted white T-shirt. She couldn’t help noticing stuff like that, even though she couldn’t touch what she was looking at.
“What is it with demons and bathrooms?” she asked. “Grimshaw started a trend when he sent that dragon to kill me. I swear I’ve vanquished at least half a dozen Infernals in bathrooms since then.”
The dragon had been a courtier in Asmodeus’s court, but he’d killed her for Charles Grimshaw—former Alpha of the Northern California Black Diamond Pack and father of the wolf she’d had to kill twice. Demon retaliation was a bitch.
Alec cursed at the sight of her thigh. Her toes were squishing in the blood soaking her sock and puddling along the sole. She would need a new pair of boots.
He bent to examine her wound more closely. “I would have gotten here sooner, but I had to scare off the crowd of Infernals in the hall first.”
“Crowd?”
“I don’t think the ice bitch was kidding about the bounty.”
“What do you know that I don’t? You wouldn’t believe an Infernal without some sort of proof.”
Alec had assumed control over the day-to-day operation of Gadara Enterprises—the secular front for the North American firm of Marks—since the archangel Raguel had been taken prisoner by Satan a couple of months back. That meant Alec was privy to almost every hellacious and celestial happening that occurred between the top of Alaska to the end of Mexico.
“The number of Infernals in Orange County has tripled in the last two weeks.”
Which was when she’d graduated from training. As she was often reminded, nothing was a coincidence. “No wonder it’s been so busy around here.”
He gave her a resigned look. “It will get busier, if Sammael’s set his sights on you.”
“With a free-for-all bounty open to all classes of demons? Jeez, you’d think I kicked his puppy or something. Oh wait . . . I did.” Eve put weight on her wounded leg and winced at the immediate throb of agony.
Alec tucked his shoulder under her arm to support her. “We need to bandage that leg, smart ass.”
“You like my ass, and not because of its IQ.”
“Love it.” He gave her butt an affectionate squeeze. Alec might be restricted from feeling emotional love for her, but lust wasn’t a problem. “But I love the rest of your hot body, too, and I’d like to keep it in one piece.”
The mark enabled her to heal super fast. In an hour or two, only a pink scar would remain, and by nightfall, the injury would be nothing but a memory. But she could help move things along in the recovery department by closing the hole with some butterfly bandages. She’d have to hurry; her mom was still waiting for her.
I’ll take care of Miyoko, he assured her.
“I’ll take Eve back to her place to change,” a deep voice intruded.
They turned their heads to find Reed by the door. The men’s features were similar enough to betray them as siblings, but they were otherwise polar opposites. Reed favored Armani suits and faultless haircuts. Today he wore black slacks and a lavender dress shirt open at the throat and rolled at the wrists. It was a testament to how completely, robustly male he was that he could look so damn fine in such a soft color.
Alec’s arm at her waist tightened. The two brothers were like oil and kerosene together. Dangerously flammable. They refused to tell her what started their lifelong feud, and they kept the memory so repressed in the darkest corners of their minds that she hadn’t yet been able to find it. Whatever the sore spot was, the murderous rage it incited was easily goaded. They’d been killing each other for years—Cain more so than Abel—but were always resurrected by God to fight some more.
Which was just nasty in her opinion. Why God enabled the two brothers to keep fighting was beyond her comprehension.
“What are we going to do about this mess?” She offered a soothing smile to Alec before stepping away from him. A trail of blood marked her recent kamikaze slide across the floor. The rapidly melting ice was spreading the crimson stain along the grout lines, creating an oddly compelling map.
Stepping into the water, Alec snapped his fingers and the liquid and blood filled the nearest sink, transferred so quickly she hadn’t caught the movement even with her enhanced senses. She would go home with Reed in similar fashion.
Thankfully, Marks had handlers to pick up after them. She was luckier than most in that she had Cain, too, although that created some friction with many of the other Marks who thought she had an advantage. They didn’t take into consideration how many demons wanted to use her to get to the deadliest Mark of them all. She might as well wear a bull’s-eye for cocky and rash Infernals to aim for.
Then again, it looked like Satan had taped the target on for her.
“Come on,” Reed said, extending a hand to her. “Before your mother calls in the cavalry.”
“Forget the cavalry.” Alec winked at Eve. “Miyoko would charge in herself.”
She was halted midlaugh by the stench of a sewer. Looking for the demon whose proximity had to be the cause, she found herself staring into an inexplicably lingering puddle at her feet . . . and familiar eyes of malevolent, crystalline blue. A face in the liquid. She stomped instinctively, destroying the visage of the water demon in an explosion of spraying droplets.
“What the hell?” Reed barked, catching her as her wounded thigh caused her to stumble.
In the literal blink of an eye, Eve found herself in the kitchen of her third-floor condo in Huntington Beach. “Did you see him?” she gasped, leaning heavily into his hard body.
Reed’s arms tightened around her. “Yeah, I saw him.”
He’s gone. Alec’s tone was grim. I’m heading out to hold off your mom, but we need to address this when we’re done here.
The demon was a Nix—a Germanic shape-shifting water spirit. He’d targeted her almost from the moment she had been marked, then made a nuisance of himself until she killed him. Correction: She’d thought she killed him.
She would kill him. This particular Nix had taken the life of her neighbor Mrs. Basso. Sweet, forthright, widowed Mrs. Basso who had been a beloved friend. Eve’s need for vengeance was what motivated her when the damned Infernal bounty hunting got tough.
Pulling away from Reed, she limped down the hallway to her master bedroom. The crash of the waves against the shore pulsed in through the living room balcony’s open sliding glass door. In her premarked life, she’d been an interior designer. Her condo had been one of her first projects, and the space remained one of her favorites. Even the mistakes she’d made in the layout were fond ones. She wouldn’t change a thing. She felt safe here, less like a demon killer and more like herself.
Eve absorbed the calm she found in her home with deep, even breaths.
Reed called after her, his tone both seductive and challenging. “Need help getting naked?”
She sighed inwardly. Outside these walls, the worst of Hell’s denizens were converging en masse. She would need to be ready when she ventured out again.
As if her love life wasn’t dangerous enough.

Eyecandy

2009-07-08T11:55:00.001-04:00

July Reads

2009-07-06T13:20:00.019-04:00

1.Eve Of Chaos - S. J. Day ( Bow down to her greatness )

2.Prey - Rachel Vincent ( Sniff )

3.On The Prowl - Patricia Briggs ( Great read )

4.Cry Wolf - Patricia Briggs ( Lovin it! )

5.My Soul To Lose - Rachel Vincent ( Intriguing )

6.Tempted - Megan Hart (*sigh* I hope Alex gets a book )

7.Tempt Me With Darkness - Shayla Black (Reread - Love It! )

8.Seduce Me In Shadow - Shayla Black ( Sexy Magical Men *sigh* )

9.The Accidental DemonSlayer - Angie Fox

10.Touch The Dark - Karen Chance

11.The Vampire Diaries - L.J. Smith

12.Graceful Submission - Melinda Barron ( Oh My )

13.Magic Bites - Ilona Andrews (Great Read)

14.Blue Diablo - Ann Aguirre ( Loved it! )

15.The Royal Treatment - MaryJanice Davidson ( Funny )

16.Commanding Kat - Reese Gabriel

17.Cursed - Jamie Leigh Hansen

Eyecandy

2009-07-03T12:18:00.002-04:00

Ha!

2009-07-01T15:41:00.004-04:00

This was posted on an authors group and it was to funny not to share....

Remember it takes a college degree to fly a plane, but only a high school diploma to fix one; a reassurance to those of us who fly routinely in our jobs.

After every flight, UPS pilots fill out a form, called a 'gripe sheet,' which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems, document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight.

Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by UPS pilots (marked with a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenance engineers.

By the way, UPS is the only major airline that has never, ever, had an accident

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement. .

S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.

S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft

P: Something loose in cockpit

S: Something tightened in cockpit

P: Dead bugs on windshield.

S: Live bugs on back-order.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.

S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.

S: Evidence removed..

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.

S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.

S: That's what friction locks are for.

P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.

S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode..

P: Suspected crack in windshield.

S : Suspect you're right

P: Number 3 engine missing.

S: Engine found on right wing after brief search

P: Aircraft handles funny. (I love this one!)

S: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right and be serious.

P:Target radar hums.

S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics..

P: Mouse in cockpit.

S: Cat installed.

And the best one for last

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.

S: Took hammer away from the midget.

Eyecandy

2009-06-28T10:47:00.003-04:00

In Over Her Head

2009-06-26T10:41:00.002-04:00

In Over Her Head is IN STORES NOW!

Sourcebooks, Inc.
June, 2009
ISBN#: 9781402220012

When Erica Peck, one terrified-of-the-ocean marina owner, finds herself at the bottom of the sea conversing with a Mer man named Reel, she thinks she's died and gone to her own version of Hell. When the Oceanic Council demands she and Reel retrieve a lost cache of diamonds from the resident sea monster in return for their lives, she knows she's died and gone to Hell.
When they escape the monster and end up on a deserted island, she amends her opinion - she's died and gone to Heaven.
But when Reel sacrifices himself to allow her to return to her world, she realizes that, Heaven or Hell, with Reel, she's In Over Her Head.

Order
In Over Her Head

Borders

Amazon

Read

Excerpt

Eyecandy

2009-06-24T22:02:00.002-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-06-19T17:45:00.002-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-06-16T10:41:00.002-04:00

Skin Trade

2009-06-15T11:33:00.004-04:00

Laurell K Hamilton

When a vampire serial killer sends Anita Blake a grisly souvenir from Las Vegas, she has to warn Sin City’s local authorities what they’re dealing with. Only it’s worse than she thought. Ten officers and one executioner have been slain—paranormal style. Anita heads to Vegas, where’s she’s joined by three other federal marshals, including the ruthless Edward. It’s a good thing he always has her back, because when she gets close to the bodies, Anita senses “tiger” too strongly to ignore it. The weretigers are very powerful in Las Vegas, which means the odds of her rubbing someone important the wrong way just got a lot higher.

Read Chapter One

Eyecandy

2009-06-12T10:35:00.002-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-06-12T10:33:00.003-04:00

Accidentally Dead

2009-06-11T11:03:00.006-04:00

Oh Dakota Dakota Dakota, I'm so happy to be a part of your color wheel of life. Where do you come up with this stuff? Did you sell Avon or Mary-Kay in another life? I just giggle my way through these books and am sure I will continue to do so through the rest of them. Vampires for Nina and Werewolf's for Marty, I cant wait to see whats in store for Wanda.

Accidentally Dead - Book 2
A vampire puts the bite on a dental assistant.
It’s a lousy first day on the job for Nina Blackman when a patient, loopy from the anesthesia, bites her. At least he was cute. But for real drama she can’t beat the next evening. Nina wakes up with a set of razor-sharp fangs, bionic vision, supersonic hearing, and a taste for blood. But there’s a good explanation: It’s her patient, Long Island vampire Greg Statleon. Actually they’re perfect for each other—if Nina’s willing to commit to one man for eternity.

Click here to read Chapter 1

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Master Of Craving

2009-06-10T10:32:00.005-04:00

The bloodsword Legacy are some of the best medieval novels I have read and Master Of Craving did not disappoint. Stefan is loyal, hard, scorned, and a totally delicious warrior. Arian is feisty, bold, brave and she is being used as a pawn to free the captured bloodsword brothers. The sexual tension between these two is so strong I could feel the heat coursing through my soul. On several occasions I found myself trying to persuade Stefan that he didn't REALLY need to free his brothers. They can take care of themselves so take her, take her now! *sigh* Karin fully delivers on the period details that make her books such an amazing read. The battle scenes are perfectly executed and so rich with detail I can picture it clearly in my minds eye. As always, I cant wait for the next one!

Master of Craving

June 2009

Order Master of Craving

The Blood Sword Legacy

Eight knights bound by a brotherhood forged in hell claim their legacies the only way they can: by right of arms, by right of victory, by right of conquest.

Most of England has submitted to King William, but Wales refuses to yield. The King's trusted Blood Swords are unable to prevail, and while Stefan de Valrey is left unconscious on the battlefield, his sworn brothers are captured. Despite terrible injuries, Stefan vows to liberate them. Even rescuing a delicately beautiful -- and naked -- maiden from peril cannot deter him, for the silver-eyed Arianrhod is a Welsh princess, a hostage Stefan can exchange for his brothers...so long as Arian remains as pure as when he met her. But that is a constraint Stefan finds harder to honor with every passing day.
When the scowling knight slings her across his saddle, Arian knows she should fix all her thoughts on escape. But Arian has never before experienced the deep, soul-changing desire that Stefan arouses with merely a glance. Breaking their vows could set two kingdoms ablaze -- can they control the sweet, terrible burning between them?

Excerpt:
Having survived the great battle of Hereford, Stefan de Valrey lies naked in the wood at a pond’s edge where he has bathed away the battle stench, tended his grave wounds and ponders his next move. For the Normans were slaughtered by the combined forces of the mad Saxon Earl Edric and his Welsh allies King Rhiwallon and Bleddyn. His brother Blood Swords have been captured by the Welsh kings and, Stefan will do anything to see to their safe release. Anything.
Stefan grabbed his sword and rolled over, prepared to do battle, but instead found nothing. Had he dreamt the low sensual laugh?
He heard it again, closer now. His blood warmed as he conjured up a face and body to go with such an exotic sound. He hurried to Apollo as fast as his damaged leg would allow, and pushed the huge horse back farther into the thick wood. He warned him to silence, knowing the horse would stand still until given the command to move. Stefan turned and made his way back to the edge of the thick copse of foliage he hid behind. For long moments he stood, wondering for the second time if he had dreamt the voice. The light sound of footsteps crunching along the rocky path to the secluded pond heralded a visitor. He crouched, wincing at the pull of skin and muscle on his damaged thigh, and rethought his position. As he made to adjust, he stopped all movement.
“Jane, hurry, I must get out of these mud-caked rags!” called a melodic female voice in Welsh.
Stefan crouched lower. Not moving a single muscle, he watched as a wood nymph danced into view. His eyes widened. She was tall, slender, and, as his gaze raked her body, buxom. He smiled. She was undressing in a most uninhibited manner as she hurried toward the inviting pool. And, he could see why. Her emerald-colored gown was covered in mud on one side, as was her long sunburst-colored hair.
When she yanked the kirtle from her body, he held his breath. The soft linen of the chemise beneath molded against her full curves in the soft breeze. “I cannot believe I fell from my horse!”
“You have become too arrogant, milady,” an old woman said, hobbling into the clearing holding a cloth bundle. “’Tis time someone brought you down a peg.”
A noblewoman? A Welsh noblewoman? He grinned wider, and silently thanked Rhys and Wulfson for their tutelage of the language. He would repay them handsomely when next they met.
The eager lady did not wait for her maid to help her undress further. She sat upon the stone he had himself just lain upon and unlaced her soft leather boots, untied her garters, then rolled down short white chauses. His body tightened when she stood and pulled the chemise from her body. Heat filled him as he slowly stood, unable to turn away, indeed, could he have. Transfixed, he took in every sensual inch of her body. She was tall for a woman and majestically golden. Golden hair, golden skin. Her breasts were full and rose high upon her chest. His hands opened and closed, wanting to feel the soft firmness of them beneath his fingertips.
He envisioned his large calloused fingers gently brushing across a pink nipple, feeling it come alive beneath his touch. His cock filled as his eyes traveled down her flat belly to her rounded hips and to the blush-colored triangle between her thighs. He hissed out a low breath. She was breathtaking, and at that moment, Stefan knew what it meant to want something so badly that he would give his right arm to possess it. His cock lengthened at the spectacular sight, and had she been alone, he would have been so bold as to show himself, Adam to her Eve. He wanted to join with her, and mate.
“You are shameful!” Jane scolded. “What if there are bandits in the wood?”
“Keep watch, Jane, I will be but a few minutes. We have been riding hard for days. The dirt of the road clings to me and you know I have not bathed since we departed Dinefwr.”
Dinefwr? ‘Twas where Prince Hylcon resided. This he knew, for the Dinefwr-Castile bloodline was amongst the finest; not only in all of Christendom, but even the Saracens of the Holy Land traveled to Dinefwr to breed their mares to Hylcon’s stallions.
Intrigued, he watched the lady gingerly stick a toe into the cool water. She gasped in a breath at the chill, when she did her breasts rose higher, as did he. He smiled despite the pain it caused him, as she slowly glided into the pool. Her golden skin puckered and her blush-colored nipples tightened.
“Go, Jane, and leave me. Go down the path and make sure that letch Dag keeps his distance.”
The errant lady slid the rest of her long body into the cool, clear water, gasping at the coolness. Stefan squirmed where he stood, the tension between his thighs overriding the tension of his wounds.
The servant set her bundle down on the rock and untied it, then spread out clothes and a long linen towel. “Here are your clothes, you will have to dry yourself. I cannot guard the path and dress you at the same time. Do not dally, milady, we must be back on the road.”
The lady splashed water at her maid and scoffed. “Dag has lost his way, and because of it, we have lost time. I fear we will never get to Yorkshire.”
“He is not the most intelligent of men,” Jane admitted, then, reluctantly, the old woman moved back down the path they had come.
Stefan knelt on the soft loamy ground and watched captivated, as the wood nymph swam in the small pool, and as he had done, she grabbed a hunk of springy moss from beneath a fern. When she stood and the clear water sluiced down her breasts to her belly, glistening like pearls under the sunlight, Stefan stifled a groan.
She reached over to the bundle and grabbed a bar of soap, and when she lathered it, he held his breath. Her slender hands smeared it across her breasts and down her belly to her thighs. She tilted her head back, her back arched, those luscious breasts pointed to the sun. Her hands slid across her body with brazen familiarity. He wanted to touch her so. She had no modesty, and he could tell just from the way she touched herself she would be an adventurous lover.
She sank deeper into the pool, allowing the water to carry the lather away. When she completely submerged and shot up, her body glistening in the sun, Stefan slowly stood and took a step closer. She put the soap to her hair and vigorously washed it. She went under again, and this time when she erupted from the water, like Venus herself, the erotic image was too much for Stefan. He groaned. She gasped, and turned crossing her arms over her chest. “Who goes there?”
Stefan grinned, ignoring the pain it cost him. How badly he wanted to show himself, and how badly he wanted to lose himself in all of that gold and honey, he could not measure, but even had he the time for a dalliance, he doubted he possessed the strength. ‘Twas a shame, for it had been months since his last woman, and none could he recall as comely as this one frolicking in the water before him. He was just about to move deeper into the wood when he heard another voice. A man’s voice.
“Would you like some company, Princess?”
Princess? Stefan’s interest suddenly went from his cock to his head. A Welsh princess? Mayhap Hylcon’s daughter?
“Dag! How dare you trespass! Turn your back and return to the others!” she commanded.
Stefan eyed the intruder as he emerged from the path into the clearing. Nearly as tall as Thorin, bald, but sporting a full blond beard, hard narrowed eyes, and dressed in the manner of a Norseman complete with battle ax. A Viking. What was a Viking doing with a Welsh princess in the middle of battle-fatigued Mercia? She had mentioned Yorkshire. An area, despite Hardrada’s defeat last year, still heavily populated with Norse.
“I cannot do as you command, Princess Arianrhod. As you have so thoroughly done to my uncle, so too you haunt my every waking thought.” He continued stalking her, as a fox would a plump hen.
“Stop now, Dag! Stop before you do something we will both regret,” she warned, and, though she tried to keep her voice strong and sure, Stefan heard the fear in it.
Dag laughed as if every day he plucked an unwilling maid from the water, and continued his slow, deliberate pursuit. “I will have no regrets. I want you as I have never wanted anything in my life. I will have you.”
The princess backed up to the rock she had undressed on and grabbed the linen from where the maid had set it. She started to stand, to wrap it around her but thought better of exposing herself to the unwanted intruder. Instead, she dragged it into the water, soaking it, then wrapped it around her body. Stefan shook his head. ‘Twould only weigh her down and show off every curve.
She dragged herself from the water on the side of the pond closest to where he hid. He swallowed hard at the display. As forethought, she was a vision, to be sure, in the thin wet cloth. It clung to her full curves, and despite the position she found herself in, the princess’s royal nipples were hard and strained mightily against the cloth. Slowly, Stefan moved closer to the edge of the foliage that shielded him. And, as was his instinct when trouble brewed, he reached for his sword where it lay on the ground beside him.
The Viking nimbly hopped from the shore to one rock, then another, then to the one the princess stood upon. She opened her mouth to scream, but the Viking was quick; he grasped her, slapping his hand across her mouth. The little hellion bit him and punched him with her fists. The damp linen clung to her between them, but now it covered less than it had a moment ago.
Stefan’s impulse was to defend the lady’s honor, but too much was at stake for him to show himself.

Eyecandy

2009-06-10T09:31:00.001-04:00

Eyecandy - For E.H.

2009-06-09T20:11:00.001-04:00

Their Lady Liberty

2009-06-09T12:04:00.006-04:00

Holy hell that was hott. if you need a quick tease this is the book for you. Sweet, sexy, emotional, and erotic all rolled into one. I give this one a thumbs up and will keep it handy for when I need a quick read. Going to take a cold shower now.....

Their Lady Liberty

Resplendence Publishing

ISBN: TBA Contemporary/Erotic Romancee-Book

Their Lady Liberty

There's nothing Liberty likes better than to spend her time with the two men who ignite her body and show her pleasures like no other. She belongs to them both and doesn't want it any other way.
Brandon and Neil want nothing more than to make Liberty happy and satisfied. With her hot body and carefree ways, their mind is on little else except the next time they get together. As they see it, there are worse things to be than at the mercy of a sex goddess.
Behind the steamed up windows of Brandon's van, the threesome meet up for an afternoon rendezvous where they can love freely and live out their most decadent fantasies.

The afternoon sun shone down in all its golden glory, blanketing her body like a warm caress. Signs of spring popped up along the forest with new foliage and vibrant splashes of color . She inhaled deeply and caught a heady fragrance in the air. It stimulated her senses and made her all too aware of the decadent hunger festering between her thighs.
Liberty clasped the thin gold chain around her neck and carefully opened the heart-shaped locket. With her fingernail, she traced the handsome faces that stared back at her. Brandon Lackey and Neil Paxson. Two of the hottest guys she'd ever known, and boy did they know how to satisfy a woman. After graduation the three swore to remain close. A promise she continued to keep.
With her workday over, she looked forward to what lay ahead. The extra hours she'd been putting in were taking a toll, but in the end she knew it would all be worth it. A new chapter of her life could begin, and she'd been dreaming of it for ages.
An impatient sigh left her lips and hung heavy in the humid air. She glanced at her watch, the one with the chipped face, and smiled. It was just after three o'clock, and the boys would be by soon to pick her up. In the meantime, she sauntered along the wooded trail that led to the nature park.
Liberty snapped the locket shut and kissed the jewelled exterior. Tiny topaz gems outlined the heart and sparkled in the sunlight. The pendant had been a special gift from Neil and Brandon for her twenty-first birthday. She'd half expected a vintage rock album or even a bouquet of wildflowers. They liked to spoil her, and took advantage of any occasion to do so. Far as she was concerned, spending time with them was gift enough. But when they brought out the locket, she'd been moved to tears. Along with their sentimental words.
"You know you'll always be our special girl. Our Lady Liberty."
And she was theirs. She belonged to them both. In heart, mind, spirit, and body.

Buy It!

Her Mothers Killer

2009-06-08T11:44:00.003-04:00

Another great read by Melissa Schroeder. The who done it aspect of this one hooked me from the start. I found myself pondering all the characters as they were introduced just to see if I could figure out who the killer was. Everyone was suspect in my mind.
As always I completely fell for all the characters. Thea is a strong, take no crap heroine. Duncan is the brooding alpha male who will stop at nothing to keep his woman safe. Together these two turn up the heat and give us the erotic ride we all love.
Twists and turns abound in this one and I hope to see more books like this in the future. Maybe Thea's brother Jed will have his very own crime to solve.......

HER MOTHER’S KILLER

HER MOTHER’S KILLERPUBLISHER: WCP TORRID

DIGITAL ISBN: 978-1-60313-188-9PRINT ISBN: 978-1-60313-187-2

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BUY DIGITAL AT FICTIONWISE

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Althea Johnson would like to leave the past behind. The memories of her mother’s murder lurk in her dreams. She was happy to try to ignore it until someone drives her off the road and then begins sending her sick letters. Deciding to return to the small Texas town where it took place, Althea plans on using the skills she developed at Atlanta PD to solve the case. Her main problem is avoiding the sheriff, her old crush, Duncan Perry.
Duncan can’t believe his best friend’s little sister has grown into such a wonderful bundle of curves. He is at first stunned by his reaction to her, but never one to be slow, he starts putting the moves on her. It isn’t until he is completely seduced by her that he realizes that she is putting herself in danger to solve the old crime.
As both of them fall in love with each other, the stalking and danger escalates. Women close to Althea’s description are being found raped and murdered. The new lovers work overtime to figure out just what went wrong 20 years earlier, not realizing the mysteries they will reveal could jeopardize everything they are fighting for.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

While Ms. Schroeder thankfully adds more than enough love scenes to satisfy even the most ardent erotica fan, her touch is delicate and her characters have enough depth to make the book about more than just bodies coming together on paper. It is a joy reading a book by an author who can actually write, and write well. This is book that any fan of romantic suspense needs to read very soon, you will not regret it. MICKEY, You Gotta Read Reviews

With a smorgasbord of juicy intricate details, the plot is a feast for the reader’s soul and a marvel the storyline could come together so seamlessly with no loose ends, no stones left unturned, no slow spots and no insulting solutions. The fearful tension begins with the first sentence and only steps aside for the intensity of the sexual tension…an absolute must read.
Karen Haas, Just Erotic Romance Reviews, Five Stars, O Rating

EXCERPT
He decided he’d waited long enough for Thea and started up to the house. He ignored the interested stares and his brother’s laughter. Within moments, he stepped into the house. A few more people were gathered around the TV waiting for the next football game to start. Duncan paid them no attention and kept walking, determined to get to his destination. He turned the corner and started down the hall as Thea stepped out of the bathroom. Her eyes widened when she saw him.
“Duncan—”
He ignored her, slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her around another corner for privacy. She practically sputtered and tried to dig in her heels, but he didn’t slow down.
“Duncan Michael Perry!”
He stopped once he knew they were far enough away from the other guests. “What?”
She settled her hands on her hips. “What? Just what?”
He crossed his hands over his chest to keep from touching her. But it was hard to resist her. Her face was still flushed from the cool air outside and her irritation. He wondered what she would look like when she came.
“Duncan.”
She never lost her Texas twang, and it deepened when she was mad. He could just imagine her moaning his name, the way her flesh would feel against his.
“Duncan!”
He shook his head trying to get rid of the image, but it just wouldn’t budge. All he could think about was having her under him.
“Stop.”
He focused on her mouth, the lush ripeness of her lips as her tongue darted out over the plump bottom.
“Stop what?” he asked.
He leaned closer, drew in the sweet essence of her.
“We agreed this wasn’t a good idea.”
He shook his head. “You said, not me.”
She placed her hand on his chest and he looked down at it, then back up at her. He saw it there, the passion he felt burning in his veins, speeding through his blood like fire. He knew she felt it. Her eyes darkened, her breathing increased. The noise of the TV and the guests faded in the background.
He leaned forward. She offered him no other resistance as he rubbed his mouth over hers, the barest of touch.
“We shouldn’t.”
Her voice barely registered it was so low, the denial so weak. Her breath heated his lips, her tongue dipping into his mouth.
“But we will.”
Without waiting for her response, he dipped his head and took possession of her mouth.

June Reads

2009-06-08T11:41:00.008-04:00

1.Undead And Unwelcome - MaryJanice Davidson (Funny)
2.Her Mothers Killer - Melissa Schroeder (Great Read)
3.Their Lady Liberty - Ann Cory (Whew, that was hott)
4.Master Of Craving - Karin Tabke (I just cant get enough of this series!)
5.Accidentally Dead - Dakota Cassidy ( Hee Hee )
6.Turning Paige - Melissa Schroeder (Wonderful as always)
7.Skin Trade - Laurell K Hamilton
8.In Over Her Head - Judi Fennell
9.Red Headed Stepchild - Jaye Wells (MUST READ for UF lovers!)
10.Virgin River - Robyn Carr ( Love it! )

Taming The Fire

2009-06-06T11:55:00.002-04:00

Taming The Fire(ACRO Book 4)

Bantam DellMay 2009

ISBN-10: 0385340826ISBN-13: 978-0385340823

Pre-order at Amazon

POWER. PLEASURE. DANGER. IT DOESN’T GET ANY HOTTER THAN THIS.
He came to the underground London club for a night of extreme sex play with the enigmatic “Mistress Rik”. But the Special Agent known as Trance is really on a search-and-rescue mission to keep her alive. Part predator, Ulrika “Rik” Jaegar possesses feral powers that make her a danger to others–and to herself. That’s why the Agency for Covert Rare Operatives (ACRO) wants to recruit her to their side….To do so, Trance will have to pull off the impossible: capture and control Rik, both woman and beast.

On the run from the deadly agency that changed her into a pleasure-seeking shape shifter, Rik uses sex to rein in her own raging desires. Operating on pure instinct, she trusts no one…especially the magnificent alpha male with the power to seduce her into submission. An undercover agent with unique hypnotic gifts, Trance is surprised by his instinct to hold Rik and keep her safe — but he has a job to do. And as he hunts her down, as Rik and Trance are thrust into the ultimate game of domination and submission, they’ll enter a place where surrender is their sole hope of survival — and the only thing that can tame the wild beast in both of them…

*Click Here to Read An Excerpt Of TAMING THE FIRE

New Moon Pics

2009-05-30T10:22:00.003-04:00

New Moon Pics

2009-05-28T12:54:00.000-04:00

Undead And Unwelcome

2009-05-27T10:30:00.002-04:00

MaryJanice Davidson

Betsy Taylor has problems that only a vampire queen/suburban wife could possibly understand. Such as taking the body of her werewolf friend Antonia—who died in her service—to Cape Cod, where she's not sure if the Wyndham werewolves will welcome her with fangs or friendship. Meanwhile, her posse back in St. Paul is sending frantic e-mails alerting Betsy to her half-sister's increasingly erratic behavior. Looks like the devil's daughter is coming into her own—and raising hell.

Available June 2, 2009

Pre -Order it NOW at:

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Amazon.com

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Eyecandy

2009-05-22T10:35:00.002-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-05-21T14:32:00.002-04:00

All Tied Up

2009-05-20T12:25:00.005-04:00

Loved it! 3 friends have all sworn off men until The Goddess Of Passion intervenes and hands them their perfect mate. All Tied Up is Lindsay's story. Commissioned to design 1 room into her deepest darkest sexual fantasy Lindsay has met her match when sexy handyman Brad shows up to give her a hand. This is NOT a book I would recommend that you read in court as I did. Cathryn has that effect on me with her writing. I should have known better. Hot, steamy, and oh so sweet. Please please tell me Anna & Candace will get their own stories.

Need the job done right? Get a handyman with the right…tools.

Pleasure Inn, Book 1

Interior decorator Lindsay Bell jumped at the chance to help restore the old inn at Mason Creek. What could be more fun than letting her imagination run wild on an unlimited budget? Eagerly she plans to turn her assigned room into a fantasy BDSM playground.
All she expected from her newly hired handyman was to help her tear down a support wall. She certainly didn’t expect Brad Caldwell to be so drop-dead gorgeous in a tool belt. When he proves to be a steady, hardworking, stand-up guy—unlike the men she’s dated—Lindsay has a new and wicked idea.
To take her new creation on a test drive down the road of their deepest, darkest, most delicious desires—and seduce her way into his heart.

Product Warnings
Smokin’ hot sex with creative use of toys, and a dash of magic.

Buy It

Tattoo

2009-05-15T09:54:00.002-04:00

Wow! Another great author found at RT. Why has this series not been shoved down my throat. This is exactly what I love in a YA book. Fast paced & a clear voice gives this one an A+. If you are a fan of Twilight & The House Of Night Series this is a MUST read for you. I will be searching out every book by this new to me author.

Tattoo

Bailey Morgan isn't the type of girl who shows a lot of skin, but somehow, she ends up in a dressing room at the mall with her friend Delia applying a temporary tattoo to her lower back. Never one to suffer fashion doubt, trendsetter Delia knows exactly where she wants her own tattoo: on her stomach, right where her shirt ends - can you say "midriff"? Annabelle, the quiet one, chooses the back of her neck, and tomboy Zo plasters hers on the top of her foot. The tattoos will last for three days, and Delia's sure that with them, the four friends will absolutely kill at the school dance.

Unfortunately, killing is just what someone has in mind, and Bailey, Delia, Annabelle, and Zo are in for the battle of their lives. Along with her tattoo, each girl receives a gift - a supernatural power to help them in their fight. As Bailey's increasingly frightening dreams reveal the nature of their enemy, it becomes clear to the girls that it's up to them to save the world. And if they can get Delia to stop using her newfound power to turn gum wrappers into Prada pumps, they might actually stand a chance.

Released January 9th, 2007
ISBN: 038573347X

Amazon

The Accidental Werewolf

2009-05-12T13:27:00.002-04:00

The Accidental Werewolf - Book 1

When Marty Andrews gets bitten by a mangy mutt while walking her teacup poodle, her blond hair darkens, the hair on her legs starts growing at an alarming rate, and her mood swings put her dream job as a sales rep for Bobbie- Sue Cosmetics in serious jeopardy.

Then a drool-worthy man shows up at her door claiming that he accidentally bit Marty. And since he's a werewolf, she is now, too. Thinking Keegan Flaherty is clearly insane, Marty refuses to believe a word until a kidnapping makes her realize there's more at stake than just her highlights. And she must put her out-of-control life in the hands of the man who makes her blood run wild in more ways than one...

Click here to read an excerpt of the Accidental Werewolf

Order at Amazon.com

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Eyecandy

2009-05-11T14:37:00.004-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-05-11T14:20:00.003-04:00

Lover Avenged

2009-05-08T10:14:00.004-04:00

LOVER AVENGED

by J.R. Ward

April 28th 2009

J.R. WARD’S BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD novels have introduced readers to a “different, creative, dark, violent, and flat-out amazing”* world.
Now, as the vampire warriors defend their race against their slayers, one male’s loyalty to the Brotherhood will be tested- and his dangerous mixed blood revealed.
*All About Romance

Caldwell, NY, has long been the battleground for the battleground for the vampires and their enemies, the Lessening Society. It’s also where Rehvenge has staked out his turf as a drug lord and notorious nightclub that caters to the rich and heavily armed. His shadowy reputation is exactly why he’s approached to kill Wrath, the Blind King, and leader of the Brotherhood. Rehvenge has always kept his distance from the Brotherhood, even though his sister is married to a member. Because he’s a sympath, his identity is a deadly secret- the revelation of which will result in his banishment to a colony for sociopaths. And as plots within and outside the Brotherhood take their toll against Rehvenge, he turns to the only source of light in a darkening world- Elhena, a vampire untouched by the corruption that has its hold on him- and the only thing standing between him and eternal destruction.

Excerpt 1

Excerpt 2

May Reads

2009-05-07T12:06:00.016-04:00

1)Sweet Surrender - Maya Banks (Cant wait for the next ones)

2)Lover Avenged - J.R. Ward (She's Back)

3)The Accidental Werewolf - Dakota Cassidy (So Cute)

4)Tattoo - Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Love it!)

5)Wonderland - King Of Spades - Cheyenne McCray

6)Dangerous Lover - Lisa Marie Rice

7)All Tied Up - Cathryn Fox (Smokin)

8)Wyatt's Chance - Ciana Stone

9)A Knight To Remember - Karin Tabke

10)Dead And Gone - Charlaine Harris

11)Chosen - P.C. Cast

12)Untamed - P.C. Cast

13)Hunted - P.C. Cast

14)The Passion Of An Angel - Kasey Michaels ( Very Witty )

Eyecandy

2009-05-05T09:08:00.003-04:00

These are for you Erotic Horizons! Sorry I'm slacking. LOL

Eyecandy

2009-05-05T09:06:00.003-04:00

Her Mothers Killer

2009-05-01T10:03:00.003-04:00

HER MOTHER’S KILLER

HER MOTHER’S KILLERPUBLISHER: WCP TORRID

DIGITAL ISBN: 978-1-60313-188-9

PRINT ISBN: 978-1-60313-187-2

Coming May 1st

As both of them fall in love with each other, the stalking and danger escalates. Women close to Althea’s description are being found raped and murdered. The new lovers work overtime to figure out just what went wrong 20 years earlier, not realizing the mysteries they will reveal could jeopardize everything they are fighting for.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK

MICKEY, You Gotta Read Reviews

Karen Haas, Just Erotic Romance Reviews, Five Stars, O Rating

EXCERPT

He decided he’d waited long enough for Thea and started up to the house. He ignored the interested stares and his brother’s laughter. Within moments, he stepped into the house. A few more people were gathered around the TV waiting for the next football game to start. Duncan paid them no attention and kept walking, determined to get to his destination. He turned the corner and started down the hall as Thea stepped out of the bathroom. Her eyes widened when she saw him.
“Duncan—”
He ignored her, slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her around another corner for privacy. She practically sputtered and tried to dig in her heels, but he didn’t slow down.
“Duncan Michael Perry!”
He stopped once he knew they were far enough away from the other guests. “What?”
She settled her hands on her hips. “What? Just what?”
He crossed his hands over his chest to keep from touching her. But it was hard to resist her. Her face was still flushed from the cool air outside and her irritation. He wondered what she would look like when she came.
“Duncan.”
She never lost her Texas twang, and it deepened when she was mad. He could just imagine her moaning his name, the way her flesh would feel against his.
“Duncan!”
He shook his head trying to get rid of the image, but it just wouldn’t budge. All he could think about was having her under him.
“Stop.”
He focused on her mouth, the lush ripeness of her lips as her tongue darted out over the plump bottom.
“Stop what?” he asked.
He leaned closer, drew in the sweet essence of her.
“We agreed this wasn’t a good idea.”
He shook his head. “You said, not me.”
She placed her hand on his chest and he looked down at it, then back up at her. He saw it there, the passion he felt burning in his veins, speeding through his blood like fire. He knew she felt it. Her eyes darkened, her breathing increased. The noise of the TV and the guests faded in the background.
He leaned forward. She offered him no other resistance as he rubbed his mouth over hers, the barest of touch.
“We shouldn’t.”
Her voice barely registered it was so low, the denial so weak. Her breath heated his lips, her tongue dipping into his mouth.
“But we will.”
Without waiting for her response, he dipped his head and took possession of her mouth.

Sue's Romantic Times Experience

2009-04-30T11:11:00.022-04:00

Hi Sticky Pages Readers!!

I'm Crazy Sue, a friend of Munk's, and she invited me to give my impressions about RT on her blog.

The Romantic Times Conference 2009 in Orlando, Florida was so much fun! I hope that all Sticky Pages Readers are able to meet this special group of people, be it at an RT in your area or some other event.

It's the the ladies that made RT fun and special for me. The authors and fangirls I met there were so warm, welcoming and friendly. And funny! And deliciously naughty in all the right ways.

By all appearances Shelley Bradley is so innocent and sweet. She looks like a fresh-faced ingenue just learning about life. And then she grins that saucy grin and you know first impressions can be so false. This is an awesome woman, y'all. A fantastic writer, she's also thoughtful, kind, LOL funny and just fun to be with. And she's totally amazed that she makes fangirls squeal.

Sylvia Day is exotic and mysterious. I always wonder what's going on behind those dark, sparkling eyes. Sylvia sparkles. Literally. Her eyes mesmerize me whenever I see her. She says she's shy and this surprises me because she's so charming and relaxed. This woman is quick! She can go from zero to 60 at any moment, a little bundle of high-test energy, full of strength and determination.

MacKenzie McCade, the blond, is tall with a gorgeous welcoming smile and dimples, and she's the sexiest, most naughty Grandma you'll ever meet! She's so proud of her kids and grandkids, it warms my heart. She can be completely deadpan and professional when she chooses, and intimidating too. High power corporate. Then *boom* her persona changes completely and she's talking about how delicious and lickable her new cowboys are with a grin and a twinkle in her eyes. Mac laughs with ease, her good humor infectious.

Karin Tabke is a Lady. Tall and tan, hair piled elegantly high, perfect make-up. And calm. She's like the eye of the storm in our rowdy group. What's a nice Lady like that doing hanging out with us? I was so wrong. Karin IS a Lady, and she is nice, but she's also deliciously wicked with a seething wit that she wields with surgical precision. I very much enjoyed the conversations I had with her.

The Canadian Conundrum, as I dubbed them, traveled very far from Canada to Orlando and were a treat to meet.

Sasha White is a force of nature. I swear gravity bends in her presence, drawing people to her. She has this deep, feminine-husky voice that is so sexy she could read the phonebook and have men harden. A rabble-rowser to the core, she was totally not scary. I wasn't overwhelmed by the strength of her personality; I was instantly comfortable with her.

Cathryn Fox isn't anything like I expected. I mean, have you read her books? They are naw-tay. My first impression of Cathy Fox was that she looked like a librarian. With her tiny blond pixieness, glasses and sweetly studious air I just knew she was going to shush me. But oh, no. Not only did I not get shushed, she is a ringleader for rowdiness. This woman is now Foxy Lady!

Shelly is a Foxy Lady companion and friend. She was fun to chat with and generously took pictures for the group. I hope she had a great time at RT. Shelly took this picture of the Wicked Writer's Breakfast.

Lily glows. She is an aspiring author who is on the cusp of being published. I loved her low-key excitement. It was like at any moment she was going to howl with delight, but she was trying to restrain herself. Howl, girl, HOWL.

More stellar authors:

Ciana Stone is a such a wonderful person. Her laugh is like nothing else. She writes in just about every genre out there for Ellora's Cave and she knows her stuff. She's also a graphic artist, a great one, she films/makes book teaser videos, designs book covers... so very skilled and creative. I find her work fascinating. Please, fangirl scream when you see her. No matter where you are. :-D

Mary Wine is truly a great woman. I've been a fan of hers for years with her ebooks. Look for a print explosion from this lady. In addition to her many talents, Mary is a historical costume designer and seamstress. She makes her own gorgeous gowns for the parties. Mary is a history buff, she has to be with her costumes, so she's a font of really cool info about what it was like living in the past.

Larissa Ione/Sydney Croft is so nice, even after my yip of happiness at meeting her flared her headache. I was so excited to meet her! I have a demon duck now to grace my shelf. AND I have a backlist of Croft books to discover because I have all her Ione books already!

Sahara Kelly is a Hoot! Her banter is fast and furious. And she is very brave. Sahara has this gorgeous long hair and she let me braid it (after shameless begging on my part) despite her fear of what I was doing to her behind her back. I have no idea why Ciana and Susan were laughing their asses off. *innocent eyes* The braid was beautiful! Sahara, you are such a good sport. And your English accent, delicious.

I gush at Angela Knight every time I meet her. She is such a dear woman, always welcoming and kind to her babbling fangirl, generous with her time and self-effacing. She told me she was horribly teased as a youth, which angers me but happens often, so to have people be star-struck to meet her is a real treat and kind of bizarre to her. She'll have to get used to it. I met Angela's sexy ex-cop hubby too. Rawr. No, I didn't get a picture of him.

Now as to my favorite fangirls...

Laurie K, gangsta L Kap, is COLORFUL, from her vibrant personality, her uber-fashion hair, her gorgeous tats, to her pretty painted toes. She's wild, but down-to-earth, thoughtful, very aware. I enjoyed every minute with her. I will never forget the power of her sexy ass on the dance floor. She started swaying to the music. Soon the dancers around her stared and began swaying with her, then ALL the dancers were following her sway AS A GROUP. It was like the Electric Boogie only L Kap Style! I have never in my life seen anything like it! Sway on L Kap.

Vicki Blueyes is quieter, but you know what they say about still waters run deep. That's Vick. She sees everything, processes it all and is spot on with what she thinks about things. I very much enjoyed our discussions about... everything. She is so interesting and a pleasure to hang with. Vicki is one of those pretty people who become more and more beautiful the better you know them. You know what I mean? When you meet her, you'll see. She's beautiful, inside and out.

Readers of Sticky Pages have gotten to know Munky. In addition to reading voraciously and having fabulous taste in books, eyecandy and shoes, she's clever, insightful, kind, generous, honest, forthright, has a wicked sense of humor, wears high heels well and simply loves the color pink. What you see is what you get, take it or leave it, and I just adore her for that.

So what I found at the Orlando Romantic Times Conference is that these people are simply wonderful. All the authors I met were welcoming and kind. Thanks for a great experience, one I'll never forget!

Sue

RT 2009 Pics

2009-04-29T18:26:00.019-04:00

Laurie & Vicki (you guys rock!)

MacKenzie McKade

Jeaniene Frost

Dakota Cassidy

Cathryn Fox

Shelley Bradley

Sasha White

Ann Aguirre

Larissa Ione

Shayla Black & Sylvia Day

Sylvia Day (mine all mine)

Cathryn Fox

Sasha White

Larissa Ione

Mr. Romance 2009

Megan Hart

Sylvia Day

Lauren Dane

Eyecandy

2009-04-29T12:35:00.003-04:00

Eve Of Darkness

2009-04-28T07:49:00.005-04:00

S.J. Day

Cursed by God, hunted by demons, desired by Cain and Abel... All in a day's work.
For Evangeline Hollis, a long-ago fling with a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks just became a disaster of biblical proportions. One night with a leather-clad man of mystery has led to a divine punishment: the Mark of Cain.
Thrust into a world where sinners are drafted to kill demons, Eve knows her learning curve must be short. A longtime agnostic, she begrudgingly maneuvers through a celestial bureaucracy where she is a valuable but ill-treated pawn. She's also become the latest point of contention in the oldest case of sibling rivalry in history...
But she'll worry about all that later. Right now she's more concerned with learning to kill while staying alive. And saving the soul she'd never quite believed she had.

"Great characters and terrific storytelling in a hot-blooded adrenaline ride. A keep-you-up-all-night read."

— Patricia Briggs,

#1 New York Times bestselling author
A Marked Novel, Book #1Genre: Urban FantasyMass Market PaperbackTor Books - April 28, 2009ISBN-10: 0765360411ISBN-13: 978-0765360410

Amazon.ca Chapters.ca

“Sin is crouching at your door, it desires to have you, but you shall master it.”– The LORD to Cain, Genesis 4:7

The Devil is in the details.

Excerpt

Evangeline Hollis understood the true gist of that saying now, surrounded as she was by thousands of Satan’s minions. Some wore Seattle Seahawks baseball caps, others wore San Diego Chargers jerseys. All bore detailed designs similar to tribal tattoos on their skin that betrayed both what species of cursed being they were and what their rank in Hell’s hierarchy was. To her enhanced eyes, it looked like a damn festival for sinners. They were drinking beer, devouring nachos, and waving giant foam fingers.
In reality, the event was a football game in Qualcomm Stadium. The day was classic Southern California perfection–sunny and warm, the eighty-degree temperature balanced by a delightfully cool breeze. Mortals mingled with Infernal beings in blissful ignorance, simply enjoying a bit of afternoon spectator sport. To Eve, the scene was macabre; like watching hungry wolves sunning themselves alongside lambs. Gore, violence, and death were the inevitable result of any interaction between the two.
“Stop thinking about them.”
Alec Cain’s deep, sensual voice made her shiver inside, but outwardly she shot him a rueful glance over the top of her sunglasses. He was always telling her to ignore their prey when they weren’t on the hunt. As if rogue fae, demons, mages, werewolves, dragons, and thousands of variants of the same were easily disregarded.
“There’s a woman breastfeeding her child next to an incubus,” she muttered.
“Angel.” His nickname for her moved over her skin like a tangible caress. Alec’s voice could turn driving directions into foreplay. “We’re taking the day off, remember?”
She blew out her breath and looked away. At a few inches over six feet, Alec was blessed with a powerful chest and tautly ridged abdomen that were noticeable even through his fitted white tank. He had long, muscular legs presently showcased in knee-length Dickies shorts and biceps so beautifully defined they were coveted by both men and women.
He was her lover… occasionally. Like all sweets, Alec was delicious and satisfying, but too much of him caused a sugar crash that left her dazed and reeling. He’d also ruined life as she had known it. Her career aspiration had been interior design, not Infernal bounty hunting.
“If only it was that simple,” Eve groused. “How can I go on vacation when I’m surrounded by work? Besides, they stink even when I’m ignoring them.”
“All I smell is you,” he purred, leaning over to nuzzle his nose against her cheek. “Yum.”
“It creeps me out that they’re everywhere. I went to McDonald’s yesterday and the person serving me at the window was a faery. I couldn’t even eat my Big Mac.”
“Betcha ate the fries.” Pulling down his shades, Alec looked at her with somber eyes. “There’s a difference between staying on your toes and paranoia.”
“I’m cautious, not a basket case. Until I find a way out of this mark business, I’m making the best of it.”
“I’m proud of you.”
Eve sighed. Having Alec for a mentor was such a bad idea, and not just because it was the equivalent of a Hollywood casting couch in most Marks’ eyes. Never mind that the true “casting couch” was the exchange of sexual favors in return for a position you wanted. No one ever wanted the Mark of Cain.
The Marks’ hierarchy started at the bottom with the newbies and topped off with Alec, the original and most badass Mark of them all. There was no way to surpass him. There was also no way to work with him. He was the quintessential loner, the very definition of the word. Yet here was Eve, a six-week newbie in the field, perched solidly at the top because he didn’t trust anyone else to watch her back. She was important to him.
The other Marks thought working with God’s primary enforcer had to be a vacation. While it was true that Infernals didn’t mess with Alec unless they had a death wish, it didn’t make things any easier. Demons now targeted her as a way to get to him. To make things worse, Alec had been marked so long that he’d forgotten what it was like to be new and confused. There were things he expected her to simply “know,” and he became frustrated when he realized she didn’t.
He squeezed her hand. “What happened to the girl who just wanted to forget about everything for a couple of hours?”
“That was before she was kidnapped and nearly blown to smithereens.” Eve stood. “I’ll be back. I need to use the little girls’ room.”
As she stood, Alec caught her wrist. Her brows rose in silent inquiry.
“Angel.” He kissed the back of her hand. “When I tell you to stop thinking about them, it’s not because I want you to live in a fantasy world. I just want you to see the good stuff around you. You saw a mother nursing her baby, but you didn’t see the miracle of it. You were too busy looking at the demon next to her. Don’t give them the power to ruin your day.”
Frowning, Eve absorbed his words, then nodded her acceptance. Alec had lived with the mark since the dawn of time and could still see miracles; she could try.
“I’ll be right back,” she said.
He released her. After inching her way past the other spectators in their aisle, Eve sprinted up the wide cement steps. She still marveled over the speed, strength, and agility that came with the mark burned into her upper arm. She’d always been athletic, but now she was Supergirl. Well… she couldn’t fly. But she could jump really damn high. She could also see in the dark and bust through dead-bolted doors, talents she’d never anticipated needing or appreciating.
Eve reached the concourse and followed the signs to the nearest restroom. The line protruded just outside the entrance. Luckily, she wasn’t desperate. More than anything, she’d just needed to get out of her seat.
So she waited patiently, rocking in her flip-flops with her hands in her pockets. An occasional breeze passed by, ruffling through her ponytail. It carried the mingled scent of evil and rotting souls, a pungent stench that made her stomach roil. It fell somewhere between decomposition and fresh shit, and it amazed her that the Unmarked couldn’t smell it.
How had she lived twenty-eight years of her life in complete ignorance? How had Alec lived centuries in complete awareness?
“Mom!” The young boy in front of her was holding his crotch, crossing his legs, and wiggling madly. “I have to go!”
Although the woman looked as if she could be the child’s sister, Eve wasn’t unduly surprised. Many women in Southern California didn’t age. They just became plasticized caricatures of their youthful selves. This one was bleached blonde with a perfect tan, breasts a size too large for her slender frame, and plumped, glossy lips.
The mother looked around.
“Let me go in the boys’ bathroom,” he begged.
“I can’t go in there with you.”
“I’ll be done in a minute!”
Eve guessed the boy was around six years old. Old enough to pee by himself, but she understood the mother’s concern. A child had been killed in a public restroom in nearby Oceanside while his aunt waited outside. The demon who orchestrated that horror had used the oldest trick in the book–pretending to be God.
The harried mother hesitated for a long moment, then gave a jerky nod. “Hurry. You can wash your hands here in the girls’ bathroom.”
The boy ran past the drinking fountains and ducked into the men’s room. Eve offered a commiserating smile to his mom. The line moved incrementally forward. Two teenagers joined in behind her. They were dressed in the predominant fashion of layered tank tops paired with low-rise jeans. Expensive perfume saturated the air around them, which created a welcome relief from the odor of decay. In the stadium, the crowd roared. One of the Chargers’ outside linebackers was a werewolf. From the high-frequency praise of the Infernals in the crowd, he’d done something worth cheering about.
“Why is the line so long?” the girl behind her asked.
Eve shrugged, but the woman in front of her replied, “The bathrooms down there–” she pointed to the left with a French manicured nail “–are closed for repairs.”
As if on cue, the mark seared into Eve’s deltoid began to tingle, then burn. She sighed and abandoned her place. “You can take my spot. I don’t have to go that bad.”
“Thanks,” the teenager replied.
Eve headed to the left, muttering to herself, “Some vacation.”
“You were bored anyway, babe,” purred a familiar voice.
Glancing to the side, Eve watched as Reed Abel fell into step with her, his mouth curved in a devilish smile that belied the wings and halo he occasionally sported for shock value. He was a mal’akh, but there wasn’t much angelic about Alec’s brother.
“That doesn’t mean I wanted to be put to work.” Reed was the handler in charge of her assignments, which was just a nasty trick in her opinion. Why God allowed and encouraged dissension between the two brothers was beyond her comprehension.
“We could blow this taco stand,” he suggested. “Go have some hot, sweaty fun.”
She wasn’t touching that invitation with a ten-foot pole. Like his brother, Reed scorched a girl in both good and bad ways. “Are you kidding about the assignment? Do you need me for something more substantial or what?”
“You thought it was substantial enough before.” He winked mischievously.
Eve smacked him. “Don’t be crude. I refuse to be the latest toy you and your brother fight over. Go find something else to play with.”
“I’m not playing with you.”
There was something sincere in his tone. She ignored it by necessity, although less circumspect parts of her perked up.
“The bathroom?” she asked instead, when the yellow Out of Service sign came into view.
“Yeah.” He caught her arm and tugged her closer. “Raguel suggested it was time for an extension of your classroom training. I’ll go get Cain.”
Raguel was the archangel whose jurisdiction she fell under. He was the bail bondsman, Reed was the dispatcher, and she was the bounty hunter. It was a well-oiled system for most, but her road had been bumpy from the very beginning.
She sniffed the air. The acrid stench of Infernal wrinkled her nose. “You know… this is like sending a medical student into brain surgery the day she first reads about it.”
“You don’t know your own strengths, babe.”
She glared. “I know when I’m getting my ass kicked.”
“You’re batting a thousand so far. This one’s a wolf and you’re good with them. But be careful anyway.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one risking your hide.”
His lips pressed to her temple in a quick, hard kiss. “Risking yours is enough, trust me.”
Skirting the Out-of-Order sign, Eve entered the men’s restroom, lamenting the fact that she was wearing her favorite flirty sandals. Due to the rigors of her “job,” she’d taken to wearing combat boots whenever she left home, but Alec had coaxed her into going casual today. She should have known better.
The harsh ammonia smell of stale urine assaulted her nostrils. Finding her target was easy. He stood in the center of the room, alone. A teenage werewolf who was eerily familiar.
“Remember me?” he asked, smiling.
The boy was tall and thin, his face long and unremarkable. He wore a dirty gray hooded sweatshirt and jeans so low his ass was hanging out. A dark spot moved across his cheek and came to rest on his left cheekbone. His detail–swirls around a diamond shape. Like the mark on her arm, it served a similar purpose to military insignia.
Recognition hit her hard, followed by an immediate chill down her spine. “Shouldn’t you be in Northern California with your pack?”
“The Alpha sent me down here to even the score. He thinks Cain needs to learn what it’s like to lose someone he loves.”
“There was no way to save the Alpha’s son,” she argued. “Cain doesn’t pick and choose his hunts. He follows orders.”
“He made a deal. For you. And he broke his promise.”
Eve frowned. Alec had never mentioned a deal to her. But that was something she would explore later. There was a more immediate question. “You think you can take me by yourself?”
His smirk turned into a grin. “I brought a friend.”
“Great.” That was never good.
The large handicapped stall in the back slammed open and something absolutely horrific thundered out. Holy shit. An Infernal that large should have reeked for yards. Instead, the only thing Eve smelled was wolf.
The dragon hadn’t fully shifted. He still wore his pants and shoes, and dark hair still covered his head. But his mouth was a protruding muzzle of razor-sharp teeth, his eyes were those of a lizard, and all of his visible flesh was covered in gorgeous multihued scales.
“You smell tasty,” he rumbled.
She’d heard that Marks smelled sickly sweet to Infernals, which made her laugh inwardly. There was no such thing as a sweet Mark. They were all bitter. “You don’t smell like anything.”
We failed, she realized with a sinking feeling in her gut. Infernals still had the means to hide themselves in crowds.
“Brilliant, isn’t it?” the wolf asked. “Obviously, you didn’t wipe out our operation completely.”
The dragon roared and it was a fearsome, deafening sound that echoed in the confined space of the bathroom. The mortals couldn’t hear it, though, and Eve’s eardrums were invincible despite their celestial sensitivity. Another boon granted by the mark. The dragon shoved the wolf aside and stomped closer.
“Guess that’s my cue to leave,” the kid said. “I’ll give the Alpha your regards.”
Eve’s gaze remained riveted on her opponent. “Yeah, tell him he screwed with the wrong chick.”
The wolf laughed and departed. Eve wanted to do the same.
For all her bravado, she was out of her league. If she had been capable of physical reactions to stress, her heart would be hammering and she’d be short of breath. No doubt about it, she was going to be suffering when this confrontation was over…
…if she was still alive… Read the rest of chapter one »

Recommend this to a friend!

Back From RT!

2009-04-27T12:09:00.005-04:00

I had a blast, made lots of new friends, and met some of my idols! There were so many books.... I was in heaven!!! I had to have 3, count them 3 boxes shipped home. I can't wait to get them.

1 thing RT has taught me - how amazing the human body is. It can run on pure adrenaline for 3 days. I have never been so tired in all my life and can't wait to do it again.

Here is a list of some of the authors I met and my rambling thoughts about them.....

Shelley Bradley/Shayla Black- Who has to have the most deceptive looks on the planet. She looks so sweet, innocent, and all of 16 yrs old but come on. I mean we have ALL read her books right? If not you should be ashamed. So that leads to lesson #2 learned at RT. Never judge a book by it's cover. Ha! I was lucky enough to have dinner with her and I swear I couldn't even eat. I just kept thinking I'm sitting beside Shelley Freakin Bradley and she eats pizza too! Sorry Shelley, I was star struck.

Sylvia Day/S.J. Day/Livia Dare- Who was wonderful in every way,has a great sense of humor, is very patient *thanks for taking the photo over and over and over* and is fast on her feet. I swear to you this lady can run circles around me! Zoom zoom zoom. I never knew short people could move so fast. * see RT lesson #2* Only 1 more day until Eve Of Darkness releases .....YAY!!!!!

Mackenzie Mckade- Who is one of the sweetest ladies I have EVER met in my life. I'll be your groupie any time! *smooch*

Cathryn Fox-Who I only got to see for a second because every time I saw her she was swamped with fans.

Sasha White-Who is just as perky in real life as she seems in all the pictures I've seen of her. RT lesson #3 SOMETIMES you can judge a book by it's cover. I still didn't get to lick the cover of Most Wanted because they were all gone. :(

Karin Tabke-Who must have been hiding from me because I TRIED to stalk her but could never find her. It's okay I still love you.

Rachel Vincent- Who I'm pretty sure thinks I'm insane. She said she had never heard her name screamed like that before. Sorry Rachel, it was the only thing I could do to keep from passing out when I met you.

Jeaniene Frost- Who I totally geeked out on. I couldn't form 1 single coherent word. I think I might have blacked out but remained on my feet because there wasn't enough room to fall. She said my name "Munk" was very unusual and I swear to you, I spazzed out and froze up so bad I couldn't even tell her that's not my REAL name. Ha! RT lesson # 4 always have smelling salts with you while meeting idols!

Keri Arthur-Who was just a doll. I've been a fan since day 1. I really hope to meet her again!

Dakota Cassidy- Who is crazy beautiful. I'm so happy I got a copy of her books before they were all gone!

Michele Bardsley- Who I also froze up on but she had a long line so I didn't have to try to speak to her. LOL *see lesson #4

Lauren Dane and Megan Hart- Who seemed to always come as a pair. What a crazy set these 2 make. I really wish I would have caught up with them when they weren't swamped but I'm not sure such a time existed during RT.

Mary Wine- Who's books I will be reading shortly. What a wonderful lady she is.

Larissa Ione/Sydney Croft-Who is so down to earth and has the best evil duckies. It was the best time I have ever had waiting in line for hotel check out!

Ciana Stone- Who I was lucky enough to be introduced to and was wonderful. I'm so excited about reading your books! I cant wait!!

I found so many new authors at RT I may have to go into hiding for a few years just to get caught up on all my reading. Thanks guys for fueling my addiction and making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! *pictures coming soon*!*

Eyecandy

2009-04-21T16:52:00.002-04:00

Eyecandy

2009-04-20T10:59:00.003-04:00

Most Wanted

2009-04-20T10:47:00.003-04:00

MOST WANTED

Single Author Anthology

Kensington Aphrodisia

ISBN-10: 0758228627ISBN-13: 978-0758228628

Release date: June 2009

Bad boys—they’re the best lovers around. Submit to the pleasure of their dark and dangerous passions…

“Hidden Cravings”

PI Lexy Signorino has spent the last year trying to forget her insatiable desire for Devon Kaye’s rock hard body. But when he turns up one night asking her to help him find his missing cousin, she’s ready to surrender to sweet sensual satisfaction…

“Unrestricted Access”

Jillian Furst has lusted after detective Jackson Barrows long enough and decides it’s time for some female seduction. She sends him flowers and a steamy letter with explicit instructions for a sexual fantasy that keeps them busy in bed all night long…

“No Angel”

Anna Blair looks sweet and innocent, but playboy Gabriel Mann discovers she’s far from it. Mess with her and she’ll mess right back. And that’s just the way he likes it—down and dirty carnal pleasure that keeps him coming back for more…

Eyecandy

2009-04-20T09:41:00.002-04:00

In The Flesh

2009-04-16T09:49:00.005-04:00

I don't really know why I'm shocked at how much I liked this book. Maybe it's because I thought Eve Of Darkness would be such a tough act to follow. Livia Dare pulled out all the stops with this one. Sapphire is amazing, she's as tough as any warrior around. I love reading about strong women and Sapphire hits the mark. I was completely in love with Wulfric from first sight and couldn't seem to get enough of him. We are taken on an amazing journey of longing , lust, and love as these two burn up the pages and push two kingdoms to the brink of war. This book is Hott Hott Hott and I want more!

In the Flesh
Lush, evocative, inventive… Fans of Dara Joy will love this!

— Shayla Black, author of Tempt Me With Darkness

Book Description

AN INFAMOUS BEAUTY. A DARING WARRIOR. . .

For five years, Sapphire has been the King of Sari’s most treasured concubine. Independent at last, she refuses to put herself in anyone’s control again. But now another’s meddling has led her into the path of proud, arrogant Wulfric, Crown Prince of the rival kingdom of D’Ashier. . . a man who is dangerous to her in every way.

AND A SEDUCTION THAT COULD
DESTROY THEM BOTH

The daughter of Wulfric’s fiercest opponent, Sapphire is a prized warrior in her own right and highly skilled in the sensual arts—in short, Wulfric’s perfect match. A lasting union is unthinkable, but the bargain they strike—to spend one night together, and then part—proves impossible in the face of a desire powerful enough to bring two countries to the brink of war, and two hearts to the point of surrender. . .

formerly known as Sapphire’s Worth

Amazon.com
Barnes & Noble
IndieBound
Kensington
Target
BAMM.com

A Little Harmless Pleasure

2009-04-15T12:17:00.003-04:00

A LITTLE HARMLESS PLEASURE

BOOK TWO
PUBLISHER: SAMHAIN PUBLISHING, LTD

DIGITAL ISBN: 1-59998-540-3PRINT ISBN:1-59998-561-6GENRE: EROTIC ROMANCE/INTERRACIAL/BONDAGE

ORDER THE EBOOK AT SAMHAIN

ORDER THE EBOOK AT SONY

ORDER THE EBOOK AT MOBIPOCKET

ORDER AT BARNES AND NOBLE

ORDER AT BORDERS

ORDER AT POWELL’S

Cynthia Myers meets Chris Dupree at her former fiancé’s wedding. After a little dancing, and champagne, she ends up back in Chris’s hotel room. For one night of down and dirty sex. That’s it, that’s all. He lives far away, and she has other things to do…like get a life.

Chris is a switch. He likes to dominate but he also likes to play the role of a submissive from time to time. His last relationship with a sub turned nasty and since then, he has shied away from anything but straight vanilla sex. When he meets Cynthia, he finds a woman who could change his mind. His mate. The only problem is he has to convince her.

In a carefully orchestrated seduction, Chris teaches Cynthia about submission and dominance, allowing her take the reins. As he leads her through pleasures she thought she’d never experience, Cynthia’s self confidence soars and she finds herself falling in love with him. But, when he asks for submission in the bedroom, can she surrender to prove her love or was it all about a little harmless pleasure?

Warning, this book contains: Lots of sex, of course; bondage and submission done in a tasteful but wonderfully arousing way, propositions from a drunken woman, hot phone sex, southern accents, Hawaiian scenery, and OH MY, a m/f/m ménage that will send tingles all the way to your toes, along with other various body parts. A glass of ice cold water for refreshment is recommended while reading.

Amazon's shortminded censorship!

2009-04-12T17:59:00.006-04:00

Many of our beloved books have lost their ranking with Amazon's new censorship policy. Help the cause by using the link below. Add it to your blogs and e-mail it to your groups. Thanks Guys!!

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NICHOLAS, THE LORDS OF SATYR

2009-04-11T14:03:00.004-04:00

In the heart of Tuscany's centuries-old wine country, three half-Satyr brothers receive a letter that sends them in search of three endangered half-Faerie brides. The daughters of a dying king, they present a unique opportunity for the wealthy, charismatic Lords of Satyr to beget heirs to inherit their Italian vineyard and ancient secrets.......... For not just any woman will do as a Satyr wife. Each month at Moonful, the brothers change physically, becoming more powerfully potent. They're driven by the darker side of their natures to indulge in a nightlong ritual in a sacred gathering place ringed with statues of Bacchus, nymphs, dryads, and fauns........... Eldest brother Nick considers it his duty to sire heirs. But he prefers to keep his conjugal visits to Jane, his new FaerieBlend wife, proper while engaging in more carnal activities with experienced courtesans........... Unaware that she's half-Faerie, Jane is desperate to rid herself of the terrible abilities she acquired when she turned thirteen. Only then will she bear Nick's children and find a true home with him. Until then, she must deceive him........... As the grapevines begin to bloom, an ancient cult hatches plans that could destroy Nick and Jane's blossoming happiness.

Nicholas excerpt

Raine: Lords Of Satyr

2009-04-10T14:43:00.003-04:00

In this erotic historical paranormal romance trilogy set in the heart of Tuscany's centuries-old wine country, three half-Satyr brothers receive a letter that sends them in search of three endangered half-Faerie brides.

Handsome, stoic, middle brother RAINE has been wed before to a wife who was repulsed by his carnal needs. Each month at Moonful, these half-Satyrs change physically, becoming more powerfully potent. They're driven by the darker side of their natures to indulge in a nightlong ritual in a sacred gathering place ringed with ancient statues.

Though Raine wants no part of another marriage, he searches out the second half-Faerie, Jordan, in Venice. She turns out to be far different than he could ever have imagined, and she is living a dangerous lie.

Raine's traumatic childhood and a bad marriage have closed him to the idea of giving or receiving love. As the winegrape harvest begins, Jordan slowly reawakens his heart. But he finds himself competing with another nightmarish suitor who has gained an evil hold over this woman he is coming to love.

Raine excerpt

Lyon

2009-04-09T11:25:00.003-04:00

LYON, THE LORDS OF SATYR

erotic paranormal historical romance

Kensington Aphrodisiaisbn 978-0758220417

(Over age 18 only please.)

Release date: August 2008.

Synopsis:

In this erotic historical paranormal romance series set in the heart of Tuscany’s centuries-old wine country, three half-Satyr brothers receive a letter that sends them in search of three endangered half-Faerie brides.
Charming youngest brother Lyon is so ruggedly handsome that his looks have actually caused women to swoon. Though he resents that duty calls him to wed and doubts that he can ever love one woman, he nevertheless travels to Paris in search of the third bride.
At first glance, Juliette seems a good choice for him, for he discovers her to be a courtesan. Their passionate night together leaves him sated beyond his wildest imaginings, but her magic results in dire repercussions that only she can reverse.

Dominic

2009-04-08T17:52:00.003-04:00

Product DescriptionThey are Satyrs, men endowed with legendary carnal knowledge who demand total and complete control with their sexual prowess...

A Night Of Bliss

Emma anxiously awaits her husband's return home to Tuscany on Calling night. She hopes that the night-long copulation will draw them closer together for she questions whether they truly love one another. But when Carlo arrives, injured in battle and unable to perform, she learns she must mate instead with Dominic, a lusty, royal Satyr. It is a night of hedonistic passion that leaves her wanting much, much more...

A Moment Of Rapture

Like other Satyr lords, Vincent is driven to mate from dusk to dawn every Calling night. But as a bachelor, Vincent must conjure a female from the mist who will satisfy his sexual needs. While his brothers summon a different partner with each full moon, Vincent calls upon the same one time after time. He wants her to experience the same erotic pleasure he feels and one night she does the magic is real...

Eyecandy

2009-04-08T09:49:00.002-04:00

Oh No!

2009-04-08T08:37:00.002-04:00

Ugly!!!!!

Free Reads

2009-04-07T14:23:00.004-04:00

Free reads from Cerridwen Press!

Free Reads

Female Brain vs Male Brain

2009-04-07T10:09:00.005-04:00

THE MALE BRAIN

Nauti Intentions

2009-04-07T09:13:00.004-04:00

It's here! It's here!

Nauti Intentions
ISBN: 0425226050
Publisher: Berkley
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Since he saw Janey Mackay taking a dip in her bikini, Major Alex Jansen has had to quell the fire she ignites in him. Even touching her would mean death at the hands of the Mackay men. Until now, the girl of his dreams—and fantasies—has lived in a vacuum of affection, shying away from the danger she thinks men represent. Alex sets out to prove her wrong, with his torturously slow caresses.Everyone thinks Janey’s safe now, with her abusers dead. But when someone starts leaving spine chilling notes, Alex won’t rest until she’s completely safe. And completely his—body and soul…

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

2009-04-06T13:21:00.008-04:00

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS

Kensington Brava

ISBN: 0758203187

September 2002

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Reviews

Excerpt

EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE . . .

Surveillance expert Seth Mackey knows everything about the women that his millionaire boss toys with--and tosses aside. Raine Cameron is something different. Night after night, Seth watches her on a dozen different video screens. Her vulnerable beauty haunts him and her fresh innocence stirs a white-hot passion that he can barely control. Raine is pure temptation, but Seth has something more important to take care of first. He's convinced that his boss, Victor Lazar, is responsible for his half-brother's murder. He cannot put his secret investigation at risk, but he can't stop wanting her--craving her--and soon he knows he can't let Victor have her. For Raine may be Victor's next victim . . .

EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE

Raine knows she's being watched--but no one can see the secrets in her heart. She has reasons of her own to seek revenge on Victor Lazar, and she will, despite her fear--and the distracting presence of Seth Mackey. Though Raine has little experience with men, Seth's fiercely masculine good looks and animal sensuality stir her most erotic fantasies when she's alone . . .and lead her to a bold plan. Offering her body to him, surrending totally to his ruthless desire might well push her beyond all emotional limits--and beyond fear itself.

Marked

2009-04-04T13:45:00.003-04:00

P. C. Cast
Kristin Cast

The HOUSE OF NIGHT novels are set in a world much like ours except in Zoey Redbird's world vampyres have always existed. Kristin and I have created a new vampyre mythos where our vamps have a biological reason for their existence. They have established a complex matriarchal society ruled by High Priestesses who give their allegiance to the vampyre goddess, Nyx. Sixteen year old Zoey steps into this mystical society after being Marked to begin the Change from human to vampyre a Change that takes about four years to complete. But not everyone who is Marked will Change. Many fledglings cannot survive the physiological adaptations and will die. As if that's not stress enough, Zoey has been Marked as special by Nyx and given powers never before seen in a fledgling. When all she really wants is to fit in her new life, Zoey comes to understand that she must assume the leadership of the school's most elite club, the Dark Daughters. Will Zoey have the strength to do what Nyx asks of her? Will Zoey even survive the Change?

Check out MARKED (St. Martin's Press) and find out!

After she is Marked, 16-year-old Zoey Redbird enters the House of Night and learns that she is no average fledgling. She has been Marked as special by the vampyre Goddess Nyx. But she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers. When she discovers that the leader of the Dark Daughters, the school's most elite club, is mis-using her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny— with a little help from her new vampyre friends.

Read Chapter 1
Click here to start reading. Warning: It's addictive.

Be sure to remove pop-up blockers on your computer in order to let the vamps do their thing.

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