Excerpt:
Carefully stepping around scattered, fractured boards, trunks and lengths of
tangled rope, Jordan and Ferrous neared the last grouping of rocks at the trees’
edge. Jordan sighed. About time.
A faint heartbeat crawled out of the obscure shadows, stalked up his spine.
Something lived from this bloody mess. Though barely.
Jordan stilled.
Ferrous turned to the left. “I feel it too.”
Jordan followed.
On the opposite side of the rocks, jagged boards bumped, clattering against a
boulder. A mass of tangled human remains bobbed and swayed with each lap of
water against the shore.
From this mess, a heartbeat cried. Jordan closed his eyes and sighed as his
stomach flipped. He would find it. He stepped into the water amid the carnage
and shuddered. I must move as hastily as possible. I can do this. The sound of
life grasped him as if a hand itself clasped his flesh. He flinched, then turned
to the left.
An arm’s length away, half in the water, lay a woman. Her limbs were twisted
and broken, as if made of nothing more than weeds. A man’s head, severed from
the body it had once belonged to, floated close to her hand. Jordan’s heart
pinched, and the scales on his elbows prickled anew.
No one deserved to be half alive after experiencing a tragedy such as this.
He stepped up next to her, knocking the human debris away with his boot. He
leaned down and wrapped one hand about her slim, bare shoulders. The other he
slid beneath her knees, fisting up a handful of her full skirts. She should have
drowned in such a garment. He lifted her, pulling her body up against his.
She hung like a sack of barley in his grasp. Her long, wet skirts and hair
trailed cold water in a stream, trickling over the rocks and babbling down into
his boots. He turned and stumbled along the slag toward the trees.
Ferrous turned after him. “She won’t live, Jordan.” He strode behind him.
“Leave her.”
Her clothing, laden with seawater, soaked his coat in blood. Was it hers or
the rotting blood of the pool in which she had lain? He shook his head. Don’t
think about the stench. He grimaced. Think about her.
Ferrous was right. She would never live.
He fell to his knees and laid her on the high grass that bordered the trees.
Her dress was that of an aristocrat, finely tailored with small pearls and
embroidery now torn open down to her flesh in several places. Her hair had been
swept up with the sun, golden rays that now hid beneath a cloud of red death. “I
will end her suffering.” Yes, that was the correct thing to do.
“For bloody sake, Jordan. You are not to indulge unless you have an inkling
she may be the one. There are no exceptions to our rules. Look what happens to
Ilmir when he breaks one. Who knows what calamity awaits us in London.”
Jordan’s jaw clenched, and he narrowed his eyes, refusing to look at Ferrous,
who stood behind him. “This is different, and you damn well know it. I am not
Ilmir, and she is not a woman I am courting. She is dying.”
“Being chivalrous?” Ferrous threw up his hands, grumbled and walked through
the trees back toward the shore. “Make haste. I wish to make this hellish scene
vanish this hellish scene and be to London to deal with Ilmir.”
Did Ferrous truly think he wanted to do this? To kill another woman was the
last thing he wished. Twenty years had passed… Jordan inhaled a deep breath and
blew it out between tense lips. He ran his fingers down her pale cheek and
around her chin, tilting her face toward his. A slender nose, full, angelic
lips, and noble cheekbones. A beauty. “To a better afterlife, dear.”
He raised her chin, exposing her long, graceful neck and faintly beating
pulse. Another death…
Dash it. He stared unblinking at the slight flutter of her blood beneath her
skin. Relax, Jordan. He closed his eyes and exhaled. All will be well.
Prickling pain clawed through the roof of his mouth as his two pointed teeth
extended into thin slivers of bone. He stared down at her neck. She had been
floating in blood and seawater. He spit on her neck, twice. His saliva glimmered
as it slid down her throat to the grass below. There, that should wash away the
dirt she had stewed in. Or would it? His throat tightened. Don’t lick her. Be
done with it.
He leaned in and pressed his teeth to her vein. His mouth opened, saliva
pooled heavily, and his tongue thickened. The pouches by his back teeth filled
with poisonous blood, forcing his jaw still wider. He inhaled a jagged breath.
His heart leapt and pounded, vibrating through his entire being…
Bite her, Jordan. Be done with it. Bite her.
Her faint pulse bumped against his teeth, willing him to take her as his
mate. Mate? Well, that urge was pointless. She would pass just as swiftly as the
others. He rolled his lip back and hissed, then pressed, slicing through her
soft, salty outer skin and into her tepid blood flowing below.
She didn’t flinch.
This was the first time he had taken a woman when he was not passionately
joined with her. Odder yet not to have her scream. To have her do nothing but
lie on the wilted grass.
He swallowed. Dirt be damned, he needed to taste her and know that one
essence of the life he now took. He fluttered his tongue on her smooth skin.
Warm, salty blood slid thickly down his tongue.
Damn. His muscles quivered as
his poisonous blood streamed from his pouches and down his teeth, twisting into
her veins. His cock pressed painfully hard against his thigh.
The task was done. There would be no more. He would not take his pleasure in
her. He would not know the feel of her flesh against his. He would never know
her favorite color. This woman, like all the others who had come before, was not
meant to be his. Enough!
He growledand opened his mouth wide. Her soft flesh slipped from his fangs.
He pulled his head back, and their mixed blood trailed in streams down her neck
and dress. His vision shifted and popped. Adrenaline mixed with power bubbled
through his veins. This…this, he had missed.
This was what he was meant to be. His full elemental power at a glimpse. He
tossed his hair back and then growled a dragon’s cry up to where the moon should
hang in a radiant, colored vision. Yet only the ebony fog resided tonight. There
was no moon to lighten this scene. His vision rippled with detailed clarity. Ah.
Indeed. This was the power that years of existence without his mate had
diminished. He wanted this power back. It had been too long. In a burst of
speckled light, everything changed back to somber mist. Bloody hell. His throat
closed off, and his eyes burned. No! He swallowed hard, and his shoulders
sagged. This was a tease. A temptation.
He closed his eyes and shook his head. He would never know more of what the
Zir were than this… Death and a glimpse of the exhilarating power they were
destined to have.
He inhaled and smelled her metallic, sweet blood on his lips. His tongue
traced his teeth and upper lip, gathering up the enslaving essence. Sweet orange
blossoms and candied cherries. His made-up version of what she should taste
like. Remember her. His jaw trembled as hot blood pounded through him to his
groin. His soul wanted more of her. To mate. To love. To live a lifetime of
companionship.
He clenched his teeth, and his fangs pierced his lower lip. You have done
enough to end her suffering. Quite enough. Let her be. He opened his eyes once
more.
A shadow shaped as Ferrous stood head down and arms straight out in the air
at the rocks’ edge. “Make haste. I wait no more.”
Jordan placed her head softly back on the grass. “Will scant be a moment more
of pain, beauty.” He trailed his hand down her broken arm to a heavy, thick
bracelet looping her wrist. He unclasped the chain and slowly rubbed the metal
between his fingers. His token of her death. He tucked the jewelry in his inner
coat pocket, then rose to his full height. Turning to his left, he skulked into
the inky woods.
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Lacy Danes made a New Year's resolution to write a hot, historical romance.
A year and a half later, she achieved her goal. She lives in Portland,
Oregon, where besides writing she enjoys playing cards, chasing her kids around,
and savoring a great martini with the man of her dreams all while watching the
world go by.
Visit Lacy at her web site.
Find Lacy and her books
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Waterfall
Dragon's Fate #1
Samhain
BN
Amazon
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Books
Curses are designed to
be cruel, but the one afflicting Jordan and his brothers is almost
beyond bearing. A dragon born by blood magic, he is an immortal trapped
in human form, with only one hope of finding his eternal mate. He must
bite her—and pray she lives.
One dark night, he senses the
wounded heartbeat of a woman in the shadows, begging him to end her
life. Ever the gentleman, he chivalrously obliges her wish. Only to
discover three days later that she lives. And has married another.
Celeste
always dreamed of marrying for love, but the nightmare of living in her
father’s home drives her to wed the Duke of Hudson. Yet on her wedding
eve, she is compelled to follow a mysterious man who professes to know
her secret. A man with curious blue scales on his muscular arms—whose
shadowed eyes reflect a dangerous mix of destiny and desire…
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