Breath of Fire (38 page)

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In a world of shadows, a pure heart can be the most dangerous weapon of all.

Dark Flight

© 2013 Cassi Carver

The Shadow Slayers, Book 3

Kara has been training for months to help take down Brakken—the merciless black-wing who is making life hell for the Demiáre. But when Julian discovers a scout has been tracking Kara, he wants her out of the fight—even if it means breaking her heart in the process.

Gavin isn’t much better. He’s already lost so much to Brakken and has no intention of allowing the woman he loves to be the next sacrifice. He and Julian have their hands full trying to fight Brakken’s army and keep Kara safe, especially after her recent visit to the mythical white-wings. Since her return, she’s been acting decidedly…strange.

With a terrible battle looming, Kara doesn’t have time to think about her conflicted feelings for Gavin and Julian—or the fact that she’s developed an unnatural taste for Gavin’s blood. But if she thought it was complicated evading mysterious scouts and fending off vicious black-wings, she’s learning that’s nothing compared to loving two strong-willed men.

Warning: This book contains angels that aren’t what they seem, a heroine with mad midwifery skills, and a metamorphosis that will change life as we knew it.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Dark Flight:

“I apologize for claiming you were mine, but you are a member of my clan. I would have done the same even if I didn’t—” His words suddenly dropped off.

Kara cocked her head. “If you didn’t what?”

He spun her once again, this time around a lady whose dance with three men seemed to be slipping rapidly into something more like clothed group sex. “If I didn’t…want you for my own in truth.”

Kara swallowed. Part of her felt like pulling away, but the other part gripped him tighter. So much had happened since the day she’d met Gavin, and their lives were still way too complicated…but
what if things could be different? What if she allowed herself just a moment of solace in his arms? “You still do?”

“Want you?” he asked. She merely nodded. “I always have, princess. From the day we met—you and only you.”

The bodies around them were quickly losing the formal attire they’d had on when Kara arrived, and the band was picking up the beat, their songs becoming frenetic and pulsating. It looked like the Demiáre who resided with Nefren were much like other Demiáre she’d seen—hot-blooded, willing and ready.

The sounds and smells were almost too much for Kara, so she tucked her forehead against Gavin’s shoulder—not that his heady scent made her control any better. He put his arms around her back, and his heavy thigh worked its way between her legs. She tried with everything in her not to grind against it, but she lost the battle.

When she cracked open her eyelids, the landscape had altered even more. Nefren must have turned up the heat because it was the perfect temperature now for all the half-naked and completely buck-naked bodies gyrating in pairs or groups in the courtyard.

Apparently she didn’t need to worry about Engus’s attention anymore, because he’d decided another brown-haired woman would be the recipient of his ardor for the night. He had the woman bent over and as Kara watched, his long shaft disappeared between the full, round globes of the woman’s ass, just to reemerge again when he cocked it back.

Nefren seemed to be enjoying his status as well. One woman had her hand down the front of his pants while he suckled another’s large breasts.

Kara closed her eyes again and fought the chills that had broken out across her skin. She swiped at her forehead with the back of her hand, but Gavin never missed a beat. His thigh was doing things to her resolve. Very bad things. “I’m not sure we should be here, Gavin. Seeing this…scenting it…feeling the energy…it does something to me like I don’t experience on the surface.”

He dropped his lips to her ear and his breath tickled and delighted her senses. “This is who you are, Kara. You don’t have to apologize for how you were made. Not in this place.”

His hand slid down her side and cupped her ass through her tight denim capris, bringing her even more firmly onto his thigh. He punctuated his gentle thrust with a wet tongue on the curl of her earlobe.

“Fuck…” she whispered, melting into him, her insides on fire with the desire to feel his cock deep within her. “Not here. Please not here. If you touch me again, I’m going to drop your pants and fuck you till you make me come.” His response was a low growl in his chest that liquefied her bones.

She glanced again at the couples, and the erotic vision blew her mind. She could imagine herself as every lady she saw…one being taken by two men, another’s head bobbing frantically in a warrior’s lap as he grimaced in ecstasy that seemed to border on pain. “And if you turn me into one of them,” she said, “I’ll never forgive you.”

She’d had her share of fantasies, imagining what it would be like to be with Gavin and Julian both…but that wasn’t the same as what she saw here. If things had been different when Julian woke and they’d started a life together, just the three of them, it would have been love. This spectacle, as tingly as it made Kara feel below the belt, didn’t amount to much more than scratching a species itch. Still, having Gavin so close and eager, she wasn’t sure she would mind getting scratched if Gavin’s claws were doing the work.

He angled his head toward the heavens and took a deep breath. “I know, princess. I don’t want this for you.” Then he cupped his huge hand on her cheek and met her eyes. “The first time I take you, I don’t want another soul to distract you from how I will worship your body. I’ve waited too long for anything other than your full and undivided attention.”

His mouth might have been saying that he didn’t have plans to take her at the moment, but when it came to her body, the damage had been done. Her thong clung to her sex, so damp she worried it would show through her pants. She was slick and ready, eager to welcome him in.

Gavin glanced to the black-wing who now had his eyes closed as two women worked on him. “I think Nefren’s permission is implied at this point. Let’s find some fresher air and see if we can locate the next point on the map.”

“Sure.” Kara’s desire clawed at her from the inside. Her rational self tried to take the reins—but it failed. “Just one more thing before we go.”

She grasped the long hair covering the brand on the back of Gavin’s neck and brought his lips down hard on hers.

A warrior, a maiden…and a passion that could set the whole world aflame.

Keeper of the Flame

© 2013 Bianca D’Arc

Dragon Knights, Book 7

Despite the fact he is the largest of his half-dragon brothers and better suited to fighting, Hugh has been sent on an undercover mission. Forced to stay in human form, he must discover if the land of Helios is truly the Draconian ally it pretends, or something more sinister.

When he witnesses injustice in the form of a misshapen baby gryphon kicked out into the cold, he cannot remain in the shadows and watch the child suffer. All he can hope for is that his act of kindness will go unnoticed so his mission can continue.

But someone does notice. When Lera cautiously approaches Hugh, she is drawn to his strange, foreign magic. She is entranced by its irresistible allure—until assassins come calling and reveal her true identity.

She is Valeria, queen of Helios, Keeper of the Flame. And she has been betrayed. Together they must risk everything to uncover the traitors and reforge the alliance between their lands. Yet beneath their blazing passion, both are still keeping secrets. Secrets that the Sacred Flame will reveal—if their love survives its cleansing fire.

Warning: When a dragon prince and a Flame Keeper come together, the conflagration is definitely too hot to handle!

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Keeper of the Flame:

“What’s wrong?” she asked in a low, urgent voice.

“Good question.” The words, spoken in an unfamiliar voice, made them both whip around to the left.

A black-clad man stood there, in the dark shadows of the vines. How had he approached without Hugh sensing him in some way? The lady shrank back in terror, crowding Hugh. Then he saw it. The snake eye tattooed on the stranger’s forehead and the deadly gleam of blackened steel in his hands.

“Eyes.” Hugh didn’t need to hear the lady’s frightened gasp to know what they faced. Another assassin. “Why didn’t you just stick her with your blade while you had the advantage?” Hugh stood in the darkened field between the rows of vines to face the man and put some space between himself and the lady. He needed room to maneuver.

“Terms of the contract,” the man replied offhandedly. “My employer wanted her to see it coming. There’s a bonus for terror. Plus, I find it personally more entertaining to make the target suffer.” He looked around at the dark vineyard. “And on her own land too. She’ll like that, she will.”

“In my land, assassins take pride in their silence.” Hugh tucked away the news that the lady’s cousin had put out the contract on her life, though he could tell by the way her face drained of all color that it came as a shock to her.

“It must be a very boring place, then.” The tattooed man moved, closing in as Hugh drew a short blade that had been sheathed in the leather strap over his chest.

“I would call it civilized,” Hugh replied with a small amount of disdain.

“I see you plan to act the hero.” The assassin sounded almost bored, but his eyes—the real ones, not the tattoos—missed nothing, actively watching Hugh’s slightest move. “I’m only being paid for her, but I suppose watching you die first will garner me that bonus.”

Without warning, the man engaged, closing with Hugh in a lightning fast move. Had Hugh been any less alert, he would’ve been dead within seconds. But he was a dragon and had supernatural reflexes even while in his human form. He could see better in the dark than a regular person and had the advantage of dragon magic that allowed him to harden his skin against the sharp metal blade.

While not exactly as strong as his dragon hide, Hugh’s unique magic allowed him to take blows that would leave normal people slashed to ribbons. The assassin moved like lightning, but few of his strikes landed and those few that did didn’t draw blood.

Eventually the man changed tactics, maneuvering Hugh around the darkened vineyard, almost herding him. Hugh tried to keep himself between the assassin and the lady at all times, but he hadn’t counted on there being more than one attacker.

A gasp from behind made Hugh spin. The lady was in the grip of a second assassin, this one with a matching snake’s eye tattooed on his forehead, directly between his real eyes. The blackened blade gleamed to Hugh’s sight as the assassin pressed it against her throat.

“That’s right, boyo,” said the first man, closing on Hugh’s unprotected back. Hugh could take him, but his partner would kill the lady without a second thought before Hugh could get to her. “Now, do we get one eye from this or two? Your choice.”

“You get an eye for each person you kill?” Hugh was sickened by the macabre practice.

The man nodded with seeming pride. “Twenty-seven I have today. My master there has double that number.” From the corner of his eye, Hugh saw something move in the darkness to the left. Something that blended with the night in gray and black stripes. “My master can make it quick for her or make her suffer. Which would you prefer?”

“Neither, actually,” Hugh said conversationally to the man.
“We need your help, sweetheart.”
He directed his thoughts toward the baby gryphon.
“Remember how I told you about your claws? Unsheathe them and sink them into the man holding the lady. I will take care of the rest.”

A split second later, as if he’d timed it perfectly, though luck had more to do with it than planning, the gryphlet erupted from beneath the vines as Hugh sprang into action. Miss went for the man holding his knife at the lady’s throat, claws bared, sharp teeth flashing in the night as she hit the man from the side, raking his arm. She jumped upward, using her wings to bat him with air and feathers, claws and teeth, blinding him and making him let go.

But not before the sharp blade cut into the lady’s neck.

Hugh saw it in the split second as he shifted shape and slashed out with his much bigger claws, killing both assassins at the same time—one with his right hand, one with his left.

The lady was bleeding, but still standing when he dropped the lifeless men to the ground and beckoned to her.

“Get on my back quick as you can. We dare not tarry. There may be more of them.”

The lady climbed aboard and Miss bounded up right behind her. Hugh lurched into the air with less grace and even more speed than before, heading out, over the hills, toward the sand flats beyond. He needed a place to take them where they’d see an enemy coming. Someplace safer than the city or its environs. Someplace close.

The sandy wasteland beyond the foothills was the only place he could fly to fast that provided some of those tactical advantages. And it had to be quick. The lady was bleeding. He had to see how bad it was.