Title: Waterfall
Series: A Dragon’s Fate Novella
Author: Lacy Danes
Genre: Romance, Alternate Worlds,
Paranormal, Steamy/Erotic
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Cover Artist: Kanaxa
Warning: This novel contains explicit sex, sex in water, four super-hot dragon brothers, and a curse born from magical power that has left them wondering who they are all their lives.
BLURB supplied by Bewitching Blog Tours
It’s easy to fall in love. Destiny
requires tooth and claw.
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…
Available at Samhain BN Amazon iTunes Google Books
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.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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.
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