I'm so excited to announce the release of
Forever in Darkness, a bonus novella for my Order of the Blade series! I was in the middle of writing Darkness Reborn, Kane's story, but Ian kept bugging me, demanding attention. I finally had to stop writing Kane's book and take a few weeks off to write Ian's novella. What emerged was an incredibly powerful and moving story that dives so deeply into Ian's torment and his soul, and finally gives the reader a chance to see who he is and what drives him. The novella is incredibly sensual, darkly passionate, tragic and hopeful at the same time, and a critical turning point for the series.
Forever in Darkness can be read as a stand-alone novella, or as the next installment of the Order of the Blade series. Either way, as a thank you to my readers for all their support, it's being priced at $.99 and the price will never be raised. Enjoy this foray into the passionate and dangerous journey of Ian, a warrior who will entrench himself into your heart by the time you are finished with this novella!
To celebrate the release of Ian's novella, I'm giving away more free books! The winner can pick from any of my novels, ebook or print book (but some books are available only in one format or the other). For details on how to enter, keep on reading... but first, here's the cover blurb for Forever in Darkness:
Cursed to die for a choice his ancestor made, Ian Fitzgerald has spent six hundred years fighting the curse and trying to restore honor to his family's name. But his time to die has finally come, and his doom is in the guise of the one woman he cannot walk away from: his soul mate. Or is she really who she seems? Light and darkness, shadows and death, reality and illusions swirl around Ian as the curse hauls him relentlessly toward his own demise. Desperate to survive, Ian fights ruthlessly to uncover the truth about the sensual, desperate female who has died in his arms already…twice. Can she save him, or will she be the final key to the destruction of everything he has fought to protect?
Intrigued? Here's a little snippet of what Forever in Darkness has in store for you...
It wasn't her.
Ian
gritted his jaw, fighting against the need to sprint across the room and grab
the woman standing beside the bar. It couldn't be true. There was no chance
that the woman thirty feet away from him was Catherine Taylor.
Catherine
Taylor was dead. She'd fallen into his arms, stared at him for a fraction of a
second, and then Ian's teammate had struck her down. Dead. Done. Over. She was
history.
And
the second woman he'd buried earlier in the evening? He was sure now that it
hadn't been Catherine. It had been a woman who looked like her, and his
screwed-up mind had mixed them up.
The
curse was trying to work him over. There was no reality anymore. Just
delusions.
It's not her.
Sweat
beaded on Ian's brow, and adrenaline surged through him. His entire body shook
with the effort of staying where he was instead of responding to the siren call
of the woman by the bar. His head pounded with the strain of trying to control
his thoughts, to keep from hauling ass over there, sweeping her up in his arms
and carting her off to his place to make love to her until neither of them
could move.
He
ground his jaw, focusing his attention on an old wooden sign on the opposite
wall. Be a Man. Play with Sharp Objects.
Be
a man. Stand with honor. Shit. What was he doing hiding in the shadows?
Honor
didn't mean he was supposed to shrivel in the corner, afraid to look at an
auburn-haired woman. It meant he stood tall, faced down that damn curse and
defeated it. The curse had come to claim him, and it was time to step up and
fight it. He needed to challenge what it threw at him and prove himself
stronger.
He
had to face it.
Ian
clenched his jaw and slowly turned his head back to the woman. He steeled
himself for the impact of seeing her, but the moment he saw her again, he felt
like he'd been sucker-punched in the gut.
It
was Catherine. It was her. It was his
woman.
He
would never forget those strawberry-gold highlights in her hair, the upturned
slant of her nose, the way her lips pressed together in tension. Her skin was
paler than he recalled, but her hips had that same curve of muscles and
femininity. He would never forget the feel of her hips beneath his hands when
she'd fallen down that damned cliff and he'd caught her. He knew exactly how
they felt, precisely how they curved, and he knew just how her jeans caressed
them.
Her
hair was tossed over her right shoulder in a tumble of waves, and her white tee
shirt hugged her body like it was put on this earth to torment him. The plain
cotton was almost innocent in its simplicity, but the curve of her breasts
beneath it made Ian's thoughts go to places that were far from innocent. On her
left wrist was a thin gold bracelet that matched the gold hoops in her ears. No
other adornment, no other flash. Not even any makeup. Just the pure, sensual
beauty of a woman who was simply who she was, and that was more than enough for
him.
She
was searching the room now, her face tense with worry as she scanned the crowd.
Her tension made his protective instincts pulse deep. Adrenaline rushed through
him, and his weapons burned in his arms. This time the urge to arm himself was
not to impale himself like some weak-willed embarrassment to his kind, but to
protect her. To make her safe. To keep her from the fate she'd already suffered
twice—
Twice?
Ian
swore and gritted his teeth. What was he thinking? It made no sense that this
woman was Catherine Taylor, that she was some reincarnation anomaly who could
come back to life hours after he'd buried her. What the hell was his problem?
He
knew the answer to that one. The curse was his problem. It was going to keep
trying to make him relive the death of his sheva
until it finally broke him.
Well,
fuck that. The woman across the bar wasn't his sheva. He was going to prove it, and then cut himself free from her
influence.
She
turned her head and met his gaze. His gut jumped as her green eyes met his, and
he felt himself sliding helplessly under her spell. She stiffened, then took a
step back and glanced over her shoulder toward the door.
She
was leaving? Unacceptable.
Urgency
coursed through Ian, and he broke from the corner, heading right for her.
Her
eyes widened when she realized he was approaching, and her cheeks flushed. But
she didn't back away. She lifted her chin and waited for him to approach.
Anticipation
roared through him as he neared her, and an urgent lust rose within him as he closed
the distance between them. The scent of lilac and lavender filled the air, so
subtle, so faint that he wouldn't even have noticed it if he hadn't been
searching for it so relentlessly.
Lilac
and lavender. Hot damn. She smelled right.
Her
green eyes searched his, and in them he saw pain and fear, so deeply etched it
had become a part of her soul. But at the same time, they flashed with defiance
and courage, a woman who had not surrendered to the burden she carried. Respect
surged through him, igniting his lust even further.
But
it was more than respect and lust. It was a raw, burning need to drag her over
to him and make her his, in any and every way that he could.
She
swallowed, and he felt her rising nervousness. "What do you want?"
she asked.
Sweet
Jesus. Her voice was like the choir of angels. Desire exploded through him, a
yearning so powerful he could barely contain it. He had spent his life fighting
the carnal urges that were a part of being a Calydon male, determined not to
let it rule him and put him in a position where a woman could bring him down.
But with those four words, this woman had unleashed all the raw sexual need
he'd held at bay for so long.
She
had to be Catherine. She had to be his sheva.
There was no other explanation for the intensity of his response…but Catherine
had died eight months ago. Her spirit couldn't have been reincarnated into a
twenty-something body that was already alive.
What
the hell was going on?
He
needed answers. He had to know. He wanted to feel her body against his, to
crush her into him and feel their bodies come together. He needed to dive deep
into her soul and see who she really was, and he needed it now. The pulsing of music from the band vibrated through him, the
deep base thudding in every cell in his body. "Dance with me," he
said hoarsely, his voice raw with lust and need. "Dance with me."
And now, for the fun part! What paranormal romance have you read that had a hero that really stuck with you long after you finished the book? Leave a comment (on any topic) and be entered to win a free book of your choice. I will give away at least one free book to a winner picked from the comments. But for every 15 comments, I will add one more free book, so pass the word on. More prizes means more chances to win! The winners will be posted on Something Wicked next Friday, so you have a week to enter and drum up more entries to increase the size of the pot!
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