the sampler

I forgot to mention that there is an excerpt that starts on Chapter 1 and includes part of Chapter 2 at the end of Demon Blood. The same excerpt is featured in the free paranormal sampler that Berkley has been distributing at conferences (and that might be in bookstores soon? I’m not exactly sure how wide the distribution is). That excerpt has been edited for space and is missing big chunks of Mina & Newberry’s drive from the ball to the Iron Duke’s estate, during which we learn more about the world and the duke himself, so you won’t want to skip to Chapter 2 when you pick up The Iron Duke.

The excerpt at the back of Burning Up starts at Chapter 2 and ends after the first scene.

So I’ve finally added an excerpt to the site — for those of you who have read the previous two excerpts, the first part isn’t new, but the second part is. It starts at Chapter 2 and continues on through the next scene.

*I will have some of these samplers at the Powell’s signing in September — but if you have Demon Blood, then you have the same excerpt, anyway.

And for a look at how I am handling the question, I’ve put up an (unedited) excerpt for “Here There Be Monsters,” from the BURNING UP anthology out in August. THE IRON DUKE is up for pre-order as well at Amazon (it’s a trade sized novel, which is why it’s $15 — and I don’t know yet if it will be re-issued in mass-market. I suspect that is something the pub decides after they see how well (or not) the book does.) As soon as I see it for pre-order at other locations, I’ll add those links in, as well.

For those of you wondering about how The Iron Seas fits together as a series — all of the novels are lightly connected with some recurring characters, but each romance and plot stands alone.

And in case you missed it, I put up an excerpt for Demon Blood (it does include spoilers for Demon Forged, so if you haven’t read that yet, be warned.)

Here’s a snippet from the Burning Up novella (I am LOVING the steampunk, but it’s also why I’m not posting here often.):

Her heart pounding, Ivy held still as Mad Machen crossed the distance between them. His dark face lowered, stopping with his lips a breath from hers. He murmured, “Here in front of my men, or in my cabin. That is your choice.”

“Your cabin.” Frustration shook through her whisper. “And damn you to a kraken’s belly.”

His brows rose, and a surprised laugh broke from him before his mouth suddenly covered hers, his long fingers cupping her jaw. Not a hard kiss, and not tender—it was a statement, she realized, for the men watching them. A claim, pure and simple.

A claim that went on until Ivy had to employ all of her willpower to refrain from biting him.

He finally lifted his head, and turned to the boy. “Duckie, escort Ivy Blacksmith to my cabin. See that she wants for nothing.”

“Yes, sir.” The boy gathered her satchel from the captain, and looked expectantly to Ivy.

Plastering on a smile, she pulled at her trouser legs and curtsied to Mad Machen. His laugh followed her to the stairs—and Ivy decided she could make a statement, too. A brass finial shaped like an egg decorated the end of the banister. Ivy closed her gray hand around it. Metal shrieked as she crushed the finial between her fingers.

His laughter stopped.

She released the mangled brass, and called over her shoulder, “I await your mighty prick, sir!”

***

Their argument hadn’t gone unnoticed. Beyond the mouth of the hallway, Becca sat curled on one of the common room sofas, pretending to read. Though the novice’s nose was buried in the book, her eyes were too wide and her body too still. Listening, then. And if she’d understood their French—which was likely—perhaps she was wondering if Irena intended to kill Lilith.

But Irena doubted Becca would ask. Although the novice possessed a bold mouth with anyone aged less than one or two centuries, she became a mouse around the older Guardians.

At the end of the hall, Alejandro paused in front of one of the closed doors, turning his head as if he’d caught a scent. Irena caught up to him just as the door opened.

Dru’s brows rose when she saw them. Her body blocked Irena’s view of the room.

How is she? Alejandro signed.

The healer sighed. She squeezed out of the room, followed by her novice apprentice, Pim. They carried the odors of a human and dried blood with them—Hugh, Irena recognized, and Rosalia.

Physically, she’s fine. Mentally, we will have to wait and see. Dru rocked back and forth from the toes to the heels of her red sneakers. Usually, she bobbed; Rosalia’s condition must have been worrying her. Hugh is speaking with her now—telling her how you found her.

Soundproofing shielded the room; with the door closed, Irena couldn’t hear anything of Hugh’s and Rosalia’s conversation. Should we give her a personal account? Irena asked.

Dru shook her head. What you can give her is ten minutes with Hugh.

Irena narrowed her eyes; Dru’s never lost their friendly expression, but her voice dared Irena to argue when she shoved her hands into the pockets of her lab coat and repeated, “Ten minutes.”

The healer would fight her if she didn’t comply, Irena knew. Dru only appeared bubbly and soft, as if she was composed of smiles and laughter. But when she’d specialized with Irena almost twenty years earlier, the healer had revealed a stubborn streak comparable to a deaf ox. Every time Irena had severed one of the healer’s limbs—teaching Dru to fight through that shocking loss—Dru had simply reattached it, despite Irena’s commands to the contrary.

Dru had been one of Irena’s favorite assignments.

“Ten minutes,” she agreed.

Dru nodded. “I’ll be downstairs if I’m needed. Pim?”

The novice hurried after the healer, the expression on her round face open and awed before she caught up to Dru and began gesturing wildly, questioning Dru’s method of removing the bone shards from Rosalia’s brain and rebuilding her skull. The novice’s awe went far beyond appreciation for the healer’s skill, and Irena wondered if Dru had realized yet that Pim was in love with her.

And she wondered if she and Olek were the only two Guardians who looked outside Caelum and the vampire communities for their bed-partners. They had that in common. . . although Olek’s arrangements typically lasted much longer than hers. Years, rather than a single night.

She knew the name of his most recent lover by accident; four months ago, while visiting Drifter in Seattle, she’d overheard Jake telling young Charlie that he’d teleported into a bedroom while searching for Alejandro—and found a human in with him.

Emilia.

Irena had known a few Emilias. They’d all had long, curling dark hair, ripe-cherry lips, and passionate spirits.

And she’d liked each of them. His Emilia probably wouldn’t be any different—and Irena wanted to hate her for that.

She felt Olek watching her, but didn’t look up as she walked past him into the common room. The floor shivered beneath her feet. The novices practiced in the gymnasium on the first level, and the soundproofing between the floors and the thick rugs spread around the sofas didn’t completely absorb the impact vibrations. The clattering of keyboards and the murmurs of phone conversations floated up the stairs from the main offices.

Though plenty of seats were available, Irena plopped down next to Becca. The microfiber upholstery was cool and soft against her back; she put her feet up on the low table, made herself comfortable. The novice lifted her dark head and gave Irena a tight, quick smile before returning to her book.

Ah, so she tried to cover her unease with polite disinterest. Irena couldn’t allow that. She called in a billet of steel, and began working the metal with her fingers and her Gift.

Alejandro moved around the room, stopped behind the facing sofa. He rested his hands on the curving back. His gaze fell to the regal stag forming between Irena’s hands, its body caught in a mighty leap.

Becca glanced over. Then looked again, brown eyes lighting with curiosity.

Snared as easily as a hare.

Beneath Irena’s fingertips, her Gift molded the steel antlers into a wide forehead, a powerful jaw. A running wolf quickly took shape, its fur ruffled by the speed of its passing.

“You are not training with the others, Becca?” Irena asked in English, smoothing away most of her accent.

Despite that effort, the mouse almost went back into her hole. Then Becca tilted her book, showing Irena the spine. “I’m supposedly training my mind.”

Irena worked through the Chinese characters of the book’s title. She could read symbols more easily than alphabets, but she was hardly well-read. And so when she made out the name, she was surprised to recognize Lao Tzu’s work.

She hadn’t read it, but she’d heard it recited—in Caelum and on Earth—many times.

She didn’t follow any part of it.

“The Tao Te Ching?” Alejandro said. His fingers flexed against the back of the sofa with each pulse of her Gift. Irena’s breath moved to the same deep rhythm.

“Lilith recommended it. To help me find inner peace and balance.”

The wolf in Irena’s hands became a razor-edged dagger. “And has it trained your mind to obey like a dog or sharpened it?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m still trying to figure out the ‘being like water’ part.” The novice hesitated, her gaze on the spear rising out of the knife. “Do you have any suggestions?”

To be like water? “Submerge yourself in a lake with a sword, and practice with it.”

As if finally noting his response to her Gift, Alejandro straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. “Perhaps Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. It is somewhat similar to Irena’s philosophy.”

Her lip curled, and she said to him in French, “Sun Tzu too often ignores his gut in favor of his head. That is the best way to get a sword stabbed through it.”

Becca looked at Alejandro, a hint of mischief in her smile. “So it’ll teach me to fight without arms and legs? Eat hearts?” She glanced back at Irena and her shoulders hunched. “Or so I’ve heard.”

She’d never forced anyone to eat hearts. “I suppose you will find out when you specialize with me in a few decades.”

Becca’s eyes widened. “God, I hope not.”

There it was—that spark Irena had wanted to see. She grinned and reshaped the spear to resemble Mackenzie, the novice’s vampire lover. She tossed the statue to Becca.

“Oh, wow. Thanks. Holy crap, it’s just like him.” Her fingers ran over the chest, the face. She jerked her hand away, sucking in a breath. Blood welled on her thumb, and the novice stuck it between her lips.

Irena frowned. “You put blood into your mouth but balk at eating a heart?”

Becca yanked her thumb out. “Was that a lesson? Was I supposed to learn something useful?”

Learn something useful—from a statue of a skinny vampire? Yet Becca was in earnest. Irena closed her eyes and fought to remain silent. The sort of laughter she was prone to might destroy the small progress she’d made in drawing out the novice.

“Yes,” she heard Alejandro say with dry amusement. “A simple lesson: Fangs are sharp.”

“Oh. I already know that.”

“Good,” Irena said, rocking up to her feet. She didn’t know if ten minutes had passed, but it felt as if they had. “And if you do specialize with me, bring Lao Tzu’s book with you.”

She sensed they were both going to need it.

If you aren’t sure if the name is yours (more than one Sarah, for example) you can check the comment number listed — and if you still aren’t sure, e-mail me, and I’ll see if your e-mail is the same for that comment.

I will be sending an e-mail out to all of the winners…soon. If you want to get a jump on me, please feel free to e-mail me using the contact form at the link above.

Also — I got in the new bookmarks/rack cards and stuff for DEMON FORGED (now with shiny excerpt!) If you want some, just let me know where to send them and how many you want.

For the Demon Angel/Demon Night giveaway:

True Random Number Service
Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

61 101 21 66 55
20 67 31 37 98

61 – Jennifer M – DEMON NIGHT
101 – Dottie – DEMON ANGEL
21 – Jackie (Literary Escapism) – DEMON ANGEL
66 – Carol Thompson – DEMON ANGEL
55 – Sarah – DEMON ANGEL
20 – Jacqueline – DEMON NIGHT
67 – ckyboston – DEMON NIGHT
31 – Virginia Hendricks – DEMON NIGHT
37 – Lynda – DEMON ANGEL
98 – Gregory House – DEMON NIGHT

First Blood Winners:

Random Sequence Generator

Here is your sequence:

27 – CrystalGB
55 – kardis
39 – adelina
17 – Diane Higgins

And…I’ll be having another giveaway tomorrow. I just haven’t decided what it’ll be yet, because I’ve got a huge box of books to slowly give away.

Here’s the FIRST BLOOD giveaway.

Here’s the DEMON ANGEL/DEMON NIGHT giveaway.

And here’s an excerpt for DEMON FORGED. To avoid DEMON BOUND spoilers, it starts after chapter one.

I’ve got just a bit left to fix, then I’ll be back Tuesday-ish with the winners (“ish,” because I might crash).

And, THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF PARANORMAL ROMANCE. I thought this was releasing in April (except for in the UK, where it is already available) but I just found out that Amazon has it and is shipping it. I have a short story — unrelated to the Guardian series — called “In Sheep’s Clothing,” and here’s a quick excerpt (it’s a very short story, so I’m only putting up a very short excerpt *g*):

Five years ago, Emma Cooper would have thought a blown tire in the middle of a blizzard was bad. But bad was the small, spiked metal ball her fingers found embedded in the rubber — and worse was the truck, its headlights on bright, pulling off the two-lane highway and onto the shoulder twenty yards behind her Jeep.

The tire iron in her hands rattled against the one lug nut she’d had time to crack loose. She hadn’t even raised the jack yet; it lay on the icy asphalt behind the flat front tire.

No, not much time had passed at all. He must have been waiting off the road for her to drive by, his truck concealed by the dark and the snow.

Don’t panic, Emma told herself, and pulled in a long breath between her chattering teeth. Now was definitely not the time to panic.

Still gripping the tire iron, Emma rose from her crouch. The rattling rumble of his diesel motor cut off. The pounding of her heart filled the sudden, snow-muffled silence.

Stay calm. She tugged open the front door of her Jeep, slid into the driver’s seat, and hit the locks. Emma had been living in Seattle the past five years, but she’d kept up on the local news. In the last eighteen months, four vehicles — each with flat tires — had been found abandoned on this rural stretch of an Oregon highway. Each time, searchers recovered the body of a woman from the surrounding woods. Each woman had been raped and strangled.

The truck door slammed shut. Oh, God. She squinted against the glare of headlights in the rearview mirror, but couldn’t see anything. With her right hand, she rummaged blindly through her purse on the passenger seat and found her cell phone.

It had been years since she’d dialed the number, but she still knew it by heart. Nathan Forrester answered on the third ring. She spoke over his sleep-roughened greeting.

“Hey, Sheriff Studly.” Emma could see the dark figure in her side mirror now. The silhouetted shape was tall, and wearing a thick coat and a cowboy hat. She couldn’t tell if he carried a gun. “I’m on the side of the highway with a flat tire, and I could really, really use a lift.”

“Emma? Oh, Christ. Emma, listen — don’t accept any help.”

“I didn’t plan on it.” She stared at the mirror. He’d walked half the distance to her Jeep. Her fingers tightened on the tire iron, her nails drawing blood from the heel of her palm. Stay calm. “But I think he plans to offer help anyway.”

She heard Nathan swearing and running across a wooden floor. “Where are you? You still have your Jeep?”

“About ten miles before the Bluffs turnoff. And, yes. I still have it.”

“Okay, Emma, I’m on my way, but you’ve got to drive. Stay in low gear. The flat tire will pull hard at your steering wheel, but your Jeep will go. So you start it now and get the hell out of there.”

Emma jammed the phone between her cheek and shoulder, turned the ignition key. The engine fired up. A shadow darkened her window.

She looked over just he swung her jack through the glass.

There’s a complete list of authors and titles at Jeaniene Frost’s blog (via Lynda Hilburn’s blog).

In books like mine, there comes a point early where I have to state what is going on, what the rules (and Rules) are, and so forth. This is most easily done with a character who does not know WTF is going on, and so the reader learns along with her and in a way that is organic to the scene/story (and hopefully the dreaded INFODUMP can be avoided — I have not always done so successfully.) The best example? Charlie and Drifter. Charlie doesn’t know crap about the Guardians, so while she’s digging a bullet out of Drifter’s back, he tells her. I like that scene a lot. (I’ll put it at the end of this post.)

I’m a talky writer. I like to have my characters talk, especially if they are the main characters and we can get the romance/flirty/tension stuff going in the conversation, too. Sometimes, the worldbuilding comes out smoothly in the course of their discussions, even if both characters know what is going on (although it works best if both only know parts, so they piece it together). Unfortunately, sometimes it means that I end up in a room with talking heads … even if one of those heads doesn’t know WTF is going on.

I hate writing those scenes (usually put them in brackets and write them last, hoping that by some miracle I’ll get the info out another way and won’t have to write it) but sometimes — especially if the person with the information isn’t one of my POV characters, I can’t get around it. My main characters have to be told, and we have to listen. If I’m lucky, the scene is short.

Today, it was not. Well, it wasn’t long … but I was resisting every single word. I HATED IT. I had a character who didn’t know WTF was going on, and she’s going to be necessary to the story, so she isn’t a throwaway character for the sake of the scene, and she needs to be brought up to speed, but it was effing boring — especially since it had just come after an emotional fight between my hero/heroine. Then my hero stood around in an effing boring scene, so HE seemed boring. And I realized: okay, this cannot be.

So I had him move. And yes, he’s relaying all of the needed info as he’s moving, but now he’s relating it to everything/everyone he’s seeing, giving me a chance to introduce the setting and a few more characters, and it all pulls together when he runs into Khavi at the end of the scene … which is where DEMON BOUND left off.

And because I erased so much and started over, I probably won’t make my word count for the day … but thank goodness those stupid words are gone. In about a year, I hope you’ll be thanking me, too, for sparing you an effing boring talking heads scene, and giving you an Alejandro-stalks-broodily-through-SI scene instead.

Here’s that excerpt from DEMON NIGHT, when Drifter explains to Charlie the origin of the Guardians:

 

 

Ethan nodded. “I owe you some explaining.” He seemed to smile at her snort of agreement, though his lips didn’t move. But she saw it at the corners of his eyes, the slight lift of his brows. “And I’d be much obliged if you’d help me out while I’m doing it. How strong is your stomach?”

Blinking quickly didn’t make his question make any more sense. “What?”

“The bullet’s giving me some trouble, and it’s coming out too slow. I can’t protect you like I should if my arm don’t function when I need it. But if the bullet’s out, it’ll heal up quick and clean.”

It took her two more blinks. “You want me to get the bullet out of your back?”

“I reckon it’ll hurt like a son of a bitch if I go in through the front,” he drawled, and she closed her eyes, pressed her lips together. “Now, Charlie, don’t you start laughing and lose your mad, because if you’re angry it’ll be easier to use a knife on me. Though I must be all kinds of a fool, hoping you’re riled up before I give it to you.” He paused, and the drawl slipped away. “But only if you feel up to it, Charlie.”

That was the voice she’d heard from him the night on the roof. Still slow and long, as smooth and warm as a sip of scotch, but without an exaggerated flavor to it. “You’ll tell me who you are? What you are?”

“Yes. But we’d best do this in the kitchen.”

Charlie looked down at the pale rug, realized that they were moving to avoid staining it with blood, and wasn’t sure if she was up to it. But Ethan was already walking that way, so she hurried after him. He stopped just inside the kitchen, in front of a security panel. Light flooded the room.

And maybe her stomach wasn’t all that strong, because it began roiling when he laid a knife on the butcher-block island top and pulled a ladder-back chair in from the breakfast nook. He straddled it, crossing his forearms on the backrest.

She took a deep breath, stepped up behind him. The hole in his coat centered above his right shoulder blade. Charlie gingerly touched the skin showing through the tear. “Right here?”

“Yes.” His muscles shifted under her finger, and she looked up to see him tilting a black felt-tip pen her direction. “Mark it, so you won’t have to cut more’n once or twice.” He turned his head in profile to her, his brows drawing together. “That hole pisses me off more than getting shot, Charlie. I don’t have a talent for creating my own clothes, particularly something that fits me this well. You got that marked?”

“Yes.” She couldn’t say anything else. His jacket, suspenders, and shirt disappeared, leaving his broad shoulders naked and exposing tanned skin over long, rangy muscles. Her fingers itched to run the length of his back, from the short thick hair at his nape to the tight ridges of flesh hugging his spine and narrowing down to his waistband.

But she didn’t want to touch him like this.

The knife gleamed wickedly on the countertop.

“Forgive my blushes, Miss Charlie. I’m so awfully modest and bashful.” He grinned and rested his chin against the top of his shoulder, watching her sidelong. “And you’ll have to pardon any groaning I do. It’s not becoming a man to cry, so we groan real loud instead.”

 “I know you’re trying to make it better, Ethan, but you’re just freaking me out. Do you want a drink or something first?” She could make a drink, that would be nice and comfortable—

“I doubt Colin and Savi keep any around; liquor doesn’t do anything for me, in any case. Nor would medicine or painkillers. I’ll talk myself through it.”

And her, too, she hoped. “How deep is it?”

He rolled his shoulders, grimaced. “About two or three inches. Just dig in there until you hit lead and then use the tip of the blade to wiggle it on out.”

Oh, Jesus. “That doesn’t sound like a good plan.”

“It’s likely not, but—” He sat up straight, and his jacket was suddenly in his hands. He lifted the sleeve up from the rest of the bundle; from the wrist to the elbow, it was dark with blood. “That’s mine, Charlie. Nearly lost my hand to a demon. Now, I can reattach it, or wait until I return to Caelum and get a Healer to fix me up, or eventually grow another one—but next time it might be my head, and I can’t put that back on. And next time might be the moment I let the shield down around the house, because there’s no way for me to know if a demon’s waiting for us when the spell is up.”

Demons, spells, being constantly prepared to defend himself…Charlie could barely imagine life at that level or think in those terms.

But she had to now, didn’t she?

“All right. All right.” She shrugged out of her coat, tossed it onto the island. The ivory-handled knife was as cold as her fingers, and gooseflesh crawled over her body—but Ethan’s skin was smooth, as if he didn’t feel the chill in the air. “Do we need to sterilize this?”

“No. Just quick and deep, Charlie. And soon, before I turn yellow and embarrass myself.”

“Just hold on a second, Ethan. Jesus.” She thought his lips twitched before he turned, facing straight ahead. “I need a towel. Or five. You’ve got some of—”

A rainbow of her neatly folded hand towels appeared on the island.

“My tweezers, too.”

After a second, Ethan said, “They in something?”

“A brown makeup bag. It’s got a fleur-de-lis design all over the outside. Yeah, that one.” God. Just wiggle the bullet on out, Charlie. He was crazy. She wiped off the tips of the tweezers and laid them next to the towels. “Are you ready? You’d better start talking. You said you’re a Guardian—what does that mean?”

“You ever play DemonSlayer?”

“The video game? No.” She held the blade over the black circle she’d made on his skin. Just stabbing wouldn’t let her work in there; she needed an incision.

“Good, because it’s mostly bullholy fucking whoreson—!” His jaw clamped together and he dropped his forehead to his arms; his knee lifted and he slammed his boot against the floor.

Charlie felt the vibration in her feet, and she stared in shock at the deep wound she’d made, the blood pouring from it. She’d convinced herself it wouldn’t really hurt him. For God’s sake, he’d been shot and she hadn’t heard him complain about the pain, just the inconvenience. “Ethan—”

His voice was muffled against his arms. “Get in there, Charlie, or it’ll close up and you’ll have to do it again.”

He was right; it had bled hard the first second, but it was already slowing. She grabbed a towel and her tweezers. “Guardians?” she prompted.

“Yes.” He hissed when she probed the incision, and she thought she heard wood splinter. “You’ve heard about Lucifer and his rebellion in Heaven?”

“I think so.” She couldn’t see anything inside the wound, and looking at it was just making her sick; she closed her eyes and gently felt around for the bullet. She’d forgotten what a distinctive odor blood had. “Lucifer and his followers were turned into demons and thrown into Hell—but Lucifer decided to trick humans into wearing clothes instead of leaves, so he turned into a snake and made Eve eat the apple and then humans were eternally screwed.”

His back shook under her hand, like he was holding in laughter. “I don’t know if the snake and the apple is true—but the demons did begin tempting humans, and angels remained on Earth to stop them. Except it wasn’t long before humans started thinking the angels were gods, and the demons got almighty jealous.” He sucked in a long breath. “You’ll have to open it up again. Deep as you can. Poke around in there, Charlie. You don’t need to be gentle, because it’ll only hurt for a second—I can hardly feel the cut you made now. And you aren’t doing any damage.”

“Okay.” Charlie wiped the blood from her hands, the tweezers, then his back—cleaning the work space. “It’s all over your pants.”

“I’d take them off and sit here in my skivvies, but—sonofabitch.” He gripped his knees, the muscles and tendons in his hands and arms standing in sharp relief. “But I ain’t wearing any.”

He’d probably meant that to be teasing, instead of sounding like it had been ground between two jagged stones.

“Sorry,” she murmured, and swiftly got the tweezers going. When the steely tension in his back eased, she said, “So the demons were jealous?”

“Enough to wage another war against the angels. Only this time Lucifer had creatures from Chaos, a dragon and demon dogs and such, and they just about slaughtered the seraphim—that’s the angels—until humans began fighting with them. I felt it there, Charlie.”

“Yeah, I found it.” She bit her lip and held her breath as she carefully dragged the tweezers against the bullet, searching for the edge. “So the demons started killing people, too?” She made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. “It’s slippery.”

“You’ll get it.” Her probing must have been hurting him; his thumbs were working circles on his thighs, though the rest of him was still. “Demons can’t kill humans—it’s against the Rules. No killing or hurting them, no denying them free will.”

“Why?”

“Used to be, they got dragged back to Hell by Lucifer, then Punished or destroyed.”

“Used to be?”

“The Gates are closed now. But that’s another story, Charlie, and not nearly so old. This one, the men who joined in the battle turned the victory back the angels’ way.”

“How?”

“One of them—Michael—killed the dragon.”

“Got it,” she breathed, and slowly began to draw the bullet out. She lost it, and fished back in, trying to work under it instead of squeezing this time. “Damn. It’s going to take a second, though. And then what?”

“And then the angels gave Caelum—their home—to Michael, gave him a Guardians’ powers, and left him to recruit others.”

“When did all of this— Oh, shit, here it is.”

The slug landed with a plop in her cupped hand, and she held it over his shoulder, grinning.

Ethan whistled low and picked up the mushroomed bullet between his thumb and forefinger. “A forty-four hollow-point—unfortunately, only the light cartridge behind it. If they’d used a Magnum round, it’d likely have punched right on through, made it all a bit easier for me.” The slug vanished, and he slanted a glance up at her. “Thank you kindly, Miss Charlie.”

The darkness of his lashes only made the impact of his amber eyes more intense, knocking the wind out of her. She swallowed, forced a reply. “Sure thing. Just give me another minute, and I’ll get you cleaned up.”

Herself, too. Blood covered her fingers, pooled in her palm. She didn’t want to look down and see how much was on her shoes and pants.

“It ain’t necessary, Charlie. I can…” The rest of it was lost beneath the sound of the faucet, and by the time she’d soaked a towel with warm water and lathered soap into it, he’d apparently decided to let her help.

His elbows were resting on the seat back, his posture easy, his booted feet flat against the floor. He tensed beneath the first swipe of the towel over his skin. His right boot slid back a couple of inches, his heel lifting, and she paused, remembering how he’d reacted on the first cut. But the incision had healed; only a four-inch pink line remained against his tan, and that was fading quickly.

The triumphant haze of getting through the operation without fainting was fading, too.

“That didn’t hurt, did it?” It wasn’t really a question. And now she recalled how he’d vanished the blood from her hands in the booth.

“Not a bit. I suspect there’s more hurting to come, though.”

She wasn’t so slow that she couldn’t interpret that. “Yet you’re still sitting here,” she said, and wiped another section of skin clean. Efficiently, though she was tempted to take her time, to make that hurt just a little worse—maybe even bad enough he’d want to relieve it.

“Well, Charlie, I just ain’t man enough to walk away when a pretty woman offers a warm bath.”

A dark emotion grabbed at her throat. She’d been pretty enough to kiss, too. And apparently pretty enough to get his dick hard, but she’d bet that if she walked around the chair and took any of that for herself, he’d push her away and tell her it was for her own good.

She let the towel drop to the floor. “But I don’t think I’m woman enough to keep nurturing a man who doesn’t need it.”

She backed up to the island, lifted herself up onto the wooden surface, and kept her hands clenched on the edge of the counter. Her fingers were screaming to do something, and she’d have done just about anything for a cigarette—anything but ask Ethan for one.

Even something as innocent as asking for her knitting seemed too much a giveaway of her hurt, so she just squeezed the wood instead.

Ethan’s gaze lifted from her hands to her face. “Charlie—”

“So you can fly, and heal fast,” she interrupted, because she sure as hell didn’t want to talk about anything else. Didn’t want to hear him say again that she was needy, or to think about how easily he saw into her.

Didn’t want to think about how simply knowing that she’d aroused him had created an ache that centered much lower—and was much warmer—than the one in her throat.

She was good at wanting things that she shouldn’t…and equally good at denying herself them.

Ethan watched her carefully as he stood. A blue cotton shirt appeared in his hands. “Yes. I can run quick enough a human can’t see it, lift a city bus if it needs to be lifted.”

A thin scar bisected his navel horizontally, rippled across the left side of his abdomen. She swung her legs out so that she had something to stare at besides his stomach. Her shoes were spotless; so were her pants. Considering how much blood had spilled, and how close she’d been to him, that was impossible. “And you make stuff disappear.”

“If I can get my head around it, I can store it. Blood doesn’t feel good, though.” He slid into his shirt, frowned at the length of the sleeves. He met her eyes again as he rolled up the cuffs. “If I have the opportunity, I choose to clean it off in the normal way.”

She didn’t know if that was an apology or an explanation, or just an excuse—but it helped that he offered one. “Do you drink blood?”

“No. Don’t eat, don’t drink, don’t sleep.”

“That must be nice,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Not to need anything. Then it wouldn’t hurt so much when you didn’t have it.” Or when you had to give it up.

His lips tightened. “Well, the lack of sleep is more difficult than the others. Close your eyes, Charlie—I’m about to make new britches, and I don’t always get it right the first time.”

She did, but an image of his body appeared behind her eyes anyway. “Where’d you get that other scar?” Not as a Guardian—he’d said the one on his lip was from when he was human.

“Which?”

How many did he have? “Here.” She lifted the hem of her shirt a couple of inches and ran her finger in a quick line over her stomach.

She heard him swear lightly and fabric rip before he said, “A saloon in Cheyenne. I’d tracked…hell if I remember his name, but he’d swindled a nice bundle out of some society matron in New York. A little dude, and I never expected he’d pull a— Now, Charlie, what about that is so almighty funny?”

It took her a second to stop laughing, but she finally managed, “Dude?”

His voice suggested that he was smiling again. “Ah, well, a ‘dude’ back in my day was a fancy man who had no business being out west. And I’m decent now.”

Indigo denim jeans—not formfitting, but falling straight from his hips, like the old-fashioned Levi’s she’d seen miners wearing in pictures. His suspenders looped the length of his thighs, and Ethan had his head bent, working a metal button on his waistband through the end of the leather strap. His shirt was still unfastened, exposing a wide swath of skin. Dark hair roughened his chest, arrowed down the center of his stomach.

Nothing about that visual was decent; it embodied some kinky fantasy Charlie hadn’t even known she’d had. She picked up her makeup bag, began digging through it to distract herself.

“You tracked him—you were a cop?” Old Matthew hadn’t been wrong, after all.

He shook his head. “I was employed by a detective agency.”

“Like…like…” Dammit. “It starts with ‘P. ’”

“Pinkerton’s?” He glanced up from his buttons, and she nodded. “Similar to it, yes. I worked with Pinkerton’s for a spell, but they mostly wanted thugs to hassle unionizing workers. So I moved on to a smaller agency where I could be put to better use.”

She leaned to the side and turned on the faucet in the middle of the island, rinsing her tweezers. “You’re big enough to be useful as a thug.”

“But I’m more useful thinking like a thief and murderer.” His eyes narrowed. “What’s it with you and letters? ‘Starts with “P.”’”

“I remember the sound I associate with the thing easier than I do the actual word or name.” She kept her focus on her hands as she dried the tweezers and replaced them in the makeup bag. Hopefully, the threat of a unibrow would overpower the memory of where they’d been. “They teach you that in conservatory—mnemonic devices so that you don’t forget the lyrics, or where to come in. Except words don’t pull so easily for me. Not unless you set them to music.” She pursed her lips, finally glanced up at him, and was glad he wasn’t staring at her throat. “I can’t spell, either.”

“Hell, Charlie, ‘reckon’ and ‘ain’t’ trip off my tongue like I was born saying them, but the truth is, my ma would have whupped me something fierce if she’d ever heard me speak like this.” He smiled when she laughed, and it softened his face, as if mention of his mother had struck a sweet memory. His fingers began working up his shirtfront. “But it served me well to start, and I don’t figure I’ll stop anytime soon. My ma ain’t going to protest, at any rate—and I can sum up my human life by saying that I was born on Beacon Hill in 1854, where I learned to talk a certain way, but by the time I died thirty-two years later in a no-account Arizona town, I had speaking habits that would make my parents roll in their graves.”

That didn’t add up to as little as he claimed, but though she was curious, Charlie let it go. She didn’t like to talk about the details of her life, either. And when she did, she just twisted them up into barely believable stories.

Ethan had already heard several of them.

 

Anyway, here’s a snippet from DEMON DAWN. Irena’s in Rome, and she’s just been propositioned by a drunk. 

Irena’s breath hissed from between her teeth in a thin stream. This one, he did not know when to quit. She halted in front of him and bent over to grip the arms of his chair. Her smile was still vicious, but he didn’t glance at her face. Unease slithered through his psychic scent as he took in the winding blue serpents tattooed from her wrists to her shoulders.

“You are a handsome man,” she told him, and didn’t attempt to suppress the accent that chopped at her Italian, “but you use your tongue in the wrong way.” Irena crooked her index finger beneath his necklace. Gold. Such a worthless metal. Far too soft, even when blended with stronger materials. Irena favored steel, iron, or platinum. She tugged lightly on the chain. “Stand, and I will show you what your mouth is good for.”

Like a dog, he obeyed. Her fingers drifted down over his chest as he rose from his seat, and she shape-shifted subtly, increasing her height so that his tobacco-scented breath gusted heavily over her lips. His breathing stopped when she reached the waistband of his tight jeans, and she paused to test his emotions. There was fear in him, but also lust.

And this one had no resistance to lust. Even as he hardened beneath her hand, his arousal left him as malleable as gold. Left him easily manipulated. Demons loved humans such as these.

Irena did not.

She dragged her fingertip up his brass zipper, and her Gift melded the teeth together.