A Dragon’s Fate Novella
Book 1
Lacy Danes
Genre:
Romance, Alternate Worlds, Paranormal, Steamy/Erotic
Publisher:
Samhain PublishingNumber of pages: 138
Word Count: 38K
Book Description:
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…
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.
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.
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.
https://www.facebook.com/LacyDanes
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