Into the Fire

by Jeaniene Frost

  His hands slid from my wrists, one rising to grip my newly grown hair, the other splaying possessively on my back and pressing me closer to him.

  “He told me that one day, I’d meet someone who would fill all that emptiness.” His mouth twisted. “As I said, I didn’t believe him, and so I threw all my efforts into solidifying myself and my people into a kingdom that could never be overrun by the greedy or the corrupt, as my country and my family had been. In fact, I had long forgotten about Mencheres’s delusional, well-intentioned lie . . . until I met you.”

  Another rush of his feelings filled me, causing me to close my eyes. Yes, we’d still face struggles, grief, and even fights with each other in the future, but this unbreakable, unspeakably beautiful bond between us made everything worth it.

  “I can’t say it was love at first sight,” Vlad went on, his mouth curling sardonically when I opened my eyes. “Especially since you were only a voice in my head on our initial encounter and you electrocuted me within five minutes of our first meeting in person.”

  “Hey, a girl’s gotta play hard to get,” I said, my laughter shaky as my own emotions swelled inside me.

  His teeth flashed in a grin that was both seductive and a touch feral. “If that was your intention, you failed because you were in my bed within a week.”

  My arms tightened around him. “Yeah, well, that was my best effort. You were a crazy scary bastard with an ego even bigger than your medieval castle, but despite all that, I was drawn to you in a way I’d never felt before.”

  “As was I,” he whispered. “That was why I called Mencheres, because after centuries of feeling nothing for any of my former lovers, suddenly I was consumed by thoughts of a woman that I barely knew. Nothing was enough when it came to you. Not being near you, having one of our infuriating conversations, reading your mind, having you drink my blood, and when I touched you”—his voice turned into a growl, and a hot swell of lust poured through our connection—“I didn’t only want to fuck you. I wanted to make you scream until my name was the only word you were capable of remembering.”

  If he kept sending those waves of lust into me while his hot, hard body molded to mine and his stare promised endless nights of screaming ecstasy, I wouldn’t be able to finish my thought, let alone this conversation, before demanding that he make good on those promises.

  “And then?” I managed, my voice breathy from barely restrained passion. “Mencheres told you that I was the one he’d predicted would end your emptiness?”

  Vlad’s head lowered until his mouth hovered over mine. “No, he didn’t.”

  At my stunned gasp, his laughter teased my lips.

  “Like the mythical Yoda, Mencheres rarely gives a straight answer when it comes to the most important questions. Instead, he asked me why I would suddenly demand to know if the prediction he’d made so long ago was truly a glimpse of the future, or if it had been nothing more than a kind lie.”

  Nothing Mencheres believed—or didn’t believe—about our relationship would change what Vlad and I meant to each other, yet I had to admit that I was curious. “And what did you say?”

  Vlad closed his eyes as if remembering his exact words.

  “I told him I felt drawn to you in a way that concerned me because I knew so little about you. I told him that I should want to kill you for experiencing my deepest sin through your abilities, yet somehow, I felt connected to you instead. I told him I wanted you with an irrational lust because I normally waited months before choosing someone as my lover, yet I could scarcely keep my hands off you. And I told him”—he smiled here—“that you irritated me almost as much as you intrigued me, so I knew that it would be a terrible decision to take you as a lover.”

  I poked him in a teasing way even as my heart constricted from absorbing all this. He opened his eyes, green rolling over his gaze as he stared at me.

  “Then I asked, ‘Does this mean that your prediction was real? Is she the one?’ and he said, ‘Do you know the words you just used over and over? You said, “I feel.”’”

  His stare grew brighter, until I blinked from the overwhelming emotions that were filling me and from the blazing intensity of his gaze.

  “I didn’t need to hear anything more,” he finished softly. “It didn’t matter to me if he had predicted you or not. I did feel again, for the first time in centuries, and in a way that I never had before.”

  I kissed him with all of the love, passion, and fierce devotion I had in me. He returned it with everything I gave him and more, until my mind was spinning and it took me several moments to realize that during our kiss, he’d carried me up four flights of stairs and we were now in our bedroom instead of the castle’s great hall.

  “I have a present for you tonight, too,” I whispered.

  His smile promised a thousand different things, all of them decadently sensual and some of them downright wicked.

  “Later.”

  Night Huntress

  Don’t miss the next exciting installment

  in Jeaniene Frost’s paranormal world.

  The Night Rebel series, featuring Ian and Veritas,

  will be coming soon!

  Now take a peek into the Night Huntress world

  and discover why

  #1 New York Times

  bestselling author

  Charlaine Harris raves:

  “Cat and Bones are

  combustible together.”

  Announcement to Halfway to the Grave

  Halfway to the Grave

  Half-vampire Catherine Crawfield is going after the undead with a vengeance . . . until she’s captured by Bones, a vampire bounty hunter, and is forced into an unholy partnership. She’s amazed she doesn’t end up as his dinner—are there actually good vampires? And Bones is turning out to be as tempting as any man with a heartbeat.

  “Halfway to the Grave has breathless action, a roller-coaster plot . . . and a love story that will leave you screaming for more. I devoured it in a single sitting.”

  Ilona Andrews

  Halfway to the Grave

  “Beautiful ladies should never drink alone,” a voice said next to me.

  Turning to give a rebuff, I stopped short when I saw my admirer was as dead as Elvis. Blond hair about four shades darker than the other one’s, with turquoise-colored eyes. Hell’s bells, it was my lucky night.

  “I hate to drink alone, in fact.”

  He smiled, showing lovely squared teeth. All the better to bite you with, my dear.

  “Are you here by yourself?”

  “Do you want me to be?” Coyly, I fluttered my lashes at him. This one wasn’t going to get away, by God.

  “I very much want you to be.” His voice was lower now, his smile deeper. God, but they had great intonation. Most of them could double as phone-sex operators.

  “Well, then I was. Except now I’m with you.”

  I let my head tilt to the side in a flirtatious manner that also bared my neck. His eyes followed the movement, and he licked his lips. Oh good, a hungry one.

  “What’s your name, lovely lady?”

  “Cat Raven.” An abbreviation of Catherine, and the hair color of the first man who tried to kill me. See? Sentimental.

  His smile broadened. “Such an unusual name.”

  His name was Kevin. He was twenty-eight and an architect, or so he claimed. Kevin was recently engaged, but his fiancée had dumped him and now he just wanted to find a nice girl and settle down. Listening to this, I managed not to choke on my drink in amusement. What a load of crap. Next he’d be pulling out pictures of a house with a white picket fence. Of course, he couldn’t let me call a cab, and how inconsiderate that my fictitious friends left without me. How kind of him to drive me home, and oh, by the way, he had something to show me. Well, that made two of us.

  Experience had taught me it was much easier to dispose of a car that hadn’t been the scene of a killing. Therefore, I managed to open the passenger door of his Volkswagen and run screaming ou
t of it with feigned horror when he made his move. He’d picked a deserted area, most of them did, so I didn’t worry about a Good Samaritan hearing my cries.

  He followed me with mea­sured steps, delighted with my sloppy staggering. Pretending to trip, I whimpered for effect as he loomed over me. His face had transformed to reflect his true nature. A sinister smile revealed upper fangs where none had been before, and his previously blue eyes now glowed with a terrible green light.

  I scrabbled around, concealing my hand slipping into my pocket. “Don’t hurt me!”

  He knelt, grasping the back of my neck.

  “It will only hurt for a moment.”

  Just then, I struck. My hand whipped out in a practiced movement and the weapon it held pierced his heart. I twisted repeatedly until his mouth went slack and the light faded from his eyes. With a last wrenching shove, I pushed him off and wiped my bloody hands on my pants.

  “You were right.” I was out of breath from my exertions. “It only hurt for a moment.”

  Announcement to One Foot in the Grave

  One Foot in the Grave

  Cat Crawfield is now a special agent, working for the government to rid the world of the rogue undead. But when she’s targeted for assassination she turns to her ex, the sexy and dangerous vampire Bones to help her.

  “Witty dialogue, a strong heroine, a delicious hero, and enough action to make a reader forget to sleep.”

  Melissa Marr

  One Foot in the Grave

  “Hallo, Kitten.”

  I was so preoccupied with my breakdown that I didn’t hear Bones come in. His voice was as smooth as I’d remembered, that English accent just as enticing. I snapped my head up, and in the midst of my carefully constructed life crashing around me, found the most absurd thing to worry about.

  “God, Bones, this is the ladies’ room! What if someone sees?”

  He laughed, a low, seductive ripple of the air. Noah had kissed me with less effect.

  “Still a prude? Don’t fret—I locked the door behind me.”

  If that was supposed to ease my tension, it had the opposite result. I sprang to my feet, but there was nowhere to run. He blocked the only exit.

  “Look at you, luv. Can’t say I prefer the brown hair, but as for the rest of you . . . you’re luscious.”

  Bones traced the inside of his lower lip with his tongue as his eyes slid all over me. Their heat seemed to rub my skin. When he took a step closer, I flattened back against the wall.

  “Stay where you are.”

  He leaned nonchalantly against the countertop. “What are you all lathered about? Think I’m here to kill you?”

  “No. If you were going to kill me, you wouldn’t have bothered with the altar ambush. You obviously know what name I’m going under, so you would have just gone for me one night when I came home.”

  He whistled appreciatively. “That’s right, pet. You haven’t forgotten how I work. Do you know I was offered a contract on the mysterious Red Reaper at least three times before? One bloke had half-a-million bounty for your dead body.”

  Well, not a surprise. After all, Lazarus had tried to cash a check on my ass for the same reason. “What did you say, since you’ve just confirmed you’re not here for that?”

  Bones straightened, and the bantering went out of him. “Oh, I said yes, of course. Then I hunted the sods down and played ball with their heads. The calls quit coming after that.”

  I swallowed at the image he described. Knowing him, it was exactly what he’d done.

  “So, then, why are you here?”

  He smiled and came nearer, ignoring my previous order.

  Announcement to At Grave’s End

  At Grave’s End

  Caught in the crosshairs of a vengeful vampire, Cat is about to learn the true meaning of bad blood—just as she and Bones need to stop a lethal magic from being unleashed. Will Cat be able to fully embrace her vampire instincts to save them all from a fate worse than the grave?

  “A can’t-put-down masterpiece that’s sexy-hot and a thrill-ride on every page. I’m officially addicted to the series. Marry me, Bones!”

  Gena Showalter

  At Grave’s End

  I was sitting at my desk, staring off into space, when my cell phone rang. A glance at it showed my mother’s number, and I hesitated. I so wasn’t in the mood to deal with her. But it was unusual for her to be up this late, so I answered.

  “Hi Mom.”

  “Catherine.” She paused. I waited, tapping my finger on my desk. Then she spoke words that had me almost falling out of my chair. “I’ve decided to come to your wedding.”

  I actually glanced at my phone again to see if I’d been mistaken and it was someone else who’d called me.

  “Are you drunk?” I got out when I could speak.

  She sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t marry that vampire, but I’m tired of him coming between us.”

  Aliens replaced her with a pod person, I found myself thinking. That’s the only explanation.

  “So . . . you’re coming to my wedding?” I couldn’t help but repeat.

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it?” she replied with some of her usual annoyance.

  “Um. Great.” Hell if I knew what to say. I was floored.

  “I don’t suppose you’d want any of my help planning it?” my mother asked, sounding both defiant and uncertain.

  If my jaw hung any lower, it would fall off. “I’d love some,” I managed.

  “Good. Can you make it for dinner later?”

  I was about to say, Sorry, there was no way, when I paused. Tate didn’t even want me watching the video of him dealing with his bloodlust. Bones was leaving this afternoon to pick Annette up from the airport. I could swing by my mom’s when he went to get Annette, and then meet him back here afterward.

  “How about a late lunch instead of dinner? Say, around four o’clock?”

  “That’s fine, Catherine.” She paused again, seeming to want to say something more. I half expected her to yell, April Fool’s! but it was November, so that would be way early. “I’ll see you at four.”

  When Bones came into my office at dawn, since Dave was taking the next twelve-hour shift with Tate, I was still dumbfounded. First Tate turning into a vampire, then my mother softening over my marrying one. Today really was a day to remember.

  Bones offered to drop me off on his way to the airport, then pick me up on his way back to the compound, but I declined. I didn’t want to be without a car if my mother’s mood turned foul—always a possibility—or risk ruining our first decent mother-daughter chat by Bones showing up with a strange vampire. There were only so many sets of fangs I thought my mother could handle at the same time, and Annette got on my nerves even on the best of days.

  Besides, I could just see me explaining who Annette was to my mother. Mom, this is Annette. Back in the seventeen hundreds when Bones was a gigolo, she used to pay him to fuck her, but after more than two hundred years of banging him, now they’re just good friends.

  Yeah, I’d introduce Annette to my mother—right after I performed a lobotomy on myself.

  “I still can’t believe she wants to talk about the wedding,” I marveled to Bones as I climbed into my car.

  He gave me a serious look. “She’ll never abandon her relationship with you. You could marry Satan himself and that still wouldn’t get rid of her. She loves you, Kitten, though she does a right poor job of showing it most days.” Then he gave me a wicked grin. “Shall I ring your cell in an hour, so you can pretend there’s an emergency if she gets natty with you?”

  “What if there is an emergency with Tate?” I wondered. “Maybe I shouldn’t leave.”

  “Your bloke’s fine. Nothing can harm him now short of a silver stake through the heart. Go see your mum. Ring me if you need me to come bite her.”

  There really was nothing for me to do at the compound. Tate would be a few more days at least in lockdown, and we didn’t have any jobs scheduled, for
obvious reasons. This was as good a time as any to see if my mom meant what she said about wanting to end our estrangement.

  “Keep your cell handy,” I joked to Bones. Then I pulled away.

  My mother lived thirty minutes from the compound. She was still in Richmond, but in a more rural area. Her quaint neighborhood was reminiscent of where we grew up in Ohio, without being too far away from Don if things got hairy. I pulled up to her house, parked, and noticed that her shutters needed a fresh coat of paint. Did they look like that the last time I was here? God, how long had it been since I’d come to see her?

  As soon as I got out of the car, however, I froze. Shock crept up my spine, and it had nothing to do with the realization that I hadn’t been here since Bones came back into my life months ago.

  From the feel of the energy leaking off the house, my mother wasn’t alone inside, but whoever was with her didn’t have a heartbeat. I started to slide my hand toward my purse, where I always had some silver knives tucked away, when a cold laugh made me stop.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, little girl,” a voice I hated said from behind me.

  My mother’s front door opened. She was framed in it, with a dark-haired vampire who looked vaguely familiar cradling her neck almost lovingly in his hands.

  And I didn’t need to turn around to know the vampire at my back was my father.

  Announcement to Destined for an Early Grave

  Destined for an Early Grave

  They’ve fought against the rogue undead, battled a vengeful Master vampire and pledged their devotion with a blood bond. Now it’s time for Cat and Bones to go on a vacation. But Cat is having terrifying dreams of a vampire named Gregor who’s more powerful than Bones . . . and has ties to her past that even Cat herself doesn’t know about.