Scent of Salvation (Chronicles of Eorthe #1)

by Annie Nicholas

  Warning: This book contains an alpha male who likes to take control, federal agents that can be a little primal, sex that’s steaming, lives at risks, and nearly orgasmic maple bars.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Savage Betrayal:

  Someone was on her property.

  Despite the massive heat from the glass-blowing furnace in front of her, an icy chill swept through Grace’s body. It faded into anger that coiled quickly through her limbs, tightening her muscles as disbelief pounded in her blood.

  How? How had someone made it through without tripping any alarms? No average human could’ve done that.

  Which is exactly why he’d succeeded. He wasn’t average. He wasn’t even fully human. Whoever was stalking her house was just like her. Their genetic abnormality meant they were part of a species that most of the world’s population was oblivious to—would be incapable of comprehending. It also made them highly elusive.

  But she knew exactly what he was—this person on her property, and the knowledge that he was one of her own kind offered little comfort. Maybe once it might have, but not anymore.

  He made no attempts to hide what he was, or his arrival at her isolated home a half hour outside of Seattle.

  The son of a bitch. Her fury expanded, growing as hot and threatening as the fire she’d been using to create her glass sculptures.

  For a moment she considered using the blowpipe in her hand as a weapon, but decided it might hinder more than help. With steady hands, she laid it down and turned off the furnace before rushing back to flick off the lights in the garage.

  Whoever was approaching the building might want the element of surprise—like hell would she let him have it. He should know better than to think he’d have that advantage. Even if he’d deftly avoided all her little traps and alarms, she would never be a sitting duck.

  Grace moved to the window, tugging the curtain aside just enough to peer out into the chilly autumn morning. The sunrise left streaks of pink in the sky and the fog outside curled its heavy fingers through dense evergreen trees and past the rotting wood of her fence some fifty feet away. It left patches of her property in shadow and gaping open areas where there was nowhere to hide.

  And yet he did. Though she couldn’t immediately spot the intruder, she knew he was there. Watching. Waiting to make his next move. She could smell the scent of his confidence and determination.

  Come any closer, you bastard, and I’ll shove that self-assurance so far up your ass…

  How fucking dare he come onto her property? She would never again be a victim. Been there, done that, and had the nearly faded scars to prove it.

  The dark memories, still so fresh, so raw, threatened to bubble to the front of her mind, but she ruthlessly shoved them back. They were better hidden away, not to be dwelled on or psychoanalyzed…

  She almost missed the blur of movement as the person leapt stealthily above the silent alarm she had rigged at the far end of her yard.

  Her heart thumped and her shoulders went rigid.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  Grace dropped the curtain back into place. There were several more alarms and traps set to slow someone down, but she knew he’d avoid them just as deftly as the ones he’d already passed.

  Who was he? The question raced through her mind as she went to the metal garbage can in the corner and jerked off the lid. Guns, knives, and perhaps the underestimated baseball bat, were all among her choices in weapons.

  Though the idea of taking her Louisville Slugger to this shifter’s head had appeal, it was along the lines of the blowpipe. Not quite what she needed. Instead, Grace pulled out the Glock and removed the safety before slipping up against the wall beside the side door to the garage.

  Whoever had snuck onto her ranch wasn’t looking to steal her Eclipse out front—they’d come for her. She knew it with a certainty that gave her the calm and determination to face this head-on.

  The birds that had been chirping outside went ominously silent. Grace turned her head and stared at the door.

  He’s here.

  She waited for him to break in, for some kind of dramatic entrance so that she could pull the trigger. Seconds ticked by. Slow. Menacing. Making the clouds of fear she’d kept at bay threaten to seep back in.

  Her training kept her completely still and kept every one of her heightened senses on the alert. She drew in slow, deep breaths to keep calm.

  But it was hard. Because with each breath drawn in came the image of what could potentially happen. Soon he’d be inside, and if she didn’t successfully defend herself she’d be at his mercy.

  Memories assailed her. Being grabbed. Held down.

  She tried to shake the image from her head. But her throat closed up as she could almost feel the prick of the needle again. And then hell. Pure hell. The present vanished as she was completely sucked into her reality from two months ago.

  You think you’ll be free when you leave here? I’ll find you again, Grace, and I’ll make you pay.

  She always wondered if the threat from a shadowed male figure had been real, or a dream. Today it seemed she’d find out.

  Bile rose in her throat, and her hands—a moment ago so steady—began to shake.

  If she’d learned anything, it was that she had to focus. Had to fight.

  There was the smallest thud outside the garage and Grace pulled the trigger. Four times. The bullets splintered the wood and pierced through the door, but there was no answering sound of pain or shock from outside.

  Son of a bitch, how had she missed?

  The door burst open and Grace lurched forward, desperate to shove him back out. Instinct screamed at her to keep him at bay. But he pushed back harder on the door, and her sneakered feet skidded on the cement floor as she was thrust back into the garage and toward the wall.

  Grace let go of the door and struggled to regain her balance. Darkness hid his features, but she lifted her gun at the silhouette of the man who filled her doorway.

  Her finger just brushed the trigger before the gun was knocked fiercely from her hands and clattered across the floor.

  No.

  “Stop shooting,” the male voice rasped.

  Something registered. That the voice was familiar, but rational thought disappeared as her assailant grabbed her around the waist and dragged her against him, forcing her body against a solid wall of muscle and man. Her scream of rage started to morph into terror, and she increased her energy in fighting him.

  Despite the strong fingers that manacled her wrists, she tried to use her elbows to drive into his ribs, but he quickly subdued her. He put her into a position that made her helpless to fight back.

  “Stop fighting me, Masterson.”

  Even as realization clicked into place at what he was—exactly who he was, she knew she’d failed. She’d completely choked. And this was so much worse than if he had been an intruder with a sinister purpose.

  “Take a deep breath.” The rough, familiar voice of her fellow P.I.A. Agent confirmed his identity. Darrius Hilliard.

  Oh God. Grace went limp against him and bit her lip, unable to hold back her sob of frustration. Of relief.

  He held her for a just a moment, his arms closing around her almost in comfort, and she instinctively melted into him and clung to him. He was safe, not some bastard who’d come to hurt her.

  “You’re okay.” His gruff voice soothed, and the hand moving down her back reassured. “Just…hang on a moment.”

  And then he let her go so he could move away, and her legs could no longer support her.

  Grace sank to her knees, burying her face in the palms of her hands. Her breathing was still erratic and shaky. The seconds ticked by and her pulse slowed once more, and she came fully back to reality as he turned the lights on.

  Agent Hilliard’s footsteps approached once more, but she resisted the urge to look up. She couldn’t bear to see him staring down at her with pity and shock.

  This was bad. This was really bad. Tears bu
rned behind her closed lids and she drew in another ragged breath.

  She’d always been so composed, so determined to prove herself as an agent and keep her shit together. Being new, and the only female on their team, she’d worked her ass off to earn their respect. And she’d had it, until she’d made one fateful choice.

  And now Agent Hilliard had seen her like this. Vulnerable. Paranoid. Weak. It had been a reaction left over from the emotional trauma of the experiments. Understandable, she could rationalize that, but humiliating all the same.

  Dammit, why had he come here today? Why now?

  Get yourself together, Grace.

  She slowed her breathing and waited until the tears that threatened finally dissolved. Then, forcing her expression into complete indifference, she lifted her head from her hands.

  Agent Hilliard’s expression was definitely not one of pity. He didn’t even look uncomfortable. Instead there was a gleam of amusement in his dark, coffee-brown eyes, and his mouth was curved into a smirk that had her blinking in dismay.

  “Hey, Masterson, while you’re down there…”

  They just might survive…if they don’t kill each other first.

  A Time of Dying

  © 2013 Hailey Edwards

  Araneae Nation, Book 3

  Once the future Segestriidae maven, Kaidi lived a privileged life. Now she spends her nights haunting cities ravaged by the plague. Spade in hand, she stalks rows of freshly dug graves for corpses…and then she takes their heads.

  Her new life is caked in blood and spattered with gore, but it’s hers. At least until—to her fury—she’s caught napping.

  A plague survivor by the skin of his teeth, Murdoch risks his neck to solve the mysteries left in its wake. Bodies have gone missing. Guards have left their posts and never returned home.

  When he rouses a female dozing among the dead, he’s unprepared for the violence of her response. Or his. Beneath the grime, she’s lovely. Too bad the blood under her fingernails belongs to his clansmen.

  He has no choice but to follow this alluring creature deeper into her world of winged beasts and flesh-eating monsters. She holds the knowledge he craves, but the price is high—and they may both pay for it with their lives.

  Warning: This book contains one heroine in desperate need of a bath and one hero willing to wash away her sins. Expect threats, swears and general cursing. Love is a slippery slope, and these two are sliding.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for A Time of Dying:

  Better females than I had made the journey from Cathis to Titania inside of seven days. Late into our first morning, after a night of no sleep, I began dragging. Murdoch forged ahead, and he set a grueling pace. Though I had done my fair share of walking these past few months, and I did possess enviable endurance, those applied to my own slower gait and not to his long-legged one.

  A stitch caught my side, and I put a hand to it, frustrated by pain that hobbled me further.

  Murdoch chose that moment to check on me. “We’ll stop here and catch our breath.”

  “Are you tired?” Though he stood waiting, I kept walking and finally passed him.

  It was a short-lived lead.

  “Yes.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and lifted me off my feet. “I am.”

  After kicking a pile of loose pine straw into a mound at the base of a tree, he dropped onto it with a grunt and sat me across his lap. His head fell back against the trunk, and his eyes closed. I watched him breathing easily and knew we had stopped for my benefit. I thumbed his eyelid and pushed it open. His other remained resolutely closed. His lips, though, curved at their edges.

  “Well?” He stared at me unblinking, which was no doubt due to my grip on his lid.

  “Nothing.” The steadiness of his gaze unnerved me. “Rest while you can.”

  Crooking an arm around my shoulders, he drew me close, and I nestled my face into his neck. “Only if you will.”

  I shoved him. “Must everything be a negotiation with you?”

  He rested his chin atop my head. “Must everything be a battle with you?”

  “I have learned to fight for what I want.” It was how I had survived on my own.

  “Even if what you desire would be freely given?”

  “Especially then. Being offered things of value at no cost is when you should be wariest.”

  “So rather than accept an offer, you think it best to force others into making the same deal?”

  I huffed. “I was bargaining in terms you understood.”

  “Huh.” He rubbed his bite marks. “So that’s what you were doing.”

  “Yes.” I pulled at his hand. “The bite was incidental.”

  “Was it?” He traced my lips with his fingertip.

  I resisted the urge to nip him. He might like it too much. “It got your attention, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.” His voice went husky. “It did.”

  “You liked it.” My eyes widened. “You actually want me to do it again.”

  His grin was at once roguish and shy. I’m not sure how he managed the combination.

  “You did say if I hurried you would bite me again.” He paused. “I hurried.”

  I thumped his chin. “You are incorrigible.”

  “Where you’re concerned, yes.” He cupped my neck in his palm. “I possessed some sense of self-preservation before we met. After…” His thumb stroked my pulse. “I’ve been more reckless this week than I have in all of my life. I haven’t been the same since the night you stabbed me.”

  “You had to remind me.” I groaned and put my face in my hands. “See a physician for it.”

  Peeling aside one of my hands, he set it on his chest. “I fear my condition is untreatable.”

  My heart melted. His quiet ways had won me. Why had we not met when our lives were our own? Why find one another now, when the future loomed so uncertain? Why torment both of us?

  Never would I have imagined he was capable of such tenderness. The way he poked fun at a situation he had to find as strange as I did endeared him to me. Once, he said that I understood force. Perhaps that explained why these tender moods confused me.

  “I’m no healer, but I have often observed Mana at her work.” I straddled his lap. Let him tug me flush against him. His heart thumped hard beneath my hand. “Let me see if I can’t cure you.”

  Breathing him in, I feathered my lips over his jaw, down his neck, where I scraped my teeth.

  Murdoch inhaled harshly and held his breath. I delighted in swirling my tongue across his skin while smoothing my hands over his broad shoulders and lower, past his thick arms, to link hands.

  “I don’t mean to question your credentials…” he hissed when I nipped his ear, “…but is the cure supposed to hurt worse than the condition it treats?” He gripped my wrist and held it steady.

  “Your heart does seem overtaxed.” I feigned regret. “Perhaps I should try curing you later.”

  “I want it now.” He turned his mouth against the inside of my wrist and pressed a kiss there.

  Chills swept down my arms. “You want what, exactly?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “You.”

  Sliding his hands through my hair, he bent me to him. Impatient for the arrival of my mouth, his met mine halfway. His lips were firm, his tongue demanding as he coaxed my mouth open to him. Murdoch’s taste was as complex as the rest of him. He filled my senses, and I moaned at it.

  Too soon he turned his face aside, allowing me to taste my mark upon him.

  “We can’t do this.” He was breathless. “Not while you belong to someone else.”

  Part of me knew he was wrong. I no longer belonged to Hishima in heart or in body. The other part felt Murdoch hard between my thighs and didn’t care who was right.

  Before I became this shadow of my former self, I had enjoyed the pleasure found in the male form. I had always been tame in my tastes, but I wondered, what might this wilder Kaidi crave?

  He gripped my hips, held me down
as his hips rolled to meet mine.

  “If we don’t leave now,” he said, out of breath, “we won’t be leaving any time soon.”

  Tempted as I was to force his hand, he was right. With supreme effort, I mustered resolve. “We will finish this. Later.”

  “First we find the harbinger.” His eyes gleamed. “Then we free you from your betrothal.”

  “And if we fail?”

  He held my face between his palms, and the kiss he gave me set my heart afire.

  “If you are the prize,” he said softly, “fear not that I will win you.”

  Scent of Salvation

  Annie Nicholas

  Love blooms across species, culture, and time.

  Chronicles of Eorthe, Book 1

  Stranded in another dimension, on a primitive version of Earth, Dr. Susan Barlow needs to find a way to survive. There’s no electricity, no cities, and to her shock, no humans. Instead, she faces a population of werewolves, vampires and incubi. The people are vicious but she must find her place among them. And live.

  An illness is killing Sorin’s pack. As alpha it’s his responsibility to save them, but it’s a battle this warrior doesn’t know how to fight. Then a blue light in the sky brings a creature he’s never seen. She calls herself human, but to him she smells like hope.

  Sorin offers Susan a safe haven in return for a cure, but she’s not that kind of a doctor. She’s a doctor of physics, not a physician. Yet as they search for a cure to save a dying people, they find something special—each other.

  But even with Sorin’s protection, Susan can’t help but wonder how long she can survive in a world without humans…

  Warning: Feral shifters, power-hungry vampires, and a sole human female suffering culture shock.

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