The Fire Within
By Dana Marie Bell
Book two of The Nephilim
When private detective Elizabeth Rand witnesses a murder in the snow, she’s in for the case of her life. Mysterious creatures are killing people, and soon she’s hired to look into one of the deaths. That means working with one of the city’s sexiest detectives, Dante Zucco.
As a Nephilim—the offspring of a human and an angel—Dante’s been hunting the demons known as Shemyaza for years, and Beth’s case stinks of one. But while he can see the Shem’s miasma, she can’t, and she refuses to believe she’s in over her head. As infuriating as she is, he can’t stay away—if she died, she’d take a piece of his heart with her.
Dante’s too loud, too brash, too everything...but Beth can’t resist him. And that might be a deadly problem. Dante’s got a sense the Shem are out for his blood, literally, and that means anyone he cares about is in danger. If the Shem realize they can kill Beth to hurt him, it’ll take all the inner fire he’s got to keep her safe.
79,000 words
Dear Reader,
June seems to be a time of both magical beginnings and wishful thinking, as we combine the wedding season with the last month of school. Here at Carina, our jobs are filled with a combination of both magical beginnings and wishful thinking, as we work in the land of fiction and allow ourselves to drift through fantastic worlds, happily ever afters and action-filled stories. Okay, maybe our jobs are a lot more rooted in reality than that, but the books we publish do allow us a brief escape and I hope they’ll do the same for you this month.
Powerhouse erotic romance author Lynda Aicher is back with Bonds of Courage, in which an alpha professional hockey player finds himself the one bound and at her mercy. Joining Lynda in the erotic category is Samantha Ann King with another fantastic ménage, Tempting Meredith. One man is risky, but two might teach her to trust and love again.
June brings quite a lineup of male/male romances. Ava March always stands out for me because not only does she write a fantastic male/male erotic romance, but she sets it in historical times, when it was even harder for two men to be in love, lending even more delicious romantic tension. Don’t miss Sharp Love, followed by The Viscount’s Wager releasing in December 2014.
And speaking of magical beginnings, we have two debut authors in the male/male category. This month we’re pleased to introduce Tyler Flynn and Chasing the Rebel. One man is fleeing the French Revolution, the other sympathizes with the Revolution. How can they fall for each other when they can’t even trust each other?
Also debuting with Carina Press this month is G.B. Lindsey, who leads off a three-part anthology, Secrets of Neverwood, which includes novellas from returning Carina Press authors Diana Copland and Libby Drew. As three foster brothers renovate a stately mansion to reopen it as a home for troubled gay youth, their love lives are complicated by the whimsical ghost of their foster mother in One Door Closes, The Growing Season, and The Lost Year.
Rounding out our male/male selections for the month is returning author L.B. Gregg with her popular Men of Smithfield series. In Men of Smithfield: Sam and Aaron, Sam’s in a rut and looking to break out of it, so he’s thrilled when a newcomer to town introduces more than an edge of naughty nights and risky days into his life.
There are so many more incredible books coming in June, it’s hard to know which world to lead you to next. How about some angels and demons in The Fire Within by Dana Marie Bell? Or why not take a trip on the high seas on a pirate ship—only this one captained by a woman in Mutiny of the Heart by Jennifer Bray-Weber. Danube Adele isn’t shy about taking new adult to a whole new level in her paranormal romance Dark Summer Dreams, in which Shandria is forced to rescue a sworn enemy of her people, only to find herself kidnapped by that same rugged warrior who promises retribution of his own. And who wouldn’t want to spend time with an outlaw witch, a society ice queen, and illicit magic that lights up the night in the tense futuristic world of the Magic Born in Sonya Clark’s Witchlight.
In another twist on the new adult genre, Anne Tibbets joins Carina Press and introduces The Line Book One: Carrier and her dystopian world. In a futuristic society, sex slave Naya is released and given a choice—find someone willing to take her place, or fight against the ruling corporation to save her unborn children.
Amylynn Bright also joins Carina Press, bringing contemporary romance Cooking Up Love to our virtual shelves. When anonymous food critic and lousy chef Holly signed up for cooking classes, she didn’t realize that she and her yummy instructor would be whipping up more than dinner in the kitchen—or that he’d blame her bad review for closing his restaurant and killing his career.
We have two additional debut authors to introduce this month, both writing contemporary new adult romance, but in two freshly original and very different stories. In Hate to Love You by Elise Alden, hatred and guilt battle love and desire as Paisley and James confront the past, each other, and the unwanted attraction that sparked between them the night she ruined his wedding. This is one book that will have people firmly on either side of a line: hate Paisley, or love her?
And we welcome Sybil Bartel and her new adult romance, No Apologies. No heart, questionable morals, one hundred percent attitude, Graham Allen is the perfect rocker; nothing can break him—except her.
Last, this month we introduce a new trilogy, Shore Secrets, from Carina Press author Christi Barth. A hard-nosed businessman with contempt for small-town America is forever changed by the love of a sexy hotel owner and a quirky but tight-knit community famous for its anonymous journal by the lakeshore. Don’t miss Up to Me, the first of this trilogy featuring three strong heroes, fighting for the love and trust of three even stronger heroines on the shores of Seneca Lake.
I hope your month of June is as wonderful as ours, spending it among our reader friends at different conventions and getting to gab about the books we love. Maybe we’ll see you at one of them! And if you do, we hope you’ll stop us and tell us your favorite Carina Press book. There just might be some Carina swag in it for you if we have any on us!
Coming in July: Falling for Max by Shannon Stacey; a debut author, Caroline Kimberly, brings us a historical romance pitched as “Regency Romancing the Stone”; and Jeffe Kennedy offers up a hot new BDSM novel.
Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.
Happy reading!
~Angela James
Executive Editor, Carina Press
Dedication
To all the angels who watch over us, whether we like it or not.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter One
“Blech.”
Beth hated snow.
She hated driving in it, hated dealing with other people who were driving in i
t. Hated being forced to wear enough clothing to make a dog sweat, yet still freezing her ass off.
Beth shivered as the freezing wind blew snow down the neck of her leather jacket. Snow had to be one of her least favorite forms of weather, and tonight’s storm promised to be a real disaster. She quickly locked the door of Rand Investigations and pulled on her leather gloves, her breath steaming in the freezing air. She shoved her keys back into her pocket and began walking to where she’d parked her car.
It wasn’t long before the snowflakes were clinging to her glasses, obscuring her vision. She wiped the snow off with her hand, but it only made things worse. Now everything appeared as if it was underwater.
Double blech.
She should have gone home earlier, but she’d hoped to get some work done before she was forced to leave for the day. Beth had finally decided to throw in the towel when she’d lost her internet connection. The research she had been doing would just have to be done on her computer at home instead. If she had internet connection.
And that was a big if. She hadn’t seen a storm like this since two years ago, when they got two feet of snow.
She turned the corner, impatiently pulling her car keys out of her pocket. She stopped dead when she saw a watery white shape crouching down in the snow.
“Hey, is everything all right?” She hoped it wasn’t someone injured from falling on the icy sidewalk. A fall in this stuff could be dangerous. One knock on the head and you were a good candidate for popsicle-hood.
Beth moved toward the fallen person just as the man stood. She got a quick glimpse of red bloody lips and thick snow goggles under a white hood before the man took off running. She began to run after him, but stopped short.
The woman lying in the snow wasn’t moving. “Shit.” This wasn’t someone who’d slipped. Beth’s first clue was the growing red stain around the figure, bright against the snow. Beth knelt, careful not to disturb anything, and took a closer look. “Son of a bitch.”
The vic had a gaping wound in her chest. Whoever she was, she was already dead.
Beth dug into her coat for her cell phone, looking around for the man who’d run. It would suck big time if he came back and tried to take her on.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
She took a deep breath and hoped the dispatcher couldn’t hear how tense she was. She was alone on the street, vulnerable, and the perpetrator could still be in the vicinity. “My name is Elizabeth Rand, and I’m a private investigator. I’ve just found a body outside my office. She’s obviously dead, and the wound looks...vicious.” Whatever she’d been killed with, it had shredded the parka around the wound. Maybe a shotgun? But Beth didn’t remember hearing anything that loud. In fact, she couldn’t remember hearing a gun go off at all.
“Can you give me the address?”
Beth rattled it off, keeping an eye out for civilians and the perpetrator alike.
“The police are en route. Did you witness the crime?”
“No, but I saw someone crouching over the body. I’m not sure if it was a good Samaritan who got scared off by my presence, or the perp. Either way, whoever it was ran off. I lost them when I stopped to see if the vic needed help.”
“Can you describe the person you saw?”
“White parka, snow goggles. Couldn’t tell whether the perp was male or female because of the way they were bundled up, but from the way they moved I’m going with male. Whoever it was ran off as soon as they saw me.” And damn it, she was repeating herself. She blew out a rough breath and prayed she could get her nerves back under control.
“Thank you. Do you know whether or not the person in the parka had a weapon?”
“I couldn’t see any, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.” Really, all she’d seen had been the parka, some blood on his lips and the goggles. She wasn’t even certain if there’d been blood on his coat. From the flecks of blood on the victim’s mouth, he could easily have gotten the blood on his lips from attempting CPR, so he might not even be the murderer. He could simply be someone who’d tried to do a good deed and gotten frightened when he saw Beth.
Stranger things had happened.
“All right, Ms. Rand. Please stay on the line until the officers arrive.”
“Thank you.”
A standard precaution, one Beth approved of wholeheartedly. If the perp did come back to eliminate the only witness, she’d at least get something on tape with the New Castle P.D. She chatted quietly with the nine-one-one operator until two patrol cars arrived, followed by what looked like an unmarked car.
Beth swore under her breath as a familiar head of dark blond hair emerged out of the snow. “Son of a bitch.”
“Excuse me, ma’am? Is everything all right?” The concern in the dispatcher’s voice had Beth just about ready to apologize, but before she could her old friend Nelson Purvis called out her name.
Beth grimaced as the one detective in all of New Castle who didn’t like her scowled at her ferociously. Dante. Damn it. He had no right to look so good even when he glared at her.
“Ma’am? Is everything all right?”
Dante rolled his eyes at her before turning to his partner, who did like her. “Jesus, it’s the P.I.”
Beth sighed. It would be...him. “Oh. Yeah. Everything’s peachy. Detectives Purvis and Zucco are here.” She snorted. “Yay.”
“Ma’am?”
“Never mind. Thanks for your help.” She hung up with the dispatcher and prepared herself for interrogation, Dante style. Purvis, at least, would take it easy on her. The man had something of a soft spot for her, had for years, and she was equally fond of him. Too bad his partner was a giant, sexy pain in the ass.
A sexy ass who she suspected might just be a superhero.
* * *
Dante was ticked. His hair was already wet with snow, and he’d only been out of his car for a few seconds. He was exhausted from chasing some damn Shem half the night, and he could barely see the flashing lights that marked the two patrol cars that had descended on the crime scene thanks to the damn snow. Worse, the fucking Shem had gotten away from them, frustrating all three of them. Seth had gone home to his brand new wife and Damien had left to get some sleep. Only Dante had continued to drive around, fuming that they’d lost the creature in the dark.
But it was the sight of Elizabeth Rand that ticked him off the most. His hair would dry. The snow would melt. The Shem would eventually be dealt with.
But Elizabeth was like a rash that never went away, bright, inflamed and irritating.
The woman had found herself in the middle of a fight with a Shemyaza about eight months ago, a fight she stood no chance of winning, and had stood her ground to defend her friend Abby. He doubted there was much that would make her back down, not even jail. Hell, he’d even threatened her with that to get her to back off, but she hadn’t. She’d stood up to him, shouted at him, had even threatened to get his boss to back her up.
He had to admit, he admired her balls even while he wanted to lock her away somewhere.
Even worse, she’d won, killing the Shem with a single gunshot wound to the head to protect Abby van Licht from the Shem Chameleon that had kidnapped and almost killed her. In the process she’d learned about the war between the Nephilim, the angel-born who’d dedicated their lives to protecting humans, and the Shemyaza, the angel-born who followed the dictates of their lord, Shemhazai, feasting on mortals, taking flesh and blood and souls until everything human in them had died. The Shemyaza’s devotion to Shemhazai caused physical changes in them. Shem had a distinctive dirty yellow aura that was difficult to hide from other angel-born. Their bodies changed, growing claws and oversized fangs. Their skin became pale and blotchy, their lips blackened, and their blood became a viscous green. Though they were able to hide by assuming a human form, other angel-born cou
ld detect their presence. And if they fought in their Shem forms, revealing their darker selves, humans could see it as easily as the Neph could.
Which was how Elizabeth Rand found herself facing a monster she wasn’t equipped to fight. Somehow Elizabeth had won, ignoring the terror that must have struck at the sight of the Shemyaza, killing the creature before it could harm Abby.
For that—for saving his brother’s love—he tolerated Elizabeth Rand.
Barely.
He blew out a frustrated breath, well aware those bright gray eyes were following his every movement. Who was he kidding? He was aware of Elizabeth in a way he never was with anyone else, not even his Neph brothers. She drew him like a siren did a sailor, and if he wasn’t careful she would have the same effect on him.
He’d be wrecked.
He did his best to ignore Elizabeth, leaving her to his partner, Nelson Purvis. He turned his attention instead to the vic, and swore under his breath.
A woman lay face-up in the snow, her dark hair splayed around her, her expensive winter coat spattered with blood. Her eyes were open and staring, starting to film over. The contents of her purse were scattered around her, the snow nearly obscuring the credit and health insurance cards. Her briefcase lay open, half filled with blown snow, papers riffling in the wind.
But the biggest problem was the chest wound.
The sickly green aura that surrounded her was slowly fading away, but it was thickest there. Merda. This was a Shem kill, no doubt about it.
He had to get Elizabeth and her nosy ass out of here before she got a whiff of anything supernatural. Once he started bringing his brothers in on this there was no way she wouldn’t figure it out.
“Any ID yet?” He studied the pose of the body, the way she was sprawled, the rapidly filling marks in the snow. He gestured for his guys to quickly take pictures before they lost the scene.
It was obvious that she’d seen her attacker, had fought back, but a human against a Shem?
It was no contest. She hadn’t stood a chance. She wasn’t Elizabeth-fucking-Rand, and she’d died horribly, torn apart by a monster masquerading as a man.
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