Rickert heard the sound of boots above him.
“Oh, please don’t.”
More rocks fell from the edge, followed by a dark shape. It narrowly missed Rickert and landed with a thud near his feet. The woman moaned and rolled to her side.
What the bloody hell was going on? Weren’t these two fighting for the same side?
“Oh, for chrissake,” the man muttered. “That bitch’s got nine lives.” From the sound of it, he was leaning over the edge.
Every muscle in Rickert’s body froze. He didn’t dare breathe. He prayed to the Fates that he was hidden enough in the shadows. If the guy spotted him—
The soldier cursed again and landed on the ledge with a grunt. Rickert smiled to himself. It wasn’t often that the enemy fell into his lap like this. First the woman, then the man. He’d make quick work of these two, then meet up with the others at the rendezvous point.
With his arms held slightly away from his body, as if they were too muscular to hang straight down, the pale-haired bloke strutted toward the woman. Enemy differences aside, he had an air about him that made Rickert want to plunge a knife into his belly just for the hell of it.
Palming his blade, he’d strike in three, two, one—
“Let’s see if you can survive this,” the man said, and kicked the woman.
Mo naire! What the bloody fuck was that?
Drawing her knees into a fetal position, the female soldier made no move to fight back or defend herself.
What kind of soldier would turn on one of his own—especially a woman who sure as hell didn’t act like a soldier?
Ha! The kind of soldier who just took his last breath.
Before the man could kick her again, Rickert slipped from the shadows. In one silent movement, he grasped a handful of the man’s hair, drew a blade across his throat, and the soldier slid to the ground as if his ligaments had turned to gel.
Rickert kicked the body over the edge and watched as it fell hundreds of feet to land at awkward angles on the river rocks below. He turned back to the woman. Of average height and with blond hair covering her face, she wore camouflage army fatigues and black boots. A Protection-Talent, huh? Then she probably wasn’t seriously injured.
Now what? It wasn’t like he could leave her to attract the attention of the other soldiers, especially not this close to the entrance. He rubbed a hand absently over his arm before realizing that the leather-corded necklace he kept wrapped around his wrist was on the other side of the portal. Twisting his blade, he watched the moonlight flash its reflection in the cold-forged Balkirk steel.
Why had one of her own tried to kill her? What had she done to deserve that? Recalling the brutal attack invading Pacificans had made on his family’s village a few years ago, he wasn’t surprised that these people were capable of senseless violence. No matter how long he lived, he’d never forget what awaited him in Summer’s Folly when he returned late one night. Violence between fighting men was one thing, but against innocent villagers…his own flesh and blood….
Anger pulsed through his veins like the river raging below him, feeding his never-ending quest for revenge.
Bloody hell, he hated them. Every single damn one of them. Including this woman.
Three quick whistle bursts, like the screech of a night bat, pierced the air. It was Asher, his second in command.
Given that she was a Protection-Talent, the dagger probably wouldn’t work on her anyway. Besides, he didn’t want to damage it to find out—the sturdy blade was one of his favorites. He’d been iron sick for days after bringing it through the portal, and didn’t relish the thought of suffering through that again just to get a new one. After tucking the weapon into the leather sheath strapped to his back, he whistled a sharp reply to Asher. Maybe they could figure out how to use her Talent to their advantage.
He bent over, planning to drag her away from the edge, but she weighed so little that he ended up hoisting her into his arms instead. One of her hands wedged against his torso, cold against his bare skin. As he straightened, a misty haze filled his vision. He stumbled and fell to his knees, careful not to drop her.
He blinked a few times, thinking he’d stood too quickly, but the mist before him remained. The cloud began to swirl and dissipate somewhat, revealing a figure in the center.
No, two people. A man and a woman. They were…
They were making love.
Rickert sat back hard on his haunches, the soldier still cradled in his arms.
The woman in the mist skimmed her hands down the man’s back, over the crest of his hip, digging her nails to urge him deeper. The man’s ass flexed as he drove into her with long, powerful thrusts.
Their movements became more frenzied until suddenly the man stopped, buried all the way to the hilt. He arched his back and—
Holy bollocks! They were climaxing together.
Rickert scrubbed a hand over his face as his cock swelled in automatic response to this erotic imagery playing out before him, even though it…couldn’t be real.
The two stayed joined for a moment—the man cradled between her bent knees, the woman gently caressing his back—before he finally rolled off. Rickert couldn’t hear them, but he imagined they were whispering words of love to each other.
The man kissed her tenderly in response to something she said, and placed a broad hand on her belly, filling the space from hipbone to hipbone. And as he did so, a strange yet pleasurable sensation roiled through Rickert’s body. Different from the easily sated lust he was accustomed to, this was something deeper, more emotional.
Through the years he’d bedded many women, but he’d never made love to any of them as this man made love to this woman. With such passion and significance. Was this what it felt like to love and be loved back? To have a future filled with the promise of such happiness?
He didn’t know, because he’d never thought about these things for himself. Protecting his people and preventing the deaths of innocents were his only priorities. When his sister had died so brutally at the hands of the enemy, he vowed to focus on nothing else. It’d be pure selfishness to think otherwise.
A sharp realization filled his mind, like a drop of water that sizzles when it’s flicked onto a hot skillet. The woman was about to conceive the man’s child from this lovemaking. At this very moment, the man’s seed was inside her, searching for its target, and her body was waiting to meet it. Although how or why Rickert knew this, he didn’t have a clue, but he was absolutely certain.
Rickert exhaled slowly, letting a quiet calmness fall over him. Shhh, he wanted to whisper to them. Be still. Let the Fates work their magic.
As the couple slept blissfully in each other’s arms, the mist thinned out further, and the faces came into focus. The man’s dark, wavy hair fell to his shoulders and the familiar face, which had always seemed angry when it stared at Rickert from a mirror, now looked peaceful and content.
“Bloody hell!”
No. Impossible. It couldn’t be.
He pushed the woman away and dragged himself to his feet, the mist disappearing into the cool night air. He tried to inhale deeply, but all he could manage were a few strangled breaths.
He was that man.
And the beautiful woman—the one from the mist—was the hurt little soldier before him.
Assassin's Touch
Two worlds. Two enemies.
Haunted by loss, Cascadian assassin Rickert D’Angelus is on a mission of vengeance. Determined to stop the Pacifican army from finding a portal to his world, he leads a group of warriors into New Seattle with one goal—to kill Pacifican soldiers.
Neyla Trihorn had the perfect life until a deadly accident revealed her latent para-abilities. Now, the former fashion designer is the Pacifican army’s hottest commodity in their fight against the invaders.
When Rickert discovers a beautiful, unconscious soldier on a cold mountain ledge near the portal, he realizes she’s a Protection-Talent and cannot be killed. To prevent the army f
rom using her skills again, he takes her as his prisoner instead.
One fated touch…
But when he pulls her into his arms, a sexy and compelling vision appears, awakening something inside him. Something he can’t ignore.
Torn between duty and passion, Rickert must decide if the vision is a Talent trick designed to foil the enemy or the answer to his deepest desires…
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A Note from the Author
Thank you for reading ROGUE’S PASSION! I hope you enjoyed Asher and Olivia’s story as much as I enjoyed writing about them.
If you could take a minute to leave a short review at your bookseller’s website or anywhere online where you talk about books with your friends, I would be very grateful. Honest reviews help books get discovered by other readers.
Laurie London is the USA Today bestselling author of the Sweetblood and Iron Portal series—dark, sexy paranormal romance, set primarily in the Pacific Northwest. Publisher’s Weekly calls the Sweetblood series “sexy” and “sizzling.”
She lives on a small farm outside of Seattle with her husband, two children and a variety of animals. After graduating with a business degree, she worked for a Fortune 500 company as a programmer/tester and an underwriter. Her other jobs included cocktail waitress, hotel maid, candy store manager and bridal gown sales.
When not writing, she can be found running, reading, sewing, making jewelry, mucking stalls, volunteering or riding her horse. Someday she hopes to qualify for the Quarter Horse World Show—that is, if her horse doesn’t get hurt again.
Sign up for my newsletter to get an email when my next book comes out. http://eepurl.com/br1ff
Find out more about Laurie at:
Website: http://www.LaurieLondonBooks.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/LaurieLondonAuthor
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/LaurieBLondon
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/LaurieLondon
BOOKS BY LAURIE LONDON
Iron Portal Series
ASSASSIN’S TOUCH
ROGUE’S PASSION
WARRIOR’S HEART (Coming 2014)
Sweetblood Series
(Dark, sexy vampires)
BONDED BY BLOOD
EMBRACED BY BLOOD
TEMPTED BY BLOOD
SEDUCED BY BLOOD
E-novella
HIDDEN BY BLOOD
Anthologies and Bundles
A VAMPIRE FOR CHRISTMAS
(with Michele Hauf, Caridad Pineiro and Alexis Morgan)
DARK AND DANGEROUS: Six-in-One Hot Paranormal Romances
(with Jennifer Ashley, Bonnie Vanak, Caris Roane, Erin Kellison and Felicity Heaton)
The Forbidden Life of Alex Moore
by Erin Quinn
Alex Moore’s mission is simple: Kill the hellhounds that have invaded earth and return to his home in the Beyond. But from the start, things go horribly wrong. The hellhounds are cunning and a human female witnesses their attack—she intervenes and saves Alex’s life. Now he must keep the alluring Lilly Winslow alive while fighting his desire for her. When passion flares, Alex risks all to protect her and defend the forbidden life he craves.
Table of Contents for THE FORBIDDEN LIFE OF ALEX MOORE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The Five Deaths of Roxanne Love - Preview Chapter
About the Author
Books by Erin Quinn
CHAPTER 1
Obviously, the woman had no idea she was in danger. But she would. And soon, if Alex had the situation sized right.
He’d been on a parallel course with her for the last ten minutes. She and four dogs traveled down an isolated trail that snaked the mountain from its peak to the pitted road below. She trudged, head lowered, her focus elsewhere. No more than a hundred paces away, Alex and Caleb moved through the trees like shadows. Alex was aware of every snowflake that blustered in the wind, but she hadn’t noticed either one of them. Fortunately, neither had the dogs.
Alex glanced at the bloated sky pressing between the towering pines. It rode low to the ground, spewing fat snowflakes that stuck where they landed. What was the woman doing up here so close to dusk? With a blizzard chasing the encroaching dark? Alone?
And why did he care?
He wasn’t here to protect humans. He was here for the hellhounds. His number had been called to protect the secrets of the Beyond. He’d come to serve.
Assuming, of course, he could find the cursed creatures.
“Not very smart, is she?” Caleb muttered, drawing his attention. The cold made a plume of his breath.
Alex didn’t like that Caleb watched the woman, too. And he didn’t like that he didn’t like it.
“No,” he answered grimly.
She’d blundered into a situation she probably wouldn’t escape. He and Caleb had been told that most humans couldn’t see the hellhounds or hear their disturbing howl. Most, but not all. If she was one of the rare few that could, she’d have the advantage of knowing what came after her, but even if she avoided being eaten, she’d still have to die. No witnesses could be allowed.
Alex knew the rules. What soldier didn’t? But he didn’t like to think of this innocent female dying under either circumstance.
He watched her in bursts of color through the trees. Blue and pink and golden hair. Dressed in a puffy, sky-blue parka and a pink polka-dot cap with a yarn ball on top that bobbed as she walked, she looked like some sweet treat that would melt in the mouth.
Except for the rifle she carried, but that might be just for show. Odds were good that she didn’t even know how to use it. She certainly didn’t look like any killer Alex had ever seen, and he’d seen more than a few.
She probably felt safe, with her big dogs and the gun.
“I can’t believe they haven’t picked her off already,” Caleb said, mystified.
Alex couldn’t believe it either. He wanted to shake her, tell her to pay attention.
A loud crack came from a nearby tree and at last her head came up. She slowed, wiped her eyes, and focused on her surroundings. Had she been crying?
Why do you care?
The sun hovered low on the horizon, gathering deep shadows as it crept away, but the last rays shone valiantly bright. They silhouetted her in gray and evergreen.
Alex knew the moment she spotted him among the trees. She froze for an instant, then glanced away, her chest rising with an agitated breath. Quickly, she started walking again, this time with purpose. Good. Maybe she’d get out of here, away from the coming danger. He let out a low breath of relief, but at the same moment, the dogs caught sight of him and Caleb. They raised an alarm that could be heard for miles.
“That’ll do the trick,” Caleb said under his breath.
In answer, a hellhound bayed a long and blood-chilling warning. They were coming.
The woman wouldn’t know that because she couldn’t hear it. The dogs did, though. All four stilled for a heartbeat before they renewed their barking with rabid fervor. One enormousdog with a square head and a booming bark bounded off in the direction of the sound. The other three weren’t so big or eager to follow. They lagged behind, letting every predator on the mountain know where they were.
“Belle!” the woman called after the horse-dog and then, before she could catch her breath, the other three decided to go after it. “No!” she cried. “Come back!”
“Quiet,” Alex whispered, feeling the wind shift. In the icy blast, he smelled sulfur.
Her head whipped around as if she’d heard and she stared at him, wary. Her gaze shifted to Caleb in the background, then returned to Alex. Indecision flashed through her. She straightened her spine and squared her shou
lders. A human gesture, learned from nature. When in danger, try to look big.
It wouldn’t help her.
Her rifle came up, but she was too flustered to take aim. She glanced at the dogs disappearing up the trail, then back to the men who may or may not present a threat, then down at a small, furry thing at feet that begged to be picked up.
Another bay echoed from the forbidding peaks. Hungry and vicious.
“Here they come,” Caleb said.
Alex didn’t need the warning. He could feel the chuff-chuff of their breath; see the lathered hides, the gaping jaws.
He cut his eyes back at the woman. She was bent over a tiny dog he hadn’t noticed earlier, trying to catch it as it hopped anxiously around her legs. It looked like a prancing toy. Every time she got ahold of it, the stupid thing twisted away, yipping like no one could hear it.
Alex didn’t think—he didn’t have time to think. He charged her in silence, hoping to scare her off without drawing the big dogs back. If he could get her to run, maybe he wouldn’t have to watch her die. Or worse, kill her himself.
Behind him, he heard Caleb curse. “What the fuck are you doing?”
More chilling bays shrieked through the twilight. Harsh. Bloody. Close. She looked up, saw him coming and tried to maneuver the dog she’d finally captured and her rifle all at once. He reached her before she had the chance, not that he thought she’d shoot him. It took meddle to pull the trigger on another human and she had no reason to suspect he wasn’t one.
He grabbed the barrel of her rifle and shoved it in the air. She pulled the trigger just as it cleared the top of his head. The blast burned his hand, rang in his ears, and told him he’d underestimated her. If he’d been a split second slower, he’d be dead.
The rifle’s kick pushed her back as he used his momentum to yank her forward. He caught her with his free arm, rifle gripped by both of them in the middle.
Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance Page 77