Wrath: The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 2

by Denise Tompkins

  “It will have to be. It’s all I’ve got to offer you.”

  He raised a hand to my face and I wobbled without the support of both of his arms. Prophetic? I wondered. It was too deep a thought for me to consider here and now.

  “Is this what you want, Maddy? Because I won’t have less than all of you.” He looked over my shoulder at the other man.

  I could hear his breathing escalating as he understood what was happening, that I hadn’t crawled across the grass to say goodbye to his competition but to offer my heart to the other man.

  “No,” said the voice from my back. “Maddy, no, don’t do this. Don’t throw this away.”

  I turned and looked at Bahlin, my heart shattering and the tears flowing faster. “I’ll always love you, Bahlin.”

  “But not enough to choose me.” He shook his head, and bitterness sang down the lines of tension between us.

  I lifted a trembling hand, covered with blood and dirt, to my face to wipe the tears away. “I don’t think we’re entirely good for each other, Bay. I’m so sorry.” My voice cracked on the last word, and strong hands supported me as I stood facing my old lover.

  “Give me a chance, Maddy. Just one more chance. Please,” he asked, holding out a hand to me.

  I shook my head quickly and nearly collapsed, but Hellion’s arms were there to catch me.

  “Maddy, love, we need to go home and get you tended. Your side is bleeding profusely,” Hellion said softly, keeping his eyes cast down and away from the other man.

  “Please don’t make this harder, Bay. If you ever loved me—”

  “I never stopped,” he choked out as his first tears fell. “I never stopped.”

  A gasping sob escaped me, and I bit my hand to keep any further sound from betraying my heartbreak. I knew that if I lost it now, I’d be done for. I would completely break down, and neither man needed that. Hellion didn’t need the doubt. Bahlin didn’t need the false hope that I could be persuaded to change my mind.

  I reached out a hand to Bahlin, and he shook his head. “Don’t do this, Maddy.” His words were guttural and deep, and I wondered if his dragon was begging me or if it was the man. Did it matter? No. It only hurt more. I beckoned to him with my hand, and I took a shaky step away from Hellion.

  “Bahlin,” I whispered.

  He strode forward and crushed me to him, and I grunted in pain. His mouth came down on mine, and I kissed him as if he was the air I needed to breathe. I broke the kiss and he didn’t let go.

  “Bahlin,” I whispered, “I have to go. I’m hurting—”

  “Me too,” he said with a small smile.

  I nodded quickly and whimpered, and he handed me back to Hellion.

  In a hard voice, he said, “Love her well, because if you don’t, I will always be right there, waiting for you to make that one unforgivable mistake that sends her back to me.”

  “I know,” Hellion said, lifting me up and cradling me in his arms. He turned to go and I stopped him.

  I looked at Bahlin one last time, and then Hellion turned back to dematerialize and take me home. I allowed myself one final moment of terror. Was I making the right decision? Only time would tell.

  The last thing I heard was Bahlin’s anguished roar as he took to the air. Then we were gone.

  About the Author

  Denise Tompkins lives in the heart of the South where the neighbors still know your name, all food forms are considered fry-able and bugs die only to be reincarnated in aggressive, blood-craving triplicate. Thrilled to finally live somewhere that can boast 3 ½ seasons (winter’s only noticeable because the trees are naked), her favorite season is definitely fall. It’s the time of year when the gardens are just about to pass into winter’s brief silence, and the leaves are out to prove that nature is the most brilliant artist of all.

  A life-long voracious reader, Denise has three favorite authors. Why three? Because favorite authors are like chips: a person can’t have just one. Her little house was so overrun with books last year that her darling husband bought her an e-reader out of self-preservation. He was (legitimately) afraid she might begin throwing out pots and pans to make room for more books, and he didn’t want to starve.

  You can find out more about Denise by visiting her website, www.denisetompkins.net, or by following her on Twitter, @DeniseJTompkins.

  Look for these titles by Denise Tompkins

  Now Available:

  The Niteclif Evolutions

  Legacy

  When Fate makes you her bitch, accept it and adapt. Or die.

  Legacy

  © 2011 Denise Tompkins

  The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 1

  Looking back on the wish she made on Midsummer’s Eve, Maddy Niteclif should have been more specific. She only wanted to escape the shadowy nightmares that plagued her nights, not to be thrust into a completely altered reality.

  If a strangely familiar, sexy dragon-shifter named Bahlin, who causes a never-to-be-mentioned-again fainting spell, isn’t enough to make her question her sanity, his insistence she’s the Niteclif ought to do the job. Prophesied super-sleuth of the supernatural world—a world that desperately needs her help—isn’t a job she’s remotely qualified for no matter what her family tree says.

  Catapulted into a very different London ruled by dark mythology, mystery and murder, Maddy makes a few startling discoveries. Paranormal creatures exist. Getting shot really sucks. And her body responds remarkably well to dragon magic—in more ways than simple wound healing.

  But in this kill-or-be-killed world, reality bites. And Maddy must choose to go back to what she knows…or stay and fight for the man she knows she can’t live without.

  Warning: This book contains a shape-shifting dragon with a Scottish accent, modern and archaic weapons, global inter-species politics that make democracy seem mild, some very steamy sex underground, a severed head, murder, and…oh yeah…a woman caught in the middle of it all.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Legacy:

  “Maddy?” Bahlin’s voice was soft but concerned. “It’s been nearly an hour. Are you okay?”

  I sat up and held my hands out in front of my face. Yep, prunes. I was finished.

  “I’ll be out in a minute, Bay,” I said, pushing myself up to standing and reaching for a towel. I stepped out onto the tile floor and briskly dried myself off, wrapping the towel around my torso. It was a near thing, but it went all the way around. I’d be okay if I didn’t move too much. I finger-combed my hair and went to the door, peaking out. Bahlin sat on the edge of the bed in a pair of boxer shorts. He looked up at me and smiled and it was such a winsome look that I smiled back.

  “You’re beautiful when you smile like that,” he whispered, standing and moving toward me. I noticed the slight tenting of his boxers and whipped my gaze back to his eyes. Gently he said, “I believe that, to quote you, it was something like ‘sex and the whole near-death-reaffirming-life thing,’ wasn’t it?”

  I continued to stare at him, unsure what to do. I had had two lovers in my lifetime, both results of relationships affectionately referred to as monogamous monotony by my girlfriends. Neither relationship had left me with a wild, passionate view of sex. One ex-boyfriend had even accused me of being an ice princess, unreachable, unpleasurable. Such stellar reviews of my past performance definitely tainted the developing fantasy I had about the man standing in front of me. So did I give in to the raging primal instinct to reaffirm life, or did I stick to my basic moral code, lock myself in the bathroom and wish him luck with himself? Of course, in all my mental ramblings I’d forgotten to take into consideration one thing: the man himself.

  Bahlin approached me slowly, his boxers twitching from their internal assault. He reached me and, instead of pulling me up into a wild embrace, he ran a finger down my bare arm leaving a trail of goose flesh in its wake. I looked up into his eyes and they were the deep, dark sapphire color that had stolen my breath in my first night’s dream. He sank his head toward me and brush
ed his lips over mine, breathing out the words, “A stór,” as he nibbled his way to my jaw. I was barely breathing, scared to encourage him and equally scared he’d stop his exploration of my neck, then my shoulders. He began working his way back up to my ears, his breath hot.

  “Ah, my love, you’re such a temptation,” he whispered.

  “You don’t love me,” I whispered back.

  He lifted his head, drawing his attention from my ear to my eyes. “You don’t know that,” he said in a gentle voice.

  “I do,” I said. “You’ve not known me long enough for me to drive you crazy. The only people who loved me unconditionally are dead.” Tears blurred my vision and I looked down, giving them permission to slip down my cheeks.

  “Ah, your parents.” He lifted his hand from my shoulder to chin and pushed up gently, forcing me to meet his gaze. “They are gone but never forgotten, mo muirnin. Never doubt that.” He stroked a finger down my neck, and I shivered. “And, with all respect due you, I don’t believe you’re qualified to tell me how I do or don’t feel.”

  I nodded my head too fast, pushing yet more tears over the dam of my lower lashes. He bent his head even closer to mine and kissed the tears away.

  “We are fated, you and I,” he said.

  “Fated? Is that what I’m not supposed to know?”

  “Ah, no.” He took a deep breath and stepped back from me. But he didn’t elaborate.

  I felt adrift in the large room without him to serve as my anchor. I reached out for him, and he stepped into me with the passion I had expected with his first approach. He wrapped his arms around me and crushed me to his chest so tightly I let out an oompf and he laughed, squatting down and picking me up by wrapping his arms around my upper thighs before spinning me around. I locked my hands behind his neck and bent my forehead to his.

  “Do you want me as much as I want you, mo chrid?” he asked, sliding me slowly down the front of his body. His erection, trapped behind the thin cotton of his underwear, was blazing hot against my lower belly as he gripped my hips and held me close to him.

  I let my head fall back and he feasted on my neck, kissing and nipping from jaw to shoulder with more intent than moments before. He quickly dipped his head and licked his way along the top of my left breast over my heart, slipping his tongue under the edge of the towel.

  “Holy crap,” I gasped, as the heat of his tongue went straight to my womb. I had never been so aroused in all my life and this man had taken me there in minutes.

  He pressed his lips firmly to my heart, bending low and running his hands up my outer thighs, under the towel until he could grip my ass hard.

  “Maddy? Say the word and I’ll stop, but if you don’t stop me now, I’m going to throw you down on that bed and have my way with you.”

  I couldn’t get his words through my head. All I wanted was the heat, the passion, not conversation, and definitely not responsibility. For once I wanted breathless recklessness.

  But Bahlin wasn’t programmed for recklessness when it came to me, apparently. “Maddy? Look at me and tell me you want this.” He softened his grip on my ass, running his hands in small circles over the branded skin.

  The gods play…and mortals pay.

  Bad Blood

  © 2011 Lucienne Diver

  Latter-Day Olympians, Book 1

  Tori Karacis’s family line may trace back to a drunken liaison between the god Pan and one of the immortal gorgons. Or…maybe it’s just coincidence that her glance can, literally, stop men in their tracks. While her fear of heights kept her out of the family aerobatic troupe, her extreme nosiness fits right in with her uncle’s P.I. business.

  Except he’s disappeared on an Odyssean journey to find himself. Muddling through on her own, she’s reduced to hunting (not stalking, because that would just be weird) brass-bra’d Hollywood agent Circe Holland to deliver a message…only to witness her murder by what looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

  Suddenly, all of her family’s tall tales seem believable, especially when Apollo—the Apollo, who’s now hiding out among humans as an adult film star—appears in her office, looking to hire her. She knows the drill: canoodling with gods never works out well for humans, but she’s irresistibly drawn to him. Maybe it’s her genes. Maybe not.

  Given her conflicted feelings for one hot and hardened cop, it’s a toss-up which will kill her quickest. The danger at her door…or her love life.

  Warning: Contains pot-boiling passion between a heroine who may—or may not—be a descendant of Medusa, and a hot god and a hunky cop with the…equipment…to handle her, even on her worst bad-hair day. Beware of killer kisses, trickster gods and bearded grandmothers Who Know Everything.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Bad Blood:

  “I need a bath,” I croaked, hand to my throat as if it would make any difference. “Right now I feel like I’d pass out bending over to start the water. I’d never have called you to begin with if—” my voice gave out, which was probably a good thing, given that what had been coming out sounded all wrong in my head. I swallowed and tried again, softer. “Not that you were my last choice. Just—I need a girlfriend.”

  Armani looked at me like a suspect he intended to crack, as if every word spoken had some other meaning. Finally, he swiped a hand hard over his face.

  “Look, you witnessed a murder, came face-to-face with the killer. We probably should have set some sort of watch on you right from the first. My fault. But—dammit, by the time you’re through flirting and baiting, it’s a wonder I remember my own damned name,” he growled.

  I was flummoxed. “So I do get to you.”

  He practically glared. “Yeah, like that’s a freakin’ newsflash. Why else do you do it?”

  “Because I can’t help myself,” I answered.

  Damn and double damn. I should have stuck with the pen.

  My admission didn’t seem to make him any happier. “Look, you’re a witness in an ongoing investigation.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And a pain in my ass.”

  I was tired, I was soaked to the bone, but as much as I wanted that bath and my bed…

  “So?” I challenged.

  “So, we can’t do this.”

  “Do what?” I asked, exasperated. “We’re not doing anything—”

  In the blink of an eye, Armani had risen from his chair, taken my face in his hands and shut me the hell up with a kiss. And not just any tentative little first kiss—a breath-stealing, heart-pounding, fade-to-black kind of showstopper. I found I wasn’t nearly as exhausted as I’d thought. With minds of their own, my fingers buried themselves in his hair, reveling in the feel of the thick strands, kneading his scalp. My thoughts scattered as his tongue thrust inside my mouth and I gasped in reaction.

  His hands slid from my face, down over my wet camisole, just brushing my breasts before settling on my hips. I was no longer cold—superheated was more like it—but wet was another matter.

  Armani pushed himself away. Without looking at me, he muttered, “I’ll start the water running and wait just outside the door so I can hear you if you fall.” And he escaped into the only other room in my apartment, the bathroom.

  My head fell to the table in frustration and sudden weakness. In the time it took him to get things ready, a series of unworthy thoughts flitted through my mind—pulling him in with me, faking a fall, flat-out asking him to wash my back. But I wasn’t going to trick Armani into anything. He either wanted me or he didn’t.

  Still, I couldn’t help a bit of teasing, allowing a breast to brush his arm as he escorted me to the bath.

  “I may need help with these wet clothes,” I said, damaged throat making it come out all husky.

  He shot me a sidelong look. “At this point, I don’t think the bath would do those clothes any harm.”

  “Such a gentleman,” I answered with a roll of my eyes.

  “I am a gentleman. That’s why you’re on your own with those clothes.” Then he de
cided to turn my teasing back on me. “Besides, if I were to take them off, I’d need to taste you right—” the hand not supporting me rose to ever-so-gently slide over my throat until his thumb caressed the hollow, “—here.”

  My nipples practically stood at attention, pushing noticeably against my camisole. The look he gave me was hot enough to scorch and smug besides.

  I had no comeback.

  “Speechless? Hmm, I’ll have to remember that.”

  Wrath

  Denise Tompkins

  Haunted by personal betrayal, stalked by a murderer and taunted by destiny. Finding justice—not to mention a little faith—has never been so hard.

  The Niteclif Evolutions, Book 2

  A murderer is terrorizing the streets of London, targeting women who look suspiciously like Maddy. Under the mantle of darkness, the killer attacks his victims from behind, severing their heads with startling efficiency and single-minded brutality. A single gold coin is left at the scene of every crime, buried in the neck of each victim. Nothing adds up, and the deeper Maddy gets into the investigation, the more she learns that there are hostile eyes in every faction—some malicious, others murderous.

  Amid her struggles to stop a seemingly unstoppable killer, Maddy learns that dreams are far too fragile to juggle. Her newfound love is crumbling around her under the burdens of guilt and blame, and where one man abandons her, another is slated by the gods to take his place. Defiant, Maddy finds her struggles with free will versus destiny have only just begun.

  Figuring out whom she should trust, and when, will force Maddy to reassess her alliances…and reaffirm her fragile mortality.

  Warning: Contains Scottish and Irish brogues, heads that—literally—roll, seriously random acts of violence, heartbreak and hope, explicit m/f sex in a variety of locations, a voyeuristic vampire and one dinner table that will never be the same.