Hope you've had a great August! I've spent these last days of summer finishing up edits on my Work-In-Progress, taking one last road trip with the family, and most recently, diving into a wonderful, pre-release, beta-read of HEART'S INFERNO for author pal, Georgia Lyn Hunter. Since her sexy alpha warriors, aka The Fallen Guardians, are haunting my thoughts (in a good way!), I decided to introduce you to them, too. There are several stories in the series, so we'll start with #1, Absolute Surrender. Enjoy!
 |
Title: ABSOLUTE SURRENDER Author: Georgia Lyn Hunter Genre: Paranormal Romance Series: Fallen Guardians Release Date: June 2015 Formats: e-book, print, audio Available at: Amazon | B&N | iBooks | Audible Born in the flames of Heaven’s wrath, he’s all things sinful and too dangerous to love. An immortal guardian, Aethan has walked alone for millennia, trapped in a hell of his own. Until a feisty mortal crosses his path. A female he shouldn’t even look at, one who shakes the precarious foundations of all that he is, and one who’s determined to walk the edge of danger. All her life, Echo Carter wanted “normal”, an impossible feat given that she can see demons. Drawn back to the alleys of New York, she’s determined to hunt down the one responsible for the death of her friend. And no man, no matter how sexy, will stop her. Until she discovers a horrifying truth about herself, forcing her to turn to the one man she should avoid. Aethan. But when two stubborn wills collide, a dangerous passion ignites… As evil closes in, Aethan has to overcome his darkest fears and claim Echo as his. If he doesn’t, he just could lose her to a far more sinister fate... |
EXCERPT
(Echo meets Aethan. But first, a there's a demon to slay...)He followed.
Of course he’d follow. They always did.
She popped her jacket buttons free as she rounded the rear of the building and headed for the alcove where the statue of an angel with massive wings stood. When he grabbed her from behind and slammed her against the cathedral wall, she sucked in a breath, pain jarring up her arm to her shoulder. She twisted around. The acrid stink of sulfur flooded her nostrils. Bile rushed to her throat, telling her exactly what this thing was.
“Ah, little mortal. So good of you to choose this place—” He stopped, confusion flickering across his face, frowned, and leaned in to sniff her.
Oh yeah, her cursed pheromones always worked in her favor. They threw them off track and gave her the crucial edge she needed. But the black sludge that coated her hands as she held him off warned her this one had been wounded.
“You smell different. Must taste.” His tone slurred. Something wet and rough slithered along her neck. Crap! The slimy saliva on her skin sent a shudder of revulsion through her. But she didn’t let that distract her. Once his foul-breathed mouth claimed hers, life as she knew it would be over.
Nope, not happening. She had no plans to die at the hands of this fiend.
“Pity I have to cut our fun short.” His face cracked into a menacing smile to reveal pointy canines. “Your light’s mine.”
That’s what he thought.
“If you want it, come and claim it.” The familiar words rolled out of her mouth. Darn, she had to stop watching The Lord of the Rings. But Aragon was so—
Argh, kill first, then think about the sexy Aragon—she kneed the demonii hard in the crotch, breaking his hold. Spinning around, she kicked out her leg in a fast sweep, knocking his feet out from under him. He stumbled to the ground. About to go in for what would have been a routine kill, the demonii sprang up. He flung his shades aside. Eerily red eyes flamed with fury.
“I’ll drain every drop of your blood before I rip out your soul!”
“Promises—promises,” she taunted.
He came at her. Echo palmed her dagger and met him head-on. She went in low and rammed the blade into his sternum. The demonii fell to his knees, eyes widening in surprise.
“Didn’t see that one coming, did ya?” Vengeance burned in her as she grabbed him by the hair and slashed his exposed throat, severing the carotid artery. Blood, black and thick, gushed out.
Her breathing harsh, she let the body fall to the ground. Disappointment burned through her. This fiend hadn’t killed Tamsyn. The stink of the sulfur now coating her skin lacked the coppery, sweet odor of vanilla she was after. No matter. It meant one less evil fiend roaming the streets and robbing the innocents of their souls.
The body decomposed and vanished within seconds. No sign remained that the demonii had ever existed. The oily ooze on her dagger had disappeared, too, when a frisson shot through her. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose in warning. Oh, hell. More of them.
Survival mode on high alert, Echo whipped around in a defensive strike and met steel with steel. The metallic sound reverberated through the cathedral’s garden. The sheer power of the blow vibrated up her hand to her injured shoulder. Pain streaked through her but didn’t slow her down.
She attacked. He countered.
This one was too strong, too canny. She lunged at him, but he grabbed her in a move that made her head spin and imprisoned her in an ironclad grip against a wall of muscle. It took her a second to realize the stranger had no intention of disarming or hurting her. He merely shielded himself from her attack.
Irritated, she glared up. The impact of the man facing her over their crossed daggers hit her like a blow to the stomach. She stumbled back, dragging in lungfuls of air. Wild as rainstorms and earthy as sin, his scent crowded her. She blinked, sure the vision before her was a fantasy induced by her sleep-starved brain.
He was so tall, he had to be at least six-seven. His long, leather duster parted to reveal muscular, leather-covered legs. All that black he wore was the perfect backdrop for a wickedly handsome face. The hard, sensual curve of his lips and that focused way he studied her told her he would know every carnal pleasure there was.
A tiny shiver of awareness darted up her spine, but she brutally clamped it down.
The chilly breeze tossed back strands of his long hair to reveal the glitter of small silver hoops in his ears. But his hair—she’d never seen anything like it. It was as if nature had stroked it with every shade of the blue spectrum then laid a careless dash of ebony between those strands.
The air around him shifted. Power rolled off him in aggressive waves. But his eyes held her spellbound—gunmetal gray irises took on streaks of white—a caveat, a warning not to attack him again.
Oh, Mr. Goth-man could send out all the signals he liked. She wasn’t easy to intimidate.
“Who the hell are you?” she snapped.
FALLEN GUARDIAN SERIES LIST
|
Have a great September, Dear Readers, and I'll see you back here on September 30th with some pre-Halloween fun!
xo,
Celia
Web site | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Instagram | Newsletter
thanks for letting me and the Guardians hang around, Celia!! <3
ReplyDelete