Book: Burn for Me (Hidden Legacy #1)
Author: Ilona Andrews
Publisher: Avon
Date Published: October 28th, 2014
Author Info: Website|Facebook|Twitter
5 out of 5 Stars
***Review copy provided by the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review***
#1 New York Times bestselling author Ilona Andrews launches a brand new Hidden Legacy series, in which one woman must place her trust in a seductive, dangerous man who sets off an even more dangerous desire…

Nevada Baylor is faced with the most challenging case of her detective career—a suicide mission to bring in a suspect in a volatile case. Nevada isn’t sure she has the chops. Her quarry is a Prime, the highest rank of magic user, who can set anyone and anything on fire.

Then she’s kidnapped by Connor “Mad” Rogan—a darkly tempting billionaire with equally devastating powers. Torn between wanting to run or surrender to their overwhelming attraction, Nevada must join forces with Rogan to stay alive.

Rogan’s after the same target, so he needs Nevada. But she’s getting under his skin, making him care about someone other than himself for a change. And, as Rogan has learned, love can be as perilous as death, especially in the magic world.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20705702-burn-for-me
Purchase: Amazon|B&N
I saw this book and had to read it because I've enjoyed everything that I've read from these authors before. And let me tell you, Burn for Me is not to be missed! Ilona Andrews has created a wonderful new world filled with magic and wonderful new characters for you to fall in love with.

Nevada is a great heroine! I loved her personality and her inner dialogue is really sarcastic and witty. She has a strong moral compass and an ironclad will, with seemingly weak magic, although I think that there is more to her than meets the eye. Her ability is simply being able to tell whether a person is telling the truth or a lie. She is responsible and takes care of her large family now that her father has passed. All of these things make her a great personal investigator and normally she is only going up against cheating spouses and the like. When her family is threatened she has to take on a much more dangerous case and that is how she meets "Mad" Rogan.

"How about you don't kill anybody for a little bit?"
"I can't make that promise."
Small talk with the dragon. How are you? Eaten any adventurers lately? Sure, just had one this morning. Look, I still got his femur stuck in my teeth. Is that upsetting to you? 

Rogan on the other-hand is a Prime, a person with a really a high level of magic abilities, and the head of one of the top families in the area. His view on morality is a little more fluid than Nevada's but they compliment each other so well. I think that they both make each other better just by being together.

"There was no time to escape, so I broke through the floor and pulled it on top of us"
His voice was quiet, almost intimate. He sounded so reasonable, like it was just an ordinary thing. I broke through some solid marble and then built it into a shelter over us in a split second. No big. Do it every day. Just thinking about the amount of magic it would take to do this made me shiver.

Nevada is instantly attracted to Rogan, but at the same time scared to death of him. He is crazy powerful and Nevada likens him to a dragon. I almost feel sorry for Rogan. He's been raised as a type of aristocrat and hasn't had very many people to love him for himself. Nevada comes along and doesn't automatically take his crap or fall all over him and I'm sure that has something to do with his initial interest in her. I love that although they are attracted to each other right off they don't immediately fall into love, lust is a little more realistic and I'm looking forward to seeing their relationship develop over time.

I can't wait to read more. I stayed up way too late reading this one because I didn't want to put it down. There is tons of action, great characters that you will love, a bit of romance, and a little mystery going on. The plot thickens as you read it and I'd say it reminded me of a snowball rolling down a hill, with the story picking up speed as you go along. It was really, really good and the world building is amazing. The characters are great and it was exactly what I've come to expect from the authors. A fantastic read.
Excerpt:


About the Authors:

“Ilona Andrews” is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team. Ilona is a native-born Russian and Gordon is a former communications sergeant in the U.S. Army.

Contrary to popular belief, Gordon was never an intelligence officer with a license to kill, and Ilona was never the mysterious Russian spy who seduced him.

They met in college, in English Composition 101, where Ilona got a better grade. (Gordon is still sore about that.) They have co-authored two New York Times and USA Today bestselling series, the urban fantasy of Kate Daniels and the romantic urban fantasy of The Edge and are working on the next volumes for both.

They live in Texas with their two children and many dogs and cats.

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Always, Cowboy by Allison Merritt

The past is better left behind, unless it offers a brighter future.

Brody Longtree's first love was bull riding, but he loved beauty queen Libby Dempsey equally as hard. When she turned down his marriage proposal, everything from his rodeo career to his love life went to hell. His love ran too deep for blame, so he made the best of what life threw at him. Things finally get back on track...and then she almost runs over his dog.

When her pageant dreams died in an embarrassing display of nerves, Libby made a new, cowboy-free life for herself. One where she could train other girls who want to be pageant princesses. One that doesn't give her any reason to dwell on what might have been with Brody until his dog bounds into her heart. And she bounds into Brody's bed.

Despite the differences in their lives, they mesh together, the way Brody always knew they would. No matter what, he's waiting until he's certain Libby is ready to get married before he asks again, but their relationship comes under fire when one of her friends reveals a secret about a little girl Libby is awfully attached to—a girl who's the right age to be Brody's daughter.


Excerpt:
Under that snap front western shirt, did he still sport six-pack abs? She couldn't count the number of times she'd helped him out of a similar shirt and put ice on his bruises after a ride. Or how often they'd parked at the lake and explored one another under the stars.
Hot?” Brody asked.
What?”
You're flushed. We could go sit in the stands, maybe catch a breeze.”
Yeah, I guess.”
Can I ask you something, Lib?” Brody rose. His dark eyes were serious and a few lines bracketed his mouth. “Why'd you come tonight?”
Libby swallowed hard. “You asked me.”
Really?”
I only live an hour away and I didn't have anything else to do tonight.” Tell him you miss him.
You used to be more honest.” He slipped his hand around her wrist. “You missed me.”
I—” Electricity buzzed through her from his touch. “Maybe a little.”
Maybe a lot.” He pulled her into his arms. “You wouldn't be here otherwise.”


Allison Merritt



Cowboys Don’t Cry by Vickie Taylor 

A broken cowboy with nothing left to lose…except his heart.

Dash Connaway is hell-bent down a highway to nowhere. But he can’t outrun fate. Just a few months ago, he’d had a new album shooting up the country music charts, a luxury tour bus prepped for gigs in 39 cities, and a live-in girl friend he’d been thinking of asking to marry him. Now he’s just another drifter with an old guitar, a beat-up pickup, and a dog named Bill for a bed mate…until he meets Maggie McCain.

Maggie isn’t your ordinary Oregon rancher. She’s more into organic gardening and hand-spinning yarn from the fleece of her prized alpacas than breeding stinky old cattle. She’s a nurturer, a giver, so when Dash steps into her life from nowhere, she’s ready to trade in her solitary existence on the farm in favor of a husband to grow old with and a passel of children to care for.

But when she learns the real reason for Dash’s commitment to life on the road, she’s faced with a difficult choice and a lesson in the fallacy behind the old saying “Cowboys don’t cry.” Only time will tell just how potent the healing power of love can really be.


Excerpt:


It’s a girl,” he pronounced cradling the newborn alpaca in his arms.
The woman wiped her grimy chin with the back of her grimier hand. Tears tracked through the dirt on her cheeks. “You did it.” She pushed to her feet, but her legs looked none too steady. She picked up the rifle and leaned on it like a crutch.
Dash went to her, ready to catch her if she fell. “We did it,” he corrected.
Yes, we did.”
He smiled and reached out to her free arm. It was meant to be a celebratory brush, a comfort…but it lingered a moment too long. The air changed.
Without warning, she swung her rifle up and rested the barrel against his chest. “Now who the hell are you, and what are you doing on my land?”
Vickie Taylor



A Cowboy’s Heart by Leslie Garcia

Teenage lovers torn apart by betrayal. Have seventeen years changed everything—or nothing?

Star-crossed lovers in their south Texas hill country high school, torn apart by a best friend’s lie, a mother’s cold hatred, and a father’s lack of trust…

High school junior Illy Kingston turns to varsity football star and cowboy in training Gil Salas when her father, a Border Patrol agent, is killed under suspicious circumstances.

Their hormone-fueled, all or nothing affair ends when betrayal tears them apart.

Years, later, Illy returns home, at loose ends after her disastrous marriage to a reality show rock star ends with an embarrassing photo gone viral and a divorce.

When Gil and his mounted Border Patrol make an unannounced civic call at a local elementary school, Gil is shocked to see Illy lurking in the shadows, threatening to upend his existence once again.

The old passion still burns—but neither can go back to the innocence of their high school affair. Illy swore never to love a man wearing a uniform that didn’t involve jeans, a western hat, and boots. Gil has a price on his head.

And star-crossed love doesn’t usually work for cowboys, either.


Excerpt:
He stopped abruptly. Illy had told him to stop, and he hadn’t thought she meant it. The memory of her reacting to him, caressing him, wanting him, stormed back. And then, when Emma called, she’d turned off and fled in a fury.
Did she think he’d seen the picture? He’d seen it online, like the entire world had, according to all the social media. What if she thought he was just acting out what he’d seen? No matter how much the photo enraged and sickened him, he could only imagine her horror that her marriage was over, but that episode never would be.
Did she feel strange at all, being in his arms after that very public display with her ex-husband? His heart thudded dully. She must know he’d seen the picture, but what would it do to her if she knew the truth?
He closed his eyes. She was out of his life, and that was best for him. Because truth be told, he didn’t know if he could take her again and not remember the second most painful night of his life. The night he’d happened on Illy making love to her rock-star husband in public.
Leslie Garcia

The Heartsong Cowboy by Melissa Keir 

Can two people, one horse and the power of love cure a little girl?

Angela French blames herself for her daughter’s lack of voice. Determined to do anything to correct the situation, she seeks out Jake Kyncade, the owner of The Heartsong Ranch.

Jake Kyncade hides his own sorrows behind his no-nonsense demeanor. Helping children becomes one way to correct his past. Using equine therapy, he sets out to make a difference.

Can Jake help Angela’s dreams come true or will Jake’s past bring more heartache? Will love save them all?



Excerpt:

With Taylor asleep on the couch, Angela snuck the magazine out of her daughter’s sleeping hands before carrying her to her bed. After making sure her baby was tucked in, she turned out the lights and went to the kitchen. She sat down at the table to study the article about the horse whisperer. The photos gave off a peaceful feeling—so much so, she longed to jump into the images. Along with the horses, there were shots of children laughing and petting the animals. The article mentioned a little boy with Down’s Syndrome whose language increased after a week of animal therapy. The Heartsong Ranch. Even the name sounds encouraging. Dare I get my hopes up?
One photo in particular captured her attention. The owner, Jake Kyncade, wore jeans and a cowboy hat as he stood next to the ranch sign. She took a deep breath as butterflies circled in her abdomen. He’s sexy. Very different from Mike. Mr. Kyncade has this wounded look in his eyes. I wonder what his trauma was. I’ve gotten better at noticing it in others. Still, he’s good looking. Probably married with his own children.
Melissa Keir

Cowboy Trouble by Autumn Piper 

She’s decided to make some bad choices this weekend.

Susie Howell has always done what her family expects of her, but they don’t know about the divorce papers she’s just signed, or the secret torch she carries for sexy ranch hand Cash. When keeping the secret gets to her, she flees her brother’s wedding reception. Determined to live a little, she swipes the nearest truck from the ranch and heads to Sin City.

Cash Acosta has worked hard for everything he has, and nobody is taking off with his truck. When he sees it driving away, he jumps in—and becomes the unwilling passenger of a ready and willing woman he’s forbidden to touch. Hell-bent for trouble, the boss’s sister has already earmarked him as one of her “bad choices”.

And Susie intends to get what she wants.



Excerpt:
So that’s why you’re runnin’.” Under the parking lot lights, his eyes were pitch black. He thumbed a tear from her cheek.
She tried for a more ladylike sniffle, blinked away her tears. Nodded, for lack of a better reply.
When I hear a beautiful woman wants to make some mistakes, my gut instinct is to help her out with that.” His thumb brushed her lower lip. “Hearin’ she’s single…that’s another checkmark in the pros column.” Hypnotized, she barely breathed as he cupped her jaw in his fingers and that gaze riveted on hers. “Seein’ her cry? What choice do I have?” He bent to her, his lips hot and strong, skilled as they teased hers apart, his tongue waking feelings she’d forgotten. And Lord, it may be too soon, it may be wrong, but she wanted. Wanted Cash, his hands, his mouth, his… She grabbed onto his hard shoulders, slipped her hands up his neck, buried her fingers in that thatch of hair. And kissed him like there was no tomorrow. Of course there was. Sexy, brooding, womanizing Cash wanted her, and he’d be hers, at least for this trip.
Autumn Piper


Chasing a Cowboy by Sara Walter Ellwood 

He’s running from heartbreak. She’s chasing after love… Their hearts will never be the same.

Paige Morgan has lived her entire life in the glare of her fraternal twin sister’s star. Although the sisters are as different as sun is from the moon, Paige fell in love with the same man as her famous swimsuit model sister. When country superstar Chase Jordan is dumped at the altar by her twin, Paige sees an opportunity to go after the one thing of her sister’s she’s always wanted. 

She finds Chase in Cabo San Lucas nursing his broken heart in the true country song fashion—with a bottle of Jose Cuervo—and reminds him of the desire he once felt for her. Will this singing cowboy change his tune as they set the tropical nights on fire? Or will Paige be the one singing the blues when her sister shows up wanting her man back?

Excerpt:
All of his hopes and dreams shattered on what should have been the happiest day of his life. Today, instead of settling in for their two-week vacation and only getting out of bed to eat, he was nursing a bottle of Jose Cuervo. Why had he come here? His brother was right; he could have easily eaten the cost of the trip. Chase had insisted that he had to escape for a little while, lick his wounds and come up with a plan before he had to go back on tour in a few weeks. Jack accused him of wanting to punish himself. Why else would he go to the place he and Kayla were to have their honeymoon? Had he come here to remind himself of what should have been? He shook his head, hoping to dislodge the thoughts, and turned to gaze out the other side of the bar.
A woman stood on the walkway staring at him through a pair of Aviators. Her long blonde ponytail shimmered in the sun like spun gold. He narrowed his eyes. Was he now hallucinating?
She entered the bar and headed toward him. Sitting on the stool beside him, she removed her sunglasses to reveal a pair of expressive hazel eyes. “Surprise.”
Paige? What the hell are you doing here?”
Sara Walter Ellwood


Cowboy Bred, Cowboy Born by D’Ann Lindun 

Freedom or family? Only love can make the choice.

Photographer Alannah Murphy refuses to be tied down. She watched her parents struggle to hold onto their dairy farm until it killed them. The mere thought of the same fate makes her shudder. When she meets rancher Sterling Gentry she has to face her fears, or lose him.

Sterling Gentry longs for someone to hand his ranch down to. Like his father before him, he has sacrificed everything to hold onto the land his ancestors settled. But finding Ms. Right proves harder than he imagined. Then he meets Alannah Murphy with her big city ways. How he can ever take a chance with a woman exactly like his mother, who abandoned him when he was a child?

Despite their determination to stay the course they’ve each chosen, attraction pulls them together as steadily as a nail to a magnet. Can these two find a way to mesh Alannah’s need for freedom and Gentry’s desire to hold onto his land?



Excerpt:

Still snapping photos, the woman approached him. When she came within speaking distance, she waved. “Hello.”
Who the hell are you? And what are you doing in the middle of the road? Don’t you know better than to stand in the way when somebody’s herding stock?”
Her mouth opened and closed a couple times. “I didn’t think—”
Hell no, you didn’t think,” Gentry shouted. “Damn it anyway.”
I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “The shot was just so good…”
The shot? She’d ruined hours upon hours of exhausting work because she’d wanted a picture? Who the hell would do something so stupid?
Only a damn greenhorn.
For the first time he noticed her get-up. A straw hat only a city girl would wear, floaty pink top with tiny straps that left her bare shoulders exposed to the unforgiving Arizona sun, cut-off jean shorts and red cowboy boots. Daisy Duke personified. He shook his head in disgust.
Reality crashed over him.
The New York photographer his mother had enticed out here, hoping an article in The Cowboy magazine would bring attention to the Santa Gertrudis cattle they raised.
Damn.


Blood's Shadow
Lycanthropy Files
Book 3
Cecilia Dominic
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Date of Publication: 11/25/2014
ISBN: 9781619223776
ASIN: B00MO9WHFQ
Number of pages: 214
Word Count: 84,000
Cover Artist: Kanaxa

Encountering werewolves can be deadly. Trying to cure them? Murder.

As the Investigator for the Lycanthrope Council, Gabriel McCord encountered his share of sticky situations in order to keep werewolf kind under the radar of discovery. Now, as the Council’s liaison to the Institute for Lycanthropic Reversal, he advocates for those who were turned werewolf against their will.

Everyone seems to be on board with the Institute’s controversial experimental process—until one of its geneticists is found lying on his desk in a pool of blood.

Gabriel races to single out a killer from a long list of suspects. Purists, who believe lycanthropy is a gift that shouldn’t be returned. Young Bloods, who want the cure for born lycanthropes as well as made. The Institute’s own very attractive psychologist, whose most precious possession has fallen into the hands of an ancient secret society bent on the destruction of werewolves.

Failure means he’ll lose his place on the Council and endanger the tenuous truce between wizard and lycanthrope. Even if he wins, he could lose his heart to a woman with deadly secrets of her own.

Available at Amazon BN Google Books
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Guest Blog by C. Dominic
Inspiration for the historical Scottish town in Blood’s Shadow (part one)


Recently at a signing, someone asked me where I get my ideas. I’ve been fortunate with the Lycanthropy Files series in that I’ve been able to use places I’ve visited for the settings. In The Mountain’s Shadow, I was inspired by tales told by veterans who would come down from the Ozarks while they were getting dialysis at the Central Arkansas VA Hospital, where I was doing my predoctoral internship. The Caribbean setting in Long Shadows is similar to the place my husband and I honeymooned in Rincon, Puerto Rico. Although Lycan Village, one of the main settings in Blood’s Shadow, is a completely made up place, I did bring in some traditional Scottish town aspects I learned while doing an adult education course through Stirling University in 2006.
Mugdock Castle and Hubby. The arch and stone walls are how I picture the West Port of Lycan Village.


To give you some context, I married a guy of Scottish heritage. Yes, he wore a kilt at our wedding, as did the groomsmen, and the Scottish attire must have worked because we just celebrated our ten-year anniversary. Yes, he still wears the kilt occasionally – are you jealous yet? One of the other benefits of having married him is that he had been awarded a scholarship through the now defunct Montgomery Highland Games for study in Scotland, possibly to be used toward a semester abroad. It didn’t exactly fit with his course of study or the cute redheaded girlfriend (guess who?) he had in college, so he ended up using the money after he graduated, and I got to take the course with him.

Someday I’ll write a story set during a week-long adult ed course in Scotland because the people we met could easily be characters themselves. The professor, whose first name was Craig, was a jovial guy who knew his stuff and seemed to take everything in stride. At the end of the course, he told me and Hubby that “until we opened our mouths, no one would guess we were Americans.” I took that as a compliment considering the United States at the time had an administration that was very unpopular elsewhere, especially in Europe. Another compliment was that we managed to get more done on our self-touring days than anyone he’d ever seen. I guess all that wine-tasting practice paid off since we’re pretty good at strategizing which wineries to go to and can cover a lot in a day. In Scotland, there was no wine, just castles, which worked, too.

Doune Castle might look familiar to Outlander and Monty Python fans.

Side note: If you’re in Scotland, go to Doune Castle near Stirling and ask at the gift shop for the coconuts used in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They’ll sigh and roll their eyes at you, but it’s totally worth it to be able to say you clopped the very coconuts used in the movie. I might have even trotted up and down the hallway outside the gift shop while doing so. Doune Castle was also used for the outside Castle Lioch scenes in Outlander, according to this article .

Then there were our classmates, a Hungarian high school history teacher, a nice German lady, and a handful of hilarious older English women. One in particular, Tessa, stands out. She had a sidekick named Bernice, and both of them had come from the south of England for an educational holiday. Hubby and I did our best to not get caught in controversial discussions, but Tessa on occasion would get a mischievous glint in her eyes, pull her cheeks up into a smile worthy of a Disney villainess, and say, “Let’s discuss… politics.”

Linlithgow Castle, where Mary Queen of Scots was born.


One of the first lessons the class learned was the layout of a traditional Scottish town. Because the Middle Ages weren’t exactly peaceful times, the towns often had walls with gates, or ports, in them. The gates had names like East Port and West Port to designate where they were. Most of the walls and gates are gone now but still survive in the names of places like the Westport Hotel in Linlithgow, where Hubby and I went for dinner before attending a Scottish dance at the nearby castle. That’s also where we experienced the strangest air conditioning unit we’ve ever encountered. It would click like an oxygen concentrator, blow out a blast of cold air, and then stop for thirty-four seconds and do it again. No, I don’t have compulsive counting tendencies, really. Okay, maybe a little.

The climb to the top of a tower at Linlithgow Castle was worth it for the sunset.


My fictional Lycan Village has a mostly intact wall and a West Port Inn at the west gate, where the hero encounters some trouble when he follows a suspicious character into the alley behind it. Knowing those historical details helped me to see the setting through the characters’ eyes and hopefully make the book more real for my readers as well.

For the next post on how I drew inspiration from the course on Scottish towns, please visit my website at www.ceciliadominic.com for the full tour schedule. I’ll be writing about market crosses tomorrow.


Excerpt Blood's Shadow Chapter One:

I noticed the blood first. Earthy and metallic, its scent wove over and under the olfactory texture of the clinic, a red ribbon among the blues and greens of antiseptic and rubber glove. If it had been any other clinic, and I had been any other type of man, I might have dismissed it or processed it with only mild curiosity. But here among my fellow predators at the Institute of Lycanthropic Reversal, the spilling of blood in the quantities I sensed meant someone had made a deadly mistake.

As Lycanthropy Council Investigator, I was accustomed to fixing mistakes, and I thanked whatever gods may be watching that I had come on this official Council visit instead of one of the others.

“Mister McCord?” The woman’s voice startled me and brought my attention back to the human part of the brain, mostly ruled by the visual.

I was glad to be back in the realm of sight, and my impressions resolved into a lovely picture. The voice came with high cheekbones with a dusting of freckles, large gray-blue eyes, and long dark red hair pulled back in a ponytail. I could even forgive the flat American accent—which stood out to me no matter how often I heard it here in my home country—particularly as it came through pale pink lips pursed in inquiry.

“And you are?” I turned on all my Scottish charm, mindful that, as a former colleague had said, “American chicks dig the accent.”

“I am Doctor Selene Rial, one of the psychologists.” Her tongue rolled the r just enough to make me focus on her mouth and her full lips before she took my outstretched hand. She leaned in and again surprised me, this time by giving me the customary sniff of our kind’s greeting. On our facial cheeks, lest you think I’m being crude. Her scent brought to mind a vivid image of a waterfall in the humid twilight of the American Southeast in summer and a lithe red wolf watching its broken reflection in the ripples of the pool below. I wondered, as usual, what she caught from mine.

Whatever she saw, amusement and some concern flickered across her face when she stepped back. “It is an honor to have you here. We haven’t seen much of the Council since the Institute’s ground breaking ceremony.”

I inclined my head. “I am pleased to be here. But tell me, has there been an accident? I smell blood.”

Her eyes widened. “Do you? I don’t think anyone has spilled any today. We fired the tech who dropped the sample tray last week.” She bit her lip. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that.”

I would have been charmed by her guilelessness had I not been distracted. “Perhaps we should investigate.”

“Follow me.” She led me through the door and to a stairway on the left. The smell diminished to just the barest hint such that I wouldn’t notice it if I wasn’t looking.

Lonna Marconi-Fortuna, the Institute’s co-director and another werewolf, met us in the hall with her husband Doctor Max Fortuna, wizard and other co-director, at her side. The tension eased in my chest when I saw them. They had been my main concern.

“What is it, Gabriel?” Lonna asked when she saw my expression.

“Can you not smell it?”

She shook her head. “No, but your senses are better than ours—just one of the many ways how those of us who were changed by the vector differ from those of you who were born with CLS.” She wrinkled her nose. “But now that you mention it, something smells off.”

“Interesting.” I moved ahead of them, not wanting to lose the faint blood scent. I chased it down the corridor, its ribbon thickening as I ran down another staircase and through a maze of hallways until all that stood between me and full-on assault was the door to an office. Max caught up to me and wrinkled his nose, telling me how strong the odor was since he was a wizard, and therefore limited to human-level senses.

“I told the ladies to stay back,” he said.

I nodded. “Whose office is that?”

“Doctor Otis LeConte. He’s one of our geneticists. He’s a human.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You have full-blooded humans working here already?” As soon as I said it, I recognized how ridiculous it sounded. Of course I knew they hired humans, and the scientists would have started with the others. My attention was only half on the conversation. I wanted to help the poor bugger, but I listened and smelled for signs of an assailant to avoid potential ambush.

“He was the first we hired. It was one of the items we had on our list to talk to you about today. Do you hear anything in there?”

“No, nothing’s moving.”

He moved forward, then stopped and looked at me. “At your command, Gabriel.”

“Go on.”

He opened the door and stumbled back, his hand over his nose and mouth.

“Come now, you’re a physician. It can’t be that—” But it was. LeConte lay splayed out on his desk, his lab coat dripping with the contents of his circulatory system onto the dark brown carpet. Both wrists had been gashed open, as had his neck, and his eyes stared at the ceiling in horror. Files had been turned out on the floor and had become a Red Sea of paper.

As I recoiled in horror, my mind catalogued observations to sift through later. There was a laptop computer on a shelf to the side and several little statues and knickknacks that looked to be made of precious metal also stood in front of books on the bookcases. Not a robbery, then. I would have to wait and see what the coroner said—he was one of us as well—but the wounds didn’t look like they had been made by werewolves. Perhaps someone pretending to be one of us, but definitely not us. Also, the window stood wide open, which allowed the air to circulate. It had likely kept any of the younger ones from smelling the blood, although I still didn’t understand how someone didn’t notice something.

“Oh my god! Otis?”

I caught Selene’s arm before she barged into the room. “There’s nothing to be done for him. You’ll only interfere with evidence now.”

Her face had gone white, even her freckles, and she wobbled. I pulled her to me so she wouldn’t fall should she faint, and I found she fit perfectly against my chest. I filed that away for future consideration as well, turned, and guided her to a chair in the hallway. She slumped forward, her head between her knees, and took deep breaths. Truth be told, I felt woozy as well, and the hand I placed on her trembling shoulder might have been as much to steady myself as her. I hoped my father wasn’t looking down from wherever werewolves went after they died and shaking his head in shame at his weak-stomached son. It seemed unfair I could eviscerate animals with ease, and I could even handle the usual murder victim, but the sight of such brutality always got to me. I blamed childhood trauma.

“I don’t want to know, do I?” asked Lonna. She stood with her arms crossed and looked down at Selene. Max had closed the door and gone to call the police. Not the human ones. Lord knows we didn’t need them mucking about in here.

“You’re going to need to find a new geneticist,” I told her. “He’s been exsanguinated.”

She arched an eyebrow. “You and your big words. Someone sucked his blood?”

I started to shake my head, but then stopped. A man LeConte’s size—and I was pretty good at guessing heights and weights—would contain about five liters of blood. What I had seen looked like a lot, but after a certain point and with the element of surprise, any amount over about a liter would seem excessive. His neck and wrists had still been dripping, which told me the deed was recent. I stood, commanded my knees to stop their schoolboy knocking, and said to Lonna, “Can you take care of her? I need to see if I can find the trail of the perpetrator.”

Lonna nodded and sat next to Selene, whose breathing deepened and lengthened into quiet sobs.




I found Max outside LeConte’s window, which was on the first floor. I half-expected to see him performing some sort of spell or doing something else wizardly, but instead, he shone a light on the ground.

“Ultraviolet with a little magical help,” he said. “If there was blood on the bastard’s shoes, it’ll show, but the sun is too bright for me to see. Can you stand there?”

“I can’t imagine how there wouldn’t be anything on the killer’s shoes unless he’d covered them with something.” I moved to create a shadow on the ground.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t rained in days—an unusual state of affairs for Scotland, even in the summer—and the ground was dry, so there were no impressions to be found. Between the two of us, we detected some blood splotches on the mulch under the bushes outside of the building and some bent grass blades. Of course, the traces petered out, but at least it was along a straight trail leading directly toward the woods.

“I’m going to change and go after him,” I said.

Max nodded and turned to give me some privacy. To his credit, he didn’t say that would have been the thing to do in the first place, although I cursed myself for not thinking of it sooner. Finding LeConte’s body had shaken me, as had the implications. My mind raced with what I would tell the Council and how they would react.

It crossed my mind that someone inside the building may be watching, and the thought made my skin crawl, but time was too precious to waste on privacy concerns, and Max was there in case someone decided to take advantage of that moment of disorientation when the change was almost complete. I divested myself of my garments and left them in as neat a pile as I could, and took a deep breath. The life force of nature of the woods and trees nearby reached out to me, and I to the wild energy. It enveloped my limbs, traveling down my nervous pathways to blood, bone, and sinew, drawing everything to the center. I simultaneously folded inward and outward, gritting my teeth at sensations that, although they had become familiar, were never comfortable—like hands molding and rearranging me with no regard for the limits of my tendons and muscles. I understood the change differed for everyone, and I envied those for whom it was easy. Some legends held that werewolves wore their animal skin on the inside when they were human. Turning inside out would have been easier.

Finally, after I had physically rearranged myself, I panted for a few breaths and then took off. The path that had been illuminated by the UV light now showed itself to me with the scent of LeConte’s blood, heavy and fatty and crying out for vengeance. The dim light of the woods barely registered as my nose directed me to turn right, left, over, under, squeezing between. Whoever had murdered the scientist had his own interesting scent, a combination of pipe smoke and kerosene.

The trail ended at a stream, but there was still enough scent in the air to figure out which way the murderer had run. From what I could recall, there were busy roads on either side of the woods where a getaway car and driver could be waiting.

I chose the direction my nose told me to go and found the trail about forty meters north. The blood was gone, but the kerosene-pipe smoke smell was there along with sweat. That scent disappeared along the side of a road, where a small pull-off could have hidden a vehicle behind some trees, and I noted where it was so the police could come look for tire tracks. Not that they’d likely find anything of any help in the dry gravel.


I trotted back toward the Institute, and a lithe red wolf surprised me in the woods on the other side of the stream. She smelled familiar.

“Selene?”

“Gabriel?” She sat back on her haunches and regarded me with a concerned look. “Did you catch them?”

“Obviously not. And what are you doing out here? They could’ve been armed.”

In spite of lacking human facial muscles and their range of expression, we lycanthropes can express our emotions adequately without speaking, and her glare told me she was pissed even without her baring her teeth.

“Otis was my friend. I wasn’t going to let them get away.” She turned and walked in the direction from where she’d come.

“I wasn’t either,” I told her.

“Obviously not,” she tossed over her shoulder at me.

I ran to catch up with her. “Look here, there’s no reason to get sarcastic with me. You’ve had quite a shock, but I’m only trying to help.”

The tears came through her mental voice. “Don’t you think Otis’s murder could have something to do with your visit? The timing is odd, isn’t it?”

Her question would’ve floored me had we been near a floor. Here I had gone chasing after a potentially armed villain—yes, I could acknowledge my own bravado and stupidity here—and she had started sorting through the facts like a scientist. I blamed the surge of attraction I felt toward her on my current animal state, my tendency to fall for smart women, and our situation. We’d faced death and now strolled, albeit briskly, through lovely woods on a summer day. I’d learned two years previously not to fall for scientists. They’ll stick with their own every time.

“You’re quiet,” she said. “I apologize if I offended you.”

“No offense taken. I was just pondering what you said, and I sincerely hope my visit today had nothing to do with your friend’s death.”

“It would be a coincidence, and I don’t believe in those. All I know is that a dear friend has been killed in a horrible manner.”

I wanted to dissect the manner in which she’d said “dear friend” so I could quell the jealousy that blossomed in my chest. Had she and LeConte been lovers but covered it up to avoid a workplace scandal?

Stop acting like a pup, I scolded myself. What the lovely Selene does on her own time is her business. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret when we left the woods, walked into the sunshine of the Institute grounds, and once again became Lycanthropy Council Member and scientist.

“I see the cavalry is here,” she said.

Indeed, the yellow-and-blue marked car, just similar enough to the human police vehicles, had arrived, its lights whirling. When I got close, Lonna’s mental voice came to me: “The police are here, and the detective wants to see you first.”


About the Author:

Cecilia Dominic wrote her first story when she was two years old and has always had a much more interesting life inside her head than outside of it. She became a clinical psychologist because she’s fascinated by people and their stories, but she couldn’t stop writing fiction.

The first draft of her dissertation, while not fiction, was still criticized by her major professor for being written in too entertaining a style.

She made it through graduate school and got her PhD, started her own practice, and by day, she helps people cure their insomnia without using medication. By night, she blogs about wine and writes fiction she hopes will keep her readers turning the pages all night. Yes, she recognizes the conflict of interest between her two careers, so she writes and blogs under a pen name. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia with one husband and two cats, which, she’s been told, is a good number of each.
Book: Christmas in Transylvania (Deadly Angels #4.5)
Author: Sandra Hill
Publisher: Avon Impulse
Date Published: October 28th 2014
4 out of 5 Stars
***Review copy provided by the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for my honest review***
For the first time ever, the leader of the Viking Vampire Angels, Vikar Sigurdsson, has been talked into celebrating a traditional Christmas! The tree has been decorated, the gifts have been wrapped, and the stockings have been hung. And that's mistletoe, not cobwebs, hanging from the ceiling of the creepy castle full of vangels … really!

The icing on the vampire cookie comes when vangel Karl Mortensen rescues Faith Larson, a battered young waitress, from her abusive boyfriend and hides her in the castle amidst the Christmas chaos. But what Karl thought was a frail young teenager is actually a very tempting woman. And she thinks his fangs are sexy!

But a strange "Christmas visitor" at the castle and demon vampires up to their old tricks could threaten the budding romance between Karl and Faith. It's an impossible match—a human and a vangel—but Christmas is a time for magic.

Karl and Faith don't stand a chance …
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22138343-christmas-in-transylvania?ac=1
Purchase: Amazon|B&N
This was my first Deadly Angels book, probably not the best place to start this series, but I still really enjoyed it! After this I read Vampire in Paradise (review coming soon!), and I will be going back to read the first books. This book was a quick read that featured a fair amount of humor, a good romance and quirky but loveable characters.

Karl was made into a vangel during Vietnam, so he's actually considered fairly young according to the other vangels. He's been alone for a while now and a trip to his local diner leads him to check up on Faith, one of the waitresses, after her co-worker suspects abuse. Karl's had his eye on Faith for a while and feels the need to make sure she's safe.

Faith is trapped in an abusive relationship, and has been wanting out for a while, Karl gives her a way out by showing up. Faith has been badly beaten and Karl takes her home to the castle so that she can heal. Karl and Faith fall for each other quickly, although they had seen each other before on occasion so it wasn't like they hadn't ever met before this story starts. Add to the mix some funny holiday happenings and it was a great paranormal holiday read!

Christmas in Transylvania is a quick read, that will leave you with a smile on your face. I always love a good holiday romance to get me in the spirit and this book did exactly that. The characters are really memorable and I couldn't wait to get the next book started!

About the Author:

Sandra Hill is a graduate of Penn State and worked for more than 10 years as a features writer and education editor for publications in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Writing about serious issues taught her the merits of seeking the lighter side of even the darkest stories.

She is the wife of a stockbroker and the mother of four sons.
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