Authors: Katriena Knights
Necromancing Nim (42 page)
She moved to another sheet and started another—a dragon in flight against a backdrop of snowcapped mountains. Discussing David’s game must have triggered something in her subconscious. She hadn’t drawn a dragon in years.
Tony finished that picture and moved to another. She could lose everything in the act of drawing: tension, insecurity, insomnia. She felt alive when she drew, as if her soul found its true purpose in the point where pen met paper.
Every time she drew, she wondered why she kept pushing this need away. It made her feel so…herself. The doubts and insecurities, the fluttery tension that made her day-to-day living so twitchy at times, disappeared when she let herself draw.
The pen moved across the paper in a flat arc, then moved downward. Along the same theme as the wedding, as the dragon, she drew a man in armor, a big, two-handed sword balanced between his hands, its tip resting on the ground. It wasn’t until she had sketched in the eyes and started to outline the long, strong nose that she realized she was drawing someone who looked very much like David.
Something old, something blue, something deadly…what else is new?
Keeping Secret
© 2012 Sierra Dean
Secret McQueen, Book 4
It’s a nice day for a white wedding. At least that’s what Secret McQueen is hoping for, with her poofy-princess-dress marriage to a werewolf king looming closer and closer by the day. But as ever, nothing can be that easy for a vampire/werewolf hybrid for whom someone still harbors a death wish.
Summoned to the south by her werewolf uncle, who makes no bones about the fact her mate bond with Lucas doesn’t pass muster, Secret learns her furry heritage looks more like a tangled vine than a family tree. Getting her royal uncle’s blessing hinges on finding one of the missing twigs. Even with vampire sentry Holden Chancery at her side, she manages to land up to her neck in a swamp of trouble.
As an assassin’s scope zeroes in, family dramas boil up and a fast-collapsing love square threatens to bury her alive, making it to the church on time could be the least of Secret’s problems.
Warning: Contains a grumpy bride who shouldn’t be wearing wedding white, a motley crew of bridesmaids, a dangerous scenic drive in the woods and a smoking-hot trio of suitors who might be too scorching to touch.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Keeping Secret:
Dominick didn’t like my idea of leaving Lucas to sleep off his drunken stupor on the porch. I didn’t like the idea of sharing a bed with a snoring, drooling mountain of inebriated werewolf. We compromised by dumping him on the couch in front of an imaginary fire. Dominick offered to sleep on the porch swing, which I didn’t love, but I couldn’t talk him out of it.
When I climbed under the duvet, there was still an hour before the early rays of dawn would drag me down into my daylight sleep. I was grateful the design of the cabin meant the bedroom had no windows, but it also made the space a little claustrophobic.
I shut my eyes so I wouldn’t have to stare at the walls and fantasize they were closing in on me.
A weight sank down beside me on the bed, making the springs groan.
“Managed to find your way off the couch?” I asked.
In response, the duvet lifted and a muscular body slipped against my back, spooning me perfectly. I arched my back towards him, our bodies molding together like they were meant to be paired this way.
“Maybe we left you outside too long,” I said with a smile. “For a werewolf, you’re downright freezing.”
Lips brushed my earlobe, and I could feel the curve of a smile. “Then warm me up,” he replied.
My eyes flew open, and I spun in the bed, still encased in the arms of a man who was decidedly
not
a werewolf, nor my fiancé.
“Holden, what the
fuck
do you think you’re doing? How did you get in here?”
“Bathroom window was open.”
Jesus, these wolves certainly trusted the woods around them. Doors and windows left open. I was all for Southern hospitality, but didn’t they know vampires were just lurk—
“Wait a damned second. How did you manage that? Even if it was unlocked, no one invited you in.”
He chuckled. “It’s not anyone’s primary residence. It’s not a home, just a guest suite. The invitation rule only applies to permanent dwellings, not temporary ones. It’s the same reason we can go into hotels. Don’t ask me how the metaphysics works…it just does.”
He clasped his arms around my back and tugged me close. Though he wasn’t hard, I felt the unmistakable pressure of his package through the thin material of my underwear. My brain said,
no, no, no,
but the hypersensitive parts of me below the waist said,
oh, oh, oh.
My vagina was always trying to be my undoing. It only understood pleasure and didn’t tend to care who the penis belonged to.
My brain was a little pickier.
But only a little.
Holden leaned in to steal a kiss. I head-butted him.
“
Ow
,” he groaned, his hand shooting to his forehead.
“You idiot. Lucas is in the other room, and there is a pack of more than thirty wolves hanging around outside, drunk off their asses. I’m sure they’d
love
to know a vampire was sneaking into the bed of an unsuspecting princess.”
In spite of the pain I’d inflicted—which probably wasn’t too much considering I hadn’t given it my all and his skull was about as fragile as cast iron—he grinned like an idiot when I used the P word on myself.
“My apologies, your most serene princessyness.”
“Don’t be an ass. You were born in England. You of anyone should know the right terminology.” And just like that he’d made me forget I was angry with him. “Seriously, though, what do you think you’re doing?”
“Sig was pretty specific about me not letting you out of my sight.”
“I don’t think he meant it literally.”
“I don’t think Sig understands the finer points of English colloquialisms enough to mean it anything other than literally. For him ‘don’t let her out of your sight’ can only mean one thing.”
Shit.
“Shit.”
“Look,” he said, loosening his hold on me and propping his head on one hand. God he looked delicious with pillow-mussed hair. Also, where was his shirt? “Eyes up here, Princess.”
“Well, stop it with the dramatic pauses and get to your point. I was falling asleep.”
“Sure you were.”
“Moonlight’s ticking away, Chancery.”
He rolled his eyes and clucked his tongue at me. “I’m not trying to ruin your little summit. There’s a
pigeonnier
near the main house. The windows have been sealed, and it doesn’t look like it’s being used. I can hide there during the day without being exposed. But at night, I need to know where you are.”
“Can you be subtle about it?”
“I’ve been here all night. Has anyone noticed me yet?”
I raised my fist and tapped the wall behind us. “Knock wood.”
“And did anyone notice me follow you here?”
I dropped my hand. “How
did
you manage that, exactly?”
“I actually didn’t follow the cars.” He tapped my chest. “Good old sentry-warden connection. I could have followed you across the country if I’d needed to.”
“Well let’s hope we never have to test
that
theory.” I chuckled, but was distracted by the notion that our connection acted like a homing beacon.
Holden smirked then darted in when my guard was low. The kiss started out the way all stolen kisses do, with a brief press of the lips that acts as a beg for forgiveness and request for permission all at once. I was too startled by how he’d gone in a second time that I didn’t immediately push him off.
When I didn’t respond with violence, his lips firmed and forced my mouth to open, his tongue slipping in and curling along my own like a finger beckoning me to come-hither. Once more I arched against him.
Traitorous vagina.
His fingers dug into my hair, pulling my head close and angling my body towards the front of his. My lips felt almost painfully hot where they met his cool ones. When he pulled back, his fangs were exposed and his eyes had gone inky black.
I let out a shuddering sigh and tongued my own canines. Sharp as the devil’s wit.
“That’s not what I meant when I asked if you could be subtle.”
He pecked me on the cheek. “It’s okay. That wasn’t part of my job. Completely pro bono.”
“Oh, so if it’s free, it can be as in-your-face as you want?”
I knew how poor my word choice was when his lips found mine again. He kissed me until I was breathless and panting all at the same time, and when his fang grazed my lip, I didn’t fight it. He lapped at the thin stream of blood and let out a growl that made my insides twang like a plucked guitar string. If I didn’t wise up, I was going to let this go much, much too far.
It had already gone too far.
“You need to go,” I said.
“I do.”
When I opened my eyes, he was gone, but the taste of him lingered on my lips.
I was in serious trouble.
Necromancing Nim
Katriena Knights
Wishing for a little excitement in your life? Be careful what you wish for…
Nimuë Taylor thought working for a vampire would be cool. Instead it’s just like any other annoying job, complete with a boss, Colin, who drives her crazy. Other than the daily humdrum routine, nothing much exciting happens.
Until the day Sebastian, Colin’s old friend (read: ex-lover), comes to town, bearing a magical stone that can make any vampire immortal.
Really
immortal. He doesn’t want to use it, just keep it out of the wrong hands. Trouble is, the wrong hands are getting far too close—and the stone is slowly draining Sebastian’s life force.
When Nim unwittingly comes between the stone and its hunter, she’s bitten. Not by just any vampire, but by one whose bite turns victims into mindless zombies. Healing her involves a ritual that creates a blood bond that’s as passionate as it is dangerous.
For in the fight to keep and destroy the stone of ultimate power, one of them will have to break that bond…and make the ultimate sacrifice.
Warning: This book contains high levels of sarcasm, swathes of swearing, sex with two hot vampires at once, and a dog that likes to eat coffee grounds.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Necromancing Nim
Copyright © 2012 by Katriena Knights
ISBN: 978-1-61921-288-6
Edited by Linda Ingmanson
Cover by Angela Waters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: October 2012
