Blurb
[Siren Classic ManLove: Erotic Alternative Paranormal Romance, M/M, shape-shifters, light bondage, HEA]
All the Originals, beings that created all the supernaturals, have vanished long ago. Kale Daminion is one of the last living beings with the blood of an Original. A drakon. His mate killed himself to save him and Kale had never been the same after his death. But now he can hope again, now he sees him... Alive.
Aeri Callen wakes up to a world ruled by a mate he doesn't really need or want. If coming back to life isn't hard enough, dangers lurk in the shadows, enemies wait to destroy them, and his big bad mate appears to think Aeri is a frail wallflower. Should he give his mating to Kale a chance? They don't know each other. Aeri doesn't want to care. Then everything Kale protects is threatened. How can Aeri leave now? The man may be the new ruler, but he is lousy at taking care of himself.
Note: This book is written in first-person point of view.
A Siren Erotic Romance
Excerpt
The phoenix didn’t register the stale air in his joy to finally give his abused body the long needed oxygen. Finally air. His ribs were showing and his former red-gold hair was a shaggy, dull brown mass of tangled strings. No shine. He preferred to think rather than imagine the crawlies and the dirt in this place and on him. At least he knew he had been protected somewhat in his metal box.
There was light shining on the phoenix from somewhere above. He was too tired to look and feared he was going to die for good this time. He had never felt this weak. The combination of silver bullets, the loss of all his blood, and suffocating time after time in his coffin had taken its toll on his body’s abilities. Even he had a limit and as he felt the cold seep in his bones he reckoned he had reached his. He needed to eat yet he couldn’t find the strength to reach and grab a crawly. He rested his head on a bed of flowers—strange how they grew in the coldness of his crypt—and weakly tried to bite something that moved near his head, only to spit it out when he discovered it bit back.
The noises registered almost too late. The light coming from the now-open door made him react and hide in the darkest corner, using his last bit of energy. His eyelids felt like iron curtains and he absently heard two men enter his resting place. He curled into himself, making his now-skeletal frame a smaller target hidden by one of the tombstones. Their noises hurt his raw senses.
“Man, Daminion is a crazy son of a bitch!”
“Shut up, you moron! I don’t wanna be on his shit list. Things happen to those who piss him off! I heard he sends them to do the nasty military jobs for the government. Most don’t come back whole.”
The young man shivered and continued toward the middle of the third circle of tombs. He might be just a lowly guard compared to his friend, who was a security detail at the mansion, but he knew better than to dis his ruler. He wanted to continue breathing. He had his eyes on that yummy redhead from Ewengreen and being dead or worse would not help his cause.
“Why the hell are we doing this again?”
“Because Daminion said so. You want to ask him his reasons? Just shut up and bring those flowers over here.” Actually he thought it was sweet the devotion their ruler had even in death for his lost mate. Someday he’ll have that, too. Well, minus the dead part. Wow, he was being macabre today!
“I heard he killed his mate himself so why…”
They stopped in front of the disrupted tomb and froze in shock. Where the earth was disturbed, a hole could be seen. A hole in the metal casket. No body in sight. They dropped the seedlings and held the gardening tools as weapons in front of them.
For a moment the phoenix watching them considered his options. Their blood would rejuvenate him. Unfortunately he was too weak to take what he needed to survive. They would probably finish him before he could reach them, but did he have any other option? As he tried to find a last drop of strength, the guards sprinted to the exit. The tension left his body and he slouched against the stone that hid him. He took two more deep breaths, fighting the blackness before he was lost again. His chest didn’t rise again.
* * * *
“What the fuck are you two doing here? Haven’t I told you your tasks already?”
Caden frowned at the two idiot guards, trying to make sense of what were they gesturing with their flying hands. Both were out of breath and were sweating like pigs. He considered again upping the physical training required for guards. He should talk to Kale about some new exercise programs or new triage methods. Lame didn’t cover the state these guards were in. After the paranormal war had ended two years ago, the soldiers had seen hardly any action and it showed. Lost in his musing and worried about his friend, Caden almost missed the younger guard’s words.
“Say what?”
“General, it’s true! We both saw it.”
“Whoa, whoa. Say that again.”
“We both saw it?”
Idiot. He was surrounded by idiots.
“Oh! Yes! The earth is disturbed and there’s this big hole in Daminion’s mate casket. Almost like something got out. The body is missing also.”
Maybe he would reconsider bringing that therapist on board. He had to be hearing things.
“Whose body is missing?”
One of the guards threw him a superior look and he made a note to reassign the cleaning tasks.
“The domin’s mate is missing.”
Caden’s face blanked. He was thinking decapitation. They should know better than to fuck with him.
“The domin’s mate is dead, soldier.”
The guards straightened their posture at the not-so-subtle reminder that Caden was still their general. The stupider one of the two continued with a barely restrained snicker. “Yes, sir. As we were saying his body is missing from the tomb. We went to plant the flowers as ordered and—”
“Whoa, whoa! Back up! You say the tomb is empty, open, and there’s no body?”
Caden felt his blood slowing and a coldness spreading in his veins. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck. This was bad. No, this was catastrophic. Kade would go ballistic. And they’d just finished with the last war!
“Show me.”
“Yes, please do.”
And they were fucked. He turned toward his best friend and totally understood the terror his enemies felt before they were eliminated. Kale’s eyes were so sharp, they cut through you.
Buy Link
http://www.bookstrand.com/hard-to-kill
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