Battle Mage Helene Sharp has not seen her ex-lover, Master vampire Lee Corday, in over a year. When a series of murders lead right to his door, she knows she must confront him.

As Helene soon discovers, the unthinkable has happened. Lee’s blood has been stolen and placed in a powerful talisman. A spell has been cast over his blood and a dark witch now controls Lee’s entire brood. To make matters worse, she is using them to kill off the most powerful members of the Mage Council.

But the dark witch is after more than just power. Helene soon uncovers something she has only heard about in whispers. The power of the Druids, once thought to be dead, may be living inside an ancient artifact. And the witch means to use the vampires to get it.

If the witch succeeds she will be unstoppable. Not only will the supernatural community be at risk, but all of humanity, and the entire world, will fall.

Not only had I been flirting with another man under Lee’s roof, but I’d allowed myself to forget the seriousness of his situation. If I was going to help him I had to get out of here and quickly. I looked at the skin-walker and he winked. His vanity gave me an idea and I smiled back.

“Yes, well don’t forget I know what you really look like. I saw you in your real body, and believe me I didn’t find you, the real you, attractive.” It wasn’t exactly true. In fact, he was rather attractive in a scruffy sort of way that I imagined would suit his cheeky grin.

His face sunk. No one likes to hear they are unattractive. But he recovered quickly. “Well they say beauty is only skin deep, and lucky for me, I can change skins any time I like.”

Somehow I thought he’d missed the meaning of the saying, but that’s not why I chose to correct him. “It’s not what a man looks like that’s important. It’s what he does with what he’s got that matters.” I paused a few minutes to let this sink in, and then continued when it looked like he was about to educate me about his talents. “And the fact that you have chosen just about the most handsome host you could find tells me you might be lacking in some areas.”

I made sure I gave him a good measure of eye-twinkling flirtation.

“That sounds like a challenge, lady!” He stood, threw down his jacket and started unbuttoning his shirt. “How about you and me, right here, right now? Mano e womano, inflagrante, doing the horizontal tango.”

Okay, too much eye-twinkling flirtation.Aside from all the mixed metaphors the man was definitely over-reacting. Maybe he wasn’t used to having his sexual prowess questioned. In any case it looked like he wanted to get down to business right away.

He’d stripped down to his underwear, slightly distracting given the full set of rippling abs and those perfectly defined lines that led down to an even more generous groin area. I tried not to become waylaid. But the thought crossed my mind that I’d lost my mind. Who questioned the sexual skills of a man with a body like this? I mean, with a weapon like that, all he’d have to do is sneeze to bring me to orgasm.

“Uhh.” I dragged my eyes upward. “You seem to be at a bit of an advantage there, with that body of yours.”

“I thought the point was the package didn’t matter, only what was inside it.”

“Yes, but really,” I said, trying to point at his groin without looking at it. Too late. I stared like a bunny caught in traffic lights. Totally mesmerized.

“All right, fair enough. What if I only use my tongue?”

Not fair. Not fair. Not fair. Considering the tall, Nordic body, the man probably had the longest tongue in history. It might be even more dangerous than the thing I could not take my eyes from.

“Helene, over here, look at me, yes that’s right, look at my face,” he said, sounding a lot like countless women I knew who moaned about men having conversations with their breasts.

“Right.” I shook my head to clear it. “Where were we? Oh yes, there is another way.”

He wiggled his fingers; they were long and thick. “Hum?”

I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. “No!” Deep breaths. Lots of deep breaths. “How about skintercourse?”

“Skintercourse?”

“Yea, you know, when a skin-walker enters a woman’s body and makes love to her from the inside?” Surely that wasn’t an urban legend. If so, a few women I knew were diabolical liars.

       No comments available.