Dark Hunger (36 page)
The wind whistled shrilly, catching her hair and swirling it around her face. Reining in the fire in his fingertips and inwardly adjusting his body temperature, he cleared his throat. “Did you see anyone when you arrived?”
She shook her head.
Another gust of wind sent snow swirling around her, and she shivered.
“Let’s go inside,” he said. “Then you can check and see if anything is missing and tell me what you know about the McEnroe murder.”
She clutched her coat around her and rushed up the drive and porch steps, and he followed, stowing his gun in his holster. Not that a gun would have been effective against a demon.
His hands would though—they were lethal weapons, always ready.
She immediately went to the hall table in the foyer and retrieved a box sitting by the lamp, then led him to her den. A troubled expression tightened her face as she glanced at the papers scattered on the floor.
“Nothing looks disturbed in any of the rooms except this one,” he said. “But you can check.”
She gave a nod, but glanced down at the box in her hands, her frown deepening. “I don’t know why anyone would go through my desk.”
“Do you have work documents here?”
She shook her head. “In my laptop but nothing in that desk. My confidential files are at my office. And I don’t have any valuables.”
“Maybe you forgot to lock the door,” he suggested.
“No,” Marlena said. “Someone was here. I saw a shadow in the woods outside. And the wind didn’t open those drawers.”
He conceded that point with another nod, but kept his suspicions to himself. A spirit of some kind was here, watching her. Watching him.
A spirit with sinister motives.
“So why did you call?” he asked, turning his focus back to the case.
Her breath rattled out as she pushed the box toward him. “This morning I found this gift box on my doorstep.”
He narrowed his eyes, noticed her hands were shaking.
“What does this have to do with the McEnroe murder?”
“I heard the news report about her murder. The reporter said that her mother claimed that she always wore an antique pearl ring, and that it was missing.” Marlena pushed it into his hands with another raspy sigh. “I think this is her ring. That for some reason, the killer left it for me.”
Where authors give you the inside scoop!
From the desk of Rita Herron
Dear Reader,
I have to admit that I’m a TV junkie. I love comedies, dramas, crime shows, and paranormal series, especially those with a romance in them. Of course, I always find myself drawn to the strong heroes.
Two of my favorites are Jack Bauer from
24
and Cole Turner from
Charmed
. Both are charismatic, tough, sexy, dark tortured guys with tons of emotional baggage. In fact, my husband, who is also a huge
24
fan, named our cat Jack Bauer.
When I first decided to write about demons, I wanted my heroes to have the same qualities as Jack and Cole, to be larger-than-life men who risked their lives to save the world—and of course, the women they love.
In DARK HUNGER, the second book in my paranormal romantic suspense trilogy
The Demonborn
, (out now!), I combined Jack and Cole and created Quinton Valtrez, Vincent’s lost long brother.
Quinton is a loner, a government assassin, and a man determined to keep his job and supernatural powers secret. Like Jack, he fights terrorists. Like Cole, he battles demons—as well as the pull of evil inside him.
Pit him against a sassy, tenacious, struggling reporter named Annabelle Armstrong who is determined to unravel his secrets, and the sparks immediately fly. Quinton doesn’t know whether to kill her or love her.
Quinton also faces a new kind of terrorist—a demon who has the ability to exert mind control over innocents and turn them into killers. Soon he and Annabelle realize they must work together in a race against time to stop this demon. But Annabelle isn’t quite prepared to be thrust into this terrifying demonic world, or to face Quinton’s father Zion, the leader of the underworld, who will use her to get to Quinton.
For any paranormal story, setting and world-building is important. Blending the real world with paranormal elements makes the stories more frightening. In DARK HUNGER, I also take you to three of my favorite southern cities: Savannah, Charleston, and New Orleans. All three are steeped with folklore, ghost legends, history, and a spooky ambience that adds flavor to the world of
The Demonborn
. If you haven’t visited those cities, put them on your TO DO list. And don’t forget to take one of the ghost tours and be on the lookout for demons!
Enjoy!
From the desk of Robyn DeHart
Dear Reader,
I’ve always been a huge movie buff and my very favorite genre is romantic action adventure; think Indiana Jones and
The Mummy
. Toss together some archeology, a dash of history, and a nasty curse, add in two protagonists with lots of sizzle and I’m one happy woman. I suppose it’s this love that brought me to my Legend Hunters and the first book in that series, SEDUCE ME (on sale now).
I admit I’m a geek at heart, but there’s something so compelling about old things: ancient texts, antiques, dusty old tombs. I mean, who hasn’t dreamt of going on a dig and unearthing something so amazing it changes your life? Well, this is precisely what happens to our heroine Esme Worthington. She ends up getting herself kidnapped, but in doing so she comes face-to-face with the object of her lifelong obsession, Pandora’s box.
Enter our hero, Fielding Grey, a treasure finder-for-hire who is none too happy that his latest assignment comes with a damsel in distress. But he can’t walk away from her while she’s literally chained to a wall. So he snags Esme and the fabled box and thus begins an adventure neither could have imagined. Not only does the box come with a unique curse that has Esme acting the wanton, but a nefarious villain is hot on their trail and will stop at nothing until he possesses Pandora’s treasure.
This new series is about Solomon’s, a luxurious gentleman’s club equipped with all the accoutrements one would expect from such a fine establishment. Membership is by invitation only, because in this club there’s a hidden room where secret meetings occur. In these secret meetings some of London’s finest gentlemen gather to discuss their passions; their obsessions. Some are scholars, some collectors, some treasure-hunters, but each of them is after the find of the century. I can’t wait for you to meet the Legend Hunters…
Visit my Web site,
www.RobynDeHart.com
for contests, excerpts, and more.
From the desk of Diana Holquist
Dear Readers,
When my family moved from the big city to a tiny rural town for my husband’s work, there were no jobs for me. I wept for about a week. Okay, maybe two weeks. Then I realized that this was the perfect time to start something new. Because I was incredibly naive, I opened a file on my computer and typed, “Chapter One.”
Uh-oh. Now what? I needed a story. But what? What did I care about enough to pour my heart and soul into? Later, I learned that what a book is about—what it’s
really
about—is called a premise, and every good book has one. What was my premise?
I started lurking on the Web site of a woman who was looking for her soul mate. She wanted him to be a certain height and make a specified income and on and on. But no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find her “one true love.”
What if there was a soul mate put here on this earth just for this woman, but he wasn’t tall and rich? This woman needed a guide to the world of love.
Thus, Amy Burns was born, the psychic gypsy who can tell you the name of your One True Love. She starred in my first three books, creating chaos, love, and a premise I could believe in: only when we face our true desires can we find happiness.
In my first book, MAKE ME A MATCH, Cecelia Burns is a doctor about to marry the “perfect” man: a rich, successful, handsome, charming lawyer. Along comes her psychic sister Amy, to announce that Cecelia’s one true love as destined by fate is not only an underemployed single father, but that he might be dying. If she wants her one shot at experiencing true love, she’s got to act fast.