Savage Bond (The Fallen)
Read Savage Bond (The Fallen) Online
Authors: Anne Marsh
Praise for Anne Marsh and her novels
"A master world builder!"
—
Romantic Times
"
Bond With Me
is a superb romantic urban fantasy."
—Harriet Klausner
"Fans of fallen angels will eat this one up."
—Anna's Book Blog
"
The sexy fallen angel is an exciting new addition to the pantheon of paranormal
romance heroes, and Anne Marsh adds to that the dark seduction of bonding your soul to obtain your secret desires. You will be seduced along with Nessa by the deliciously sexy Zer, and as seduction turns to love, you will be enraptured by the Fallen.
"
—Heroes and Heartbreakers
Look for these titles by Anne Marsh
The Fallen
BOND WITH ME
HIS DARK BOND
SAVAGE BOND
Hunter's Mate
THE HUNT
SAVAGE BOND
ANNE MARSH
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright ©2012 by Anne Marsh
Cover design by Anne Caine
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9854720-0-9
Savage Bond
© 2012 Anne Marsh
http://www.twitter.com/anne_marsh
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As a former Dominion warrior and Fallen angel, Vkhin knows how to fight. How to track his prey. And when to deal out death with brutal efficiency. Redemption isn't part of his plans—until he finds himself chasing Ria Morgan through a wasteland.
Now, he's hunting for the woman who could restore both his lost wings—and his soul.
Ria Morgan was just doing her job, shooting recon photos of a secret Fallen prison. When her chopper goes down, however, she figures her days are numbered. Until the dark angel hunting her offers her a temptingly seductive deal: bond with him and he'll keep her safe. Safety's tempting—but Vkhin is even more so. Now, Ria must choose between long-held loyalties and the wickedly sensual pleasure of Vkhin's touch.
Table of Contents
Forward
Three thousand years since they rebelled, since they Fell.
The archangel Michael took their wings, took away their ability to feel.
They were exiled to Earth, and now they tempt the human race with a devil's pact of their own: one soul for one favor.
They are now the Fallen angels. Before, bred to be brutal warriors, they fought for the Heavens as part of the Dominion host. They fought. They defended. They did the archangels' bidding. Heavens' enforcers, nothing stood between them and their duty—until a series of savage murders shook the Heavens and the Dominions rose up against the archangel and chose a new side and a new path.
Now, in the year 2090, they fight to survive on Earth. Fight to control an insatiable thirst for human emotions that threatens to turn them into the ultimate monsters when they can no longer control their desire to drink. Fight to find the one thing that could save them.
A soul mate.
Find his one, pre-destined mate and a Fallen warrior finds his one second change. Loving her would redeem his soul and regain his wings. He would
feel
once he had bound her to him through the bonding ritual. A ritual that tied their souls together forever. A ritual that marked both the warrior and his woman body and soul. Lose her, however, and he was condemned to live forever without souls or wings. She was his one hope—and his ultimate weakness. She was the last chance for his dying race.
Chapter One
She was dying. As the chopper banked hard right, Ria Morgan's stomach decided it was a good time to remind her of what she'd had for lunch four hours earlier. The sandwich and greasy fries threatened to make a return trip up her throat despite her best attempts to swallow. Flying was for the birds. And maybe, once upon a time, for the Fallen angels.
Not that the Fallen were fairytale material. That kind of sensuality scared her. Big and hard and edgy, the Fallen were sexy as hell, but she was smart enough to know she didn't want to take all that on. They were beautiful to watch, the way a king cobra or a panther was, but she wasn't getting in a room with one. Closest she got to that sort of beast was at the zoo— with two inches of shatter-proof, bullet-proof glass between herself and the animals.
"You're no good at this flying shit," Lieutenant Jane Reece observed cheerfully, stretching out her booted feet like her ass was parked in her favorite Barcalounger and not five thousand feet in the air. As the pilot did another hard right to avoid the latest mountain ridge springing up in front of the windshield, Reece readjusted the muzzle of the Vektor. Anyone came at them, Reece here had Ria's back. Trouble wasn't expected, but the Fallen were full of surprises, so MVD, M City's paranormal policing unit, wasn't taking chances. The good lieutenant had orders to shoot on sight.
"No good at all," she agreed shortly. Her toes tingled in her sneakers, a prickly connection to the vibrations shaking the chopper's floor.
"Bet you don't like heights, either," Reece suggested. "Explains how you pulled this job. Got the short end of the straw, Morgan?"
Ria got her arms up and braced, pointing the camera down at the target. What she needed here was a tripod, but she'd be making do instead. "Something like that."
She'd spent years learning to read the images she shot for hidden messages. A hangar's size advertised the number of troops that could be concealed inside those four walls. Anything the lens picked up was just one more tip off, broadcasting enemy movements. From the chopper, she had a bird's eye view of just how big the arteries available were for moving troops. She was damned good at reading those signs.
Even if she was usually reading those signs from her office, her ass parked in a desk chair rather than strapped into a jump seat.
Movement unfolded beneath the chopper and she swung the lens around to follow. Vehicles moving over land always left some sort of mark behind – wheel marks, tracks, ruts. The size, shape, and length of vehicles were all there in those distinguishing marks. She couldn't tell yet what was moving beneath her, but something was definitely happening here, where there should have been nothing at all—and she was getting to the bottom of it.
The chopper hit a draft and bucked, and Ria swallowed hard, the lens losing whatever it was she had been tracking. Damn it.
She and heights had the kind of love-hate relationship usually found between brothers and sisters. Angle was good for her shots, but vertigo hit her hard as her brain took in the height. The sheer space between herself and safety made her dizzy, the ground falling away as the chopper ate up the air. She sucked in a breath.
Inhale. Exhale. Focus.
The world on the ground jumped into sharp focus as she zoomed in. The movement she'd spotted wasn't unfriendly, just an animal. Nothing interesting.