Old Sins, Long Shadow Read online

  Violet’s rain-soaked hair hung in loose rivulets, framing her delicate features. Drops of water clung to her face and neck, glistening like jewels, making her flesh shimmer and making my mouth water. I imagined reaching out, touching her, gliding my hand over her exquisitely sculpted collarbone—better yet—my tongue. I imagined gliding my tongue over her collarbone, dipping it into the hollow of her throat before continuing the pleasurable journey downward to her warm, firm, perfectly round—

  My eyes lifted to meet hers; they were green and clearly conveyed her annoyance.

  “Sorry. Did you say something? I seem to be a bit distracted today.”

  “You were staring.”

  “You have lovely eyes.”

  “You were staring at my breasts.”

  Neither love nor magic comes without cost.

  Trammel

  © 2011 Anah Crow and Dianne Fox

  Foundations of Magic, Book 2

  In the relative security of Atlantic City, Lindsay feels safe for the first time in his life. He and Dane even sneak away from their mage “family” for the occasional date.

  All that ends with the arrival of Noah, whose magic is a pure, wild fire fueled by terrible grief over the loss of his wife. To Lindsay’s great surprise, he is assigned to be Noah’s mentor, protector and healer. Of course, his efforts to help Noah master his immense power aren’t without a few fiery slip-ups.

  Just as Lindsay is rising to the challenge, word comes that Moore, the scientist who once imprisoned Lindsay, holds a young girl who has manifested a powerful new magic. The desperate mission to free her leaves Noah severely wounded, Dane captured…and Lindsay in charge of those who remain.

  The fate of Dane and the lives of the family rest on Lindsay’s untested shoulders. He must trust in himself and his growing connection to Noah to save his lover, his friends, and everyone else who will suffer if Moore’s plans go unchecked.

  Warning: Contains graphic language, violence, and explicit erotic content.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Trammel:

  “It was my fault.” Noah’s words sounded like they came out reflexively.

  “It always is.” Dane remembered that feeling now, as well.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Dane could smell Noah’s temper fraying. All that fear and rage coming apart at the seams. He laid bacon in the pan and watched it sizzle, picking his words carefully so as not to provoke a similar response from Noah.

  “No matter what really happened, it will feel like your fault. Doesn’t mean its true. Might be, sometimes, but my experience is that humans always feel that way. Makes it hard to know when it’s true.” He looked over his shoulder and his animal sight could make Noah out as though he were lit from within, the way he was so full of magic and heat. Noah had his elbows on the table, head in his hands. The bacon cooked through halfway before he spoke again.

  “I don’t want to think it’s not. In case I’m wrong,” he said at last.

  “Noble sentiment.” Stupid, but noble. The two usually went together. Dane turned his attention back to his cooking.

  “That’s a euphemism for stupid,” Noah muttered.

  At least they were on the same page in that regard. “Well, I was trying to lean more on the positive side of the concept,” Dane said. “Giving you the benefit of the doubt. Don’t make me regret it.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “You’re welcome. And you think too much. Do less of it.”

  “What?”

  “Think less.” Dane shoved the bacon to the side of the pan and went back to the fridge for beer. “Drinking less wouldn’t hurt, either, but do what you have to do.” Without a twinge of hypocrisy, he opened the beer and took a drink.

  “How the hell am I supposed to think less?” Noah reached for the bottle on the table in front of him and sloshed more scotch into his mug. “Especially without drinking more.”

  “Let other people do it for you.” Dane drained most of the beer at once and decided to grab a second before going back to the stove. Thinking ahead was a benefit and a curse of having a human mind again. “You’re not with Lindsay for his betterment, that’s certain. Let him do it. You’d get more sleep.”

  “Is that an official recommendation?” Noah snorted softly at that idea.

  “If you want to stand on ceremony, yes.” Dane cracked half a dozen eggs into the pan and gave them a rough stir before he turned around. “If you want to stand on ceremony, I can tell him to give you seven impossible tasks to do for the next forty-nine years and one more. You trust him enough to let him keep your magic from you. Stop being ridiculous about asking for more. I bet you haven’t really slept since it happened.”

  “No.”

  “Well, cut it out.” Dane finished his first beer and left the bottle on the back of the sink so he could pull out two plates.

  “I forget.” Noah sounded like he was younger than Lindsay. “And then it’s night.”

  “So?” Belatedly, Dane thought of potatoes. Damn. Tomorrow. Vegetables weren’t his strong suit. He shoved the eggs around the pan and decided they were cooked.

  “I’m not about to tread on your territory.”

  Dane nearly dropped the pan. “What?” He managed to keep hold of it and started maneuvering portions out onto each plate. “I haven’t even been here.”

  “You may not have been here, but…” Noah took another drink. “You are the threshold of your house.”

  It was a phrase that sounded better in the original fae tongue, but Dane knew what Noah was trying to say. Lindsay shared a room with Dane, and Noah would be trespassing if he sought Lindsay out at night. The Quinns had damnably good manners—and more sense than to go tromping into a feral den. Dane had forgotten what it was like to deal with people who knew the old ways, who knew what he was.

  “That house includes you, so you’re welcome. Whether either of us likes it or not.” Dane grabbed knives and forks from the drawer and brought Noah’s plate to him first. “Eat.” He set the plate in front of Noah.

  “I said I wasn’t hungry,” Noah said wearily.

  Dane took a firm grip on his temper, collected his plate and his beer, and came back to the table. He put everything down carefully and took a seat across from Noah.

  “I don’t care if you’re hungry right now.” Dane picked up his fork and pointed at Noah’s plate. “I’ve provided for you, so you can stop wondering whether or not you can come knocking on my door. Eat it, or I’ll bring back the first thing I find in the yard and you can have it raw.” The old ways were good for something once in a while.

  Noah stared at him, heat flickering in his eyes.

  “Keep your temper or you’ll wake Lindsay,” Dane warned. The threat of waking Lindsay was enough to settle Noah down, and that pleased Dane a great deal.

  Noah picked up a piece of bacon and ate it with a definite air of defiance, which was a little amusing and a little endearing. “If I puke this back up, it’s still done,” he muttered.

  “That’s fine with me.” Dane opened his beer and took a drink. Lindsay had been possessed of the same stubbornness in the face of the inevitable. Dane had a soft spot for that. “Aim for the floor.” As long as Noah ate what Dane provided for him, he’d be part of Dane’s family. The old ways didn’t say it had to stay down.

  “As you will.”

  Dane wasn’t surprised when that slice of bacon went down and was followed by another, and Noah picked up his fork to eat his eggs, cleaning his plate almost before Dane did. A man couldn’t run all that magic without wearing down his body. The alcohol was probably the only thing keeping Noah from being a skeleton. As it was, Dane could still see why Lindsay found him appealing.

  When Noah cleared the table, Dane let him do it, watching without comment as Noah put the scotch bottle away before putting their plates in the sink. Good. It was nice to be right about things once in a while.

  Noah was exactly what Dane had expected from one of the
Quinns, except that he’d forgotten how traditional the old families could be. The Quinns went back long before Dane’s memory. It must have been hell growing up dead-headed in that family. Made sense that Noah was expecting to be on the outside looking in.

  Dane couldn’t imagine what it was like for someone from a traditional enclave to go through leaving the only world he knew and then suffer the loss of the one person who had wanted him the way he was. There was a limit to how much losing and leaving a soul could take. A soul like Noah’s, with so much power to wield, could be a danger if broken. Dane had seen it before, and the aftermath.

  Noah needed to discover that there was more than one person in the world who would be willing to have him as he was. Lindsay was deeply loyal and desperate to connect. Noah would repay every good thing Lindsay gave him and more. Under all their power, they were painfully human and barely grown ones at that.

  Dane would be around for them, and they were smart enough to figure that out. If they didn’t know it yet, they’d catch on in the next fifty years or so. Maybe having a little family would be enough to keep both of them stable. Looking after what had the potential to be a small Armageddon—especially if the two of them went off the rails at the same time—was certainly going to keep Dane on the straight and narrow.

  “You ready to go sleep?” he asked, once Noah had rinsed the dishes and put them in the dishwasher.

  “Sure.” That was reluctant.

  “I mean sleep.” Dane finished his second beer and brought the bottle over to put it with the first. “You have to learn to let him give you what you need.”

  All he got in response was a subtle shift in tension, and Noah looking away from him, out the window and into the dark. Dane frowned as he re-evaluated the situation, breathing in to test the air. This close, he could see the rigid line of Noah’s throat and the clench of his jaw, the narrowing of his luminous eyes. All that distress and the smell of guilt and betrayal added up to something Dane understood.

  “Don’t blame yourself for wanting what keeps you safe,” Dane said, feeling the uncomfortable twinges of empathy in his chest again.

  Reaching out, he petted the nape of Noah’s neck the way he’d first stroked Lindsay’s hair to calm him, the way he’d soothe an anxious animal, though petting Lindsay was all softness like petting a rabbit and Noah was all sinew and heat. Still, Noah’s head sank down and his neck curved under Dane’s palm, grudging acquiescence instead of begging for more. It had been a long time since Dane had seen a dragon, but he remembered them well.

  “What’s between the two of you is between you,” he said, because it needed saying. “And not for me to decide or deny. It is what it is. If what’s mine is content, I’ve nothing to mend.”

  “I don’t…” Noah began, but Dane gave him a little shake by the neck before letting him go.

  “Hush. I’ve said what I mean.” Dragons were recalcitrant things. Dane nudged this one toward the hall. “Bed, now.”

  Old Sins, Long Shadows

  P.G. Forte

  Living forever is hard, but loving forever? That’s damn near impossible.

  Children of Night, Book 2

  1856, New York City. Moments after Conrad Quintano drives his life-mate away, heartache and guilt descend around his heart like a pall. Convinced that Damian’s hatred is as permanent as the scars Conrad has inflicted on him, Conrad steels himself for an eternity of emotional torture.

  Present day, San Francisco. For the sake of vampire twins Marc and Julie Fischer, Conrad and Damian present a united parental front. In reality, their truce is a sham. Conrad, weakened by his recent ordeal, struggles against the urge to bring his mate back to his bed. And Damian misinterprets Conrad’s explosive temper as proof their relationship is irreparably broken.

  When an old enemy’s quest to create a dangerous new breed of vampire threatens the twins’ lives—and the precarious state of vampire peace—it’s imperative the estranged lovers put the past behind them. Or the shadows of the past will tear apart everything they hold dear.

  Warning: This book may not be suitable for readers with an aversion to emotionally damaged vampire heroes. Caution is advised if you have experienced prior sensitivity to any of the following: costume parties, fencing lessons, interspecies, inter-generational or intra-gender dating, occasional mild violence, and/or recreational blood-drinking.

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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.

  577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520

  Macon GA 31201

  Old Sins, Long Shadows

  Copyright © 2011 by PG Forte

  ISBN: 978-1-60928-450-3

  Edited by Tera Kleinfelter

  Cover by Kanaxa

  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: May 2011

  www.samhainpublishing.com