“He’s resilient,” said Katelyn, smiling. “You’d think the guy had never been killed.”
“I think he got out all his anger in Fall Fields when he was telling off Sam at the top of his lungs,” said Meagan, laughing. “That was actually pretty ballsy.”
Logan felt a pang of something deep inside at the mention of Sam. It happened a lot now. She was trying to get used to it.
Meagan turned to her, her violet eyes searching. “Logan… how are you holding up?” she asked softly. Her searching gaze dropped to the notebooks in Logan’s arms.
Logan knew she wondering whether writing had become an obsession with her now. And maybe it had. All Logan knew was that she had stories to tell, and telling them brought her comfort. If she was very, very lucky and very, very good, maybe one day reading them would do the same for someone else.
“I’m fine.” She smiled. “Honestly.”
They were all still quietly reeling from the fact that Logan had promised herself to Sam upon her death and that one day, she was going to wind up Queen of the Dead. But it was a little easier to deal with than some things. People didn’t often think about death. It always seemed so far away – and it was best that way.
“How is Dom?” Katelyn asked.
“He’s fine too.”
“Speaking of,” said Katelyn, looking over Logan’s shoulder. “Hunk at half past.”
Logan turned.
Dominic Maldovan had just rounded the corner. He was dressed, as usual, in jeans and a leather jacket. But since their return from October Land, he’d looked different to her. He looked rougher around the edges, more angled – sharper.
Older.
It looked good on him. Really good.
I’ve got seventy years, she thought. Give or take.
At once, Dom’s piercing green eyes were on her, and his long stride was headed her way. In his right hand, he carried his guitar case. His left was free, and when he reached her, he didn’t hesitate in using it to run his fingers through her hair, grasp it at the back of her head, and pull her in for a deep, deep kiss.
Logan’s senses all went flying.
In the distance, she heard Meagan and Katelyn moving away. “I guess she wasn’t kidding,” Meagan said.
“Fine indeed,” agreed Katelyn. Their footsteps grew fainter as they made their ways down the hall.
Dominic held her firmly – gently – but also not. His lips parted hers, his tongue tasted her freely, and Logan forgot how to breathe.
Dom broke the kiss, leaving her gasping, and spoke his words across her lips. “Seventy years, right?”
A chill went through Logan, a thrilled sensation at the tone of Dom’s voice and the nearness of his body. It was getting hard to think, but she managed, “Give or take –”
Dom gently touched his forehead to hers, effectively silencing her. “Life is short, Logan. I’m starting mine now.”
With that, he dropped his guitar, cupped her face in his hands, and again claimed her lips with his.
Logan’s knees gave out, she dropped her notebooks to the tiled floor, and Dom pressed her up against the lockers behind her. Somewhere far away, the one-minute bell for the passing period chimed.
Epilogue
Hugh Draper understood now.
He now knew the real reason he had been traveling through time for thousands of years. It had not been a spell cast by his grove. He did not even have a grove. It had not been because he was the one chosen for this time travel quest. There was no quest.
He was never sent to seek out a time and place where magic users were accepted.
He was not even a magic user himself.
Not really. Not originally.
He’d been a soldier once, not a wizard.
And his name had been Leontius. Not Draper.
Once upon a time, in another world it seemed, a witch had needed a sacrifice. But she could not kill. Not her. Her spirit was too kind, her soul too pure. So even as she cast the spell that would take his life for her magic, it did not kill him.
The spell ripped a hole in the fabric of the physical universe. The laws by which it was bound were broken. The witch’s spell defied the fates, and yet appealed to them. They allowed it – and in the space of time it took for the witch to weave her magic, fate wove another spell along with it.
Leontius was sent spinning away through time. He would travel its eons, believing the lie of another name and another life, until such a day when the witch’s spell could be broken. And fate would come to fruition.
Now Hugh Draper stood on the rain-soaked street of a Southwest neighborhood on Halloween night. All around him, children scurried, their faces hidden by masks or paint, their tiny bodies wrapped in plastic costumes of things he did not recognize.
The spell was broken. He remembered everything. He remembered every tiny, personal detail of every time and place he had ever visited throughout the course of history.
And yet he was separate from it all, a man out of place, and out of time.
*****
Dietrich Lehrer sighed at the knocking on his door. He really wasn’t looking for conversation just then. He’d had his fill of visitors five days ago on Halloween night.
Samhain’s spell had deposited him directly back in his living room that night. Not thirty seconds later, the first trick-or-treater had banged loudly on his door. It was a family neighborhood, and trick-or-treating was always a big deal.
Dietrich had barely had time to realize where he was and that he was no longer a goblin, before he was thanking the gods that he’d had the foresight to purchase his bags of candy weeks in advance. He’d placed them beside the front door, and he was grateful for that as well. When the kids knocked a second time, Dietrich picked the bags up, ripped them open, and allowed the kids to pull as much out as they wanted.
Seven large bags, and he’d run out at five minutes to eleven. Then he’d gone directly to his bed and passed out.
It had been a long five days since then. And now it was nearly midnight, and as far as he was concerned, far too late for visitors.
He was exhausted.
He had a lot on his mind.
He had just poured himself a drink.
The knock came again, and Dietrich ran a frustrated hand over his face. He got up from the dining room table and opened the front door.
“Hello,” came a familiar voice.
Hugh Draper stood on Dietrich’s threshold, a hat in his hands, his expression utterly lost.
Their eyes met. Shared experiences passed back and forth in the space between them. Dietrich released the door handle and said, “I was just pouring myself a drink and wondering what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”
Hugh Draper digested Dietrich’s words without missing a beat. “I’ve been trying to accept the rather shocking revelation that I’m not actually a wizard but a Roman soldier sent traveling through time because I was caught up as a sacrifice in a witch’s spell. I have no magic abilities at all whatsoever,” he said. “In fact, it took me five days to figure out where you lived.”
Dietrich, in turn, digested Draper’s words.
And then he stepped back and gestured for Draper to come inside. “Come in. I’ll pour you a drink too.”
As he closed the door on the outside world, an idea occurred to him. “You think you might ever consider teaching high school history?”
The End.
*Author’s Note: This may not be exactly how it all
happened. But I do know this for certain. I’ve got fifty years left... give or take.
Releasing November 1, 2013
The first in an all new open-ended paranormal romance series by New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Heather Killough-Walden!
Third time’s the charm.
In the steamy aftermath of a Baton Rouge day, in the depths of a king's luxurious mansion, a man with blue eyes dreams of a woman….
Emma Rose Nekoda is a girl with a painful past who rel
ies on the love of her last living relative, her brother, and the joy of her work as a photographer to get her from day to day. But her memories have scarred her deeper than she admits, and her past is more dangerous than she knows. As she travels to the mist-filled streets of New Orleans for the opening of her first gallery showing, she is completely unaware that she has been ear marked for something greater - and more terrifying - than most people could have imagined.
Dorian Adalard has lived several lifetimes, but the moment the woman appears in his dreams will forever be marked in his memory. The faint sadness in her beautiful smile haunts Dorian's night and follows him into the daylight, chasing his heels like a beast, no matter how hard he pushes his bike, no matter how many laws he breaks on his way from Baton Rouge to New Orleans.
It only gets worse when later that day, he looks up to find his dream girl watching him from the sidewalk of a busy New Orleans street. A nymph in blue jeans with wild hair and big eyes, she fills Dorian with an inexplicable and unshakable desire – to protect… and to devour.
And he knows who she is. For she is unique; there has never been another born like her. But she is not meant for him. She is the foretold queen meant for his brother – the beautiful, sadistic, and all too powerful vampire king.
Forever a changed man, Dorian finds himself breaking tradition, bucking vampire law, and going up against a veritable army and its ruthless master to save the woman he loves from the man he loathes – taking Emma along for the pulse-pounding, life-altering ride.
This new open-ended vampire romance series by New York Times best selling romance author, Heather Killough-Walden is unlike any published before. Delve into the supernatural darkness of a Louisiana night, and learn that for a Harley-riding vampire with eyes like ice and blood like fire, there is nothing quite so alluring as the woman your brother wants.
The Third Kiss: Dorian’s Dream by Heather Killough-Walden
Coming November 1, 2013
(Read on for a delicious teaser!)
Teaser for The Third Kiss: Dorian’s Dream, by Heather Killough-Walden
Coming November 1, 2013
“Twenty friggin’ dollars for one friggin’ hour….” she mumbled as she rubbed her left butt cheek and then her right. Halfway out of the dark cement building, she paused, lifted her leg behind her in a yoga-esque quad stretch, and then did the same on the other side. She was sore and tired and extremely hungry. Her hair was frizzy and flat at the same time, and any makeup she’d applied eleven hours ago had long since evaporated into the interior of her car. She wanted a long, hot shower, a filling meal, and a soft bed. Her brother had better have a plan for tonight.
As she reached the entrance to the garage, she forced a friendly smile for the attendant, who nodded in her direction. Then she was out in the New Orleans night, her feet pounding the pavement at a quick pace. The French Quarter was not a place for a woman to roam alone after dusk, but luckily, her brother’s gallery was just around the corner.
She kept her head up and her shoulders back and peered into every shadow as she passed by the alleyways, giving them wide berth and keeping as much to the lamplight as possible. Finally, she came to the intersection and turned the corner just as a Harley roared to life across the street.
Because she was always subconsciously hoping for that gorgeous hunk of a biker, she turned in that direction to see who had started the engine.
“Oh no. You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered under her breath. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Emma actually came to a standstill when the man gracefully leaned into the bike and straightened it out, kicking the stand up with his motorcycle boot.
She didn’t normally fall for blonds. She preferred the tall-dark-and-handsomes that every other red-blooded American female in existence fell for. But something about this guy grabbed her attention and held tight. As she watched the muscles of his long, strong legs flex beneath his tight jeans, a little voice inside her head gently reminded her that she looked like crap and probably didn’t smell all that great either.
She ignored the voice and kept staring. His hair fell to his shoulders in careless waves, and as he gripped the handlebars of his Harley Night Train, his biceps and triceps bulged against his tight, black T-shirt. Offhand, she wondered what it would feel like to be held down by those arms, to be wrapped up in them, to have those long legs between her—
The man looked up, as if he could sense he was being watched, and their eyes met. His were a piercing ice-blue, and even from this distance, their stark, intense color made her gasp.
She tried to blink and couldn’t. She tried to look away, to pretend she hadn’t noticed him, but like an idiot, she continued to stand there, continued to stare, and vaguely, as if in a dream, she realized that her mouth was hanging open.
The man slowly stood to his full, impressive height. His long, muscled legs straddled the bike as he pinned her with a gaze that said he had damn well noticed her and that there was no way in hell she could pretend to not have noticed him too.
For what seemed like a full minute, the two of them stared at one another. Him with his bike idling in that delicious, low rumble, her with the New Orleans breeze blowing her wild, unkempt hair about her face like a golden halo.
Finally, as if he had all the time in the world, the man eased himself back down onto the bike, never taking his eyes off her. He revved the engine a few times and began to pull away from the parking space and into the street. Still, he watched her.
He wasn’t wearing a helmet and didn’t seem to have one attached anywhere on the bike. Stupid man, Emma thought. Stupid, gorgeous hunk of a man.
And then he smiled.
Emma stopped breathing. It was a stunning smile. He had the most sensual lips that were curved by that smile into a line both enticing—and a little cruel.
As the man at last turned away from her to pay attention to the road and cars ahead, she realized that it had been far from a mere friendly smile.
There had been promise in that smile. And lots of it.
- The Third Kiss: Dorian’s Dream by Heather Killough-Walden
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Heather Killough-Walden Reading List
The Lost Angels series:
Always Angel (eBook-only introductory novella)
Avenger's Angel
Messenger's Angel
Death's Angel
Warrior's Angel (release date TBA)
Samael (release date TBA)
The October Trilogy:
Sam I Am
Secretly Sam
Suddenly Sam
Neverland Trilogy:
Forever Neverland
Beyond Neverland (release date TBA)
The Big Bad Wolf series:
The Heat (no longer available separately - purchase in the Big Bad Wolf Romance Compilation)
The Strip (no longer available separately - purchase in the Big Bad Wolf Romance Compilation)
The Spell
The Hunt
The Big Bad Wolf Romance Compilation (all four books together, in proper chronological order)
The Kings - A Big Bad Wolf spinoff series:
The Vampire King
The Phantom King
The Warlock King
The Goblin King
(future The Kings books TBA; at least 13 total)
The Chosen Soul Trilogy:
The Chosen Soul
Drake of Tanith
Queen of Abaddon (release date TBA; 2013)
Redeemer (stand-alone)
Hell Bent (stand-alone)
Vampire, Vampire (stand-alone)
A Sinister Game (stand-alone)
The Third Kiss series:
Dorian's Dream (release date November 1, 2013)
Aleksei's Dre
am (release date TBA)
(future The Third Kiss books TBA; open-ended series)
Note: The Lost Angels series (not including Always Angel) is available in print and eBook format. All other HKW books are currently eBook-only.
Heather Killough-Walden, Suddenly Sam (The October Trilogy)
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