When the sexy lead singer of an Annapolis indie band is accused of luring midshipmen to their deaths, she learns she’s not the only one with a killer voice…

In January, I have a new novella coming out with HQN Nocturne. You can read more about Siren Song here, download a free pdf for your e-reader here, or you can read it right now:

CHAPTER ONE

They wanted her.

As Chloe sang, the funky bass line pounded through her body and sexual energy sparked through the Annapolis night club. She was hot. She was on fire. She was killing it. The crowd picked up the rhythm, sweating bodies twisting and moving. Her voice soared, a crescendo of music, pulsing beats with the wicked thrashing of guitar strings sending the crowd into a frenzy.

She had the audience in her thrall, and it felt so damned good. Under the flash of pink-and-green lights, she gyrated against the mic stand, exposing her fishnet stockings all the way to the top of her thigh; a midshipman’s mouth parted in a silent gasp, as if she were putting on a private show just for him. Someone spilled a beer. Someone else cried out her name. Her magic wove its way through the crowd into the dark grain of the timber support beams, even seeping into the old cracked mortar between the bricks. And when she whipped her long dark hair to the drumbeat, exposing a shock of dyed pink hair beneath, she knew there was nothing, nothing they wouldn’t do to have her and that no one could resist her.

No one but him.

For the past few nights, far away from the stage, one of the naval officers had watched her. It wasn’t hard to spot them—even when they weren’t in uniform—and for no good reason, he was. Navy guys were pretty much all the same, lonely and jacked up on testosterone. Easy lays. But this one was different. Solitary. Never ordering more than the two-drink minimum. Never tapping his foot to the music. Never applauding when the song was over… Just watching, as if he were immune to her spell. But was that even possible?

She hit the high notes of the song’s finale, staring right at him, trying to break through whatever bulwark he’d thrown up against her charm. Trying to get him up out of his seat because he was standing between her and complete power, pure bliss. Want me, damn it, she thought. But he didn’t react.

Her song ended with throaty cries—an exorcism of all her personal demons. Then Chloe eased up a little bit. No need to drive the rest of the men too wild. There’d been a fight a few weeks before and she wasn’t looking for a repeat performance.

“Thank you!” Chloe cried into the microphone, and applause thundered through the Ram’s Head venue, shaking the building. The audience erupted in shouts and calls for an encore.

Chloe’s drummer was up off his stool, ready to fend off the surge of guys that rushed the stage. “You’re a sick singer, girl,” someone said. “You’re gonna be a superstar!”

A man wearing a denim shirt and work boots rushed forward to buy her a drink, offering her the flower off his table. “Hey, why don’t you give that to your waitress?” Chloe asked. “And tip her well. She’s been on her feet all night.”

Flower Guy had a dark mesmerized look as he threw a hundred-dollar bill on the table, seeming not to know or care how much he spent. He’d do anything she told him. He’d set fire to downtown Annapolis if she wanted him to. But what Chloe really wanted was to get a record contract.

As the next band got ready to take the stage, everyone was still cheering Chloe’s performance. Everyone, that is, but the khaki-clad naval officer in the back. Who wore a uniform to a rock show? What was his deal? And why did she care? So one guy out of a hundred didn’t swoon when she crooned. It shouldn’t bother her. But it did. Maybe bother was the wrong word. More like, intrigued her.

With her Sex Pistols T-shirt plastered to her back and perspiration slipping over her belly ring into the waistband of her skirt, she caught him staring and felt an answering heat between her thighs. Maybe it was just the adrenaline. Putting on a performance like that would make any girl a little wild and wanton. Hell, to celebrate, tonight she wanted to go home with someone. With him.

Chloe’s roommate shoved through the crowd with a towel and water. “Chloe, drink this before you fall down. Why do you keep looking at that jerk in the corner?”

Chloe slugged back half the bottle of springwater before coming up for air. “Cuz he’s a total hottie…. Check out those forearms.” In addition to those Popeye arms, he was older than the usual crowd. Aloof. Like some kind of feral cat she wanted to tame.

“I don’t like the look of him,” Sophia said. “He seems like the kind of man who would follow you to your car and—”

“Oh, he does not!” It was only natural for Sophia to be protective. After all, Sophia was one of the few people who knew what’d happened to Chloe from firsthand experience, not because she saw it on the news. But tonight, Chloe wanted to live on the wild side. “He just needs someone to scruff up his hair, rumple his uniform and rock his world.”

To prove her point, Chloe sauntered over to the stranger’s table. The houselights were up and Chloe noticed the rank insignia on his collar—a captain’s eagle. A hotshot. An officer. But apparently, not a gentleman. He didn’t stand up. Didn’t offer her a seat. Just stared and took a long swallow from the clear liquid in his glass. And what the hell was he drinking anyway? Sparkling water?

“So, listen Captain America, what’s your deal?” Chloe asked, toweling off the back of her neck. “Are you stalking me?”

“You could say that.” He moved over in the booth so she could join him and she noticed a little silver-gray hair at each temple. She really liked that because, in her experience, older guys were just as sexy as the younger ones, but without all the bullshit.

She ordered a beer, then slid in beside him, her leather skirt sticking to the vinyl and riding up her long legs. Now that she was close to him, she was a little self-conscious. Singing and dancing on stage was sweaty work. But given the way his glance drifted down the curves of her body, she didn’t figure he minded. It was the first sign that he had any interest in her at all, so Chloe gave him her best come-hither smile—the one that sent most men to their knees—and went for small talk. “So, are you a fan?”

He stared straight at her with sea-colored eyes. “No. I’m not a fan. I don’t like how you use your voice.”

Wow. That was blunt. As her smile fell away, Chloe tried not to let him see how it stung. “What’s the problem? Is my rock music too loud for you, Grandpa?”

His expression took on a dangerous edge as he glanced at his sweating water glass. With a slow stroke, he traced a finger around the rim and a low hum reverberated across the table. “I’m a bit of a musician myself, you know.”

“Yeah? What does a guy like you play? The skin flute?”

He didn’t even smirk. “Let’s just say, you’re not the only one with a killer voice, Ms. Karras.”

Now, how the hell did he know her last name? She never used it in promotions. “It’s Chloe. Just Chloe. Like Shakira or Pink or Madonna. Am I supposed to know you, or something?”

“I’m Captain Alex Shore, a naval historian at the Academy”

Awesome. The only guys more uptight than military officers were academics. Was there anyone less appropriate for her to be attracted to? “Sorry, Captain Alex, but your name doesn’t ring a bell.”

Across the room, beneath the wild murals and brass accents, Chloe saw that Sophia had hooked up with her drummer. They were both now making out in the corner. Well, at least someone was going to get lucky tonight. Meanwhile, Captain Alex reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out two photos, and set them down on the table. “What about these sailors? Seeing them ring any bells?”

Chloe squinted, and made out the faces of two midshipmen in Navy coats and white caps. She recognized them, and not just from the news. “Aren’t those the two dumb-asses who got drunk and decided to take a midnight swim? Way to take yourself out of the gene pool.”

“I expected a little compassion from a former soldier like you, Ms. Karras.”

With some female veterans, you could just look at them and tell. It was in the way they talked, the tilt of their shoulders, or a steely gaze. But Chloe had been so young when she served that she hadn’t kept the military mannerisms and few people ever guessed. She must have looked as startled as she felt because he added, “I know all about you, Chloe. I know why your tour of duty was cut short. The whole decorated veteran thing may not go with your rebellious rock-diva image, but it’s not hard to look you up.”

She wasn’t about to let him rattle her. Not after a set like tonight. She’d been a goddess on stage and she wasn’t ready to come down off that high. “Am I supposed to be impressed that a guy your age knows how to use a search engine? Listen, I’ve mourned soldiers who gave their lives saving people, so I’m not about to shed any tears for these two.” She shoved the photos back toward him. “Might nominate them for the Darwin Awards, though.”

His expression soured and he folded his napkin in a very precise square. “Yet, I hear these boys were big fans of yours….”

Chloe shrugged and took a gulp of beer. Oak barrel stout. Cold, frothy and rich. She let it tingle all the way down before replying. Let him stew. He was pissing her off. “Yeah, well, they were also slobbering losers who didn’t know how to keep their hands to themselves. The last time I saw them at a show, they started a fight and my drummer had to step in. They were pretty much another Navy sex scandal just waiting to happen. So why are you asking me about Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dumber?”

“Because they were my students,” he said, pinning her in place with those cold, unnerving eyes. “And I know that you killed them.”

One of the difficult lessons I’ve learned about the book industry is that size matters. People gave me well-meaning advice to write what I love and let my muse fly free, but I had to learn the hard way that as long as books are still printed on paper there are going to be word count limits which will determine the scope of my story and how I can tell it. As Poisoned Kisses is my debut paranormal romance novel, it was my best teacher when it came to this lesson. Harlequin Nocturne has a stated word-count limit of 75k and I was quite proud of myself when I squeaked in under that limit. Imagine my shock when my editor asked me to cut ten thousand more words. Yes, that’s right, ten thousand more words!

After I talked myself out of slitting my wrists, I got down to the Herculean task of cutting the novel. The end result? Something fast-paced and tight-as-a-drum. I can’t say I regret a minute of it. It was one of the best writing exercises I’ve ever done. It made me a better writer and the final product thrilled me. But…and you knew there was a but coming, didn’t you…there is a little part of me that would have loved to save my darlings. I know how directors must feel when making movies and having to chop scenes. Luckily, thanks to the power of the internet, I can share with you my own Special Features, including this completely unedited, deleted scene from Poisoned Kisses. I hope you enjoy it!

Niagara Falls in winter, with its thundering river, was gloomy as the Styx. Kyra watched the netherworld entrance of mist below the tumbling water of the falls, and tried to take some comfort in that. She tried to tell herself that the New World and its spiritual variety could accommodate the powers of an Old World nymph. But North American gods were strange, and the forces of nature here were brutally cold.

She would almost rather face Ares; almost. In fact, she might have turned right around, got back on the plane, and abandoned this mission if not for her hatred of flying. And of course, this morning’s newspaper.

Renewed hostilities had broken out in the Congo and she knew whose guns were to blame. Marco’s near-fatal encounter with her obviously hadn’t given him second thoughts about gun running, so now Kyra was going to take a new approach.

What had Hekate said? That sometimes locking a wild thing in a dungeon was the only way to make it see reason? And even if it didn’t make him see reason, at least she’d be able to keep the Hydra out of her father’s hands. Ares had his vultures everywhere—it was only good fortune that had allowed her to discover the existence of the Hydra before he did. Now Kyra planned to press her advantage.

The first thing she did was rent a house in the hinterlands—one with a basement. It probably had not been wise of her to ask the realtor if the beams would hold the weight of a human male, and she had probably spent too much time in the hardware store picking out locks and security systems. Oh, the irony. She was a daughter of Ares, but compelled to build her dungeon out of parts she found at the local hardware store.

The trick was going to be luring Marco into said dungeon without making him bleed because she was not sure she would survive a second dose of Hydra poison. Marco was deadly, and she had best remember it.

Of course, all of this would be for naught if Marco didn’t come back home. And what if he didn’t? What if she never saw him again? It happened all the time with mortals—their lives were so brief, a nymph might meet a man in his youth and not see him again until he was a shade in the underworld. It shouldn’t make much difference to her, shouldn’t more than annoy or frustrate her, but somehow she knew it would be harder to accept than that.

As a bitter gust of wind buffeted her, Kyra buried her nose in her scarf and kept walking. How had a Hydra like Marco Kaisaris come to be born in this far-away, uncivilized land of Canada? She supposed there were Greeks everywhere in the world now—mostly everywhere, anyway. How else had the shrine to Hekate, at which her mother once worshipped, come to be in the heart of Italy? Even here in North America, Marco’s was a Greek family in a Greek part of town.

She stopped first at the Kaisaris family restaurant, only to find the doors to The Acropolis locked shut. The restaurant hours were clearly posted, and she had arrived during business hours, but the sign hanging haphazardly from the door said closed.

So it was happening already then. The Hydra’s father was dying, or dead already. Either way, Kyra felt the pull of her most ancient duty—one much older and more urgent than the one she had taken upon herself in capturing the Hydra.

She forgot about Hekate, she forgot about her rebellion against Ares. She even forgot about Marco. What she remembered was that she was a nymph of the underworld, and nearby, there was a man in need. Kyra picked up her pace, making the short jaunt from the restaurant to Marco’s childhood home with long strides. Somehow she knew the family would be here, and not at the hospital.

The door was open. She simply walked in and crept up the stairs to the bedroom where the old man lay dying in his bed. A woman was there too—his wife, sitting beside him. Kyra guessed this was probably Marco’s mother and when Kyra came in, the silver-haired woman with a face full of grief turned and looked right at her.

When mortals looked at Kyra, she could make them see what she wanted them to see—and in this case, it was nothing. But when the dying man also turned to look at Kyra, a flicker of recognition shining in his eyes. Kyra recognized him right away from the photo she’d first seen in Marco’s hand, but he’d lost weight, and withered.

There was nothing so sad as a strong man gone frail, and as his chest rose and fell with his struggles for breath, she saw the fierce determination in his eye. He saw her, his brows knotted in concentration, as if he were trying to place her. He was already half-way between mortal life and the next; he could probably see the outlines of Kyra for what she was, and the closer to death he came, the easier it would be for him. Meanwhile, his wife turned and stared at the place Kyra stood again, asking, “Is there someone there?”

The old man began to cough then, and patted his wife’s hand, as if to reassure her. This touched something in Kyra—to see a dying man give what little strength he had to the woman he loved. Nymphs like Kyra might have immortality, but mankind had love, and for a single moment, Kyra wished for it with all her heart.

“It’s time for your medicine,” Mrs. Kaisaris said to her husband. “I’ll get it for you, and something to drink.”

He kissed her hand before she left, that one gesture shaky and profound. Then he watched his wife walk past Kyra and out the door, a wistful look in his eye as if he thought it was the last time he would see her. “She’ll join you one day,” Kyra said softly, her heart filling with compassion. “As a shade.”

“Do I know you?” he croaked, trying to lift his aged head from the pillow. She let her internal light shine, she lit a path into him and saw how much pain he was in. She opened her eyes wide enough that it lit a path into her too.

“Yes,” she said soothingly. Given that she’d tried to kill his son, and was now intent on throwing him in a dungeon, offering some light and comfort between the threshold of this life and the next had seemed like the least Kyra could do for the old man. “You know me. You’ve been waiting for me.”

Marco’s father blinked several times, then he sighed with contentment. “Oh yes, I see now. You’re an angel.”

Kyra sighed at his mistake. Even this very old man was too young to remember when nymphs of the underworld guided the dead. He was but an infant in the cosmic scheme of things, and now she coaxed his shade from his body like a baby from the womb. “Follow me. Follow the light of my torch.”

And with that, Kyra stretched a hand to him. Only his spirit reached for it. His real hand lay trembling upon the bed as the ethereal essence of his fingers grasped Kyra’s. “Will it hurt?” he asked her.

“Only for a moment,” she promised, and then, slowly helped pull his shade free.

The body gave one last shudder, then stilled and shrank—giving up the animating force within.

Released from pain, the old man actually smiled. Then he realized how young he was again, and it made him smile wider. “I was a handsome devil once,” he said.

“You look like your son,” Kyra said, leading him down the stairs and out of the house into the crisp air. Kyra shivered with the cold, but the old man’s shade shouldn’t have felt it. Even so, he stiffened.

“You know my son?” he asked.

Well, in a fashion. She had kissed him, tried to kill him, nearly been killed by him. If that wasn’t the true essence of knowing a human being, what was?

“Is he dead too?” the man asked, anxiety returning. “Is my son dead too?”

“No, no,” Kyra reassured him, because she felt certain that she’d know if the Hydra was dead. “But he lives a very dangerous life.”

“He could have opened a second restaurant for us,” Marco’s father said. “He had the head for business. He was a good cook too, like his mother. And he was my only son. My only son. But he decided to be a soldier, instead.”

“He liked the violence,” Kyra said, feeling the sour expression creep over her face.

“No, he watched too much news. Wanted to do something good. At least he said he did. I should have told him I was proud of him then, but…”

“What happened to him?” Kyra asked, turning off towards the Falls. There were many entrances to the netherworld, but this was the closest, and now that evening was falling, it was beautiful.

“Africa broke his heart, then he broke mine.” The dead man paused beside a tree, marveling at the way his hand passed right through it. “Yes, I think it was Africa. But maybe it was his high school sweetheart, Ashlynn Brown. Either way, in the end, someone broke his heart and then he broke mine.”

Ashlynn Brown. This was a name Kyra didn’t know. Who was she? Given the way Marco went through women now, she hadn’t expected that he’d have a former lover who had broken his heart. Marco seemed more likely to be the heart-breaker, after all. Kyra listened as Marco’s father told her how he’d started stealing caches of arms from the military, then selling them in Africa. It clearly made him angry to recount the way his son’s life once-promising life had spiraled into something that shamed him. But not once did he mention Marco’s poisoned blood, nor his ability to wear faces not his own.

“Was he always so good at . . . disguises? Even as a boy?” she asked, careful to give nothing away. Some Hydras were made, not born, and the confusion on the man’s face made her even more sure that Marco was the former.

“No, he was always an honest boy. An earnest boy,” Marco’s father said. “If a customer paid too much at the restaurant, he would always go chasing after them with the change. Always wanted to put things right. But now look at him? Now he’s rich. Rich!”

“And he doesn’t share his wealth with his family?” Kyra asked.

The old man growled with insult. “We won’t take a penny of that filthy money. I love my son, but I lost him to a world of weapons and war. I can’t forgive him. I . . . couldn’t forgive him.”

Kyra was silent. In her long experience with these things, the dead often regretted the unresolved relationships they’d left behind. Forgiveness helped them to let go, but she could see by the set of this man’s jaw, that he was stubborn. She wouldn’t argue with him.

Even so, he seemed to sense her disapproval. “What he does—putting weapons into the hands of children, running from the law, taking money from warlords—some things are unforgivable.”

No, Kyra supposed, some things couldn’t be forgiven in this life. But maybe in the next…

“We’re here,” she said softly, as the mist rose from beneath the bridge to wet her face.

“Thank you for guiding me,” he said, his face filled with wonder. “I would have been lost and frightened otherwise.”

He had nice manners, this man. How had he raised a son to be an arms dealer? It had been some time since anyone had thanked her, and it pleased her. “You’re welcome,” she said. “But before you go, you should know I’m not an angel. I’m a lampade.”

Marco’s father squinted for a moment, then the word seemed to snap something in his memory and he laughed. “So the old Greek stories are true!”

“Some of them,” Kyra demurred. “You are about to find out which ones.”

“Should I jump, then?” the man asked, his mortal fears still plaguing his shade.

“Yes, jump. It can’t hurt you now,” Kyra promised. “And someone at the bottom is guaranteed to catch you.”

Too bad things were never that way for the living when they fell.

Once a month, a bunch of authors get together and post excerpts from published books, contracted work or works in progress, and link to each other. You don’t have to be published to participate just an writer with an excerpt you’d like to share. For more info on how to participate, head over to the Excerpt Monday site or click on the banner above.

Chapter One

Kyra was dressed to kill. Literally.

Just beneath her short red skirt and only inches above her high-heeled boots, a small but deadly hunting knife was strapped to her thigh. A gun might have been more useful, but Kyra preferred the weapons of an older, less complicated time.

A knock came at the nightclub’s bathroom door—probably another gaggle of drunken Italian socialites—but Kyra wouldn’t be rushed. She stared at her reflection in the mirror to steel her courage. She might not be able to do much to thwart Daddy and his bloodthirsty minions, but she could do this one heroic thing for humanity. This was her destiny. She’d been born for this.

But the mirror reflected a distorted image. It was cracked, as if the thumping club music burst through the wall from the other side. Still, she could see that her plunging pearlescent halter top complemented neither her black tresses nor her ghostly pallor. No matter. Kyra never let mortals see her true form, anyway. Tonight, her prey would see her as she wished him to see her: with blue eyes and cropped platinum hair; after all, she’d studied Marco Kaisaris long enough to know his type. And she was ready. Hydras like Marco were dangerous, but surely not to someone like her. She just had to kill him. Like Theseus and Perseus of old, she had a monster to slay.

With that thought, Kyra gave the bathroom door a shove and it swung open like a gate to the underworld. She stepped into the nightclub’s press of bodies and people made way for her, as if they sensed her power. As the dance beat drummed at her pulse points, she brushed against the crowd, and it excited her because she had a nymph’s nature; she found the vitality of humans to be infectious and distracting. This was, of course, one of the many dangers of getting too close to mortals…

The club was dark but for the strobe lights that shined spots on the walls, purple as evening shade, purple as wine. The grape kaleidoscope illuminated the writhing bodies on the dance floor, flashes alternating with pitch-black. But the darkness posed no obstacle for Kyra. Like all nymphs of the underworld, she carried an internal torch. Her eyes could penetrate the darkness. She could see through a crowd, through clothes, through flesh. Her eyes could even breach the barriers around men’s souls.

And from the bar, her quarry’s soul lit up like a flare.

She knew Marco Kaisaris even though the face he wore was not his own. He was dark, brooding and slightly unkempt. He wore an expensive dress shirt open at the collar, the glimmer of a gold chain at his throat. He didn’t look like an arms dealer, but then he was almost as good at disguises as she was. He wasn’t just a mortal man, after all. He was also a hydra.

Kyra slipped into the standing-room-only space next to him at the bar, pretending to dig for money in her purse. She felt his eyes on her—an intense, wary stare. Fortuitously, a group of revelers pushed her a little closer to him. She pretended it was his fault.

“Do you mind?” she asked in Italian, grateful that the club was quieter here.

Marco shrugged, taking a swallow from his glass, which was filled with amber liquid and ice. “I was just sitting here.”

Oh. His voice. It was baritone and beguiling, with a hint of a New World accent. American or Canadian—she couldn’t be sure. Either way, it was the kind of voice that’d make a normal woman swoon and it weakened even Kyra’s immortal knees. Gods above and below, Kyra thought. What justice was there in the world that such a voice could belong to a monster?

Recovering herself, she brushed his leg, but his expression betrayed nothing. Everything about his posture was guarded. Sexy, but guarded. That’s when Kyra noticed he held a picture of an older man and was tracing the edge of it with his thumb. Naples was known for its criminal element, so the photo was probably of some contact Marco was meeting tonight. A supplier of munitions or a thug looking to buy an arsenal. Someone in Marco’s violent business. “Friend of yours?” she asked in English, motioning with her chin toward the picture.

“My father.” A look of melancholy passed over his face as he slipped the photo into his shirt pocket, but that’s all he said. He didn’t want to talk. And that was a problem because she’d planned to lure him somewhere private with the promise of a steamy encounter; she couldn’t kill him in the middle of the club with everyone watching. To make matters worse, her cell phone was vibrating. It was probably her father calling to rage at her for destroying his arsenal. Daddy thought it was Kyra’s destiny to join him, but she had no intention of being a part of her family’s legacy of war. If anything, she wanted to make up for it.

Renewing her resolve, Kyra turned the phone off and flashed Marco Kaisaris her most charming smile. “Mind if I sit here?”

Marco motioned toward the distinct lack of empty bar stools. “Sit where?”

Okay, she’d have to be a little more aggressive. “How about if I sit right here?” Before he could do a thing to stop it, Kyra slid into his lap. It was a crucial moment. There was a good chance he’d thrust her away, alarmed at her forwardness. But as the backs of her bare thighs pressed against the weave of his linen slacks, his breath caught, and it wasn’t just with surprise. He liked it.

This shouldn’t be too difficult, she thought. Her nymph’s charm made it easy to seduce mortals—even special ones like him—and she felt him respond, his breath warming her neck. Encouraged, she shifted wantonly with her hips, precisely timed with the music, careful not to let him feel the sheathed knife on her leg. He liked that, too.

She could tell because he wrapped one arm around her waist and inhaled the cheap perfume she wore. It smelled like overripe passion fruit and candy and he reacted as if she were just a confection—one little taste wouldn’t hurt. His teeth grazed her neck beneath her choker where a glowing peridot stone hung like a tiny lantern in the dead of night. She tilted her head for him and felt him go hot all over “You’re shameless,” he finally whispered, the scent of expensive alcohol on his breath.

But I’m not shameless, she thought. There were so many shameful things in this modern world and her sexuality wasn’t one of them. How was it her fault that men were so easy to arouse? “I’m shameless? What about you? You look guilty of something.”

He let the cool glass in his hand slide wetly over her shoulder. “And what do you think I’m guilty of, Angel? Give it a shot.”

Angel? Oh, she was going to enjoy killing him. “Are you telling me to guess?”

“No,” he said, his mouth finding the soft spot behind her ear. Then his voice lowered. “Unless you want me to tell you what to do.”

Her stomach fell away with arousal. Yes. Absurdly, she did want that. Just for a few minutes.  It wasn’t sex with mortals that was dangerous for nymphs, after all. Just all the emotions that came afterwards. Still, best not to let him get the upper hand. “If you tried to tell me what to do, we’d only end up engaged in a fierce battle of wills.”

She felt him smirk against her neck. “Mine is hard as iron.”

His will. He meant his will was hard as iron. Trying to steady herself, Kyra fanned her fingers over the bar. They came to rest on an unopened pack of cigarettes. Marlboro Reds. Old school. “Yours?” she asked, and when he nodded, her lips curled in mock disapproval. “Bad addiction to have.”

“I’m not addicted,” he countered, one hand stroking her arm. She loved the callused feel of his fingertips on her smooth skin. “I only smoke when I’m trying to come to terms with something. Kyra almost asked him what he was struggling with. But she didn’t dare. She shouldn’t care. Couldn’t care. It’d only make it harder for her to kill him. . “I can quit anytime,” he said.

“How about now?”

He paused, then crushed the whole pack in his fist, tossing it behind the bar like so much trash. He looked smug at her openmouthed stare of astonishment. “Like I said. Iron will.”

He might think so, but he couldn’t resist her. She was sure of it.

“A drink for the lady,” Marco said to the bartender.

“And what if I’m not a lady?” Kyra asked, with a provocative smile.

“That’s okay,” Marco murmured, his hand grasping the nape of her neck. “I don’t plan to be a gentleman tonight.”

She let him bring her back to his penthouse; even from the marbled foyer she glimpsed just how well the monster was living off his ill-gotten fortune. If he’d chosen any of the artwork here, he had exquisite taste. But this probably wasn’t his penthouse, just as the face he wore wasn’t his own. He was a hydra of a thousand faces—an impostor—which made it all the more remarkable that he didn’t seem suspicious of her; he apparently brought women home with him all the time.

No, Kyra thought. Killing him wasn’t going to be difficult at all.

The only problem was that he was an astonishingly good kisser. His mouth was on hers, dizzyingly warm. It surprised her how much she actually liked the way his stubble scratched her cheeks and the animal way he bit her lower lip every time she pulled away for breath. He wasn’t shy about touching her, and he wasn’t taking his time.

He pushed her back against the door, a rapid strike, all strength and speed. Caged in by his strong arms, she saw that his eyes were stormy with challenge. She felt her insides quicken in response. Oh, he so didn’t know who he was dealing with.

Kyra gripped a thick handful of his dark hair and when his hands snaked up under her top, thumbs brushing over her nipples, she thought he was rather daring for a creature that could be killed; he’d been wary in the bar, but now that he’d committed himself to having her, there was no hesitation in him at all.

The heat of him delighted her. The roughness of his touch. The bestial sounds he made, as if he meant to devour her. Kyra’s heartbeat crashed in her ears, as if the thumping roar of the club music had followed them here. She told herself it was just the allure of his mortal energy, the dangerous deception of a man’s desire. But had it felt this good the last time she’d taken a mortal lover?

Maybe Marco was different. The clues in the file she’d stolen led her to believe that in addition to being an arms trafficker, Marco Kaisaris was a war-forged hydra, a mortal man, a monster that could be killed. Now she wondered if he was actually some shape-shifting trickster god, which would excuse her attraction to him and relieve her of guilt for what she was about to do. Stabbing an immortal, after all, wouldn’t cause any lasting harm.

His scent—somewhere between man and musk—drove her crazy. Meanwhile, his kisses had become frenzied as if pleasure was such a fleeting thing in his world he had to consume it before anyone took it away from him. As Marco nipped at her neck, his mouth moving over the luminous gemstone she wore, her own gasps cut through the stillness of the penthouse apartment. Whoever he was, whatever he was, he was rocking her world.

But Kyra prided herself on not being one of those silly nymphs who dallied with mortal men and fell helplessly under their spell. She’d taken plenty of lovers and cast them aside when she was done. After all, she was built for carnal passions, for stolen pleasures in the dark. So, it wasn’t Marco’s all-consuming sexual prowess that was giving her second thoughts about killing him. It was what she saw inside him, beyond the surface. A looming shape of almost unfathomable grief. Beyond the veils of darkness in which he wrapped himself, she glimpsed a forlorn desperation to know and be known, to understand and be understood.

This, she hadn’t expected. Sincerity, pain, need. His vulnerability was subtle but potent sex magic. It made her curious about him; there was a longing in her to let her eyes open wide and illuminate everything inside him she could see. Unfortunately, that would drive him mad, and that was one thing Kyra would never do to a mortal again. Besides, there’d been a reason she’d tracked him down for months, a reason she’d slipped into his lap tonight, and it wasn’t to satisfy her curiosity or to enjoy herself with a sexy stranger.

Like her father, Marco Kaisaris made a profit selling weapons. He was a merchant of death. The underworld was filled with victims of the bullets Marco sold. No matter what her lust-soaked mind wanted to see inside him, he was an evil man and if she wanted to make up for all the pain and chaos her father had caused in the world, Kyra had no choice but to kill him.

The hydra had to be the reason Kyra still had her powers while so many of the old immortals had lost theirs. This was her destiny. Still, it was with true regret that she realized Marco’s groping fingers would soon discover her hidden knife. With a long-suffering sigh, Kyra stopped him. Marco pulled back, a slow and frustrated tilt to his lips. “Am I going too fast?”

Gods above and below, his voice just wrecked her. The heat of it seared a path from her belly down to the quivering place between her legs. Oh, how she wanted him to touch her. But when he tried to put his hand under her skirt again, she didn’t let him. “Wait. I’ve got something for you.”

She turned slightly and, with one hand, secretly unsheathed the knife beneath her skirt. The motion between her legs must have looked particularly obscene, because Marco’s eyes narrowed with desire. “Don’t be a tease, Angel.”

“Oh, I’m no angel and I never tease.” With that, Kyra thrust the sharpened blade at his chest, aiming directly for the heart. But something went horribly wrong. She’d prepared herself for the blood, the resistance of blade against bone and the death grimace. What she hadn’t counted on was Marco being nearly as fast as she was. Kyra knew that Marco had military training. Still, she could hardly believe how deftly he blocked the blow with his hand. The knife slashed open his palm from fingers to wrist and red blood sprayed the carpeted floor.

His expression twisted in surprise at her betrayal, and he used his uninjured hand to grab her wrist. He slammed it against the wall so hard she thought the bones in her hand might have shattered. “Drop the knife,” Marco growled, all sincerity and need now replaced with the hard features of a furious and injured man.

There was nothing for Kyra to do but struggle. He couldn’t kill her with that knife, but he could hurt her. Even for an immortal, pain was pain. Suffering was suffering. And Kyra was afraid of it even though she didn’t have to fear for her life. So she brought her knee up hard into his stomach.

He grunted with the impact, but didn’t let go of her wrist. Instead, he used his leverage to flip her to the ground. She thudded to the carpet, her body splaying awkwardly. And before she could scramble to her feet, he threw himself on her, forcing the air from her lungs. He had her wrist in his grasp, twisting it to the breaking point.

“Drop your weapon!” Marco shouted like the soldier he’d once been. But Kyra bucked under him, clenching her free hand into a fist and punching him in the jaw.

Marco rocked back from the blow. “Bitch!”

Then he backhanded her in retaliation. Kyra tasted blood in her mouth—her own, she hoped. The sting of his slap had made the entire right side of her cheek red-hot. In thousands of years, few mortals had ever dared to strike her, and those who had tried paid for it with their lives. All the forces of the underworld bubbled up inside her. She was the daughter of Ares and rage was overtaking her, boiling out of control. She remembered the armory she’d blown up, where her father’s guard had confused her with a human and tried to rape her; she’d shown him with fatal accuracy how mistaken he was. Now she’d show Marco Kaisaris!

As she pulled herself up like a specter from a grave, Marco recoiled. “What—what the hell are you?” he stammered, staring, his tone more loathing than fear. In their struggle, she’d become so enraged that she’d stopped projecting the shape she wanted him to see. He saw her real face now, the depthless blackness of her nymph’s eyes, and he seemed as horrified as if he’d glimpsed three-headed Cerberus.

Taking advantage of his surprise, Kyra rolled to her feet with the grace of a cat and crouched on tiptoe behind a desk for cover, realizing that her high-heeled boots may not have been the ideal choice for an assassination. “The real question, Marco Kaisaris, is, what are you?”

At hearing his real name, Marco’s expression turned murderous. Later, she’d have to admit that he frightened her. He was stronger and faster than she’d anticipated and now this entire mission had gone awry. She could try to fade—try to disappear before his very eyes—but her concentration was broken. Perhaps she ought to escape and try again another day. As these thoughts raced through Kyra’s mind, Marco rushed toward her. She lifted the knife—this time in self-defense—and he flipped the elegant desk behind which she’d sought refuge as easily as if it were dollhouse furniture. Papers and knickknacks exploded through the air and the desktop slammed her, knocking her back where she smashed her head on the wall and slumped to the floor.

Kyra lay there for a moment, stunned. Had she blacked out? Scrambling out of the wreckage of the desk, she realized that the penthouse was quiet.

Damn it to Hades! The door was open and Marco Kaisaris was gone.

She wondered why he hadn’t tried to kill her when he’d had the chance, but then she felt the sickening burn. She was smeared with Marco’s blood and it stung like fire. Every moment was ever-deepening agony. Rushing to the bathroom, she hurriedly scrubbed her arms clean. Too little, too late. The hydra’s blood wasn’t just burning her, it was also seeping into her skin and making her sick. Waves of nausea flowed over her; she sank to her knees and tried not to retch.

If she’d been a mortal, the poison of is blood might have been enough to kill her. As it was, the world started to spin before her eyes. So, she hadn’t been wrong about him, then. Marco Kaisaris was no trickster god. His blood wasn’t divine ichor. His wounds hadn’t closed up on their own. And even from the bathroom she could see that where his blood had pooled on the penthouse floor was now a sizzling mess, as if someone had poured acid on the carpet. His blood was poison. Deadly poison. There could be no doubt now that he was a hydra and needed to be stopped.

If only she could get up from the floor.

She’d cut him deep. Crouched in an alleyway, Marco tore his shirt off and wrapped it around the wound like a makeshift bandage.With his uninjured hand, he fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone to call an ambulance. The woman in his penthouse would need one. Yeah, she’d tried to kill him, but she had no idea who she was dealing with. By now, his blood would be soaking into her skin and eating her alive. He wasn’t sure what the hospital could do for her, but he wasn’t eager for another dead body on his conscience.

“Si prega di identificare se stessi,” the dispatcher squawked into the phone.

Identify himself? Under other circumstances, the question might have made Marco laugh. Who exactly was he? He wasn’t the guy who rented the penthouse. He wasn’t the guy he looked like now. He wasn’t a soldier anymore and he wasn’t even the do-gooder son of a Greek immigrant—not according to his father or his sister. “I’m nobody,” Marco said, then hung up.

The blood coursing from the cut on his hand had soaked through his wrapped shirt and dripped down his battle-hardened stomach in a deadly scarlet rivulet. Every time a drop of it spattered on the ground, it hissed and sizzled where it fell. Marco hated to leave his blood anywhere, but he couldn’t do anything about it now. His breathing was still erratic—partly from the pain of his wound and partly from the shock of what he’d just seen. What the hell had he just seen? An angel, a demon or some creature with powers like his own?

One thing was clear: his enemies had obviously tracked him here and sent the woman to assassinate him. This identity—this borrowed face he wore—was thoroughly compromised now. He’d have to change his appearance and there was no time to wait for a more private moment. Pulling himself deeper into the shadows, Marco braced against the brick wall and steeled himself for the transformation.

He closed his eyes and remembered the face a blond-haired, blue-eyed Russian smuggler who’d once tried to steal a shipment of shoulder-mounted rockets from him. Marco had long since dispatched the Russian to hell, but he’d wounded Marco in the struggle—which meant that now Marco had a useful but grisly souvenir; he could assume the face and identity of his old enemy. It was his curse; he could take on the form of anyone who wounded him. A power he could neither explain nor fully comprehend. Perhaps it was a madness—inherited from his mother. Whatever it was, he couldn’t stop himself from quivering with disgust at the slow creep of flesh as his face began to transform. Marco didn’t have to look in the mirror to know that his eyes were now blue, and his hair like yellow straw. Except for the wound on his hand, his enemies wouldn’t know him.

No one would.

POISONED KISSES is available for pre-order.

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Prologue

Ares climbed over the rubble of his burned-out armory, his mood black as the soot-covered remains. So much waste, he thought, kicking aside scorched artillery crates. All harmless shrapnel now. So many mortars and shells reduced to ash…so many bullets warped from the heat, deprived of their savage destiny on the battlefield. Magnificent guns destroyed without ever finding their way into the hands of even one ferocious warrior. It was a travesty. And the broad-shouldered god decided that someone should have to pay.

“Who did this?” he roared, discovering one of his vultures hovered over a dead body. At his approach, she left off tearing at the corpse’s gory innards and flapped her wings. With a rush of wind that spiraled the dust and autumn leaves around her, she rose into the form of a willowy redhead and licked the blood from her scarlet lips.

“The guards say it was a woman who blew up the armory,” his vulture explained, shoving the gutted corpse onto its back. His belt was unfastened, his pants unzipped, as if he’d died while taking a piss. “This one caught her and decided to have a little fun…”

“It doesn’t look as if he had a chance to enjoy himself.” Ares noted the dead man’s face, stiffened in shock, as if he couldn’t fathom what had happened to him. But Ares knew what had happened. Kyra had happened.

His daughter was lethal with a blade and knew how to defend herself. She was also a rebellious child with a knack for finding new and unique ways to annoy him. “What about the file on the hydra?”

His redheaded minion twitched. “It’s gone. Kyra must have taken it.”

Ares liked the look of fear in his vulture’s expression and was hungry to take out his frustrations on her. There could be pleasure in it—for him, at least. He reached for that fiery hair, yanking his vulture’s head to the side so that her throat was exposed. “And where is my daughter now?”

“I—I don’t know,” the vulture stammered. “They shot her, but she escaped.”

Bullets wouldn’t stop Kyra. As a nymph of the underworld, she crossed the thresholds of life and death at will. What’s more, she was immortal. He’d seen to that. There wasn’t a wound she could suffer that wouldn’t heal. She could appear to mortals in her own guise, or fade into the mists like an apparition. The fact that she’d let his guards see her meant that she’d wanted him to know she was responsible for this.

The unmitigated gall of the thing! For Kyra to destroy his weapons was almost too much to bear. And to add to that insult, she’d taken the file on the newest hydra—a man that Ares intended to add to his monstrous menagerie. Admittedly, the war god admired Kyra’s audacity. After all these years, most of the forgotten ancient immortals slunk away like beaten dogs to live mundane modern lives, but his daughter was still certain she was fated to do something glorious. And he couldn’t fault her for it, even if it drove her to test him like this.

Ares was an indulgent patriarch, after all. Unlike his own wine-soaked lecher of a father—Ares encouraged the fierce nature of his descendants. He’d even made war with them at his side. Oh, how mortals had trembled when Ares rode into battle with his twin sons, Phobos and Deimos, at the reigns of his chariot! How the mortals had screamed in terror when he unleashed his monsters. Fire-breathing horses, hydras, chimeras and minotaurs…Oh, how he missed those days.

He intended to relive them with Kyra at his side. If only she’d accept her true destiny. Instead, she was in open rebellion against him. Did she think he could be stopped by blowing up his munitions? If so, she was wrong. Lesser gods might fade away, but the forces of war remained eternal. No one sacrificed at Zeus’ temples anymore. The science of spindly weathermen had reduced the once fearsome sky god into an old man who spent his days in a taverna complaining about the loss of Greek culture to the European Union. Exhaustion, science and some of the newer gods of peace and goodwill had crowded the old gods off the world’s stage. Even crafty Hecate had been relegated to a fortune-telling gypsy!

But Ares was different. It had been a long time since anyone had seen him as the Greek god of bloodlust, glowering from beneath his plumed helmet, but men still worshipped him, whether they knew it or not, because war was different, too.

The new gods didn’t glorify it, and science only made it more deadly; it bankrupted the victors as well as the vanquished. War was a senselessness mankind could not explain. Warriors no longer called for Ares by name, but they still made bloody sacrifices. And whereas Zeus once ruled the gods of Olympus, Ares meant to rule now.

So how was he to deal with Kyra’s rebellion? Perhaps it was a phase that would pass. After all, his daughter was born to viciousness. Kyra claimed to abhor war, but the wreck she’d made of his armory only proved that she was bred for destruction.

The sooner he forced her to accept it, the better.

Note: I have not personally screened these excerpts. Please heed the ratings and be aware that the links may contain material that is not typical of my site.