Hunted by a
Jaguar, the fourth book in New York Times
best-seller Felicity Heaton’s hot paranormal romance series, Eternal Mates, is
now available in ebook and paperback. To celebrate the release, she’s holding a
FANTASTIC GIVEAWAY at her website and sharing sneak peeks of the book.
If you haven’t had a chance to step into this passionate and action-packed
world of dark elves, fae, demons, vampires, shifters and hunters, then you can
take the leap with the first book in the series, Kissed by a Dark Prince, which is
only 99c / 99p until January 15th as part of her fantastic Winter
Warmers special deals. Find all the deals and links to your favourite retailers
at: http://www.felicityheaton.co.uk/paranormal-romance-ebook-offers.php
Here’s more
about Hunted by a Jaguar, including an excerpt from this paranormal romance
novel.
Felicity Heaton
A jaguar shifter with a dark secret, Kyter has spent his entire life running
from his demons. When a tragedy takes him back to his pride’s village, he is
set on a path of vengeance that will see him collide with the terrible ghosts
of his past and a beautiful vision of his future.
Iolanthe deals in finding artefacts for
discerning clients, but this time her client is one of the deadliest men in
Hell and her mission has the highest stakes imaginable. Failure is not an
option when your life is on the line, but things take a dangerous turn when she
crosses paths with a handsome and mysterious male on the hunt for the same
artefact—a male who declares she is his eternal mate.
Can Iolanthe resist Kyter’s wicked allure
and find the artefact before he does? Can Kyter face his demons and win the
heart of his fated female? Or will this deadly game of cat and mouse claim both
of their lives?
Iolanthe despised fae towns. They were
always crowded with disgusting creatures and smelled of vile things. She curled
her lip at a male approaching her. He was hideous, the rolls of his stomach
spilling out from beneath a brown leather vest three sizes too small for him.
The repugnant bald-headed thing should have been lurking in the shadows of a
damp cave rather than parading himself in public. Huge pustules dotted his meaty
and hairy bare shoulders.
She grimaced as she quickly pinned her back
against a wall to avoid brushing him. The last thing she needed was one of
those blisters of pus bursting all over her. She would vomit and her mood would
turn blacker than it already was.
The thing passed her without any contact
and she moved on, using a series of side alleys to swiftly cover half of the
town. She came out at the edge of the witches’ district and checked her crudely
drawn map. The demon had done it in a hurry, and with only one hand.
The one she had left him.
The corner of the parchment was smeared
with his black blood and it spotted the map in places. She hoped those
splotches didn’t conceal anything vital. She would hate to have to go back and
ask him to draw another one. She had a feeling he wouldn’t be happy to see her
either.
She moved swiftly through the crowd,
gracefully arching around a woman who wasn’t looking where she was going, and
then diving down a shadowy alley when she spotted a dangerous male ahead of
her. Her heart rushed against her chest and she edged towards the end of the
wall, her back pressed against it.
She peeked around the corner and ducked
back when she saw she had been right about the dark-haired male’s identity.
Lord Van der Garde of the Preux Chevaliers.
She slunk back into the shadows, hoping he
wouldn’t spot her. She didn’t need a mercenary seeing her. Especially one as
ruthless as this vampire. They had crossed paths, and swords, before over a
mission and she had barely come away with her life. She had no doubts that he
would want to know why she was in the fae town.
Just as she wanted to know what had brought
him out of Hell.
Normally, he had an entourage of vampires
with him. The male never travelled without companions who could do any menial
work for him, such as dispatching a foe that the vampire felt was beneath him.
Not today though. He was alone.
She risked another glance.
And he was as wary as she was.
He moved through the crowd, eyeing
everyone, allowing none to go unscrutinised. Was he looking for someone? Or did
he feel someone was looking for him? Either way, he was angry about something
judging by his crimson irises and how thin the elliptical pupils were in their
centres. Most vampires kept low profiles when travelling to fae towns. The
witches despised them. Was he looking to stir trouble?
Iolanthe wasn’t in the mood to have him
stirring trouble with her. She turned away from the main street, intending to
use the alleys to reach her destination, and collided with a solid wall of
muscle.
The male caught her arms before she could
stumble backwards, righting her. “Sorry.”
“It is my fault for not looking where I am
going.” Iolanthe lifted her gaze to his face.
His dark grey eyes held hers and spots of
cerulean and gold broke through. She jerked her arms free of his grip and
distanced herself. An incubus. She had hoped not to run into one of his kind.
He flashed her a winsome smile.
She tilted her chin up and swept her hand
down in an arc between them. “I am not interested in whatever you are
attempting to peddle my way.”
His smile faded and his eyes turned stormy,
his handsome face becoming as cold and hard as ice. “I was being nice. I wasn’t
trying to peddle you shit.”
He shoved his fingers through his short sandy
hair, pushing the soft spikes back, and she caught sight of his fae markings
that tracked up the underside of his arm to disappear beyond the rolled up
sleeves of his dark striped shirt. They shimmered in hues of crimson and ash
black, betraying his feelings to her. She had angered the male.
He advanced on her and she stood her
ground, refusing to indulge her sudden desire to back off a step. He didn’t
stop until he was so close she could feel his strength radiating from him, a
dark power that warned her that he was a dangerous male and one she didn’t want
as an enemy.
A hint of magic clung to his earthy scent.
Had he come from the witches’ district? The smell seemed to run deeper than one
he had picked up by passing through the area, almost as if it was branded on
his skin, together with something that surprised her and definitely ran as deep
as his blood.
The scent of a vampire.
She lifted her eyes to meet his grey ones,
filled with a need to know why he smelled of both vampire and incubus.
He waved his left hand in her face and she
couldn’t miss the brushed platinum band around his ring finger.
“I have a mate,” he snapped.
She hadn’t realised that incubi could mate
or that they would want to devote themselves to a single female when they fed
off sex. It wasn’t often she learned something new. She wanted to ask about it
but she didn’t think he would give her the information she desired to assuage
her curiosity. She appeared to have deeply offended him.
He pushed past her, muttering to himself.
“Do all elves have bad attitudes?”
Iolanthe stared after him, unable to get
her apology out before he disappeared into the crowd. She slowly raised her
hands to her ears. They weren’t pointed, but he had recognised her as an elf.
How? And what did he mean—did all elves have bad attitudes? How many had the
male met?
There weren’t many elves in this world.
Only ones who passed through. Had the incubus been to Hell?
She shook herself and pushed him and the
vampire to the back of her mind. She was wasting time. A shiver went down her
spine and she looked back over her shoulder, sure she had felt someone watching
her. She shook that off too. People hadn’t stopped looking at her since she had
entered the town. It was another of the reasons she hated these places. She
preferred mountains and forests, and deserts. Places without people.
She preferred to be alone.
She checked her map and walked down the
alleys, following them towards the demons’ district. When she reached the
street marked on the map, she paused and studied the crowd, the
medieval-looking buildings with their black oak beams intersecting white
plaster panels, and all the other alleyways that branched off from the wider
thoroughfare.
Her senses warned of several strong
creatures in the vicinity but she ignored them. It was to be expected after
all. Many of the fae towns harboured powerful demons. Unfortunately, none she
had visited had been home to the one related to the artefact she needed to
locate.
Apparently, he preferred to remain in the
Devil’s domain in Hell, in service to his dark master.
Barafnir.
He had a nasty reputation. Most of the
demons she had asked about him had refused to tell her anything and had kicked
her out. They feared him. That had set Iolanthe more on edge than she had already
been.
What did her client want with Barafnir?
She refused to believe the tale that
Fernandez had spun when she had met him. He had sat behind an enormous obsidian
desk in his opulent yet grim office of his mansion in Hell, surrounded by
mirrored walls intersected with black marble columns, a marked sign of his
vanity together with his expensive tailored black suit.
And the two females who had sat on a black
chaise longue in the corner, scantily dressed in sheer red baby-dolls and
eyeing him as an addict would eye their next fix, occasionally breaking their
silence to beg for his attention.
Fernandez had slid them a smug smile
whenever they had, one that had promised he would allow them to pleasure him
later, and then returned his focus to Iolanthe.
When she had questioned why he wanted the
key, he had pinned her with cold blue eyes that had held a flicker of red
around his pupils, his hands resting on the arms of his throne-like chair, and
had told her that he wanted the artefact used to summon the demon for his
mantelpiece.
That black stone mantelpiece had stood off
to her left, a huge fire burning in the grate beneath, throwing heat across her
side and providing the only light in the room. Several rare artefacts had
already been on display across it, but there had been a space in the centre
that had appeared as if it had been waiting for the one he desired her to find.
Iolanthe still didn’t believe he merely
wanted the key for his collection.
She was no fool.
He wanted dominion over Barafnir.
Normally, Iolanthe would have refused such
a quest, but Fernandez had been very persuasive, making her an offer she
couldn’t turn down.
Satisfied that the coast was clear, she
slipped from the alleyway and followed the flow of people down the road to her
right, towards a small white-panelled building with a haphazard crooked dark
tiled roof. She exited the crowd outside the green painted door framed by black
oak beams and rapped her knuckles against the wood.
It swung open.
Iolanthe ducked into the dark room, having
to remain hunched over to avoid banging her head on the low ceiling. Her eyes
swiftly adjusted to the muted light to reveal a cramped space with a fireplace
and two small threadbare green armchairs to her left, and a rickety wooden
staircase that led up into the roof on her right. Her gaze sought the demon she
had come here to speak with and widened when he stepped around her.
He was nothing like she had expected.
All of the demons she had met in her
lifetime had been strong males, taller than she was and broadly built, wearing
an almost human appearance with the exception of their horns and the occasional
pair of cloven feet.
This one was barely half her height and
blue all over. Black horns flared forwards from above his pointed ears, reminding
her of a bull, and eerie yellow eyes ran over her from her boots upwards. She
raised an eyebrow when his gaze lingered on her breasts.
He glanced up at her face and then down at
his shoes, and shuffled off towards the armchairs. His height explained why he
lived in a building with such a low ceiling and why the chairs were far smaller
than the ones demons normally had in their places of business. They were
smaller than the ones mortals used in their homes. She wasn’t sure how anyone
other than a child or the demon could fit on them.
She would say one thing about the tiny
demon though. He dressed far more impeccably than the other demons she had met,
wearing a fine pair of black tailored trousers with his waistcoat and shirt.
“Your reputation precedes you.” He pulled
himself up onto one of the armchairs and eyed the other one.
Iolanthe was certain she wouldn’t fit in it
but she did her best, unwilling to appear rude to her kind host. She mentally
commanded the sword on her back to disappear, using her teleportation abilities
to send it back to her bolthole. She didn’t like being without the comforting
weight of it, but she would be safe now that she was off the streets.
She squatted on the seat and had to tense
her thighs to stop herself from sinking into it completely. They flexed hard
beneath her black trousers, pulling the material tight. If the chair had
possessed springs once, it didn’t have them anymore.
The demon’s yellow gaze darkened and
narrowed. “I am certain that my friend would have been kind enough to tell you
my location without you resorting to ambushing him and chopping his hand off.”
She wasn’t so certain.
“I do not trust demons in the Devil’s
service. It was easier to convince him to talk rather than ask him nicely and
wait to see whether he would help or would attempt to cut my heart out of my
chest and feast on it.”
The latter had happened too many times to
count. She had learned to maim first, ask questions later with demons. They had
a strange thing about eating hearts.
“You do not like demons in the Devil’s
service, and yet you are looking for an artefact belonging to one?”
She nodded. “It is not for me. I am just
the middle-woman. There is a party interested in the artefact and I agreed to
find it for them.”
“And who would your client be?” The small
blue demon leaned back in his armchair and eyed her with a shrewd gaze, one
that she didn’t like.
He could attempt to wheedle information out
of her all he liked. He wasn’t going to get any. She didn’t talk about her
business with anyone and she definitely wasn’t going to discuss it this time.
Iolanthe smiled sweetly. “I am afraid I
cannot discuss such things. Now, if you would not mind. I require the location
of an artefact and was told you could help me. Can you help me or not?”
“And what artefact might that be?” He
smiled right back at her and she had the feeling it would fall right off his
face when he discovered who the artefact belonged to and would refuse to help
her, just as all the other demons had.
“I must find the key to Barafnir. My client
desires it.”
His smile faded. “Barafnir?”
She nodded. He shifted on his seat and eyed
the door. He was going to kick her out. At least it wouldn’t be as humiliating
as all the other times it had happened. She didn’t think he was strong enough
to pick her up and physically throw her out of his door.
The demon shook his head.
Her heart sank.
“I only have information about it,” he said
and she blinked. He was going to help her? He shuffled to the edge of his seat
and leaned towards her, and she mirrored him, getting as close to him as she
could bear considering the foul odour of his breath. “I should warn you to let
this particular job go. Barafnir doesn’t like people meddling in his affairs
and has taken great pains to ensure the method of summoning him remains
hidden.”
She had come to understand that after she
had asked the first forty demons for information and had been told to get out,
had been thrown out, or had been told to give up her quest.
“I cannot,” she whispered and searched his
yellow eyes, seeking a sliver of compassion in them. “You must tell me what you
know. I must have that artefact. I have promised delivery of it in eleven
days.”
His expression turned grave and he had the
audacity to touch her knee. Iolanthe barely stopped herself from curling her
lip. He patted her, as one would a child, and she regretted desiring compassion
from a demon. It felt more like patronisation.
“You must make haste then.” He thankfully
took his hand back just as she began to consider chopping it off, sparing her
bloodying her blade.
“To where?”
He stared deep into her eyes and if she had
thought they were past all the riddles and games demons loved so dearly, she
had been mistaken.
“Look for knowledge in the shadow of a
volcano.”
Iolanthe smiled, much to the demon’s
obvious irritation as he huffed.
That was an easy one for her.
She stood, narrowly avoiding banging her
head on the low wooden ceiling by quickly stooping, and teleported her blade
back to her. She also transported a small pouch of gold coins and held it out
to the demon.
“Thank you.” Iolanthe bowed.
The demon nodded and took the coins.
She let herself out, shutting the painted
wooden door behind her, and hesitated as a shiver went down her spine again and
the sensation that she was being watched returned. She looked around her at the
street. No one was looking her way. She frowned, sure she hadn’t been mistaken
this time. Someone was stalking her and it wasn’t her usual escort.
She scanned the crowd one last time before
she slipped into the flow.
Knowledge in the shadow of a volcano.
Green-purple light flashed over her body
and she disappeared.
Teleporting to a
familiar location in what was now known as Italy.
Hunted by a
Jaguar is available from Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books, Barnes and Noble Nook,
Apple iBooks stores and other retailers. Also available in paperback.
Books in the Eternal Mates paranormal romance series:
Felicity Heaton is a New York Times and USA Today
international best-selling author writing passionate paranormal romance books.
In her books, she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action,
intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from
dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful
angels and hot demons! If you're a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara
Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine Feehan then
you will enjoy her books too.
If you love your angels a little dark and
wicked, the best-selling Her Angel series is for you. If you like strong,
powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm series or any of her
stand-alone vampire romance books. If you’re looking for vampire romances that
are sinful, passionate and erotic then try the best-selling Vampire Erotic
Theatre series. Or if you prefer huge detailed worlds filled with hot-blooded
alpha males in every species, from elves to demons to dragons to shifters and
angels, then take a look at the new Eternal Mates series.
If you want to know more about Felicity,
or want to get in touch, you can find her at the following places:
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