Taken by a Dragon, the seventh 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.
Find out how to enter the Taken by a Dragon international giveaway (ends March 22nd) and be in with a shot of winning a $75, $50 or $25 gift certificate at her website, where you can also download a 5 chapter sample of the novel here.
Here’s more about Taken by a Dragon, including an excerpt from this paranormal romance novel:
Taken
by a Dragon (Eternal Mates Romance Series Book 7) Felicity Heaton
Possessed by a need to save a beautiful Amazon warrior from the vision
he witnessed, Loke snatched her from the midst of the battle between the
Third and Fifth realm of the demons, and carried her to his home deep
in the black mountains of Hell to protect her. But as the fierce little
female awakens, he finds she’s anything but grateful, and his dragon
instincts roar to life to warn she might be more to him than an
enemy—she might be his fated female.
Anais remembers
meeting a handsome warrior in the heat of battle, a man who was her
enemy but who looked at her with eyes that held dark heat and wicked
promises. When she wakes to find that same dragon shifter has taken her
captive, desire is the last thing on her mind, but escaping him to
return to Archangel, the hunter organisation she works for, sounds less
than appealing when he reveals the reason he took her—to stop her from
dying.
Can Loke protect Anais from the dangers of his
realm and how far will he go to save her from the future he keeps
witnessing? Can Anais resist the fierce attraction that burns between
them as hot as fire and stay true to Archangel or will her heart be
taken by the dragon?
Taken by a Dragon is available from
Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books, Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple iBooks stores
and other retailers. Also available in paperback. Find the links to your
preferred retailer here.
Taken by a Dragon – Excerpt
Anais straightened and looked him right in the eyes, refusing to let how beautiful they were distract her.
“Take me back.”
His eyes darkened and his lips compressed into a thin line. “No.”
Fine.
He wanted to do things the hard way and she was good with that. If he
wouldn’t take her back out of the kindness of his black dead heart, she
would force him to do it at knifepoint.
Anais slowly
shifted away from the wall of the cave, heading into the open area
between the dragon and the fire. He countered her, turning on the spot,
keeping his front to hers. A darker edge flickered in his eyes, one that
warned he was on to her and knew she intended to attack now.
“Last
chance. Take me back.” She was fairly certain that he wasn’t going to
take her up on her offer. She knew stubborn when she saw it. She looked
at it in the mirror each day. In a battle of stubbornness, he wouldn’t
win.
He took a step towards her.
Anais kicked off, lunging towards him, her eyes on the knife sheathed against his left hip.
He
snatched her wrist before she could reach it, his strong grip sending a
hot bolt of electricity arcing along her bones. She twisted her arm in
his grip, turning her back to him and coming around on his left side.
She made another grab for the knife with her free hand and he whipped
the arm he held her with forwards, shoving her away from him and making
her miss her target.
His growl echoed around the cave and she ducked beneath his other hand as he tried to grab her.
She
broke free of his grip but didn’t back off. She didn’t know what he
wanted with her, but she wasn’t going to stick around to find out. He’d
had his chance to play nice. Now she was going to play rough.
He stepped into her and she brought her knee up hard, slamming it straight into his balls.
He grunted and doubled over and victory flashed through her as he cupped himself, leaving his knife wide open.
Anais made a grab for it.
He
reacted in an instant, his head coming up and his hands leaving his
groin. In a lightning fast move, he had blocked her attempt, knocking
her hand away. She unleashed a short noise of frustration and attacked
him, swinging her fist at his face. He blocked again, and again,
stopping every punch she threw or kick she swung at him. Her anger rose
with each failed attempt to hit him, her temper fraying at the same
time.
The bastard was humouring her.
It
was there in his eyes as he blocked her, always defending and never
attacking. Their bright jewel-blue depths shimmered with amusement. He
knew he could stop her any time he wanted because he was far stronger
and quicker than she was.
Son of a bitch.
She
growled and went to kick him between his legs again, and he caught her
shin with both hands, stopping her. She tried to take her leg back but
he refused to let go.
Anais launched a solid right hook
at him, lost her balance and almost fell. His hand on her upper arm
stopped her. What the hell? She would have thought he would be pleased
if she had landed face first on the black ground, humiliating herself,
but he had saved her.
She had the strangest notion as she pulled free of his grip and faced him.
He didn’t want to hurt her.
His
self-assuredness wasn’t the reason why he was only defending. He wasn’t
doing it to amuse himself either. He was doing it because any other
course of action might hurt her.
He cemented that feeling
when she made another lunge for the knife and he grabbed her right
upper arm. The cut beneath the sleeve of her black t-shirt burned and
she flinched, biting her tongue to muffle the cry of pain that blazed up
her throat.
He quickly released her and backed off, distancing himself.
“I am sorry.” He lowered his hands to his sides.
Anais
wasn’t sure what to make of him, but she refused to let his behaviour
sway her. He probably wanted that. He wanted her to lower her guard.
She rubbed her arm and he looked away from her, glancing down at the ground beside his bare feet.
Giving her one hell of a golden opportunity she wasn’t about to waste.
She made a break for it, her boots eating up the black ground between her and the cave mouth.
“No!” His roar deafened her and echoed around the cave and the mountains beyond.
Strong
arms banded around her waist from behind before she could reach the
exit of the cave. She caught a glimpse of a green-black world as he
lifted her off the ground—a swath of thick forest that covered the
valley below the side of the mountain she was in and the forbidding
black mountains all around her. That view disappeared as he turned her
in his powerful arms, twisting her to face him, and shocked her by
pinning her to his very solid chest.
“Do not go that way, Little Amazon,” he husked, his deep voice strained and thick with emotion.
Anais
shoved at his chest as panic burst through her, sending her pulse
racing, and her mind screamed at her to escape his hold.
He
didn’t fight her. He turned so she was closest to the fire and set her
down. The moment he released her, she backed off, placing some distance
between them again and breathing hard to quell the dizzying rush of her
heart.
He remained where he was as she slowly pulled
herself back together, towering over her, and she found herself staring
up at his handsome face. He looked as raw with emotion as his voice had
sounded. Why?
As much as she wanted to know the answer to that question, she wanted her freedom even more.
She
tried to get around him again but he countered her each time, moving
left or right to block her path, keeping her contained in the back half
of the cave, away from the mouth.
“You cannot leave.”
Those
three words chilled her to her bones and panic and fear surged back to
the surface, an unstoppable force that she could no longer control. They
shook her and she couldn’t stop them from chipping away at her
strength, breaking down her courage and filling her mind with a thousand
horrific scenarios she didn’t want to entertain but was powerless to
shut out.
“What do you want with me?” she whispered,
unable to find her voice as she stilled and stared at him, her heart
hammering against her chest and her hands shaking. She curled her
fingers into fists and drew down a deep breath, trying to steady herself
when all she really wanted to do was collapse onto her knees and maybe
even cry. “Why won’t you let me leave?”
“Others cannot
see you.” He looked back over his bare shoulder, towards the cave mouth.
“It is not safe for you out there, Little Amazon.”
“It’s not safe for me in here either.” She clenched her fists and narrowed her eyes on him.
He turned back to face her, his expression soft and a touch wounded. Bloody hell, she wasn’t sure what to make of him.
“What
do you want with me?” She tried again, needing an answer this time,
because she feared he intended to do something terrible to her, even
when there was a part of her heart that said it was never going to
happen.
He had been upset and had apologised when he had
hurt her, and that reaction had been genuine. She had met enough good
guys and enough bastards in her life to know them apart. A man who
reacted in such a manner as he had wasn’t the sort of man who would then
resort to physical abuse.
“I want to keep you safe.”
Of
course, men who didn’t want to hurt women could also be dangerously
possessive of them. He might be the type who was acting out an
obsession, a deep need to nurture and take care of another person,
despite how much it terrified that person or how little they wanted to
be there with them.
“It’s hard for me to believe that
when you kidnapped me.” She backed off another step and did a quick scan
of the cave again, checking her options.
He had left
the back of the cave open to her, which meant he didn’t think she could
escape that way. Her only option was getting past him. Her hope tried to
deflate but she refused to let it happen. She would get out of here and
away from him.
It just might not be this instant.
His
face softened again and he held his right hand out to her as his blue
eyebrows furrowed. Like hell she was going to take it. He could want to
comfort her all he liked, but she didn’t have to let him fulfil that
need.
A flicker of resignation crossed his expression and
he looked at his hand, smiled briefly, and lowered it to his side. “I
had to. If I had not—”
Dread went through her like shards of ice.
“If
you hadn’t… what?” Anais couldn’t stop herself from advancing a step
towards him. She didn’t like how he had cut himself off or the flash of
fear that had touched his face.
He dropped his gaze to
the patch of ground between them and it turned distant. “Dragons have
the gift of foresight. What I saw…”
A chill ran through
her as she remembered how he had looked at her on the battlefield and
how she had felt in that moment. A deep sense of connection had bloomed
inside her and he had looked as if he had shared it, and then he had
changed. The heat in his eyes had turned to darkness that had coloured
his expression, making it grim. She had felt that same sharp stab of
dread in that moment, a sickening sensation of her life draining from
her.
A heartbeat later, he had grabbed her. No longer a
man. He had been an enormous, and breathtakingly beautiful, blue dragon.
He had tucked her against the paler blue plates of his chest, holding
her gently in both huge front paws, as if he had wanted to shield her,
and then he had attacked everyone.
Her side.
His.
He had driven them all away from her.
Because of what he had seen?
“I
cannot let you leave. Please, Little Amazon.” His blue eyes implored
her to listen to him, flooded with sincerity, hope and a dash of fear.
“I will return you… when I am sure you will be safe.”
Anais
shook her head, reeling and trying to make sense of everything. It
crashed over her, muddling her feelings and leaving her shaken.
“We
were in a battle,” she said and shook her head again. “I knew the
risks. You had no reason to save me. I wasn’t a damsel in distress. I
was there to fight. Why save me? I was… am… your enemy.”
He
stared at her, blinking slowly, unmoving as silence stretched between
them. She couldn’t read him at all. She had no clue about how he felt or
what he might say. His expression gave nothing away.
He held her gaze, his blue eyes locked with hers. “I did it because I had to.”
“That
isn’t an answer.” She took another step towards him, growing frustrated
with him and with herself. What was she doing? Did she want him to give
her an answer that would sway her? Did she want him to say something
that would make her trust him?
Hell, maybe she had been
right on coming around. She had passed out from lack of oxygen and her
brain had been starved of it, because nothing she was thinking or
feeling was making any sense to her logical mind.
Something
about the man standing before her had her throwing logic and all of her
training out of the window, and listening to her heart over her head.
Anais
shut down the softer part of herself and forced herself to focus again.
She needed to get away from the dragon and this cave, but he was right.
It was probably more dangerous out there. She needed to know what she
would be up against and where she was in Hell. She needed a plan, or she
would end up in an even worse position than she was now.
“It
is the only answer I have,” he whispered and he looked as if it didn’t
make sense to him either, but he had been unable to find another one to
give to her. “I had a vision, and I responded to it. I had no choice. It
was instinct. I wanted to protect you.”
Another
sensation went through Anais, this one not altogether pleasant either,
and it frightened her a lot more than the thought of dying.
She
had seen how King Thorne of the demons had acted around Sable, driven
by instinct to protect her at any cost because she was his fated mate.
Some of the species of Hell had such mates, a person fated for them.
One in a lifetime.
She
stared at the dragon where he stood with his back to the cave mouth,
cragged black mountains as his backdrop and the light from the fire
behind her shining on him, turning his skin golden as it flickered
across his honed bare chest and arms, and his blue-leather-clad legs.
He was every bit as stunning as he had been on the battlefield.
A dark and alluring warrior who spoke to her on a deep and primal level.
The sense of fierce attraction and connection returned.
This
time it filled her head with flashes of Sable and Thorne, of how they
behaved around each other, driven by a possessive need of each other, a
hunger that went beyond mere attraction and desire, defying all logic
and reason.
Bloody hell.
She refused to
allow herself to believe that the man standing before her, a dragon
shifter, was such a thing for her. He was a means to an end. A source of
information. She would bide her time, gather knowledge, and once she
was ready she would escape and return to her world, the one that made
sense to her. The one filled with logic and reason, just how she liked
it.
“Swear you won’t hurt me and that you’ll return me to
my people.” It never hurt to have a few assurances that she could use
to quell her fears. He was a warrior. He wasn’t a team player by his own
admission, but warriors always had a code. He would keep his vows.
He
pressed his left hand to his bare chest and bowed his head. “You have
my word. In return, you will swear you will not attempt to leave.”
Anais nodded. “You have my word.”
His
hand drifted downwards, drawing her gaze with it, over honed muscles
that delighted her eyes and heated her insides. His voice was rich and
warm, as deep as an ocean as he spoke to her, cranking her temperature
up another few degrees and making her forget she was meant to be afraid
of him not attracted to him.
“Will you stay, Little Amazon?”
Anais raised her eyes back to his. They were bright, spotted with gold fire, entrancing her as much as his voice and his body.
She nodded, and for some reason it wasn’t as reluctant as it should have been.
Heaven help her.
She
wasn’t sure it was such a great idea after all, because she was certain
there wasn’t enough willpower in the entire planet that she could draw
on to stop herself from succumbing to the desire that swept through her
whenever she looked at him.
Taken by a
Dragon is available from Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books, Barnes and Noble
Nook, Apple iBooks stores and other retailers. Also available in
paperback.
Find all the links, a fantastic 6 chapter
downloadable sample of the book, and also how to enter the giveaway and
be in with a shot of winning a $75, $50 or $25 gift certificate at her
website.
Books in the Eternal Mates paranormal romance series:
Book 1: Kissed by a Dark Prince
Book 2: Claimed by a Demon King
Book 3: Tempted by a Rogue Prince
Book 4: Hunted by a Jaguar
Book 5: Craved by an Alpha
Book 6: Bitten by a Hellcat
Book 7: Taken by a Dragon
Book 8: Marked by an Assassin – Coming in spring 2015!
About Felicity Heaton
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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