WHOOT!! Dragon Hoard's is under contract with Dreamspinner with a release date of October. This will be part of the new houseline, Dreamspun Beyond. I'm very excited about this novel--I've been wanting to do a dragon story for a while now, lol.
Here's a little sample of the story. It's unedited as of yet by DsP, of course.
Raised voices drifted out
onto the deck, and Avery sighed. Now what?
“By all the gods, is that
a—”
Avery frowned. A what? Then
someone screamed, and he jumped. The increased heartbeats of his fellow pack
members inside the parlor beat relentlessly at him. Okay, that was a little
disconcerting.
Then the tinny stench of
fear drifted on the cool breezes out to him. Fear? Forget disconcerting. Now he
was flat out worried. There was very little werewolves feared. Broken pieces of
conversations, anger, and waves of distress overwhelmed him. Maybe he should
get back in there, although he wasn’t sure what he could do to help—not that he
would be allowed anyway.
“Silence!”
The roar hit him like a
sonic boom. His knees went weak, and he grasped the deck railing to keep
himself up. Power, unlike any he’d ever felt, rolled over him. Oh gods. He
closed his eyes trying to rein himself in.
As he adjusted, he noticed
something else. That roar—so masculine, low and growly. It sank into his very
bones. His cock perked up and his claws came out, digging into the wood of the
railing he so desperately held. He pried his eyes open.
Confusion hit him. His breathing
spiked. This wasn’t a weaker wolf reacting to one more powerful. No, it was
something else. Something he’d never experienced before. Didn’t matter though. He
wrestled his body under control. He refused to be the weak-willed Omega
everybody assumed he was.
Once his breathing leveled
out, he noticed the silence. The nighttime sounds he was so familiar with was
glaringly absent. There was no prey scuttling across the dead grass and decaying
leaves. No predator stalked on stealthy feet. There was nothing.
A chill crept up his spine.
It seemed as if everything around him had frozen. He glanced back into the
parlor. Both the music and conversations had stopped. Tension rolled out
through the open doors.
Avery had the perfect view
of his father. Several of his betas stood behind the Alpha. Even from where he
stood, Avery could see the unease on his father’s face. Avery gawked. His
father was renowned for being cool under pressure.
But not this time. His
mother stood off to the side and behind his father with several female
werewolves clustered around her. He sister Mandy stood next to their mother,
but he couldn’t see the rest of his sisters.
What in the hell was going
on?
“Your time is up.”
Avery shivered again. That
voice. What was it about that voice?
“Not until the stroke of
midnight, it isn’t.” Alpha Montgomery growled.
For once his father didn’t
sound like the authoritative werewolf Avery knew he was. Avery shifted to the
side trying to see through the French doors into the parlor. Who was his father
speaking with? He bit his lip, still unable to see. Slowly he inched farther to
the right. Just a little more and he could finally see.
“Which is less than three
hours away. You’ve made no effort to contact me nor have you made any type of
payment. I have to tell you, Alpha Montgomery, this disturbs me greatly.”
Avery blinked. Who dared to
speak to his father was such a disrespectful tone? More importantly, why wasn’t
his father wiping the floor with them? Avery eased a few inches over. As he
moved, he got a better look into the room.
His glance roamed over a
male who was of average height with brown hair. His looks weren’t anything
spectacular, and the black rimmed glasses he wore didn’t help. He wasn’t a
paranormal, although he wasn’t quite human either. He sniffed again and finally
picked up the hint of magic in the air.
Then he saw the other one.
Good gods. A man stood
several feet from his father. Avery’s stomach dropped. The stranger was tall,
dark and sexy beyond belief. Long black hair fell to slender hips. Avery
swallowed. Whoever this man was, he wasn’t as tall as his father nor was he
bulky with muscles. He had what the humans termed a swimmer’s build.
Even though Avery could only
see his profile, there is no denying the stranger had a strong jaw, insanely
chiseled cheekbones, and a perfectly formed nose. His light gray pinstriped
suit fit him like a glove and suggested it was custom-made… and expensive, very
expensive.
Who was this male? He wasn’t
human, Avery knew that. He sniffed, trying to pick up the stranger’s scent. When
he finally did, it hit him like a ton of bricks. It was dark, delicious… and
completely unfamiliar. But he liked it, and he wanted more.
His cock, which had softened
slightly, sprang up. Tingles raced through his body. Oh gods, so good. He
yearned. His wolf wanted nothing more than to roll around in that scent. He
sniffed again, more deeply this time.
Gods, what was that other male?
Alpha Montgomery tensed. “I’ll
talk with you tomorrow. Tonight we’re celebrating my youngest coming of age.”
“No, I don’t believe so. Why
don’t we adjourn to your office?”
Avery hiked an eyebrow.
Whoever this guy was, he had balls the size of coconuts. The fact that he was
still standing on his feet, in one piece, amazed Avery. Why was his father
allowing such disrespect?
“I—”
“Now!” the stranger snapped.
“Holy shit,” Avery whispered,
expecting to see blood flow at any moment. No one spoke to his father that way.
The stranger whipped his
head around and stared straight at Avery. Shock hit him square between the
eyes. Feet glued to the floor, all Avery could do was stand there, frozen, with
his mouth hanging open. Beautifully colored indigo eyes zeroed in on him. Avery
had never seen such an unusual swirling mixture of blues and purples for an eye
color. They were striking and quite intimidating.
For the first time ever,
Avery understood how prey felt. His heart pounded, and his head spun. His mouth
was so dry he couldn’t swallow. An instinct he didn’t know he possessed shouted
at him to turn, run… to escape. But another yelled at him to get closer, to go
belly up for his….
Mate.
Shit, it can’t be. Just can’t! What was staring at him was
the top predator in the paranormal community—a dragon. Nobody fucked with
dragons. No one. And somehow, his father had gotten on the wrong side of one.
