Please help me welcome Author Mimi Sebastian to my blog today!
The
Necromancer’s Betrayal
The
Necromancer Series
Book
2
Mimi
Sebastian
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal
Romance
Publisher: ImaJinn/Belle Books
ISBN: 978-1611945119
ASIN:
Number of pages: 226
Cover Artist: Patricia Lazarus
Book Description:
Her powers have been hobbled. Her
enemies are growing stronger.
Old loves challenge her. And her
worst betrayer may be herself.
Necromancer Ruby Montagne is
battling for her life in the realm of demons. Unfairly branded for the death of
a fellow necromancer, she’s got to prove her innocence without the full use of
her magic. And the real culprit is still on the loose.
While someone is stalking her
friends among the witches, Ruby searches for answers inside the dark intrigues
of both the demon and necromancer worlds. Ruby must confront this new, sinister
threat while reconciling her feelings for her former lover, a demon warrior.
Only it’s difficult . . . because a sexy vampire is making it clear that he’d
like to be a lot more than just friends.
The competition for Ruby’s trust
heats up as the enemy pushes her toward a dark side that could threaten the
entire realm. Yet what can Ruby do when she’s not even sure what she is? With
the fabric separating the realms at stake, she must decide whom to trust. But
will the ultimate betrayal be her own?
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
A hand I knew all too
well rested on my shoulder. “Come dance with me.”
My first impulse was
to huff, having watched him with Portia, but I smoothed my feathers and
smothered the small fire that had been smoldering all night. If Ewan wasn’t
going to bug me about Lysander, then I wasn’t going to disturb this quiet,
soothing, if not a bit dangerous peace. It probably helped that I was just
buzzed enough to agree, and maybe that had been his devious plan. I let him
lead me to the floor and envelop me in his arms for the slow dance. His
hesitation joined mine for a brief moment when our bodies connected, melting
every nerve ending.
I can’t do this to
myself.
I moved away from
him, but, sensing my skittishness, he tightened his grip, pulling me against
his chest. My breath caught and my body buzzed with longing and want. We danced
for a few moments to let the popping world around us settle. I understood why
it was so much easier to attack each other, find an irritation to mine, an axe
to throw, because all of that was easier than enduring this crippling longing,
feeling this gaping hole carved in my chest.
When my heart finally
stopped tripping over itself, I carefully settled my cheek on the soft silk of
his shirt. He pressed his lips to my ear, and his breath, tinged with whiskey
and his spicy demon scent, overwhelmed me and everything, everyone around us
melted in a blur. He pressed his thumb against my side, grazing until he found
the round swell of my breast. I felt his smile against my cheek when I suppressed
a moan. My rebellious arms somehow found their way around his neck.
“You’re
insufferable,” I said.
“Charming.” His
breath puffed against my earlobe, causing my nipples to harden.
“Smug.”
“Confident.” He
continued to rub and caught my nipple with one devious flick, eliciting a sharp
gasp.
“Arrogant.”
“Gracious.”
“Oh, hell.”
“That,
too.” He tightened his arms even more. “Do you know how much I want to throw
you over my shoulder, take you to my place, and make love to you? I don’t think
you’ll ever understand how much I want you.” His words, whispered into my ear,
soft and husky, about undid me.
“This conversation is
not a good idea.” But my body screamed, throbbed to hear the rest of what he
wanted to do.
“Why? Don’t want
Lysander to see me kiss you?” He glided his lips across my jawbone, leaving my
skin zinging everywhere he touched. “He kissed you.” His words, tinged with a
note of regret, sent a violent shiver through me.
“No. Stop. What if
Malthus sees?” I pushed away from him. He loosened his embrace, giving me an
extra inch of space, without removing his arms from my waist.
“Maybe I don’t give a
damn.”
“I had an interesting
talk with Portia.” My words had the intended effect, throwing a bucket of
freezing cold water over the conversation. I hated to extinguish the passion I
so craved, but our talk had veered into the same morass that led to nowhere but
despair.
“That was mean,” he
said, his eyes clouding with frustration.
“What? Talking with
her or bringing it up?”
“What did you talk
about?”
I smirked. “Sharing.”
He quirked an
eyebrow. “Maybe I don’t want to know.”
“Do you trust her?”
“It’s wise not to
trust anyone for the time being, but I’d be surprised if she was involved.”
“You might try
talking to her the next time you’re together.”
“I haven’t been with
anyone since you and I made love.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Guess I can’t
say the same for you.”
Ah, back to the pain.
It almost felt better. At least we’d enjoyed most of the evening before
igniting the white flag. I should have shot back at him with some retort,
admonished him for judging me, but I was too buzzed and confused with guilt and
readily accepted my role as dartboard for the night.
“So tell me, are you
and Lysander serious? Do you care for him?” he asked.
“Yes, of course.”
His arms stiffened.
“He’s a friend,” I
added.
His eyebrows shot up
in disbelief.
“I’m not dating him.
I’m not dating you either. Yes, we—” Frustration stifled my words. “What do you
want me to do? Wait nine years? I don’t think our relationship can stand nine
years of hurting each other.”
His arms tightened,
tightened, tightened and suffocated my thoughts. “He’s using the blood exchange
to manipulate you.”
“He’s not
manipulating me. You know better than that.”
“Lysander is a very old vampire, and I can assure you, he
didn’t spend those hundreds of years in a monastery. He knows exactly what he’s
doing.”
“Just like you know exactly what you’re doing with Portia?”
“That’s different.”
He let me pull out
of his embrace. “Sure it is,” I said, before turning away from him. The bar
came into view and, needing a destination, I sprinted off before he could
prevent my escape. I chanced a glance back and saw Portia had claimed him for
the next dance. He whirled her onto the dance floor, but not before locking
eyes with me for one last, hard stare.
Excerpt 2:
“See, that’s the
difference between demons and vamps. No honor, here.”
I stuttered a laugh.
“Demons do not have honor.” I paused. “You have honor. You just don’t want to
admit it.”
“Does an honorable
vampire lust after the woman his friend desires, but can’t have?”
I laughed, taking his
words as typical alpha supe flirtation, but when I looked at his face, my
laughter stilled. He wasn’t joking. I dropped my gaze to the deck, and he
returned to messing with the sails.
His admission had
tainted our breezy conversation, and a salty awkwardness layered the air
between us for the rest of the cruise. When Ewan had stumbled upon Lysander
comforting me after my encounter with Dominic, I had to lie to him. Of course,
that led him to imagine a much worse scenario than the actual truth, which I
couldn’t reveal. Now a new, more insurmountable obstacle divided Ewan and me,
but the episode with Lysander was almost more unacceptable to Ewan because I’d
caused it. And now, Ewan had written our relationship off, and I was sailing in
the moonlight on a boat captained by a hot vampire, who used to be a pirate,
and who had given me the occasional glimpse into a passion and vulnerability
that would be increasingly hard to resist. I was screwed.
We cruised into the
Oakland Inner Harbor, heading for the Alameda Marina. He pulled up next to a
catamaran and docked the boat. We disembarked and traversed the wooden dock,
heading for one of the new oyster bars that signaled the revitalization of the
once-industrial area. I clutched my scarf against the chilly air creeping along
the waterfront. The nearly-full moon projected an incandescent glow onto the
water, providing the only light to dispel the thickening darkness. We left the
dock and took a dirt path intersecting a concrete sea wall on our left and a
string of warehouses on our right. The only sound came from the water slapping
against the sea wall. I darted my eyes around us and sidled closer to Lysander.
The shadows lengthened, seeming to nip at my heels as we walked. Shadows didn’t
have malevolent intent, did they? These seemed to crouch, ready to pounce;
Seemed to whisper, “Come . . .”
Lysander gave me a
reassuring look, obviously perceiving my nervousness. The lights of the bar
about fifty feet ahead became visible, and I shook off my anxiousness. I was
with a fricking vampire who used to be a pirate.
Lysander stumbled.
“Not very smooth for
a vampire,” I said with a laugh.
He didn’t laugh back.
His only response was to stop suddenly and groan. I moved to face him and
recoiled at the sight of his face illuminated by the moonlight. “What the hell?
You’re turning all Nosferatu on me. I liked the movie and all, but it’s not a
look that works for you.”
When he met my eyes,
and I saw his confusion and desperation, I realized this wasn’t some normal
vampire transformation. His skin was shriveling in sick slow motion before me,
prune-like, turning to the color of ash and flaking away as if burning from the
inside out. “Oh, Christ. Lysander, what’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” he
managed to croak from a throat that was shrinking upon itself.
Whispers, real now,
louder, drifted toward us from the shadows clinging to the spaces between the
warehouses. No. I’m not going crazy. Someone is out there. “Who’s there?
Son of a bitch. Show yourself!”
A soft laugh answered
me.
Fuck this. I turned toward the warehouses, but a tug
on my pants stopped me. “Blood,” Lysander rasped.
“Where . . .
oh.” He meant my blood. “We can’t.”
“I’m dying.” His
voice sounded as shriveled as he looked. His skin was no more than a thin layer
of plastic shrink-wrapped around protruding bones.
I slapped my head
with my palm. Oh God. Oh God. I can’t do this. I wasn’t worried about
transforming into a bloodsucker. I knew it took much more than a few blood
exchanges to turn someone. My fear came from my own power. Like with Dominic’s
lieutenant, the necromancy could taint the blood connection and turn Ly into a
zombie. I took another look at him and dispelled my fear. He was dying. Maybe
he was stronger than Dominic’s lieutenant. Maybe his blood would resist my
power. Please.
I squatted next to
him, held out my wrist, and squeezed my eyes, not sure what to expect. Getting
sucked on by a vampire was supposed to feel better than ecstasy—that’s why so
many people frequented the vampire club—but when the lieutenant had sucked my
blood, his fangs had felt like hot pokers ramming into my neck.
Lysander jerked his
fangs into my wrist, and I cried out. Okay. No pleasure here. His fangs shook,
like he needed his fix bad. He tore at my skin with sloppy slurps. I gritted my
teeth at the pain that scorched my wrist. My arm shook, but he held tight and
sucked. I didn’t even know if this would work. I didn’t want him to die, but
what would I do if he transformed into a zombie? I felt my power murmur inside
me, unhappy at the intrusion, but I stamped it down, hopefully before it could
taint the blood.
Lysander pulled off
my wrist. The force of the movement caused me to fall back on my ass. The air
and ground spun around me, and I fought off the nausea with deep breaths. The
moonlight slashed across Lysander’s profile, and I sighed, relieved at the
pale, vampire tone of his wonderfully tight and unshriveled skin. I reached out
my hand, trembling violently, and touched his shoulder. He twisted his head,
and I recoiled, seeing the same emptiness in his eyes that the lieutenant had
reflected when he’d drunk my blood.
No. No. No.
Available at Amazon
About
the Author:
Mimi Sebastian raised herself on
books and the strange and unusual, and an unhealthy dose of comics and movies.
When a career as a punk guitarist failed to materialize, she completed her
degree in urban planning, spent two years in the Ivory Coast with the Peace
Corps, and another three years in Brazil. By day, she debates the merits of
transport oriented development, by night she writes about necromancers and
pirates. She’s convinced she could live off coffee, ice cream, and comic books,
but is sure only one of those is good for her health.
She's a member of Romance Writers
of America and the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal chapter of RWA. A
transplant from the beaches of Florida, Mimi now wanders the desert in Phoenix,
AZ, and attempts to balance writing with a day career, fantastic family, and
household diva: her Amazon parrot.
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/13508578-mimi-sebastian
Tour giveaway
A print copy of book one, Necromancer's Seduction, zombie playing cards, and $10 Amazon gift card. Open to US Shipping
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Jodie Pierce
Thanks for hosting me today Jodie! I see you were an exchange student in Brasil. That's great! My parents are Brazilian and I lived there for a bit. Where in Brasil did you live?
ReplyDeleteHi Jodie, love your blog and I enjoyed Mimi's post as well.
ReplyDelete