Excerpt DUST AND MOONLIGHT

Setup: Poor Kira. She no longer resides in Providence, but realizes she’s been transported to an alien, strange world where a decadent warrior rules.

Dust and Moonlight–Keta Diablo (http://www.ketadiablo.com)

Excerpt:

The door creaked open and in walked a tall, finely-honed body. At first glance, Kira thought surely Lucifer had crafted some sort of sick joke. The man’s muscles were tightly woven, his shoulders broad, his hips narrow. The breath left her body in one enormous rush. Still clutching the weapon before her, she aimed it at his chest, intent on delivering an arrow into his heart. In that inconvenient moment, the dream came to her. A man with golden hair and eyes the color of blue gems stood at the edge of the forest. His voice hummed through the trees, low and mesmerizing. “Eros will make you burn with love for me.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “You’re not The Scarlet Angel.”

With an amused smirk, he replied, “And I see ye are no longer ill.”

He watched her with interest, the intense eyes licking their way over her breasts and hips, settling for a moment in the cleft between her thighs. Long moments later his gaze returned to her face, and moved slowly to the weapon.

“If ye intend to kill me,” he said arrogantly, “put one leg in front for balance, hold the crossbow level with ye’re chest, and pull back on the notch.” He looked over his nose and took a step forward. “The small bronze nubbin by ye’re thumb.”

“Don’t come any closer!” she said blowing an errant lock of hair from her forehead. “I swear I’ll shoot you!”

His hands came down, palms up and he smiled, a wicked, wicked smile. With every passing moment, she found it difficult to concentrate. He could be an actor in a play, but why didn’t he just say so? He watched her with growing interest, as if reluctant to take on the weapon in her trembling hand.

A white shirt, overlaid with a leather vest, covered his torso. The pants were also leather and clung to his muscular legs like second skin. She licked her dry lips. The scent of something wild and primal drifted across the room—his clothing or him, she didn’t know which. His eyebrows were neatly arched above the mosaic blue eyes that changed in hue with every expression. His features were deftly chiseled, his mouth a tad too generous, but only slightly. His magnificent body lacked the teensiest ounce of excess fat. Images flooded her muddled thoughts of the dream warrior, God’s pure vision of man. It couldn’t be…wasn’t possible.

Her knees knocked, whether from his presence or the thought of killing him, she didn’t know. For a moment indecision reigned, and damn if he didn’t pick up on it. His confident gaze turned predatory as he advanced slowly. With every step he took, some unnamed organ between her thighs ached and hot juices came in a flood between her legs. And only after one look at that sculpted face.

The mesmerizing voice filled the warm space between their bodies. “Why don’t ye put that down and we’ll parley? If ye are done looking at me.”

She wanted to slap him, would if he came any closer. “I have no intention of putting this down,” she said more confidently than she felt. “What’s the deal? You work with The Scarlet Angel?”

He shook his head, the long, golden hair flowing languidly across his massive shoulders.

Her fingers shaking, she fumbled with the mechanism. “Tell me who you are or I’ll kill you!”

In a blur, he came at her. She drew back on the trigger and let the arrow fly. Morbid fascination gripped her when it hit him in the shoulder, and stuck. Before he leaped through the air to tackle her, his eyes gleamed hard and cold. They hit the floor hard, she, kicking, biting and screaming, he, doing his best to restrain her. His strong legs pinned the lower half of her body to the floor, his good hand locking her wrists over her head. The arrow protruded from his chest and oozed bright red blood. Thick, corded arms, level with her eyes, reminded her of his powerful strength. She screamed when his knee dug into the soft flesh between her thighs and pinned her to ground.

He shouted so loud she flinched. “Be still!”

She stopped her frantic struggle and stared at him blank-eyed. In the next moment, he reached up, broke the shaft in two and tossed it across the room. The anger left his face, replaced by confusion.

Moments later his brows grew together, the blue eyes dark and lethal. “Now, who the hell are ye?” He reached into the pocket of his vest and dangled her father’s medallion in her face. “And where did ye get this?”

Before she could answer, people scurried into the room from all directions, a woman with long, dark hair, her mouth agape, a giant of a man who smiled of all things, and another male who resembled the woman.

“I warned ye, Balion,” the giant said. “She’s small, but I saw the fight in her eyes when she opened them.”

“By the Saints, the she-cat shot me!” Balion dragged her up by the hair and dangled the medallion in her face.

“Give me that, you swine! It doesn’t belong to you!” Kira turned a pleading look to the woman. “He stole it from me, took it from my neck while I―”

The cad smiled again. “And what a lovely neck it is, one that will stretch nicely on my gallows outside.” His expression changed to one of suspicion. “The medallion doesn’t belong to ye. It belongs to The Last Sorcerer of the King.”

Kira glanced toward the window and wondered if the gallows’ comment was a joke. Unwilling to relinquish the talisman, she held her ground. “My father is The Last Sorcerer and it belongs to him.”

“Hah!” the man called Balion spat. “Ye lie! Me father, King Roldan, gave it to Nicholas.”

The floor moved beneath her. “King–King Roldan?” Kira put her hands to her temples. “Who are you then?”

The magnificent Greek God looked down his nose at her. Even angry, the man dazzled her. She could think of nothing but her need to touch him, taste him, feel him inside her. She must be ill with a bug. She melted quicker than a sex-starved nymphomaniac every time he so much as glanced at her.

“I am the King’s son,” he said. “The Light-Prince of Locke Cress.”