The Sentinels # 2
By: Alexandra Ivy
Releasing December 30th, 2014
Zebra
They are the outcasts of humanity. Blessed with power. Cursed by fate. Driven by passion. The Sentinels have returned…
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
At six-foot-three and two-hundred-fifty pounds, Fane is a natural born guardian. A flawless mix of muscled perfection and steely precision, he has devoted years of his life to protecting a beautiful necromancer. But after she found love in the arms of another, Fane has been a warrior adrift. He swears allegiance only to the Sentinels. And no woman will ever rule his heart again…
INTO THE FIRE
Not only a powerful psychic, Serra is that rare telepath who can connect to minds through objects. When the daughter of a high-blood businessman is kidnapped, Serra agrees to help. But when she stumbles onto a conspiracy involving secrets sects and ancient relics, her life is in mortal danger—and Fane is her only hope. Is the warrior willing to risk his body, his soul, and his heart, for Serra? Or will one last betrayal destroy them both?
Excerpt:
Serra entered the private hotel suite with a sense of boiling frustration.
Who could blame her?
The clock was ticking toward her death, and Bas had her running in circles chasing after whores and a drug gang with nothing to show for her efforts but a headache.
But deep inside, she knew her frustration was caused as much by the silent man trailing behind her as the stress of potential death.
What the hell had he been thinking to confront six armed drug runners by himself?
Okay, she logically knew that he could have destroyed the humans. She’d even tried to pretend she was concerned they might end up bloody corpses. But inside she’d been a seething mass of terror that Fane would be injured.
Which for some reason pissed her off.
Was this why he’d always been so insistent that he couldn’t make her a permanent part of his life? Had he known she would be tormenting herself every time he stepped into danger?
After all, it was one thing to be at Valhalla knowing he might be at risk, and another to be watching as he deliberately placed himself in the line of fire.
She’d been so angry for so long at his stubborn refusal to believe she was capable of accepting his commitment to his duties. She assumed he thought she was too pampered, too sheltered to be the partner of a warrior.
Now she was forced to accept that he might have had a point.
Watching him . . . shit. She’d been a breath from stepping out of the car and blasting them with enough psychic force to knock them out for a week. Only the knowledge that Fane would put himself in even greater danger if she’d attracted the attention of the thugs had kept her in the car.
Not that the nerve-wracking afternoon had changed her feelings for the aggravating beast. She wasn’t sure there was anything that could destroy her love. But it forced her to admit that her resentment toward Fane hadn’t been entirely fair. And to acknowledge that being the lover of a Sentinel might involve more than she’d originally anticipated.
She hated being in the wrong.
“Well that was a waste of a day,” she muttered, pacing the sitting room.
Bas had dropped them off in front of the hotel, warning he was returning at eight. Of course he refused to say where they would be going, only insisting that she was to wear the formal gown.
The bastard.
Moving without a sound, Fane was standing directly in her path, his hands lightly gripping her shoulders.
“It’s not too late, Serra.”
Her heart skidded to a halt at his touch, her mouth going dry. She’d spent the entire day trying to ignore her acute awareness of this man. Now she was too damned tired to deny the thrill of excitement that raced through her.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice husky.
His expression remained grim, but his grip eased, allowing his fingers to lightly trace the line of her shoulders.
“I can contact the Mave.”
“No.”
He scowled. “Serra—”
She lifted her hand to press her fingers to his lips, halting his protest. “Not yet.”
Without warning he nipped the tip of her finger, his eyes darkening with a blast of arousal he made no effort to hide.
“I knew you were going to be trouble the minute I saw you,” he murmured, his low voice brushing over her skin like a caress.
She frowned, glaring into his hard, starkly beautiful face. Hell. He was supposed to be the aloof, untouchable Sentinel. The distant warrior she’d sworn had rejected her for the last time.
She couldn’t possibly fight her aching need when he wasn’t playing by the rules.
“You don’t even remember our first meeting,” she accused, her treacherous fingers lingering on his surprisingly sensuous lips.
His hands smoothed down her back, his caress heartstoppingly tender.
It was something that had always fascinated her.
How such a strong, lethally trained Sentinel could possess a touch delicate enough to carve the exquisite wooden figurines that filled the nursery at Valhalla or make a woman melt in desire.
She shivered as he cupped her ass with an intimacy that made her breath tangle in her throat.
“I remember every second of our first meeting,” he informed her, the movement of his lips beneath her fingers oddly erotic. “I’d been away from Valhalla for almost fifty years and I was anxious to return to my favorite fishing spot by the lake. But instead of the peace and quiet I was expecting I discovered a dark-haired, green-eyed vixen who was wearing a dangerously skimpy tank top and shortshorts.” His gaze drifted down to the low cut of her neckline. “You looked like a wood sprite.”
His low words vividly conjured the magic of the day.
She’d escaped from her training so she could finish her latest romance novel. It’d been a rare autumn day filled with sunshine and just a hint of frost in the air. The sort of day that begged a young woman to play hooky.
Knowing that Inhera, the leader of the psychics and clairvoyants, would send someone in search of her, Serra had hidden among the reeds that surrounded the lake, feeling deliciously rebellious.
And then . . . Fane had appeared.
“I glanced up from the book I was reading and I was dazzled,” she told him, her fingers moving to stroke the exotic tattoo that wrapped around his thick neck. “You were the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.”
He arched a brow. “Beautiful?”
“You are.” She smiled with rueful resignation. “But then you grunted at me and before I could even say hi you were storming away in a huff.”
“Because I felt like a perv,” he muttered, a shocking heat staining his high cheekbones.
She blinked in confusion. “What?”
“You were so young.” He shook his head. “Too young.”
“I was over eighteen.”
“Barely.” His eyes lowered to the swell of her breasts, his eyes dilating with a hunger he couldn’t disguise. “Christ, all I could think about was laying you back on the grass and peeling away that teeny tiny top.” His hands skimmed up her hips to slide beneath the edge of her sweater.
She hissed in shock, but he held his searching gaze even as she shuddered at the feel of his hands on her bare skin.
They scalded. Tormented.
Aroused.
“Then you spent the next fifteen years pretending I didn’t exist,” she muttered.
He gave a short, humorless laugh, his hands moving up to cup the heavy weight of her breasts.
“That pretense is well and truly over.”
Serra swallowed a groan, her senses sizzling with electric anticipation beneath his bold seduction. His fingers found the straining tips of her nipples, teasing them with a blissful skill.
Oh . . . God.
This was her fantasy. Her deepest dream made real.
But even as her back arched with blatant invitation, an annoying voice whispered in the back of her mind that at this precise moment he would be in Tibet if she hadn’t been in danger.
“Shattered by the sword of Damocles that hangs over my head?” she rasped.
“Shattered by fate.” He lowered his head to brush a light kiss on her mouth, his thumbs stroking her nipples with increasing urgency. White-hot excitement curled through the pit of her stomach. “A fate I’m tired of fighting.”
“I’m not sure what that means,” she breathed, her hands grabbing his shoulders. To push him away? Or yank him closer?
She hadn’t decided.
He teased her with another brush of his mouth, lingering just long enough to make her ache for a deeper kiss.
“Neither do I,” he admitted in rough tones. “I suppose we’ll find out together.”
Author Info:ALEXANDRA IVY graduated from Truman University with a degree in theatre before deciding she preferred to bring her characters to life on paper rather than stage. She currently lives in Missouri with her extraordinarily patient husband and teenage sons. To stay updated on Alexandra’s Guardian series or to chat with other readers, please visit her website at www.alexandraivy.com.
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