Avenged
by an Angel (Eternal Mates Paranormal Romance Series Book 16) by Felicity
Heaton – Book Tour and Giveaway!
New York Times best-selling paranormal
romance author Felicity Heaton is here today for the book tour of her new paranormal
romance release, Avenged
by an Angel, the latest release in her popular Eternal
Mates world.
There
are now sixteen books in this series, but don’t worry, you can dive right on in
with Avenged
by an Angel, or start at the very beginning with Kissed
by a Dark Prince, which is FREE at all retailers right now. Binge-read to
your heart’s content!
If
you love big worlds packed with detail and every paranormal species imaginable,
together with hot alpha heroes and strong heroines bringing them to their
knees, then this series is definitely for you. Plus, each book has a happily
forever after and there are no cliff-hangers, because there’s nothing worse
than a cliff-hanger!
by Felicity Heaton
Duty should mean everything to the Fourth Commander of the Echelon angels. It
did before he met her. Now, the only demon he wants to slay is the one that
haunts the enchanting mortal huntress, and the temptation to hunt him in Hell,
a realm that might kill him, is becoming impossible to resist.
Held captive by a dragon shifter in Hell, Emelia
survived a torment that changed her in ways she hates. She wants her strength
back. Her life back. To do that, she needs closure. To get that, she might have
to trust not only a man again, but an immortal.
But when the price of vengeance is the soul of the
angel bringing her back to life, will Emelia be willing to pay it?
To say he was buzzing as he waited for the
petite mortal to speak would be the understatement of his long life.
Emelia was here, in his presence, more
beautiful than he recalled. Fire had sparked in her emerald eyes from time to
time when they had been talking. Talking.
He knew the soft tones of her voice, the rolling way her words flowed, gaining
strength at times and gentleness at others. He knew how emotions moved like
tides within her, panic and fear at the helm one moment, and calm and resolve
in command the next.
Her mood was as mercurial as his.
He hadn’t meant to scare her, and he
definitely hadn’t handled her well so far. He had only meant to see her, to
perhaps speak with her a little about everyday things, and now he was in danger
of driving her away.
Fear still coloured those entrancing green
eyes that were locked on him, and he would be a fool if he believed she had
forgotten her desire to leave. She stood unmoving, a quiet strength to her as
she assessed him, mulling over his offer, but he could read her. Part of her
still wanted to flee back into the building where he couldn’t follow, not
without stirring up the humans who lived in it again.
He didn’t want her to go, though.
There had to be something he could do to
convince her to stay, to make her believe he had no intention of harming her.
He wasn’t sure what that was, though.
He had thought offering to track and slay
the dragon for her would work, but now she looked even more as if she was
considering walking away from him.
It had been a mistake to rush here to her,
without taking a moment to plan. He had seen many people involved in
relationships of every type, not just friendships or short-term partnerships.
Angels indulged in more pleasurable forms of relationships, and some paired for
life, as humans did. He had seen every kind of relationship in his years, but
it hadn’t prepared him for handling Emelia.
He wasn’t sure what he was meant to do in
this situation.
And damn, it was daunting.
He had expected to feel the same pressing
need to fight when he had come to her, that same surge of rage and a hunger to
hunt.
The moment he had heard her voice, a
different sort of pressing need had filled him, and a wholly unexpected hunger
had surged through him.
He should have left then.
But he had made his second mistake.
He had looked at her.
Her beauty hit him hard whenever he dared
to glance at her, and it was difficult to take his eyes off her. The flawless
cream of her skin against the rich brown of her hair. The elegant arch of her
neck. The soft curve of her jaw. The delicate slope of her nose. The entrancing
emerald of her large eyes.
The tempting soft pink of her full lips.
She fidgeted with the hem of her black T-shirt,
her nerves clear.
His staring was unsettling her, but he
couldn’t help himself.
His eyes didn’t want to leave her.
He wanted to drink his fill of her soft
features, ached to drown in her eyes as she steadily held his gaze. His fingers
twitched with a need to brush her damp hair back, to capture the band she had
hastily tied it with and tug it free so he could tangle his fingers in her fall
of dark hair.
He wasn’t sure what to do now, but he knew that wasn’t a wise move.
What was?
The bond that linked him to Emelia was
fragile, and he could easily, accidentally, break it if he wasn’t careful. Just
one misstep might be enough to end things before they ever really began, and
part of him feared he had already made that wrong move.
He reined in his temper, clawing back calm,
aware that the fear that gripped her now was his doing.
The air around them lightened, and as it
did, he saw the fear in her eyes fading. A right move, then?
One that might bring him back to where he
had been before he had let his anger get the better of him and pressed her too
hard?
He hoped so.
He still wasn’t sure how to proceed, even
if he was back to square one.
He was a warrior, a hunter. He didn’t know
how to be gentle. He was governed by a darker set of instincts, and his
temperament was hard to deal with at the best of times. At his worst, he was
aware that he was a formidable male, one who might appear as a monster to the
gentler sex.
Especially to a female like Emelia.
“What did you see?” She had barely spoken
that question before she shook her head. “Don’t answer that. Maybe it’s better
I don’t know. I don’t want to know.”
Mercurial female.
“Do you know where the dragon resides?” He
wanted to move closer to her, but he didn’t dare risk it.
She tensed, her slender body going rigid,
and looked away from him. “I don’t want to talk about it. I always have to talk
about it, and I hate it.”
Understood. No talking about the dragon.
Not yet anyway, not until she was more comfortable around him again.
“You saw it, though… didn’t you?” she
whispered without looking at him.
“I did.” But he hadn’t seen it all.
Rage had been swift to claim him, and he
had only seen part of what had happened to her. He wanted to know the rest. It
plagued him as fiercely as the need to hunt the dragon.
“Is that a power all angels have?” She
lowered her hands to her sides and he marvelled at how she visibly altered
before his eyes, her nerves fading as she straightened and brought her gaze up
to meet his.
“No. It is one of my gifts.” He had a few,
not the most sought-after ones, but they had helped him in some tricky
situations. Would they help him through this one?
He studied Emelia, charting the subtle
changes in her body language and her emotions as she mulled over his answer.
She seemed to grow stronger with each passing second, and he suspected it had
to do with the fact she was shutting down her emotions. Fear. Nerves. Panic. It
was all subsiding at a rapid rate as something else clicked into place.
He wanted to smile when it dawned on him.
The hunter in her.
Perhaps they weren’t so different after
all.
The question was, was she using her duty as
a hunter to merely learn more about him, or was learning about him an excuse to
linger on the roof with him?
He wouldn’t deny her information either
way. Her legion of mortals weren’t strong enough to detain him if he wanted to
leave, and he wanted her to be more comfortable around him. If learning about
him would grant her that comfort, would bring her closer to him, then he would answer
any question she posed.
“One of the huntresses mentioned she had
wanted to leave to find reinforcements… and then she had wanted to stay.”
Emelia held his gaze, hers impassive as she studied him, but he could see beyond
the veil to her rising nerves. Whatever she wanted to ask, it unsettled her for
some reason. “Sable told me you can control weak-minded people—”
She cut herself off when he frowned at her.
Sable was more trouble than he had
realised. She had been poisoning Emelia’s mind.
“I cannot manipulate you.” He barely dulled
the sharp edge to his tone. “You are too strong.”
That seemed to relieve her.
A sharp sensation shot down his spine. Not
now. He gritted his teeth and ignored the summons from his superiors. They
could wait. He didn’t want to leave her.
“What’s wrong?” Her dark eyebrows knitted
and he realised he wasn’t the only one who could see through someone to the
real them.
She could read him too.
“A summons,” he muttered. “It can wait.”
She tilted her head back and her eyes
traced across the night sky. “Won’t you get into trouble?”
Was she looking for Heaven? She wouldn’t
find it there. As Hell was linked to this plane, so was his. It was above her
world, but not. She had been to Hell, so he presumed she knew it was a
different plane, another dimension in simple terms.
She lowered her gaze back to him. “You
should go.”
He shrugged. “I do not want to.”
The corners of her lips curled, but the
smile died before it could manifest. “You’ll get in trouble.”
He had the feeling he had been in trouble from
the moment he had met her. “No worse than usual.”
He ignored so many summons that his
superiors had once joked about fitting him with a GPS anklet because it
appeared he kept getting lost and someone had to keep finding him.
“Go.” She looked ready to shove him.
He didn’t like that at all. Now she wanted
him to leave? Had he outstayed his welcome or done something wrong? He really
needed to read up on relationships, or at least on females. He was finding it
hard to fathom what she wanted when she kept changing her mind.
“You were asking me questions, though.” And
he had been enjoying it. “If I leave, will you permit me to return another day?
I would speak with you again if you would allow it.”
She stifled a smile that was at odds with
the nerves he felt rising inside her.
“You’re so formal…” A frown wrinkled her
button nose. “What am I meant to call you? It’s weird I don’t know what to call
you.”
Not really.
“You may call me Fourth Commander.”
She pulled a face at that and it was his
turn to frown at her.
“I can’t call you a title. Is a title who
you are?” She seemed to have forgotten the nerves he had stirred in her by
asking to see her again, although he wasn’t sure he was glad of it, as she now
appeared determined to make him question himself.
Was a title who he was? A title was enough
for him. It was more than many angels bore.
“Everything has a name,” she said. “Hell,
my childhood pets had names. I named the damned spiders in the garden too.”
“It is all I require,” he countered, his
mood taking a dark turn as he considered what she had said.
She had given wild arachnids names and he
didn’t have one to offer her. Did that mean she would see him as something less
than a common garden spider?
“You really should have a name. It’s
stupid… not having a name. Sable is right about that.” Her eyes lit up. “I
could call you what Sable did, although I imagine you wouldn’t like it.”
He glared at her now. He remembered what
the half-breed had called him.
Tall, Dark and Pompous.
“I would rather you did not.” He folded his
arms across his chest and grimaced as the wound on his side pulled. She glanced
down at the spot above his hip and looked as if she might ask about it, so he
continued. “Do I really require a name? Is it not something you can overcome?”
She shook her head, his wound forgotten.
“It’s just strange. Maybe I could grow used to it, if you insisted on having no
name.”
Was she planning to see him enough to grow
used to things about him?
Heat spread through him at the thought and
he took it as a sign she did want to see him again, would allow him to visit
her another time, and perhaps more than once. If he visited her enough, he
might come to understand her, and she might open up enough to tell him more
about the dragon.
Then he could hunt the bastard down and
slay him.
“Your eyes are shifting again and it’s
cold. I’d rather you kept your temper in check.” Her soft words tugged him back
from his pleasant thoughts and he reined his mood in before it slipped beyond
his control. Another frown put a furrow in her brow. “I don’t like it when you
lose your temper. It’s cold and dark…”
He didn’t like the way she trailed off, or
how she wrapped her arms around her waist to tightly hug herself as if she
feared she was falling apart.
“I apologise.” He bowed his head.
“No problem, TeeDeePee.”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “TeeDeePee?”
“Short for Tall, Dark and Pompous.”
If she wanted him to keep his mood in
check, she was going about it the wrong way.
“Fourth Commander,” he said.
“EffSee.” She pulled a face. “Echelon?”
She was determined to give him a name. It
wasn’t going to happen.
He huffed. “Do you like your name? Do you
feel it suits you?”
A little shrug. “I like it. Sometimes
people can’t spell it. I can’t tell you how many Starbucks I’ve had where
they’ve called me Amelia. Sometimes people try to shorten it.”
The flicker of disgust in her green eyes
said that didn’t go down well with her.
“Shorten it?” He tried to think of ways to
shorten her name, none of which he would tell her, because he was enjoying this
easy banter.
She was slowly relaxing again and had
forgotten he was meant to be leaving, both of which were good things.
She nodded. “Mostly to Em.”
“Em.” He liked that. It had a cute ring to
it, the sort of name a lover might whisper in her ear.
The look in her eyes said she hated it,
though.
He looked himself over, from his black
leather shoes, up his trousers, to his turtleneck sweater.
What name would suit him?
He lifted his eyes to lock with hers and
that heat flooded him again, stirring hungers best denied, ones that were new
and startlingly powerful.
“Your eyes are shifting again,” she
murmured, a little breathless, her voice softer than before, barely there as
she stared deep into his eyes, as if he had cast a spell on her. “You look like
a wolf.”
“I am an angel,” he countered, a little too
deadpan judging by how the corners of her lips tilted in that teasing way he
had never seen before tonight.
“I know that, but you keep looking at me
like a predator.” Her voice dropped lower, but he still heard her. “As if you
want to devour me.”
He did, but not in the way she meant it.
She took a step back and he barely stopped
himself from moving one towards her. It was hard, but he let her distance
herself and dragged his gaze away from her, fixing it back on the stars so he
was no longer unsettling her. He needed to handle her carefully. Gently. How
did one go about that?
“Why do you want to fight the dragon?” Her
words drifted around him as he focused on the stars.
“I simply want justice served to him.” A
lie.
“Other huntresses were taken… hurt worse
than me. Some were killed. Do you want to avenge them too?”
He picked out one star and fixated on it.
It was brighter than the others, flashed blue and gold. “After I have dealt
with your dragon.”
“He isn’t my dragon,” she snapped and he had the feeling he had hit a raw
nerve.
“My apologies,” he murmured, distracted by
the star. Was it a binary? Two stars snared in an orbit that had them crossing
paths at intervals. He knew how that felt now. How long would it be before he
could cross paths with Emelia again?
The fire arcing down his spine said it
might be a while if he didn’t return to his superiors soon to see what they
wanted. He had been confined to Echelon headquarters for a lunar cycle once,
his punishment for what they had termed his ‘disobedience’. That time, they
hadn’t been joking.
A lunar cycle locked away from Emelia, only
able to watch her from afar, would be torture now he knew the sound of her
voice, the sweet scent of her perfume, and had been close to her.
“So you want to kill him just because he
hurt a human?” Her voice gained strength and her mood shifted, darker emotions
surfacing.
She didn’t believe him.
“I am an angel.” An excuse, and a good one as far as he could tell.
Mortals believed angels watched over them,
protecting them from afar, and he was sure that by now, she knew that he was a
demon hunter like her, tracked and killed any creature who was a danger to her
kind.
It was possible she would believe him.
“I don’t buy it,” she bit out.
Perhaps not, then.
She moved a step closer and his senses lit
up, that heat she caused inside him rising another ten degrees, until he was
burning with a need to look at her again and see how near to him she was.
Until he was on fire with the hunger to
reach out, slide his arm around her narrow waist, and draw her against him.
He forced his eyes to remain on the stars,
because she could read him, and he didn’t want her to know the real reason he
needed to kill the dragon.
He was unequipped to deal with her, uneducated
in the ways of relationships, but he was old enough and wise enough to know
that telling her he desired to slay the dragon because it had harmed her and that he would kill anyone who
had done such a thing to her, including another angel, would only end with her
leaving and never wanting to see him again.
Which was hardly surprising, but also
unfair.
He wasn’t sure he had much control when it
came to Emelia. The anger that had awoken in him when he had seen through her
eyes the things the dragon had done to her, the torment she had suffered, was
too powerful to wrestle into submission. He needed to do this for her, could
only keep denying the deep and consuming hunger to hunt and destroy the dragon
for so long before it devoured what little control he had and he found himself
traversing the distance between this world and a place that was forbidden.
Hell.
He would go there, whether she wanted it or
not. Whether he wanted it or not. He had to go. The dragon was there, and he wouldn’t
be able to settle until he knew the male was dead and would never harm Emelia
again.
All he could do was prepare himself for
that day as best he could, and that meant learning as much as possible about
the dragon, which meant convincing Emelia to confide in him and trust him to
carry out this task for her.
“What do you think will happen if you kill
Zephyr?” she husked in a tight voice, one that cracked on that bastard’s name.
Zephyr.
He had a lead at last, but at what cost?
Tears lined Emelia’s dark lashes and she
turned her face away from him. Her shoulders shook as she closed her eyes, and
he ached to reach for her, to lay his hand gently on her cheek and reassure her
that whatever nightmare she had survived, it would never happen to her again.
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 London Vampires
series. Seven sexy and sinful Greek god brothers can be your new addiction in
the Guardians of Hades series. Or how about four hot alpha shifter brothers in
her Cougar Creek Mates 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 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:
