Of Flame and Promise (16 page)

Bring in the New Year with a new romance from Loveswept—all are specially written with you in mind, so I know you’ll find a story that’s a perfect fit.

Elisabeth Barrett returns to Briarwood, an unforgettable place where legacy and longing make dreams come true, in
The Best of Me.
USA Today
bestselling author Jamie Crane K. Schmidt follows with the first book in her new Hawaii Heat series,
Life’s a Beach,
an irresistible tale of second chances. The bad boys of baseball only get better with Katie Rose’s fourth book in the Boys of Summer series,
The Heat Is On,
where a homegrown Crane baseball star returns to snag the one that got away.
USA Today
bestselling author Mira Lyn Kelly finishes her Dare to Love series with
Now and Then,
a steamy short novel of lost love, second chances, and hidden dangers.

New York Times
bestselling author Kathy Clark releases
After Love,
book one in the suspenseful Austin Heroes series. Cecy Robson’s
Of Flame and Promise
kicks off a sizzling new series in the Weird Girls saga as Celia’s sister Taran fights to have it all. Jessica Lemmon introduces the ultimate bad boy in
Forgotten Promises,
and Gina Gordon starts her powerful, deeply sensual series Body & Soul where one woman discovers the courage to face life’s greatest challenges in
Naked
.

Let’s get sweet with
USA Today
bestselling author Laura Drewry and her latest,
Off the Hook,
part of her Fishing for Trouble series, and Zoe Dawson and her first Laurel Falls novel,
Leaving Yesterday,
for fans of small-town romance. Sidney Halston’s fans will be happy to know another mixed-martial-arts story is en route with
Fighting Dirty,
and then Claire Kent has you
Taking It Off
with a male stripper—yum! Adding to this
USA Today
bestseller list is a fast MC story from Maisey Yates,
Strip You Bare.
And Sawyer Bennett is bundling her books from her
New York Times
bestselling Cold Fury Hockey series.

Looking for a few historical romances? Lavinia Kent releases a Regency favorite in
Ravishing Ruby,
Sharon Cullen brings you back to Culloden in
Sutherland’s Secret,
and Pamela Labud’s Hunt Club series begins with
To Catch a Lady—
all with heroes to die for.

That’s it for this month—but February is bigger and better than ever before. Hope to see you soon.

~Happy Romance!

Gina Wachtel

Associate Publisher

by Cecy Robson

Available from Loveswept

You know it’s going to be a bad day when you wake up in the morning and the first word out of your mouth is
fuck
.

My right arm—or should I say my
new
arm generated after my real one was chewed off by a psycho werewolf (no, this isn’t a joke)—buzzes me awake. That’s right,
buzzes
.

I do my best to hide my limb. Not just because it’s as white as alabaster. Or because of the fluorescent blue veins that run its length. But because it’s doing things I can’t control, like interfering with my magic, glowing like a light saber, and, now, making noise.

I lift my head, half-asleep, wondering how a wasp nest found its way beneath my pillow, but too exhausted to run away screaming,
yet
. But the day is young, and a lot can still happen. And, if you were familiar with my life, you’d understand that pissed-off wasps in my bed aren’t the craziest, or scariest, thing that’s ever happened to me.

My eyes narrow at the quivering pillow as my haze clears. Maybe it’s because I’m tired, or maybe it’s because I’m bitter as all hell, but I can’t help thinking that the arm
and
the pillow are laughing at me. I pull my glowing and buzzing arm from beneath the fluffy white pillow and swear.

“Really?
Really?
” I ask it. “What’s next, singing and puppet shows?”

Apparently my incandescent light saber arm isn’t a fan of sarcasm and proceeds to flicker on and off like a twisted strobe light. I shake it hard and smack it against the mattress, for all the good it does. “Knock it off,” I tell it.

It’s not that I think it listens, or that I manage to control it—there’s simply no controlling this thing—but somehow the glowing recedes and so does the noise, and my arm resumes its “normal” deathlike tone.

The arm is now quiet, still, and no longer casting light, so I should be thankful, right? I should be happy, true?

Oh, I wish.

The color is startling, and contrasts horrifically against my deep olive skin. But its eerie tone and its unpredictability aren’t the only things that trouble me. There’s something wrong with this limb. It doesn’t belong on me. And in a way, it doesn’t belong in this world.

Maybe, like me, it’s something that wasn’t supposed to be.

I sigh and clutch it against me. It feels like my old arm. It moves like my old arm. But it’s so not—I don’t know—
human
.

When I lost my real arm, the Squaw Valley Den Pack Omega created this new one using ancient werewolf magic. If I were a
were,
I think things would have been fine, peachy keen, and all that good stuff. But I’m not a
were,
or human, or witch, or vampire, or anything. No, not even a little bit.

My sisters and I may look human, but nothing like us has ever existed on earth. And because of it, earth’s ancient magic seems to really resent helping a weird girl like me.

I used to wield fire and lightning with ease, and catch glimpses of the future. I used to be badass. I’m no longer badass, and the only things I catch now are odd glances cast my way.

“Are you the punishment for my sins?” I ask my arm.

I don’t expect it to answer, but it does, sputtering light and buzzing before abruptly ceasing its response.

To anyone watching, it might have been funny. To me, it’s not. Nothing’s been funny in a long time.

For a moment, I simply stare at it. There’s a part of me that wants to cry, wondering what it will start doing next. But I’ve already cried too long and too hard for what it has cost me.

Or should I say,
who
it has cost me.

I scan the room. Nothing of Gemini remains. Not his clothes, not his pictures. I even deleted and blocked his number. For all my arm disgusts me, I never expected it to disgust him more. After all, this was the werewolf who claimed me as his mate. The same male who swore he’d love me forever.

I suppose forever only counted so long as I didn’t change, so long as I remained perfect in his eyes. But I never claimed to be perfect, even if many believed I’d looked the part.

My arm flickers and
zings,
the electrified charge strong enough to startle me and slap any remnants of sleep away. Shit. No way am I perfect. Not by a long shot, especially with this thing constantly mocking me and reminding me of everything wrong in my life.

A sharp rap to the door has me glancing toward my right. “Taran?” my perky sister Shayna calls. “I heard your alarm clock go off. Want some breakfast?”

I lift the bane of my existence and roll my eyes. Alarm clock? Yeah, I suppose you can call it that.

“T?” Shayna presses.

“I’ll be right out,” I answer.

She pauses. “Good,” she says, sounding relieved. “I made plenty.”

It’s not that I want to eat. It’s that I know how worried my sisters are about me. So I sit with them when I can, and plaster a smile when I need to, but even that’s cumbersome, which sucks. I don’t want my time with my sisters to be something of a chore. I love them. But I’ve learned that some things can’t be helped.

My arm fires with its haunting glow. Ah, yeah, case in point.

With a groan, I slip out of bed and into the bathroom. I walk into my closet and pull on panties and a bra, then tug on a red sweaterdress. After adding a few swipes of mascara and some lipstick, I shove my feet into a pair of platform heels and strut out of the room, yet not before snagging my elbow-length leather gloves from the dresser. Most women won’t leave their homes without their cellphones. I can’t leave my room without my gloves. They help me hide the ugly appendage and the light show that accompanies it.

But now that my arm’s buzzing…

I pause with my hand on the doorknob. God, what am I going to do about this thing?

I take a breath and wrench open the door, tugging on my gloves as I walk down the hall and into our large kitchen. Shayna abandons the waffle iron when she sees me and skips forward, her ponytail bouncing behind her.

She throws her arms around me like it’s been months, not hours, since she’s seen me. “Morning, Taran,” she tells me brightly.

I pat her back, wishing I could hug her for real. But real hugs lead to my very real tears, and I can’t keep doing this to my family. “Hey, princess. Wow, everything smells great.”

It’s the truth, yet my comment sounds phony and forced, even to me.

Her arms fall away slowly. Although she keeps her grin, I sense the worry behind it, as well as her fear. “You look nice,” she tells me.

No. I look acceptable. I used to spend over an hour styling my dark wavy hair and applying my makeup. Now I do enough so I don’t resign myself to sweats, watching made-for-TV movies, and stuffing my face with potato chips.

“Thanks,” I manage with yet another forced grin. I make a show of taking in all the breakfast foods, including the fresh baked goods. “Yum. Do you need help setting the table or anything?”

“No. It’s all good, T.”

She says nothing more, which is unusual for Shayna. Either she’s waiting for me to speak, or she’s debating what to say. I can’t take another pity party so I lift a pan filled with eggs and a plate stacked with waffles and bring them to the table. “Where’s your puppy?” I ask. In other words, where’s her gigantic werewolf husband, Koda?

“Oh, he already ate and left. He’s doing more at the Den since Celia’s been needing more, ah, time with Aric.”

Okay, now I really grin, and so does she. Time with Aric is a mild way to describe what Celia desires from her husband.

Our youngest sister, Emme, walks out of the laundry room blushing, which tells me she’s heard us discussing Celia. Shayna’s grin quickly turns into a laugh. Emme’s shyness has that effect on her.

Emme clears her throat, but not her obvious discomfort. Where Shayna has dark straight hair, Emme has soft blond waves and fair skin that reddens the longer we look at her. “Emme,” I offer. “What’s the big deal? So what if Celia’s banging Aric like the lead drummer at a Fourth of July parade?”

Emme holds up her hand. “Taran, let’s keep their private life private.”

I reach for a glass of freshly squeezed juice. “I would if they weren’t so damn loud. I swear, I thought the walls were going to come down around midnight when they—”

“Taran…” Emme whimpers, shaking her hands like she can’t stand to hear another word.

Emme’s always been so sweet and angelic. Me? Not at all. “Hey, do you suppose Celia’s more flexible now, given how Aric knocked her up? As in ankles-behind-the-head kind of flexible—”

Emme lifts a muffin with her
force
and sends it zipping my way. I catch it in my hand before it rams me in the mouth. “Eat,” she insists. “Just eat.”

In other words: For once in your life, shut your inappropriate trap.

Shayna takes a seat beside me, laughing her skinny ass off. Emme sits, too, in time for Celia to stagger down the back steps.

Good God. Celia’s long curly hair is tousled from lack of sleep and the insane amount of sex she’s had. And her eyes? They’re glazed with a hunger that warns me not to get too close. “Is there bacon? Please tell me there’s bacon,” she growls as if crazed.

Her entire face beams when Emme levitates a plate full of bacon and lowers it front of an empty seat. Like a woman possessed, Celia sits and rams about four pieces in her mouth at once. The rest of us watch her in stunned silence as she chomps them down and reaches for another few slices. She freezes when she realizes we’re all gaping at her. “Sorry. Would you like some?”

Her tigress eyes replace her human ones, making it clear she’s only trying to be polite. And that only an idiot would get between her and her breakfast.

“No, nope, uh-uh,” the three of us answer at once.

This seems to settle Celia’s inner kitty enough so her human eyes once more blink back at us. I pour her a glass of juice, while Emme and Shayna carefully place plates stacked with food closer to her reach. What can I say, we don’t want to be eaten.

“Are you all right?” Emme asks her quietly.

It’s only then that Celia slows her frantic munching. “I don’t know,” she admits, her husky voice trickling with concern. She lifts her T-shirt and shows us her tiny belly. “The baby’s not growing.”

Yeah. We’ve noticed that, too. Her pregnancy was unexpected, given she was incapable of bearing children. But within two weeks of finding out she and Aric had conceived, her baby bump appeared and was visible through her wedding gown.

That was two months ago. And now…well, let’s just say despite how this baby has been prophesized to rid the world of evil, we’re all pretty much freaking out that he or she isn’t growing.

“But your body’s changing,” I insist. I don’t exactly ooze optimism. In fact, I’m mostly a the-sky-is-falling-and-the-earth-is-swallowing-us-whole kind of gal. But Celia doesn’t need to hear what’s wrong. My girl needs hope, so that’s what I give her. I point to her chest. “If your hooters don’t scream you’re knocked up, I don’t know what does.”

She glances at her girls and then back at me, the tension in her shoulders lifting slightly. Yeah. Hope is exactly what she needs.

“They are a lot bigger,” she agrees quietly. She gathers her thoughts, appearing to want to say more despite her obvious hesitation. “My body’s changing in a lot of ways. Maybe not outwardly, but I can feel the difference inside of me.”

“Like in your magic, dude?” Shayna asks.

Celia nods. “The magic that helped me get pregnant seems to complement mine. But I have to say, my hormones are out of control.” Her cheeks flush and she lowers her voice. “Poor Aric. I can’t stop having sex with him. It’s like every time I see him, I pounce.”

It’s then Aric bounds down the steps, his eyes glassy from lack of sleep and his five o’clock shadow now a full-out beard, thanks to his preferring to romp in the sheets instead of shave. His face lights up when he sees Celia—kind of like she did at the sight of bacon. “Yeah, poor bastard,” I mutter.

“Hey, beautiful,” he says to Celia, bending to kiss her lips.

She smiles against his mouth. “Hey, wolf,” she answers, stroking his beard lightly.

Emme inches away when Celia’s stare suggests the need for something more than breakfast. Aric, being Aric, returns that look with equal force. I start to laugh, not because of Celia and Aric, but because of Emme’s response. She’s glancing around at the food like she knows it’s going to end up splattered across Celia and Aric’s soon-to-be naked bodies.

My laugh lodges in my throat when my right arm jerks as if shocked. Shayna lowers her fork. “You okay, T?” she asks.

I shove my arm under the table. “Fine,” I say. I reach for my glass of juice with my opposite hand, trying to stay calm. Celia and Emme didn’t notice my twitch, and I don’t think Aric did, either, but something about me lures his attention away from Celia.

He cocks his head, his nose flaring as if his Alpha wolf has latched on to something. “Taran, what’s wrong?” he asks.

Celia’s and Emme’s attention shifts my way. Shayna rises, fear crinkling her brow. “I’m tired,” I say dismissively, feeling my pulse start to race. I push my chair out. “I should head back to bed. I didn’t sleep much—”

All at once, and without warning, pain burns its way across my affected limb, curling me forward in agony. It’s then my arm whips out, sending the table and all its contents soaring with freakish speed. Plates shatter on the floor as the table embeds with a loud bang
into
the wall—directly where Celia sat seconds before.

I lift my head as the burn recedes, searching for her—panicked that I’ve harmed her. Tears of relief and residual pain slide down my face when I see Aric lower her to the floor, far away from me. She and our sisters stare back at me, stunned. But Aric? Holy shit, he’s
pissed
.

“Taran, what are you doing?” he growls.

I shake my head, knowing he’s angry that I almost hurt Celia. “I’m not doing anything….”

The burn returns and so does its torment. This time, I can’t bite back my screams. I stumble forward. Aric races to me. I don’t see him—I only feel his body and hear the crunch of bone when my arm flails and connects with his jaw.