Ares, book 1 in New York Times best-seller Felicity
Heaton’s hot new paranormal romance series, Guardians of Hades, is now
available in ebook and paperback. To celebrate the release of Ares and Megan’s
romance, she’s holding a FANTASTIC GIVEAWAY and sharing sneak peeks of the
book.
Here’s more about the book and
the sexy Greek god hero and his heroine…
Ares (Guardians of Hades Series Book 1)
Felicity Heaton
Prince of the Underworld and Lord of Fire, Ares was banished from his home by
his father, Hades, two centuries ago and given a new duty and purpose—to keep
our world and his from colliding in a calamity foreseen by the Moirai.
Together with his six brothers, he fights to defend the
gates to the Underworld from daemons bent on breaching them and gaining
entrance to that forbidden land, striving to protect his home from their dark
influence. Caged by the manifestation of his power, held apart from those he
loves by his own fire and starved of physical contact, Ares lives a cold
existence driven by duty and the desire to return to his world.
Until his world collides with a daemon who steals his power
and a mortal female who shatters the ice around his heart and awakens the true
fire within him—a soul-stirring passion both dangerous and seductive.
Megan has wandered far from her home, driven from everyone
she loves by the devastating realisation that she is different to them all.
Unsure who to trust in the world, she keeps to herself, until a fateful stormy
night brings a temptingly handsome warrior crashing into her life and into her
heart—a warrior who seems to hold powers more frightening and marvellous than
her own.
When the New York gate comes under threat, and Ares is put
to the test, will he choose his duty and regain the power he needs in order to
save his world or will he choose the desires of his heart and sacrifice his
fire so he can be with the woman becoming his whole world?
ARES – Excerpt
The world came back but it wasn’t the alley where the man
had grabbed Megan. It was the balcony of an apartment. Had they somehow
teleported? The Frenchman had disappeared in the blink of an eye too. It was
incredible.
And a little terrifying.
Cold wind gusted against her back and light rain splattered
on the shoulders of her black jumper, soaking into the already heavy wet wool.
She looked over her shoulder at the dark city. New York. They hadn’t gone far
then. The city swirled, shifting and distorting as her head spun, and she
pressed her hand to her forehead and closed her eyes, waiting for the dizziness
to pass. The man named Esher released her arm.
She cracked her eyes open, her heart thumping painfully
against her breastbone as everything began to sink in. Her coat, bag and the
gun had all been left behind. She was alone with three men, and the only one
who had shown her an ounce of compassion was unconscious again.
What the heck had she gotten herself into?
Esher slung her protector’s free arm around his shoulders
and helped the white-haired one move him past her. Her handsome warrior’s head
hung forwards and his heavy black leather boots dragged on the tiled floor of
the balcony.
She went to follow and then stopped when she noticed the
black curling ribbons that trailed behind them, clinging to them in places. Her
gaze dropped to her arms. Similar threads of darkness wrapped around the
sleeves of her thick black jumper. They drifted downwards towards her hands and
she hastily attacked them, sweeping them away, and kept brushing her arms long
after the black smoke had gone. Her head twirled again and she froze, scared to
move in case she passed out too. She couldn’t let that happen. God only knew
what these men might do to her.
One of the men slid the glass door open and they disappeared
into the apartment.
Megan inched forwards and peered through the glass. A
bedroom. The two men set her protector down on a crimson covered double bed and
Esher removed his tattered coat and then his black t-shirt.
She told her eyes not to drift away from her gorgeous
saviour’s face but the sight of him topless was too tempting to resist. Every
inch of him was honed, sinewy muscle, the sort that spoke of a physically
intensive job rather than hours at the gym. Considering the way he had fought,
she wasn’t shocked to find he had the body of a warrior to match his skills.
The white-haired man appeared in the doorway and she jumped
and stumbled backwards into the balcony railing.
“Come with me.”
Megan didn’t like his commanding tone but she was several
storeys above what looked to be Central Park, and there was no way of reaching
the apartment door without passing through it, so she gathered every ounce of
her courage and followed him inside.
Her gaze shifted to her protector and her steps slowed.
Would he be alright? Esher laid him down on the bed. She stopped walking before
she reached the next room, concern for her protector turning her around and
drawing her towards him. He needed to heal and she could help him do just that.
Esher’s dark gaze slid to her and narrowed. His black
eyebrows pinched tightly together and his fingers paused at his work. Something
in his eyes warned not to come any closer to him or the man she wanted to heal.
“You would be wise to leave him.” The white-haired one’s
voice came from behind her and she forced herself to face him, aware that he
was right and she was in no position to do anything other than as he bid.
Both of these men were obviously powerful like her
protector, and clearly just as dangerous, and she didn’t want to give them a
reason to hurt her.
He leaned on the back of a deep crimson couch in a light
coffee-coloured living room, his arms folded across his chest and pale eyes
locked on her. His long black coat grazed the floor, buttoned over his chest
but open further down. It split at his waist to reveal long legs clad in black
jeans and polished leather shoes. A thick navy roll-neck jumper covered him up
to his jaw, so the only skin visible was his face. The only other colour he had
about him was the light blue lining of his coat.
It matched his eyes.
Megan’s gaze darted to the door directly opposite her, at
the end of the channel between the wall on her right and the couch to her left.
An exit. He stood and blocked her path to it. Her heart accelerated again and
she slowly drew in a deep breath, hoping to calm it. She wasn’t sure what this
man wanted with her, but he had eyes as cold as Antarctica and radiated the
same dangerous vibe as the man who had protected her and the one called Esher.
Were they in some sort of gang?
A gang with super powers.
She glanced back at the one who had protected her. Esher had
moved him onto his front on the bed and was covering him from the waist down
with the wine red bedclothes. Was he going to be okay? Esher moved around the
bed and stood between her and the man. Protecting him? She looked up into his
blue eyes. They held hers, dark and challenging, daring her to attempt to pass
him to reach the other man.
She only wanted to heal him, but both men seemed reluctant
to let her near him right now, especially this one. She knew without a doubt
that if she tried to go to him, he would stop her and he would use force to do
it.
She looked back at the white-haired one.
They had appeared out of nowhere and looked as comfortable
with that power as the man had with his incredible ability to make fire out of
thin air. All her life, she had searched for people like her, always believing
that she was alone in the world. Now, there were four others like her. It was
both exciting and frightening, and she had a thousand questions she wanted to
ask them, but right now there was something more important than getting
answers.
And he was lying unconscious in the other room.
Megan dragged together what fragments remained of her
courage, stepped further into the living room and came to stand against the
dark cream wall opposite the white-haired man.
“What do you want with me?” she said, surprised by how calm
she sounded.
The desire to heal the man shortened her temper and boosted
her bravery too. The white-haired one clearly wanted to question her and the
quicker he did so, the quicker she could set to work on the one they were now
protecting.
He raked pale icy eyes over her.
Esher moved into the room and propped himself up against the
narrow wall that divided the bedroom from another smaller room. He brushed his
hand over the longer lengths of his dark hair again, preening it back to reveal
the shorn sides. The action of raising his arm caused the open sides of his
long black coat to fall away from his body and lifted the hem of his blue-grey
shirt. He sighed, lowered his hand to his side, and alternated between staring
at her with murder in his stormy eyes and looking back into the bedroom with
ones awash with concern.
“Tell me what happened,” the white-haired one demanded and
she straightened, refusing to let her fear show even as her blood rushed like a
torrent through her ears and her heart trembled like a timid thing in her
chest.
“I was walking home during the storm and took a shortcut.”
She held his gaze, trying to play it cool.
Esher ruined her illusion of confidence by glancing back
into the bedroom. Her eyes leaped to him. His held concern that quickly turned into
darkness that unsettled her. The muscle in his jaw tensed and his hands curled
into fists.
“He will be fine, Esher,” the white-haired one said. Esher’s
head whipped around, causing the long top of his hair to fall down the right
side of his face, his expression startled at first and then softening. He
nodded, preened his hair again and resumed his glaring at her. She swallowed
and looked back at the other one. He smiled but it held no warmth. “You were
walking home?”
She realised something.
Neither of them sounded local. In fact, they didn’t sound as
though they were from anywhere in North America, and neither had her protector.
She couldn’t place their accents though. European? Like the other man had been?
She nodded and cleared her throat. “The power was out and
there was a man ahead of me, so I took a shortcut down an alley. That’s where I
met your friend. I thought he was going to attack me.”
“Why would you think that?” he said, darkness in his tone,
as though she had offended him by thinking his friend had been out to hurt her.
“He had a gun and was coming towards me. What else was I
meant to think?” she snapped and then reined her temper in when his eyes
darkened a full shade and Esher pushed away from the wall.
The white-haired man held his gloved hand up. Esher moved
back again and glanced towards the man on the bed and that sense of darkness
returned, his eyes deepening in colour until they verged on black.
“Esher.” The other man stood and went to him. He reached a
hand out towards his shoulder and then drew it back before touching him.
Esher slowly looked across at him and frowned, a touch of
confusion crinkling his brow. His eyes lightened again. “Daimon?”
Was that the other man’s name?
Esher blinked and looked around the apartment, something
about him making her feel that he had lost track of his surroundings. He seemed
surprised. His deep blue eyes met Daimon’s icy ones and then flitted to the man
on the bed.
“You know he is too stubborn to die. He will be okay... will
you?” Daimon flexed his fingers in his black leather gloves, his hand hovering
centimetres away from Esher’s shoulder, and Esher nodded.
That was a strange question to ask. Nothing had happened to
Esher after all. He hadn’t been involved in the fight. She studied him while he
was distracted and his gaze snapped to meet hers. Hers instantly hit the wooden
floorboards.
“Keep going.” Daimon returned to his position opposite her,
at the back of the deep red couch.
“The other man. I didn’t realise he was behind me and your
friend ran past me. They fought. It was hard to make out what happened. The
lights were out for most of it.” She paced two steps forwards so she could
sneak a glance into the bedroom at the man. He lay with his face turned towards
her and she stared at him, remembering how he had fought and the power he had
used, and what had happened. “I watched them fight and then there were
fireballs from both sides.”
“Both sides?” The confusion in Daimon’s voice shone in his
pale eyes too.
Megan nodded and pointed to the man on the bed. “He
unleashed them first and then the other man... he was French. I think. He
touched him on his chest. It hurt him. He was in pain.”
Her hand shook and her eyebrows furrowed. She wanted to go
to him and heal him, to take the pain away even though he was unconscious and
couldn’t feel it now. He had sounded so pained as he had screamed at the storm
and had looked to be in agony when he had collapsed after the man had released
him. He had suffered but it hadn’t stopped him from protecting her, shielding
her in his arms and bearing the brunt of the fireball the man had launched at
her.
“And?” Daimon’s voice snapped her out of her memories and
she looked at him. He wobbled in her vision and she blinked to clear away the
tears that had risen into her eyes.
“The man let him go and suddenly he could use fireballs too.
He was going to kill him.” She looked back at the man on the bed. “I did the
only thing I could do to protect him. I shot the man... God, I shot him... I
could have killed him. I shouldn’t have done that... I shot a man.”
It sank in cold and fast, stealing her strength and leaving
her shaking. She had fired upon a person and she had done it with the intent of
murdering him. She buried her fingers into her wet shoulder-length hair and
dragged it out of her face, her hands trembling against her head.
“You shot a daemon and you should have killed him. The
bastard should be put down for raising a hand against us.”
Megan lifted her chin and caught the look of sheer disgust
on Esher’s face before he turned away and went into the bedroom.
She looked at Daimon. His pale gaze followed Esher and then
slowly shifted back to her.
“Your friend said he needed to get his power back,” she said
and Esher was in front of her before she could blink, black mist clinging to
his long coat and curling over his grey scarf.
He grabbed her by the neck of her damp black jumper and
shoved her against the wall so hard it shook and pain shot outwards from her
shoulder.
“What did you say?” His breath washed over her, his face so
close to hers that he was all she could focus on.
His eyes darkened but then brightened, a corona of blue
shining around his pupils. His grip on her tightened and she couldn’t contain
her gasp as he hauled her closer to him and a terrible darkness crossed his
handsome face.
ARES is available from Amazon
Kindle, Kobo Books, Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple iBooks stores and other
retailers. Also available in paperback.
Books in the Guardians
of Hades paranormal romance series:
Book 2: Valen – Coming in 2017
About Felicity Heaton:
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, her
best-selling Her Angel romance series is for you. If you like strong, powerful,
and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm romance 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 her Vampire Erotic Theatre romance
series. Or if you like hot-blooded alpha heroes who will let nothing stand in
the way of them claiming their destined woman then try her Eternal Mates
series. It’s packed with sexy heroes in a world populated by elves, vampires,
fae, demons, shifters, and more. If sexy Greek gods with incredible powers
battling to save our world and their home in the Underworld are more your
thing, then be sure to step into the world of Guardians of Hades.
If you want to know more about Felicity, or want to get in touch, you
can find her at the following places:
Hockey Karma by Howard Shapiro
