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Category: Romance/Dark Fantasy
Description: For centuries, Katharine has been making her own rules, flying above base human complications with an icy outlook, feeding and living on the poor fools caught in the flames of passion. Beautiful and chill, she runs her love life like she runs her master's business--with the steel grip that only someone with an eternity's experience can wield. Years ago, Jared Aquino had been one of Katharine's pets, a toy for the vampire to feed from, to play with. He left with his skin intact and now he's back with a secret and a plan to get what he always wanted from Katharine. The question is, will Jared's fire blaze hot enough to melt Katharine's will and expose her vulnerable heart?
eBook Publisher: Resplendence Publishing, LLC, 2010 October
eBookwise Release Date: January 2011

2 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [129 KB]
Words: 27591
Reading time: 78-110 min.

He did love the way Katharine made an entrance.

Of course, he preferred the ones that didn't end in his chauffeur unconscious and his newly trained personal assistant in tears, but what was one supposed to do?

Silvestri leaned back in his chair, smiling as his sweet princess tore, ever so coldly, into Sheila about some slight or another. Honestly, she was a joy.

Nine hundred years ago he'd found her near-frozen on a shore in... Denmark? The Danelaw? Eh, no matter. What mattered was he'd discovered her, starving and sobbing, filthy, beaten and violated by a group of sailors. She'd thought him a god at first, come to take her, and it amused him now, even as it had then.

He'd killed her, then resurrected her. Cleaned and cared, educated and adored--his little bird was the closest Silvestri would have to a child, to an adored daughter who he protected from all things and spoiled beyond all others.

He still wasn't sure how she turned out to be such an icy bitch, honestly.

"...not listening to me, Master."

"Of course I am, beloved. Are you enjoying your work?" Goodness, from the chaos, he guessed he would be hiring another assistant. Damn.

"Yes. I enjoy the company of humans." She always had been altogether too involved with them. She'd fought the change more than anyone he'd known, before or since, sobbed when she realized the gifts he'd given her. The eternity. "The politics amuse me."

Politics. Over something as odd as cosmetics. He did adore the vulgarities of modern life. "You need a mate, beloved. One of our kind." A fiery balance to his Katia's ice.

"Nonsense. I have no interest in our kind. I want to talk to you about my new idea for a scent. Something pheromone-based. The public will be screaming for it."

Silvestri rolled his eyes. Headstrong child. She didn't understand the delicious need a mated pair could bring, the desire, the joy of rapture. Goodness, she'd never tasted another but her periodic visits with him, and those were the comforting acts of an exhausted child needing succor from her sire, not passion.

Passion.

Oh, Dmitri. I do still miss you...

"You hold yourself away too much, beloved. You cannot live an eternity alone."

"Oldefar." She went to her knees before his chair, eyes as blue as the sea shining up at him, teeth gleaming as she threw off her false face and offered him her true self. "I am never alone. You are in my blood."

Silvestri nodded and smiled, stroked her curls away from her face. "I am. I will never leave you, Katia."

He traced the perfect lines of her face and considered the letter sitting upon his desk as he did. It had arrived this evening, the paper heavy, the calligraphy perfect, familiar. There was an accord drawn out upon the pages, a marriage of sorts between two families. His icy bird hunted by a scorpion of fire.

What a lovely visual.

Silvestri smiled, leaned to kiss Katharine's temple, her skin cool to the touch. He would never leave his Katia, but Keiko was right. It was time to stop wondering if his child would grow into her power. It was time to assure she received all she deserved.