Claimed by a Demon King, the second book in Felicity Heaton’s hot new paranormal romance series, Eternal Mates, is now available in ebook and paperback. To celebrate the release, she’s holding a FANTASTIC GIVEAWAY at her website.
Claimed by a Demon King and the Eternal Mates series is set in the same world as the Vampire Erotic Theatre series, so if you’re a fan of that series, you will love Eternal Mates. Throughout this series, you’ll have a chance to catch up with the cast of the Vampire Erotic Theatre series and learn more about their world. In Claimed by a Demon King, you’ll get to visit the theatre, and some of the favourite characters in the Vampire Erotic Theatre series.
Here’s more about Claimed by a Demon King, including an excerpt from this paranormal romance novel.
Claimed by a Demon King – Excerpt
Sable entered the main hall with Bleu and Olivia flanking her. Two rows of three thick stone columns stood on either side of them, cutting twin lines down the centre of the enormous windowless room, framing the path from the arched doorway behind her to the raised semi-circular stone platform at the opposite end of the room. Torches burned in black metal brackets around the columns, bathing the room in warm light that chased all the shadows away and flickered across the vaulted ceiling.
Loren paused with his group of elves in the centre of the room before her.
Thorne stepped up onto the stone platform at the end and turned to face them. A large elaborate black throne stood behind him and a huge tapestry depicting a war hung on the wall behind it. He handed his blood-soaked rag to another male demon. This one wore tan trousers and a cream shirt and looked more like a servant, slimmer than the muscle-bound warriors they had left in the courtyard. The man bowed his head and backed away, stepping down from the platform. She frowned at the thick torc around his neck. The twisted bands of red and black looked heavy, closed tightly around his throat.
Several of the warriors who had been fighting Thorne had worn something similar.
Bleu looked down at her and then towards the man. He was silent for a moment and then said, “They wear them when they have lost their eternal mate. It is a sign to others, a warning not to speak of females.”
A widower.
“Welcome,” Thorne said, his deep voice breaking into her sombre thoughts. “The others will arrive this eve and—”
A few scantily clad beautiful women came into view and Sable frowned as they fawned over him, praising his fighting and his skill. Thorne waved them away, a bored look on his face. They persisted until he growled and then they strutted away, heading towards the group of demons that had entered behind Sable. Some of the warriors from the training match. Those males lapped up the attention that Thorne had dismissed.
“As I was saying… the others will arrive this eve and there will be a feast.”
What the hell did demons eat at a feast? She cast an unnerved look at the elves and then at Olivia. The elves seemed at ease and they ate vegetables and fruits. Maybe the demons did too.
She could have laughed out loud at that thought. None of the demons she had met in her long career as a hunter had looked as if they enjoyed a nourishing five-a-day. They all looked as if they lived on a protein-rich diet. Plus, elves also drank blood, so there was just as much chance that demons did too and tonight’s feast would be served in cups and jugs.
“I am sure you all desire to settle into your quarters. Until the feast then.” Thorne bowed his head and Loren did too, and then the elf prince was walking towards her, Olivia and Bleu.
Loren took Olivia’s hand and led her away, following several demons. Sable trailed behind them, feeling Thorne’s gaze on her with each step, heating her to her core.
Cold swept over her and she looked back, wondering why Thorne had stopped looking at her.
Bleu hadn’t moved.
He stood in the middle of the room facing Thorne, his expression impassive but his ears pointed, flaring back against the sides of his head and tangled in his wild black hair. Thorne held his gaze, a corona of fiery red circling his darker crimson irises and his horns slowly curling around in front of his pointed ears.
Sable took a step towards both males and their focuses shattered, their gazes coming to her.
“Bleu?” she said, and then looked at Thorne, catching the fire burning in his eyes. Whatever challenge had passed unspoken between the two males, it had set alight to Thorne’s temper. She needed to get Bleu away from him before the demon king did something he might regret. She shifted her gaze back to Bleu. “Are you coming?”
He looked as though he wouldn’t and then nodded and began walking towards her.
Sable lingered, her focus drifting back to Thorne where he stood in the middle of the cavernous room. Bleu caught her arm, stealing her attention away from him, and she swore she heard Thorne growl.
She had seen Loren act like this around Olivia and it set her on edge.
His behaviour had all the hallmarks of a male with his mate and she didn’t like it. She had never seen the point in getting serious with a man in her line of work, when every patrol might be her last, and she had seen just how serious being a mate was with her friend. Olivia was now immortal, mated to an elf prince. Their love was forever.
For a flicker of a moment, what they shared had made Sable want to try on a relationship for size, but it had only been a passing fancy. A reaction to loneliness. She liked her dalliances short and hot. Not eternal.
Sable turned away from Thorne and followed Bleu. She frowned at the elf male’s hand on her arm. The jagged black claws of his armour covered his fingers and the tips pressed into her flesh. The sight of his hand on her, possessively clamped around her wrist, unnerved her too.
She took her arm back and he glanced at her, confusion reigning in his violet eyes when she scowled at him.
“I can find my own way.” She picked up pace but he remained with her, his long strides making it impossible for her to lose him. She gave up trying when they caught up with Loren and Olivia.
They reached the first floor and a nice male demon showed Bleu to his room at the start of the long corridor, giving her a moment to breathe. Another led her past Olivia and Loren’s quarters to the next arched dark wooden door. The man pushed it open and she thanked him with a smile before stepping inside. He muttered something in the demon tongue and closed the door behind her, leaving her alone.
Sable heaved a sigh and leaned her back against the wooden door, gazing at the large room. Her entire quarters at Archangel would fit into it four times over.
A breeze came in through the three arched windows in the wall opposite her, tousling the heavy dark red curtains. No glass.
Not much furniture either.
A large four-poster bed stood against the bare stone wall to her right, covered with thick pale furs. A dark wooden table with a speckled ancient oval mirror was to her left, beside a big wardrobe. The wall opposite the bed had a huge fireplace, with two threadbare velvet-covered armchairs in front of it. Maybe it was the lack of furniture and zero decorative touches that made the room look huge. She walked around it and decided that it wasn’t. It just added to the spacious feeling.
Sable paused in front of the fireplace.
The fire in the grate burned brightly.
Strange, but she had thought it would be hot in the demon realms, even though it had always been cool and breezy whenever she had visited the elf kingdom.
How far were they from that realm? She had never asked Loren about it before. Did Thorne have a map of Hell? She wanted to see where they were in comparison to the elf kingdom and the Fifth Realm.
Maybe Loren could tell her.
Sable left her room, went to the next one and opened the door. Olivia shrieked. Loren bit out a few nasty-sounding words in the elf language.
Sable covered her eyes and scrubbed the image of Loren playing tonsil tennis with Olivia while mostly naked from her mind.
“Sorry,” she muttered to the wooden floorboards. “Are you decent yet?”
“Knock next time,” Olivia snapped.
“In my defence, you’ve been alone for all of three minutes. I didn’t think you could make the leap from room orientation to sex in three minutes!” Rabbits. No. They were worse than bunnies. If Sable took her eyes off them for five seconds, they were kissing like teenagers.
Loren continued to growl dark-sounding things. She presumed they weren’t complimentary and were about her because he was firmly sticking to his own language. He still refused to share knowledge of the elf language with Archangel and she supposed she could understand his reluctance. No one other than the elves could understand or speak it. It was probably handy being able to speak a language your enemy couldn’t.
“Decent?” Sable asked in a small voice, fearing the elf prince was going to start directing more than insults at her.
“Yes,” Olivia answered and Sable came out from behind her hand.
Their love-nest looked much like her room, but with the layout reversed, so the bed was to her left and the fireplace to her right. She looked at the dressing table near the fireplace and idly said, “You don’t have a mirror.”
“You have a mirror?” Olivia looked as if Sable had just announced she had cable and a fifty-inch home cinema system.
Sable shrugged.
“Well… now we know for certain who the king’s favourite is.”
K. Bromberg is that reserved woman sitting in the corner that has you all fooled about the wild child inside of her–the one she lets out every time her fingertips touch the computer keyboard. She’s a wife, mom, child rustler, toy pick-er-upper, chauffer, resident web-slinger, LaLaloopsy watching, American Girl doll dressing multi-tasker of all things domestic and otherwise. She likes her diet cokes with rum, her music loud, and her pantry stocked with a cache of chocolate.
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