Rosko, Mandy - Eclipse (Siren Publishing Classic)

  Eclipse

  Descended from a long line of aristocratic vampires, Dawn has been married by proxy to an elf prince to settle the cold war. But when her brother is caught in a failed attempt to kill their king, she must trust the husband she hardly knows to save her brother’s life.

  Prince Aaron cannot ignore the fact that Dawn's brother confessed to wanting to murder the elf king, who is now missing, even for the sake of peace between himself and his new bride. Unless a living body can be found, Dawn will surely never forgive him for ordering her brother’s execution.

  Even if he should succeed, Dawn’s body is out of Aaron’s reach. He is cursed by the dragons, and everything his skin touches turns to gold. Despite Aaron’s attraction to his wife, he must keep a careful hold over his lust, otherwise a single touch could mean her life.

  Genre: Contemporary, Fantasy, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 34,764 words

  ECLIPSE

  Mandy Rosko

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  ECLIPSE

  Copyright © 2011 by Mandy Rosko

  E-book ISBN: 1-61034-589-4

  First E-book Publication: July 2011

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Eclipse by Mandy Rosko from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Mandy Rosko’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Rosko’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  ECLIPSE

  MANDY ROSKO

  Copyright © 2011

  Chapter One

  “When you arrive, the first thing your husband will try to do is kill you. Kill him first.”

  Dawn’s mother’s words rang with the same sharp, unforgiving twang as the blade that soared passed her ear. She’d heard the whoosh of air just in time to jerk her head to the side, but the knife still left a tiny stinging slice in the curve of her lobe, which dribbled blood down her neck.

  She crouched low to the hardwood floor as another, more properly aimed weapon, targeted her throat. Just barely did she avoid being nicked, but now her blood was pumping hot and heavy, adrenaline sharpening her senses to the warm scent of her own blood and the elf in her room.

  He smelled salty like sweating skin. Underneath that was a taste of damp earth, and the sound of his angry, racing heart.

  She stared at the tall, imposing figure with glowing green eyes who stood in the doorway of her room, empty fists clenched now that both daggers had been dispensed. Didn’t mean the sneaky let’s-get-her-while-her-back’s-turned arsehole didn’t have another on him somewhere.

  Georgiana, her mother, had been wrong. Her husband had arrived to kill her, but as she had been on Blue Mountain, the tiny island kingdom filled with elves and dragons, for a good twenty-four hours now, it obviously wasn’t the first thing he’d tried to do.

  Bastard had been waiting for her to lower her guard.

  “Where is he?” he roared, voice monstrous with rage. It was dark, and even though elves thrived in the sunlight, Dawn’s rooms had been shut up with heavy curtains and lit with low-burning torches so that her sensitive skin wouldn’t scorch. The effect created was long shadows stretching up, over, and around both her and her attacker. Regardless, she could still see perfectly, and his face was hardly pretty as he snarled.

  She was kind of impressed.

  Her husband pulled another dagger from his belt and took a menacing step into her room. “I can see ye just as easily as ye see me, vampire.” He sneered the word as though it were a curse on his tongue. It probably was. “Face yer actions.”

  Dawn kept her position on one knee, her other foot ready to spring her away if she needed, but now she allowed him to see the daggers strapped to her body. Georgiana had them smuggled onto the island with her daughter as a wedding present. The only motherly thing the woman had ever done for her. She still couldn’t figure out how the woman had gotten them here, but Dawn wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  A long dagger hung from her hip, the most prominent weapon and the first one his green eyes landed on. Two throwing knives, small, light, yet strong, were tied to her upper arms, almost at her shoulders. Two more were held in little holsters at her wrists, and another two sat waiting and hidden in leather sheaths under the zipper of her boots at her ankles.

  Dawn wasn’t one to speak during a coming fight. Talking allowed the enemy to discover things about her, time to plan, think of ways to kill her. But she couldn’t help one sarcastic jibe, pulling one of her hip daggers and twirling it in her fingers. “If you’d tried this while the sun was up, you would’ve had a better chance. So, thanks for the warning. After I finish with you, I’ll leave and your precious truce will be done for.”

  The man before her snarled. Elves weren’t the peaceful creatures everyone took them for. This guy looked like he wanted to take a chunk out of her with his teeth.

  Elves and vampires were cousins after all.

  “We found two more of yer kind slinking around His Majesty Aelmon’s chambers. They were armed to their fangs, so do not deny that ye are a part of this!”

  Two more—? Dawn’s insides went as cold as her mother’s countenance. Georgiana’s voice came to her agai
n. “I’ll arrange for some of our own to bring you home. You won’t be with them for long.”

  Shit! Who had she sent? And why were they sneaking around the throne room instead of helping Dawn escape? Better still, how could they have been stupid enough to get caught?

  Vampires and elves have been participating in a cold war of sorts since vampires were first created. Cursed, was the proper term, by the elves.

  The Outsiders were what most of the older elves called them, usually with their lips curled and noses scrunched. The same way the elf before her had looked.

  Dawn hadn’t been alive when it happened, not even her grandmother had been born, but the story had been passed down. Always told with anger and bitterness against the elves.

  When it became obvious that humans were populating the earth faster than any other creature, the elves decided that, rather than be hunted by man who was so slow to learn and accept, it was better to leave. So they did.

  The elves packed up and set sail, traveling until they landed on an island to their liking. Lush forests would provide them with what they needed to build and grow food, and the misty mountain, grayish blue in color, lent itself to the name of the island. And it had a bright beach for play.

  They claimed it as their own. Spells were cast around the wider area surrounding the island to keep it hidden. The humans came to know it as the Bermuda Triangle. No one could get in without the elves’ permission. But when those elves explored and found a group of dragons lived there as well, the real trouble began. Neither group could prove who had arrived first.

  Some of the elves talked of peace and sharing, even as the dragons set fire to their new homes. Others, the minority, the Outsiders, wanted to fight back. They wanted revenge for their burned homes and fallen friends. They wanted to throw the dragons off the island, and fights broke out.

  The king of the time, an elf who’d fled one land filled with bloody wars and killing, did not want to hear talk of fighting and dying for another, cursed the Outsiders for daring to question his laws, and banished them.

  The elves who were once elves transformed into something entirely different. Whereas they used to bask in the sun, it set fire to their skin. Instead of fruits and vegetables, they came to thirst for blood as they had thirsted for the blood of the dragon clan.

  The creatures that were no longer elves left the island, shamed, angry, and eventually adopting the name of vampire. Not a product of Satan, demons, or created from hell, but created by the elves.

  No one knew how the dragons and elves resolved their problem, as it was common knowledge that neither side enjoyed the company of the other. But both species did end up staying, and although none of the original vampires from those days long ago were still alive, their descendants, and everyone who had been transformed since, were still frowned upon by the elves.

  Dawn had never thought much of it. It was a story from before her time. She liked how she was. Then she came home one night to find her mother in her room packing a suitcase for her and telling her she had been married and needed to leave.

  Dawn wasn’t sure what irked her more. That she had been married by proxy without her permission or been shipped off so quickly.

  It seemed the king of Elves, Aelmon, the grandson of the king who’d cursed them, wished to make peace with the vampires by marrying his oldest son to a wealthy vampire from an old family of good breeding. A family who still thought nothing of parents choosing their children’s spouses.

  The sing of another flying blade woke her. Dawn ducked and rolled as the dagger thudded into the wooden board covering the window, next to its brother.

  Grass-green eyes turned red with anger. “Ye are guilty! Where is King Aelmon!”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  The man before her lifted another blade from its sheath. “If any harm has come to him—”

  “Kehn! Calm yourself! Put yer weapon away!”

  The new voice called Dawn’s attention away from the threat in the room. A mistake, but she couldn’t help herself. Kehn? Her husband’s name was Aaron. When she’d been sent off, she didn’t even get a description of what her new husband looked like, and now it seemed this dark-haired elf was the wrong guy.

  Kehn spun and stepped back at the sight of the new arrival, a taller elf with yellow hair that touched his shoulders. When Kehn bowed, still sending Dawn hateful, suspicious glances, she knew the new guy in her room was her husband. The crown prince.

  There was no light behind him, not even from the torches. If there had been, though, Dawn knew it would have embraced him like an old friend. His broad shoulders were attached to a strong neck that connected to the most gorgeous face she had ever laid eyes on.

  A hard jaw that framed pink lips brought a shake to her legs, but the way they sat, under stone cheeks, as though he spent every waking moment frowning, puzzled her.

  His yellow-green eyes flashed as they locked onto her amber ones, widened slightly at the scene, then sparkled before his old English medieval voice spoke again. “I did not expect to greet my bride for the first time while she was on her knees.”

  Dawn launched to her feet. Her cheeks filled with blood. She would have given him her back had she not been concerned he would throw a knife into it. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Ye will bow to him and address him as Your Highness,” Kehn hissed.

  Aaron clasped his hand on Kehn’s shoulder. His fingers must have been tight beneath the gold-colored glove because Kehn flinched and stepped away.

  Not exactly the respectful thing to do to one’s prince.

  Either Aaron didn’t notice or didn’t mind being treated like he had a contagious disease. “There shall be none of that,” he said. “’Tis my wife you speak of. She and I are equal.”

  “Highness—!”

  Aaron silenced Kehn with a piercing look, his features hardening like the stone she had just thought him to be made of.

  Dawn blinked at their exchange. Prince Aaron not only said the word vampire without a disgusted lift of his chin, but also referred to her as his equal.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” cried Alice.

  Dawn stiffened. Of all the things she’d prepared herself for, this had not been one of them. Yeah, right, an elf thought a vampire equal to him.

  Again his eyes, the color of fading grass in the autumn, appraised her. He took his time, assessing her hair, face, and neck before moving to her shoulders and chest. His gaze lingered on her breasts just a little too long for her liking before moving down her stomach, hips, and legs.

  Logically, she knew he was trying to determine if she carried any more weapons than the obvious ones, but she couldn’t convince the hissing feminine spirit inside her of that. “Would you like me to take a picture for you?”

  Aaron’s eyes shot back to hers. She smelled his blood rushing as his face turned pink before he regained control. “A picture?”

  “The instant paintings,” Kehn explained. “Photographs.”

  Aaron nodded without taking his eyes away from her. They were still vacant, however, as though he weren’t fully listening. “Ah, aye.”

  Dawn’d nearly forgotten. Elves, the ones on this island anyway, lived like the last thousand years never happened. The way they spoke, their mannerisms…they even wore tunics, hose, and breeches instead of shirts, socks, and pants. Even the room she was in screamed of old world living. There were woven rushes under her feet instead of carpet, and the oak furniture had the charming look of being whittled by hand and then artistically painted with floral vines and fairies.

  The only semi-modern thing about it was that the windows were big enough for her to fit through, barely, if she needed an escape. Not much point of keeping them small for defensive purposes when you lived on a land that had no war. The only problem would be how to get through them with the heavy boards covering them. She could punch through, but not before one of the two elves behind her stuck her with a knife.

  Despite the distracti
on, Dawn did not relax. Both men had stopped talking and now blocked the door as they watched her. Did she even want to know what they were thinking? Both pairs of arms were crossed as they scrutinized her. They were probably envisioning the easiest way to hide her body.

  But wait, would an elf prince even need to justify killing his wife? He was the damn prince.

  Kehn and her…husband didn’t rush to attack her. They just stared at her. It made her antsy.

  “What do you want?”

  “The vampires we captured claim to be Blake and Nox from your family clan. Do you know them?” Aaron asked.

  Dawn sucked in a breath. Blake, her brother, and Nox, his idiot friend. Georgiana sent them?

  Both were capable fighters, sleek and agile, she knew, but the simple fact that they were emotionally connected to her was no doubt the thing that put the three of them in this position. She could see it already. They’d lost their focus, gone in the wrong direction, interrogated the wrong guard in an attempt to find out where she was, maybe doing that last bit a little too long, and now they were caught.

  And right when the stupid elf king was apparently missing.

  “I know them,” she said finally. If it meant saving her brother, then she would humble herself and be respectful. “Blake is my older brother. Nox is a family friend. They came to take me home. They didn’t do anything with your king”—she cleared her throat—“Your Highness.”

  “According to them, they came here to kill my father.”

  Fuck respectful. “That’s a lie!” Her teeth elongated and mouth watered with the urge to sink her fangs into flesh and suck the lying life right out of him.