DESCRIPTION
Rescued from the streets of Seattle by her adoptive mother, a witch and a seer, Dana Pierce learned early on about her talent as a witch. Now a successful news columnist, she not only embraces her craft, but has spent the last five years of her life in search of a man she believes she’s destined to help, a man cursed to immortality by an unfortunate ancestor.
Calen Meer has carved out a quiet life in the port town of Astoria, Oregon, and though immortality has made him a wealthy man, he lives simply, running a charter fishing business, where only a very few know he is a werewolf. That is until the infinitely curious, albeit irresistible, Dana Pierce enters his life.
As Ms. Pierce blithely goes about unearthing a past best left forgotten, Calen is torn between his anger at her intrusion into his life and the profound effect she has on him. But when several women are found brutally murdered, Calen must face the fact that a creature, not unlike himself, is not only escalating in its rabid need, but Dana may be his next victim.
As their volatile attraction to each other heats up, a devastating secret from the past threatens to destroy them both unless Calen can set his prejudices aside, and let Dana offer the help she’s been born for.
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His senses sirened with the multitude of smells inherent in the forest, but one smell stood out among all the others. The one he’d carefully extracted from the scene of death and the young woman’s mutilated body. A scent, fierce and feral certainly, but the decidedly dark and perverse undertones couldn’t be missed in Calen’s mind.
He picked up the killer’s scent in the microscopic droplets of saliva and sweat the creature had spewed. The scent exuded a disturbing bloodlust, which stirred at the very core of him. Harshly it pulled at him and made him pause as he struggled to let the sensation pass through him...not take hold of him.
“Christ,” he murmured. “Not again.”
He breathed deep to cleanse his being and to stave off unwanted memories. Ignoring the momentary distraction, he forced himself to continue the climb uphill. The screech of an owl burst overhead, and his hearing piqued at the soft snuffling which issued from a few yards away, likely a badger or some other small animal, he thought.
As he moved on, he noted trampled undergrowth scattered with dew drops of blood along with a few broken fern fronds and a crushed stalk of pale purple foxglove.
He halted when he came to a large rotted stump and noted the fresh claw marks that had ripped away the soft wood. Here the dark scent mingled with a man’s cologne. It had changed here. Calen figured if the woman had been killed yesterday as Matt Bergland suggested, then the thing had bedded down here overnight.
He walked for a half hour more, traversing the forest northward trying to see which way the thing had gone. The smell of cologne gradually dissipated from the night’s moisture. Calen walked another hundred yards to satisfy himself the creature was no longer in the forest.
He’d just come upon a thinner, treed area of the woods when the other scent hit him. Like a fish bat, it took his breath away and for a moment, caused his body to react like a wet-behind-the-ears, sexually frustrated teenager. His manhood instantly stiffened, and a lust he hadn’t experienced in years claimed his whole body. With a groan, he bent over, braced his hands on his knees, and forced the unwelcome feeling down into submission.
The scent was heady and alluring...and it was all over the base of the old growth red cedar which stood twenty feet in front of him. His common sense recognized it for what it was—pheromones. But whose, and why the hell were they having such an effect on him? It wasn’t the dead woman’s scent...that he was sure of.
He circled the redwood. As he came back round, he knelt down. Calen eyed the disturbed dirt and cedar needles at the base of the large tree. Carefully he laid his hand on the bark and dragged it roughly downward, scraping his palm almost to the point of drawing blood. He brought his palm up to his nose and inhaled deeply. God knew he didn’t want to feel this, but it was like a moth to a flame. Pure, damn lust, he thought bitterly.
No way—he swiftly chastised himself. He was tracking a bloodthirsty killer for God’s sake, so why was his forsaken body detaining him now. Once again, he exerted ruthless control over his body’s response to the scent—a control which had taken him years to perfect.
The mystery scent, which momentarily side-tracked him, faded slowly as he made his way south and again concentrated on picking up the other’s scent. Soon he broke into a solid run, deftly jumping over downed trees and roots as he made his way down the slanted forest toward the coastal highway.
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About the Author
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S.Durham is a native Oregonian who lives in the Portland Metropolitan area with her husband, three children, and an independent cat named Lucy. Though the incredible ocean beaches, and spectacular mountain forests, offer a rich mine of inspiration to Ms. Durham, her busy mind and imagination are limitless when it comes to plotting and creating stories of the supernatural sort...
Having been a voracious reader since childhood, I often wondered if I might be able to someday spin a tale that would move readers, as I've been moved on so many ocassions. Well after several years of 'crashing the boards' (hey it's basketball season) my hard work paid off, and I was offered my first contract from the formidable Lea Schizas of Muse It Up e-publishing. (Thank you Lea for taking a chance on me!)
The influences for my writing are varied and vast, but one thing is for certain, the writing is in the blood now, and I have no intention of stopping...
Sara
