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.
Enter the
ARES international giveaway (ends December 11th) and be in with a shot of
winning a $75, $50 or $25 gift certificate by using the Rafflecopter form at
her website, where you can also download a 4 chapter sample of the novel.
Here’s more about the book and the sexy Greek god
hero and his heroine…
Ares (Guardians of Hades Series Book 1)
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.
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 is available from Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and
Noble, Apple, and other retailers. Also available in
paperback. Find the links to your preferred retailer here.
Excerpt:
When the daemon returned, Ares would be ready to
deal with him.
It wouldn’t be the first time he had gone into
battle injured and drained, and it wouldn’t even be the worst. Life in the
mortal world was making him soft. He had once battled a legion of daemons with
one arm broken and several arrows lodged in his left thigh, and he had
decimated them.
Ares smiled. The good old days. It had been
centuries since he had gone to war together with his brothers, unleashing the
hunger for violence and destruction that made the god his parents had named him
after so proud of him.
He focused and the street whirled and disappeared,
replaced by his apartment. He flicked the light on, illuminating the pale
coffee-coloured walls and dark furniture in the open plan kitchen and living
room. He looked down at his boots and the puddle already forming around them on
his wooden floor, and toed them off and kicked them into the kitchen on his
right. They tumbled across the tiled floor, hit one of the oak cupboards and
stopped. He reached over his shoulder with his right hand, grabbed the back of
his ruined wet black t-shirt, pulled it over his head and tossed it onto the
tiles with his boots.
The water around his feet evaporated, steam
curling off his already drying black jeans. He needed to get his mood in check
before something bad happened.
He closed his eyes and drew in several deep
breaths, holding each one before slowly expelling the air, and reined in his
temper together with his power, restoring the usual rigid control he kept over
it and stopping his flames from emerging. The heat that always surrounded him
settled to a more manageable, and safer, level, and he released another breath,
this one more a sigh of relief. The last thing he wanted to do tonight was set
his apartment on fire. Again. It had
been a shitty enough night without that added cherry on top.
When he felt calm enough to maintain control over
his fire, he walked into the open living room and pushed the second door in the
wall to his left open. He switched the bathroom light on, turned and frowned at
his reflection in the mirrored wall on his left above the vanity unit and sink.
He looked like hell.
The female daemon had done a number on him. Long
gashes darted across his chest and forearms where she had caught him with her
claws. He touched the deepest one of the three on his pectorals and beads of
blood broke to the surface.
He frowned and the gold flecks in his eyes
darkened to red, glowing against their earthy brown backdrop.
The daemon shouldn’t have been able to land a
single blow on him, let alone several. He had been too complacent tonight. He
had been dealing with low level daemons for so long that he had forgotten there
were stronger ones out there, just waiting for him to drop his guard.
It wouldn’t happen again.
Ares stared at the tip of his right index finger
and slowly released the iron grip he had on his power, allowing his control to
slip little by little until the air around his hand shimmered and he could feel
the heat of it against his chest. He slammed his hold over his flames back into
place, locking them down at their current level and stopping them from burning
out of control.
He ground his molars together, grabbed the edge of
the oak vanity unit with his other hand to steady himself and drew his finger
along the first cut across his chest. Fire blazed in the wake of his finger but
he didn’t stop or make a sound, not until he had reached the end of the wound
and had cauterised it.
He drew a deep breath, blew it out and flexed his
fingers around the edge of the unit. His arm trembled and ached, his shoulder
socket throbbing madly. Two more slashes to seal and he could rest. Pain tore
through him with each one but it was necessary. He needed to regain his
strength as quickly as possible and that meant helping his healing process
along in his own way.
His finger reached the end of the final cut and he
lowered his head, breathing hard to stifle the pain as he struggled with his
power, wrestling it back under control until it was nothing more than an aura
of heat around him. He could leave the cuts on his forearms. They were shallow
and would easily heal without his assistance.
He flicked the steel tap on, waited until the
water was frigid, and then doused his chest and arms with enough of it to clean
the blood away. The water heated and steamed the second it touched his skin,
and would have evaporated immediately if it hadn’t been ice cold. When the
blood was gone, he settled his hands on the edges of the sink, leaning over it.
The water swirled as it reached the drain, ribbons
of red streaking the maelstrom. Pain pulsed through him, stealing his strength
and focus.
Motionless, he watched his blood snaking down his
arms as it continued to trickle from his wounds, immune to his heat because it
ran as hot as the rest of him, and then the sink, sliding down it to join the
running water. It mesmerised him and time slipped past him as he lost himself
in listening to his steady breathing and staring at the swirling water.
The taste of iron in his mouth slowly grew
stronger, drawing his focus back to the world, and he probed each tooth with
his tongue. It brushed one of his molars and the flow of blood increased. He
closed his eyes, reached into his mouth and tugged the loose tooth free, turned
it in his fingers, feeling nothing, and then let it fall. It clattered around
the white porcelain bowl and stopped in the drain. It didn’t bother him. It
would grow back in time.
His temper faded, emotions falling back into place
and calm washing through him at last.
He rinsed his arms again, grabbed a white towel
off the ones scrunched up on the side of the oak unit and patted himself dry,
careful to avoid the cuts and keeping an eye on the soft material. With his temper
back under control, it should be safe but he never could quite trust himself.
It just took one wrong thought, or a momentary slip in concentration, and he
had to go shopping for new linen or new towels.
Or sometimes a new couch.
His hands heated and he dropped the towel next to
the sink. Tiny flames flickered over his fingertips. He shook his hand, willing
them to behave, and they disappeared.
Ares turned on his heel, exited the bathroom and
stalked straight towards his bedroom to his left. The world beyond the bank of
windows that formed the exterior wall of his apartment was dark despite the
lights from the streets and the buildings surrounding Central Park.
He banked left in his bedroom and slid the oak
door to the closet open. He flicked on the light and his weapons greeted him,
gleaming steel and death. The sight of them always brought a smile to his lips.
There was nothing more beautiful than knives and guns.
Well.
Almost.
He stepped into the closet and ran his hand over
the leather and metal circular shield hanging on the back wall, and then the
hilt of the matching sword that hung behind it. Metal of the gods. It was warm
beneath his fingers, vibrating with power that had him closing his eyes as he
absorbed it.
How long had it been since he had wielded his
blade?
Too long.
He missed the feel of it in his hand. The weight
of it. Only steel forged by the gods could channel his power, and his father
had deemed the weapon too destructive to use in the mortal world. Ares hadn’t
been pleased to hear that, and neither had his brothers.
He pulled a circular silver and black amulet from
the pocket of his jeans and hung it so it lay in the centre of his shield. It
would be safest here while he went out to hunt.
He grabbed his black leather shoulder holster,
backed out of the closet, switched off the light and slid the door shut. Two
gleaming silver knives sat in their sheaths above two equally bright guns. He
slung the holster over his bare shoulder and checked each gun, sliding the
clips out to check they were fully loaded before slotting them back in and
ensuring he had a round chambered.
It wasn’t often that he had to rely on mortal-made
weaponry to assist him in his nightly battle against the daemons in his city,
but it was reassuring to have them on hand in case he needed them. In his
weakened state, they were a blessing from Zeus himself. He could use them to
slow daemons down and it was far easier to kill with these weapons than it was
with his power. Mortals turned a blind eye when they saw people fighting with
guns. They tended to stare if he used his powers.
Ares crossed his dark bedroom to the long ebony
chest of drawers that lined the dividing wall, set his weapons down and grabbed
a fresh t-shirt. He slipped into the black top and then settled his holster
around his broad shoulders.
Dry, armed and no longer bleeding. Things were
looking up.
He veered right and skirted around the short
length of wall that divided his bedroom from a smaller open room on the other
side, walking between it and the red armchair of his suite. The single overhead
light from the living room cast pale streaks over the fuel tank of his
motorbike. He ran a hand over the paintwork as he passed, promising he would
polish it soon, and then opened the French doors onto the balcony.
The city stretched before him, shrouded in rain
and darkness, a panorama of a world on the edge.
Only it didn’t know it.
Only he and his brothers knew how close to
destruction this world was, a curse from the Moirai so they never forgot or
questioned the importance of their duty.
Its fate depended on them and their mission to
protect the gates to the Underworld.
Their world.
He moved forwards to the railing, his eyes
scanning the city, searching it and hoping that the feeling in his gut was
wrong and he wouldn’t be needed again tonight.
Lightning forked across the sky, throwing the
buildings into stark relief for a split second before descending them back into
darkness. With each brilliant flash, he saw a different city.
The future of this world should they fail.
It balanced on the brink of ruin, the buildings
hollow shells, torn and shattered, and the trees ablaze in the fiery darkness.
The hot air carried the shrieks of the creatures responsible for the horror and
the wails of suffering mortals.
Ares gripped the railing of his balcony, every
muscle tensing as he caught flickers of that world in each lightning strike.
Rain lashed the dark scene, falling as water in
this world and fire in the next. The wind drove it hard, so nothing could
escape the inferno sweeping the land.
Lightning slammed into the earth again, causing
another flicker between this rain-soaked night and what he and his brothers had
termed the otherworld. It was getting
worse and had been for the past decade. Something was growing in the darkness,
a threat he and his brothers had been waiting to take form since the oracles
had spoken of it to their father centuries ago.
Time was running out. Soon their unknown enemy
would reveal themselves and the battle to prevent his world and this mortal one
from colliding would begin.
A boom shook the ground and his head snapped up.
The lights across the city died, as though eaten
by Nyx herself, plunging the landscape into shadows that seemed unholy and
spoke to his senses. He spotted nothing in the darkness though. No sign of
daemons or his prey.
Silence wrapped her arms around him, comforting
and tender. Ares embraced her in return, savouring this moment of quiet, all
too aware of the storm that was coming and that the battle this time would be
to the death.
War was on the horizon.
Bloodshed was on his mind.
It was his duty.
He leaned forwards and glanced at the street
several storeys below. Cars passed in both directions, their lights the only
mortal-made ones in this dark world tonight. Thunder raged overhead and
lightning ravaged the land. The scent of earth and rain filled the charged air.
He waited.
A blackout of this magnitude would draw daemons
out. They would want to feed on the fear it created.
He would see to it they paid for their vile
hungers.
This was his city. Maintaining the peace here and
protecting it were his responsibilities, ever since his father had banished him
and his brothers from the Underworld two centuries ago.
A dark curse rolled off his tongue in the mortal
language and the lightning struck with more force, blazing purple-white and
shaking the ground.
Had they sensed his desire to speak in his natural
tongue?
The gods of Mount Olympus hated it when those with
his power spoke the language of the Underworld on Earth.
Tranquil silence rolled over the world in the wake
of the thunder.
The sound of his cell phone ringing shattered it.
It was muffled and distant. He had probably left
it with his coat in the living room when he had gone out tonight. Whoever was
ringing would give up soon and peace would be his again until the first daemon
surfaced to take advantage of the storm.
The phone continued to fill the apartment with a
sombre melody and then stopped.
Silence.
Ares sighed and returned his attention to his
city. Each explosion of light revealed it to him. Not the otherworld this time
but the current one, full of perfect buildings and unharmed nature, and no
daemons crawling around. For now. They would emerge soon enough.
His phone started ringing again.
He grimaced.
They were persistent. Only one person could annoy
him so thoroughly without trying. His anger rose again, his temperature rising
along with it.
Closing his eyes, he reached a hand out behind him
and pictured his phone. It whipped into his hand. Being a son of Hades had
certain advantages. The power to manipulate his surroundings and the ability to
teleport were just two of them.
The bright screen of his phone held a picture of
his youngest brother grinning like a fool.
Ares wasn’t in the mood for Calistos’s usual brand
of mischief tonight. He swiped his thumb over the option to ignore his call and
waited for it to begin ringing again. Nothing annoyed his little brother more
than being ignored. Once, Ares had declined a call three times in a row and Cal
had teleported from Paris to New York just to give him an earful.
The phone remained silent this time. Maybe his
brother had got the message.
He tossed the phone back into his apartment, using
his power to guide it back to the crimson couch. The storm began to abate but
the electricity showed no sign of returning. Would it be out all night? Now
that would be the perfect end to a perfect night. He would be working until
dawn to keep the daemons in check.
Rain continued to sweep across the city. It beaded
on the back of his hands where they grasped the balcony railing. The droplets
steamed and shrank, his body too hot for them to withstand.
Being a son of Hades had disadvantages too.
The heat inside him rose until the water on his
skin evaporated. He took a deep breath and reined in his anger. The last thing
he wanted to do was set fire to his apartment on a miserable night like
tonight. He cursed the rain.
His insides tingled.
The rain slowed at last, causing the earthy scent
of the storm to thicken, but it couldn’t mask the coppery stench of evil.
The daemon was back.
Ares rolled his shoulders, stepped back from the
railing and turned his hands palm up. He channelled his power towards them.
Fierce pale flames rose from his fingers, casting light over the balcony.
He grinned.
Time to hunt.
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:
