The
Dragon King
The
Chattanooga Supernaturals
Book
1
Candace
Blevins
Genre:
Paranormal romance
Publisher:
Excessica
Date of
Publication: March 20, 2015
Number of pages:
350
Word Count: 102,000
Cover Artist:
Syneca Featherstone
Book
Description:
Book
one of The Chattanooga Supernaturals, paranormal romance with claws...
Aaron Drake is
nine thousand years old and one of the last remaining European were-dragons.
With no female Dragons, his only hope of children lies in his grandmother's
dying words. "The Swan Princesses may be the Dragons' only hope."
Sophia Siyanko
is the first Swan Princess without at least one brother to take the throne in
Aaron's long memory. However, her father chooses her husband when she’s twelve,
and sets the date for her twenty-fifth birthday. She is sequestered in her
father's mansion, raised by governesses and tutors to be the future King’s arm
candy, and Aaron’s options are limited.
But then Sophia
escapes her father’s compound a few weeks before her twenty-fifth birthday.
Determined to escape or die trying, she comes to Aaron for help.
To protect her,
he’ll have to fight every Swan and Eagle on the planet, most of the Wolves, and
all of Faerie.
Also part of
Kirsten O’Shea’s world, Book 2
Excerpt:
“Do
you think it has anything to do with true-love’s kiss?”
He
shook his head. “No.”
I
took a breath and asked before I could chicken out. “Could you kiss me anyway,
just in case?”
Aaron’s
gaze felt as if it penetrated my soul. “Do you know what you’re asking, Soph? I
was prepared to give you a few days to get used to me touching your hand, your
back, your face, before I tried to venture farther. You froze last night when I
touched your back. I assume I’m going to be your first romantic kiss?”
I
nodded, unable to talk, and he said, “You stole my heart at three, but I think
I fell the rest of the way in love with you when I threw you in the river. It
wasn’t a romantic love then, but it will be, now.” He shook his head and said,
“It is, now.”
“I
was seven!” I finally found my voice, and it came out in almost a shout.
“I
know.” His smile was gentle, as if he was afraid of spooking me. “If I kiss
you, it won’t be to test out your theory.” His eyes were intense. Dark. “We
need to get to know one another better as adults, and have a lot of discussions
about consequences and repercussions before we…” He stood, stepped to me, and
pulled me from my chair, drawing me into the warmth of his arms. No one had
ever held me like this, enveloping me, surrounding me, and I had to think about
breathing as his heat and power surrounded me and threatened to overwhelm me.
Holding onto my reactions was hopeless now, but this was Aaron and he’d never
expected me to be someone I’m not.
“Not
saying no, Princess. I’m giving you a chance to decide for sure, though.”
I
leaned my head against the hard wall of his chest as I tried to get my heart to
slow down. “Don’t call me Princess.”
“Deal
with it.” No apologies. His voice was a rough scrape over my skin, but I
understood. He wanted me to consider the ramifications of kissing him — and
doing more than kissing — as not only Sophia, but also the Princess who might
want to try to hold the reins as Queen, one day.
I
needed to know more about him, about us, before I could decide. “You made this
house, in this cave, to hide me.”
He
stilled, frozen in time for a brief second, and then caressed my back. “To hide
supernaturals, Soph. Every way into the cave has a body of water you must
cross, and the air is sucked into the earth in this cave system and rarely
blows out. The crystal formations in the area help camouflage both of our
magical signatures, and with no ley lines close, not even the Fae have a hope
of finding us.”
“Not
many supernaturals have occasion to need to hide from the Fae.”
He
chuckled and kissed the top of my head. I liked this, being so close to him,
feeling the vibrations of his chest as I heard him laugh. His lips on top of my
head, if only for a brief second, set my insides on fire.
“More
of us need to hide from the Fae than you might think,” he said. “In my
business, when someone comes to me needing protection it’s always good to have
options.” His sigh told me he’d given up on me deciding whether I wanted a
kiss, but when he tried to pull away, I held on. He relaxed and snuggled me
back into him. “I’d given up on any hope of the swans providing an answer, and
then had to feel guilty when your mother died and the news came that there was
one viable egg, and the Fae announced you were a girl. I felt grief for your
father, and heartache for the child who would be born without a mother to raise
her, but at the same time I felt a spark of hope. And then I got to know you,
came to adore you, and later came to love you. Part of me wants to spirit you
away to an island that shows up on no maps, and is out of bounds so the Fae
can’t get to it from the Summerlands. I would make you fall in love with me,
and try to figure out how to make it work…but I care too much about you. You’ve
been locked away all your life, and if it kills me, or kills both of us, I’m going
to do everything in my power to give you your freedom.”
I
gave in to the sensory input snowballing in my brain. For the first time I my
life I didn’t have to worry about revealing my body’s reactions, so I looked
up, caught his gaze, and said, “Kiss me, Aaron. I don’t want to wait.”
His
face came towards mine, slow, as if he were giving me a chance to change my
mind. He ran his lips across mine, fast, hot. He paused, pulled back a few
millimeters, and then touched his mouth to mine again, so languorous, delicate,
and sensually slow my lips opened to him without my realizing it. I closed my
eyes, relaxed into his arms, and let him have my mouth, let him do whatever he
wanted with it.
His
tongue encouraged mine to move, to do a kind of dance with his, and once I
relaxed into the kiss, my lower body came to life in a way I’d never
experienced and I pressed my thighs together, alarmed he’d smell what he was
doing to me.
The
kiss grew from a slow, relaxed caress to an urgent, demanding, hungry claim. I
felt as if he branded me, owned me, and if he hadn’t ended it I’m not sure I’d
have been able to. I was breathless and speechless as I opened my eyes to see
him watching me, and all I could do was smile, close my eyes, and rest my face
against his chest. The quick fantasies I’d allowed myself while swimming laps
in the pool, or while showering — places no one was likely to smell the scent
of arousal — were nothing compared to the larger-than-life reality of Aaron
Drake in person.
“If
that wasn’t true love’s kiss then the real thing might be enough to give
someone a heart attack,” I said into his chest. “I had no idea, Aaron. Is it
always like that?”
He
kissed the top of my head and his voice rumbled on my cheek through his chest.
“No, that was an exceptionally good kiss. We have chemistry, Soph. I knew we
would, but it’s nice to have reality live up to what I’d hoped for.”
About
the Author:
Candace Blevins
is a southern girl who loves to travel the world. She lives with her husband of
17 years and their two daughters. When not working or driving kids all over the
place she can be found reading, writing, meditating, or swimming.
Candace writes
BDSM Romance, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and is currently writing a
Motorcycle Club series.
Her Safeword
Series gives us characters who happen to have some extreme kinks. Relationships
can be difficult enough without throwing power exchange into the mix, and her
books show characters who care enough about each other to fight to make the
relationship work. Each book in the Safeword series highlights a couple with a
different BDSM issue to resolve. Books are standalone and can be read in any
order, with the exception of the two Davenport books, and the four Matte books.
Her urban
fantasy series, Only Human, gives us a world where weredragons, werewolves,
werelions, three different species of vampires, as well as a variety of other
mythological beings exist.
Candace's
paranormal romance series, The Chattanooga Supernaturals, is a sister series to
the Only Human series, and gives some secondary characters their happily ever
after.
You can visit
Candace on the web at candaceblevins.com and feel free to friend her on
Facebook at facebook.com/candacesblevins and Goodreads at
goodreads.com/CandaceBlevins.
You can also
join www.facebook.com/groups/CandacesKinksters
to get sneak peeks into what she's
writing now, images that inspire her, and the occasional juicy blurb.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Quite a bold cover, and I like the excerpt!
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