Showing results by author "R. A. Stefan" in All Categories

The angry drunk. The shameless womanizer. The coward who ran away and got his comrades killed. The ice-cold assassin for hire. And me, the girl with abandonment issues as deep and wide as the Southern Sea. The five us are all so different, we shouldn't work together. Most of the time, we don't. And yet, every once in a while, I get a glimpse of what might be, if we manage to move beyond our difficult pasts long enough to become the family our dragons need.

Skye Chantrell has just escaped a war zone. She’s carrying the stolen antidote to a deadly bioweapon. When her damaged shuttle crashes on a remote lunar outpost, she’s captured by the leader of a rogue group of alien vigilantes. Now her people’s survival - not to mention her own - rests in the hands of the Seven Systems’ most feared and hated fugitives. Hunter Tarthasian and his ragtag band of revolutionaries have every reason to hate the corrupt Ilarian Regime. Branded as criminals, hunted like animals, they’ve holed up in an abandoned outpost to plan their next move.

In another lifetime, six vampires lost their mates - and their mortality - to an unimaginable evil power. Despite the veil of death separating them, the strength of love draws them together across the ages. But now, if they can’t reunite with the reincarnations of their lost soulmates soon, it may just mean the end of the world.

Our secret is out, and now we’re marked for death. A lone survivor escaped the mountain battle, carrying news of our dragons’ existence to the court of Prince Oblisii. Utrea’s dragons were supposed to have been wiped out long ago. Only these five remain - a male and four females. They’re all that’s left to carry on the species, but first we have to keep them alive. The prince will come soon with his army, and I’m stuck on a mountaintop with my four knights in tarnished armor. Sometimes, I think these men will be the death of me long before the royal soldiers arrive.

Once upon a time, Menkhef stood up to a powerful pharaoh, and lost. That’s a poor track record for someone acting as the lynchpin in an imminent supernatural war. Humanity is caught between an absent angel and a vengeful demon. The Council of Thirteen still lacks its final two members, and Menkhef - better known to his friends as Snag - is the only vampire whose mate has not returned. Holed up in an underground tomb complex beneath the oldest pyramid in Egypt, he and his comrades must watch as Bael’s forces gather in preparation for the final battle.

We certainly aren’t supposed to have multiple supernatural beings competing for the title of “scariest nemesis.” Yet, that’s where I find myself, now that the last vampire on Earth is no longer the last vampire on Earth. Ransley Thorpe turned his closest friend in a last-ditch effort to save his life. Now all three of us have targets painted on our backs, and the powerful demon who might be able to protect us is the last person in the three realms we should trust.

We ran away, but it didn't solve our problems. Now, we're going back to fight for Aristede. And oh, yeah - there's also the small matter of toppling Rayth's corrupt younger brother from the Utrean throne, so we can remove the bounty on our dragons' heads. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Mind you, this whole thing would be easier if two of our number weren’t hell-bent on killing each other. Rayth and Nyx have both been hiding secrets for a very long time, but now they face a choice. Let go of their ugly pasts, or watch the future burn to the ground. We won’t be able to hide five hungry, growing dragons in the mountains forever. As soon as someone catches sight of them, every soldier in Utrea will be after us. And there’s no way we can fight for our dragons’ survival when we’re this busy fighting among ourselves.

They’re the last five dragons in existence. To survive, they must form soul-bonds with five humans who are pure of heart and resolute of spirit. Too bad they’re stuck with us instead: the angry drunk; the shameless man-whore; the coward who ran away and got his comrades killed; the ice-cold assassin for hire; and me, the girl with abandonment issues as deep and wide as the Southern Sea.

Growing up, my father always told me that I’d come to a bad end, just like my mom did when I was a kid. Hearing that kind of stuff when you’re little eventually gets to a girl, but I can’t say I ever expected my "bad end" to involve an angry vampire with a severe case of iron deficiency and a panty-melting English accent. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Ever since my mother was assassinated, I’ve felt like there was something vast and frightening hidden beneath the fabric of the world - something none of us are supposed to know about.

Haitian relief coordinator Dr. Mason Walker didn’t expect to begin his day staring down the barrel of an AK-47 wielded by a 12-year-old child soldier. He also didn’t expect to end it with the revelation that the darkly beautiful, otherworldly woman he’s just met is truly otherworldly, in the most literal sense of the word. She claims to be a vampire. But Mason is a doctor. A man of science. And everyone knows that vampires are just a superstitious response to the medical condition porphyria, combined with ignorance about the behavior of corpses after burial.