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|  | | A Dragon's Tail
Look for three—
One old enemy,
One a stranger to her kin and kind,
And look for the One from the rising sun,
Who’ll know them both and seek and find.
From “The Song of Three”
As sung by Nabon d’Lyre
Centra, a foundling child grown to manhood, has no knowledge of his past. Raised to fear and distrust wizards, he is certain of only one thing – he is not one of those “spineless cowards.”
He’s wrong.
Centra embarks on a quest to discover who and what he really is. He soon runs afoul of the malevolent Lord Guardian of Umbra, a powerful wizard willing to destroy anything that threatens his dreams of glory. Hunted by the Lord Guardian’s most trusted demon and haunted by dreams of a baby dragon, Centra must embrace the power he despises, and learn to control it, before the Lord Guardian finds and destroys him.
Prologue
They were doomed.
Huddled against sun-baked stone, Gaylen cradled her son Centra in a futile attempt to shelter him from the battle—from the clash of blades, the smell of blood, the screams. Wave after wave of men in black battle harness crashed against the thinning wall of their defenders. The Umbran commandos had ambushed their party at the mouth of the pass and driven them against the base of a cliff. They had no place left to run.
Centra stirred, but an improvised spell kept the toddler locked in slumber. She
brushed the curls from his flushed forehead and kis | |  | | Beyond the Mundane: Unravelings
A collection of 28 horror and mystery stories from the masters of the macabre!
"CYBERGEIST"
by Carrie S. Masek
Death didn't hurt. One minute, Russ Jenkins was hanging out in front of McDonalds, the next he was dead. He heard an engine roar, caught a split second glimpse of Jack Clayton behind the wheel of his dad's Lincoln Navigator, and felt the slam of the grille. A rush of air. Breaking glass. A scream. Russ hit a table, bounced and rolled. Then nothing. No pain, no light, no heat.
Nothing.
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Fumes and a damp, searing heat wrapped around Russ. His skin itched. His nostrils burned. It smelled like sulfur something-or-other from Chemistry last year. | |  | | Room For Love
A marriage of convenience between a woman determined to keep her foster children, and a man determined to keep his home. The legacy of a bitter childhood has robbed the "Ice Man of Options" of his softer feelings. A disastrous first marriage has made the foster mother distrust hers. They're both determined to keep the marriage a straightforward business deal, but passion flares with their wedding kiss. Will they let their pasts cheat them of happiness, or will they learn that even in scarred hearts, there's always room for love?
| |  | | Twice Damned
Even vampires have demons . . .
Dachau, Bavaria, September 29, 1944
Facing certain defeat, Hitler's Reich seeks to create a new breed of soldier -- strong, tough and terrifying. A hundred men volunteer. Four survive -- reborn as vampires.
Waukegan, Illinois, May 16, 2014
Ritter Breitmann, soldier-turned-vampire, has learned to survive in the modern world. His existence is rigidly controlled, safe and lonely until he rescues a beautiful scientist from an apparent mugging and discovers a plot to inflict his curse on other men. The demons from his past are back, and Ritter must stop them before they plunge the world into a final, immortal Reich.
Chapter One
Waukegan, Illinois
May 16, 2014
Blood. Hunger. Lust. An explosion of red. Red floor, red walls, red air. A girl: thin, naked, dead. Another girl. And another. Black wounds on milky thighs. Gaping throats. Blood- stained breasts.
Another girl. Pink and gold. Arms lift. Veins open. Blood, hot as flame, sweet as life, pouring, gushing, flooding.
Ritter jackknifed off the bed. The image shattered. A dream. Only a dream. He pulled in a shuddering breath and rolled to his feet. It was early, but he dreamed often enough to know his sleep had ended.
He quickly | |  | | Under a Bear Moon
Lynda Malone, a perfectly normal high school junior, falls for the new boy in her Biology class. At first he seems like the perfect boyfriend: tall, dark, and devoted. Unfortunately, he's not entirely human.
Prologue
He had to find her.
Stepping out of the alley, he lifted his head and sniffed the breeze. Her fragrance stroked the back of his mind, sweet and elusive, the scent he'd waited a lifetime for. It beckoned from the other side of the University of Chicago's Midway Plaisance, from near his new home.
His heart started to pound. The breeze could shift. She could disappear into a house or car. He could lose her among the million aromas filling the night.
He leapt across the moonlit street and past the oaks lining the boulevard's parkway. She was cl |
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