BOTS 2: Sharon Ashwood

Darak and Dangerous
by Sharon Ashwood 

Darak appears in Frostbound: the Dark Forgotten. He’s no one’s sidekick—he gets involved in the story because of a promise he makes to a dead woman, and he ends up saving a queen. As usual, it’s his sense of right and wrong that forces him to join in the fray, despite his plan to stay on the sidelines.

Characters walk into my head without warning, often with their names, stories, and desires already formed. However, most hang around for a while before they start seriously badgering me for attention. I sometimes think they’re checking me out, waiting to see if I’m the author they want.

Darak stomped up and got in my face right away, fixing me with his ice blue eyes. He knows what he wants, and he takes it. The only one who can tell him to back off is the Nubian archer Nia, his second in command. She’s every bit as tough but she’s much, much prettier.

Darak is the leader of Clan Thanatos, a league of rogue vampires who were once enslaved as gladiators in ancient Rome. They killed the noble who turned them into undying warriors for his private games, and they have been on the run ever since, sometimes fighting as mercenaries, sometimes playing Robin Hood and lending their strength to a just cause. The crowned heads of the vampire world regard Darak and his followers as traitors and troublemakers—at least until they need someone to do a dirty job. Then Darak is a necessary evil.

Slave, rebel, warrior, champion—Darak has the makings of a highly romantic hero although he comes across as more tough than suave. He’s fiercely independent and hard to befriend. Blame it on thousands of years of struggling for survival—something that gives him a keen understanding for the unfortunate. He’s recently rescued Daisy, a fighting dog left to die when she lost one too many matches. Maybe he saw a piece of himself from back in his gladiator days.

Clan Thanatos was named after the god of death. It’s apt for Darak, who has the gift/curse of seeing the dead. Someone has to right their wrongs and grant their last requests, and it’s this gruff swordsman with the lame dog whom they turn to.

As for Darak + romance, so far that’s a conversation no one has the nerve to start. When he’s ready, I’m sure he’ll let me know.


Excerpt:

Darak tasted the evil that hung in the air and ached to smash it.

Pluto’s balls, some idiot went and got himself a spell book.

Wasn’t that just dandy? 

Who the hell in this backwater has that kind of power? For a pinprick on the map, Fairview was just full of surprises. Vampires standing for public office. Entire prison dimensions. And his personal favorite—invisible evil that set stuff on fire. 

Come for the election, stay for the magic of mass destruction.

Darak heaved himself to his feet, stiff from crouching on the peak of the cathedral roof like an oversized gargoyle. He dusted away the snow that had collected on his sleeves and scanned the horizon while he took a slug from his flask. 

The dark leathers he wore kept out the wind, but the cold seeped through seams and zippers. One of the old Undead, he could ignore it. What bothered him more was the smoke—not the comfortable scent of a hearth fire, but the reek of a burning building. The acrid stink had drawn him to the highest point he could find, and now he could see the source—a glowing maw of flame to the southwest, unnaturally fierce and bright. 

Who or what had caused it? Only one way to find out. Go to the source. 

Darak balanced on the roof’s ridge line, walking toe-to-heel along its length. Pride made him careful. Vampires could fly, but at close to seven feet and three-fifty, Darak was not exactly aerodynamic. Control was important, unless he wanted to drop like a bag of laundry. 

When he reached the roofline, he jumped, a streak of shadow against the black sky. The air rushed to meet him, snow stinging his cheeks. He landed lightly enough, boots skating on the frosty sidewalk. Pulling himself upright, he began walking toward the fire. 

Darak and his bloodsworn kin were Undead, but they bowed to no queen or king. It had taken them two millennia to gain enough strength for true freedom, and they’d done it by force of arms. The honest way. 

Darak didn’t like magic or the people who used it. Weapons were far more reliable. Nevertheless, it took a cartload of power to start a blaze like that. 


Power was interesting. 

Maybe Darak could use the fool with the spell book. If election fever turned bad, they might need an extra weapon in reserve. 

Or maybe he’d just tear off the fool’s head. 

That sort of thing was his specialty.

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Giveaway

Win the book of your choice! Here are your options: 

Check out my review!

Holly Carver is a witch who sometimes relies on the help of Alessandro Caravelli for her family's preternatural investigations business. Alessandro is the oldest and strongest vampire in Fairview, and he's made no secret of his desire for Holly. But while she aches to succumb to his suggestive wiles, she knows it would be an invitation to trouble.

Then Alessandro's queen, Omara, complicates matters when she turns up in Fairview to enlist his help. Sultry and manipulative, she is jealous of Alessandro's feelings for Holly, and demands he use Holly to trap Geneva, the most evil demon of all.  
   

Ex-detective Macmillan has a taste for bad girls, but his last lover really took the cake-and his humanity. Now a half-demon, Mac's lost his friends, his family, and his job. Then a beguiling vampire asks for his help to find her son. Suddenly, Mac has a case to work-one that leads him deeps into the supernatural prison where Mac learns that cracking the case will cost him his last scrap of humanity. 
  

Check out my review! 

Ashe Carver, monster-killer, has the scars to prove it. But faced with a custody battle, she's hung up her stakes and taken a job at the public library, determined to show the courts and her ten-year-old daughter that she's as good a mother as she is a hunter.

Easier said than done. There are lovelorn vampires haunting the library, a slime demon in the shopping mall, and her new-mom sister needs a hand with her ghostbusting biz. Then, after centuries guarding a supernatural prison, Captain Reynard strides into her world like a hero from the library's Must Reads. Smokingly gorgeous, passionate and courageous to a fault, he has only weeks to live unless Ashe finds the thief who took his soul.

Ashe picks up her weapons to save the day—but not every problem can be solved with a stake. With so much tragedy in her past, Ashe fears the disaster she sees ahead—and prays she doesn't fail everyone. Again.

Memories are the hardest monsters to kill.

 

Check out my review! 

  As a snowstorm locks down the city, someone beheads the wrong girl. Vampire-on-the-lam Talia Rostova thinks it was meant to be her. And now she's the prime suspect in her own botched murder and the prisoner of her smoking-hot-neighbor: a hellhound. And the hot-blooded Lore was bred to serve and protect, so he's not freeing Talia until he's sure she's the prey and not the hunter...


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