~ PRE-ORDER ~ EXCERPT BELOW ~
They made a deal to conceive a child, then go their separate ways. Falling in love wasn't part of the contract...
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Ares kept up with his family, but he didn’t keep up with his family. He knew Loki had a prosperous life as a tech mogul in Silicon Valley. He knew about the kid since gossip rushed through the supernatural community faster than Zeus could charm his cock into one of his side pieces. Ares also knew his son had been one of many to come forward with his true identity and usher in the new age.
The media called it the Dawn of the Dragons, the over-theatrical name referring to the time the paranormal world and mundane living collided.
Now, shifters transforming in public no longer caused a stir. Witches were coveted employees and service providers, whether it was the craft of protection spells or home-alarm systems.
And then there were assholes like Ares who had no inclination to reveal his identity and enjoyed the anonymity of his mortal name and phony status in society. In Russia, his employer and closest friends knew, his acquaintances had an inkling, and his enemies lived in pure terror.
The wind shifted, and a hint of something familiar kissed his senses; frost, damp earth, and black hellebores. It teased his memories, then the breeze shifted once more and the ghost of something wonderful was gone.
It couldn’t be.
Ares took off at a sprint without knowing why.
Lie. He knew why.
The problem was, he didn’t want to admit that he cared.
Distance across the grounds evaporated beneath his long stride. The estate, more of a residential compound than a home, had no fences around the individual buildings. They had flown over the large wrought iron gate.
“Where are you going?” Czernobog called after him. “The door is this way.”
He reached a walking path that wrapped around the home, all stepping stones that split off toward the different structures. He smelled horses and cattle on the wind, and didn’t need to look far to see several of the beasts grazing on grass and golden hay bales within a fenced pasture. While they were plentiful, their smell couldn’t disguise what he truly sought.
Upon reaching the rear of the home where a tiled veranda wrapped around an elegant pool and stretched toward the raised deck, his gaze fell on the object of his frenzied search.
Hel stood out like a solitary star in a shaded sky.
Seeing her again shouldn’t have affected him, and he swore each time they crossed paths over the centuries that it’d be the last time he cared. Despite that, looking at her from afar dealt him a sucker punch of desire to the gut.
The wind shifted, treacherous and awful in the way it carried her fragrance to him, the unique scent of the black dragoness an arousing blend of female skin, damp soil, and flora. He hated it. He loved it.
His senses warred, wisdom against primal nature, one beseeching him to throw in the towel and fly away, the other imploring him to stalk toward his unclaimed mate and remind her where she belonged—under him, over him, whatever way brought them together naked in a tangle of limbs.
His body tensed, every muscle from the back of his calves to the nape of his neck stiffening, though none were as hard as the unbearable arousal tensing in his jeans. Seeing Hel again provoked the worst responses from his body and toyed with his control.
Yet he resisted, as he always had since the day she’d called their experiment over and released him of obligation to be at her side. Little by little, the inferno died to a slow-burning pile of cinders where wanton lust previously resided.