The
Dragon King
The
Chattanooga Supernaturals, Book
1
by 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.
Tour giveaway:
2 ebook copies of Only Human
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