“I’d always been Uriel, the merciful one. The benevolent. The healer. But no longer. Those parts of me had been cut out.”
“Ending Vladek would be the catalyst to bury my hatred. Once and for all.”
Release Date: November 18th, 2019
Archangel Uriel is hell bent on revenge on the demon prince Vladek. To get into the prince’s impenetrable fortress, he’ll have to fight in the pits of the underworld. And he’ll need the help of the last person he can trust––the demon witch Nadya.
There is no way Nadya, who spends her days taking care of others, expected to find Uriel on her doorstep. He seems no happier about being there than she does. But helping him means evening the scales against her backstabbing sister, and she’ll do whatever it takes to make that bitch pay.
Using the fight pit circuits in the demon underworld, Nadya helps Uriel combat his way to the arena at the castle in Russia. Only she isn’t what she seems. As a matter of fact, she may hold the key to his redemption…and to his heart.
EXCERPT
Ludvik took my wrist in one hand
and my opponent’s wrist in the other before announcing the standard, “Only body
and blades in the ring. Fight till you die. Or survive.”
The voice of Yorick echoing
through the speakers of the hall crooned over the masses. “Tonight, we have a
special guest. To challenge our champion Mastok the Marauder, we have Uriel the
Archangel!”
Sudden raucous yells erupted from
the audience. I heard what I’d expected from some of the jeering crowd.
“Kill the angel!”
“Break his wings!”
“Take off his pretty head!” one
demoness in the front row yelled with spittle flying.
Fuel to the fire, my friends.
They had no idea what had been building inside of me since the day I’d been
taken captive by Vladek and restrained by his putrid essence and by Lisabette’s
blood rites and black magic. It would all be unleashed tonight.
“Let the games begin!” shouted
Yorick, then the maestro waved his arms.
The orchestra swelled suddenly,
joined by a chorus in the left balcony that I hadn’t noticed. A few of them
were seraphs, but mostly humans. Throat collars with chains binding them one to
the other kept them in place. All slaves to this bastard, Yorick.
“To the death,” grunted Ludvik,
smirking at me before letting our wrists go.
The behemoth circled away from
me, but I stood perfectly still.
I recognized the music building
with spine-chilling accuracy. “O Fortuna” from the cantata Carmina Burana.
The Latin voices and strings rang with staccato perfection. The haunting lyrics
vibrated straight to my soul, opening it wide for the words to take on new
meaning. Words penned by defrocked monks now long dead sang straight to my
heart. Oh, yes. Lady Fortune had been undeservingly cruel, blasting me with one
disaster after another, enslaving my soul with despair, bringing me to my knees
and expelling me out of hell so that I could stand on this stage and take my
revenge.
As my soon-to-be first kill continued
to circle me like a menacing predator, his sinister grin having zero effect, I
glanced one more time up to the top balcony, capturing her look of mingling
worry and fear and another heady emotion no woman had ever held in her eyes for
me. I pressed it all inside my chest and turned to the monster crouching for a
strike.
Let it all begin.
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About the author:
Juliette is a multi-published author of paranormal and urban fantasy romance. She calls lush, moss-laden Louisiana home where she lives with her husband, four kids, and black lab named Kona. From the moment she read JANE EYRE as a teenager, she fell in love with the Gothic romance–brooding characters, mysterious settings, persevering heroines, and dark, sexy heroes. Even then, she not only longed to read more books set in Gothic worlds, she wanted to create her own.
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