Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Susan Lute’s new release: The Dragon’s Shadow
After the fall of Mother Earth, survival demands power—and love may be the most dangerous peril of all.
In a shattered post-apocalyptic world, only scattered pockets of humanity endure. From the ruins rise Darwin changelings, beings not born of humans, fighting to reclaim what was long ago lost. When mercenaries slaughter her family, Beyla, a gifted shadow walker haunted by grief, wants only to vanish into the Last Shadow and forget the world that betrayed her.
Dragonborn commander Logan Pen has other plans.
Leader of the feared Pen Dragons, Logan hunts the Firestone, a relic powerful enough to shatter the fragile peace that remains. He needs Beyla’s forbidden knowledge to find it. When she steals his treasure and, by dragon law, becomes his unwilling mate, enemies are bound by fate and fire.
As desire flames between rivals and a ruthless enemy closes in, vengeance gives way to destiny. Bound by magic, blood, and an undeniable dragon bond, Beyla and Logan must risk everything—even their hearts.
Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from The Dragon’s Shadow
Spring Equinox, the day the world was torn apart, March 20, 2055
At twenty-five, as a delivery nurse at the local hospital, Idella Landers had delivered her share of babies. But as she had discovered, some births were more special than others.
The small, slender, blue dragon tattoo on her right ankle started to burn. It was time. With a large dose of trepidation thrown in, anticipation had her hands shaking as she silenced the harried newscaster. She then grabbed the last of her already-packed bags.
For the past two days, warnings of massive flares caused by an alignment of the sun and the planets with a black hole in the middle of the Milky Way had been broadcast. Around the globe, people panicked. As she watched in sick captivation, citizens rioted in the streets, mobs smashing into supermarkets and stores, carting away as much as they could carry.
Heart pounding in her chest, Idella concentrated on the task at hand. She bit back growing panic. There was only one thing that mattered now and that was the birth of these babies. Locking the house for what she prayed wouldn’t be the last time, she loaded the supplies she’d stored in the garage into the back of her truck. Pointing the older Ford in the direction of the towering, craggy mountains surrounding the town of Destiny, she nudged sunglasses into place as a defense against the blistering hot sun and drove.
Thirty knuckle-biting minutes later, she parked in the circular drive of a mansion reminiscent of pictures she’d seen of fairy-tale European castles. The wind howled, snatching at Idella’s heavy coat as though to hurry her along. Dark clouds hovered overhead. Instead of the short span of thirty-five years since it’d been built with granite from a nearby quarry, Dragons Walk reached for the sky from a notch between two sharp crags as though it had been nestled there forever.
The front door burst open. A frantic man pitched himself down the stone steps. “You must hurry!”
As he grabbed as many of her bags as he could carry, the wind pulled at his already tousled black hair. A shiver worked its way up Idella’s spine at the thick worry coloring his voice.
She tried one last time to change his mind. “Abigayle should be at the hospital.”
Since his response was an impatient shift of her bags, Idella took a steady breath. “All right. Everything’s going to be fine. We’ve been preparing for this for nine months.”
“The contractions are coming every three minutes.”
“That happened fast.” She frowned, quickly following him into the house.
“Abigayle says they’re in a hurry.” A scream rent the air.
“Shit!” She sprinted up the elegant, sweeping staircase leading to the second floor. Despite being laden with most of her bags, Daniel was hot on her heels.
In the master bedroom littered with heavy furniture befitting a castle, Abigayle’s sky-blue eyes latched onto her husband. “He’s coming.”
“Are you sure it’s a he?” Idella attempted to distract the laboring woman as she took one of the bags from Daniel.
“Yes! I can feel him,” Abigayle shouted, her usual serenity unraveling.
“Well, tell him to wait five minutes.” It would take her that long to finish the preparations. Idella tossed the bag she carried on the table they’d previously set up for her supplies, yanking out a sterile gown and gloves.
“He won’t. Wait.” Abigayle grunted, involuntarily bearing down before catching her breath and screaming.
Idella cursed, spreading additional protective layers of towels on the bed around the woman about to give birth. “Daniel, make her breathe.”
“Just like we practiced, Abi.”
Abigayle shook her head back and forth, sweat trapping the damp hair straggling around her face. “No.”
Idella hung back a second to let Daniel sit on the bed next to his wife. He picked up her hand, unwinding the fingers clutching the sheets. “Look at me, Abi.”
The contraction waning, Abigayle eased into the mound of pillows at her back, meeting her husband’s steady gaze. It never failed to surprise Idella how intimately attuned her friends were to each other.
“I love you.” His voice growled with deep emotion.
Immobilized by a brush of wistfulness at not having started her own family yet, Idella almost forgot what she was supposed to be doing. Blue flame gently licked the couple’s laced fingers.
“Another contraction,” Abigayle gasped, her body stiffening.
Daniel tossed Idella a worried look. She nodded her readiness.
With a ragged sigh of relief, Daniel turned back to his wife. “Okay, love. Breathe with me.”
Together they hissed through he-he-ho-ho like any other about-to-be new parents.
Checking the baby’s progress, Idella patted her patient’s knee. It was time for the first of five babies to be born. “You’re doing great, Abigayle. Next time you can push.”
“Here. He. Comes.”
“Okay, when I tell you, push.” She thinned the muscle holding the baby in, stretching it around the little guy’s emerging head. Thick black hair pasted with amniotic fluid came first. Holding her breath for just a second, she watched the miracle of birth that always clogged her throat with joy.
“Now, Abigayle. Push!”
The walls of the stone house shook. Lights flickered before everything went completely dark. Somewhere in the recesses of the building, a generator kicked on bringing the lights back.
“The solar flares have begun,” Daniel ground out, almost totally absorbed in his wife’s battle. “The house will withstand the quakes that will come too.”
He shifted, easing Abigayle onto his shoulder, mumbling, the gravel in his voice thick with wonder, Five will be born on the night the world burns.
Idella tossed him a look. She didn’t have time for a lesson in the prophecies. “Push, Abigayle.”
Seconds later, a squalling, kicking baby covered in a thick opaque membrane lay in her arms. She cut him free. As his mother had predicted, “It’s a boy.”
With a laugh, Abigayle fell against the pillows. She looked at her husband. “Logan?”
Idella didn’t miss the joy glistening in his dark eyes as Daniel bowed his head.
Abigayle held out her hands. “Let me see him.”
“Hang on. I’m cutting the cord now.” Breaking free of the wonder of this new family, Idella wrapped the newborn in a warm llama-wool blanket. “There you go. Daniel and Abigayle, meet your oldest son.”
“He’s beautiful,” Abigayle whispered. “Isn’t he, Daniel?”
“Yes, my love.”
Actually, he was a little small, as Idella expected. But, from the way he was squalling, and with his color high, he would do. His father’s genes would give him the extra strength he needed to survive his birth and the early days of life without too much trouble.
That was just the beginning. Before the night was done, with the moon looming large in the sky where it settled into a new orbit, four more babies made their way into a world that was breaking apart at the seams. Roman. Mercedes. Sonya. And Carlton. All five bore the mark of their ancestry.
As dawn broke, Idella clamped the last quint’s umbilical cord as a deluge of comets, along with the planet’s ill-fated alignment with the center of the Milky Way, forever changed the course of human history, fulfilling one set of prophecies, and pushing what was left of humanity toward near extinction.
Later, those who survived swore they saw a dragon-shaped comet streak across the fiery sky.
For Idella, the struggle to bring on the promised millennium of peace held as much uncertainty for the coming years as the birth of the five half-dragons, half-humans she’d just attended. Everything had changed, and as much as she wished it hadn’t, there was nothing humanity could do but survive.
Excerpt. ©Susan Lute. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
Giveaway: An ebook copy of THE DRAGON’S SHADOW + one additional Tule ebook of the winner’s choice
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Meet the Author:
Susan loves to write bold, brave, heartwarming stories. Like all children of military families, she spent much of her childhood moving from one duty station to the next, giving her the nomad bug. Along the way, she acquired a love of ancient history and myth and admits to collecting way too much useless information. She is an award-winning author of contemporary romance, women’s fiction, and romantic fantasy. She writes whenever she can. Contemporary romance, dragons, and a good cup of coffee make her day.
When not writing, her favorite things are spending time with family and friends, traveling, reading, watching movies, gardening, taking pictures of nature and architectural marvels, and remodeling the house that after thirty years, is finally starting to feel like home.
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