Okay, so I decided I’d try picking an ebook from my backlist to spotlight. The way this will work will be like the ebook-a-day giveaway~I’ll post an excerpt, if you’re interested in winning a download from my backlist, then all you need to do is post a comment in the thread. From the commenters, I’ll toss everybody’s name into a hat (or use randomizer.org) and draw one winner at random to win their choice of one title from my backlist.

In case you’re not familiar with my contests, you might want to take a look at my disclaimer page~contests are open to anybody & everybody, but I do limit entries to one per household.

First book up is going to be Touch of Gypsy Fire, from Ellora’s Cave. This is a fantasy, the first real fantasy I’ve written and it’s still one of my favorite books. (In case I get asked, yes, I do plan on writing a book for the secondaries, he just isn’t speaking to me yet).

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Irian was pulling at him.

Tyriel could see the strain in his eyes, almost hear the internal fight.

She slid the sword a withering glance and thought silently, “What do you want now, blasted enchanter?”

“You.” He flooded her mind with images of them, nude on brightly colored silk sheets, in the tents favored by her gypsy blood.

She blushed to the roots of her hair and turned her head away so that Aryn didn’t catch sight of her reddened face and wonder why. Irian had shielded his thoughts from his bearer, the way he always did when thinking of Tyriel in an earthier sense. “The man is a bloody fool, he is,” Irian murmured into her mind. An unseen hand seemed to stroke down the back of her head, along her thick braid and down her back to rest above the curve of her ass.

“I thought when ye took up arms together as partners he would take your bed as well, but ‘tis pure madness. And he torments me w’ his talk of not bedding a swordmate. Bah! Five long years has he resisted…how much longer must we wait?”

She suppressed a shiver as those final words seemed to be whispered right into her ear. “Would you leave me be?”

“But you are so much easier t’ torment,” Irian purred. “Warm, female, sweet. I’d rather be sinking into your sweet little cleft, but your mind is almost as sweet.”

“And is this why you torment your bearer? You insist on fucking me?”

“Nay,” Irian’s voice grew strained. “You know me better, wild elf, pretty Jiupsu. I canna stand the thought of goin’ to Ifteril. Something is there. Something evil, something dark, something that threatens us. But Aryn says we winter there. Contracts. Fucking contracts.”

“We’ve signed no contracts to fuck,” Tyriel answered absently. She didn’t like it. Never had the enchanter balked at the thought of going anywhere. Something evil¼something dark. A shiver took her body and she absently touched her fingers to the chains that hung between her breasts.

“I fear for you, elf.” Irian’s voice came to her on a gruff whisper and his presence folded around her like a cloak, safe, protective.

And Aryn rode on, oblivious.

The blasted enchanter was talking to Tyriel again.

Aryn could hear the throaty rumble in the back of his mind but the words were unclear.

Whatever Irian was saying was disturbing Tyriel. And it disturbed her clear into the night.

Her smooth dusky skin had gone pale, and her face was tight with strain. Her normally smooth, subtle movements were awkward as they set up camp that night. Lowering herself beside the fire, her eyes were haunted, dark, sightless, as she stared into nothingness. She tucked her glossy black ringlets behind her ears, the elongated point holding the wild curls away when a human’s ears would have done nothing. The left ear had a golden ring pierced through, halfway through the top, and a cuff that hugged her lobe, the gold reflecting the firelight as she sat staring somberly into space.

“What bothers you?” he asked quietly.

She lifted her eyes from the fire and stared at him, slowly, almost as if she were drugged, or entranced. “Irian doesn’t want to go into to Ifteril.” Her tongue slid out past her lips, wetted them, and Aryn suppressed a ragged groan as her eyes closed again.

Fuck, we’ve got to get to Ifteril, into a city, before I lose it. For five years, he had managed to keep a hold on his craving for her, but long treks like this, between cities, when there were no women around to ride and pretend it was her underneath him—it drove him mad.

~*~*~

Me, being as lazy as I am, will let this contest run through the rest of March and all of April before I draw a winner. All you have to do to enter the contest is post a comment. FYI, if you’re not too familiar with ebooks and have questions, this thread here is the perfect place to ask.