Hunted by a Jaguar, the fourth book in New York Times best-seller Felicity Heaton’s hot paranormal romance series, Eternal Mates, is now available in ebook and paperback. To celebrate the release, she’s holding a FANTASTIC GIVEAWAY at her website and sharing sneak peeks of the book.
Book Description:
A jaguar shifter with a dark secret, Kyter has spent his entire life running from his demons. When a tragedy takes him back to his pride’s village, he is set on a path of vengeance that will see him collide with the terrible ghosts of his past and a beautiful vision of his future.
Iolanthe deals in finding artefacts for discerning clients, but this time her client is one of the deadliest men in Hell and her mission has the highest stakes imaginable. Failure is not an option when your life is on the line, but things take a dangerous turn when she crosses paths with a handsome and mysterious male on the hunt for the same artefact—a male who declares she is his eternal mate.
Can Iolanthe resist Kyter’s wicked allure and find the artefact before he does? Can Kyter face his demons and win the heart of his fated female? Or will this deadly game of cat and mouse claim both of their lives?
Excerpt:
Kyter strolled through the quiet city of Ercolano, heading
down the sloping modern streets from the train station towards the ancient
ruins. His backpack shifted with each step, his black t-shirt already soaked
through from his not-so-pleasant journey. The trains that ran along the line
were old, hot, and dangerous.
Well, dangerous if you were human.
He had lost count of the number of shady characters he had
spotted during his journey from Naples, which was another hotbed of depravity
and crime. He had made fast work of getting from the airport to the train
station and had managed to board a train within a few minutes of arriving
there, but in that time he had been left with an unpleasant sensation of being
stalked.
He preferred not to harm mortals, and normally just a look
in their direction was enough to make them think twice about bothering him, but
the scum that loitered in the station and rode the trains were a special breed
of stupid. It had taken a brief flash of fangs to dissuade many of them and
warn them he wasn’t in the mood to play.
His rage had only grown more potent since discovering that a
female mercenary was after the same thing as he was, part of it now directed at
her. He would find the artefact before she could locate it. He had left for
Naples as soon as he had figured out the answer to the demon’s riddle, catching
the first available flight out of London Gatwick. He felt sure that he would
beat her to this place and that he would find what he was looking for here.
The key to avenging his mother.
And his pride.
He clenched his fists and growled beneath his breath, unable
to tamp down the need. His heart ached in his chest whenever he thought about
his mother. During the funeral, he had been so numb that it had felt like a
fantasy, a terrible nightmare. He had watched her body burn, her spirit rising
to his ancestors on the smoke that twined through the trees up to the starlit
sky. It hadn’t felt real then. It felt real now. It had sunk in that his mother
was gone and he would never see her again or hear her voice on the end of a
crackly satellite telephone line.
The sun sank into the sea ahead of him, bathing the sky in
gold, and he slowed his pace to take in the beauty of it, letting it wash over
him and soothe his weary soul.
He followed the street signs to an impressive stone and
brick arch set back in a small area of garden. In the middle of the arch, a
locked wrought iron gate allowed him to see beyond the wall to what it
contained. It looked like he had found the right spot.
The ancient city of Herculaneum.
He veered right and eyed the three metre high wall that
butted up against the arch on either side. Easy. He had expected more security
than just a wall, but he wasn’t going to complain. He pressed down on the balls
of his feet and kicked off, springing over the wall without even touching it.
He landed silently on the other side in a crouch and scanned the area, both
with his sharp vision and his senses.
When he felt certain that there were no security guards in
the area, he rose to his feet and followed the broad path towards a slope.
A green metal fence lined both sides of the slope beneath
towering cypress trees, running at hip height to him.
Beyond that fence spread the ruins of a great civilisation.
Kyter slowed to a halt as his gaze scanned over the large
archaeological site. He leaned against the top bar of the fence for a moment,
marvelling at the arid ruins.
He hadn’t expected it to look so well preserved, with so
many structures still standing. Some even had roofs over them that weren’t
modern additions to protect the interiors. Paved roads intersected the stone
buildings, complete with high pavements. Incredible.
There was a steep incline down to the site on all sides and
only one way of entering via a walkway over at the far side, in the left corner
diagonally across from him. There was bound to be security there.
He clambered over the top horizontal pole of the fence in
front of him and kicked off, easily clearing the steep grassy bank and landing
hard on a broad flat balcony in front of one of the sets of buildings. His legs
ached from the impact and he grunted and grimaced as he rose onto his feet. He
was out of practice. Was a time he could’ve made a jump twice that distance and
a fall three times further without even wincing on landing.
Kyter stretched, taking pleasure from it as he raised his
arms above his head, his hands locked together, and took in his surroundings.
He wasn’t sure where to begin. He had picked this site over its more famous
neighbour, Pompeii, purely because it was closer to Naples. He took his
backpack off one shoulder, let it swing beneath his arm, and unzipped the front
pocket. He pulled out the guidebook he had purchased in the airport, opened it
on the map he had bookmarked, and studied it.
For ten minutes.
Nope. He didn’t have a damn clue where he was on it and
where he was going. He hopped another smaller fence around the balcony, walked
along the top of a section of wall, and then jumped down onto a main street in
the ruins.
He tried to follow the map, but the place was a maze of
sites, all marked in Italian on the crumbling walls next to iron gates that
stopped people from entering them. He stopped at each sign, trying to match it
up to the one he was looking for, working his way along the rows of buildings
as the light began to fade.
Around the corner of one row, he found a building that had
lost half of its walls and his eyebrows shot up. There was a bench and jars set
into the ground. A store? Maybe a bar. He liked the idea of ancient Romans all
hanging out at a bar and living it up. It probably hadn’t been all that fun
when the volcano had erupted though.
Vesuvius loomed in the distance, awash with gold as the sun
cast dying rays over it.
The poor bastards probably hadn’t stood a chance.
All the crazy mortals who lived in its shadow probably
wouldn’t stand a chance when it went off again either.
He turned away from the possible bar and frowned as a
shadowy figure crossed the street far ahead of him, disappearing beyond another
building. A security guard?
Kyter tipped his head back and sniffed, catching their scent
on the hot still air.
His eyes widened.
The woman from the fae town.
He had managed to catch her scent when he had gone into the
building she had exited to meet with the same demon. She smelled like the
flowers in the rainforest. Exotic and alluring, and beautiful.
He took a step in her direction before he caught himself. He
curled his fingers into fists and clenched them. He wasn’t here to hunt her. He
was here to hunt his father and he couldn’t forget that. He pressed one hand to
his chest, over a heart that burned with cold hatred for the demon who had
dared to take his mother from him and kill so many of his pride.
The woman from the fae town wasn’t a female to pursue.
She was an enemy, and the quicker his body and his mind got
that message, the better. It didn’t matter that she was breathtaking, or that
she stirred his jaguar side and brought it to the fore, awakening a deep
instinct to stalk her as if she were prey, something that had never happened to
him before.
She was after the same thing as he was and he couldn’t let
her have it.
He tracked her from a distance, following her scent as he
moved through the ruins. He needed to know if she was looking in the location
he had been searching for. If she was, he would drive her away.
Her scent grew stronger, a sign that she had been to the
area more than once in the past few hours. He slowed his approach when his
sensitive ears caught the sound of her breaths and softened his steps, moving
silently towards her location.
She was inside the next building, a pale stone affair with
several columns made of brick lining the street outside it.
Kyter stalked towards the entrance, his breathing stilled to
conceal his presence. He wasn’t sure what species she was, but too many had
heightened hearing for him to risk breathing.
He peered into the building, his eyes rapidly adjusting to
the darkness. She stood at the far end, hefting a pick above her head and
bringing it down with force. Sparks flew as it struck the stone floor. She
hadn’t had the tool a moment ago. Had it been in the room? How long had she
been here?
The size of the hole she had already dug said that it had
been a while. She must have snuck in before the site had closed for the day and
started work as soon as the last visitor had left.
She paused and set her pick down, resting it against her
leg.
Kyter stared, mesmerised as she twirled her long black hair
up into a knot and stabbed an elegant silver pin through it. He didn’t doubt
that she could use that as a weapon in a pinch. She seemed irritatingly
resourceful. How the hell had she beaten him to the site? Mercs often had
money. Maybe she had a private jet.
She huffed and lifted her hand, and wiped her forearm across
her brow. Sweat trickled down her back between her shoulders, turning her
perfectly pale skin shiny and soaking into her flimsy black camisole. It seemed
he wasn’t the only one who didn’t take well to high temperatures. He cocked his
head to one side and raked his gaze down her spine. Was she from cooler climes?
She was too pale to come from a hot country like this one.
He ducked behind the wall when she turned towards him. His
heart hammered against his chest, his gaze locked on the column opposite him.
He had moved fast, but not swiftly enough that he hadn’t caught sight of the
beads of sweat rolling down her chest and slipping into the valley between her
breasts.
Kyter swallowed hard.
The jaguar side of him growled low and the rumble of
appreciation almost made it past his lips.
He dug his claws into the palms of his hands, using the pain
to tamp down his desire, and listened hard to his prey. The pick struck the
stone again. He shifted a few steps to his left, away from the door, and eyed
the sign on the wall. It wasn’t the building he was looking for. She had a
reprieve. There was no point in confronting her and letting her know he was
there until it was absolutely necessary.
He brazenly walked past the door, looking in at her, unable
to stop himself from taking in her luscious curves as she worked before he
moved on. He checked his map again, found the building she was working in, and
followed the paved roads up the hill towards the back of the site.
Kyter grinned when he finally found the building he had been
searching for. He walked into the larger building, immediately breathing a sigh
of sweet relief as cooler air greeted him. It was dark inside with the fading
light, but the modern roof over the series of rooms was raised around a foot
off the structure, creating an opening through which a modest amount of light
could enter. He used his heightened vision to navigate the rooms, seeking the
one he had read about.
He found it in the largest room. Half of it was divided into
three square rooms by two thick walls. The section to the right had been walled
in again, but the parts in the middle and to the left were open. The central
part was the reason he had come to this place.
Two columns covered in white and red plaster stood at the
end of the walls that enclosed what appeared to be a sort of ancient chapel.
The floor in the area there was raised up two steps and the three walls had
been painted. Directly ahead of him, in the back wall, there was an arch, and
blue and white panels decorated the plaster. There was a small stone plinth in
the centre of the arch, as if something sacred or important had once been
placed there.
It was the wall to his left that held his attention. The
plaster had been decorated with white and grey columns and arches painted on a
red background. In the central area of the wall, someone had painted a picture
on a white square surrounded by mottled blue and red.
Ancient goddesses and a god.
The answer to the clue the demon had given to him.
The hairs on the back of Kyter’s neck prickled and he turned
swiftly to face the person behind him.
The female from the fae town stood in the middle of the
dusty empty room, a short black blade balanced on her left shoulder and her
green eyes filled with a spark of curiosity as she studied him from head to
toe.
Slowly.
Our Review:
**ARC received for honest review**
Reviewed by Shirley ~ 5 Stars
This book is the fourth in this really great series. I have read them all and again it is written superbly by one of my favourite authors. With a great story line and a brilliant sensual and erotic interaction between the two main characters, this book keeps you glued to what is happening between Kyter and Iolanthe; it weaves you into their lives.
Kyter was a jaguar shifter whose early life had not been easy at all. You cannot help but feel for this beautiful man. The injustice that had befallen him, through no fault of his own and his childhood was so wrong. You can understand why he was fighting demons in his heart and had vengeance on his mind.
And then there is Iolanthe, a beautiful elf, who during the course of her long life has taken up the job of finding lost artefacts for clients who need her unique abilities. This is something she had enjoyed up till now as the client she has to deal with at the moment is very dangerous and is threatening her, so she has to find the artefact in question as soon as she can. It is while Iolanthe was on this quest when she came in contact with Kyter and this is where the story really begins because Kyter is after the same artefact so a clash of wills is inevitable as to who gets it first.
After a very shaky start you will read how the instant attraction that these two have for one another grows. Iolanthe fights it every inch of the way and then on the other hand you have got Kyter that just by looking at her all that goes through his mind is…
"Mine"
And Iolanthe telling him in no uncertain terms…
"I do not recognise you as my mate. You are wrong."
She took a step back when he reached for her, a wild look entering his eyes.
"And even if you were right...I do not want a mate."
Although the desire was still burning in Iolanthe.
You have got to love the way that Kyter makes sure Iolanthe notices him, a peacock comes to mind but a very nice handsome sexy peacock for all that. I loved the way the attraction between these two grew and it made great reading but they did give into the sizzling feelings that are running through their blood streams.
"Kyter," she murmured, his name a sound of supplication.
She lifted her left leg, wrapped it around his hip, and drew him against her. Her warm wetness pressed against his balls. He lost it again.
But they still had a deadly foe on their backs and an artefact to find.
I really loved Kyter and Iolanthe and I could not put this book down until I reached the end. I had to find out how they got on with their quest and the steamy love scenes were to die for.
I highly recommend you read this book I am sure you will enjoy it as much as I did.
Buy Links:
Hunted by a Jaguar is available from Amazon Kindle, Kobo Books, Barnes and Noble Nook, Apple iBooks stores and other retailers. Also available in paperback.
Books in the Eternal Mates paranormal romance series:
About the Author:
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 Felicity Heaton is a New York Times and USA Today international best-selling author writing passionate paranormal romance books. In her books, she creates detailed worlds, twisting plots, mind-blowing action, intense emotion and heart-stopping romances with leading men that vary from dark deadly vampires to sexy shape-shifters and wicked werewolves, to sinful angels and hot demons! If you're a fan of paranormal romance authors Lara Adrian, J R Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and Christine Feehan then you will enjoy her books too.
If you love your angels a little dark and wicked, the best-selling Her Angel series is for you. If you like strong, powerful, and dark vampires then try the Vampires Realm series or any of her stand-alone vampire romance books. If you’re looking for vampire romances that are sinful, passionate and erotic then try the best-selling Vampire Erotic Theatre series. Or if you prefer huge detailed worlds filled with hot-blooded alpha males in every species, from elves to demons to dragons to shifters and angels, then take a look at the new Eternal Mates series.
If you want to know more about Felicity, or want to get in touch, you can find her at the following places:
FelicityHeaton.co.uk | Facebook | Twitter | Pinterest | GoodReads | Amazon
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