Crave the Heat book tour with Steph Draven, Leia Rice, & Laura Kaye: Do You Like Darker Fare?

Stephanie Draven

[floatquote]I tend to write slit-your-wrist dark romances that tug at the heart-strings when the light finally breaks through.[/floatquote]

I tend to write slit-your-wrist dark romances that tug at the heart-strings when the light finally breaks through. It’s no different in this newest installment of my Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice nominated Mythica series is dead serious paranormal erotica. In the scene I’m about to share from The Fever and the Fury, my heroine is about to reveal a dark secret…

Excerpt from The Fever and the Fury

“So, you’re a virgin?” Luke asked.
Phaedra gnashed her teeth. “I suppose so. I’ve never touched another living soul except to inflict misery.”
Shocked silence answered that statement. “Come on,” he finally said, tossing a towel onto a white deck chair. “You’ve never even been hugged?”
“No,” Phaedra said, wishing fervently that he would stop asking questions and that she would stop answering them.
“Not even by your mother?”
“I never had a mother. Aren’t you listening? I’m a fury. I’ve never reached for another person except to claw them bloody. I’ve never made anyone moan except in agony. And no one—not in a thousand years—has ever put hands on me except to fend me off. Because I’m a monster. Just as you said. Is that what you want to hear?”
Luke was saying something to her, something soft and vaguely soothing, but she couldn’t make sense of it. She couldn’t even see his face, because something was stinging her eyes. Her vision swam and she’d have blamed the bright sun, until she realized her cheeks were wet. Was she crying?
“Phaedra?” It shook her to hear her name. She’d forgotten he even knew it.
Furies weren’t supposed to cry. Furies weren’t supposed to feel. But here she was on this balcony with this mortal man whose features showed something suspiciously akin to pity. Foolish mortal, coming so close to her. She should rake that sympathy right off his face. Or pummel him black-and-blue. Her fingers curled into a fist, and she prepared to deal him a blow with all the force of her rage, but she found her wrist locked in his strong grasp.
Doubly foolish mortal! He had to know that skin to skin, she could put agony and torment into him. She could make his blood curdle. She could make him gasp for breath, lungs collapsing. She could make him feel as if he were impaled upon a thousand spikes.
But she didn’t do it. And he didn’t burn her.
“Let go of me, Luke.”
“No,” Luke said, his steely grip unfaltering.
She bared her teeth. “Don’t you know what I can do to you? I can make you writhe in pain until you wish you were dead—”
“Trust me, I know exactly what you can do.”
Why should that shame her? He was the criminal. He was the one who needed to atone. It was his fault that she’d tormented him, and it would be his fault if he were stupid enough to let her hurt him now. Her dark power boiled black through her veins; it would be no difficult thing to let it seep into his skin. It would take no effort at all. In fact, it took considerable effort not to do it. Phaedra flailed, trying to escape him. “Let me go or I’m going to hurt you, Luke.”
“Yeah,” he said with resignation. “You probably will.”

About the author

Stephanie Draven is a multi-published award-nominated author of myth-inspired paranormal romance. Writing for HQN Nocturne, Stephanie’s Mythica series asks the question: What if the monsters of ancient mythology still walked the earth…and what if you found out that you were one of them? Currently a denizen of Baltimore, that city of ravens and purple night skies, Stephanie lives there with her favorite nocturnal creatures–three scheming cats and a deliciously wicked husband. And when she is not busy with dark domestic rituals, she writes her books.

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Leia Rice

[floatquote]My heroine, Mariette, … has to balance her allegiances with her enemies in order to survive.[/floatquote]

The Revolutionary Mistress is dark in nature because this time period was not one of rainbows and butterflies. The French Revolution was all about who you could ally with, and who you could stab in the back. My heroine, Mariette, finds this out the hard way, and has to balance her allegiances with her enemies in order to survive.

Excerpt from The Revolutionary Mistress

“Why?” Mariette noticed that the door didn’t shut behind them, and through the sliver of open space, some of the men watched their silhouettes.  She blushed, and despite her push against Sebastian’s chest to try and get him away from the door, he did not budge.

“Because.  You will seduce this man.  He will be carrying a sum of francs on him and you will take it before you leave.” Sebastian nudged against her thighs, a silent beckoning for her to open them for him.

Which she did.  Her small frame lifted into the air as Sebastian tucked his hands under the curves of her ass and pushed her up against the wall for leverage.  Her gaze flickered back to the door as he slipped inside of her with a hungry, animalistic grunt.  Unlike Rene, Sebastian lacked tact.  His urges were only primal, lacking passion in many ways.  But again, she desired these things just as much as they annoyed her.

“Bring the francs back and I will give you ten percent.” Sebastian thrust his hips forward, violently pushing her tailbone against the wall.  “The rest will go to our next mission.” He bucked his hips again and again, just as he did in the meeting.  This never was about Mariette in the end.  Sebastian did these things to further his own goals.

Mariette was like a victim caught in collateral damage. It rushed over her, destroyed her, empowered her and made her feel disgusted all at once.  With a few more bucks of his hips, Sebastian spent himself in her, then painfully pushed her wrist into the wall. “If you fuck this up, Mariette, I’ll make sure you don’t make it to see the mission at all.”

About the author

Leia Rice is an avid lover of everything Parisian, Ancient Grecian and Ancient Roman. She wishes that women would still wear the pretty dresses and petticoats that they did back in the 18th century, but she’s well aware how much of a pain they must have been. Leia writes historical fiction, romance and erotica in these areas, because she cannot get enough of each respective time period.

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Laura Kaye

[floatquote]Sometimes, authors have to do bad things to good characters…[/floatquote]

Sometimes, authors have to do bad things to good characters, like completely humiliate them. That’s what happening here, in this scene from In the Service of the King, the first in my Vampire Warrior Kings series. The Warrior King Kael has just kissed the heroine and brought her to orgasm, in a moment neither of them expected. And here’s the aftermath:

Excerpt from In the Service of the King

Kael’s expression visibly chilled in the moments after she met his gaze. He shook her lightly and pushed her away from his body. “Stand.”
Shayla stumbled one step then caught herself, but her mind was still flying just enough she couldn’t fully make sense of his actions. “Sire?”
“No.” He shook his head and wiped at his mouth. His fists clenched.
Shayla’s stomach plummeted into her pelvis. Her equilibrium faltered and she stumbled another step as the room seemed to bend and twist.
The king stalked to the door in the back corner through which she had entered and hammered two swift blows with his fist against the wooden surface. “Retrieve the Proffered.”
“What? No!” Shayla didn’t know whether to be pissed at the king’s mixed signals or mortified at his apparent displeasure in kissing her, in bringing her to orgasm. But what she didn’t want to know was his rejection. Not when he was her best hope for quenching the vengeful fire burning in her gut. But, more than that, the girlish dream that she could find a connection with someone as magnificent and mysterious and powerful as Kael the Fair didn’t seem so childish anymore. Not after what she’d experienced tonight. She might be inexperienced, but she knew what she felt, and she hadn’t imagined it. Some sort of primal, magnetic pull existed between them. She felt it in her bones, in her blood. Her heart squeezed and thrummed in recognition of the odd, compelling sensation.
She had to make him believe in it, too. She resumed her submissive standing pose and lowered her head. “I will do better, Your Highness, please.”
“Leave.” He paced from the back door toward the ornate one through which he had entered.
Her whole body trembled at the impossible direction of their conversation. “No. Please. We can still—”
“Go. Now!” His words roared and echoed through the stone chamber.
Shayla jumped. Her tears flowed unbidden and she turned to retreat. Her first shaky step knocked her into the stand on which the goblet of her own blood still sat. The cup bobbled threateningly, a splash of crimson spilling out and staining a line of dark red against the bright white of her robe, before she caught and righted it. The sight of the crimson stain brought a whimper from her tightening throat and set her into a flat out run to the door.
She hadn’t seen it open, but her trainer stood there, face etched with disappointment and confusion, waiting to escort her away from the chamber, away from the Warrior King of the Vampires.

About the author

Voted Breakout Author of the Year in the 2011 GraveTells Readers’ Choice Awards, Laura is the bestselling and award-winning author of a half-dozen books. Hearts in Darkness is a finalist for the EPIC eBook Award for Best Novella, Forever Freed won the NJRW Golden Leaf Award for Best Paranormal of 2011, and North of Need, the first book in the Hearts of the Anemoi series, was named GraveTells’ Best Book of 2011 and won their 5-STAR Gold Heart Award, and won Sizzling Hot Read of the Year at Sizzling Hot Books. Laura lives in Maryland with her husband, two daughters, and cute-but-bad dog, and appreciates her view of the Chesapeake Bay every day.

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