Rebecca Rivard here again!
As Seducing the Sun Fae begins, Dion, alpha of a shapeshifting river clan, has wangled a meeting with Cleia, queen of the sun fae. He believes she is harming his clan by sucking them slowly dry of life-energy and is determine
d to bring her down.
Cleia, on the other hand, is only interested in ensnaring yet another man with her glamour, a fae Gift that makes her nearly irresistible.
Each is deceiving the other””but underlying the lies is a powerful mutual attraction.
Here’s an excerpt from their first meeting.
SEDUCING THE SUN FAE, Book 1 of the Fada Shapeshifter Series
Cleia stood on her balcony, sipping wine as the sun set over the stretch of bay separating her clan’s lands from the river fada’s. Color splashed across the sky in vivid oranges and pinks and purples. Despite the sunset’s beauty, she felt the familiar, bittersweet tug at seeing the source of her people’s power dip below the horizon for another day.
And tonight it was especially hard to watch the sun slide from view. Even though it was summer, the night of the new moon was always a little tricky for her, her energy at its lowest ebb. Thunderclouds raced across the sky, promising an even darker night. A frisson of alarm raised the tiny hairs on her nape. She frowned and opened her senses but detected only the familiar low hum of family, friends, trusted servants””and the big river fada awaiting her inside.
She glanced around one last time and headed back into her apartment.
Her newest lover was seated on the floor, an arm draped casually over his bent knee. A glass of wine dangled from one large, powerful hand.
She took the chair in front of him and regarded his hopeful face. She was two hundred years old and, thanks to her powerful glamour, could have any man””or woman””she wanted. This one was no different, although this afternoon she’d thought perhaps…
She’d been riding her sport bike, reveling in the energy of the sun-powered motor, wanting”¦something, she wasn’t sure what. She’d torn over the Susquehanna River bridge and headed onto a bumpy dirt road, her bodyguards close on her heels. She could feel their disapproval as she turned up a narrow path into the sparsely populated checkerboard of woods, vineyards and farms owned by the Rock Run fada””but today she just didn’t care.
She shot over a hill and had to swerve to miss the man planted in the center of the path. For a heart-stopping moment she fought for control of the bike before screeching to a halt a few feet beyond him.
She twisted around to look at him. The ass hadn’t even moved, save to turn around and face her.
The scold on her lips died as she took him in, big and broad and arrogant in jeans and a sleeveless shirt that strained over his heavily muscled chest. He had a mane of hair so black it was almost blue, a gray scarf tied around one large bicep and bare feet, a dead giveaway that he was a river fada. They wore minimal clothing, preferring to move freely through their watery habitat, and especially disliked shoes.
Not that she wouldn’t have known he was a river fada anyway. Not with that big body and Mediterranean features. But more than that, it was his screw-you attitude. She’d have bet a handful of her favorite jewels that if she’d ridden past, he’d have laughed and turned away””leaving her the one wondering.
Most fae considered the fada little better than animals. Descendants of Dionysus and his wild followers, they’d been created during the god’s infamous bacchanals, shapeshifters who were a mixed genetic bag of fae, human, animal and the god himself. Insular and clannish, they lived close to nature, shifting between their two-legged and animal forms and eschewing many of the comforts that pureblood fae took for granted. Even though Rock Run’s territory adjoined her own, Cleia rarely saw them except when she took one as a lover.
The other fae were right: fada were raw and untamed, even primitive. But what they didn’t know was that primitive side, that wildness, made fada men the best lovers.
Excitement sparked low in her belly. Something whispered that this man was dangerous”¦and she was jaded enough to want him even more.
Curious now, she activated her glamour and swung off the bike. Her gaze ran over him as she stripped off her gloves, removed her helmet and shook out her hair in a practiced move.
The big fada met her appraising look with eyes the same silver-blue as the river in spring, their lightness startling against his olive skin. She blinked, and then recovered herself.
“Olá, Senhor,” she said in Portuguese, his clan’s preferred tongue.
“Bom dia, Cleia.”
No “Queen Cleia.” She raised a brow but let it pass. “You know who I am?”
“Of course.” The murmured reply was polite, but his gaze swept insolently down her body, clad in brown biker’s leathers and a soft yellow top, before returning to her face. He stared at her, bold and unapologetic.
Heat jolted through her. She gazed back, caught by those odd light eyes as surely as if he’d thrown a net over her. All her senses came alive. Her lips parted and her breath skidded in and out. Then Artan and Grady pulled up on either side of her and the river man shuttered his gaze.
Her fingers clenched on the gloves. He seemed somehow”¦less. But why should that bother her? She’d already decided she wanted him.
With a shrug, she’d amped up her glamour and beckoned him closer. “Come, ride with me.” It was an order and they both knew it.
He glanced at the guards and remained where he was. It was clear he was waiting for them to back off. She hesitated. But what could he do in the split second it would take Artan and Grady to get back to her?
“Stand back,” she ordered them. The two men grumbled under their breaths but did as she asked, wheeling their bikes to a spot several yards away. She turned back to the river fada and reached out a hand. “Come. Ride with me.”
He stepped forward to take her hand. Electricity shot up her arm and she jerked but he firmed his grip. Not hurting her. Just letting her know he’d release her when he decided. Their eyes met, clashed. His nostrils flared.
“Cleia?” Artan started forward, Grady on his heels.
“I’m all right,” she snapped without taking her gaze from the man before her. Stars, the two of them acted as if she were a defenseless little girl, not the most powerful woman in the clan.
The guards halted but remained where they were, midway between their bikes and her.
The river man stared at her lips. It was as if he were tasting them; they tingled and ached for more. She moistened her bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. He followed the motion with his gaze, then met her eyes again, his mouth curved in a knowing smile.
A fine tremor fluttered up her spine. She had the eerie feeling that he saw through her glamour to the woman beneath. The real woman, the one she never allowed outsiders to see.
“Who are you?” she whispered. She swallowed and repeated the question more forcefully. “Who are you?”
He turned her hand in his. After that first jolt, his fingers were cool; his touch, like all the river people, as soothing as rain.
“Dion,” he said in a low voice that slid over her skin like rich, raw silk. “Dion do Rio.”
She tugged at her hand and this time he let it go.
Shoving her hands in her pockets, she regarded the big, barefooted man, wondering if she were about to make a huge mistake. Certainly, Artan and Grady were glowering at him suspiciously, but they were from a family who’d guarded hers for centuries and, frankly, trusted almost no one.
It had been a long time since a man’s touch had affected her so strongly”¦a very, very long time.
She drew in a breath. “Well, Dion of the River, will you come with me? Of your own free will, you agree?”
“Sim.”
“Say it. Say you come of your own free will.”
“Yes.” She watched as those firm lips spoke the words. “I come with you of my own free will.”
Now Cleia moodily regarded the man at her feet. Outside there was a flash of lightning and the crash of thunder as the storm drew closer, but inside, the fada””Dion””seemed somehow diminished. What had changed? He’d seemed to have such potential, there on the narrow path, but now he seemed like just another of the many men who’d passed through her life.
Ah, well. She’d enjoy him for a time anyway.
She stifled a sigh and took another sip of wine.
Excerpt from Seducing the Sun Fae, © 2015 Rebecca Rivard.
Intrigued? Love shifters and the fae? Comment on this post to be entered in a drawing for a chance to win either an e-book or a signed paperback of Seducing the Sun Fae!
Leave a Comment