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COVER SUMMARY
Spellfire Hearts
Even within a paranormal country town, love can be immortal,
invigorating and incredible to behold. Come enjoy the
romantic romps of wizards, witches, ghosts and even cupid
himself, as they find love in such delightfully unexpected
ways of wonder. Let your heart and body find satisfaction in
these stories of wickedly wild romance and desire, which
happens in Spellfire, Texas, around and on Valentine's Day.
Drifting Desires, by Leanne
Strange
Harpy Collins's mistaken thoughts made her cautious of
loving elemental
sorcerer Derek Spellfire. With magical caresses, Derek's
determined to
give Harpy the love she craves.
Heart Spells, by Mae Powers
Jaleena Trinkets opens a book of love spells and is
transported to a mystical
place where a hunky gen-witch casts an alluring desire over
her.
Candy Kisses, by Emery LaRue
Trevor Jackson finds in Spellfire a woman who puts his
libido into overdrive – Candy Piper, a witch talented with
candy making and love-craft.
Haunted Love, by Tamara James
Ghost Zechariah Taylor is bewitched by his desires for
sorceress Heather
Landry. Will his ghostly loving be enough to mend her
troubled heart?
Tricks of Love , by Mae Powers
When the town's most notoriously mischievous fairy, Shai,
falls in love,
Valentine's Day weekend in Spellfire sizzles with magically
sensual
mayhem.
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EXCERPT
Drifting Desires
“Don't forget to fill the straw dispensers,” Harpy Collins
reminded the newest waitress at Sinful Sundaes Ice Cream
Shoppe.
Harpy watched as Blaze Draconis, her mane of flame-red hair
threatening to spill from the twist at the back of her head,
picked up the box of Spooktacular Straws from behind the
counter and scurried to the nearest table. Harpy thought
that Blaze was doing well for only two days on the job, even
if it was a few steps down from Spellfire Maintenance
Engineer, a position Blaze held for years.
Not that there's anything wrong with waitressing,
Harpy mused and brushed crumbs off her own waitress uniform.
Nothing at all. She shrugged and looked down at the
total of the day's receipts.
“Not bad for a Friday in February. The weather's been
unseasonably warm for this time of year, and that's good for
the ice cream biz.” Harpy raked the piles of coins into a
cash bag, and then added the stack of bills. “Thanks, Manny.
See you tomorrow night.”
Mano A. Mano, whom everyone called Manny, made the A-OK
sign, flipped over onto the tips of two fingers, hopped off
the counter, and disappeared, going wherever disembodied
hands went after midnight. Probably down on Alligator Alley
to tally receipts for all the joints and pubs. He was the
best money-counter she'd ever seen. Manny's totals were
never off by so much as one cent.
Cash bag in hand, Harpy called out, “I'll be in the back if
you need anything.”
She must have startled Blaze because suddenly Spooktacular
Straws flew everywhere, in all directions, skittering across
tables and scattering over the floor. Harpy shook her head
and sighed. The dragon-shifter lost her nerve as well as
her verve along with her fire and her job.
“Don't worry, hon.” Harpy forced a smile when Blaze, her
face as red as her name, looked up. “I'll help you clean up
after I put this in the safe.”
In the back, Harpy placed the cash bag in the wall safe.
After closing the door and spinning the lock, she made the
motions that the owner of Sinful Sundaes, Electra
Spellfire-Ruveaux, taught her to cast, a warding spell that
even an experienced mage would have trouble breaking. A
normal thief, normal as in non-magical, would never be able
to crack it.
The re-located ghost of Ishmaiah Hawkins, town crier, still
walked his route through town, but according to how his
hometown had once been laid out in colonial days back
east...which just happened to bring him right through the
kitchen of Sinful Sundaes. He rang his bell and called out,
“Twelve o'clock and all is well.” Then he floated through
the back wall.
All was always well for Ishmaiah, Harpy noted that whenever
she worked the swing shift and saw him. But all was not well
for her. Midnight brought in the janitorial service Electra
contracted for the shop. Clean Sweep was a sideline business
owned and operated by Electra's brother Derek.
Thinking of Derek made Harpy think of what might have been.
Back in high school, when she was young and in love with her
whole life ahead of her, she certainly didn't plan on making
a career of waitressing. Not that she hated her job. She
loved working for Electra and was proud of making head
waitress and night manager within the past year. But it just
wasn't what she thought she'd be doing at this point in her
life.
Before she became too maudlin, the tinkle of the bell over
the front door and the sound of rushing wind that followed
signified Derek Spellfire was in the house.
Harpy steeled herself and stepped out of the back room. She
saw the last of the Spooktacular Straws twirling through the
air and into the box that Blaze held.
“Thanks, Derek,” Blaze whispered breathlessly and blushed.
“No problem,” Derek said.
Harpy wanted to puddle like a scoop of ice cream in July at
the sound of his smooth, sexy
voice. She shook herself. No puddling! She
ducked her head over the cash register and busied herself.
Maybe Derek would give the place a good cleaning and go away
without saying a word to her.
As
Blaze went into the back to get another box of straws, he
blasted through the shop like a tornado, sucking up all the
dust and trash in his path and depositing it in the
wastebasket. Good. Now, he can leave and that will
be that.
“Good evening, Harpy.” Derek's smooth tones washed over her,
igniting sparks of desire that had
lain dormant for so very long.
“Hello, Derek,” she said evenly.
A heavy crash sounded from the back, followed by the
explosion of broken glass. Blaze's trembling voice said,
“I'm sorry, Harpy. I'll clean it up.”
Harpy
closed her eyes and shook her head. “If I could get my hands
on our esteemed mayor, Perry Normil, right this minute, I'd
strangle him.”
Derek chuckled as he gusted across her arm. “Lots of folks
in Spellfire would like to do him in, but why right now?”
Harpy's eyes sprang open and she stifled a shiver. Her back
itched something fierce, but she wasn't going to let Derek
know. Oh, no, she wasn't going to tease him. They were over
and had been for a long time. She didn't really want to go
there again...did she?
Harpy moved away from him, pretending to straighten up the
counter. “For what he did to Blaze Draconis. It was bad
enough he called for Blaze's resignation, but did he have to
publicly humiliate her by announcing she could no longer
breathe flames?”
Derek blew closer and need
prickled between her thighs. “Didn't everyone know?
I'd only been back in Spellfire a couple of weeks at the
time, and I'd already heard the rumor.”
“That's just it!” Harpy slammed down a salt shaker, and then
lowered her voice so Blaze wouldn't hear. “It was just a
rumor, but now everybody knows for sure. Poor Blaze is
mortified. A dragon-shifter without her fire is like a—a
vampire without fangs.”
Or a harpy without the ability to fly, she could have added.
“Or an elemental sorcerer stuck in his elemental form,”
Derek contributed instead.
“It's not the same thing.” Harpy frowned. “You still have
your magic. That's why the mayor appointed you as Spellfire
Maintenance Engineer after forcing Blaze to resign. And
because you're a Spellfire.”
Derek drifted around the counter. “Granted, Perry Normil is
a suck-up. But Blaze can still shape-shift into a dragon.”
“But she can't breathe fire. What's a dragon without fire?”
“True.” Derek wafted even closer.
Harpy edged down along the counter away from him, still
pretending to straighten condiment containers, but she was
all too aware of his nearness. “Anyway, Electra and I are
determined to see this through with Blaze. Everyone in town
feels sorry for her because of the way the mayor treated her
and they want to help, but she's lasted less than a week at
every place that's hired her. She's easily spooked and
painfully shy now, and she just can't seem to do anything
right anymore.”
Derek eddied along the counter with her. “Does she know how
she lost her fire?”
Harpy shook her head and cleared her throat to be able to
speak. Derek, even in wind form, was devastating to her
furled wings. “She says it sometimes happens to
dragon-shifters, but they don't know why.”
“Has she asked Electra about a cure?” Derek drifted around
to her other side.
He slid along her skin and tumbled her blond curls. Did
he know what he was doing? Or was it accidental? She
could light into him for getting too close, but what if he
truly didn't intend to touch her? She would embarrass
herself all over again for assuming she knew what
just happened.
“Yeah.” Harpy gulped and started moving back up the counter,
toward the register and away from Derek again. “Electra has
looked, but she can't find anything in the grimoires about
curing lost dragon fire.”
“My sister is the most powerful sorceress in town. If she
can't find a cure then there isn't one,”
he said proudly.
“Shush, here she comes,” Harpy whispered.
Blaze returned with a fresh box of Spooktacular Straws and
starting filling the straw dispensers at the tables again.
The bell above the door tinkled and a group of jackets and
caps entered. The Invisible Man League always met the second
Friday night of every month at Sinful Sundaes.
Harpy waved and turned to get their usual order, sparkling
water with a twist all around because it was disconcerting
to see colored soda or ice cream settle in invisible
stomachs, but Derek shifted air around her and she couldn't
move.
“Derek, please.” Harpy inhaled deeply to keep from sounding
breathless. “I have to get their order.”
“When do you get off?” His voice was low and sexy and she
felt a warm rush of air across her cheek.
Her body threatened
to melt again, but she
backed up against the counter. Her back itched madly. She
wanted to scratch against the counter, but she restrained
herself. “I get off at one, when the night shift comes in.
Why?”
The air stirred around her, and he moved in even closer.
“Come with me on a night flight.”
Harpy clenched her jaw and withdrew her order pad from her
pocket. She swung her arm through him, dispersing him away
from her. “I can't fly and you know it!”
She stalked through what was left of him, his essence
permeating the skin on her arms. She stifled another shiver
and stiffened her back to keep her wings from unfurling.
Damn him! Why did he have to bring that up? Why couldn't he
just leave her alone?
“I'm sorry, Harpy. I thought by now you would be flying.”
She shook her head while gathering glasses for the invisible
men. “Nope. I'm only half harpy, and you know that, too. The
witchdoctor told my mother when she got pregnant by my human
father that I might never be able to fly. He was right.”
“Maybe I can help.” Derek swirled around her again. “I'm
nothing but air. Let me take you out to Spellfire Park
tomorrow. I can direct my wind exactly where you need it.
Maybe you can fly. Let me be the wind beneath your wings.”
For a second, hope rose in Harpy. To be able to fly like all
her harpy relatives had been her greatest desire her entire
life...aside from her desire for Derek Spellfire. She
squashed both flat. She couldn't fly and she couldn't have
Derek. Not after what she had done to him. Even now, knowing
she’d been dead wrong, she couldn't apologize. And she
couldn't let him near enough to be the wind beneath her
anything.
“No!” The word exploded from her mouth.
His air flowed around her, raising goose bumps on her arms.
Derek caressed her skin and her hair, and he breezed past
her ear. Her heart raced in her chest, and her breathing
deepened. It was all she could do not to strip off her
uniform and let him spin around her body until she—
“I'm not leaving until you agree to meet me in Spellfire
Park tomorrow.”
A tiny current of air
tickled her ear and this time she did shiver. She would do
anything to make him stop. “All right. Yes!”
“The Valentine Day Picnic is tomorrow at the park.” Blaze
came from behind the counter, and Harpy hadn't even noticed.
“I'll see you two there.”
Harpy narrowed her eyes.
Derek drifted away from her.
Harpy put her hands on her hips. “You fiend! I am not going,
Derek.”
“Too late, baby. You're already committed.” He spun into a
cyclone, but his trailing tail swept beneath her skirt as he
headed around the counter. She jumped. The blasted bag of
wind had goosed her!
Harpy stared at the door after he left and muttered under
her breath, “Yeah, I ought to be committed.”
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