Harley Kozak - Keeper of the Moon

She was dressed as someone’s idea of a French maid; someone’s idea of sexy.

OK, it was his idea of sexy, Declan thought, watching her from the far end of the bar.

Sailor’s long legs were encased in black stockings with a seam down the back, stockings that showed a bit of thigh at the top. Her wild hair was pinned up, with one errant lock in her eyes. He wondered what she’d do if he walked over and pinned back the lock of hair for her.

Aside from looking tired, no one could tell she was sick. She was competent, but she was also close to the breaking point. Declan looked for an opportunity to step in and—what? Stop her from keeling over. What he’d like to do instead was pick her up, carry her to the back room and lay her on that Queen Anne sofa.

From there his thoughts turned to darker, more erotic images.

Dear Reader,

Back in 2006, I found myself singing backup in the Killer Thriller Band, and there I met for the first time my fellow Killerettes, Heather Graham and Alexandra Sokoloff. Our friendship has been forged in the fire of nonfunctioning sound systems, stuck elevators and demonic wigs. In fact, it was almost predictable that we’d end up writing a series about LA vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters and elves—and the women who love them.

In Hollywood, my current hometown, it’s not unusual to create “art by committee” but what is unusual is working with people you love and having this much fun. I’ve already forgotten which of us came up with this castle or that character; I just feel lucky getting to tell a part of the story.

Although this is my fifth novel, it’s my first romance, and I would not have attempted it without the encouragement of the talented and generous Heather and Alex. I am exceedingly grateful that they invited me to hop on board the KEEPERS’ series. Happy reading!

Harley Jane Kozak

HARLEY JANE KOZAKwas born in Pennsylvania, the youngest of eight children, and spent her childhood in North Dakota and Nebraska, where she developed a love of acting (along with cows and college football). She headed to New York at nineteen (attending NYU’s School of the Arts), and eight years later moved to LA. She’s appeared in some fifty plays, three soaps and a few dozen TV series and films (most notably Parenthood, Arachnophobia and The Favor ). Giving birth to three children in two years changed the nature of her dreams and turned her thoughts to writing. Her first novel, Dating Dead Men , won numerous awards, and was followed by three more books in the series. Her short prose has appeared in such diverse publications as Butcher Knives and Body Counts, This IS Chick Lit, The Rich and the Dead, Crimes by Moonlight and Ms. Magazine. She is a proud member of the Killer Thriller Band and the Slush Pile Players.

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To Katharine Harto Coen,

Who knows all about true love …

Magic hour.

It’s the first or last hour of sunlight, when the day is opening or closing up shop, an event so commonplace that only certain breeds of humans notice it—movie people, for instance, who treasure the footage shot in those fleeting moments for the way it can render an aging star young, a dull actor luminous and a plain landscape … enchanted.

Sailor Ann Gryffald loved magic hour, especially sunset, loved to end her seven-mile run on a downhill slope as the sky turned red and the canyon faded to black. The name itself was a kind of incantation to her, like all movie terms. She’d been around film sets most of her life and couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t known the meaning of “magic hour” and “second meal” and “martini shot.”

But Sailor wasn’t only an actress, so she knew that magic hour had other meanings lying just under the surface, the way L.A. itself could hide under a veil of smog. The moments separating the worlds of day and night were when portals opened, shapes shifted with little effort, and even the most unimaginative human might stumble upon signs of the Otherworld.

Sailor was part of that Otherworld. She was a Keeper, a human born with a distinctive birthmark, and the mandate to guard and protect a particular species. In her case, the birthmark was a tree and the species were the Elven. These were not the tiny elves of popular culture in green jackets and felt hats, but tall, intensely physical creatures whose element was earth, whose beauty was legendary, whose powers included healing, telepathy and teleportation. The Elven loved Hollywood, and Hollywood reciprocated, rewarding and occasionally worshipping their charisma and physical beauty. Of course, most humans had no knowledge of Others, had no belief in, and thus no perception of, the extraordinary qualities and abilities their neighbors possessed. It was Sailor’s job to preserve that. A Keeper’s first obligation was to keep secret the very existence of the species, the Elven and vampires, the were-creatures, shifters, leprechauns and ogres whose natures the “real” world could not accept.

Sailor was new to the actual job, had taken it over from her father only months earlier, and found it something of a yawn. But with her birthmark came a fraction of the Elven powers and their beauty, so all in all, not a bad gig. She also had a strong sixth sense that told her things, like …

There was something in the air right now.

Sailor slowed her pace. She was a mile into her run, heading west on Mulholland at a good clip, shoes pounding the dusty road. It wasn’t darkness she felt; the sun wouldn’t set for another hour or more, and the moon was already out. It was a heaviness, making her want to look behind her, making the hair on the back of her neck—

“Hey!” a man yelled.

She turned and spotted him at the end of a driveway, waving his arms as if she were a taxi.

“Hey, what?” she called back, squinting. Did she know him? Were they friends?

“You’re breaking the law,” the man yelled. “Your dog’s off-leash.” He was dressed in a suit, standing alongside a Porsche in front of a small mansion.

Figures that he’d drive a Porsche , she thought.

“He’s not a problem,” she called back.

“He’s a problem if he pisses in my yard.”

The man’s yard was as dressed up as he was, a flawless green lawn accessorized with white rosebushes, more suited to Beverly Hills than the canyons.

“He’s not going to piss in your yard.” Sailor jogged in place and snapped her fingers. Jonquil, a huge, fierce-faced mutt with the temperament of a rabbit, loped over to her. “We’re thirty feet from your yard.”

“There are leash laws,” the man retorted. “You’re not supposed to let your dog urinate at will.”