Maggie Shayne - Blood of the Sorceress

Praise for the novels of

“Shayne crafts a convincing world, tweaking vampire legends just enough to draw fresh blood.”

—Publishers Weekly on Demon’s Kiss

“This story will have readers on the edge of their seats and begging for more.”

—RT Book Reviews on Twilight Fulfilled

“A tasty, tension-packed read”

—Publishers Weekly on Thicker Than Water

“Tense … frightening … a page-turner in the best sense”

—RT Book Reviews on Colder Than Ice

“Mystery and danger abound in Darker Than Midnight , a fast-paced, chilling thrill read that will keep readers turning the pages long after bedtime … Suspense, mystery, danger and passion—no one does them better than Maggie Shayne.”

—Romance Reviews Today on Darker Than Midnight [winner of a Perfect 10 award]

“Maggie Shayne is better than chocolate. She satisfies every wicked craving.”

—New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Forster

“Shayne’s haunting tale is intricately woven … A moving mix of high suspense and romance, this haunting Halloween thriller will propel readers to bolt their doors at night.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Gingerbread Man

“[A] gripping story of small-town secrets. The suspense will keep you guessing. The characters will steal your heart.”

—New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner on The Gingerbread Man

Kiss of the Shadow Man is a “crackerjack novel of romantic suspense”.

—RT Book Reviews

Also by Maggie Shayne

The Portal

DAUGHTER OF THE SPELLCASTER

MARK OF THE WITCH

LEGACY OF THE WITCH

Secrets of Shadow Falls

KISS ME, KILL ME

KILL ME AGAIN

KILLING ME SOFTLY

BLOODLINE

ANGEL’S PAIN

LOVER’S BITE

DEMON’S KISS

Wings in the Night

BLUE TWILIGHT

BEFORE BLUE TWILIGHT

EDGE OF TWILIGHT

RUN FROM TWILIGHT

EMBRACE THE TWILIGHT

TWILIGHT HUNGER

TWILIGHT VOWS

BORN IN TWILIGHT

BEYOND TWILIGHT

TWILIGHT ILLUSIONS

TWILIGHT MEMORIES

TWILIGHT PHANTASIES

DARKER THAN MIDNIGHT

COLDER THAN ICE

THICKER THAN WATER

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In Loving Memory of

Jane O’Connor

A woman who soared above challenges

that would have held most to the ground.

Founder of the Central New York Romance Writers,

which has since turned out more than a

dozen authors and well over a hundred novels

that might not otherwise even have been written, much

less published. We love you, Jane.

You led us to our careers and, more important,

to each other. Thank you will never be enough.

But thank you all the same.

February 2, Imbolc

Lilia was no angel. Lilia was a witch. Even though she was currently hovering between the worlds, watching over her beloved, waiting for the right time to manifest as a silvery-blond-haired, blue-eyed woman and save his life, she was still a witch. Had been for thirty-five-hundred years. Would be for as long as her soul lived on.

She watched, awestruck, as her beautiful Demetrius flashed into existence fully formed, fully grown, completely naked. The Portal, the opening between dimensions through which he had escaped his Underworld prison, was in the cave behind a waterfall. He arrived in the physical world in a blaze of light, crouching on the stones near that cascade.

Goddess, he was beautiful. She reached out as if to touch him. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

He was the same as she remembered him. His body had been reconstituted just as it had once been, since his soul had been ripped away before he died, an unnatural perversion of the order of things. She wouldn’t get her own body back when she returned to earth to join him. Hers had been dashed against the rocky ground from a great height before her own soul had flown free. She would have to manifest a fresh new form when the time came. She’d glimpsed that new form in a vision, so different from her former body that it had shocked her.

Oh, but look at him.

He rose from his crouched position, looking around, blinking in confusion, and her heart ached. So long … it had been so long!

He looked the same, and her heart twisted in her chest with a mingling of joy that she had come this far, was this close to success, and heartache that he was still out of reach. She hadn’t seen him since that bloody dawn in 1501 BC, in Babylon, when he’d murdered the King in defense of the woman he loved, the King’s harem slave: Lilia herself. When the quarters she shared with her two sisters were searched, the tools of their forbidden magic had been found and the three of them sentenced to be sacrificed to Marduk, chief god of the pantheon. Demetrius had been the King’s right hand, his friend. She never should have fallen in love with him. The cost had been so high.

But she had loved him. She loved him still.

The high priest Sindar had been in love, too—with the King, or so Lilia had always suspected—and so his wrath had been bitter. He’d used his own magic, dark magic, to strip Demetrius of his soul and banish him to a formless, sensory-deprived existence in an Underworld void—just after having Lilia and her sisters thrown from a cliff to the bloody rocks below.

But he hadn’t counted on the power of the three Daughters of Ishtar. They’d refused to cross the Veil until they’d taken Demetrius’s stolen soul from the twisted holy man and split it among themselves for safekeeping. Indira and Magdalena had reincarnated lifetime after lifetime until the opportunity came to right the ancient wrong, while Lilia had remained in limbo, pulling their strings like a master puppeteer, awakening their memories, making them keep their vow to set things right.

The newly reborn Demetrius pushed himself up from the ice-cold ground, rising slowly. Lilia saw the amulet he wore gleaming in the moonlight. And even as he stood there, two other magical tools fell from nowhere and clattered loudly to the rocky ground.

He jumped at the sound, then moved closer, picking up the golden chalice, turning it slowly and examining the semiprecious stones embedded in its rim. Then he reached for the blade, looking it over the same way. She wondered what he was feeling. Did he recognize the tools? Did he have any clue as to the power he could wield with them? They’d held parts of his soul for a time, so he must feel a bond to them, a connection, yes?

Indira had returned the first piece of Demetrius’s soul, along with the amulet in which it had been protected, thus freeing him. She’d opened the Portal, allowing him to escape his Underworld prison. But he’d had no form, and little ability to reason. And now Magdalena had returned another piece, one the sisters had secreted within a chalice accompanied by a blade, which, when used together, had allowed Demetrius to manifest physically here near the Portal, in the cold of a February night in the Northeast.