Nancy Holder - Daughter of the Flames

But she did. And there he was, silhouetted by flames.

The smiling man’s features were sharp, and a large, purple scar ran diagonally from the right side of his jaw to his left temple. His gaze shifted to a point behind her. He bared his teeth like an animal.

Izzy turned.

Within the arched curves of a medieval monastery, a figure scanned the horizon. It was another man, very tall, with a riot of hair that tumbled down his shoulders, like her own….

Then a voice rumbled like thunder, shaking her spine with a low, masculine timbre.

“Isabella? Je suis Jean-Marc de Devereaux des Ombres. Je vous cherche. Attendez-moi. Je vous cherche.”

This time Izzy woke slowly, clutching the sheets as she whispered to the darkness, “Oui. Je suis ici. ” “Yes, I am here,” in French.

Only, she didn’t speak French.

Dear Reader,

When I think of the word heroine, I look at two bright pink stickies clinging to my computer monitor just below a swath of my daughter’s school pictures (I have a very big computer monitor!) The stickies read: “Feel the fear and do it anyway” and “I am a warrior, and I will not turn my back on the battlefield.” To me, a heroine is someone who pushes through her fear and does what she must—be she a mom, a friend, a coworker, a caretaker, a wanderer, or the heiress of a magical House founded in medieval France.

For most of us, it takes an act of courage just to get up and face a busy day in an uncertain, lightning-paced world. There is magic in knowing that if we can muster the courage to step through the shadow, the sun and the moon await with light both golden and silver. I believe the universe does honor our dreams, and that there is more—much more—to each of us than meets the eye. These are the lessons I am learning, and what I hope to share in the story of Isabella “Izzy” DeMarco in THE GIFTED trilogy and hopefully, many other books to come.

Please let me know at www.nancyholder.com about your own journey.

Take heart, and be bold!

Nancy Holder

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my strong, compassionate and courageous daughter,

Belle Claire Christine Holder,

who lives the tenets of Tae Kwon Do:

courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control

and indomitable spirit;

and brings honor upon herself, her family and her instructors.

is the bestselling author of nearly eighty books and two hundred short stories. She has received four Bram Stoker Awards from the Horror Writers Association, and her books have been translated into two dozen languages. A former ballet dancer, she has lived all over the world and currently resides in San Diego, California, with her daughter, Belle. She would to love to hear from readers at www.nancyholder.com.

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

My sincere thanks to Gillian Horvath, who first told me about Bombshell, and to Susan Wiggs, who encouraged me to persist. Thank you to the Bombshell team, past and present: Natashya Wilson, Julie Barrett and Tara Parsons, for your warm welcome and editorial vision.

Howard Morhaim, my agent and friend, you’ve been there through oy and joy. And sincere thanks to Howard’s assistant, Allison Keiley. Many thanks to Pat McEwen, JoysofResearch; my San Diego sheriff’s deputy and my N.Y.P.D. contacts, both of whom have requested anonymity so their thoughtful colleagues won’t make their lives a living hell. Thank you, Steve Perry, for the marksmanship and ER data. My sincere gratitude to Karen Hackett for navigating New York for me. A very big thank-you to Special Agent Jeff Thurman, for many years of friendship, plot parsing and all the dirt he could tell me without killing me. Mucho mahalo to Wayne Holder, who stepped up to the plate when my laptop ate my homework and set the whole thing to rights despite the best efforts of all geekdom to make computers far more complicated than they need be.

Thank you, SF-FWs, bryant street, IAMTW, and novelscribes for various neepery and encouragement; and to my sisters in Persephone, for the prayers and candles, and the fellowship, especially after my laptop ate my homework. My gratitude to Christie Holt, for teaching me to walk with purpose. To Amy Schricker, Charlotte Fullerton, Ashley McConnell, Debbie Viguie, Liz Cratty, Lydia Marano, Brenda Van De Ven, Monica Elrod, Abbie Bernstein, Kym Rademacher, Terri Yates, Lisa Morton, Leslie Jones, Sandra Morehouse, Anny Caya, Lucy Walker and Elise Jones, for showing me that sisterhood is powerful. A shout-out to MariAnn Palmer and Lisa Swyrs, clothiers and cookie monsters extraordinaire. Dr. Ellen Greenfield, thanks for the illegal loquats and the free psychological help. Thanks to my nephew, Richard Wilkinson, for checking in and loving us. Many thanks to Yasmine and John Palisano, Del and Sue Howison, Art Cover and Lydia Marano, and Paul Ruditis for inviting me to cross your thresholds. Mr. Andrew Thompson and everyone at Family Karate, thank you for instilling black belt principles in my family. REV, you listen every day. And you write back. May you walk in Beauty.

I sabella DeMarco was moaning in her sleep. Her fists clenched her pale blue sheets; tears and sweat trickled down her forehead as she rolled her head against her pillow.

Hustle it up, a voice urgently whispered to her. They’re dogging you!

Izzy raced through the nightmare forest, a terrifying landscape of fleshy black trees garroted with hangman’s necklaces of Spanish moss. A fiery moon blazed overhead, casting flickering shadows over rotting ferns and a matted bunting of ashy gray leaves.

Her surroundings heaved with menace and danger. The surface of a blood-colored swamp roiled as shapes glided toward the boggy earth where she ran. She saw it all with a strange clarity, as if part of her was a camera recording every moment instead of a young woman in flight for her life.

She heard herself panting in counterpoint with her over-cranked heartbeat. Her footfalls ricocheted like shell casings pinging off a tile floor. Heat seared her lungs and her ankles ached from running too long and too hard. Then the screaming of night birds swallowed up the sounds.

The voice echoed all around her. If you don’t move it, it’s all over. They’ll die, too. You’re on point.

Then everything shifted and the panting was inside her head, echoing in her temples. The monsters that lived in the forest were after her. They were always after her. They hunted her, night after night. She ran, night after night. She could not stop. She must not stop.

Deep in Izzy DeMarco’s soul, she knew that if they caught her, she would die.

And die horribly.

She tried to remind herself it was only a dream. But it wasn’t, not when she was in it. It was all so very real. Her gauzy white nightgown molded to her body as she raced barefoot over sharp rocks that sliced the soles of her feet. Slimy, shredding vines tumbled from twisted canopies of dank, dripping leaves. Skeletal branches yanked painfully at the untamed corkscrews of her sable-black hair.

As she raced past a gnarled live oak, four huge gashes in the bark warned her that they had been here first, crisscrossing the forest, searching for her. They were always hunting for her.