TJ Michaels

I just got home from a business trip and I’m too loopy to take a stab at a blurb, so let’s just get right into it, shall we? :D Oh, and don’t forget to visit the other Snippet authors! All their links are at the bottom of this post. Enjoy ;D

Note for Readers: You must be over eighteen to read this excerpt.

Snippet from Shards of Ecstasy
Book 2 in the Hearts of Fire series

Well, lookee here. A water elemental.

Asmodeus almost laughed out loud at his good fortune. So, did the human male who’d sucked De’alla Isaacs to a blistering orgasm on her balcony have any idea who or what she was? Doubted it. There’d been no indication of anything more than a single bout of passing sex. And what a perfectly delicious sight De’alla had made, all flushed and trembling from the tongue-lashing she’d received. Asmodeus had been hard-pressed to remain at a distance and watch the Chosen, his Chosen, throw her head back and hold in a scream that surely would have sent the local gulls scrambling for flight.

Good thing his sexy little water worker had shooed the human out of her house shortly after, because if the male proved to be an obstacle Asmodeus would plow through him in a heartbeat. In fact, to get to De’alla, he would singe the Chosen’s pet male to a crisp without breaking stride.

Any elemental was a rare prize, but a water elemental was especially coveted. And this one carried a piece of the Hearts of Fire on top of all that? Hell, Asmodeus had hit the mother lode. Yee-fuckin’-haw!

And now, tonight, on a deserted stretch of beach tucked into a small bit of a cove, the Chosen worked out with her ability. She practiced pulling water from the very air around her, forming small marbles of water with ease. Then she erected a thin wall of water a short distance away and used the water marbles to punch holes in it. The energy and concentration it took to work with the elements was considerable. It also spoke of someone directly descended from the Ancients.

Most he’d run across were distantly related, had little to no skill with manipulating nature and were selected because of their destiny even if they’d had no Atlantean blood whatsoever. But this elemental was more than Chosen. She was an Atlantean, no matter how far removed. That would explain the entity he’d sensed around her, all Atlanteans had a protector, a guide that carried the essence of nature itself, so to speak.

And she was strong, this one. But Asmodeus sensed an inherent weakness, a weakness that could only be shored up by her joining with her true mate—that was something he’d learned in his last encounter with a Chosen. He wondered if De’alla had met him yet. And if so had she sprung the news of her destiny on the poor sap? Did he believe her or think she was crazy? Crazy would definitely serve Asmodeus’ purposes better.

Hmmm, could that singer guy who’d feasted between her legs be De’alla Isaacs’ mate? She hadn’t acted like it. And there’d certainly been no output of blistering crystal power when the man had gone down on her like there’d been when Dee’s sister had made love to her mate.

Asmodeus’ temper spiked. “Shit, why don’t I know more about this Chosen business?” He’d been alive for as long as time was time yet those fucking Atlanteans had managed to keep these damn sisters a secret for thousands of years. The Hearts of Fire, oh he knew about that all right. That’s what had set him on this journey in the first place. It was the one thing that contained enough life energy to give him a flesh and blood body that held the power of a demon. Yet the details of getting his hands on that little jewel had eluded him until a mere three hundred years ago. Unfortunately for an immortal time had no relevance…and that three centuries had been spent looking for eight human females who hadn’t been born until barely forty years ago, goddammit.

And Asmodeus didn’t even want to think about the fact that the eight women he thought he needed turned out to be four women and their destined mates.

His encounter with Dee’s sister, Memory, hadn’t gone the way he’d planned. Actually he hadn’t truly planned anything, just figured the woman was a human he could walk in and simply overpower. It had been more than a surprise to encounter such raw power when he’d attempted to relieve Memory of her crystal. Then her fucking mate came to help her and the two of them together had been more than he expected. He still didn’t consider any Chosen to be more powerful than himself, but this time he would at least do a bit of surveillance.

Just then, De’alla sat down in the sand and lifted her head to the sky. Suddenly all was entirely too quiet. It was already still due to the fact that it was three in the morning and nobody was around, but this was an uncommon still. Suddenly the sky opened directly over De’alla and her body was covered completely by a singular deluge. The roar of the water was as loud as crashing waves in the midst of a storm.

Her body should have been smashed, torn to pieces by the force of the water. Instead, De’alla opened a small “door” in the middle of her personal waterfall and walked out of it, leaving it to rip up the sand in her wake. Then she just left. Walked away.

With a twinkle in her eye that even Asmodeus could see in this light with this failing human body, De’alla gave a flick of her wrist and the waterfall plummeted to the sand and rolled back out into the Sound with the next retreating wave.

“Impressive.”

After that, all that was left was the faint crunch, crunch, crunch of her tennis shoes as she left the beach and headed toward home across the street.

Yes, he would have to move soon. Even with this display of power he’d be strong enough to take her in another night or two. Then the Piece of Eight would be his, along with De’alla Isaacs. After all, what kind of demon would he be if he didn’t have a bit of sport with her before he took her essence into himself?

A razor-sharp maw blinked into view then disappeared again beneath the illusion of sparkling white perfectly straight teeth as Asmodeus considered all the ways he would make this little water baby beg. Beg to be fucked. Beg to come. Then beg to die.

Oh yes.