I missed last week, but I’m back this week with an update on what book I’m working on.
If you follow me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/felicityheaton then you know what I’m up to, but if you haven’t followed me yet, here’s an update!
Having completed the first drafts of the next two books in the Eternal Mates romance series, I set about planning the book that follows them last week. That’s the book that will be #6 in the series, and its title is Bitten by a Hellcat.
Bitten by a Hellcat kicks off around the same time as Hunted by a Jaguar, and begins in Underworld, which is Kyter’s bar. The hero of the book is Owen, who is a very legendary hunter but he doesn’t work with Archangel, and the heroine is Cait, who is a shifter.
I’ve just completed the first draft of this book, and it’s around 45000 words, which is good for a novella. That’s around half the length of the novels in the series.
Next up, I’m planning and then writing book 7 in the series, which will be Taken by a Dragon. I’ll also be editing Hunted by a Jaguar and Craved by an Alpha and getting them ready for release.
The plan as it stands is that I will release these four books in the Eternal Mates romance series close together, only a few weeks between each release. The current release plan for the books is for them to go in this order:
Jan 10th – Hunted by a Jaguar
Jan 31st – Craved by an Alpha
Feb 21st – Bitten by a Hellcat
Mar 14th – Taken by a Dragon
There’s a chance I could release them about a month earlier for each release… but it depends on how I go with editing Hunted by a Jaguar and writing the first draft of Taken by a Dragon. It might be that I end up releasing the books closer together rather than shifting the release day for Hunted by a Jaguar into this year.
Now, how about a sneak preview snippet from Bitten by a Hellcat?
This is from the first chapter, when Owen is watching Cait dancing in Underworld, Kyter’s nightclub in London.
The female shifter ran her hands up her body, dragging his focus back to her, and Owen couldn’t stop his gaze from tracking them over every lush and tempting curve, especially when she ran them over her breasts and up her neck. She tangled her fingers in her long dark hair, drawing the tangled damp lengths away from her neck as she closed her eyes, a flicker of bliss crossing her pretty face. The air-conditioning in Underworld was cranked up tonight, but it wasn’t enough to combat the heat coming off everyone on the packed dance floor.
It wasn’t enough to cool Owen down as he stared at her.
Strong hands clamped down on Owen’s shoulders from behind, fingers tipped with short claws pressing through his black shirt, and he stiffened and winced as some of the bruises he had picked up on his last job burned beneath the pressure of the male’s grip.
“I’d reconsider if you were thinking of doing something stupid in my club.†The deep male voice growled over the thumping rock music, close to his ear, and Owen knew without looking who was behind him on the other side of the bar. Kyter. The big blond male shifter owned Underworld and they had a sort of accord. Owen didn’t hunt on his turf and Kyter didn’t kill him. “I’m not in the mood to see a fellow cat get her tail pulled. I won’t be held responsible for how it will end for you.â€
Kyter released his shoulders.
Owen slowly turned on his stool to face him, his wide eyes meeting the bright golden ones of the jaguar shifter. “I swear, I’m off duty.â€
Kyter didn’t look as if he believed him, but Owen couldn’t hold that against him. Kyter and most of the staff at Underworld, and probably most of the patrons, knew what he did for a living and they had every right to be wary around him.
Especially the patrons.
Owen guessed that if he took his tablet device out of the bag at the foot of his stool, he would find at least a fifth of them were in his database for some misdemeanour or another.
The sandy-haired male looked as if he might ask him to leave, but then his gaze slid to Owen’s right.
Owen looked there and found the female he had been studying bouncing up to the bar, a big smile on her face as she breathed hard. She turned that killer smile on Kyter and Owen felt an undeniable urge to add the shifter to his database. He shot the big jaguar a glare.
Kyter’s right eyebrow lifted.
A ripple of heat travelled through Owen and he became aware of the beautiful woman beside him.
Staring at him.
He slowly turned his head towards her as Kyter walked away. Blue eyes met his, turning the ripple of heat into an inferno that blasted through his veins, burning up his blood. A corona of brighter blue fire shone around her dilated pupils as she stared into his eyes, radiating confidence that shook his own.
She was more beautiful than he had thought.
Incredible.
Owen could only stare at her in silence as she looked at him, long black lashes and dark make-up framing striking blue eyes.
A hellcat.
They were the rarest of the cat shifters and fetched high prices on the black market of Hell.
He had never seen one of her kind, not in all his years as a hunter or during all of the training that had come before that. He doubted that even the hunters who worked for Archangel, the world’s leading hunter organisation devoted to protecting the unwitting humans from the secret and often dangerous world of fae and demons, had seen a hellcat.
She turned her cheek to him and flagged a bartender. Owen didn’t pay any attention to who served her. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she spoke, her painted red lips moving in a mesmerising symphony, filling him with a fierce need to kiss her.
It was only when she turned back to face him and slid a glass across the black bar top in his direction that he became aware of something else in the club. His pale gaze dropped to the drink she had evidently bought for him.
A shot of Hellfire.
Heck, she was trying to kill him.
What do you think?
