Thanks so much to Dani and Love Bytes for hosting the cover reveal for Devouring Flame, the second in my Enchanted Occasions series for Dreamspun Beyond. I’m so excited to share this with everyone, because it represents the first in the new cover design style for the Beyond line!

 

Aaron Anderson designed the cover, and he caught Smith’s devilish (heh) attitude perfectly. I couldn’t be more pleased.

 

Those of you who read the first Enchanted Occasions story, Nudging Fate, may remember a certain incident when one of the candidates for Prince Reyner’s hand—Hashim, the ifrit—withdrew from the contest unexpectedly. This coincided with some very uncharacteristic behavior by Smith, EO’s tech demon. In Devouring Flame, we find out what exactly was behind those events.

 

Here’s an excerpt, in which Smith and the EO staff find out about their latest engagement—which, despite its lucrative nature, has some definite, er, drawbacks.

 

“Good morning, people.” Mikos strode to the front of the room, black curls bouncing and his bronze skin glowing with health as if he’d just stepped off a sunny Mediterranean beach. He smiled at them, his even, white teeth nearly blinding. Before he’d founded Enchanted Occasions, Mikos, a half siren, had earned money as an artist’s model for everyone from Michelangelo to Brancusi. “Please have a seat.”

As usual, Smith settled in behind his computer rig at the desk in the corner while Brooke and Forrest took chairs around the conference table. Tessmacher, the bwci who was Chef’s long-suffering assistant, and Hazel, the brownie in charge of housekeeping, perched on high stools so they could see over the table.

Brooke swiveled her chair back and forth, smirking at Mikos from behind her teacup. “I take it by your grin that the negotiations were a success.”

“You tell me.” He turned to the whiteboard behind him and uncapped a marker. The number he wrote had an astonishing number of zeroes—and the first number was not a one.

Brooke set down her cup with a clatter. “Neptune’s balls. We’ve got a budget that big?”

“That, my dear, is our fee.” He wrote another number down, with another zero and the first number upticked by two. “This is our budget.”

“Fuck,” Smith muttered. “Who’s the client? King Midas?”

“Midas would never hire us.”

Smith swallowed a bite of sausage. “Why? Does he have a bias against aitchers?”

“No, he has a bias against Greeks.” Mikos spread his hands in a what-can-you-do gesture. “He blames my entire country and everyone in it for his daughter’s unfortunate condition.”

“That wasn’t your fault. You weren’t even born then,” Brooke said. “Wait. Were you?”

“It hardly matters. Biases are not based on reality or logic. Which—” He squeezed the back of his neck. “—I’d like you all to keep in mind when I tell you that we’ve been hired to stage the annual conference for the North American sector vampires.”

“What?” Brooke shrieked.

Forrest sat still, stoic as ever, while Hazel and Tessmacher seemed to shrink in body as their eyes grew huge.

Smith let his head drop against his chair back. “Vampires, Mikos? Seriously? Vampires were parasites when they were alive and they’re parasites now that they’re undead. It’s like an entire conference of entitled sentient ticks.”

Mikos shot him an admonitory glare. “That’s what I mean about biases, Smith. You dislike them because they’ve got a higher status in the supernatural community than aitchers.”

“Well, don’t you? The official party line—that they’re fully one thing now, even if they used to be human, is bullshit. They weren’t birthed by organic or magical means. They were made from humans. Constructs, like golems, yet the realms all granted them equal status with Pures.”

“Smith has a point,” Brooke said. “Vampires don’t even have their own realm. They’re scattered all over Earthside.”

“And that’s unfortunate,” Smith muttered. “Humans have developed an unhealthy obsession with vampires in art, literature, and film. And the damned bloodsuckers buy into every single myth. They’ve started to believe their own hype.”

Mikos tapped the whiteboard. “Let’s keep this in mind, shall we? Despite the relative success of the Faerie Prince’s coronation, we’re still in recovery mode from the Olesson-Pakulski wedding. This cash infusion will stabilize the company for several years to come, not to mention supply very nice bonuses for everyone if we pull it off.”

“Maybe someone should have mentioned the Olesson-Pakulski wedding to them before they signed on with us,” Forrest mumbled.

Mikos lifted the eyebrows that had been immortalized in Michelangelo’s David. “In the interest of full disclosure, I did. However, it wasn’t necessary. They already knew about it. In fact, it was the deciding factor in their choice.”

“The vampires chose us because of the Olesson-Pakulski wedding?” Smith asked. “But that was a—”

“Disaster!” Brooke said. “Is this like the Faerie Queen? They picked us because they want us to fail?”

“No,” Mikos said dryly. “They’re vampires. They think the Olesson-Pakulski… er… incident proves that we’re edgy. And not squeamish.”

 

Devouring Flame releases January 8, 2019.

And are we ready for the cover now!

Here we go 🙂

Devouring Flame

An Enchanted Occasions story

 

Reunited and reignited.

While cutting through the Interstices—the post-creation gap between realms—Smith, half-demon tech specialist for Enchanted Occasions Event Planning, spies the person he yearns for daily but dreads seeing again: the ifrit, Hashim of the Windrider clan.

On their one literally smoldering night together, Smith, stupidly besotted, revealed his true name—a demon’s greatest vulnerability. When Hashim didn’t return the favor, then split the next morning with no word? Message received, loud and clear: Thanks but no, thanks.

Although Hashim had burned to return Smith’s trust, it was impossible. The wizard who conjured him holds his true name in secret, and unless Hashim discovers it, he’ll never be free.

When their attraction sparks once more, the two unite to search for Hashim’s hidden name—which would be a hell of a lot easier if they didn’t have to contend with a convention full of food-crazed vampires on the one day out of the century they can consume something other than blood.

But if they fail, Hashim will be doomed to eternal slavery, and their reignited love will collapse in the ashes.

Luckily Smith is the guy who gets shit done. And Hashim is never afraid to heat things up.

 

Buy link (Dreamspinner)

E.J. Russell–grace, mother of three, recovering actor–writes romance in a rainbow of flavors. Count on high snark, low angst and happy endings.

 

Reality? Eh, not so much.

 

She’s married to Curmudgeonly Husband, a man who cares even less about sports than she does. Luckily, C.H. also loves to cook, or all three of their children (Lovely Daughter and Darling Sons A and B) would have survived on nothing but Cheerios, beef jerky, and Satsuma mandarins (the extent of E.J.’s culinary skill set).

 

E.J. lives in rural Oregon, enjoys visits from her wonderful adult children, and indulges in good books, red wine, and the occasional hyperbole.

 

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