"Another story where special abilities and danger are an intricate part of the passion-filled game."
Reviewed by Mandy Burns
Posted August 21, 2010
Romance Suspense | Erotic Paranormal
Sela Kahne's past is tragic and painful but ACRO, Agency
for Covert Rare Operations, has become her home, regardless
of the sneaky way she got here. ACRO has embraced Sela and
made her one of their own. At first, the job of Seducer
seemed to be the best place for her, but it was actually
the worst. She was beaten practically to death by one of
her marks, which left her broken in body and in mind. Sela
now enjoys being part of the cryptozoology department of
ACRO, where her job is to research and examine strange
animals. When a video of the brutal slaying of a team of
Navy SEALs draws the attention of ACRO, Sela is immediately
sent to the Amazon to find out what exactly took place.
However, the moment she finds the site of the brutal
slayings, everything goes wrong. Marlene West is finally in her element, though she misses
being Dev's assistant; training as a Seducer is what she's
made for. As a teenager, her vengeful sister put a curse on
her that makes her fall in love with every man she sleeps
with, only to have them despise her when the act is over.
Marlene's training and the curse is what makes her valuable
to Dev and ACRO, which is why she is being sent on her
first mission with Sela Kahne to the Amazon jungle to
assist in gaining information on the company ACRO suspects
is involved with the creature loose in the jungle. Marlene
is to seduce the leader to gain the knowledge needed to
find their enemy Itor. As Sela and Marlene collect
evidence, they are captured by a group of men, which causes
nothing but trouble for both of them. Sydney Croft once again takes us on a journey where
special abilities and danger are just part of the passion-
filled game. Always a must-read.
SUMMARY
EXTREME HEAT. EXTREME HUNGER. A JUNGLE EDEN ABLAZE WITH
TEMPTATION.. Shockwaves shoot through the Agency for Covert Rare
Operatives (ACRO) when horrific video surfaces from the
Brazilian rain forest. A team of Navy SEALs has been nearly
wiped out by something sinister and superhuman. Now ACRO
agents Sela Kahne and Marlena West head to the world’s most
unforgiving jungle in pursuit of a mythical monstrosity with
a taste for human blood. And the only path that will take
them to the creature runs through two men, each hiding his
own dark secret. Sela is an expert on cryptozoology with a sideline skill
that could prove invaluable: when she makes love to a man,
she engulfs his innermost thoughts. Teamed with Marlena,
Sela makes contact with the lone SEAL survivor, Chance
McCormack. Meanwhile Logan Mills, the man who rescued
Chance, leads his private company on a hunt that has nothing
to do with saving lives. Soon, Sela will put her
supernatural charms to work on Logan, determined to extract
information about the creature they are seeking. But in this
sweat-drenched realm of danger and deception, Logan is more
than just a passive target. He has the power to lead a
highly-trained seducer into a jungle without any rules,
without any limits—and no end to the heat.
ExcerptChapter 1 Sela Kahne sat at her desk, staring at the computer
screen and wondering why she hadn't taken one more day of
vacation time. An extra day would have meant another layer
of tan on her normally pale skin, another couple of chapters
of the latest James Patterson novel read, and a few more
hours' reprieve from typing up reports that all said the
same thing in conclusion: HOAX. She sighed heavily and reached for the bag of
Skittles she kept on her desk. She popped two into her mouth
and cringed. She'd lost a filling during her vacation and
desperately needed to see a dentist. "ACRO's dentists are the best in the area," Torrence
Olivia, the only other psychic besides Sela who worked in
the Agency for Covert Rare Operatives' Cryptozoology
department, said as she walked by. "I hate it when you do that," Sela grumbled, mainly
because her own psychic ability was restricted to reading
people only during orgasm. "Hon, I didn't do anything. You have 'dentist'
written on your to-do list." Torr tapped the notepad next to
the computer with a crimson-painted nail. "Oh." "What's wrong?" Torrence crossed her arms over her
chest, her dark skin contrasting beautifully with her cream
blouse. "You just got back from vacation. You should be
vibrant. Unless...was Puerto Rico not as relaxing as it
should have been?" Sela stiffened. "How did you know I was in Puerto
Rico?" "Hello?" Torr tapped her temple. "Psychic." She never knew whether or not Torr was kidding when
she said things like that, but given that Sela had told
everyone, including her immediate boss, Mitch, she was going
to the Bahamas and not to Puerto Rico, she could only assume
that Torrence had gone psychic on her. "You didn't tell anyone, did you?" Not that her
change of plans had been a huge secret, but she was supposed
to have been drinking fruity cocktails on a beach instead of
investigating the origins of El Chupacabra. She couldn't wait to debunk the myth of the "goat
sucker" once and for all. Confirming that the crazy things
people believed in were false was a passion of hers, and it
made her one of the few cryptozoologists in the field who
were in it to disprove mythical creatures' existence. And the cryptid she wanted the most to prove didn't
exist was the one highlighted in the book in front of her,
Chupacabra: Myth No More. The author, an eccentric,
ego-maniac billionaire she'd met half a dozen times at
cryptozoological society gatherings, claimed to have spent
years in the jungles of Central America observing chupacabra
behavior like one of those nuts who infiltrated a pack of
wolves. The chupacabra is a solitary creature that will kill
others of its kind, though they do appear to mate for life.
They give birth to a single offspring, which is capable of
living on its own within six months. Males are larger than
females, and they mark their territory by spraying scent and
clawing trees and fences. Their ability to heal from wounds
is nothing short of amazing, something I witnessed after a
young female was attacked and nearly killed by a jaguar... What a freaking blowhard con artist. The book had
made Parker Grady a celebrity in the cryptozoological
circles, but Sela thought it only made him look like an
idiot. "Earth to Sela..." Torr waved her hand in front of
Sela's face. "I just said I won't tell anyone about Puerto
Rico. It's not my place." She shoved her glasses up on her
nose. "I'm going down to the lab. Oh, I almost forgot. A
messenger delivered that package on your desk. He said after
you watch it, you're supposed to call Dev." Dev. The big boss. Head of ACRO, whom she rarely
saw...and she preferred it that way. He hadn't exactly hired
her under normal circumstances five years ago, and while she
didn't regret how she'd come to ACRO, she did feel a little
sleazy about it. Twenty-one, cocky, and just sure she was smarter
than ninety-five percent of the planet's population, she'd
pretty much forced her way into the agency. Only later had
she realized that Dev could have taken her apart and made
her disappear so completely there wouldn't have been a trace
that she'd ever existed. For some reason, he hadn't. He'd played her game,
let her believe she had the upper hand...and even after she
figured out Dev had been one move ahead of her from the
beginning, he never rubbed it in. But he knew she knew. It
was in his gorgeous brown eyes every time he saw her. Stop thinking about it. She shook out of her past, out of the things she'd
done before she'd come to the Crypto department, and opened
the padded envelope. Inside was a DVD. She slipped the disk
into her computer, entered her individual access code, and
palmed a handful of Skittles. The screen filled with trees. Thick brush, vines...a
jungle. The camera shooting the scene was in motion – a
helmet cam? Yes, definitely. The person wearing the camera
turned to the side, and she made out two men in camouflage,
their faces painted, their rifles aimed and braced against
their shoulders. She popped a piece of candy into her mouth,
remembering too late to chew on the left side. Pain shot
from her molar into her skull. On the screen, one of the men made a hand signal,
and the camera panned to the right. Slowly, it moved
forward. The camera jolted, and then focused on the ground. Sela slapped a hand over her mouth to hold in a gasp
of horror. What was left of a man lay strewn about on the
forest floor, his bloody mouth frozen in a terrified
grimace. And then came a scream. All hell broke loose. The
sound of guns firing, men shouting, and something screeching
had Sela reaching for the volume. The camera jerked around wildly, giving her only
glimpses of the action, but what she saw sent chills up her
spine. The men seemed to be fighting off some sort of
creature. It moved fast, and if the film could be trusted,
it had red eyes and huge fangs. What the hell was it? Suddenly, the camera stopped moving, its angle
skewed, apparently lying on the ground. Sela saw clawed,
scaly feet approaching. Her heart shot into her throat,
blocking the candy as she tried to swallow. Between the
thing's legs she could see the men. Well, parts of them,
lying in a growing pool of blood. A snarl vibrated the camera, and then there was a
gaping mouth, a splatter of blood on the lens...and all went
black. Sela choked on her own breath. Dear God, those men
had been...slaughtered. Dismembered, disemboweled. Her phone rang, and she nearly bit her tongue. She'd
seen some gruesome things during her career as a
cryptozoologist, but nothing could have prepared her for
seeing humans torn apart before her eyes. She picked up the phone with a shaky hand. "Sela." "It's Dev. You watched the video?" "Yes." "Meet me at my office in ten minutes." He hung up,
and she slumped back in her chair. Something told her it was
a good thing she hadn't unpacked yet. * * * Logan Mills smelled the hot, fetid breath of the
beast hanging heavily in the humid air of the Amazonian
jungle. They were close but somehow no closer than they'd
been since they'd begun this mission. The animal was smart - and Logan had a sickening
feeling that he and his team were actually the ones being
hunted. He took a swig of water from the canteen that hung
from a line on his pack and then capped it and checked his
weapons again - an M14, a Sig and two tranqs with enough
juice to put down a hippo. His body had finally adjusted to the heat after
thirty plus days in this place - he'd gotten used to
sweating as his body tried to keep up with the constant
water loss and all of this reminded him of his days in
Special Ops. "Hey, Lo - we gonna call it a day soon?" Dax, one of
his men, called quietly. Logan glanced at his watch. 1600.
Thanks to the overlay, they'd find themselves in total
darkness sooner than later. They'd been on the move since 0600 - non-stop except
for water breaks and, while they'd found evidence of the
escaped beast, they still hadn't been able to track it down. His men were tired - of the jungle, of this mission,
of Logan's non-stop barking and near-obsession with
recovering the creature he didn't know anything about,
beyond the fact that it was lethal. His men didn't understand the full consequences -
and if he had his way, they never would. No one else would
either, and that's why Logan planned on continuing his
search for a few more hours. "I'm not paying you to sleep," he answered Dax
evenly. The man shook his head and held up his arms in
silent surrender and Logan sighed. He got it - they were
exhausted. It was a feeling he could barely remember, and so
garnering sympathy for it was harder than he'd expected. He wasn't tired - never got tired anymore. In fact,
he often had to force himself to sleep so the still-human
part of his mind could take a rest. He was a product of his father's company, a company
he now oversaw - one he had controlling shares in, thanks to
his father's continually bad decision making. Global Weapons
Corporation had been his father's brainchild and was now
Logan's baby, having rescued the company from nearly
complete financial ruin to a growing enterprise in four
short years. It had been severely mismanaged, thanks to his
father's ego - the old man could never see past the get rich
quick aspect of the weapon's development - to see that GWC
could be a huge asset to the American government in the
fight against terrorism. Except his father insisted on making decisions
behind Logan's back. Like this most recent one - the
re-acquisition of some kind of species - labeled UnClass 8 -
that killed an entire SEAL team last month when GWC had
accidentally released it after nearly three years of
modifications. Logan's gut twisted as he thought back to his own
accident four years earlier - when the helo had crashed into
the side of a mountain, killing his own SEAL team and
leaving him maimed and dying at the bottom of a ravine for
three days. After he was found by the Marines, his father had
him airlifted from the military hospital in Germany to a
private hospital in London where a team of scientist and
surgeons waited to save Logan's life. He'd been rebuilt with special bioware - his arms,
his heart, part of his brain. He functioned with an
efficiency that scared even him, wondered if maybe the
company had taken things too far. But how could he have told his father he did the
wrong thing by not letting his son die? "We'll work for another hour and then head back to
camp," he told Dax, who nodded and turned to let the other
four men know there was an end in sight to today's mission. Logan turned back toward the twisted path and
studied the broken branches, tipped with the blood of the
animal's most recent kill – a deer they'd found fifty yards
away. He'd told his men they were hunting something that
looked like a komodo dragon when, in all honesty, he didn't
know what the hell this thing was, never mind what it looked
like. He and his own team had been in the jungle for only
two days searching for it when they'd stumbled on the
massacre - four Navy SEALs killed - torn to pieces hours
earlier. According to reports that Logan still had access to,
there had been five SEALs on that mission, not four, and a
search and rescue team was on the way. And Logan had made it
his mission to find that man, because the thought of him
being left behind made Logan physically ill - especially
when he'd realized that it was his own father who'd caused
the entire catastrophe. Just after he'd given the order to his men to
continue their search for a fifth body, he'd tripped over
something - cursed and turned back to kick the branch out of
the way. But it hadn't been a branch at all. It was a human -
or what was left of one. Immediately, he'd motioned to Dax
and the two of them brushed the leaves off the body and
uncovered what Logan believed to have been one of the
missing SEALs. Tentatively, he'd felt for a pulse and nearly jumped
out of his skin when the man later identified as Chance
McCormack grabbed his wrist and whispered, "Watch out - it's
coming for you." They'd gotten him back to base camp, and because of
that decision Logan was forced to leave the massacred SEALs
behind for the Navy search and rescue to find. Which they
had - and they also had evidence of the slaughter, thanks to
a helmet-cam one of the men had worn, but no clear shot of
the animal that was responsible for the rampage. And so Logan had been hiding Chance for the better
part of the month, even after the Navy had called off their
search. Hiding him, healing him...and figuring out what the
hell to do next. Watch out - it's coming for you. Now, as he moved forward through the ever-darkening
jungle, those words continued to echo in his ears.
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