Excerpt of Blood Eternal by Marie Treanor

She gripped the stake, bracing her free hand against the rock. She didn’t need the detector anymore. She could sense Ancient.

He moved differently, like a shadow around the curve of the hill, gliding over the boulder a yard away from her feet. And instead of attacking, he stood still on top of the boulder and regarded her in silence. Only his long hair stirred in the breeze.

Slowly, Elizabeth lowered her stake. "Saloman."

Saloman stepped down from the boulder and walked the distance between them. She tried to speak, questions and information tangling in her head and on her lips. In the end, she never made more than an inarticulate gurgle, because the words vanished as his sheer presence overwhelmed her. There was only his name in her head, his profound black eyes to drown in, his body pressing her flat into the rock. The hilt of his sword, a turning gift from Luk, brushed against her hip.

Wordlessly, she lifted her face to his. But he didn’t kiss her mouth. His silken lips took her neck in a strong, urgent pull. The hard shaft of his erection pressed between her thighs, and inappropriate lust galloped through her. Well, it had been a long time, several weeks. . . .

It seemed he felt the same. His tongue lapped at her vein and without warning his teeth pierced her skin. Her mouth opened in a silent cry of pain that vanished into the surge of fierce, familiar pleasure. She gripped his arms hard, letting herself glory just for a moment in the blissful weakness of her blood rushing into his mouth in answer to the tug of his lips.

So lost was she in the blood kiss that it was a moment before she realized he’d unzipped her jeans and pushed them and her panties down over her hips.

"Saloman, the hunters are here," she managed. "They’re coming now."

His cool, stroking hands left her hips, perversely disappointing her, until he seized the Ancient detector from her frozen hand and hurled it into the night. Before she could object to this vandalism, he lifted her and entered her body in one swift, gliding movement that shattered the remnants of her resistance.

Blood and sex and Elizabeth, he said inside her head.

Bastard. Can’t you even say hello?

He detached his teeth from her neck and flicked his tongue over the wound to heal it. His burning gaze lifted to hers.

"Hello," he said huskily, and took her mouth.