Larissa Ione is half of the awesomeness that is Sydney Croft. On June 24th, the 1st book in her Demonica series will be released by Grand Central Publishing.
Here’s the summary:
In a place where ecstasy can cost you your life…
She’s a demon-slayer who hungers for sensual pleasure—but fears it will always be denied her. Until Tayla Mancuso lands in a hospital run by demons in disguise, and the head doctor, Eidolon, makes her body burn with unslakable desire. But to prove her ultimate loyalty to her peers, she must betray the surgeon who saved her life.
Two lovers will dare to risk all.
Eidolon cannot resist this fiery, dangerous woman who fills him with both rage and passion. Not only is she his avowed enemy, but she could very well be the hunter who has been preying upon his people. Torn between his need for the truth and his desire to find his perfect mate before a horrific transformation claims him forever, Eidolon will dare the unthinkable—and let Tayla possess him, body and soul…
Sounds good, no? Here’s an excerpt from her website. Be sure to check back tomorrow for an exclusive excerpt. Also, stay tuned for more information on Larissa visiting Book Binge. I’m sure there will be a copy of Pleasure Unbound for one or two lucky readers.
Had Eidolon been anywhere but the hospital, he would have killed the guy pleading for his life before him.
As it was, he’d have to save the bastard.
“Sometimes, being a doctor blows,” he muttered, and jabbed the demon in a human suit with a syringe full of hemoxacin.
The patient screamed as the needle passed through mangled thigh tissue, releasing blood sterilization medication into the wound.
“You didn’t numb him first?”
Eidolon snorted at his younger brother’s words. “The Haven spell keeps me from killing him. It doesn’t prevent me from dispensing a little justice during treatment.”
“Can’t escape your old job, huh?” Shade pushed aside the curtain separating two of the three ER cubicles, and stepped fully inside. “The son of a bitch eats babies. Let me wheel him outside and waste his sorry ass.”
“Wraith already offered.”
“Wraith offers to waste all the patients.”
Eidolon grunted. “Probably a good thing our little brother didn’t go the doctor route.”
“Neither did I.”
“You had different reasons.”
Shade hadn’t wanted to spend that much time in school, especially since his healing gift was better suited to his chosen field, paramedicine. He was all about scraping patients off the street and keeping them alive long enough for the Underworld General staff to fix them.
Blood dripped to the obsidian floor as Eidolon probed the patient’s most serious wound. A female Umber demon, the same species as Shade’s mother, had caught the patient sneaking into her nursery, and had somehow impaled him — several times — with a toilet brush.
Then again, Umber demons were remarkably strong for their petite size. The females were especially so. Eidolon had, on several occasions, enjoyed the application of that strength in bed. In fact, when he could no longer resist the final maturation cycle his body had entered, he planned to make an Umber female his first infadre. Umbers made good mothers, and only rarely did they kill the unwanted offspring of a Seminus demon.
Putting aside the thoughts that plagued him more frequently as The Change progressed, Eidolon glanced at the patient’s face. The skin that should have been a deep reddish-brown was now pale with pain and blood loss. “What’s your name?”
The patient groaned. “Derc.”
“Listen, Derc. I’m going to repair this unsightly hole, but it’s going to hurt. A lot. Try not to move. Or scream like a cowering little imp.”
“Give me something for the pain, you fucking parasite,” he snarled.
“Doctor parasite.” Eidolon nodded at the equipment tray, and Paige, one of their few human nurses, handed him clamps.
“Derc, buddy, did you eat any of the Umber’s young before she caught you?”
Hatred rolled off Shade’s body as Derc shook his head, sharp teeth bared, eyes glowing orange.
“Today isn’t your lucky day then. Didn’t get a meal, and you aren’t getting anything for the pain, either.”
Allowing himself a grim smile, Eidolon clamped the damaged artery in two places as Derc screamed vile curses and struggled against the restraints that held him on the metal table.
“Scalpel.”
Paige handed him the instrument, and he expertly sliced between the clamps. Shade crowded close, watching as he shaved away the shredded artery tissue and then held the newly clean ends together. A warm tingle wound its way down his right arm along his dermal markings to the tips of his gloved fingers, and the artery fused. The baby-eater would no longer have to worry about bleeding out. From the expression on Shade’s face, however, he would have to worry about surviving more than two steps outside the hospital.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d saved a life only to have it taken once the patient had been released.
“BP’s dropping.” Shade’s gaze focused on the bedside monitor. “Could be shock.”
“There’s another bleed somewhere. Bring up his blood pressure.”
Reluctantly, Shade placed his large palm over the bony ridges in Derc’s forehead. The numbers on the monitor dipped, raised, and then stabilized, but the change would be temporary. Shade’s powers couldn’t sustain life that wasn’t there, and if Eidolon couldn’t find the problem, nothing Shade did would make a difference.
A rapid assessment of the other wounds revealed nothing to explain the drop in vitals. Then, just below the patient’s twelfth rib, a fresh scar. Beneath the razor-straight mark, something bubbled.
“Shade.”
“Hell’s fires,” Shade breathed. His gaze snapped up as he raked his fingers through nearly black hair that, at shoulder-length, was longer than but identical in color to Eidolon’s. “It might be nothing. It might not be Ghouls.”
Ghouls. Not the cannibalistic monsters of human lore, but the term for those who carved up demons to sell their parts on the underworld black market.
Hoping his brother was right but not ripped from the womb yesterday, Eidolon pressed softly on the scar.
“Derc, what happened here?”
“Cut myself.”
“This is a surgical scar.”
UG was the only medical facility in the world that performed surgery on their kind, and Derc hadn’t been treated here before.
Eidolon caught the pungent stink of fear. “No. It was an accident.” Derc clenched his fists, his lidless eyes wild. “You must believe me.”
“Derc, calm down. Derc?”
Monitor alarms beeped, and the baby-eater convulsed.
“Paige, grab the crash cart. Shade, keep his vitals up.”
An eerie wail seemed to leak from every pore in Derc’s skin, and a stench like rotting bacon and baby powder filled the small space. Paige lost her lunch in the garbage can.
The heart monitor flatlined. Shade removed his hand from the patient’s forehead.
“I hate it when they do that.” Wondering what had frightened Derc so badly he’d felt the need to stop his own bodily functions, Eidolon opened the scar with a smooth slash of a scalpel, knowing what he’d find, but needing to see for sure.
Shade dug through his uniform shirt pocket and pulled out his ever-present pack of bubble gum. “What’s missing?”
“The Pan Tai sac. It processes digestive waste and returns it to the body so his species never has to urinate or defecate.”
“Handy,” Shade murmured. “What would someone want with it?”
Paige dabbed her mouth with a surgical sponge, her complexion still greenish, though the patient’s death stench had largely dissipated. “The contents are used in some voodoo curses that affect bowel movements.”
Shade shook his head and passed the nurse a stick of gum. “Is nothing sacred anymore?” He turned to Eidolon. “Why didn’t they kill him? They’ve killed the others.”
“He was worth more alive. His species can grow another organ in a matter of weeks.”
“Which they could harvest.” Shade let out a string of curses that included some Eidolon hadn’t heard in his hundred years of life. “It’s gotta be The Aegis. Sick bastards.”
Whoever the bastards were, they’d been busy. Medics had brought in twelve mutilated bodies over the last two weeks, and the violence had escalated. Some of the victims showed evidence of having been carved up while still alive — and awake.
Worse, demons as a whole could care less, and those who did wouldn’t cooperate with other species’ Councils in order to organize an investigation. Eidolon cared, not only because someone with medical knowledge was involved, but because it was only a matter of time before the butchers nabbed someone he knew.
“Paige, have the morgue fetch the body and let them know I want a copy of the autopsy report. I’m going to find out who these assholes are.”
Go here to read the rest.
Holy smokes! That is fantastic!!! I was already planning on buying this novel, but now I’m going to have to drop everything and BUY THIS AS SOON AS I SEE IT ON THE SHELF!