Sunday Spotlight: Alpha’s Promise by Rebecca Zanetti

Sunday Spotlight is a feature we began in 2016. This year we’re spotlighting our favorite books, old and new. We’ll be raving about the books we love and being total fangirls. You’ve been warned. 🙂

I love the Dark Protector series. If you have not read it and love paranormal romance, you are seriously missing out. Alpha’s Promise is book 10 in the series and book 3 of the new story arc. I am really enjoying the turn this series has taken. Zanetti has taken us back to the roots of the Vampires and Demons. The Seven are the protectors of the Realm itself and the Realm doesn’t even know they exist. Or they didn’t. Now they do and it has hit the proverbial fan. The Realm and the Seven now have to work together to protect all enhanced women, including the mates of some of the most powerful Vampires and Demons alive. But can they?

Alpha's Promise by Rebecca Zanetti
Series: Dark Protectors #10
Also in this series: Marked (Dark Protectors, #7), Fated (Dark Protectors, #1), Claimed (Dark Protectors, #2), Hunted (Dark Protectors, #3), Consumed (Dark Protectors, #4), Provoked (Dark Protectors, #5), Marked (Dark Protectors, #7), Shadowed (Dark Protectors, #6), Vampire's Faith (Dark Protectors, #8), Demon's Mercy (Dark Protectors, #9), Alpha's Promise, Hero's Haven, Guardian's Grace, Rebel's Karma, Immortal's Honor, Garrett's Destiny
Publisher: Kensington
Publication Date: June 25, 2019
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 345
Length: 10 hours and 39 minutes
Add It: Goodreads
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Series Rating:

To hell and back . . . Though he has vampire, demon, and Viking blood rushing through his veins, Ivar Kjeidsen’s soul-crushing trip to hell broke him in ways he can barely fathom.  One vow keeps the deadly immortal standing: To rescue the vampire brother who had sacrificed freedom for him.  To do that, Ivar needs the help of a brilliant physicist with wary brown eyes, fierce brilliance, and skin that's way too soft.

Dr. Promise Williams understands the underpinnings of the universe but has never figured out the human beings inhabiting it.   Her function is to think—and not feel—until she’s touched by a vampire who’s nowhere near human. The primal hunger in his eyes awakens feelings in her that defy calculation. As she shows him the way to step between worlds, he brands her with a pleasure that could last more than a lifetime . . .

Excerpt

The darkness of night carried additional rain. Mature trees scented the air with pine as drops drizzled from rolling clouds and splattered up from the leaf-covered ground. Thick branches protected Ivar as he leaned against a tree trunk, munching on peanuts, watching the quiet bungalow at the end of a private street. He ducked to the other side as a police cruiser drove by and turned around in the cul-de-sac, apparently conducting an hourly check of Promise’s home. Either the local police force lacked manpower, which was likely, or they thought his stupid kidnapping attempt earlier that day had been random.

Promise slid open filmy curtains at the front of her house and waved at the officer. He waved back and drove away.

Leaving her alone.

It was near midnight, and she had changed into soft-looking gray yoga pants with a matching top. Her thick hair was pulled up on her head, and her hand trembled slightly on the curtain. She had long, very curly black hair, high cheekbones, and caramel-colored skin. Her ancestry wasn’t obvious, but her beauty certainly was.

Relief had soothed some of his guilt earlier as he’d watched her walk from a different police car to her front door without a hitch in her stride. So he hadn’t hurt her. Good. The curtain fell, and she disappeared from sight.

A loneliness drifted through him that caught him up short.

Her home was perched on cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and the water crashed loudly against rocks below. Trees and branches blocked his view of the water, which was fine, because his interest lay in the woman. If he had found her, his enemies soon would as well. He slid down onto his butt and extended his legs, resting his head on the rough bark. Protecting her from afar should’ve been his default position.

Yet there had been something about her at the funeral. Something sad and solitary that had called to him. So he’d tried to kidnap her. He banged his head against the tree, enduring the pain as bark dug into his skull. Being half-crazed didn’t give him the excuse to be a moron.

He closed his eyes and let the sound of rain, wind, and waves ground him in this moment and in this world. He was home, and for the time being, he was safe. His mind drifted, and he returned to hell.

He’d been forced into world after world through a portal, and somehow in this loop, he could escape by imagining other portals that soon appeared. Most led to worse places, so he’d try to jump again. Time moved differently—one minute felt like a hundred years of torture and pain. His spirit hung in tatters by the time he reached his brother’s world. Quade was one of the Seven bonded in blood and bone, which made them family.

Quade had pulled him out of the fire and secured them both in a dirty cave littered with crumbled leaves and discarded bones. Fire and glass-filled wind roared in a maelstrom outside. The other male had scar upon scar upon scar on his body, but his nose was Ronan’s. Exactly the same.

Even though pain had engulfed Ivar, he finally knew why he’d been through so many hells. “Ronan’s world exploded, and he’s home now. It’s time for you to go home too. I’ll take your place,” he said.

Quade’s dark aqua eyes barely showed the existence of his pupils in the dingy cave. “It’s almost over, brother.”

Ivar eyed the sharp rock. “Just tell me what to do.” His memories were already dim, but hadn’t Ronan said he’d needed to move rocks and balance the magnetic poles in his world to keep Ulric trapped? If so, what was Quade doing every day besides being tortured by an environment too horrible to believe?

Quade’s torn lips twisted in a parody of a smile. “I feed the dragon, Viking. Not you.”

“Dragon?” Ivar asked. They existed other places as well as back home?

“No,” Quade said, his voice raw. “It’s getting harder, and soon it’ll end. Everything will. Me.” He grunted the last, sounding more hopeful than resigned.

Ivar tried to reason with him. Was he mad? How could anybody have stayed sane here? “You’ll be free, Quade. Ronan survived the end of his world, and so will you. You can heal and find a new life.”

Quade’s lids dropped to half-mast. “Already dead…Viking.” He stood and dragged Ivar to his feet. “You go now. Portals will open, keep following. Maybe you’ll get home.” Even with his body damaged so badly, his strength was beyond that of a normal hybrid. “Tell Ronan. Tell all my brothers…”

Ivar clutched Quade’s arms, fighting the unholy wind that pierced through his skin to his soul. “Come with me,” he begged.

“Tell them goodbye.” Quade pushed Ivar hard, sending him through a portal that swallowed him with a gleeful shriek. He screamed, but the void allowed for no sound. He hit ice in a new world, rolled, and came up fighting.

Through portal after portal, through hell dimension after hell dimension, he hung on to Quade’s last words. Soon they were all he had. After a while, he vaguely remembered who he’d been. But Quade, he never forgot. Saving Quade, rescuing his brother, was the only thought that kept Ivar alive.

Until he finally arrived back home, on a peaceful lakefront, with his brothers surrounding him.

Dark Protectors

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Sunday Spotlight: July 2019

Are you as excited for this release as we are? Let us know how excited you are and what other books you’re looking forward to this year!

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