Alterant (Belador #2)
Sherrilyn Kenyon & Dianna Love
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FROM SHERRILYN AND DIANNA
Thank you to our family, friends, and fans. We love you all and couldn’t do this without you! You rock!
A special hug to our husbands, whose endless support means the world to us. They tolerate the chaotic lives of two authors who are constantly typing and traveling. A special thanks goes to Cassondra Murray and Mary Buck-ham for beta reads and terrific feedback, plus being major support at any time, day or night. And thanks to Debbie Kaufman, another early reader, who read in the midst of celebrating her first sale. I also wanted to thank Wes and Ann Sarginson for their help in researching Costa Rica with me (Dianna).
A major thank-you to Louise Burke, a publisher whose passion for this business is clear in all she does, and thank you to our talented editor Lauren McKenna, whose spot-on editing makes the creation process a pleasure. We have to send a high-five to the Pocket Art Department, who has once again outdone themselves on giving us a cover to die for. And we so appreciate the brilliant job Robert Gottlieb of Trident Media Group does of guiding and managing our careers.
Last, but never least, we want to thank the readers who come out to see us in every city, send encouraging messages that touch our hearts, and read our stories so that we may continue doing what we love most. You mean the world to us. We love to hear from you anytime, at [email protected], or stop by www.SherrilynKenyon.com and www.AuthorDiannaLove.com
ALTERANT
ONE
What’s a girl to wear to spend eternity in prison? Evalle Kincaid would rather fight a pack of demons alone than face the Tribunal at midnight.
Seventy-two minutes from now.
She might walk free tonight . . . if the Tribunal took into account that she’d spent the last forty-eight hours protecting humans from an eight-hundred-year-old warlord instead of mounting her defense.
Like it was her fault she’d been born a half-breed Belador? An Alterant. The only one not dead or caged. The others had killed humans. Taking the Belador oath at eighteen had kept her free of persecution . . . until now.
One thing at a time, like getting dressed. She had to show up in more than a bra and panties.
She pulled out her favorite cotton shirt, a vintage piece, from her antique chest of drawers. Stepping into jeans and boots, she shoved a couple of lug nuts in her pocket and froze.
Her apartment was too silent.
Not a lot of noise reached two levels beneath downtown Atlanta when you lived in the equivalent of a concrete bunker.
But this stillness was a something-must-be-up quiet.
She headed out to investigate and had just reached the hallway when a harsh blowing noise roared in the kitchen.
It sounded like . . . a giant blowtorch.
Grace be to Macha, no!
She broke into a run and swung through the kitchen doorway as another blast rocked the air. “Feenix!”
Her two-foot-tall pet gargoyle stood facing the open oven with fire shooting from his snout. He stopped blowing flames and cut his big round eyes up at her in a sly “who me?” innocent look. “Ye-eth?”
If she laughed right now he’d never learn that he couldn’t shoot flames in the apartment. But she kept her voice calm and curious. “What are you doing?”
That must have been the right question. He turned to face her and started dancing from side to side on fat little four-toed feet. “Thurrr-prithe! Peetha. Peetha.” He clapped his pudgy-clawed hands and chortled.
She stepped further into the kitchen and bent down to see one of her frozen pepperoni pizzas charred beyond recognition on one side.
He’d cooked for her.
Her heart climbed into her throat. How was she going to live without him if they locked her away? He was the reason her heart sang every morning when she opened her eyes. She’d find him plopped on the bed next to her with his pet alligator tucked under his arm and a gap-toothed grin on his face.
She closed the oven and smiled at him. “It’s perfect. Thank you for cooking me dinner.”
Feenix flapped his wings, flying up to eye level. Two little overbite fangs pointed down past his lower lip. She opened her arms and he floated into them, tucking his wings, which were soft as bat skin.
But it was the sweet way he said “Mine” that threatened to fold her at the knees.
She couldn’t let on how hard it was going to be to leave him tonight or he’d fret the entire time she was gone. Fear of losing her might cause him to regress into the fire-breathing little animal who hadn’t even been able to communicate when she’d first brought him home. If she didn’t return after tonight, and he got out, someone would kill him for sure. He deserved better after escaping the crazy sorcerer who’d created, then tortured, the poor thing.
No way could she lock him away somewhere.
She wouldn’t do to him what others wanted to do to her.
Nothing would stop her from coming back to Feenix . . . except two of the three Tribunal deities ruling against her. Even then, she wouldn’t go down without a fight. She didn’t care if they could smoke her where she stood.
That left her one choice—to gamble on her chances of convincing the Tribunal she would not shift, involuntarily or otherwise, into her Alterant beast form and kill humans.
Vegas would laugh at her odds of winning.