Feature: Hunted by Elisabeth Naughton

Erebus – Dark in every sense of the word, a skilled and lethal warrior, and sinfully sexy by design.

Since the dawn of modern man, Erebus was Hades’ secret weapon in the war between the immortal realms. Until Hades lost the minor god in a bet to his older brother Zeus. For the last hundred years, Erebus has trained Zeus’s Siren warriors in warfare and the sexual arts. But he’s never stopped longing for freedom. For a life filled with choice. And lately, he also longs for one Siren who entranced him during their steamy seduction sessions. A nymph he quickly became obsessed with and who was ripped from his grasp when her seduction training was complete. One he’s just learned Zeus has marked for death because she failed the last Siren test.

Before Erebus can intercede on the nymph’s behalf, she escapes Olympus and flees into the human realm. In a fit of rage, Zeus commands Erebus to hunt her down and kill her. Erebus sees his opportunity to finally go after what he wants, but he’s torn. Freedom means nothing if the Siren at the center of his fantasies doesn’t truly crave him back. Because defying the gods will unleash the fury of Olympus, and if he chooses her over his duty, whether she joins him in exile or not, the hunter will become the hunted.

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“You’re okay, Sera. I’ve got you. I’m going to get you out of here.”

Long minutes passed where she continued to tremble, and it felt as if his heart had taken up permanent residency in his throat. But slowly, as the heat of his body seeped into hers, her shakes slowly subsided, and she relaxed against him. He took that as a good sign. Lifting the shirt from her wound, he breathed easier when he saw the blood flow had lessened. She was going to have a nice-sized goose egg, but swelling outward from the impact was better than swelling inside the brain, and he knew that was an even better sign.

His pulse inched down. Glancing at her familiar face resting against his shoulder, he brushed a lock of wet hair back from her cheek, and as he did something warm and sweet slid through his chest. An emotion he hadn’t felt before. A yearning that wasn’t just sexual.

The feeling was so strong, so foreign, it threw him off kilter. He didn’t have emotions. He was a god who’d learned long ago that emotions were dangerous. And yet... Somehow he recognized the feelings taking up space inside him now had been spawned by fear. Not fear that she was going to drop to her death and that he was going to miss out on the rough, hot sex he’d been envisioning since the moment he’d recognized her in the woods, but fear that something bad would happen to her. That he’d never see her again. That he would lose her.

Sweat broke out along his forehead, and an odd tingle started in his chest. He told himself it was her heat making him feel weird. Not denial. Not anything else. But even that didn’t sound right, and he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do next.

“Sera.” The word was a whisper, a plea, a demand. “Sera, wake up and look at me.” He needed to see her eyes. Needed her to explain what was happening to him. Needed to know if she felt it too.

She didn’t move. He knew she was breathing. Knew she wasn’t in any real danger. But the danger to him was suddenly all he could focus on. “Agápi. Open your eyes. Look at me, baby.”

She sighed and snuggled closer. But the reaction didn’t fire him up and make him ache to take her as he expected. It brought a calm over him that was more unsettling than the fear he’d felt before.

He didn’t know what was happening.

Elisabeth Naughton is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. From Elisabeth: “I was never one of those people who knew they wanted to be an author at the age of six. I didn’t have imaginary friends. I didn’t write stories in my journal or entertain my relatives by firelight after Thanksgiving dinner. For the most part, I was just a normal, everyday kid. I liked to read, but I wasn’t exceptional at it. And when my teachers complimented me on my writing abilities, I brushed them off. I did, however, always have a penchant for the unique and absurd. And as my mother told me all throughout my childhood, I should have been an actress—I was a drama queen before my time.

“Years ago, my husband bought me Scarlett: The Sequel to Gone With The Wind. If you ever saw the book, you know it’s a long one. I sat and read that thing from cover to cover, and dreamed of one day being a writer. But I didn’t actually try my hand at writing until years later when I quit my teaching job to stay home with my kids. And my husband? After that week of reading where I neglected him and everything else until I finished Scarlett, he vowed never to buy me another book again. Little did he know I’d one day end up sitting at a keyboard all day drafting my own stories.

“My writing journey has not been easy. I didn’t just sit down one day, decide I was going to write a book and voila! sell my very first attempt. As most authors will probably agree, the path to publication is filled with hours of work, pulling all-nighters I thought I’d given up in college, sacrifices, rejections, but a love I discovered along the way I just can’t live without. Instead of a big, thick book to read by lamplight (I do read much smaller ones when I get the chance), I’ve traded in my reading obsession for a laptop. And I’ve never been happier.

“I’m one of the lucky ones. I have a wonderful family and fabulous husband who put up with my writing—and obsessive personality—even when life is chaotic. More than once my kids have been late to swimming or baseball because I needed just five more minutes to finish a scene. Their support and encouragement mean the world to me. I also have amazing friends and a support network I couldn’t survive without. So to all of you out there who have encouraged me along the way, sent me emails and fan letters, phone calls and congratulations, I just want to say, thank you. You make this whole writing gig that much more enjoyable. I truly wouldn’t be here without you.”

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