Blurb:
Widowed photographer Ivy Langdon avoids people in general after her
husband’s death. She ventures out days before Christmas for last minute gifts
and stumbles into the middle of a terrorist attack in London. Will her
luck ever change?
Steven Samuels and his partner Gareth Richardson are called in with their company, Blackbird Security Firm, to rescue the hostages. They never expected to find their perfect mate while saving the world. The more the two wolves learn about Ivy, the more that they want to make her theirs.
Love is never simple or straight-forward and life is often stranger than fiction.
Ivy finds herself drawn into a strange world of shifters and human traffickers.
Can love’s true bite find her before trouble does?
Excerpt:
With
Christmas right around the corner, Ivy reluctantly ventured out to pick up
presents for her family and friends. She
would have preferred to stay in her flat to watch re-runs of the Vicar of
Dibley. She had been half-way through
the holiday’s specials.
Squeezing
between a group gathered outside Harvey Nichols, Ivy made her way into the
store and rode the escalator to the second floor. She tuned out the couple in front of her who
were arguing about what to purchase for their son. She tried to map out her shopping plans in
her mind, hoping to save time and get her away from the happy shoppers as quickly as bloody possible.
As
she stepped off the escalator, an explosion on the first floor rocked the
entire building to its foundation. The
lights overhead flickered several times as ceiling tiles fell and shattered on
the ground in front of her. Ivy ducked
her head quickly to avoid the dust and debris in the air.
Gunfire
followed the explosion and sent everyone into a mass of swirling panic. A passing stranger in the fray knocked Ivy to
the floor. Crawling through the swarming
chaos to hide behind a nearby perfume counter, she noticed a cabinet large
enough for her to squeeze her petite frame inside. She dove in and slid the
door shut.
The
shouts and screams seemed to continue forever, though her watch told her it had
been ten minutes at most. Ivy turned her
phone on silent and sent a quick text to a friend who had been in Alec’s
unit. She didn’t dare place a call, but
someone had to let the authorities know there were survivors in the store.
For now.
After
several tense moments of waiting, Ivy pulled her phone back out to frantically
check the news. It was impossible to
know how long the cabinet would remain safe though moving didn’t seem like that
good of an idea either. Her friend
texted a response to say the police were on their way, and she should do her
best to avoid detection.
Avoid detection.
Very bloody helpful.
She
already knew that much. Alec had been a military man. They’d known each other long before
University. He proposed during their
second year there. Over four happy years
of marriage. He had made sure to teach her the basics of self-defence and
security awareness. Not for the first
time in two years, Ivy missed him so much her heart ached.
Ivy
sat in the cramped cupboard for close to an hour when she realised that she
desperately needed the loo. Bugger. She couldn’t risk it, could she?
The restrooms were directly across from where she was hiding.
Another ten minutes passed.
It
was time to try to either run for the loo or piss herself. Deciding she didn’t
relish sitting in her own urine (not very
pleasant), she cautiously eased the door open and waited for any signs of
the armed men. She didn’t know if the
silence was comforting or terrifying.
Keeping
low to the ground, Ivy crawled along the floor.
It brought back memories of watching her husband when he had been
training young recruits. She could hear
his deep voice in her head describing the best and quietest way
to low-crawl. She made it into the loo
without being seen.
She
finished her business as her mother
liked to call it. The difficult decision
now was whether to stay in the toilets or make her way back to the little
cubbyhole. She glanced around the room
with an assessing eye. If the terrorist
bastards decided to come inside, there was nowhere to hide effectively from
them.
Back to the cupboard.
Definitely.
Retracing
her route across the floor seemed somehow more daunting as Ivy started to make
her move. She was halfway to her
cupboard when a strong hand grabbed the back of her coat and lifted her off the
ground. His other hand clamped around
her mouth to muffle the scream she’d been about to utter. He dragged her backwards into what appeared
to be a staff locker room.
Bugger.
Oh, bloody hell.
The
second he had her backed into the staff room, Ivy went from passive captive to
violently struggling to escape. She had
no intention of going without some sort of a fight. His hands pinned her arms to her side and
crushed her back against his body.
She
closed her eyes and waited for the knife or gunshot she knew was bound to
come; the irony of dying two days before
Christmas was not lost on her. She tried
desperately not to fidget. She realized
after a moment that she hadn’t actually felt a weapon at any point. In fact,
the hands holding her while firm were also very gentle.
Taking
a deep breath to calm herself, Ivy was surprised at how good the man smelled;
he reminded her of dark chocolate and something exotically spicy. She told her mind and body to behave
themselves. She would not lust over a perfect stranger who was
probably about to murder her.
Why the hell hasn’t he done something yet?
About the Author:
Dahlia is a bit of a
hermit. She’s happiest with a large mug of coffee or tea (two sugars and
drop or two of milk) and a good book. She lives for comfortable jeans and
over-sized sweaters. Ivy is her first novel and it started
life as an attempt to complete National Novel Writing Month.
Find Ivy online:
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/432322
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Ivy-Blackbird-Dahlia-Donovan-ebook/dp/B00KFMKU6W/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1400528910&sr=1-1
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22028497-ivy
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22028497-ivy
Find Dahlia online at: http://dahliadonovan.wordpress.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DahliaDonovan
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dahliadonovan.
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