Around him, the dragons responsible laughed, their voices floating in and out of his consciousness. Susan lay a few feet away, her once vibrant, beautiful body now stripped, violated and burned. They kept me chained long enough to ensure she could not be turned. With the impact, hot breath abandoned him and reality settled deep. Weak, nearly drained of blood, Layel tried to step away from the iron fence that propped him up, but his knees gave out and he collapsed. There was a tug on one wrist, then the other, and the chains gave way. 'Let him see up close what he has wrought upon himself.'įootsteps pounded. Layel would have looked at the speaker, but he could not pull his gaze from his woman. How could he have allowed this to happen? Inside his mind, the name was a prayer, a scream of desolation and a wail of sorrow, all twisted into an agonizing spiral of shame. What use were his hands without his beloved to caress? LAYEL, KING OF THE VAMPIRES, hated son of Atlantis, fought so fervently against his chains that the metal cut past skin and muscle, nearly slicing into bone. To the two ladies who help and guide me every step of the way: Tracy Farrell and Margo Lipschultz. I hope you'll join me on these journeys through Atlantis, where the creatures of myth and legend walk, peril lurks around every corner and forbidden passions ignite. Now, in my brand-new tale of Atlantis, The Vampire's Bride, I have the chance to answer the question readers have been asking for years: what if the villain in all those earlier stories, the vampire king who has tortured and hated and warred, got a story of his own? What if a dragon shape-shifter is forced to guard the portal that leads to his home, tasked with killing anyone who enters - even the woman of his dreams (Heart of the Dragon)? What if a modern man is sent inside the forbidden city to steal its greatest treasure.who just happens to be a beautiful female he can't resist (Jewel of Atlantis)? What if the king of the nymphs can seduce everyone he encounters - except the woman he loves (The Nymph King)?

That single question branched into a thousand others, each more intriguing than the last. What if the gods hid their greatest mistakes inside Atlantis and that's why it's buried under the sea? Since the first title in my Atlantis series, Heart of the Dragon, was published in 2005, I've been asked how I thought to combine the lost city of Atlantis with the creatures of lore.

The Vampire's Bride by Gena Showalter