Praise for Michele Hauf
âHauf delivers excitement, danger and romance
in a way only she can.â âSherrilyn Kenyon
âDark, delicious and sexy.â
âNew York Times bestselling author Susan Sizemore on Her Vampire Husband
âCleverly engrossing dialogue, overwhelming desire and
intriguing paranormal situations are skillfully combined to make this an irresistible read.â âCataromance.com on Moon Kissed
âA novel twist on a vampire tale ⦠Hauf mixes well-
developed characters and sparkling dialogue with a paranormal tale and comes out with a winner.â âRT Book Reviews on Kiss Me Deadly
âWith dangerous encounters, a myriad of paranormal
beings and even some subtle humor, The Highwayman is an enchanting love story packed with riveting adventures.â âCataromance.com
âIn this action-packed delight, Haufâs humorous writing
and well-developed characters combine for a realistic storyâin spite of its supernatural basis.â âRT Book Reviews on The Devil To Pay
A Minnesota native, MICHELE HAUF lives in a Minneapolis suburb with her family. She enjoys being a stay-at-home mom with a son and a daughter. Michele writes the kind of stories she loves to read, filled with romance, fantasy and adventure. Always a storyteller, she began to write in the early nineties and hasnât stopped since. Playing guitar, hunting backyard butterflies and coloring (yes, coloring) keep her creativity honed. Research for her novels has yet to see her stealing jewels or racing cars on a high-speed chase, but ⦠she can pick a lock or bake a mean chocolate cheesecake (with a file inside) if duty calls. You can contact Michele at: PO Box 23, Anoka, MN 55303, USA.
And if you love Michele Hauf donât forget to check out the sizzlingly sexy, paranormal Valentineâs treatBe My Valentine, Vampire.Available from Mills & Boon>® now!
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worthâs unknown, although his height be taken.
Loveâs not Timeâs fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickleâs compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom: If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
âWilliam Shakespeare [Sonnet 116]
Paris, 1785
NEVER HAD TERROR LOOKED LOVELIER.
Blood oozed from the punctures in her neck. The chokerâs honed iron points penetrated pale, powdered flesh, piercing muscle and even bone.
Thick crimson blood purled down the curve of clavicle, detoured across alabaster shoulder, and then plunged toward the voluptuous breasts imprisoned behind silk damask and lace.
Kohl drawn around blue eyes emphasized her horror. Yet the plump lipsâcarmine rouge caressing the pouting lowest lipâdid not gape in pain.
The witchâs spell had frozen her for time unending.
He stepped away from her and unhooked the bone crown from around his wrist. Tapping the circlet of rat skulls against his palm, he took it all in.
Imposed in stillness, she yet possessed the incredible and annihilating ability to seduce. Always she had bewitched, ever aware that her carefully crafted appearance, her practiced movements, her well-thought words could render all men gibbering fools.
He lifted a hand to stroke the enticing curve of her bosom, but cautioned that connection.
It had come to this. Even as her blood scent filled the air and curled beneath his nostrils, he could not force himself to lean forward. To smell her wine-lush skin. To breathe in her life. To overdose on her terror.
He neednât, for the heady mixture of her essence surrounded him in an exquisite caress. For the first time, he suspected, she feared. And he had been the master of that rare condition.
If only he could have mastered her in body and blood.
Holding the crown before him, high enough so that her fixed stare could sight the object, he rattled it. Dozens of rat skulls strung about a leather cord. New white bone, stripped of flesh, fur and muscle, still reeked of rodent blood and the sewers beneath the city.
The sewers? Ah yes, a most clever notion.
Placing the crown upon her black hair, always scented with summer wine, he pressed until it sat firmly and would not slip off.
âI crown youââ the wicked edge in his voice cut his tongueâor maybe it was his fangs ââQueen of the Rats.â
She did not scream. Rather, she likely could and was at this moment. Silently. Ragingly. The spell had immobilized her entire body.
Cursed to become a living Pandora doll, frozen on the outside, alive and stunningly aware on the inside, she could now but accept punishment for her wicked, devious ways.
âYou had your chance,â he whispered, allowing admiration to soften his tone. âAnd now I condemn you to eternity.â