Heart of Iron Sneak Preview

 

What’s next?

 

Since I’ve been getting this request a lot from readers, I thought I’d share a little bit about Book Two in the London Steampunk series.

Heart of Iron is due out in May 2013 and features Will, Blade’s hulking verwulfen lieutenant and Lena Todd, Honoria’s pretty and flirtatious sister.

 

 BLURB

In Victorian London, if you’re not a blue blood of the Echelon then you’re nothing at all. The Great Houses rule the city with an iron fist, imposing their strict ‘blood taxes’ on the nation, and the Queen is merely a puppet on a string…

Lena Todd makes the perfect spy. Nobody suspects the flirtatious debutante could be a sympathizer for the humanist movement haunting London’s vicious blue blood elite. Not even the ruthless Will Carver, the one man she can’t twist around her little finger, and the one man whose kiss she can’t forget…

Stricken with the loupe and considered little more than a slave-without-a-collar to the blue bloods, Will wants nothing to do with the Echelon or the dangerous beauty who drives him to the very edge of control. But when he finds a coded letter on Lena – a code that matches one he saw on a fire-bombing suspect – he realizes she’s in trouble. To protect her, he must seduce the truth from her.

With the humanists looking to start a war with the Echelon, Lena and Will must race against time – and an automaton army – to stop the humanist plot before it’s too late. But as they fight to save a city on the brink of revolution, the greatest danger might just be to their hearts…

 

EXTRACT

One more flight of stairs to the ground entrance. Lena gathered her pink skirts and started dashing down them but Will leapt in front of her, a frown on his face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She tried to push past, but he blocked her way. Standing two steps below her put his face on a level with hers. “Will, I’m tired. I want to go home. This is not–”

“Your scent changed.” He took a step up, his thighs pressing against her skirts. “As soon as I told you what they’d promised.”

Did guilt have its own scent? She pressed her fingertips against his chest. Whether to hold him at bay or draw him closer, she didn’t know. The superfine of his coat was soft beneath her fingers.

“It changed again,” he admitted, little sparks of molten copper flaring in his irises. “When you mentioned Lady Astrid.” His head lowered, gaze dropping to her mouth. “Just as its changed now.”

Lena’s heart started beating faster. Every emotion, every hope, dream and despair she thought she’d kept hidden from him was betrayed by her scent. She met his eyes and couldn’t read the look in them. Hot amber. Eyes that she could drown in if he let her. The colour of them softened, melted, as he leaned closer.

His intentions stole her breath. He meant to kiss her. In the foyer of the Ivory Tower, in front of anyone who walked down the stairs. Exhilaration leapt through every nerve in her body.

“Don’t you dare,” she whispered.

He paused, his mouth an inch from hers. “I never understand you.” His eyes darkened with heat. “Yes or no, Lena?”

Warm breath against her lips. Her hand softened on his chest. She knew the answer before her traitorous mouth could say the words. And so did he.

 

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