Flame & Stone

By Jamie DeBree

Flames once put the heartbroken Thomas Grady under the ancient curse of an old manor house. Hundreds of years later, fire fueled by an unholy passion drives Katie Watson to the same manor for protection. Assigned as her guardian under duress, Thomas is determined to avoid any emotional entanglements that would put Katie in another sort of danger altogether.

Despite his best efforts to keep her at arm's length, Katie falls hard for her new protector. And now that she's found him, she refuses to give him up - even if that means she has to travel through both time and space to help save Dunning Manor from a threat to the very existence of anyone who's ever been under its curse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brazen Snake Books
• Release date: Jan 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781937477028

Jamie DeBree

A full-time webmistress by day, Jamie DeBree writes steamy, action-packed romantic suspense late into the night. Her goal is to create the perfect blend of sensual attraction, emotional tension and fast-paced adventure, similar to the television crime dramas she’s hopelessly addicted to.Born in Billings Montana, she resides there with her husband and two over-sized lap dogs. She reads in a wide variety of genres including romance, erotica, action/adventure, thriller, & horror.

Book preview

FLAME & STONE

by

Jamie DeBree

Flame & Stone

Copyright 2015 by Jamie M. DeBree

Edited by Carol R. Ward

Cover Art Credits

© Alfonsodetomas | Dreamstime.com - Gargoyle Front View Photo

 © Sonsedskaya | Dreamstime.com - Girl Is In Blazing Flame Photo

Published by Brazen Snake Books

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination, and used fictitiously.

Prologue

1801, Adirondack Foothills

The air was still, his wife’s passionate cries long faded as Thomas Grady dropped another armful of straw against the back of the house. He stood back to survey the past half-hour’s work: a two-foot berm circling the foundation gleaming pale gold in the waning moonlight.

Part of him wished he’d never heard the boys gossiping in town. Or that he’d stayed away a little longer. Or come home sooner. But Lila had made her choice - several days ago according to those two drunks at the poker table. And Thomas had arrived at the Stattler homestead in plenty of time to hear the proof for himself.

She’d disgraced him, and herself. Her sin couldn’t go unpunished.

Going back to where he’d left his small pack, he picked up the bottle of whiskey and downed one more gulp. Then he poured out the rest across the straw and tossed the bottle down in the pile. Retrieving a match from his pocket, he struck it on a shingle, watching the flame burn for a long second before flicking it down on the berm. The flames jumped up and caught the arm of his shirt before he could back away, biting his skin as he tried to slap it out with his other hand. Dropping to the ground, he smashed his arm into the dirt for relief.

The fire from the house was so bright it hurt his eyes, the heat blistering just two feet away. Getting to his feet, he watched as the orange and yellow monster enveloped the house in seconds.

He thought he heard voices cry out, knew it was her. And him. There was no way out - he’d made sure of that, and the flames licked over the roof as Thomas stumbled back to pick up his bag.

The townsfolk would be here soon - a fire this big wouldn’t go unnoticed for long. He’d have to leave, of course, and never come back, but the way she’d shamed him, he’d have done that anyway. With one last look at the pyre, he blew one last kiss to the only woman he’d ever loved and then ran through the trees for the hills.

Three days later Thomas was parched, weary, and heartsick. He stumbled across one more stream, refusing to drink, and passed up some of the fattest blueberries he’d ever seen on the other side. It wouldn’t be long now. His body was shutting down, his thoughts rattling around like dried beans in a baby rattle. When he reached the top of the hill, he was going to sit down under that huge pine and stare out at the mountains while the rest of his life withered away.

As it should, after what he’d done. Though even as he reached his goal and dropped down to lean against the rough bark, he knew he’d have done it all over again.

A disturbing thought.

The sun was setting over the mountains, the sky turning orange and purple and pink. Lila had always loved the sunrise best, but him...he’d been a sunset man all his thirty years. As the color begin to fade, he closed his eyes, focusing on each breath, wondering which one would be his last.

As he finally drifted off, he thought he heard a calm, soothing voice say his name.

Chapter 1

Present Day, Adirondack Foothills

The pop of a burning log brought Katie back to consciousness with a jolt. Smoke stung her eyes and nasal passages, permeating her lungs as she took a deep breath that drew the thick heat down into her oxygen-starved lungs.

Coughing, she shook her head side to side and struggled against the ropes that held her arms and legs immobile. The fire was impossibly close, less than two feet in front of her with bright orange and yellow flames shooting high against the black night sky.

The heat was intense and she tried again to move, panic rising in her chest as the need to get away, to find oxygen and cooler air grew more desperate. She couldn’t remember how she got here or even what she’d been doing before, but it didn’t seem important. All that mattered was getting free. Getting air.

A flash of brilliant white light came from somewhere across and to the right of the fire as she felt whatever it was she was attached to wobble slightly. Between the flash and the fire, she was blind to anything beyond, and her heart raced even faster wondering what could be waiting for her. Was that the white light people saw when they died? Was she dead then? Mere moments away?

Another flash, from the left this time. She jerked away, the full-body movement enough to tilt her world on its axis where it hung for a long moment. And then she was falling sideways, toppling, her shoulder hitting the ground in a mini-explosion of dirt and tiny embers.

Her eyes squeezed shut against a jolt of pain in her right temple, and when she opened them again, she saw two thick poles lashed together in a triangle beside the fire pit, with another pole resting in the upper apex to extend out over the fire.

Half of a roasting spit. The roasting spit. Her heart felt like it would jump out of her chest as she began to tug and pull and wriggle against the ropes, her memory returning in a deluge of horrific mental images.

The coffee table book. The disturbingly pseudo-sensual images. Her dismissal of his claims that the photo shoot had been real.

His insistence that he’d show her.

Ready to go, are we?

She twitched at his voice near her ear, the only movement she could make still bound and lying on her side. She felt his fingers at her ankles, and then her feet were free. He brushed her wrists.

Katie closed her eyes, slowed her breathing and resisted the urge to fight as the ropes fell away from her wrists. She let him drag her upright, leaning heavily on him for support even as she tested her ability to put weight on her feet.

She knew from the photos that he wanted her to crawl out on the pole. To lay there over the fire, as if it didn’t burn while the flames licked her bare skin.

She just needed--

I know what you’re thinking, he said, leering down at her as he reached for her shirt. Even if you did get away, I’d catch you. There’s nowhere to go. The terrain is rough - your feet can’t handle it. He cut through her shirt from collar to hem with a knife, yanking it off her shoulders. And pretty soon, you’ll be naked as a jaybird. You wouldn’t want to run into the wrong sort of guy just camping out here without your clothes now, would you? Who knows what he might think...or do?

Maybe she could get the knife away from him. Kill him. Throw his body on the fire and run away. No one would ever know...or care. She followed the shiny blade as it flashed in the firelight, moving toward the button on her jeans. He was strong, but cocky.

He looked into her eyes as he cut the button and pulled her zipper down. There was no lust in his expression - he needed the fire for that. Just cool confidence that he would get what he wanted.

She weighed her options as he bent to shimmy her jeans down her legs. She could kick him, grab the knife, and run. She could push him and run, and forget about the knife. Unfortunately, with the top button gone and a loose fit, the zipper wasn’t going to hold her pants up at any kind of a fast clip, and she couldn’t afford to be slowed down by clothing once she got away.

So she let him take them off, dutifully stepping out of each leg. Before he could stand again, she bent down and shoved his shoulders as hard as she could, catching him off balance. He fell toward the fire, but she didn’t wait to watch, just spun on her heel and ran as fast as she could into the trees, twigs and shrubs biting at her legs, rocks and pine cones slicing the bottoms of her feet.

She wanted to look back, to see him burning in the fire he loved so much, but he hadn’t screamed, hadn’t made a sound. Just then she felt rather than heard the vibrations of his pursuit underfoot, and she pushed herself to run harder, faster, ignoring the pain.

Squinting into the darkness, she could just barely make out a large, dark house-like shape in the valley below. Dim lights flickered on what looked like a wide front porch, and huge, monstrous figures with tall, widespread wings sat sentinel all around the flat square roof.

There was nothing else around, and Katie had no idea where she was, but whoever lived in that house was her only hope. Zig-zagging down the moderate incline, she raced for the door, praying someone was home as she flew up the stairs, across the wooden slats and pounded hard with one fist on the door.

Katie! Peter called, and she finally looked back, wishing she hadn’t. He was close...too close. She tried the knob, nearly crying with relief when it opened of its own accord. Slipping inside as his feet hit the porch, she slammed the massive door shut, dropping the sturdy old-fashioned deadbolt across both doors just as he hit the other side.

Stumbling backwards and praying the door would hold, Katie tripped and landed hard on an uneven stone floor. Peter yelled outside, pounding on the door and she knew she had to run, just in case the wooden bar broke.

Scrambling to her hands and knees, she started to rise, only to freeze when a pair of sandaled feet peeked out from under the edge of a swinging brown robe directly in front of her. Slowly, she lifted her head, half-expecting a skeleton face and a scythe to seal her fate.

Instead she looked into the face of a pixie...small and heart-shaped with the most delicate features and pure, unblemished skin. Light golden curls framed her features under a simple, oversized brown hood. Brilliant green eyes held compassion and sympathy, though there was a quiet strength there as well. And a serene smile curved the little bow mouth up at each corner.

Katie could still hear Peter trying to get in, but the sound

Reviews for Flame & Stone

[amkee-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Awesome book! The author does a great job with the story line as well as the character building. Great change of pace from the typical vampire/werewolf story. I look forward to seeing more in this series!