Above: TITANS, #3.5

By Sotia Lazu

For the past decade, Magda has been dreaming of a man with blond hair and eyes blue as the sea whenever things are bad.

With her life changing drastically, it makes sense she'd daydream of him again. Only Nerites is real, and when he saves her from drowning, a whole new world opens up before her, and with it surface memories of an impossible past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Acelette Press
• Release date: Mar 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9798201409708

Sotia Lazu

Sotia loves romances with a twist and urban fantasy novels, always with vivid erotic elements. Her favorite characters to write are not conventional hero-material at first glance, and she enjoys making them fight for their happiness. Sotia shares her life and living quarters with her husband, their son, and two rescue dogs, one of which may be part-pony. Sappy movies make her bawl like a baby, and she wishes she could take in all the stray dogs in the world. Also, she hates mornings!

Book preview

One

Magda barely took her eyes off the road, to crack open the car window. A warm breeze ruffled her hair. She turned off the car’s climate control system and inhaled deeply. Sea air—this was what she needed. The salt in the atmosphere that she could almost taste on her tongue spoke to her blood and welcomed her where she belonged.

She hadn’t been in Pylos in the three years since her grandma’s passing. She’d have come back sooner, but she dreaded returning to her childhood home. It’d feel cold and empty, when the woman who’d been a constant in her life since Magda remembered herself wouldn’t be there. Now that Magda had finally decided to take the plunge and move back, she couldn’t wait.

The car coming from the opposite direction swerved toward her, and Magda leaned on her horn, channeling the lingering pain of her loss into frustration at the malaka who thought he owned the curving road leading down to the center of Pylos.

She loved the scenic drive through the Peloponnese but hated this part of the road. It curled around homes, with no sidewalks in sight, and she always expected a kid to jump in front of her car. Which was why she drove well below the speed limit.

She finally reached flat ground and bypassed the town square on her left, to head for the municipal parking lot that spread into the harbor. This time of the year, finding a spot near the entrance would take a miracle, but she didn’t mind walking. She crossed the lot and pulled over at the end that overlooked the water. The deepest part of the Mediterranean Sea. Her grandma had told her the story of the ships that went under, never to be found again. Lives and treasures had been lost here forever.

Anything that sinks here, the sea claims as her own, Grandma said, but this time, the words echoed in Magda’s mind in a male voice, smooth and deep and velvety. Like a caress she ached to lean into.

She got out of the car and walked around it, to stare up at the sky. Cloudless and bright, it melted seamlessly into the darker blue of the sea, their merging interrupted only by the island of Sphacteria. A pair of eyes that same dark blue as the waters, sparkling with mirth, overtook her thoughts.

She didn’t know the man the eyes belonged to, but she’d dreamed of him often, in the years since she turned eighteen. With golden curls and pale skin, he looked like an angel—her angel—when he visited her at night. He never spoke, just held her. He’d been with her in all her darkest moments—when she caught Alekos with another woman, when she was let go from her previous job, when she lost Grandma. He made her feel safe. And he didn’t exist.

Magda wouldn’t admit it aloud, but she instinctively looked for him around every corner, sought him in the shadows when she left her building in the morning, and in the darkened doorways when she exited her office in the evening. She searched for him in the crowds on the odd night Iphigenia convinced her to go out dancing. And part of her instinctively expected to see him now, in the sea, where he couldn’t possibly be.

She turned back to her car, popped the trunk, and ducked inside to grab her suitcase.

The screeching of tires made her look up in time to see a large SUV skidding toward her. The driver must have lost control. If she let go of the suitcase, she’d make it, but the bracelet of her watch got snagged on the handle. She tried to yank her hand free, but that only served to make the metal dig into her wrist. She pulled at the suitcase and lifted, but she was too late.

The SUV