>Excerpt from TEMPTED by Elisabeth Naughton + Giveaway

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Happy weekend all!  Let’s start it off right with another quick excerpt from TEMPTED!  Leave a comment to enter to win books and bookmarks!

Excerpt #3, TEMPTED

     She rounded on him so fast, he didn’t expect it. But the sharp point of the dagger pressing into his side registered loud and clear. “Don’t touch me.”

     He let go of her arm, held his hands up in surrender. Yeah, still seriously pissed. And could he blame her?

     “I won’t,” he said calmly. The fire in her dark eyes was something he hadn’t seen before. Even yesterday, when she pulled the sword on him in the Hall of Heroes, there’d been a softness there, a vulnerability. Now, thanks to him, that was long gone. “Think carefully about this, though.”

     “About cutting you? I don’t have to. If you ever touch me again there will be blood. And this time it won’t be your choice, it’ll be mine.”

     He didn’t doubt that for a minute.

     She lowered the dagger and moved one step down into the tunnel. The light was now gone, and nothing but blackness beckoned, but Gryphon couldn’t be far ahead.

     “Isadora,” he said quickly, panic pushing in before she disappeared. “I didn’t mean about me. I meant about Gryphon. He isn’t—” He stopped himself, unsure what the hell to say. Was he overreacting? Or was he simply jealous she so easily trusted Gryphon when she now hated him?
He didn’t want to face that realization, so he went with his gut. “Things aren’t always what they seem.”

     She glanced back over her shoulder. But her eyes were just as hard and cold as they’d been before, when she’d held the dagger to his side, not the soft chocolate brown he’d looked into as they’d made love. “And sometimes they are. I’ve learned that the hard way. You made sure of it.”

     She moved down into the darkness, turned the corner, and was gone.

     Alone, his heart thumped hard. In his attempt to protect her from himself, he’d done what he’d set out to do. He’d finally broken her. And as a result, he’d turned her into someone who was as cold and unfeeling and hopeless as he was.