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THE FIRE DANCER (Cirque Macabre, #1) by Kristen Strassel
Blurb:
At Le Cirque Macabre, Holly Octane bursts into flames five nights a week. The stage
is where Holly feels most alive. When she’s there no one can touch her, and
everyone adores her.
Brought to Las Vegas as vampire bait, Holly’s connection to the immortals is a
mystery. She’s one of a kind-- traveling through time and igniting when her
emotions get too hot to handle. The only people who understand her are an aunt
with a hidden agenda and her fortune teller girlfriend, Rainey, who doesn’t see a
future with Holly in it.
Cash Logan needs Holly, but she’s not the reason he came to Vegas. The enigmatic
magician seeks Blade Bennett, a vampire that has a power that he shouldn’t have--
fire. A power that could determine the future of all of vampire kind. Holly’s the only
one who can help Blade control his fire, but their feelings for each other are too fiery
to ignore.
Immortals rule the Vegas night, and not one of them trusts Cash or Blade. If Holly
lets them draw her in to this world designed to destroy her, she’ll lose
everything—the only family she’s ever known, and everyone who adores her.
Las Vegas is her stage, and Holly is determined to set the city on fire.
*FIRE DANCER is a spinoff novel from The Night Songs Collection.
EXCERPT:
“How long have you been like this?” His gaze ran the length of my robe, and
he didn’t have to clarify what he meant.
As far as everyone knew, I was twenty-four. “Decades. I think.” The concept of time
simply made me dizzy.
Cash nodded; my answer didn’t surprise him.
“You were born north of London in 1781, in a village called Moorfields.” My knees
buckled, and if I didn’t clutch the table, I would have fallen. Even though I knew the
answer wasn’t going to be something nice and neat like twenty-five years ago in
Memphis, actually having the answer blew my mind.
“I remember
things that happened before that.” I couldn’t face him. “And I think I remember
you.”
“Do you?” Cash ran his fingers lightly along my hair, never
touching my body. At first, I was terrified we’d burst into flames. We’d fireproofed
my dressing room, but Cash wouldn’t survive. This information was just the tip of
the iceberg. I needed him to stay alive. “What do you remember?”
Images jumbled in my brain as if someone spun a wheel. I saw Cash, bound,
bloody, and burned, surrounded by laughing onlookers. His hair was shorter, and it
was a different time, but I knew him. His eyes. No matter what humiliation was
bestowed upon him, they remained proud. “Chaos.”
His silky laugh
almost convinced me I’d been wrong. No one could actually survive the state I
pictured Cash in, his skin purple from abuse, weak from starvation, and still have a
sense of humor. But those eyes. “That’s about right.” He moved closer to me, my
robe pressed against my skin.
I couldn’t let him distract me. “But why do I remember things that happened before
that? Like I was there. Is that even possible?”
“If you experienced it,
then you made it possible, Holly.” His words were soft, and like time, they made me
dizzy. “You’re a Bleed.”
My eyes snapped open. “A what?”
“You’re a Bleed. You age much more slowly than mortals, and you’re immortality
extends in all directions. Forward, backward, and sideways if it’s possible.”
I had to turn and face him. Rainey would knock on the door any time now,
and I needed to wrap this up before she came. She’d warned me stay away from
Cash. We’d been fighting too much lately already. I hated it. “How many of us are
there?”
“You mean how many of you are there.” Someone knocked on
the door softly. I forced my eyes away from Cash, and he stepped back. The knock
repeated, more forceful this time. Rainey would be able to sense I wasn’t alone, even
if she couldn’t see Cash. “You might be the only one.”
“Then how do you
know so much about it?” I kept waiting for the heat to rise in my body, but it didn’t.
All the triggers, fear and frustration, were there, but no flames. The knocking
became frantic.
“Because I do.” Cash placed my hat back on my head
before he headed to the door. His hand was on the doorknob when he turned back
to me. “You’ve been patient this long, Holly. I want you to need me.”
About the Author:
Kristen shares a birthday with Steven Tyler and Diana Ross. She spends each day
striving to be half as fabulous as they are. She’s worn many hats, none as flattering
as her cowboy hat: banker, retail manager, fledgling web designer, world’s worst
cocktail waitress, panty slinger, now makeup artist and author. She loves sunshine,
live music, the middle of nowhere, and finding new things to put in her
house.
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