Zapowiedź: "White Hot" Ilona Andrews (aktualizacja: 09.11.2016)

Druga część serii "Hidden Legacy" Ilony Andrews (czyli małżeństwa Ilony i Andrew Gordon) zapowiadana była na październik 2015, lecz ze względu na mały poślizg oraz politykę wydawcy - ukaże się 30 maja 2017, a już w sierpniu 2017 - trzeci tom (więcej na ten temat autorzy napisali: tutaj). O "Burn For Me" (1. część) pisałam tutaj, a ponieważ czekam na drugim tom z ogromną :) niecierpliwością, w tym poście chciałabym doklejać nowe informacje o tej książce.

"White Hot" Ilona Andrews

Nevada Baylor has a unique and secret skill—she knows when people are lying—and she's used that magic (along with plain, hard work) to keep her colorful and close-knit family's detective agency afloat. But her new case pits her against the shadowy forces that almost destroyed the city of Houston once before, bringing Nevada back into contact with Connor "Mad" Rogan.

Rogan is a billionaire Prime—the highest rank of magic user—and as unreadable as ever, despite Nevada's "talent." But there's no hiding the sparks between them. Now that the stakes are even higher, both professionally and personally, and their foes are unimaginably powerful, Rogan and Nevada will find that nothing burns like ice...

Znów wyjątkowo nieciekawa okładka - niestety, jak wyjaśniała pani Ilona, o okładce decyduje dział marketingu wydawcy i autorzy nie mieli na to wpływu; nieciekawa, gdyż sugeruje "romansidło", podczas gdy "Hidden Legacy" to całkiem dobra urban fantasy. Tak na marginesie - okładka najprawdopodobniej zostanie zmieniona.

Jak wspomniałam na wstępie, z kilku powodów publikacja drugiego tomu została przesunięta na maj 2017. Kalendarium publikacji wygląda następująco:
- 02.2017 reedycja "Burn For Me"
- 30.05.2017 premiera "White Hot"
- 08.2017 premiera trzeciego tomu

Trzeba będzie poczekać... To dość frustrujące, szczególnie, kiedy wiadomo, że drugi tom jest już napisany, ale na książki tych autorów zawsze warto zaczekać. "Whit Hot" ma być dłuższy niż pierwszy tom, bohaterowie coraz mocniej wplątani w intrygę...

Uwaga! Autorzy przygotowali sceny z punktu widzenia Rogana. Pierwsza część - spotkanie w Arboretum (w "Burn For Me") - dostępna jest na ich blogu TUTAJ. 

***

Więcej informacji o serii na stronie autorów: TUTAJ. Spory fragment "White Hot" był załączony na koniec "Burn For Me", tutaj pozbierałam tylko fragmenty udostępnione przez autorów na blogu.

Z zapowiedzi wynika, iż Neveda w jednym ze swoich śledztw znów trafi na spisek tajemniczej organizacji, z którą walczyła w pierwszej części. A to oznacza, że będzie musiała skorzystać ze wsparcia Rogana, którego planowała unikać :) Rogan natomiast, jak wiemy z końcówki "Burn For Me" postawił sobie dwa cele - zniszczyć organizację, która zagroziła jego miastu, oraz zdobyć Nevadę. Mogę się domyślać, jak to się skończy, choć pewno jeszcze nie w tym tomie.

Fragment z 08.06.2015 (wpis autorów tutaj):

I turned and checked the monitor. A blond man stood in front of my door. Short and compact, with a serious face and thoughtful blue eyes, he was in his late twenties. He was holding a zipped up black folder. Cornelius Harrison, the second son of House Harrison. A few months ago MII had forced me to apprehend Adam Pierce, a lunatic pyrokinetic with the highest magical pedigree. Cornelius had been forced by his family to play Adam’s “boyhood companion” and he had helped me in my investigation.

The Cornelius I remembered was clean-shaven and meticulously dressed. This Cornelius was still well dressed, but his cheeks showed a hint of a stubble and there was an unsettling shadow in his eyes, as if he had seen something that disturbed him to the very core and was still reeling from the impact.

A little girl stood next to him, carrying a small Sailor Moon backpack. She had to be about three or four years old. Her hair was dark and straight and her eyes pointed at an Asian heritage, but her features reminded me of Cornelius, and their expressions, solemn and serious, were completely identical. I knew he had a daughter but I never met her. A large doberman pincher sat next to the child, as tall as she was.

What a member of Houston magical elite want from me? Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good. Baylor Detective Agency specialized in small-time investigations. Insurance fraud, cheating spouses, and background checks were our bread and butter. Please don’t let this be a cheating spouse. Those were always so difficult when children were involved.

I unlocked the door. “Mr. Harrison. How can I help you?”

“Good evening,” Cornelius said, his voice quiet. His gaze snagged on the shoes in my hand and moved on to my face. “I need your help. Augustine said I could come by.”

Augustine… Oh. So Cornelius was my client.

“Come in, please.”

I let them in and shut the door.

“You must be Matilda.” I smiled at the little girl.

She nodded.

“Is that your dog?”

She nodded again.

“What’s his name?”

“Bunny,” she said in a small voice.

Bunny looked at me with the kind of suspicion usually reserved for rattlesnakes. Cornelius was an animal mage, a very rare brand of magic, which meant Bunny wasn’t a dog. He was an equivalent of a loaded assault rifle pointed in my direction.

“He can smile,” Matilda offered. “Smile, Bunny.”

Bunny showed me a forest of gleaming white fangs.

Fragment z 11.06.2015 (wpis autorów tutaj):

Bern and I had stayed up way too late with House Forsberg’s file. Matthias Milton Forsberg, fifty two years old, was a fourth generation Texan and very proud of it, so proud that he went to University of Texas instead of the usual Ivy League schools. He became the head of his House twelve years ago, when his father retired. Matthias was married, with two adult children, Sam Houston Forsberg and Stephen Austin Forsberg, which made me laugh a little bit last night while drinking coffee. It’s good that he stopped at two, because nobody was quite sure which man Dallas was named after.

Fragment z 15.06.2015 (wpis autorów tutaj):

“You and Rogan aren’t done.” Grandma pointed her fork at me. “Just watch. Fate will throw you two together. One day you’ll just run right into him and boom! True love.”
“Well, if Fate ever does throw us together, I’ll be sure to punch her in the face.” I turned to my mother. “Are you with me on this case or not? Because you want to fight with me some more, now is the time to do it. I’m going to the Assembly tomorrow to see if I can get a read on Nari Harrison’s boss.”
My mother looked at me for a long moment.
Oh. I just raised my voice at my mother who had nothing to do with anything.
“I’m sorry.”
“You told me yourself, it’s your business.”
“Mom…”
“Of course, we’re with you,” she said. “But I don’t have to tell you this is a professional hit. You need to be careful.”
“I will be. Thank you,” I said.
“It’s my job as a mother. I can’t make you stop doing something stupid. I can only help you do it in the least dangerous way possible.”

Fragment z 29.06.2015 (wpis autorów tutaj):

De Trevinos lived in Southwyck, on a lake, next to a golf course. It would take us good fifty minutes to get there.

I glanced at Rogan. His jaw was set. He stared straight ahead, his eyes iced over. I’d seen fury in them before, but this new crystallized rage chilled me to the bone. Whatever was going on in his head was dark, so, so dark. It grabbed hold of him and pulled him under to a terrifying place where there was only glacial anger. When people got mad, they stormed, they ranted, they let it out in one way or another, but he was holding all of it in. His rage had no passion to it. I wanted to reach in there and drag him out into the light, so he’d thaw.

“Connor?”

He turned and looked at me, as if waking up.

I had to say something. I said his name, something had to follow. “What happened to Gavin?”

“He made a deal.”

I took an exit onto Sam Houston Freeway. The road repair crews were working on the shoulder again and I had to drive next to the temporary concrete barriers. Never my favorite. The only thing worse was when there was an identical barrier on the other side at night when it was raining.

“What kind of deal?”

“A year in the juvenile boot camp facility, until he turned eighteen, followed by ten year commitment to the military in exchange for his testimony against Adam Pierce. If he manages to graduate from the boot camp program. If he fails, he will serve ten years in prison.”

“That’s a good deal.”

“Under the circumstances. He happened to have talent, so we used it as a bargaining chip.”

He was slipping away again. I wasn’t even sure why it was so important to keep him here with me, but it was.

“Have you been practicing with a gun since our last encounter?” I kept my voice light.

He just looked at me.

“No? Rogan, you said yourself, you’re a terrible shot.”

Okay, so this wasn’t the best way to bring him out, but that’s all I could think about.

“You’re riding shotgun. If bandits attack this pony express, how are you going to hold them off without a gun? Are you planning on rolling down the window, announcing yourself, and glaring at them until they faint from fear?”

He didn’t say anything. He just kept watching me.

I opened my mouth to needle him some more.

The concrete barrier on the right of us cracked as if struck by giant hammer. It stayed together, but huge fractures crisscrossed it. The cracks chased us, shooting through the concrete dividers with tiny puffs of rock dust. His magic ripped into cement with brutal efficiency. It brushed by me and I almost swung the door open and jumped out.

The cars behind us swerved, trying to shift lanes away from the fractured barriers.

“Stop,” I asked.

The cracks dropped back.

“Would you like me to drop you off?” I asked.

“Why would I want that?”

“So you can brood in solitude.”

“I don’t brood.”

“Plot horrible revenge, then. Because you’re freaking me out.”

“It’s my job to freak you out.”

“Really?”

“That’s the nature of our relationship.” A spark lit his eyes. “We both do what’s necessary, and after it’s over, I watch you freak out about it.”

“I don’t.”

“Oh, I don’t want you to stop. I find it highly amusing.”

That’s the last time I try to cheer you up. Go back into your dragon cave for all I care.

“Would you like me to break one more, so you can take a picture for your grandmother?” he offered.

“I changed my mind,” I told him. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

He chuckled.

I should just stop trying.

Grandma Frida would think it was really neat.

I took my phone off the console and held it to him. “Okay but only one or two more. Just enough for the vine.”

“Your grandmother has a vine account?” The barriers fractured.

“Yes. She’ll probably post it on her instagram, too. Okay, that’s enough, thank you, or the Volvo behind us might have a heart attack.”

Fragment z 10.07.2015 (wpis autorów tutaj) - jak ich nie lubić?

Augustine studied Rogan for a long moment. “How do you fit into this? What are you involved in?”
“I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you.” Rogan winked at him.
“Save that shit for someone who cares. I’m not impressed.”
“Such language.” Rogan put his hand over his chest.
“Your heart is on the other side, you asshole,” Augustine growled. “If you even have one.”
“I’m only thinking of your safety, Pancakes.”

Fragment z 31.08.2015 (wpis autorów tutaj) - są chwile, kiedy Rogana trudno lubić ;)

“Did you have to be so obvious about it?” I ground out.
“I warned you.” His voice was cold, his face distant. He was looking me over as if we were complete strangers. “You wanted to catch his attention.”
I turned away from him and looked at the garden below. No man should have a garden blooming in winter but somehow Baranovsky had managed. Shrubs with yellow blossoms framed the whorls of garden paths, tall spires of unfamiliar plants with white triangular flowers beckoned, and roses, hundreds of roses, in every shade from white to deep ruby, filled the flower beds. Between them small gazebos offered a place to rest and enjoy the view. Bright canvas canopies, triangular and stretched tight into slightly curved shapes, like sails of some galleon, shielded parts of the walkways between them. The rest of the house curved in to the distance, hugging the garden’s edge.
Rogan said nothing. Fine. We could just stand here and say nothing.
A gust of wind came. I hugged my cold shoulders. Evening gowns weren’t designed for dramatically running out on strange balconies in the middle of winter nights.
Rogan pulled off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders.
I brushed it away. “Don’t.”
“Nevada, you’re cold.”
“I’m fine.”
“Take it,” he growled. “It’s a damn jacket.”
I squinted at him. “What’s the catch?”
“What?” Irritation vibrated in his voice.
“What’s the catch with the jacket? What will it cost me? You keep chipping away at my independence every time you try to ‘take care’ of me, so I’d rather know the price in advance.”
He swore.
“Colorful, but not very informative.” My teeth chattered. I clamped them together and my knees started shaking. Great.
“Take the jacket.”
“No.”
We stared at each other. It’s good that stares weren’t swords, or we would’ve had a duel right here on the balcony.
“You can go back now,” I told him. “I’m sure he’ll come and see what all the fuss was about if you leave.”
“I’ll leave when I’m damn good and ready.”
Judging by the set of his jaw, he wouldn’t budge and he was too big for me to shove him off the balcony into the roses down below. Although it would be tempting to try.

Fragment z 08.09.2015 (wpis autorów tutaj):

I needed power. When you were a mage, there was only one way to bump up your power reserve. Which is why I walked into Grandma Frida’s motor pool carrying a box of chalk and my arcane circle book. My Grandma saw my outfit of spandex shorts and a sport bra and her eyebrows crept up. I would’ve stripped naked if I could to maximize the power gain, but my room and bathroom were the only places that allowed me parade in the nude.  My room had a bumpy bamboo floor that wouldn’t take the chalk well, and my bathroom had tile. My circlework wasn’t anything to write home about to begin with, and I wanted a level surface.
I picked a spot in the corner out of the way and opened the book to the charging circle page. It looked complicated enough to break my brain. Greater Houses combined the charging circles with a special ritual called the Key, perfected with each new generation. I had watched Rogan perform it once. He had drawn a constellation of circles on the motor pool’s floor and moved between them with lethal grace, his hands striking like weapon, his kicks breaking bones of invisible opponents, as his body absorbed the magic. I had no House and no Key, so I would stick to the single charging circle. I had tried it once before and it worked.
I crouched and began drawing on the concrete floor. It would be tempting to use tools, but every source I ever consulted said that using anything except chalk and a firm hand would diminish the power of circle. Whether it was true or just a magic legend, didn’t matter. I couldn’t afford to take chances.
“So, how is it going with Mad Rogan?” Grandma Frida asked, wiping her hands with a towel.
“Good.” A circle inside a circle inside a circle… Kill me, somebody.
“You’re still fighting?”
“No.”
Three circles on the outside. Three smaller circles on the inside.
“You’re concentrating so hard, I can see the steam coming out of your ears.”
“Mhm.”
“Have you done the deed?”
I paused my drawing and looked at her. Really?
Grandma Frida held the towel between me and her like a shield. “Whoa, the stare.”
I went back to drawing.
“I just want you to be happy.”
“I’ll be happy when everyone who is trying to kill us is dead.”
“You sound like him.” Grandma Frida’s voice faltered. “Nevada, Penelope has been up in her crow’s nest for an hour. She barely said two words to me this morning and she looks like she is preparing for the funeral. Now you look like you need to punch something. Honey, what’s wrong?”
“I’m just tired,” I said. “I have some things I need to do tonight.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I almost snapped You don’t have to, but her bright blue eyes were so filled with worry that I bit that reply before it even started. Whether or not my life was falling apart, I wouldn’t be mean to my grandmother.
“Is there anything I can do?” Grandma asked.
“I would take a hug,” I said.
Her face fell. “Okay, now I’m really worried.”
“Do I get a hug or not?”
Grandma Frida opened her arms. I came over and hugged her, inhaling the familiar comforting scent of machine oil and for a short moment I turned five and the world was bright and simple. She patted my back gently. “I put a new computer guidance system into Romeo. You just tell me whom to shoot, okay?”
“Okay.”

Fragment z 12.09.2015 (wpis autorów tutaj):

Maybe he would listen to me. Maybe I could convince him and then I would take my camera and he would never have to confront what was on it.
Augustine’s eyes narrowed. He took off his glasses. “This is adorable.”
Nope.
“I was attempting to be magnanimous in my offer. Thus far, I have been exceedingly patient,” he continued. “You did show me the error of my ways, so let me give you this last bit of advice free. You spent some time in Rogan’s and my own company, and you believe you know how things between Houses operate, so you presume to take it upon yourself to explain it to me as if our roles were reversed and I was an ignorant dilettante.”

Fragment z 02.10.2015 (wpis autorów tutaj):

Rogan and Nevada are alone in Nevada’s kitchen, late at night, while everyone else is asleep… 

I opened the plastic cookie jar, extracted a fat chocolate chip cookie, and offered it to him. He snagged it and bit into it.

“Good cookies.”

“Mhm.” I broke my cookie in a half and bit one piece. There are times in life when sugar turned into medicine. This was one of these times.

“Did you make these?”

“Ha. I wish. It was probably Catalina. I can’t cook.”

He frowned at me. “What do you mean, you can’t cook?”

“Well, I can, if I’m forced to follow directions, but mostly I’m not forced. I can make a good panini sandwich, but that’s about it. The way I look at it, someone has to put the food on the table and someone has to cook it. I’m the put it on the table type.”

He was looking at me oddly.

“Can you cook, Mr. I-am-Prime?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you have people for that?”

“I like to know what’s in my food.”

I propped my elbow on the table and leaned my chin on my hand. “Who taught you to cook?” He wouldn’t tell me, but any little glimpse into him was worth taking a chance.

“My mother. One summer her family, back in Spain, celebrated a birthday diner, her older sister’s. She loved cream puffs so the caterer brought a tower of cream puffs drizzled with chocolate and strands of sugar. It was the best thing my mother had seen at this point in the whole world. She was six.”

His voice was quiet, almost intimate. I could just sit here and listen to him talk all night.

“As adults were putting candles on the tower, my mother’s five year old cousin stole a cream puff and ate it. My mother was outraged, because the cream puffs belonged to her sister, so she slapped him. Her sister, Marguerite, took offense to the slap. They had a brawl right there on a lawn. Half of the children started fighting, the other half cried, and everyone was sent to their rooms without dessert. The tower was covered with plastic, because my grandmother was determined to still have the celebration once everyone calmed down. The cousin died in half an hour.”

My heart dropped. “Poisoned.”

Rogan nodded. “They were involved in a long feud with another House.”

“They targeted the children?”

“Children are the future of any House. When my mother was fourteen, she killed the person responsible. She collapsed their summer villa.”

The memory of half a building sliding off and killing Peaches flared in my brain. Peaches was about to shoot us, and Rogan sliced through the nearest abandoned building cleanly as if with a knife, dropping brick and wood onto the man. Peaches was dead before he even realized it.

“My mother cooked all of my food herself from ingredients she grew or personally purchased. So I eventually learned to make my own. Who do you think made that enormous stack of pancakes Augustine had to eat for his initiation?”

“Did you put anything weird into those pancakes?”

“No. That wouldn’t be fair.”

He grinned at me. It was a sharp, amused grin that made him appear wolfish. “The real question here is would you like me to cook something for you?”

“Like what?”

“What are you in the mood for?”

Sex.

Rogan leaned forward, muscles rolling under the sleeves of his T-shirt. His face took a speculative expression. There was something slightly predatory about the way he focused on me, something that sparked excitement spiced with just a hint of alarm.  It wasn’t the real tangible fear of being in the presence of a man who posed  danger. It was the feeling of being in the presence of a man who was about to try to seduce me. Anticipation zinged through me. Did he actually pluck the impression of my lust out of my head? Maybe it was just a coincidence.

He reached over.

I tensed.

His fingers slid so close to mine, I thought for a moment we touched. He stole the remaining half of my cookie and looked at it.

“That’s mine,” I told him.

“Mhm.”

“There is a whole jar of cookies.”

A light sparked in his eyes. “I want this one.”

“You can’t have this one. Give it back.” I held out my hand.

He examined the cookie and slowly raised it to his mouth.

“Connor, don’t you dare.”

He bit a cookie and chewed it. “I took your cookie and ate it. Are you going to do something about it?”

I was playing with fire. Fine. He ate my cookies, I’d drink his drink. I reached for his coffee. It slid out of my reach and settled next to him.

“Not fair.”

“This isn’t about fair. This is about delicious cookies.”

“In that case, that will be your last.” I grabbed the jar and put it in front of me. It shot straight up and hung above us. My tea cup took off like a rocket and landed on the far end of the island. Okay, enough is enough. This was my kitchen.

I jumped up and marched around the table.

He surged up and his arms closed about me, catching me. His touch was light, but I knew with absolute certainty that there was no getting away. He had me.

Only two thin layers of fabric separated me from him. I wasn’t even wearing a bra. My breasts brushed against the hard wall of his chest. My hands rested on his shoulders. A low, insistent feeling began to build between my legs. I wanted to be touched and stroked.

He was looking at me like I was the most beautiful thing in the world.

“What are we doing?” I asked. My voice came out quiet.

“You know exactly what we are doing.”

***
Fragment z Newslettera z 18/10/2016:

I sprinted to the garage door and stuck my head out. The truck tore toward us on the access road, making no effort to slow down. An oblong cistern loomed behind the green cab. There was no telling what the hell was in that cistern. At this speed, the truck could ram the warehouse and rip through the walls like paper and whatever it was hauling would spill over.
I couldn’t let it get to the warehouse.
Behind me Romeo growled into life. It required a four-person crew to effectively operate—a tank commander, a loader, a gunner, and a driver. By the time Grandma swung it around, the tanker truck would have hit us.
Rogan strode down the road. Apparently he’d decided to play chicken with the tanker.
I ran after him. If I could toss a grenade under it, I’d derail it before it reached the warehouse.
The tanker roared toward us.
Twenty yards between the tanker and Rogan.
Fifteen.
“Get out of the road!” I yelled.
Ten yards.
“Connor!”
The truck smashed into empty air. Its hood bent, crushed by an invisible hammer, and tore. The black engine parts bulged out, as if the truck was trying to vomit, and disintegrated from the impact. The top part of its cab folded on itself. Its windshield exploded in a thousand shards, spilling over the exposed motor.
Holy crap.
The tanker truck still revved, trying to push its way forward. Its tires spun, spitting acrid smoke, and burst like two loud gunshots.
Behind us the tank engine growled. I glanced over my shoulder. Romeo tore out of the garage bay and turned left, away from us and the truck, going around the corner to the other side of the warehouse. The attack force must’ve split.
The truck’s engine snapped, crying and screeching, and began to turn back in on itself, folding. The metal popped, groaned, snarled, folding tighter, and collapsing backward, from the front of the hood toward the camp.
I stopped in spite of myself as my brain tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
He was rolling the truck up like a half-empty tube of toothpaste.


***
Fragment z 09.11.2016 (wpis autorów tutaj):

We sank into silence again. The recording kept playing over and over in my head, so visceral it shot right past all of my normal brakes and reached deep into the vicious part of me that usually woke only when my family was threatened. I wanted to kill the people who did this. I wanted to murder them and watch them die. It would be just. It would be fair.

I met Rogan’s gaze. “Do you have any leads?”

“Do you?” Rogan asked. “Did you get anything from Forsberg?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“No.”

He stared at me.

“You’re not my client,” I told him. “I don’t work for you and I’m not going to share confidential information with you unless my client directs me to do it. Even then, I have misgivings. I’m still trying to come to terms with what happened to his wife.” Her death kept playing though my head, stuck on a perpetual loop.

He leaned back and studied me. An imperceptible shift took place in the way he sat, in the line of his shoulders, and in his eyes. Apparently we were done talking about work.

“What?”

“I missed you,” he said, his lips stretching into a slow, lazy smile. The ice in his eyes began to melt. “Did you miss me, Nevada?”

He said my name. “No.”

“Not even a little bit?”

“No. Never thought of you.” Just because I usually chose not to lie didn’t mean I couldn’t.

Rogan grinned and all of my thoughts went to the wrong places. He was almost unbearably handsome when he smiled.

“Stop it,” I growled.

“Stop what?”

“Stop smiling at me.”

He grinned wider.

“Why did you even get involved in this? Trying to punish your cousin?”

“Yes.”

And he’d just lied. I squinted at him. “Lie better.”

“Nice, Ms. Baylor. That was a partial truth and you still tagged it. Been practicing?”

“None of your business.” I hadn’t just been practicing. I’d been actively working on being better. I studied my books, I worked on arcane circles, and I experimented with my magic. I enjoyed it too. Using my magic was like stretching an aching muscle. It felt good.

“Mmm, prickly.”

“You’re not answering my questions. Why should I answer yours?”

He surveyed me, his eyes half closed, as if wondering if I were a delicious snack. I had an image of a massive dragon circling me slowly, eyes full of magic fixed on me as he moved, considering if he should bite me in a half.

“Dragons.” Rogan snapped his fingers.

Oh crap.

“I wondered why I kept getting dragons around you.” He leaned forward. His eyes lit up, turning back to their clear sky blue. “You think I’m a dragon.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” My face felt hot. I was probably blushing. Damn it.

His smile went from amused to sexual, so charged with promise that carnal was the only way to describe it. I almost bolted out of my chair.

“Big powerful scary dragon.”

“You have delusions of grandeur.”

“Do I have a lair? Did I kidnap you to it from your castle?”

I stared straight at him, trying to frost my voice. “You have some strange fantasies, Rogan. You may need professional help.”

“Would you like to volunteer?”

“No. Besides, dragons kidnap virgins, so I’m out.” And why had I just told him I was not a virgin? Why did I even go there?

“It doesn’t matter if I’m the first. It only matters that I’ll be the last.”

“You won’t be the first, the last, or anything in between. Not in a million years.”

He laughed.

“Rogan,” I ground out through my teeth. “I’m on the clock. My client is in the next room mourning his wife. Stop flirting with me.”

“Stop? I haven’t even started.”

I pointed my bottle at him.

“What does that mean?” he asked me.

“It means if you don’t stop, I’ll dump this bottle over your head and escape this compound with my client.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

***

I jeszcze jedna ciekawostka na sam koniec. Na jednym z angielskojęzycznych portali co roku organizowany jest konkurs DABWAHA (tutaj). Czytelnicy przesyłają nominacje - w oznaczonych kategoriach, wybieranych jest po 8 najpopularniejszych książek  każdej kategorii, a później... Zaczyna się głosowanie. Konkurs polega na tym, że książki konfrontowane są po dwie i czytelnicy mogą głosować - na jedną z dwóch (trwa przy tym aktywny lobbing fanów, niektórzy autorzy włączają się na swoich blogach, twitterze czy fb w zabawny sposób przekonując do głosowania). Zwycięzca przechodzi dalej. I znów dwie książki... Aż do finału. W 2015 roku do ścisłego finału - gdy ze wszystkich (zdaje się, że początkowo było ich około 100 przyjętych do konkursu) pozostały już tylko dwie - weszły "Magic Breaks" Ilony Andrews i "Burn For Me" Ilony Andrews :) Ha, jak to ktoś podsumował - tylko książka Ilony może konkurować z książką Ilony :) Autorzy opublikowali na swoim blogu "debatę" pomiędzy bohaterami obydwu tych książek (TUTAJ), na temat tego, kto powinien wygrać. Ostatecznie w tym roku wygrała "Magic Breaks" (moja recenzja tutaj).