SIMON SAYS
D.I.T., book 1
by Victoria Danann
by Victoria Danann
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Simon Tvelgar wasn’t always the staid and steady director of the Order of the Black Swan headquarters in Edinburgh who manages the most unruly congregation of talented misfits ever assembled into one organization.
No. He was once a young, beautiful, athletically gifted knight, wild and lustful as any, until he fell in love with a Scottish fae girl who on bereavement leave. He lost her to the stones of the Orkneys as they picnicked there on Lammas twenty years before. She was swallowed up and faded from view, a look of panic on her face as she reached for him while her mouth silently formed his name. He lunged to grab her, but she was simply gone.
Year after year he traveled back to the Orkney Islands and talked to locals, but Shivaun was never seen again. Simon channeled his sorrow and loneliness into work until he eventually rose to the highest position open to an ex Black Swan knight.
Now, for the first time, he thinks there might be someone who could find Shivaun. Rosie Storm.
This novella introduces a new Black Swan series, D.I.T., Department of Interdimensional Trespass.
“You’re a very good cook, Simon. Some woman is goin’ to be lucky to have you for a mate.”
“I don’t know. I think perhaps on balance my less desirable qualities might outweigh my cooking skills.”
“What are your less desirable qualities?” Simon opened his mouth to answer, but she changed her mind. “Ne’er mind. I do no’ want to know. For tonight I want to believe that you’re perfect. A god fallen to Earth from that star,” she looked up in the sky and pointed, “right there.”
“Suit yourself,” he smiled.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty three. How old are you?”
“Twenty nine. You seem much older. I would’ve guessed that you’re closer to my age.”
He smirked. “Vampire hunting ages a person.”
“You’re stickin’ with that vampire huntin’ business, are you?”
“That’s my story.” His casual nonchalance would never be taken as cover for the truth about his occupation.
She rolled her eyes. “How long are you on holiday?”
“I’m not exactly on holiday. A friend died. He was a close friend, more like family really. So I’m out here to…”
Watching him struggle to find the right words, she offered, “Clear your head and free your heart?”
If Simon had spent a year contemplating how best to answer why he was there, he would not have been able to come up with a more perfect and concise description of his reasons. He didn’t answer, just reached over and pulled Sorcha close enough to him so that he could kiss her the way he’d been thinking all through dinner. With the firelight reflecting on her face, she had him believing that she was the goddess who likely fell to Earth from the brightest star in the heavens above.
It took little urging to get her to scoot closer a look of sensual anticipation on her face.
“You done this before, human?”
Simon smiled sardonically. “Couple of times,” he said just before pressing a soft kiss to her mouth. When she deepened the kiss, with an unmistakable flavor of demand and insistence, he chuckled. He’d been thinking sweet and slow. She was apparently thinking eager and faster. He was just as cool with eager and faster. So he let her set the pace.
Flanked by the Atlantic to the west and North Sea to the east, the Orkneys enjoyed a surprisingly mild climate. At least that’s what the travel brochures say. But forties didn’t feel mild if a wet wind whipped up after the sun finally set and sleeping arrangements are outdoors on the ground.
It took a few minutes to figure out how to reconfigure the sleeping bag zippers so that they could take advantage of the combination of modern fiber technology and body heat.
“How can it be so hard?” She laughed.
“It’s like a puzzle,” he replied. “We’re both reasonably bright, well educated persons. We’ll figure it out. Just be patient.”
She growled. “I’m no’ feelin’ patient. I’m feelin’ eager.”
“When it came to my attention that D.I.T. was going to Dublin, I thought of Torn Finngarick. After all he knew the culture and could, perhaps, be useful. I confess to the ulterior motive of wanting to see all the floaters brought in from the cold. He was one of the remaining few. And everybody deserves another chance. Right?
As I mentioned earlier, my wife was working for Black Swan setting up a unit called Department of Interdimensional Trespass. It seemed that creatures coming and going at will were causing havoc that had, until recently, been unexplained, believed to be fiction of the myth or folklore variety, or dismissed as interplanetary visitations. Rosie was busy hiring and training people who were going to function as police.
Anyway, I had served with Sir Finngarick when I was first knighted as the fourth member of the infamous Z Team and came to know him quite well. Most believed he was irredeemable. I did not.”
Glendennon Catch, Sovereign, Jefferson Unit
Victoria Danann is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty romances. For the past four years in a row, Victoria's Knights of Black Swan series have won prestigious Reviewers' Choice Awards for both BEST PARANORMAL ROMANCE SERIES and PARANORMAL ROMANCE NOVEL OF THE YEAR. This past year three of her series and three of her novels were nominated. Two of her series took the top two places and two of her books took first and second place in the PNR Novel of the Year category.
In addition to vampire hunting knights, Victoria writes other paranormal romance, scifi, fantasy, and contemporary romance.
Victoria co-hosts the popular ROMANCE BETWEEN THE PAGES podcast which can be found on itunes or at → www.romancecast.com
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