Product Description

In this next installment in the Immortals After Dark Series, USA Today Bestselling author Kresley Cole delivers a scorching tale about a forbidding vampire who lives in the shadows and the beautiful assassin who hunts him there.

A soldier weary of life . . .

Centuries ago, Sebastian Wroth was turned into a vampire -- a nightmare in his mind -- against his will. Burdened with hatred and alone for ages, he sees little reason to live. Until an exquisite, fey creature comes to kill him, inadvertently saving him instead.

A Valkyrie assassin dispatched to destroy him . . .

When Kaderin the Cold Hearted lost her two beloved sisters to a vampire attack long ago, a benevolent force deadened her sorrow -- accidentally extinguishing all of her emotions. Yet whenever she encounters Sebastian, her feelings -- particularly lust -- emerge multiplied. For the first time, she's unable to complete a kill.

Become competitors in a legendary hunt.

The prize of the month-long contest is powerful enough to change history, and Kaderin will do anything to win it for her sisters. Wanting only to win her, forever, Sebastian competes as well, taking every opportunity -- as they travel to ancient tombs and through catacombs, seeking relics around the world -- to use her new feelings to seduce her. But when forced to choose between the vampire she's falling for and reuniting her family, how can Kaderin live without either?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #16792 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416509882
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"Sizzling sex and high-stakes adventure are what's on tap in mega-talented Cole's sensational new paranormal release." -- Romantic Times Magazine, 4 1/2 Stars Top Pick!

About the Author
Before becoming a writer, Kresley Cole was a competitive athlete and a Master's grad in English. She sold her first two novels in 2003, and since then, she has published eleven more books and has seen her releases translated into nine foreign languages.

Kresley followed her highly-acclaimed Sutherland Series historicals with the bestselling MacCarrick Brothers Series, a trilogy of Highlander historical romances, as well as the continuing Immortals After Dark Series, a Rita award-winning paranormal romance collection, all with Pocket Books.

In January 2009, she became a #1 New York Times and Publishers Weekly bestseller with her sixth IAD installment, Kiss of a Demon King.

Kresley lives in Florida with her husband and far too many dogs. She loves to hear from readers and invites you to visit her website: www.kresleycole.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1

Castle Gornyi, Russia

Present day

For the second time in her life, Kaderin the Coldhearted hesitated to kill a vampire.

In the last instant of a silent, lethal swing, she stayed her sword an inch above the neck of her prey -- because she'd found him holding his head in his hands.

She saw his big body tense. As a vampire, he could easily trace away, disappearing. Instead, he remained, raising his face to gaze up at her with dark gray eyes, the color of a storm about to be unleashed. Surprisingly, they were clear not red -- which meant the vampire had never drunk a being to death. Yet.

He pleaded with those eyes, and she realized he hungered for an end. He wanted the death blow she'd come to his decrepit castle to deliver.

She'd stalked him soundlessly, primed for battle with a vicious predator. Kaderin had been in Scotland with other Valkyrie when they'd received the call about a "vampire haunting a castle and terrorizing a village in Russia." She had gladly volunteered to destroy it. She was her Valkyrie coven's most prolific killer, her life given over to ridding the earth of leeches.

In Scotland, on that trip alone, she'd killed three.

So why was she hesitating now? Why was she even now easing her sword back to raise it before her? He would be merely one among thousands of her kills, his fangs collected and strung together with the others she'd taken.

The last time she'd stayed her hand had resulted in a tragedy so great her heart had been broken forever by it.

In a deep, gravelly voice, the vampire asked, "Why do you wait?" He seemed startled by the sound of his own words.

I don't know why. Unfamiliar physical sensations wracked her. Her stomach knotted. As though a band had tightened around her chest, her lungs were desperate for breath. I can't comprehend why.

The wind blew outside, sliding over the mountain, making this high room in the vampire's darkened lair groan. Unseen gaps in the walls allowed the chill morning breeze in. As he stood, rising to his full, towering height, her blade caught the wavering light from a cluster of candles and reflected on him.

His grave face was lean with harsh planes, and other females would consider it handsome. His black shirt was threadbare and unbuttoned, displaying much of his chest and sculpted torso, and his worn jeans were slung low at his narrow waist. The wind tugged at the tail of his shirt and stirred his thick black hair. Very handsome. But then, the vampires I kill often are.

His gaze focused on the tip of her sword. Then, as if the threat of her weapon were forgotten, he studied her face, his eyes lingering on each of her features. His blatant appreciation unsettled her, and she clutched the hilt tightly, something she never did.

Honed to masterly sharpness with her diamond file, her sword cut through bone and muscle with little effort. It swung perfectly from her loose wrist as though it were an extension of her arm. She'd never needed to hold it tightly.

Take his head. One less vampire. The species checked in the tiniest way.

"What is your name?" His speech was clipped like an aristocrat's, but held a familiar accent. Estonian. Though Estonia bordered Russia to the west and its inhabitants were considered a Nordic breed of Russian, she recognized the difference and wondered what he was doing away from his own country.

She tilted her head. "Why do you want to know?"

"I would like to know the name of the woman who will deliver me from this."

He wanted to die. After all she'd suffered from his kind, the last thing she wanted to do was oblige the vampire in any way. "You assume I'll deliver your death blow?"

"Will you not?" His lips curled at the corners, but it was a sad smile.

Another tightening on the sword. She would. Of course, she would. Killing was her only purpose in life. She didn't care if his eyes were clear of the red that marked a vampire's bloodlust. Ultimately, he would drink to kill, and he would turn.

They always did.

He stepped around a stack of hard-bound books -- some of the hundreds of texts throughout the room with titles imprinted in Russian and, yes, Estonian -- and leaned his massive frame against the crumbling wall. He truly wasn't going to raise a hand in defense.

"Before you do, speak again. Your voice is beautiful. As beautiful as your stunning face."

She swallowed, startled to feel her cheeks heating. "Who do you align with . . . ?" She trailed off when he closed his eyes as though listening to her were bliss. "The Forbearers?"

That got him to open his eyes. They were full of anger. "I align with no one. Especially not them."

"But you were once human, weren't you?" The Forbearers were an army, or order, of turned humans. They eschewed taking blood straight from the flesh because they believed that act caused bloodlust. By forbearing, they hoped to avoid becoming like crazed Horde vampires. The Valkyrie remained unoptimistic about their chances.

"Yes, but I've no interest in that order. And you? You're no human either, are you?"

She ignored his question. "Why do you linger here in this castle?" she asked. "The villagers live in terror of you."

"I won this holding on the battlefield and rightly own it, so I stay. And I've never harmed them." He turned away and murmured, "I wish that I did not frighten them."

Kaderin needed to get this killing over with. In just three days, she was to compete in the Talisman's Hie, which was basically a deadly, immortal version of The Amazing Race. Besides hunting vampires, the Hie was the only thing she lived for, and she needed to confirm transportation and secure supplies. And yet she found herself saying, "They told me you live here alone."

He faced her and gave a sharp nod. She sensed that he was embarrassed by this fact, as if he felt lacking that he didn't have a family here.

"How long?"

He hiked his broad shoulders, pretending nonchalance. "A few centuries."

To live solitary for all that time? "The people in the valley sent for me," she said, as if she had to explain herself. The inhabitants of the remote village belonged to the Lore -- a population of immortals and "mythical" creatures kept secret from humans. Many of them still worshipped the Valkyrie and provided tributes, but that wasn't what made Kaderin travel to such an isolated place.

The chance to kill even a single vampire had drawn her. "They beseeched me to destroy you."

"Then I await your leisure."

"Why not kill yourself, if that's what you want?" she asked.

"It's . . . complicated. But you save me from that end. I know you're a skilled warrior -- "

"How do you know what I am?"

He gave a nod at her sword. "I used to be a warrior, too, and your remarkable weapon speaks much."

The one thing she felt pride in -- the one thing in her life that she had left and couldn't bear to lose -- and he'd noted its excellence.

He strode closer to her and lowered his voice. "Strike your blow, creature. Know that no misfortune could come to you for killing one such as me. There is no reason to wait."

As if this were a matter of conscience! It wasn't. It couldn't be. She had no conscience. No real feelings, no raw emotions. She was coldhearted. After the tragedy, she'd prayed for oblivion, prayed for the sorrow and guilt to be numbed.

Some mysterious entity had answered her and made her heart like ash. Kaderin didn't suffer from sorrow, from lust, from anger, or from joy. Nothing got in the way of her killing.

She was a perfect killer. She had been for one thousand years, half of her interminable life.

"Did you hear that?" he asked. The eyes that had been pleading for an end now narrowed. "Are you alone?"

She quirked an eyebrow. "I do not require help from others. Especially not for a single vampire," she added, her tone growing absent. Oddly, her attention had dipped to his body once more -- to low on his torso, past his navel to the dusky trail of hair leading down. She had a flash imagining of grazing the back of one of her sharp claws along it while his massive body clenched and shuddered in reaction.

Her thoughts were making her uneasy, making her want to wind her hair up into a knot and let the chill air cool her neck --

He cleared his throat. When she jerked her gaze to his face, he raised his eyebrows.

Caught ogling the prey! The indignity! What is wrong with me? She had no more sexual urges than the walking dead vampire before her. She shook herself, forcing herself to remember the last time she'd hesitated.

On a battlefield, an age ago, she had spared and released another of this ilk, a young vampire soldier who had begged for his life.

Yet he had seemed to scorn her for her very mercy. Without delay, the soldier had found her two full-blood sisters fighting in the flatlands below them. Alerted by a shriek from another Valkyrie, Kaderin had sprinted, stumbling down a hill draped with bodies, living and dead. Just as she'd reached them, he'd cut her sisters down.

The younger, Rika, had been taken off guard, because of Kaderin's panicked approach. The vampire had smiled when Kaderin dropped to her knees.

He'd dispatched her sisters with a brutal efficiency Kaderin had since emulated. She'd like to say she started with him, but she'd kept him alive for a time.

So, why would she repeat the same mistake? She wouldn't. She would not ignore a lesson she had paid so dearly to learn.

The sooner I get this done, the sooner I can begin preparing for the Hie.

Squaring her shoulders, she steeled herself. It's all in the follow-through. Kaderin could see the swing, knew the angle she would take so that his head would remain on his neck until he fell. It was cleaner that way. Which was important.

She'd packed her suitcase lightly.

Copyright ©2006 by Kresley Cole

Customer Reviews

An Amazing Story From Start To Finish!!!
Kaderin the Cold Hearted as a Valkyrie who is haunted by the loss of her two sisters and the reason behind their deaths. She now makes it a policy not to hesitate and to do what she must when faced with evil. So why when she is sent to kill a vampire does she not follow through? The answer is clear. Fate has plans for these natural enemies and it's going to make her life miserable. Sebastian is a Vampire that makes her feel emotions for the first time since the deaths of her sister. But this vampire is not just any vamp...he claims that Kaderin is his bride and he will stop at nothing to make sure she eventually realizes it. This couldn't come at a worse time since Kaderin has a contest that she participates in every year and this year the grand prize is something she can't walk away from. Her future happiness is at stake...er in the balance.

Sebastian Wroth was turned hundreds of years ago by his brother...a brother that he has never forgiven. He awaits death eagerly...or at least he did until Kaderin arrived. How could this pint size bundle of anger and beauty be his bride? It doesn't matter...all that matters is making her admit to the truth that they belong together. She won't come willingly and there are a great many things he doesn't understand about Kaderin...it's a good thing he's patient and determined to not let his future get away from him. Now...if fate will be so kind as to cooperate.

I must admit I love Ms. Cole's writing. No matter the genre historical or paranormal she demonstrates her creative side with the stunning stories she manages to tell. Needless to say "No Rest for the Wicked" is no different. For readers that are looking for something new in the Paranormal/Fantasy genre...look no further. Ms. Cole delivers on all counts. This story never lags and our main characters combined with the numerous secondary characters are highly entertaining. Sebastian and Kaderin are a dynamic pairing and the chemistry that burns between them is unbelievable. What is even better...Ms. Cole never lets that tension weaken. In other words this is a romance that will enthrall, entertain and convince readers Ms. Cole is her for the long run. I am one pleased to realize this.

Even better than the first one
This installment of the Immortals after Dark series is excellent. I love this new world and the use of all the mythological creatures. I am looking forward to the next one.

Sebastion Wroth is the brother of Nikolai from A HUNGER LIKE NO OTHER. Nikolai forced Sebastion to drink his blood and become a vampire. Sebastion has spent the last several hundred years hating his brother and wishing he were dead. He has no hope until he meets Kaderin the Cold-Hearted, a Valkyrie who is lost in guilt over the death of her two sisters a thousand yrs ago.

Kaderin showed mercy to a vampire who repaid her by killing her sisters. She mysteriously received the blessing of no emotions, that has allowed her to live with the guilt. But when she meets Sebastion all her emotions come back. She has entered the Hie, a scavenger hunt, to win the key of Thane. A key to time, if she wins she can go back and save her sisters.

The minute Sebastion sees Kaderin he knows she is his Bride. The one woman who can make his heart beat again. Although she quickly leaves him he is determined to find her and once he does he must win her. Decideing to help her win the Hie, he enters the race against her wishes.

The tasks are all over the world and all are hard. Each one earns points, the most points wins. Sebastion wants only to help and protect Kaderin. This is a wonderful mixture of fun and romance, with a great ending.

There will be another book and I am so ready for it. The teaser at the end sounds marvelous.

Don't miss this one, if you like romance and fantasy.

No Rest for the Wicked-Joyfully Recommended !!!!!
Sebastian Wroth had been turned into a vampire against his will, so when Kaderin the Cold Hearted appears to kill him, he's surprised to care! For the time in hundreds of years he feels alive. Kaderin has been without feeling since the death of her two sisters long ago, but now she's been given a chance to go back in time and save them. In order to do so, she has to win a contest, a contest she has won many times in the past, but now the stakes are so much higher and she has no intention of letting Sebastian get in the way. But, Sebastian is determined to keep up with Kaderin every step of the way and to use every situation he can to seduce her!

When I finished this book I sat in a moment of stunned silence...before I went back to read it again! Without question No Rest for The Wicked proves that Kresley Cole's, The Immortals After Dark Series, has what it takes to keep me eagerly panting for more. Intensely sensual, with every fantasy creature imaginable and loaded with action that never stops, No Rest For The Wicked is a paranormal romance lover's dream! I will be impatiently pacing in anticipation of Bowden's story!

Melissa
Reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed