Exclusive Excerpt from J.C. Daniels’s Shadowed Blade (#5 Colbana Files Series)

We are super excited to help launch the release of Shadowed Blade, Colbana Files #5 by J.C. Daniels with an exclusive excerpt. SmexyBooks is a huge fan of this dark, action packed Urban Fantasy that offers readers a strong, intelligent, risk-taking heroine, her sexy very alpha boyfriend, and a cast of dynamic characters whose stories all blend together to produce an urban fantasy series you won’t soon forget.

Something wicked this way comes…

The arrival of a very important person in her office seemed to be the start of a lot of problems for Kit Colbana, investigator extraordinaire. Claiming that he needed somebody with her special skillset, he sends her on a series of jobs that made little to no sense until one culminated with both her and her partner, Justin barely escaping with their lives.

Back in Orlando, they go their separate ways to recover, Justin heading to the house of a local witch, while Kit returns to the Lair, where she’s recently been living with her lover Damon, the Alpha of the Southern Cat Clans.

There’s barely a chance for to catch her breath before trouble of the highest order comes knocking on her door. This time, it’s the form of a psychic by the name of Nova. Nova has bad, bad news…Justin has gone missing and so has the witch who was going to put him up while he healed. Colleen, one of Kit’s closest, dearest friends.

With all sorts of non-humans disappearing, fury doesn’t even touch what Kit is feeling as she heads out to hunt down the people responsible.

But Kit isn’t the only one out on a hunt…somebody is hunting for her…somebody Kit would rather never, ever see again.

**********

Hell took the form of Damon shifting to his half form, over seven feet tall, his muscled pelt covered in a golden pelt and spotted. His clothes fell in shreds around him as he launched himself at Scott.

My mind denied what it was seeing.

Scott flung up a hand and Damon flew to the far side of the room while Scott leaped toward me.

I whipped up my sword, my mind furiously trying catch up with what was going on. “Stay back,” I warned.

A grin—one that seemed both insanely out of place and strangely familiar—twisted Scott’s lips.

“Now, now, Kit…is that any way to say hello to an old friend?”

The voice—oh, shit.

Those words had no sooner left his lips than a growl ripped out of the shifters who’d burst into the room like their lives depended on it.

And one of them was…Scott.

Damon was off the floor and moving again.

Instinct screamed.

Move now—think later.

I swore as I dove for Damon and the Scott-lookalike. “I’ going to kill you,” I told the man who’d somehow managed to sneak into the Lair. Of all places.

He chuckled, his visage starting to waver. “You won’t be saying that in a minute. I’m here for a reason…you know that.”

He leaped up and in a movement that defied physics—and the human body—as he flipped and sailed through the air, placing his body behind mine.

Damon made a deep, deep noise, one that spoke of fury—and I heard something else, too. Perhaps Chang would recognize it, but I doubted anybody else would.

It was fear.

He saw only some unknown enemy and the man was now at my back.

I held up a hand. “Stop…Damon…stop. He’s not…” I heaved out a breath before I said the one thing that might keep the man in front of me from trying to kill the man behind me. “He’s a friend. He’s saved my life twice now.”

Damon slowed for a split second, but nothing changed the animalistic set to his features.

Behind me, there was a faint whisper. “You’d think I’d remember how sharp their noses are, wouldn’t you?”

“I hope you enjoyed yourself,” Damon said, his voice a predatory growl. “Every man should have a little fun before he dies.”