SIGNED Hardcover -- Red Claw (Dragonblood Assassin #2)

Natisse burned.

Searing fire raged across her flesh, seethed in her veins, blazed in the core of her being—a raw, savage energy she could neither control nor extinguish. The flames lit up the darkness of the old theater, their orange light illuminating Jad’s broad face and bulky frame. The mammoth man stared wide-eyed at the tongues of fire rolling across her in a macabre dance.

“Ezrasil’s bones!” Jad’s rumbling voice pierced Natisse’s mind, putting an end to her momentary stupor. Tearing at his black coat, still soaked with the blood of the guards he’d killed, he shouted, “Hold on, Nat! I’ll put out the—”

“Wait!” The word spilled from Natisse’s lips unbidden. Then, gathering herself, she added, “Just… wait.”

Lifting her arms, studying the inferno, the sizzling heat swallowing up the air in a brilliant corona around her, she marveled. Despite it all, she felt nothing. No pain. No howling anguish like she’d experienced the day an Ember Dragon’s breath turned her family to wisping ash. But that wasn’t true. She did feel something. Power—so much power, rushing through every muscle and nerve with the force of erupting lava.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she breathed, her mind scarcely able to reconcile her words to the evidence before her very eyes. She turned over her hands, letting the flames leap from fingertip to fingertip. Then she lifted her gaze to Jad, who stood frozen, halfway out of his huge coat.

“Nat,” he started, words coming out strangled, confused. “What…?” The rest of his question was choked off before it could form.

As quickly as the fire had sprung to life, it died. One moment, Natisse was wreathed in brilliant red-gold flames; the next, all that remained was a halo of smoke billowing around her like death’s cloud. Had it not been for the memory of what had just transpired and the stunned look on Jad’s face, she might’ve imagined it a dream.

Yet she knew the truth. It had happened. She had been transported to the Fire Realm—some alternate plane of magic or energy, she did not truly know—and stood face-to-face with Golgoth, the mighty red Ember Dragon. And Golgoth had chosen her, had called her bloodsworn, had somehow given her access to the firestorm burning within the dragon’s own eyes.