Amaranthine Kiss

Army doctor Angelo Sanderson is an unlikely veteran of supernatural combat. A classified mission thrust him into a world most people never have to fear; a world of monsters, mysteries and magic. Coming home to Boston was meant to be about returning to ordinary life. After all, he has no magic of his own.

But Doctor Effie Eliades does. Effie is a healer by profession and by magic. She’s known Angelo forever. He’s her brother’s best friend. She grew up knowing that she could trust him with anything. Now, she’ll have to trust him with her secrets and her life because a supernatural threat is killing her patients, and she needs Angelo’s help to save them.

The threat is real, but Effie is wrong about its target. The Amaranthine Kiss isn’t after Effie’s patients. It hungers for her.

***

The sixteen-year-old girl looked as if she was ninety years old. Straggly gray hair wisped around a wrinkled, sunken face. Her heart was failing. Her lungs barely inflated. Every additional second of life was a struggle.

Dr. Effie Eliades leaned close. “Who did this to you, Jess? What did this to you?”

Soft as a sigh, final and heart-breaking, the dying girl answered. “A kiss.”