The Fire Dancer (Cirque Macabre Book 1)

Sin City just got hotter… Welcome to Cirque Macabre, where Holly Octane bursts into flames live on stage five nights a week. Holly’s one of a kind, moving through time with the grace of her burlesque routine. But she has no idea what she actually is. All she knows is she’s been brought to Vegas to destroy vampires. The obvious place for her to look for answers is her mysterious past, but’s the future she needs to worry about. Rainey, her fortune teller girlfriend, doesn’t see a future with Holly in it. Blade Bennett has a power no vampire should—fire. As a new vampire, it gives him a dangerous advantage. Holly’s the only one who can help him with this power, but their feelings for each other are too fiery to ignore. If Blade draws Holly into his world, Rainey’s prophecies will come true and she’ll have no future. But she learns she needs the vampires of the city too much to destroy them…. Las Vegas is her stage, and Holly will set the city on fire.

From the Inside Flap

Excerpt:"How long have you been like this?" His gaze ran the length of my robe, and he didn't have to clarify what he meant. As far as everyone knew, I was twenty-four. "Decades. I think." The concept of time simply made me dizzy. Cash nodded; my answer didn't surprise him. "You were born north of London in 1781, in a village called Moorfields." My knees buckled, and if I didn't clutch the table, I would have fallen. Even though I knew the answer wasn't going to be something nice and neat like twenty-five years ago in Memphis, actually having the answer blew my mind. "I remember things that happened before that." I couldn't face him. "And I think I remember you." "Do you?" Cash ran his fingers lightly along my hair, never touching my body. At first, I was terrified we'd burst into flames. We'd fireproofed my dressing room, but Cash wouldn't survive. This information was just the tip of the iceberg. I needed him to stay alive. "What do you remember?" Images jumbled in my brain as if someone spun a wheel. I saw Cash, bound, bloody, and burned, surrounded by laughing onlookers. His hair was shorter, and it was a different time, but I knew him. His eyes. No matter what humiliation was bestowed upon him, they remained proud. "Chaos." His silky laugh almost convinced me I'd been wrong. No one could actually survive the state I pictured Cash in, his skin purple from abuse, weak from starvation, and still have a sense of humor. But those eyes. "That's about right." He moved closer to me, my robe pressed against my skin. I couldn't let him distract me. "But why do I remember things that happened before that? Like I was there. Is that even possible?" "If you experienced it, then you made it possible, Holly." His words were soft, and like time, they made me dizzy. "You're a Bleed." My eyes snapped open. "A what?" "You're a Bleed. You age much more slowly than mortals, and your immortality extends in all directions. Forward, backward, and sideways if it's possible." I had to turn and face him. Rainey would knock on the door any time now, and I needed to wrap this up before she came. She'd warned me stay away from Cash. We'd been fighting too much lately already. I hated it. "How many of us are there?" "You mean how many of you are there." Someone knocked on the door softly. I forced my eyes away from Cash, and he stepped back. The knock repeated, more forceful this time. Rainey would be able to sense I wasn't alone, even if she couldn't see Cash. "You might be the only one." "Then how do you know so much about it?" I kept waiting for the heat to rise in my body, but it didn't. All the triggers, fear and frustration, were there, but no flames. The knocking became frantic. "Because I do." Cash placed my hat back on my head before he headed to the door. His hand was on the doorknob when he turned back to me. "You've been patient this long, Holly. I want you to need me."

About the Author

Kristen Strassel is far cooler than she'll make herself sound in this bio. The prolific author of many paranormal and contemporary books, she enjoys spending time with the voices in her head--nudging the characters toward those bad decisions and seeing if she can get them a happily ever after. When she's not writing, she's often still in the land of make-believe--doing makeup for film and television. And when she's not doing any of that, she enjoys making her house look like a Pinterest board, watching football, and road trips to the middle of nowhere. Kristen doesn't have any kids, but she does have a very opinionated cockatiel. See more at kristenstrassel.com.

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