This week we are shining a spotlight on Wendy Sparrow’s paranormal romance Servants of Fate trilogy where three brothers, sons of Father Time, meet their match when they are charged with taking the life of mortal women on New Year’s Eve. For a limited time you can pick up the trilogy for 99-cents! Click here to learn more!
Today we’re giving you a taste of Stealing Time, the first story in the trilogy!
Enjoy, then grab your copy!
Hannah Lyons was living a charmed life—she’d escaped death thirty-seven times in the last three hundred and fifty-seven days. But Time was about to catch up to her—Time or, in German, Zeit, was nearly upon her… and about to give Hannah back her scarf which she’d dropped nearly as many times as he’d saved her life.
Zeit snapped his fingers as he approached the sweet brunette stumbling through the snow. All around him, shoppers froze, and the air went still. Snow hung in place like a fog. Hannah shouldn’t be out on the streets on the day before Christmas. It was too busy. Too crowded. Hell, it was too easy—she made it easier to kill her than to keep her alive on days like this.
He could feel the pull of the Fates as they attempted, once again, to steal her from him. His beautiful conundrum was standing too close to the curb again and about to hit a patch of ice. In another fifteen seconds of mortal’s time, she’d have slipped on the ice, as that woman carrying the terrier brushed by, knocking Hannah out in front of the snow plow. 
Messy.
“You’re getting gruesome,” Zeit called to the Fates.
He stopped in front of the pink-cheeked mortal.
“Thirty-eight times now, Hannah.” Thirty-eight times he’d stopped the clock for her.
Snow clung to her eyelashes, and her red lips were parted, probably in shock that she’d, once again, dropped her favorite scarf. Her hand was poised at her neck, feeling for the crimson scarf he held in his hand.
She was relatively short with probably average features. He’d never really tried to tell mortals apart until he’d met Hannah. Chances were, few of the people she saw today would think she was anything out of the ordinary. She was ordinary and then she also wasn’t. Not to him. To him, she was as different and as delicate as a snowflake and just as beautiful. It was irritating as hell.
He unwound the scarf from his fist as he shook his head. “You’re going to catch your death.” Zeit draped the scarf around her neck. She liked it wrapped once and then one end tossed over her back and the other end over the same shoulder in front. “Although possibly not if I get to you first.”
He lifted her up by grabbing her waist—which put her mouth in close proximity to his—something he could ignore, if he concentrated. Her soft, shoulder-length hair brushed his lips, and he blew it out of the way as he carried her farther away from the curb and the lady with the yappy dog. He’d moved her quite a lot this last year, sometimes for great distances. She was seeing a mortal doctor about that—if only she knew that was the least of her worries. She’d gone to see Hoover Dam and nearly caused a bloodbath.
“You’ve got a week,” he told her, setting her down on her feet like a giant posed doll. She could be a doll—with her cheeks rosy like this, and her eyes glassy from the bite of the cold air.
One more week should be long enough to get her out of his system, and that was what he was going to do. No more slipping into the shadows of her life. He’d see what made her so singular and beautiful—reason out why she’d captivated him, and then on New Year’s Eve, at midnight, he’d steal the rest of her hours as he’d been assigned to do almost a year ago.
He brushed a finger along her cheek, even as he felt the push of hours. They shoved at his back like a strong gust of wind. Time wanted to march on. But he was master here. For now. Though that might end if he didn’t kill Hannah this time. The year end’s sacrifice demanded a lifetime and, last year, fortune had favored him with that heart attack a few feet from his Hannah as she’d been counting down the minutes at the ski lodge.
The Fates had not been amused by the substitution. Snippy old bats.
He traced her jaw. She did look like a doll. Even those puffy red lips of hers belonged on a porcelain figurine. His gaze shifted from mortal to mortal around her. There had to be someone else more interesting and less… marked for death. But no. Just Hannah. The others slipped from his thoughts as he looked away—their features indistinct memories of noses, eyes, lips and so on, whereas he could spot Han-nah a mile away from behind.
Admittedly, she did look good from behind.
Zeit stared for one last mortal minute into those dark brown eyes of hers. This was insane. He was insane.
And yet…
“Stay out of trouble, Hannah.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear—he liked her ears. Every day, there was more and more about her he liked. It was a shame.
A damn shame.
In a general sense, time was not on her side but today, Time definitely was, in fact he wanted to be wrapped all around her. But, in eight days, he’d kill her at midnight and the Fates would let another year go by without damning everyone’s luck.
He stepped back from her and, after one last shake of his head, walked away and snapped his fingers again.
It was impossible not to glance back over his shoulder—she had that much of a hold on him.
Her gaze met his. She narrowed her eyes.
Zeit stared back. He was memorable and they’d bumped into each other one too many times for her to believe it to be a coincidence. Nodding, he winked at her before turning and going on his way, leaving a very irate Hannah swearing as she wrestled with why she was hopping from location to location.
It couldn’t be helped, not if he was going to keep her alive long enough to steal her life.
As servants of Fate, Father Time’s sons must sacrifice a mortal’s lifetime on behalf of humanity before each year ends. It’s simpler if they don’t get involved, as their immortality is a barrier to relationships and to understanding the emotions of those whose lives end in a blink, especially if these time holders have a hand in it. Servants of Fate pass in and out of the lives of those around them, never interacting, until a different type of fate steps in. They can stop time, but love will leave them powerless.
