I have read a few of Shiloh’s books, not nearly as many as I’d like. Unfortunately, of those few books I’ve read only one Hunters book, The Huntress. Yeah, shame on me. Especially because I so enjoy Shiloh’s work.

So whether you’ve read most of her backlist or this is your first Shiloh book, here’s an excerpt from Hunter’s Need, the latest Hunters book, which will be released December 1. We’re teasing you and whetting your appetite, you will be so very hungry by release day, you’ll be first in line at your local bookstore.

Guarantee it.

Duke is bitter. A shapeshifter betrayed by the psychic powers of Analise Morell, he cannot forgive her for putting him in the clutches of a feral vampire, but he also can’t shake his desire for her. And when she needs a Hunter, Duke must face his demons-and hers.

With her eyes and her heart heavy, she turned down the gravel drive and trudged towards her apartment. She kicked a small rock and sent it flying. Absently, she lowered her gaze, watched as it came to a stop a few inches away. Kicked it again. Again—

A pair of booted foot appeared in her line of vision and a hand caught her arm. Hissing out a breath, she reacted instinctively, jabbing towards the neck with her free hand and lifted her foot. But before she could smash it down on the man’s instep, he moved.

Moved too quick—

She found herself whirled around, her back pressed up against a hard male body. Panic welled.

“Ana!”

That voice—

She stilled, sucked in a breath. As she did, the panic inside her started to ease, her body relaxed, before she even realized why.

She could smell him…and she knew that smell.

Licking her lips, she whispered, “Duke?”

He let her go, quick, as though he couldn’t stand to have his hands on her, and she figured he probably couldn’t. Instinctively, she tightened her shields, unwilling to pick anything up from him. Even if she deserved to have his disgust with her filling her head, she’d rather not, thanks very much. Edging away, she turned and looked at him.

The sight of him hit her straight in her core, a punch of heat that left her legs weak and her skin tight and itchy. She let go of her carryon and folded her arms across her middle. “What are you doing here?”

“Whatever in the hell the problem is, it isn’t important enough to keep you from taking off for a weekend?” He glanced down at the carryon and then up at her face.

Ana narrowed her eyes. “You’re the damn Hunter, not me. Playing avenging angel, guardian angel, that’s your business, not mine.” Exhaustion, unrequited lust, and fear were sheer hell on a person’s willpower, she realized, clamping her mouth shut before she could say anything else.

“So you got no problem announcing that there’s a problem, but then disappearing?”

“You told me to handle it myself, if I recall correctly.” She almost said something else, but decided it against it. Almost told him that she’d tried and utterly failed. It didn’t matter. He was here now, he could handle it. Hooray for him. No reason for her to sink another couple hundred dollars into this mess, no reason to take off personal time and try to handle something that was way beyond her reach, no reason to lay awake at night, afraid to sleep because she feared the nightmares.

Let him deal with this bullshit. That’s what he was supposed to do.

Aren’t you feeling bitchy today? she thought darkly. Without another word, she grabbed the handle of her carryon and headed towards the staircase by the garage door.

“Yeah, taking off when things get dicey, that’s your way of handling things,” he said, sardonically, following along behind her.

Too close, too. She could feel him, feel that big, warm body, the heat he put off, shadowing along close enough that he just lifted a hand, he’d touch her. Halfway the steps, she stopped and shot him a narrow look over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Following you. What are you doing?”

“I’m going to my apartment. I’m tired. I want to take a shower and go to bed.”

He glanced over her shoulder towards the door at the top of the stairs. “Sorry, princess but you go some explaining to do before you can go to bed.”

“Explaining.” Ana sighed and then started back up the steps. She’d already tried explaining to him and he’d mocked her, laughed at her. Told her to handle it herself and she’d tried, failed miserably, and now he was here. Hell, that had likely been his plan all along—get her worked up and then show up in the flesh and save the day.

Of course, she doubted he really would have expected her to actually try to handle it. Abruptly, she was pissed.

Not just irritated, not just tired and grouchy, and not just edgy because she felt so damned guilty for what she’d done to him. She’d made huge mistakes in her life, but damn it, she’d done her best to rectify them and she was sick and damned tired of having to pay for it in their eyes. Seething, she stormed up the rest of the stairs and jammed her key into the lock, undoing the lock with a vicious twist of her wrist.

He followed her inside and she shot him a dirty look as he dropped down on the couch, settling down with lazy, feline grace.

“Make yourself at home,” she drawled. She left the carryon by the door and shut it, turning the lock on the doorknob and then the deadbolt.

“Those locks suck,” he said, flicking a glance at her door.

“I’ll make a note of it.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she glared at him. “Whatever you need me to explain, fine. Ask away so I can explain and get your ass out of my home.”

A grin curled his lips. “Ana, you’re swearing. What’s got you so pissed?”

“I’m not pissed,” she lied.

“You know, even if you did do some kind of number on my instincts, I don’t know why in the hell I ever fell for any of your lines,” he mused, shaking his head. “You’re a lousy liar.”

“I didn’t hand you lines.” Then she wished she hadn’t said a damn thing. The last thing she needed to do was think about ancient history, not when he was here. Not when he was so close. Not when he could smell every subtle change in her body, whether it was because she told a little white lie, or because her body went all hot and achy with need, getting worse with very damn second he was there.

“Sure you did.” He came off the couch and paced towards her, that big, hard body all fluid, sexy grace and long, powerful muscles. His golden hair fell around his face and his gray eyes glittered in the dim light. “You fed me all sorts of lines and then I get a knife shoved into my chest and I wake up and find out the pretty blonde princess who had me twisted up inside was the puppet of a fucking psycho. Maybe that’s the difference…when somebody’s pulling your strings you do just as you’re told. Did Cat tell you to get hot for me? Is that why you seemed to want me so bad?”

Stop it. Duke stared at her, watched as the blood drained from her face, leaving her pale, her haunted, dark purple eyes all but black. Stop.

Cat was dead. She didn’t fucking matter any more and if Ana was any kind of threat to them, every single last Hunter around would know. She’d be watched—or already dead. She wasn’t a threat and he knew it. At least not that kind of threat. Not any more.

The kind of threat she posed to him was a different story, but one didn’t really have anything to do with the other.

She’d screwed up and even Duke wasn’t so blind to the fact that she had tried to make amends. She was guilty, never claimed otherwise, didn’t offer excuses or any other lame shit to try and help explain away what she’d done. Even the more plausible reason—her fear for her brother, she never used that card.

If it was anybody but Ana, he probably even could have found some reluctant admiration.

But with Ana…

Even as he told himself to stop, to back away, find out what he needed to know and get the hell away from her, he couldn’t. Even as he lifted a hand to touch her, curling it around her neck and tugging her close, he told himself to quit and he couldn’t. “No answer, Ana?” he whispered, rubbing his thumb across her full lower lip.

Let it go—none of that matters.

Except it did. It did matter, why she’d all but melted in his arms, melted around him, over him, so damned hot she’d almost burned him. Had she really wanted him? Or had it been because she had psycho-bitch pulling her strings? How deep had Cat’s control on Ana gone?

She shook, her body all but vibrating. She was afraid, he could scent it on her, but it wasn’t just fear. His lids drooped over his eyes, a growl rumbling in his chest, as he realized he had his answer right there.

Ana didn’t have to say a damn thing.

She wanted him. All but burned with it.

It was enough to make his mouth water and his cock swell. Enough to make him want to haul her against him and finish the dance they’d started five years earlier. He didn’t, though. Because of her fear. He didn’t like her being afraid of him. Heat—he just wanted to smell heat coming off of her, just the desire.

“You’re hot now,” he whispered, lowering his head until his lips hovered just a breath away from hers. “I can smell it, almost taste it. Why are you so hot, princess?”

“Leave me alone, Duke.”

He should. He knew he should. He needed to back away, get the hell away from her, before the anger took control, before the hunger burning inside him flared too hot for him to handle, before it spilled out onto them and scorched them both. Inside, he dipped his head and nuzzled her neck, breathed in the soft, warm scent of her. She smelled of lavender, soft and subtle, something that clung to her hair and skin.

“You know something that’s eaten me up for the past five years?” he whispered, raking his teeth along the curve of her neck. “Five years ago, I had you this close…this close to heaven and I would have done just about anything to get inside you. This close…and then I realize I’m closer to hell than I am to heaven—and I never even had the chance to fuck you. If you were going to send me to hell, Ana, you could have at least given me a send-off.”

“Duke…don’t.”

“Why not?” He straightened, staring down at her averted face. He toyed with the top button of her shirt and wondered what she’d do, how she’d react if he bent his head and tore the buttons off with his teeth. “Why shouldn’t I touch you? You want me. You can’t lie about that.”

She reached up and caught his wrist and shoved him away.

He let her, although he was tempted not to. And when she stepped back, he let her, even though he didn’t want to. “Why shouldn’t I touch you?” he asked again, his voice low, harsh with the hunger tearing into him.

And another little teaser:

Ignoring Brad, Neal lifted a hand and stroked Ana’s cheek.  “I keep hearing how much you’re into blood…why don’t you—oomph—”

Ana felt it, a punch of psychic energy, blasting through the air.  She grabbed Brad as Neal went flying backward and crashed into one of the glass-fronted media cabinets.  Glass, DVDs, and CDs exploded around him at the impact and he fell to the floor—seconds later he was up, moving quicker than the eye could track.

She felt the punch of Brad’s power again and she shook him, distracted him for just a second, long enough for the swell of power to fade.  “Brad, stop.  Now.”

He shrugged her off and squared off with the vampire.  Once, whenever he used a power display like that, it would show on his face, in his eyes as he pushed his limits.  The nosebleeds had stopped more than two years ago, and Ana wondered if just how far those limits had expanded.  She sure as hell didn’t want to find out now, though.

“You little fuck, I’m gonna knock the shit out of you.”

Ana whirled and glared at him.  “The hell you will!”  She might be a coward, but nobody threatened her baby brother.

He sneered at her.  “Get out of my way, bitch—you know you want to.  Weak-assed bitch.”

From the depths of the room, people started to stir.

“Neal, back off…”

“Come on, man…”

“Backing off sounds like a damn good idea.” Bradley shoved around her, once more planting his skinny butt in front of her, protecting her—damn it, she was supposed to protect him.  It was her job, one she failed at, miserably.

Welcome to Duck Chat!

Shiloh Walker is a busy woman, and though she’s working right this moment on her next project, she’s taken a few moments to chat with us today.

Married to her high school sweetheart, Shiloh and her family live in the mid-west. She quit her nursing job in 2004 to begin writing full time. I’m sure her fans are more than thankful for that. If you haven’t read one of her books yet, Shiloh has an impressive backlist in a number of genres, from suspense to erotic to paranormal and then some, so there’s something there for everyone. Take your pick, you’ll enjoy every last word.

But first spend a few minutes with Shiloh to get know her a little better. Be sure to leave her a comment or question and we’ll put you  in the running for an autographed copy of the winner’s choice from Shiloh’s backlist! Now let’s chat!

DUCK CHAT: Shiloh, let’s jump right in and talk about your upcoming release, Hunter’s Need, along with the Hunters series. First, would you tell our readers about the series as a whole? Has it evolved as you originally envisioned it?

SHILOH WALKER: Well, asking if it evolved from an original vision kind of implies I had some planned-out mental image of the world. And I didn’t. The series started with just one character—Tori from the first book, Hunters: Declan and Tori. I didn’t have any thoughts about making an ongoing series at the time. I just wanted to tell her story. Once I finished, I realized there were a lot of stories in that world.

The Hunters are basically paranormal cops—the world they live in has plenty of paranormal creatures and not all of them are the good guys. The Hunters work to keep those people in line.

DC: If you could retire any question and never, ever have it asked again, what would it be? Feel free to answer it.

SW: Oh, that’s easy…. So, do you write your books from personal experiences?

I once had this very, very weird guy ask me that at a signing and trust me, he wasn’t asking about whether or not my nursing background plays into my writing, or whether I write about romance because I’m living a happy-ever-after with my high school sweetheart, either.

*G* I did answer him. I smiled sweetly and said, “Well, no. I mean, after all, I haven’t killed anybody yet.”

DC: I’ve heard writers often say their stories take them in surprising directions, or dialogue flows from some unknown place. Is it the same with you? Do your characters surprise you sometimes?

SW: My characters frequently surprise me, but I’m not a plotter by nature. I’ve got a vague idea of where I want the story to end and as I write the book, things happen to push me toward that goal. Very frequently, events happen that are nothing like what I’d thought was going to happen.

DC: Do you ever argue with your characters while you’re writing? Who usually wins?

Oh, I frequently argue with my characters. And who wins depends on what the argument was over. But a lot of the time, the characters win. 

DC: What is sure to distract you from sitting down and working/writing?

SW: Laundry. Email. Twitter. Phone calls. Website junk. Blog stuff. Clutter. An empty stomach. Facebook. I’m easily distracted—staying on task requires me to frequently kick myself in the tail.

DC: Do you have the next Hunters book in the works yet? How many more books will be in the series?

SW: I just finished the next in the series…Hunter’s Fall, which will be out in either late 2010 or early 2011. I don’t have any idea how many more Hunter’s books I’ll write, though. It might be just be one or two, or it might be a lot more. I just don’t know.

DC: What has been your favorite book cover from all of your releases and why?

SW: The cover for the romantic suspense that came out earlier this year, Fragile. I just love and adore that cover. It’s shiny. It’s pretty. What’s not to love? 

DC: How about your least favorite cover? Why?

SW: That one is harder to answer—some of the earlier covers from Ellora’s Cave I haven’t liked as much because they were the computer-generated images and I’m just not as big a fan of the CGI stuff.

DC: How do you feel your male or female characters have evolved over your career? Do you think you write them differently now than you did when you started?

SW: Well, I try to make the characters deeper, more complex. I think that’s just natural for a writer to do, though.

DC: Is there a genre you haven’t tackled but would like to try?

SW: Well, sooner or later, I’m going to try more traditional fantasy stuff, I think. Possibly urban fantasy, without as much romance. Maybe some thrillers. And horror-I have one idea for a horror story that I’ve wanted to write forever…I just haven’t managed to do it, yet.

DC: What advice would you give to your younger self?

SW: Hmmmm. Nothing. Choices I made when I was younger led me here and I love my life—wouldn’t want to do anything that might change it.

DC: Next March Broken will be released. Can you give us a sneak peek into Quinn and Sarah?

SW: Quinn is a complicated bastard and he gave me ten kinds of hell writing his book. Sarah is equally complicated. I fought the two of them tooth and nail.

DC: If you were a book, what would your blurb be?

SW: Oh, I’m a lousy person to ask about blurbs… I hate and abhor blurbs. Writing a blurb about me? I’d just suggest you skim the first few pages instead…

DC: What would be your “voice’s” tagline?

SW: Smartass…

DC: One of my favorite books of yours is The Missing. Where did the story idea for Cullen and Taige come from? Can you tell everyone a little bit about it?

SW: The story for The Missing stemmed from the little girl, Jillian. She was the first character I ‘met’ from that story, so to speak. Cullen and Taige emerged later. I woke up one morning with this mental image of a girl sitting in an airport, drawing. She showed the drawing to her dad. There were three kids in the drawing, one in each corner of the page. He asks who they are and she tells him, “They are the missing.” Then she tells him that each of them had disappeared.

That’s was the bare bones of the book, as it first came to me.

DC: If you had never become an author, what do you think you would be doing right now?

SW: Nursing. That’s what I did before I focused on writing full-time. I keep my license current and still work on occasion. Just in case.

DC: For a reader who may not have picked up one of your books yet, where would you recommend them to start to get the full effect of Shiloh Walker?

SW: The full effect…LMAO. Well, one of my personal favorites is Fragile. Or Candy Houses, an urban fantasy/paranormal erotic romance that came out from Samhain Publishing in October. [LOL, okay, so it was really early morning when getting Shi's interview together, the brain apparently was having fun at my expense! - SM]

DC: What’s on the horizon for Shiloh Walker?

SW: Right now, I’m working on a romantic suspense trilogy for a new publisher. My current plan is to write paranormal for Berkley and romantic suspense for Ballantine.

Lightning Round:

- dark or milk chocolate?     -Dark
- smooth or chunky peanut butter?     -Not a peanut butter person…unless it’s with chocolate.
- heels or flats?     – Bare feet. 
- coffee or tea?     – Both, depends on my mood.
- summer or winter?     – Fall. (It’s my favorite season)
- mountains or beach?     – Mountains, absolutely.
- mustard or mayonnaise?    – Mustard.
- flowers or candy?     – Why do I have to choose?
- pockets or purse?     – Purse.
- Pepsi or Coke?   – Coke.
- ebook or print?   – Both.

And because we still enjoy the answers we get:

1. What is your favorite word?    -Love.
2. What is your least favorite word?     -Cunt
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?     -Sunsets. Kids laughing. Hugs.
4. What turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally?     -Cruelty. Neglect.
5. What sound or noise do you love?   – The sound of my kids laughing.
6. What sound or noise do you hate?     – Fingernails on a chalkboard.
7. What is your favorite curse word?     – Don’t have one.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?     -  None…I’m doing what I always wanted.
9. What profession would you not like to do?     – Teacher. I lack the patience.
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?    – Oh, I absolutely believe heaven exists…and I expect to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

DC: Thanks for spending the day with us, Shiloh!