Category Archives: Coming Soon
EXCERPT REVEAL ~ King’s Captive by Amber Bardan
Coming February 13th
For three years, I’ve belonged to Julius King.
Some people would think being stuck on a private island is heaven, but this is my hell.
Because I’m not here as a guest. Not even close. I’m a prisoner. I’m his.
Julius King. Powerful. Wealthy. Dangerous.
There are parts of me he wants that I can’t give him. When he looks at me, there are times I swear he sees someone else. And the scary part is that sometimes, when he touches me, I think he may be someone else, too.
Though my body might be tempted, and he might control everything else, I can’t let him have any piece of my heart. I won’t. But every day, the fight gets harder, and Julius manages to slip past my defenses in the most unexpected ways.
I have to find out the truth about Julius King. Even if it destroys me.
This book is approximately 81,000 words
One-click with confidence.
This title is part of the Carina Press Romance Promise: all the romance you’re looking for with an HEA/HFN.
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Chapter One
He’s coming.
A twig creaks. I jerk upright in the swing seat, where that day has been rolling through my mind like a snippet of a movie reel that’s been hacked to pieces, then glued back together.
Him—the reason I’ve spent the last three years in this tropical Caribbean prison.
Leaves crunch. He wants me to hear him coming. Julius enjoys anticipation.
I brush my dress over my knees. Pale blue chiffon picks up with the breeze. “Hello, Julius.”
“Good morning, baby.” He reaches my side and bends down and plants his lips on my cheek.
My eyes close for an instant. His kiss is deceptively warm, but then, hell is warm, no surprise the devil should be too.
“I’ve brought you something.”
The bitterness of his cologne coats my breaths. Like everything about him it’s a bit too much.
“Thank you.”
He leans closer, his watch right by my face.
Tick, tick, tick.
One tick to every two of my heartbeats.
He lays a rolled-up newspaper in my lap. I don’t open the paper.
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
Not a question, but then, nothing he says ever is.
My gaze collides with his. It’s like looking into the wind, makes me want to blink and look away.
“We’re having guests.” The corners of his eyes wrinkle. “I’m trusting you’ll be polite company.”
“Have I ever been anything else?”
He smiles his serpent smile and takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “No, you’re perfect.”
I’d bite him, but he has a nice firm grip on my lady-balls, and he knows it.
Leverage. He has it—I don’t.
It’s the reason why, even if I could escape, even if he didn’t control all transport on and off the island, I’d still stay.
Everything here is in his control, even me.
Except for one thing.
I smile back at him, a real smile. There’s something I have that he doesn’t. Something that makes me want to gloat. Captivity has made me petty.
“Thanks.” I keep that satisfaction inside.
There’s a reason visitors make me giddy. There’s one thing I know that Julius doesn’t. There’s something that gives me hope.
“Dinner’s at five.” He releases my chin.
His sharp gaze disappears under the aviator sunglasses he slides over the bridge of his nose. I watch him leave, and wait until he’s rounded the corner to the house.
Only when he’s completely out of sight, I unwind the newspaper. He gives me many gifts, and on Fridays it’s always this. A weekly recap of a world moving along without me. It’s been rolled for too long and tries to curl back in on itself. I scan the headlines, flicking through the features and articles. Royals got married. A celebrity named their baby something that’ll plague the poor kid for the rest of eternity. Politicians broke election promises and sports happened. I circle back through the paper, trying to suck in this one taste of the outside world I ever get.
I scan one more time, pausing over my horoscope. “Do you really require the messages your forecast reveals? You have all the answers the cosmos can provide. Connect with your intuitive—”
I sigh and turn the page. What happened to the days when I could rely on the little strip in the back of the paper to tell me something useful, or at least hopeful—like to expect a tall dark stranger to sweep me off my feet? Please bring back that astrologer now. As much as I like my feet rooted in the dirt, I’ve spent the last three years praying for the stranger.
For anything.
Some small clue.
Now not even my fortune can be bothered pretending to reveal a sign. I close the paper, and fold it in half. Run my finger over the date.
The date…
My finger stills. I can’t move it from the number. I don’t want to see. Math was never my subject but I get this math right away.
I drag my finger aside.
One month.
I have exactly one month left until the first of October. The ticking in my head clicks louder than his watch had.
I’m almost out of time.
* * *
For a man with a fully staffed private island, it’s surprising the things Julius insists on doing himself. He likes to cook. More specifically, he likes to barbecue. Fat hisses on the grill. My tongue moistens despite myself. The empty plate in front of me seems bigger, somehow more empty. No one does meat like Julius.
He’s a master of flesh.
I’ve seen him butcher a calf himself. Make his own sausage, hang and cure charcuterie. I’ve watched him massage salt into a whole pig with his hands—impale lambs for the spit.
Today his table is full. So the barbecue will be too.
Unfortunately, I know all the faces crowding the twelve-seat outdoor setting. None of them are ones I care to see. Next to me, Dan pops the lid on a beer. His third. Don’t know why he bothers, it’s nonalcoholic. Not that Dan doesn’t enjoy his drink. I’ve seen the man stumble back to the table with piss on his jeans when he’s “off duty,” which isn’t often. Even off duty, Julius’s Men are always Julius’s Men.
And Julius likes his men and his muscle sober.
That’s Dan—muscle.
I glance at him briefly. He’s so big it’s heinous. Yet, for a guy who occasionally pisses on himself, I’ve seen those thick arms move quick enough to shoot a glass out of a person’s hands as they’re drinking. Unlike Julius, this snake doesn’t cover its scales. He wears jeans, and T-shirts that leave enough skin bare to let everyone know exactly how much time he’s done. Some days, if he’s had to stay over unexpectedly, when he lifts his arm to take a swig of his nonalcoholic beer, the odor alone is enough to knock a person dead.
No disguises, he’s a thug.
Julius lifts a T-bone with the prongs of his meat fork, then drops it onto the grill. A wave of smoke drifts over us. I wave my hand in front of my face, then reach for a glass of orange juice. The tang cleanses my palate. Sweet, and full of pulp I have to chew. Fresh-squeezed by Pa, the elderly man sitting two seats from me on the left. The seat between Pa and me remains empty. I set the juice next to the glass of wine beside my plate, untouched as always.
“Potato?” Dan hands me the stainless-steel bowl filled to the brim with potato salad. I take the bowl but pass it past Pa, who I know full well doesn’t believe in mayonnaise, to Leo.
Leo, Julian’s younger muscle, takes the potato salad without looking. He knows his eyes don’t belong on me. All of them do.
Almost all of them.
Julius joins us at the table with a platter full of meat. He serves his guests first. Jack Connelly and his five “brothers.” Then me. He lays a steak on my plate. Rib eye. Meat of the day is T-bone, but I have rib eye. My favorite, cooked medium how I like it. He’s never asked me to choose a cut, never asked me how well I prefer meat cooked, but he knows.
He had my tastes figured out in the first month. I can’t begin to think what he’s learned about me in three years.
“Thank you,” I say.
I give him only detached politeness. Formality. While he figures out my personal tastes, I figure out how little I can give him before he feels the need to reel me closer.
It’s a game—push-pull-push.
Julius always being the pusher.
He dishes up meat to his men, Dan, Leo, Pa and the new guy. I don’t look at the new guy. He hasn’t learned the rules yet and frankly I’ve got no desire to watch him bleed, despite the fact that if he’s working for Julius, he most likely has it coming.
The table’s split six to six.
Julius prefers things that way—even.
Even or in his favor.
He places a dripping steak on his own plate, then puts the meat tray in the center of the table with the mountains of other food.
My spine creaks more than his chair when he sits.
Dan used to sit where I’m sitting. Before I “came along.” Now I sit here, on Julius’s right. Yep, I’m his right-hand girl. I’ve brought nothing to this table, contributed nothing, but here I sit at his right.
I stretch for the garlic butter, and fork a large knob on top of the rib eye. You can bet your sweet ass I don’t hold back on that stuff. Never know when a girl might need a little garlic breath on her side. Male voices laugh and boom across the table, joining a chorus of scraping knives and clinking glasses.
They don’t speak to me, so I don’t speak either.
One of them, the stupid new one, watches me, though. He’s careful. Only glancing at me for a heartbeat or two before moving on.
But I don’t miss that throbbing pause. If he’s not careful, neither will Julius. He’s too stupid to live, that one. I make new guy a black spot in my vision. Don’t see him. Don’t hear him. When I look around the table, it’s like that chair is vacant.
“Something wrong with your steak, baby?”
The voices around us dull. Everything grows quieter when Julius speaks.
I set down my fork, one untouched morsel on the tines. “It’s a little overdone.”
It’s not, it’s perfect. No steak would ever suffer overcooking in Julius’s care. I don’t smirk. By some divine miracle the satisfaction stays under wraps.
“You should have said something.” He leans closer, leans right over me. “You know I’ll always take care of you.” His voice is low, dropped down to some husky key that seems to be reserved solely for me. My breath hiccups. Yes, he takes care of me. Every single moment of every single day. It’s Julius who feeds me. He who clothes me. He who keeps me safe.
He who can take all away.
He drags the steak off my plate with his fork, and tosses it onto the grass with a sharp swing of his arm. Not on a plate or in the bin, onto the lawn that looks as though it’s been trimmed by a thousand leprechauns with nail clippers, not a blade out of place.
Julius did that. Julius, who likes everything just so.
My pulse pounds in my ears like it’s trying to tell me something. I’ve heard this same thudding warning for years.
Watch out, watch out, watch out.
My heart doesn’t seem to realize I never stopped doing just that.
He cuts his T-bone, then scoops half up. Blood drips in the space between us. He drops the cut on my plate. So rare it’s almost blue.
I stare at his arm.
His shirtsleeves are rolled up, his right arm exposed to the elbow. That’s the benefit of sitting on his right. I get his clean side. Don’t have to stare at the evil thing on his neck. Dark hairs run down his forearm to his wrist, growing finer as they bridge the top of his hand. I wonder how far I’d get if I rammed my fork in that arm—right in his wrist joint—if I just lodged it right in there…
How long would it take for him to reach for the gun at his side?
How far could I get?
To the dock, maybe, with the help of a little adrenaline? Before Danny boy got to me. Before I remembered that every way off this island is Julius’s.
Before I remembered the other things keeping me here.
“Happy?” There’s that soft personal tone again, and it’s impossible not to hear. Impossible not to catch the switch when he speaks to me.
I look at him, something like a smile biting the corners of my lips. “Thank you, Julius.”
He turns back to his guests. The Connellys all sit together on the other side of the table. Jack Connelly in the middle. If Jack is here, it means one thing—today’s business is guns.
The kind Julius carries around tucked in the back of his pants.
Until I met him, I’d never seen a handgun.
I’d seen plenty of shotguns. At home even our gardener walked around with one on his back. Growing up, I thought everyone who worked on acreage carried a shotgun. Dad told me they were for snakes. Yet, in all my years, I never saw a single snake.
Not one.
But then, there were a lot of men with a lot of guns on our ranch to keep them at bay.
Now I know they were always waiting for a different kind of snake.
He’s coming.
A twig creaks. I jerk upright in the swing seat, where that day has been rolling through my mind like a snippet of a movie reel that’s been hacked to pieces, then glued back together.
Him—the reason I’ve spent the last three years in this tropical Caribbean prison.
Leaves crunch. He wants me to hear him coming. Julius enjoys anticipation.
I brush my dress over my knees. Pale blue chiffon picks up with the breeze. “Hello, Julius.”
“Good morning, baby.” He reaches my side and bends down and plants his lips on my cheek.
My eyes close for an instant. His kiss is deceptively warm, but then, hell is warm, no surprise the devil should be too.
“I’ve brought you something.”
The bitterness of his cologne coats my breaths. Like everything about him it’s a bit too much.
“Thank you.”
He leans closer, his watch right by my face.
Tick, tick, tick.
One tick to every two of my heartbeats.
He lays a rolled-up newspaper in my lap. I don’t open the paper.
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
Not a question, but then, nothing he says ever is.
My gaze collides with his. It’s like looking into the wind, makes me want to blink and look away.
“We’re having guests.” The corners of his eyes wrinkle. “I’m trusting you’ll be polite company.”
“Have I ever been anything else?”
He smiles his serpent smile and takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “No, you’re perfect.”
I’d bite him, but he has a nice firm grip on my lady-balls, and he knows it.
Leverage. He has it—I don’t.
It’s the reason why, even if I could escape, even if he didn’t control all transport on and off the island, I’d still stay.
Everything here is in his control, even me.
Except for one thing.
I smile back at him, a real smile. There’s something I have that he doesn’t. Something that makes me want to gloat. Captivity has made me petty.
“Thanks.” I keep that satisfaction inside.
There’s a reason visitors make me giddy. There’s one thing I know that Julius doesn’t. There’s something that gives me hope.
“Dinner’s at five.” He releases my chin.
His sharp gaze disappears under the aviator sunglasses he slides over the bridge of his nose. I watch him leave, and wait until he’s rounded the corner to the house.
Only when he’s completely out of sight, I unwind the newspaper. He gives me many gifts, and on Fridays it’s always this. A weekly recap of a world moving along without me. It’s been rolled for too long and tries to curl back in on itself. I scan the headlines, flicking through the features and articles. Royals got married. A celebrity named their baby something that’ll plague the poor kid for the rest of eternity. Politicians broke election promises and sports happened. I circle back through the paper, trying to suck in this one taste of the outside world I ever get.
I scan one more time, pausing over my horoscope. “Do you really require the messages your forecast reveals? You have all the answers the cosmos can provide. Connect with your intuitive—”
I sigh and turn the page. What happened to the days when I could rely on the little strip in the back of the paper to tell me something useful, or at least hopeful—like to expect a tall dark stranger to sweep me off my feet? Please bring back that astrologer now. As much as I like my feet rooted in the dirt, I’ve spent the last three years praying for the stranger.
For anything.
Some small clue.
Now not even my fortune can be bothered pretending to reveal a sign. I close the paper, and fold it in half. Run my finger over the date.
The date…
My finger stills. I can’t move it from the number. I don’t want to see. Math was never my subject but I get this math right away.
I drag my finger aside.
One month.
I have exactly one month left until the first of October. The ticking in my head clicks louder than his watch had.
I’m almost out of time.
* * *
For a man with a fully staffed private island, it’s surprising the things Julius insists on doing himself. He likes to cook. More specifically, he likes to barbecue. Fat hisses on the grill. My tongue moistens despite myself. The empty plate in front of me seems bigger, somehow more empty. No one does meat like Julius.
He’s a master of flesh.
I’ve seen him butcher a calf himself. Make his own sausage, hang and cure charcuterie. I’ve watched him massage salt into a whole pig with his hands—impale lambs for the spit.
Today his table is full. So the barbecue will be too.
Unfortunately, I know all the faces crowding the twelve-seat outdoor setting. None of them are ones I care to see. Next to me, Dan pops the lid on a beer. His third. Don’t know why he bothers, it’s nonalcoholic. Not that Dan doesn’t enjoy his drink. I’ve seen the man stumble back to the table with piss on his jeans when he’s “off duty,” which isn’t often. Even off duty, Julius’s Men are always Julius’s Men.
And Julius likes his men and his muscle sober.
That’s Dan—muscle.
I glance at him briefly. He’s so big it’s heinous. Yet, for a guy who occasionally pisses on himself, I’ve seen those thick arms move quick enough to shoot a glass out of a person’s hands as they’re drinking. Unlike Julius, this snake doesn’t cover its scales. He wears jeans, and T-shirts that leave enough skin bare to let everyone know exactly how much time he’s done. Some days, if he’s had to stay over unexpectedly, when he lifts his arm to take a swig of his nonalcoholic beer, the odor alone is enough to knock a person dead.
No disguises, he’s a thug.
Julius lifts a T-bone with the prongs of his meat fork, then drops it onto the grill. A wave of smoke drifts over us. I wave my hand in front of my face, then reach for a glass of orange juice. The tang cleanses my palate. Sweet, and full of pulp I have to chew. Fresh-squeezed by Pa, the elderly man sitting two seats from me on the left. The seat between Pa and me remains empty. I set the juice next to the glass of wine beside my plate, untouched as always.
“Potato?” Dan hands me the stainless-steel bowl filled to the brim with potato salad. I take the bowl but pass it past Pa, who I know full well doesn’t believe in mayonnaise, to Leo.
Leo, Julian’s younger muscle, takes the potato salad without looking. He knows his eyes don’t belong on me. All of them do.
Almost all of them.
Julius joins us at the table with a platter full of meat. He serves his guests first. Jack Connelly and his five “brothers.” Then me. He lays a steak on my plate. Rib eye. Meat of the day is T-bone, but I have rib eye. My favorite, cooked medium how I like it. He’s never asked me to choose a cut, never asked me how well I prefer meat cooked, but he knows.
He had my tastes figured out in the first month. I can’t begin to think what he’s learned about me in three years.
“Thank you,” I say.
I give him only detached politeness. Formality. While he figures out my personal tastes, I figure out how little I can give him before he feels the need to reel me closer.
It’s a game—push-pull-push.
Julius always being the pusher.
He dishes up meat to his men, Dan, Leo, Pa and the new guy. I don’t look at the new guy. He hasn’t learned the rules yet and frankly I’ve got no desire to watch him bleed, despite the fact that if he’s working for Julius, he most likely has it coming.
The table’s split six to six.
Julius prefers things that way—even.
Even or in his favor.
He places a dripping steak on his own plate, then puts the meat tray in the center of the table with the mountains of other food.
My spine creaks more than his chair when he sits.
Dan used to sit where I’m sitting. Before I “came along.” Now I sit here, on Julius’s right. Yep, I’m his right-hand girl. I’ve brought nothing to this table, contributed nothing, but here I sit at his right.
I stretch for the garlic butter, and fork a large knob on top of the rib eye. You can bet your sweet ass I don’t hold back on that stuff. Never know when a girl might need a little garlic breath on her side. Male voices laugh and boom across the table, joining a chorus of scraping knives and clinking glasses.
They don’t speak to me, so I don’t speak either.
One of them, the stupid new one, watches me, though. He’s careful. Only glancing at me for a heartbeat or two before moving on.
But I don’t miss that throbbing pause. If he’s not careful, neither will Julius. He’s too stupid to live, that one. I make new guy a black spot in my vision. Don’t see him. Don’t hear him. When I look around the table, it’s like that chair is vacant.
“Something wrong with your steak, baby?”
The voices around us dull. Everything grows quieter when Julius speaks.
I set down my fork, one untouched morsel on the tines. “It’s a little overdone.”
It’s not, it’s perfect. No steak would ever suffer overcooking in Julius’s care. I don’t smirk. By some divine miracle the satisfaction stays under wraps.
“You should have said something.” He leans closer, leans right over me. “You know I’ll always take care of you.” His voice is low, dropped down to some husky key that seems to be reserved solely for me. My breath hiccups. Yes, he takes care of me. Every single moment of every single day. It’s Julius who feeds me. He who clothes me. He who keeps me safe.
He who can take all away.
He drags the steak off my plate with his fork, and tosses it onto the grass with a sharp swing of his arm. Not on a plate or in the bin, onto the lawn that looks as though it’s been trimmed by a thousand leprechauns with nail clippers, not a blade out of place.
Julius did that. Julius, who likes everything just so.
My pulse pounds in my ears like it’s trying to tell me something. I’ve heard this same thudding warning for years.
Watch out, watch out, watch out.
My heart doesn’t seem to realize I never stopped doing just that.
He cuts his T-bone, then scoops half up. Blood drips in the space between us. He drops the cut on my plate. So rare it’s almost blue.
I stare at his arm.
His shirtsleeves are rolled up, his right arm exposed to the elbow. That’s the benefit of sitting on his right. I get his clean side. Don’t have to stare at the evil thing on his neck. Dark hairs run down his forearm to his wrist, growing finer as they bridge the top of his hand. I wonder how far I’d get if I rammed my fork in that arm—right in his wrist joint—if I just lodged it right in there…
How long would it take for him to reach for the gun at his side?
How far could I get?
To the dock, maybe, with the help of a little adrenaline? Before Danny boy got to me. Before I remembered that every way off this island is Julius’s.
Before I remembered the other things keeping me here.
“Happy?” There’s that soft personal tone again, and it’s impossible not to hear. Impossible not to catch the switch when he speaks to me.
I look at him, something like a smile biting the corners of my lips. “Thank you, Julius.”
He turns back to his guests. The Connellys all sit together on the other side of the table. Jack Connelly in the middle. If Jack is here, it means one thing—today’s business is guns.
The kind Julius carries around tucked in the back of his pants.
Until I met him, I’d never seen a handgun.
I’d seen plenty of shotguns. At home even our gardener walked around with one on his back. Growing up, I thought everyone who worked on acreage carried a shotgun. Dad told me they were for snakes. Yet, in all my years, I never saw a single snake.
Not one.
But then, there were a lot of men with a lot of guns on our ranch to keep them at bay.
Now I know they were always waiting for a different kind of snake.
After spending years imagining fictional adventures, Amber finally found a way to turn daydreaming into a productive habit. She now spends her time in a coffee-fuelled adrenaline haze, writing romance with a thriller edge.
She lives with her husband and children in semi-rural Australia, where if she peers outside at the right moment she might just see a kangaroo bounce by.
Amber is an award winning writer, Amazon Bestselling Author, and member of Romance Writers of Australia, Melbourne Romance Writers Guild, and Writers Victoria.
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CHAPTER REVEAL ~ Broken Pieces by Toni Aleo
Can be found in the Once upon midnight anthology
From the moment Oceanus von Stein, second-in-command to the Patchwork family, caught sight of Taegan Conner, daughter of the leader of the Wolves, he knew he would never love another. Only now, she has been promised in marriage to another, an arrangement to strengthen her family’s alliances–and she gets no say in the matter. Can they find a way to be together, or will they both always be two Broken Pieces?
Take place during Pieces
Chapter One
Being the oldest isn’t always easy.
Everyone depends on you.
Looks up to you.
You are the poster child for the family.
Plus, you worry about everything.
Well, at least, I do.
Which means being selfish isn’t possible. Maybe not selfish—that word is harsh and I’ve never really liked it, but something along those lines. What I mean is that my needs, my wants are not important when I have three younger siblings and a father to worry for.
You see, I’m a very busy man. I have many jobs. The first and most important being to protect and love my family. With everything inside of me. It is my job to guide my brothers and sister in the right direction to be future leaders of our community. The community my family
runs. A community that is unseen to the human eye, which is fine by me. Dealing with witches, wolves, shifters, and vampires, along with the Patchwork citizens is enough in my opinion. They cause enough drama for one man, yet I love them. I want to protect them.
They are my extended family.
Even if a faction of our Works—the shifters—wants to overthrow my family and take over, I still care for their well-being. I have to. It’s my job as a future leader of the Works. When my father decides to step down, which could be at any moment, it will be my job to step up and be the king this community needs. Not that my father isn’t doing his job; he is. It’s just…he’s old-school. Very old-school, and while all his parts are working at their full capacity, he isn’t the man he used to be. So much has changed. This isn’t the 1800s anymore, but my father apparently
missed that memo. He’s budged a bit, adapted some, but he still has the same notions he had back then, and they drive me absolutely mad.
Beyond furious, actually.
But what do I expect? He lived in a time where a man was always right and you followed your father, your leader. After he lost his father to the plague, he became the leader and led his family. I don’t think my father meant for his life to go where it did, but it all changed when he found his grandfather’s old lab books.
That grandfather was Dr. Frankenstein.
The guy who made Frankenstein’s monster himself. Yes, the stories are true. But what the stories don’t tell you is that he had a son, who had four more sons, my father being one of them. With Father’s grandfather gone, and then his own father dying, I doubt anyone expected for Dr. Frankenstein’s work ever to surface again. But my father was and may be smarter than his ancestors. For when he found the books, he became obsessed with them, and soon he developed a formula that granted a man immortality.
True immortality.
He soon administrated the formula to his brother, Samuel. But after their mother and two other brothers died when the formula didn’t work on them, Samuel and Father were discovered.
So, of course, they fled. They had no choice. But they did have a choice when they decided to come to America and make their own clan.
A clan full of immortal people who would follow and bow down to them. Or, really, to my father. I doubt Samuel had much say in it, but my father, yeah, he was drunk with the power he had. He knew he was the best, a god in his mind, and people flocked to him. They begged for the formula, needed it, and soon my father had his clan.
His Patchwork.
You would think that would be enough, but it wasn’t. Soon he reached out to the other supernatural groups. The vampires were first. The main reason was the simple fact that my uncle loved to sleep with them. The vampires didn’t need anything from my father, but he offered them an alliance, a way to get them constant blood since he had turned the owner of the local hospital immortal. As long as the vampires followed my father, he would be there to help them. As creatures of the night, and being killed off almost every other night by hunters and humans, they
signed on quickly.
Next were the witches. My father promised to export and import anything they needed or wanted on his fleet of ships. In return, he would use their spells and rituals for things he was unable to fix.
The wolves signed on for the money. My father needed lots of guards and security support, and he paid very heavily for them. At first, it was just employment. But somewhere in there, my father worked out some kind of alliance. It’s beyond me, but he did it, and now they are basically eating out of his hand.
No pun intended.
The shifters are a whole other story. The resisted us, only coming to us with offers for the formula itself. Father denied them, of course, but he did ask them to join us. He offered that we would protect them and even employ some of them. He wanted to make our community complete with the five strongest clans of supernatural beings. But the shifters didn’t want any part; they were independent. That was, until people started dying and they needed the protection my father offered since no one could catch who was killing off their clan. I believe my father had a part in it, that he hired people to kill them, but he denies it.
Either way, my father got his underground clan, and soon, the rules were in place.
Do what your clan is expected to do. All of us have a particular job to keep the Works running. The guard support the wolves offer—along with their construction work. The spells and treatments the witches provide. The political connections the vampires play a part in. And we can’t forget the connections on Wall Street that the shifters give us. It’s simple, really. Everyone plays their part and reports back to Father. Well, the clan leaders do, at least.
Another rule is paying your taxes. For obvious reasons, if my father is protecting your group, curing diseases, providing good housing, and everything else he does, the least you can do is pay the monthly tax.
Lastly, don’t mix clans. Father wants to keep the purest of bloodlines, to make the future children of the Works the strongest and best—my father’s words, not mine. Now, that is the rule that gets broken the most. Mostly by my uncle Samuel and his obsession with vampires. But
even with his lust for the creatures, he has never fathered a child, mostly because vampires can’t have children. That isn’t the case for other clans, though. And when it happens, I mean, when a mixed-clan child is conceived, it isn’t long after birth that the child is killed.
That sickens me and will be one of the first things I change when I am the leader of the
Works.
I just have to get there.
“You’re thinking way too hard for someone who just woke up.”
I smile, my heart filling with such unadulterated tenderness for the wide blue eyes that soon trap me in their gaze. A grin pulls at my sweetheart’s lips, her long, flowing strawberry blond hair falling every so delicately along her jaw and onto my chest as she traces the scar on
my stomach.
“I thought you were sleeping,” I whisper, my lips pressing against hers as my hands grasp the thick globes of her ass. Holding her tight against my side, I kiss her. Softly, ever so slowly, memorizing every single thing about her lips and the way they make me feel.
Perfection. Pure perfection.
When she pulls back, her eyes darken a bit as she throws her leg across me, straddling me as her nails bite into my chest. “I’m not sleeping,” she says, her cheeks dusting with color as I drink in the gorgeous freckles along her body. She is covered head to toe in them, and I swear, I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my days tracing each of them with my tongue, my fingers, anything. As long as I’m touching her.
My love.
As she moves her hot center against my growing erection, I smile. “I can see that.” My hand comes up to cup her full breast. “Whatever are you doing up there?”
She scoffs, her wet core making every single thought from before disappear within seconds. “If you have to ask, I worry for ya,” she jokes, and I smile, my eyes falling shut a bit.
Her voice, her thick Scottish brogue, does the dirtiest things to my body. Turns me on to the point of no return.
“I thought you had to leave?”
“I think I have a wee bit of time. Maybe we can spend it?”
Bringing her down by a hand at the back of her neck, I kiss her jaw as her breasts press into my chest. “I know we can,” I say before rolling her over, my body pressing into hers as I push her legs back into her chest and enter her quickly. She is hot, accepting me and squeezing me, making me breathless as I stare down into her beautiful, flushed face.
She stuns me, and I just look at her, my lips curving as my cock throbs inside of her, begging for release. But I can’t move. Not when she is looking at me like that. She reaches up, a grin pulling at her lips as she runs her thumb down my jaw.
“Gonna stare at me, my love? Or fuck me?”
“Stare,” I say simply, my body heavy against her legs. “I swear I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful as you.”
Her grin grows, her body flushing even more, and my heart explodes in my chest.
Cupping my face with her other hand, she threads her fingers through my hair. My body breaks out in gooseflesh as she holds my gaze. When she looks at me, I know she doesn’t see the scars or the wounded flesh, the cut marks or the gunshot wounds. She sees me, her lover.
Because that’s all I can ever be.
“I love you, Oceanus,” she whispers, her eyes so dark, so full of lust, and of course, love.
Fuck, I love it when she says those words. Those three words that are ever so beautiful—but more tragic than one could think. Well, that is until I take over the Works. The moment that happens, which pray God is soon, I will marry my love. I will make her mine, I will put my child in her, and together we will lead the Works.
She will be my queen.
I don’t care that she is Taegan Conner, the princess of the wolves, because I don’t see her faction or even her family name.
I see her heart.
And it’s mine.
All mine.
Moving her hair out of her eyes, I kiss her nose before sliding mine against it. “I love you too, my love.”
When her mouth captures mine, I lift her up, holding her ass in my hands as I fall back on my haunches, thrusting up into her. Her breath is harsh against my mouth, her breasts heavy against my chest, and as I drive into her, I don’t care about anything but her and me.
I’m being selfish.
I’m taking what I want.
And I don’t care one bit.
It doesn’t happen enough in my opinion, but I guess, being me, I don’t get that luxury.
Truth be told, being Oceanus von Stein isn’t easy.
But it’s who I am. And while I lose myself inside of this beautiful woman, I don’t think of anything but her, and that’s okay for now.
Eventually, I’ll be able to do it for the rest of my days.
I just have to be patient.
Because my time is coming.
My name is Toni Aleo and I’m a total dork.
I am a wife, mother of two and a bulldog, and also a hopeless romantic.
I am the biggest Shea Weber fan ever, and can be found during hockey season with my nose pressed against the Bridgestone Arena’s glass, watching my Nashville Predators play!
When my nose isn’t pressed against the glass, I enjoy going to my husband and son’s hockey games, my daughter’s dance competition, hanging with my best friends, taking pictures, scrapbooking, and reading the latest romance novel.
I have a slight Disney and Harry Potter obsession, I love things that sparkle, I love the color pink, I might have been a Disney Princess in a past life… probably Belle.
… and did I mention I love hockey?
I am a wife, mother of two and a bulldog, and also a hopeless romantic.
I am the biggest Shea Weber fan ever, and can be found during hockey season with my nose pressed against the Bridgestone Arena’s glass, watching my Nashville Predators play!
When my nose isn’t pressed against the glass, I enjoy going to my husband and son’s hockey games, my daughter’s dance competition, hanging with my best friends, taking pictures, scrapbooking, and reading the latest romance novel.
I have a slight Disney and Harry Potter obsession, I love things that sparkle, I love the color pink, I might have been a Disney Princess in a past life… probably Belle.
… and did I mention I love hockey?
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COVER REVEAL ~ Rooke (Bleeding Hearts Book Club) by Callie Hart
ROOKE
Bleeding Hearts Book CLub Novel
By CALLIE HART
Release date: Feb 21
Standalone
Full length Novel with complete ending.
At this point, there will not be a preorder for this book, however that could change.
I will keep you guys informed.
I will keep you guys informed.
Blurb
Watchmaker. Car thief. Heartbreaker extraordinaire.
Rooke Blackheath has spent enough time in juvie to know that he really doesn’t want to go to jail. The food sucks, the clothes itch, and there are absolutely no women in sight. Well…none he wants to fuck, anyway.
He should probably stop boosting cars, but the money is stellar and the high is out of this world. And why should he turn his back on something that sets his soul on fire anyway?
The answer to that question comes in an unexpected form: a petite five-foot-three firecracker named Sorcha, who refuses to give him the time of day no matter how thick he lays on the charm.
Rooke’s not easily deterred, though. Just like the watches he builds from scratch, Rooke knows all too well how women tick. Women are a game to him. A game he always wins.
Sorcha doesn’t stand a chance.
***
Sorcha Connor’s life has been permanently derailed since her son died five years ago. You wouldn’t know it to look at her, of course. She has a great job, a beautiful house, and caring friends. Every week, she hosts a book club featuring the sexiest, most romantic stories on the planet, and every week she falls for a new fictional knight in shining armor.
Fictional men are perfect, though. They don’t hurt you. They don’t break your heart. They don’t cheat on you after your child dies, and they rarely ever leave the toilet seat up.
When Rooke Blackheath shows up at Sorcha’s workplace, it’s clear he’s nothing like the men who grace the pages of Sorcha’s favorite books. Dangerous, arrogant, sharp-tongued and sarcastic, Rooke’s not the kind of guy she needs in her life. Not to mention the fact that he’s eleven years her junior.
They don’t live in different worlds. As far as Sorcha is concerned, Rooke lives in a different galaxy altogether. She’d like to keep it that way, but fate appears to have other plans.
When Cinderella lost her shoe, Prince Charming showed up at her door.
When Sorcha Connor loses her book, an entirely different kind of rogue comes a-knocking
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COVER REVEAL ~ Mack Daddy by Penelope Ward
New York Times, USA Today and #1 Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author Penelope Ward
brings us a brand new second chance standalone MACK DADDY releasing on February 13, 2017
Cover designer: Letitia Hasser, r.b.a designs
Cover Model: Anthony Gomez
Cover Photography: Duc Nguyen
From New York Times bestselling author, Penelope Ward, comes a sexy, STANDALONE second-chance romance.
They called him Mack Daddy. No, seriously, his name was Mack. Short for Mackenzie. Thus, the nickname. Perfect, right?
So was he: perfect. The perfect physical male specimen.
At the private school where I taught, Mack Morrison was the only man around in a sea of women.
Everyone wanted a piece of the hot single father of the sweet little boy.
I was riddled with jealousy, because they didn’t know that—to me—he was much more.
They didn’t know about our past.
He’d chosen my school for his son on purpose, because Mack and I, we had unfinished business.
As my friend Lorelai so eloquently put it: “Unfinished business between two people who are clearly attracted to each other is like an eternal case of blue balls.” And I was suffering in pain from my case.
I was still intensely attracted to Mack. I tried to resist him, immersing myself further into a relationship with another man just to protect my heart.
Not to mention, getting involved with a parent was strictly against school rules. But seeing Mack day in and day out was breaking me down.
And soon I might be breaking all the rules.
Author’s note – Told in alternating points of view, Mack Daddy is a full-length standalone novel.
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About the Author:
Penelope Ward is a New York Times, USA Today and #1 Wall Street Journal Bestselling author. She’s a fifteen-time New York Times bestseller of twelve novels.
Having grown up in Boston with five older brothers, she spent most of her twenties as a television news anchor, before switching to a more family-friendly career. She is the proud mother of a beautiful 12-year-old girl with autism and a 10-year-old boy. Penelope and her family reside in Rhode Island.
Connect with Penelope Ward
Facebook Fan Group | Facebook | Website |Twitter | Instagram
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