Random Paranormal Tales of 2025
Summary:
Holiday Surprise #8
Justin's dating life has just gone from bad, to worse.
Justin's never had the best luck meeting alphas, and for more than a year it's been a string of disappointing dates. So when he meets a seemingly nice guy at a charity party for the Valle Granja Art Museum, he thinks his luck has changed. Instead he finds himself trying to ghost a man who refuses to take 'no' for an answer.
Max can't help but protect the omega living in his apartment complex.
Max is newly single, and still rying to find out what signs he missed before his last relationship ended. However all those thoughts come to a screeching halt when he finds his neighbor hiding on his porch. He quickly learns that the omega is scared of another alpha, and decides that he'll do whatever is needed to protect the handsome man.
However, will Justin return Max's feelings as they shift from protection to attraction?
Tinsel Time Treasure is a 35K word , non-shifter, M/M, mpreg, omegaverse romance
Content note: A stalking ex-partner plays a role in this book. Therefore it may not be suitable for readers sensitive to this topic.
Original Review December 2024:
I haven't read all the entries in Lacey Daize's Holiday Surprise series but of the one's I've read I can honestly say Tinsel Time Treasure probably has a bit more darker-ish undertones. They aren't "in your face" details but the things Justin finds himself facing are not sweet but they do lead to something, or someone, that has the potential to be brilliant.
Max of course is going through some things that have left his heart hurting too and when these two meet, the chemistry is so much deeper than alpha/omega, protector/protectee, it's a bit all encompassing which isn't exactly where either party is heart-ready but sometimes fate knows best.
A delightfully fun, heartwarming tale with moments of heartache to make this mpreg realistically beautiful, as realistic as mpreg can be anyway, truth is by the end of the book you almost believe it to be real, an wouldn't our world be different if mpreg did in fact exist. Tinsel Time Treasure leaves you smiling and wanting to give both parties huge Mama Bear Hugs to let them know everything is going to be as it's meant to be.
Summary:
Cold Case Psychic #4
Cold Case Detective, Ronan O'Mara, is looking forward to starting a new life in his new home, but when a strange house warming gift appears on his doorstep, he has no idea that it marks the start of a series of events that will put his life, and the lives of everyone close to him in danger. When murders similar to those committed by dead serial killer, Rod Jacobson, start occurring around Boston, Ronan is certain he has a copycat killer on his hands.
Psychic, Tennyson Grimm, is approached by friends for help dealing with issues surrounding their son. He quickly realizes there is more going on with the boy than teenaged angst. Though he doesn't want to believe it, his psychic abilities and a series of strange paranormal occurrences point to a link between the troubled teen and the murder victims that are turning up all over Boston.
When Ronan is attacked during the investigation, it's up to Tennyson and Captain Fitzgibbon to find the killer without him. Will they be able to stop the murderer before the evil that surrounds him destroys them all?
Summary:
The Magi Accounts #4
It’s time to fight back, and by the goddess, I will help free my people.
The Cloaked Freeway is finally in a position to effect real change, and I want so badly to be a part of it. Since I was a little kid, it’s been my dream to free my people from under the human’s rule. And now I have the chance to make that dream a reality.
But helping them means giving up so much. I have a family now—a pride—and I don’t want to put them at risk. Luckily for me, my mate wants to be a part of the revolution, too, but that still leaves everyone else.
The world is turning into chaos around us and our family is being pulled in different directions, but I know one thing for sure. The Ono-Nais are fighters, and we’ll do everything in our power to keep each other safe and help those around us.
A Ruse To Unchain Us is the fourth book in the MM urban fantasy series, The Magi Accounts. It’s recommended to read the series in order because the romance progresses through the series and it has an ongoing storyline, but there is NO cliffhanger.
*Intended for adults only. Please read the trigger warnings at the beginning of this novel.
Lion's Tail by Jordan L Hawk
Summary:The Pride #2
Control the booze. Control the magic. Control Chicago.
Sam Cunningham just wants a quiet life with his lover, the cheetah-shifter Alistair Gatti. But that hope is dashed when a member of Mickey Sullivan’s gang dies inside the Gatti family’s speakeasy.
Sullivan wants Sam to work for him, deciphering long-forgotten hexes as part of his illegal hexworks operation. At the same time, a corrupt prohibition agent demands Sam and Alistair investigate the gang member’s murder. Caught between gangster and agent, they must walk a fine line just to stay alive.
Because the sinister forces behind the killing are still out there, and now they have Sam in their sights…
Original Review September 2024:
I remember reading Blind Tiger when my mom was in the hospital in 2021 and how much de-stressing the story gave me. It blends several of my faves: paranormal, historical(prohibition, 1920s, post-WW1 to be precise), romance, and loads of mayhem. I can't deny that I've been waiting on pins and needles ever since for another story from The Pride but I also know authors can only give us the stories when the characters are ready to tell them. So yes, it's been a bit of a wait but oh so worth every single painstakingly aching second of it😉.
Lion's Tail is one of the best follow-up stories I've read in a long time. Sam and Alistair are just as yummy as I remember. Alistair is a bit overprotective but never in a malicious way so despite a few times of wanting to smack him upside the back of the head and telling him to chill, I loved that he cared so much. Sam is finally finding his place, although at times it seems he is still not quite suited for the mayhem around him but then he says or does something and you realize that perhaps he isn't quite as out of his depth as you might think.
Sam's family plays a part in this entry and boy, talk about characters I wanted to . . . well let's be ladylike here and say they aren't exactly what I call "good stock" and leave it at that😉. Where as the found family that makes up the cast at the Pride speakeasy, they are "good stock" and have Sam and Alistair's back.
As to the mystery element of Lion's Tail? Well no spoilers here but it kept me guessing upto the reveal, not completely on the who but definitely the why and how. I got shivers just thinking about it as I type this, heebiejeebies but perfect for Halloweeny reading.
The Pride is a spinoff of the author's Hexworld series. Even though you need to read Blind Tiger before Lion's Tail you really wouldn't have to read Hexworld first. There are some hex-terminology that might smooth over a bit if you read Hexworld but by no means is it a necessity. I do highly recommend checking out Hexworld for it's brilliant storytelling and world-building but you wouldn't have to do so before Blind and Lion.
However you choose to read them, Jordan L Hawk is a master of paranormal mayhem, so you will definitely enjoy the world they've created.
To Kill a King #1
Trapped in an arranged marriage with a beast of a prince, Genya has nothing but his beauty and wits to help him survive.
For nineteen years, I have carved myself into a dutiful son, a courtier of unimpeachable wit, and a genuine delight at a tea party. Now that my success in society has planted me in the path of Mikhail Vasiliev, it’s clear I’d have been better off keeping my head down.
Prince Mikhail is the second son of a traitor. Third in line to the throne, he has a reputation for violence, debauchery, and being a thorn in the side of his cousin, King Dmitri. That is, until the king decides to get him out of the way—by marrying him off.
To me.
Suddenly prince of a brutal, frozen land, I have no choice but to spy on my father’s behalf. From the morning of our wedding, my beastly husband and I have been at odds, but if I cannot win him over, I’ll find myself in the jaws of his colossal red dragon.
By the time I realize there is more between us than hostility and mistrust, it is too late. The die has been cast, the knife thrust, and our private battle is set to topple the whole kingdom.
Beauty gets tied to a real beast in this MM high fantasy romance, featuring: the cutest companion mink to ever bite the hand of a prince, two reluctant husbands who hate each other everywhere but between the sheets, and a heap load of court intrigue to ensure things go perfectly wrong for our murderhimbo and his slinky courtier beau.
Tinsel Time Treasure by Lacey Daize
Chapter 1 - Justin
~October~
I forced a smile as the alpha across the table droned on about how bad his ex was—which was never a good sign on the first date.
The language was another red flag. He was using whatever terms he could to dehumanize the poor man who’d been with the insufferable bastard, and I could see why the other omega bailed after only a couple months.
“Sluts like him just don’t understand that alphas have needs,” he continued. “I’m never dating a prude like that again.”
Was he a slut or a prude? I wondered to myself. The terms kinda cancel each other out.
“You understand, right?”
“Umm…” I started, scratching my short dark beard.
“Of course you do,” the alpha continued before I could come up with an answer. “You look like a proper omega: one who knows his place in a relationship.”
I replied with a nervous chuckle, then felt a wave of relief as I saw a waitress approaching our table.
“Excuse me,” I said softly. “I’d like to wash my hands before we eat.”
“Um… ok,” he replied, obviously put off by my interrupting his sexist monologue.
“I’ll be right back,” I promised.
He nodded as he picked up his silverware to start eating.
Of course he wouldn’t wait. Why would an alpha ever wait for an omega?
I pretended to hurry, and as soon I was in the relative privacy of the restroom I pulled my phone from my pocket and sent a quick text to my best friend, Kaleb.
Disaster date! Call in five and give me an excuse to leave.
I received a thumbs-up emoji almost immediately. I quickly deleted the messages so that there would be nothing there if my date tried to protest and demand to see my phone. Then I splashed some water over my hands so that they would be cold and slightly moist if he wanted to check that I’d actually washed them.
“Sorry,” I replied as I took my seat again, adjusting my glasses where they’d slid down my nose.
He merely nodded, staring at his phone.
I noticed that half his meal was already gone, and my pile of fries looked suspiciously smaller than it had been when I’d left the table.
“This looks great,” I said as I picked up my burger.
“It’s ok,” he shrugged and scrolled something on his phone. “It’s edible. Next time I’ll introduce you to something better.”
Not gonna be a next time, I thought as I chewed and nodded.
My date continued onto a tirade about how restaurant quality had gone down over the past several years, and somehow he tied his rant to more omegas in the workplace. Something about how with omegas working there were more customers, meaning that cooks had to make food faster, thus resulting in lower quality.
I could have cried with relief when my phone rang.
My date scowled as I pulled it out of my pocket, not recognizing the hypocrisy that he’d just been on his own phone.
“Kay?” I asked, putting on a concerned voice. “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
Kaleb snickered. “Putting it on a bit thick, aren’t you?”
“Oh Kay,” I sighed. “I’m so sorry. How old was she?”
“If your date is buying this, he must be all of five.”
“Sounds like she had a good life.”
Kaleb wailed on demand, loud enough that one of my date’s eyebrows rose.
“I’ll be there as soon as possible,” I announced. “You wrap yourself in a blanket and I’ll pick up your favorite ice cream. Is there a date for the funeral yet?”
Another wail from Kaleb.
“I’ll wait with you until your mom calls with more details.”
“Thanks Just,” Kaleb sniffled exaggeratedly. “I’ll see you soon.”
I hung up the call, noting the deep scowl on the alpha’s face. I pulled out my wallet, estimated my half of the meal and threw some cash on the table.
“You’re leaving?” my date asked incredulously.
“Sorry. My best friend just lost his grandmama, and they were super close. He’s devastated.”
“We’re in the middle of a date!”
“And he’s at home, sobbing his eyes out.”
“He can call somebody else.”
“He doesn’t need to, because I’m going.”
I walked away before my date had a chance to respond. I’d figured out almost immediately that he was a pig, but any man who argued with the ‘dead relative’ excuse was automatically upgraded to piece of shit.
Sure, it was a lie, but that was one of those situations where a person should be believed. Though I bet he had more sudden emergencies during dates than not.
I got into my car and placed a to-go order from Cluck Hut—fried chicken for me and a chicken pot pie for Kaleb, then I drove to the nearest grocery store and grabbed a couple pints of Rocky Road.
It was only about twenty minutes after his call that I pulled into the parking lot for his apartment and carried our food to his place.
“Uh-oh,” he said, eyeing the bags.
“Yeah,” I sighed as I carried them in and set them on the table.
“How bad was it?”
I passed over his chicken pot pie, and he shook his head. “Damn.”
“He tried to argue that I shouldn’t leave.”
“The fuck?”
“Yeah.”
Kaleb stood, put the ice cream in the freezer, and returned with plates and silverware.
“So who did I lose this time?” he asked.
“Your grandmama.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “I swear, she has more lives than a cat.”
“How’s she doing?”
He laughed. “Fine, no thanks to you.”
“Say hello for me, and tell her I killed her off again.”
“Can do.”
“So besides arguing with the dead relative escape, what else was wrong about this one?”
“Shall I start with the ex-bashing, or the blatant sexism.”
“Oof. Sorry Justin.”
I shook my head. “What can I say? I’m just doomed to date all the worst alphas.”
“You’ll find a good one eventually.”
I snorted. “Maybe if I switch to female alphas. But…”
He nodded. “Yeah. They’re pretty, but not my thing either.”
I sighed and plowed some chicken into my mouth.
“Well, you’re here,” Kaleb said. “We can spend some more time working on your costume.”
“Works for me.”
My luck with alphas sucked, but at least I had Kaleb.
Dead Weight by Pandora Pine
PROLOGUE
July…
The room was dark and warm. The perfect place for evil to percolate, to grow and take root. He hadn’t always been bad, but right now he just couldn’t remember what it was like to be good, to be himself.
He hadn’t felt right in only God knew how long now, but the doctor said he was fine, so he must be, right?
The glow of the laptop lit his face as he flipped past image after image of the hero. Hero? Ha! Cold Case Detective Ronan O’Mara wasn’t a hero. He was a killer. A despoiler. A ruiner. He was the man who had ruined everything.
You wouldn’t know it from the fake news websites like the Boston Globe or the Boston Herald, but if you knew where to look, the real truth was out there. The real story was out there waiting to be read. Absorbed. Digested. Made a part of himself.
He wished he could write like that. Like those authors. Like him. It was his words that first made the boy notice the man. Now, all that was left of the man, the real hero, were his words.
The boy shook his head. He hadn’t always thought the man was the hero. At first, he’d agreed with his brothers, with his family, that the cop was the hero, but now… Now things weren’t so black and white.
The killing was a hit. A stone-cold murder. Just like Tupac. Just like Biggie. The man been brought down at the height of his brilliance when there was still so much more to do. So many more who deserved to suffer. Who deserved to die.
It wasn’t only the other whores whose names were on the list, although there were plenty of lost boys whose names took up spaces in his notebook. There was the first boy. The one who got away. Greeley Hanks, now Fitzgibbon. He’d escaped twice. His name should be at the top of the list, but it wasn’t. The whore’s father was on the list too, Captain Kevin Fitzgibbon. The cop who took a bullet for the whore. He’d almost died. There wouldn’t be an almost this time around.
Then there were the psychic and the cop. It had been a near-tie as to which asshole’s name would shoot to the top of the list. Funnily enough, it was that word, shoot, that determined who would end up in the prized number one spot.
Psychic Tennyson Grimm had been the one to uncover the man’s dirty little secret. He’d spoken to the spirit of Justin Wilson which led to the discovery of the other bodies and then other secrets, which had unraveled like an ill-made afghan. The psychic worked with the cop, but it was the cop who stopped the game in its tracks. He was the one with the gun.
Detective Ronan O’Mara was the one holding the smoking gun when it was all said and done. The man had two bullets lodged in his genius brain and it was the hero O’Mara who’d fired them. It was that fact alone that shot his name to the number one spot on the hit list.
The boy traced his finger down the list he’d meticulously written out in his black, college-ruled notebook. He could feel the letters with his fingers almost like braille. The man had been specific with his instructions: The list must be made. The list must be kept hidden. The list must be a secret from everyone.
A bubble of laughter escaped his tight throat. The sound was foreign. It had been so long since the boy had found anything worthy of laughing over. In the old days, he laughed all the time. His family had worried there was something wrong. They’d taken him to the doctor because he hadn’t been his usual self. He hadn’t been eating, sleeping, or laughing like he used to.
There had been poking, prodding, and questions. Of course, the man helped him answer the questions. A few days later, he’d been stamped with a clean bill of health. The doctor had said something about the boy being a typical teenager.
Typical? Ha! Ronan O’Mara, Tennyson Grimm, Kevin Fitzgibbon, Greeley Fitzgibbon, and the rest of the whores on the list would see just how typical he was. Boy, would they ever.
A Ruse to Unchain Us by Michele Notaro
1
Blinking open my eyes, I let out a small groan of pain. Before I could try lifting my hand, Cosmo’s face was right above me with a look of concern. I wiggled my fingers and found my hand in Cosmo’s, so I gave it a squeeze and let out another small groan.
“You’re okay, baby. We’re home. You’re safe,” he said, his voice quiet and rumbly. “Jude’s safe.”
It was a relief that Cos knew me well enough to include Jude before I even had to ask.
Cos ran his hand over my hair, his thumb brushing my cheek. “He’s right beside you, holding your other hand, yeah?”
I blinked at that, feeling groggy, and squeezed my other hand. A sigh fell from my lips when I realized Jude was there and our magics were already swirling around and dancing with each other. I glanced over at him, but he was still asleep. River and Kulani were hovering over him on the other side of the bed, watching over my dyad. It was a relief that his tied mates were here with us—even if I still couldn’t believe the three of them had tied already.
It seemed like everyone was getting tied around us, even though Cos and I had been together longer than any of them.
I mentally cringed at that, wondering, not for the first time, if Cos was frustrated by my lack of interest in the ceremony.
Goddess, my mate really put up with a lot of shit from me, didn’t he?
Putting those thoughts and emotions inside my Things Mads Needs To Think About Later box, I refocused on my Cos—my sweet, sweet Cos—and said, “Kitty cat?”
“Yeah, baby?” He continued petting my hair, and I appreciated the tender touch from my gentle lion. Ugh, the pain meds were definitely making my brain all foggy… and sappy.
“Did… did it—” I had to clear my dry throat, and before I could continue, Cos had a glass of water with a straw pointed at my mouth. I obediently took a few sips, then tried again. “Did it work?”
A slow smile spread over Cosmo’s face. “Yeah, baby, it did.”
Closing my eyes, I sighed in relief as the reality of the situation truly hit me.
The trackers behind my and Jude’s ribs had been removed. We’d undergone surgery after faking injuries to get us off work for a few days. The plan was to put the trackers in a necklace that we would wear while at work to keep them from noticing. But at night, we could leave the necklace trackers at home when we were helping the Cloaked Freeway. The NHSO wouldn’t know where we were, and more importantly, they wouldn’t know we were helping get magi out of this hateful country.
Which meant, in a way, Jude and I had… we had some freedom. For the first time in our lives, we could hide from the NHSO. We could leave if we needed to. We could go anywhere we wanted, and they’d never know where to find us.
We could escape to the People’s Liberation Union and be… we could be free.
My vision went blurry as tears filled my eyes, and I heard Cos stand and say, “What’s wrong? Where does it hurt? Do you need more pain meds?”
I shook my head and tugged on his hand so he wouldn’t leave me. “N-no. I… I’m… not hurt.”
He searched my face—and probably our bond along with it—and blew out a slow breath. “Why are you crying, sweetheart?”
“I’m just… we… we have… some… freedom.”
“Oh, baby.” He leaned in and kissed my forehead, leaving his lips there as he spoke. “You do, Mads. They can’t keep you here anymore, not unless you want to stay.”
Taking a deep breath, I sniffled a few times, then whispered, “If… if we have to leave. If things get bad and our family needs to get out… we can. We can get out, Cos. We can get out.”
He rested his forehead against mine with a soft smile on his handsome face.
I took a few moments to gather myself, holding on tight to Cosmo’s hand, and of course, to Jude’s hand, too—always to Jude.
By the time my dyad woke up, I’d gained control and was able to say, “‘Bout time you woke up, sleepyhead.”
He grunted and tightened his hold on my hand. When he spoke, it was stilted and between small, painful pants. “Probably the… first time… you ever woke up… before me.”
“Doubtful, jerkhat,” I said without heat. I wanted to turn and give him a cheek or temple kiss, but my body wasn’t ready for that yet, so I settled for sending love and affection through our bond.
Jude sent me a half-smile and so much damn affection back before he turned to his mates, who were already doting on him. It had been about five months since they’d tied together, and Kulani and River treated Jude like the prince he was—I would’ve kicked their asses otherwise—so I was really happy for my dyad. I was happy for all of them.
Even if it was sometimes difficult having to share him with other people.
I honestly still didn’t know how Jude had been so calm and encouraging when Cos and I had started dating. I was a mess when he finally got together with Riv and K. I probably wouldn’t have handled it well at all if I hadn’t had Cos there ready to pull me back and distract me so I wasn’t all up in their faces all the time.
The five of us were figuring things out. It wasn’t always easy, sometimes there were hurt feelings, but we’d been… talking.
Me, talking.
And it wasn’t entirely horrible.
Definitely not something Jude and I were very comfortable with, if I was being honest. We weren’t used to sharing our feelings with anyone. We hadn’t really needed to talk about it much with just the two of us since we’d always been able to feel each other’s emotions our entire lives.
So this was different.
Not bad, just different.
It was… good, I guess.
I loved Cos, and I knew Jude loved both Kulani and River, too.
I even had some love for his mates, and Jude loved Cos in his own way.
But even though we had other people now didn’t mean we didn’t still need each other.
Jude was my dyad, my other half, my family, my brother, my best friend, and so many other things. There would never be a day that I didn’t need him. And I knew, deep down, that he needed me, too.
Cos put his knee on the bed, nuzzled the top of my head, then leaned over me carefully without putting any weight on my body. He rubbed his cheek on the top of Jude’s head, and my dyad shot him a pleased smile.
Cos climbed back down, kissed my cheek, and whispered, “I’m going to grab you guys the healing concoction thing that Lo made you.”
I wrinkled my nose but held my lips out for a kiss.
Cos complied with a smile, then walked out the door.
We were recovering in one of the rooms on the first floor. Since this had been a secret surgery, the Cloaked Freeway’s doctor had come to our home and performed the surgeries in this room. For Logan and Ash’s surgeries that had happened over the last two months, we’d turned it into a sterilized room with an operating table and a large shifter hospital bed.
I’d been nervous about having Lo go first because I’d wanted to test it out for ourselves, but I’d also wanted to be able to get him out of the country in an emergency—same went for Ash. Jude and I had talked about having the two of them go first for that reason.
When we’d talked to Ash about it, he’d volunteered to go first, just in case, and thank the goddess it had gone smoothly. A few weeks later, Logan had his tracker removed. Both of them had necklaces with the tracker inside as well.
It had been a huge relief knowing we could get everyone else out if need be. Not that we had plans to leave. It was just… if the NHSO ever threatened Logan or Ash—or our shifters—we had a backup plan.
Although I knew deep down that no one would’ve left Lo and Ash—or Jude and me—behind anyway, it had been a comfort knowing we could get them out.
And now we could get out, too.
I turned to Jude and whispered, “We can get out if we want.”
He sent me a smile I felt in my bones. “We sure can.”
And goddess, this was a level of solace and safety we’d never had. Not in our entire lives.
We could be free.
Before I could ponder that any longer, River was on my side of the bed, asking, “Can I scent you?”
I shot them a smile. “Yeah, of course.”
They leaned in, giving me a very soft, loose hug, careful of my bandages, and rubbed their cheek against mine for a moment. Then they kissed my hair and rushed back around the bed to Jude’s side.
A minute later, Kulani came around, asking me, “You good?”
“I’m good.”
I opened my arms in invitation, and he gave my cheek a quick rub and whispered in my ear, “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Then he was gone, moving back over to Jude. I couldn’t help but smile at them, so damn happy by the amount of love my dyad now had in his life. He deserved every bit of it and more.
Cos came back into the room, carrying a tray of disgustingness. I wrinkled my nose—my connection with Cos made my nose so damn sensitive; it sucked—even as I used the button on the side of the bed to raise my and Jude’s upper bodies on the bed.
Cos quickly shut the door behind himself, but I heard scratching and whining coming from the other side and couldn’t help but smile and say, “Let them in.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want them to hurt you guys.”
I rolled my eyes at my boyfriend, and Jude said, “Let them in, Cos.”
Cos sighed but opened the door.
The second it opened, a dog and four cats came running inside. I had to admit that I was a little surprised all four cats were in the little herd, but I was definitely happy about it. A huge smile spread across my face as my babies headed straight for me.
Cos held back his dog, Tater Tot, so the puppers wouldn’t jump on the bed, but I gave him a few pats on the head while he licked my fingers and wrist. He was such a sweet dog and had a wonderful temperament. I’d given the sweetie pie to Cos as a Christmas gift a few years ago, and the white pit bull with black around one eye like a pirate fit in perfectly with our family. Elzanna had a special bond with him, probably because he was deaf like her, and he was very much a fan of shifters, unlike most dogs.
To my surprise, Doctor Dorito Daggertooth was the first cat to reach me, jumping on the bed and headbutting my hand. He only let me give him a few scratches behind the ear before he hopped over me to get to Jude. But Princess Poppy Puffikins of Purrito Palace was right there to take his place.
“Come here, you,” Jude murmured, coaxing Dorito onto his lap and petting him. Jude still liked to pretend they weren’t his cats, but they absolutely were. Honestly, the cats were now spoiled rotten because they had a constant stream of people giving them love every single day. They were very much the pride’s cats now, not just ours.
Poppy climbed onto my lap and melted into a puddle like she had no bones in her body. It made me chuckle, which made me wince—stupid rib pain—but I still gave her some scratches.
Mrs. Mango Mushyface was meowing because she was having some trouble jumping on the bed, and she wanted my attention. It was raised up kind of high, and since she was a tripod with a missing back leg, sometimes it was difficult for her to jump on taller furniture. Before I could even ask, Cos already had her in one arm, the other still holding onto Tater. I gave her some pets as he placed her beside me.
And last but not least, Lady Licorice Lovebug of Lemondrop Land, the kitty Charlie had given me the same year I’d given Cos Tater Tot, joined the bunch. She trotted right over like she owned the place. She climbed on the bed and meowed in my face like I’d done something to offend her—how dare I have surgery and not let her inside to supervise. After a few scratches under her chin, she curled up with Poppy on my lap, purring away. The two of them were pals—now—which I was grateful for. Poppy hadn’t been too sure about her at first. She’d probably thought she was being replaced, but she should’ve known no one could ever replace her.
“You okay with them there?” Cos asked, still holding onto Tater.
I shot him a smile. “Definitely.”
Cos leaned in to kiss my lips gently, then sat on the edge of the bed, carefully avoiding Mango, and lifted Tater into his lap like the huge dog weighed nothing. Tater loved this move, and his whole butt wiggled as he tried licking every inch of Cosmo’s face while Cos tried to keep him from slipping off his legs.
It made me laugh. “Ow. Stop making me laugh.”
Cos shot me a grin, and I really wanted to kiss those sweet lips, but I couldn’t without hurting myself. So instead, I sighed, settled on my pillow with my kitties around me, and said, “Let’s watch a movie.”
“You’re not getting out of drinking Lo’s healing drink,” Cos said.
“Dammit,” I murmured under my breath and made everyone else chuckle.
Cos passed Jude and me each a glass, saying, “Bottom’s up.”
With a sigh, I took my first sip, hoping it didn’t make me puke.
* * *
By the time Logan and Ash got off work, I was very grateful for their healing spells because the pain in my side was sharp and frustrating. They’d both gone to work as if it was any other day, so we’d had to wait for them to get home. Since it had been a few hours and I hadn’t wanted to take more pain meds, every time I’d moved, it’d felt like my breath was being knocked from my lungs. It was way better now that they’d healed me a few times.
But still, every time I moved, Cos freaked out and helped me. Silly lion. It kind of made me smile even as I glared at him. I really didn’t need his help… even if I liked his attention.
After yet another round of healing spells, I was able to sit up in the bed unassisted without pulling on the wound too badly, and as soon as I was set, I asked, “So when are we on the schedule?”
“We go back to work the day after tomorrow,” Cos said.
I waved him away. “No, I mean for the Cloaked Freeway. When do we help get more magi out?”
“Mads,” Cos said in exasperation. “You had surgery today. We don’t need to make plans.”
I frowned at him. “Sure we do. The entire point of this surgery is to help us be more active with getting people out. We kept our trackers intact so we can act like we’re home while we’re actually out there freeing people.”
And not just unregistered magi. Now we could get out registered ones. We could free our people. Finally. And I didn’t want to waste another minute. I wanted to get them out now.
All registered magi had been screwed in the past because surgically removing the rib trackers in a timely manner had been out of the question. It still was, unfortunately.
It took time to remove those tiny bastards, time to recover from surgery, time to be able to get up, time to gain strength enough to walk across the Great Divide—time we didn’t have. But now the Cloaked Freeway knew how to deactivate them while they were still inside a mage’s body. We had options. We finally had a way to get them out en masse.
I was determined to save every last one of my people.
The NHSO and the US government weren’t going to know what hit them by the time we were through.
“You need to recover for a few days, Mads,” Cos said with a sigh.
I nodded. “I know that, but we can still plan, can’t we?”
He did a weird nod and shrug thing, as if he wasn’t sure he should give in. He should know I was determined, though, and that I wasn’t about to let this drop.
Logan sat at the bottom of the bed, twisting around to face me and pulling me out of my thoughts. Sometimes I couldn’t believe how much he’d grown and filled out. He was no longer the straggly teenager that we’d adopted into our family over three years ago. He was a young man—albeit an adorable one—and he’d really come into his own. Although, every now and then, he still looked like a young teen.
Right now, the eighteen-year-old stared at me. “So we can get a bunch of people out at the same time now, right?”
I nodded. “As long as we have an opening at the wall, yes. We have to make sure that part is organized so we don’t draw attention to where or how we’re escaping.”
He nodded.
In addition to the rib trackers, we already had the technology to disable the tracker in our tags as well as the tracker in our HIDs, so they were no problem. And for those of us staying in the US and helping the Cloaked Freeway, we had programs to scramble our location for both our tags and HIDs, so we’d be untrackable.
Without that worry, I was determined to help more than ever.
“It’ll be even safer now,” I reminded Cos. “I want to get out there as soon as possible.”
“We can talk to Renata in a few days,” Cos said, rolling his eyes and trying—but failing—to hide a grin. He was worried for me and my recovery, I could feel it, but I also knew he appreciated my need to help. Or, at the very least, he found me amusing since I could barely get out of bed on my own, and I was already planning these huge escapes in my head.
Jude added, “She said we’re not allowed to report for duty for a week, anyway.”
I snapped my gaze to him. “A whole week? When did she say that?”
“Yep. A week. She told me yesterday. They don’t have another extraction planned in our city until next month, anyway. The SWC is still working on finding temporary placements in the People’s Liberation Union, so we have to wait.”
“Oh. That’s a bummer.”
Jude nodded. “It’ll work out. They just had a huge number of volunteers in Canada to help with refugees, so New York has been getting a lot of magi out over the last few weeks.”
“That’s great news.”
Cos kissed my cheek, then settled on the bed beside me. “People’s is working on it. They had a ton of magi come in from Austin last week. That’s why they need some time to shuffle people around. The SWC is sending reinforcements from the UK to help, but these things take time, Mads. We don’t want to free everyone only to have them homeless or starving once they escape. You need to have some patience.”
“I don’t like patience.”
He snorted. “I’m very aware.”
With a roll of my eyes, I smacked his chest lightly, earning a grin from his handsome face. I leaned into Cos, then nudged his arm so he’d wrap it around me so I could use him as a backrest.
“You sure the weight of my arm won’t hurt you?” he whispered.
“I’ll let you know if it does.”
He kissed my hair, and I settled back with a sigh.
It took nearly a year for Cos and Jude to convince Renata and the rest of the leaders of the Cloaked Freeway to have a HID meeting with the SWC Magi Division. Once they met, it took months and months for them to trust each other.
At first, Cos and Jude had only wanted the SWC to provide a little assistance to refugees who fled from the US. But now that we were getting so many people out at once, the Cloaked Freeway needed a lot more help, and to my utter surprise, the SWC had been stepping up in a big way. They helped with supplies, money, shelter, and medical care. It was amazing to see.
My people were leaving the country in waves. So far, the US government was either ignoring the problem and acting like it didn’t exist, or they were planning some kind of retaliation. My money was on the latter.
Although, Jude liked to point out that the magi who were leaving were the ones in jobs other than combat, for the most part. That was purposeful.
Most of us who had the opportunity to leave and worked for TRD were choosing to stay to help in the upcoming fight. No matter what happened, we knew we had a fight, maybe even a war, headed our way, and my people were prepared to fight for our freedom.
All I knew was that I wanted to get my people out of this horrible place. I wanted to get them away from the slavery, the taunts, the violence, and the abuse. I wanted to get them away from it all.
As if reading my thoughts, Cos leaned in, his lips next to my ear, and whispered, “We’re going to help all of them, Mads. Every last one.”
I closed my eyes and took a breath, so fucking relieved, so fucking lucky, so fucking happy, that my mate was just as passionate about helping as I was. “Yeah, we are.”
I didn’t know when, I didn’t know how, but we would get them out. All of them.
Lion's Tail by Jordan L Hawk
1
May 1924
Alistair folded his arms over his chest and narrowed his eyes as he stared up at the sky.
Rumrunners used every mode of transportation available to bring hooch down from Canada or up from Mexico…but an airplane? At night?
Airplanes were a bad idea to start with. Avian familiars could already fly; why did ordinary people need to be up there, too? Sure, it might make the mail faster in some cases, but if a letter was that damned urgent, you were better off hiring a falcon courier in the first place.
But here he was, freezing his tail off on an unseasonably cold night in May, in the middle of some farmer’s field north of Chicago, tending a line of fires to signal the airplane where to land in the otherwise dark countryside. Doris waited in the truck—engine running, of course, in case the prohees showed up.
Damn Camille. She’d been their old supplier, but then blown things by acting suspicious, like she was thinking about passing them some bad hooch. Plenty of speakeasies got by serving yack yack bourbon, but that wasn’t The Pride’s style. Alistair had killed enough men with his bare claws in France. Killing more of them with poisonous booze wouldn’t have sat right with him, even if Wanda would have tolerated it.
The silence was broken by the low growl of an engine overhead. Doris switched on the headlights, and he retreated to wait near the truck with Philip.
A few minutes later, the airplane set down, bumping merrily over the uneven ground until coasting to a stop. A middle-aged man flung open the door, grinning from ear to ear.
“Evening, folks!” he yelled as they jogged over. “Sure hope you ain’t the, what do you call ’em, prohees.”
“Not a chance.” Philip took the lead, walking to the man and extending his hand. “Philip Gatti. This is my brother Alistair and my sister Doris.”
The rumrunner did a double-take, since Doris with her bronze skin and Alistair with his olive complexion were clearly not related by blood to either the pale Philip or each other. But he didn’t comment. “Frankie Malone, at your service.”
“You own the distillery that produced this alcohol, correct?” Alistair asked, impatient for the preliminaries to be done with.
Malone grinned proudly. “Sure do. I gotta say, you Americans banning liquor has been a hell of a boon for us over the border. But I guess I don’t need to tell you that, seeing as you’re in the business yourself.”
He wasn’t wrong; the price of a barrel of beer had gone from seven dollars to fifty-five thanks to the Volstead Act. Men like Mickey Sullivan, whose gang controlled a big chunk of Chicago, were making a fortune.
Sullivan would rather they’d bought from him, given The Pride operated within his territory. But his supply consisted of booze made from wood alcohol, often enhanced with gasoline, and Alistair wasn’t about to touch the stuff. Given everyone in the Gatti family could turn into a big cat, Sullivan’s men left them alone.
For now, anyway.
Philip gave Malone his usual charming smile. “I don’t suppose you’d mind us using a hex to check your supply? No offense, but I’m sure you’ve heard the stories, and poisoning our customers is bad for business.”
Malone chuckled. “Not much repeat business to get from a corpse, eh? Go right ahead. I take pride in my product.”
That was a good sign. In Alistair’s mind, anyone balking at the use of a hex to detect impurities was either up to some shady business or thinking hard about it. As Malone and Doris began to unload the crates of bourbon, Philip produced a hex from his wallet. Choosing a random bottle, he held the hex over it and said, “Reveal to me the impure.”
If the booze was diluted with fusel oil or embalming fluid or some other impurity, it would glow yellow. The color of the liquid inside the bottles remained the same, however, which meant Malone was probably as good as his word.
“Told ya,” Malone said with another grin. “This here is pure old Canadian bourbon, good as it comes. Got a flask on my hip if you want to share a drink…?”
“No thank you,” Alistair said, before Philip could agree. “The longer we hang around here, the bigger the chance we’ll be spotted.”
“Good point.” Malone started back for his plane. “I’ll see you next week, then.”
“We could have at least had one drink,” Philip complained, as the airplane turned around and trundled off down the field, taking flight dangerously close to the tree line.
Alistair climbed into the truck. “We’re not here to make friends, Philip.”
Doris snorted from the driver’s seat. “You don’t make friends anywhere.”
“That’s not true,” Alistair said, even though it absolutely was. “Come on, let’s get this back to Chicago and under wraps. The sooner we’re off the road, the better.”
Sam fumed quietly ashe cleared the tables at The Pride speakeasy.
He’d come to work early, because he and Alistair were supposed to go apartment hunting in the afternoon. But when he’d arrived, it was to find Alistair in the process of leaving to meet with a new rumrunner, without a single indication he even remembered their appointment.
Maybe Sam should have said something. But he’d bitten his words back, put on a smile, and mumbled something about getting an early start on his shift. Leaving his hurt feelings to fester, just like always.
Though Alistair still technically had a room at The Pride, they’d been staying in the house that had belonged to Sam’s dead cousin, Eldon. It was convenient, spacious…and didn’t legally belong to either of them. At some point, his aunt and uncle were going to show up and throw him out. Better to clear out beforehand, so he didn’t have to face their recriminations.
Except Alistair didn’t seem to want that.
Sam pressed his lips into a thin line and reminded himself that he loved Alistair. Alistair loved him. They were taking things slow; Alistair’d had a bad experience with his first witch and they’d agreed to put off bonding until he was ready.
But they were meant to have an apartment together by now, something legitimate. Instead, they were squatting amidst a dead man’s things, just waiting for the day they’d be ordered to leave.
It was the uncertainty he hated. Sam wanted stability, and why shouldn’t he? An apartment with a lease in his name, a better job to pay for it—that wasn’t too much to ask for, was it?
Given Alistair’s absence, apparently it was.
He cleared the used silverware and plates from a table just as Zola, the hostess, swooped in with four new patrons. Weaving his way back across the room, he passed the waitress, Teresa, whose yellow-green eyes were the same as in her cougar form. She shot him a cheery wink, a tray laden with oysters on toast balanced on one hand. Her other arm was still in a sling from the bullet she’d recently taken while caught in the crossfire of a gangland war.
Norman Rose, a regular at the speakeasy, lifted his glass in salute when he spotted Sam. Wanda Gatti, The Pride’s owner, let customers in through the steel door, shaking their hands as they entered. Her girlfriend, the robin familiar Holly Savine, drank champagne at the bar, served by Wanda’s witch Joel Hunt. Though Joel had an above-board business as a tailor, he occasionally covered the bar when Philip was out.
They all smiled when they met his eye, and Sam felt his bad mood dissolving. This strange collection of familiars and witches, criminals and artists, were his friends. When Eldon’s death had left him alone in Chicago, they’d stepped in to fill the gap, drawing him into the warmth of their odd little family. For the first time in his life, he had people he could turn to who wouldn’t let him down.
Breaking free of the crowd, Sam escaped through the swinging doors into the kitchen. Though a couple of electric fans valiantly strove to circulate air, the kitchen simmered in the heat from the stove and the humidity from the hot water in the sink.
Reinhold—the cook and Teresa’s witch—slid lobster canapés deftly onto a plate, while Sam emptied his tub into the sink. “Busy night, huh, Sam?” Reinhold asked. One side of his face was creased and distorted from a war wound; according to him, the surgeons had performed a miracle of restoration. “Have you taken your break yet?”
“Haven’t had a chance,” Sam said, brushing sweat off his brow.
“Why don’t you nip outside, get some air?”
The offer was tempting, but he instinctively balked at it. Back when he’d worked at the family pharmacy, Dad had frequently berated him for his laziness, reminding him no one but family would tolerate such slacking. “I’ll do a quick round of the dining room,” Sam hedged, hefting his tub again. “Collect anything that needs collecting.”
Reinhold rolled his eyes good-naturedly and turned back to the stove. A few seconds later, Sam was back out into the chaos. The Pride was bustling tonight, every table jammed with flappers and sheiks. Cocktails bloomed in every color magic could provide: royal purple, peacock blue, bloody red. Over the sound of jazz from the band, there could just be heard the pop of champagne corks, the raucous laughter of drunk women, and the boastful toasts of businessmen. Twisting figures packed the small dance floor, sending the scent of sweat to mingle with perfume, booze, and cigarette smoke.
All of the tables were occupied at the moment, so he threaded between them, snatching up empty glasses and clearing away bare plates as he went. A few of the regular customers greeted him, and he found himself smiling.
He was going to miss all of this when he got another job. If he got another job.
At the far end of the bar from the kitchen was the coat check and front door, where Wanda had taken over Doris’s duty tonight. Her yellow suit contrasted beautifully with her dark skin and matched her golden lion eyes.
As he rounded the last tables, she swung the heavy steel door open to let a new customer in. “Are you all right, Bobby?” she asked. “Maybe you need some coffee.”
The young man who entered seemed vaguely familiar, though Sam couldn’t immediately place him. Dark hair, medium build, with a pleasantly handsome face. His eyes, however, were glassy, and sweat sheened his pale skin.
“Help me,” he mumbled. “I don’t feel good.”
Wanda sniffed the air and frowned. “What’ve you been drinking?”
Bobby didn’t seem to hear her. Instead, he staggered inside, his gait unsteady, as though his knee joints didn’t work properly.
Sam hurried forward and caught him before he could careen into one of the other tables. Bobby clutched at him desperately, like a drowning man. “What was in that drink?” he slurred. “I think…I think he poisoned me. You got to help me!”
Sam cast a desperate glance at Wanda, who sighed and put a hand to Bobby’s shoulder. “Come on. You need to sleep it off.”
Bobby didn’t answer. He seemed to grow heavier on Sam’s shoulders as he went limp. Then, with a final gurgling sigh, he slid to the floor dead.
Dragon's Dawn by Sam Burns & WM Fawkes
Chapter 1
Genya
“It’s an opportunity,” Prince Georgiy told my father. I watched a sly tilt grow on his lips from the shadows outside my family’s private dining room. “The king requires a favor—a partner for his rough-edged cousin. Someone who can tumble him until he’s smooth and docile. Of course, he thought first of your family, as you have always been such loyal friends.”
“It would be an honor for either of my sons to marry into the Vasiliev line.” Father was standing at the head of the table, his hands on the back of the chair before him. My brother, Feofan, was slumped in the seat beside him, spread out, his elbow only inches from sticking in his plate of salted pork.
As I’d dressed, I heard the sound of men’s laughter and sneaked into the hall to listen with the top buttons of my kaftan still undone. Grusha, my mink, perched on my shoulder, curious and completely still. He was listening as intently as I was.
When I’d heard Prince Georgiy’s voice, I’d hoped for some interesting gossip to share with the ladies over tea, but I’d never thought their machinations would apply to me.
Feofan’s scoff assured me that it could apply to no one else. He, after all, was Father’s heir apparent. There was no way he’d be marrying a Vasiliev Prince.
I, however, was expendable, which was about the only quality that was required in these arrangements.
It was not uncommon, among the Vasilievs, to pair their problem relatives off to partners they could not hope to conceive a child with. It was to simplify matters of succession. Occasionally, it went well.
Most of the time, it did not.
There were even rumors that Georgiy himself had killed his husband. Prince Daniil had fallen from dragon back and broken his neck, dead as soon as he hit the ground, less than a year after their wedding.
I imagined the fall then, thrown from a dragon and lost with nothing to hold onto, no way to stop the ground from coming up to meet me. I’d never minded heights, but the thought sprouted roots that chilled my marrow.
Were this marriage to occur, I would be the tool our king used to deny Prince Mikhail the things he desired. If I displeased him, why would he do anything but toss me from the back of his own great red titan, Maraht?
Blood and land, stories said that beast had nearly burnt the whole palace down in his youth, ruling the corridors with Prince Mikhail well before my time.
“We were, of course, considering a match with young Evgeny. He seems . . . most agreeable,” the prince said smoothly.
I did not like that pause.
Father rubbed his beard. “Perhaps having a piece of fine china for a match will keep our quick-tempered prince from bashing his way through the kingdom.”
Feofan’s laugh was sharp. “Or give him something else to break.”
“Provide a distraction from causing more mayhem, at least,” Prince Georgiy said.
I couldn’t take this anymore. I hastily fastened the last two buttons of my long coat and stepped into the dining room. “Good morning, Father, my prince . . . Feofan.”
At the sight of me, they went silent. I was, after all, not privy to this crucial conversation about my fate. I should have known better than to think I might be included in discussions that affected me so intimately.
But as soon as I turned away, before I’d reached the door to the public hall, I heard my father agree to Georgiy’s offer. My doom was sealed.
I could have dug in my heels or thrown a tantrum, but in Voronezh, family was everything. If I rejected both the Belyaev name and the Vasilievs, I’d have nothing.
On the way to the ladies’ drawing room, my chest spasmed around each strangled inhale. It was time for tea and I needed—
Winter’s frigid cock, I needed more than blasted tea!
The moment I entered the opulent sitting room, I searched out my mother. She was sitting with the Balakins. Perfect. I could use Sonya’s support.
I dropped into an empty seat with a gusty sigh, and the ladies turned, frowning at the interruption of their genteel afternoon. There was no energy left in me to apologize for causing a scene.
Not before tea.
I poured myself a cup of chamomile.
“Lady Balakin, if you wouldn’t mind passing the vodka, I would be very much obliged.” My voice came out hoarse, as if I’d been screaming. I felt like screaming.
Perhaps I should scream. That seemed a justifiable recourse in this situation.
Instead, I tightened my smile and swallowed the urge.
The elder Lady Balakin frowned my way. Yes, the vodka was there, but it was early in the day, and I’d not even had my first cup. It was uncouth to add spirits to your very first cup. In the Voronezh court, the second was fair game.
To my left, Mother also wore a pinched expression, but her onyx brow was furrowed with worry rather than judgement.
“Lapochka, are you all right?”
At the familiar diminutive, Grusha peeked his head up from where he’d rested it on my shoulder. Long and lithe, he skittered down the sleeve of my blue coat, holding on with his little claws. His front paws hit my thigh, and he scrambled across my knee and onto the arm of my chair.
It took him a moment to stretch across the space between my chair and hers, but he managed it and used a tight grip on the upholstery to hoist himself over.
The moment he was in her lap, he curled one way in the folds of her skirt. She scratched his forehead, and he pressed into the comforting touch. Squirming happily, he got up, twisted around, and curled the other way before settling down.
I was too old to put my head in my mother’s lap and cry, but Grusha? He would never have to hold back.
It was soothing to watch her long, pale fingers move through his velvety umber fur. Some prickle of his pleasure and comfort passed between our bond and soothed the sharpest edges of my panic.
From the corner of my eye, I caught Sonya biting her pink lip. She snatched the decanter of vodka from in front of her mother and abandoned the couch they’d shared in favor of squeezing into the chair I was sitting in.
With her full hips, we barely fit, but for once, I had no impulse to push her onto the floor and reclaim my glorious solitude to peals of laughter and much cursing. I wanted to hold her tight instead, and I’d never, ever let her go.
If anyone could protect me from that madman, it’d be her.
Not that she could do much about his dragon.
Frosty tits, he was going to have his dragon eat me whole, wasn’t he?
Sonya leaned over the low table between our cluster of seats and poured a generous splash of liquor into my teacup. “Clearly, he’s not all right in the slightest. He’s as pale as Yuli.”
At the mention of my mother’s snow leopard, Grusha chirped and looked around for his friend. That was the way of creatures bonded to us—even if they’d have been natural enemies, they formed bonds as fierce as those we’d forged between each other.
“What’s happened, darling?” Sonya asked.
I snatched my teacup from its saucer and took a large gulp before I could find the strength to answer her.
“I’m getting married,” I rasped, lips wet and bitter with tea and vodka from my clumsy swallow.
Lady Balakin blinked.
“Oh dear.” Her daughter sighed, tipping another generous portion of vodka into my cup.
Gratefully, I took another sip before I met my mother’s eyes. I needed the familiar burn to steel my resolve.
Those gorgeous irises were the only thing I hadn’t inherited from her. We shared the same long, dark hair—the same skin pale as snow. But her eyes were burning onyx coals, and mine were the flat, pale gray of the bottom of a shallow pool on a cloudy day. They were my father’s eyes, and I would be the first to admit, they were not half so expressive as hers.
“To whom?” she asked, voice calm and measured, but oh so cold.
“I—” Fear gripped my chest again, strangling the air from my lungs. I couldn’t find the words.
With a squeak, Grusha rushed back over to me, squeezing between the small of my back and the seat’s cushions to hide.
“To”—Mother sat her teacup down on her saucer with a sharp clink, her eyes never leaving mine—“whom?”
I swallowed.
How had it become my responsibility to explain this whole mess to Mother? I was hardly its architect.
Sonya’s eager gaze was boring into the side of my face, but I was trapped in the sights of a predator. Yes, yes, I knew that Mother wasn’t angry with me. I wasn’t sure that she ever had been angry with me, come to think of it. But that didn’t make her any less formidable.
“Prince Mikhail,” I whispered.
“Fucking shit.” Sonya snatched the half-empty teacup from my hands and replaced it with the whole decanter of vodka. Thoughtfully, she’d kept the stopper in her hand, and I took a drink straight from the bottle.
“Sonya!” Lady Balakin hissed, looking around the room to see if any of the other ladies had heard the obscene exclamation.
“Sorry, Mother. But really. Prince Mikhail is so beastly.” She pouted at me, clicking her tongue. “How could anyone think he’s a suitable match for our sweet Genya?”
That . . . somehow did not sound so very different from Prince Georgiy calling me a fine bit of china for his nephew to break. I supposed Sonya’s connotations were a bit kinder.
I took another drink. Vodka burned in my belly. I was going to make myself sick.
Good. Prince Mikhail might find me unsuitable if I were to vomit on his boots.
My mother’s sharp gaze had gone distant, but it only lasted a moment. Every movement she made afterward—leaning forward, setting her saucer on the table, standing and smoothing her hands over her skirt—was carefully controlled.
“Please, excuse me.” She dipped politely without sparing any of us another glance. I knew the hardness that’d taken over her profile. She was going to talk to Father.
I swallowed again.
Sonya leaned against my arm and lowered her voice. “Don’t you worry.” She gripped my hand. “She’ll see you free of all this.”
Blood and land, I hoped so.
“And if she doesn’t,” Sonya whispered, “maybe that’s just as well?”
Oh fuck, I was actually going to be sick. I pressed my fist against my tightly closed lips and swallowed down the bile.
“How so?” I croaked, once I had a better handle on the vodka that was both keeping me from fainting and burning through my insides like dragon fire.
“Anastasia told me that our youngest prince fucks like a stallion.”
Heat flooded my face, and I was hardly the only one.
“By the blood, Sonya!” Lady Balakin looked like she was going to swoon. Her and me both.
People were beginning to look at us. Lady Balakin started fanning her face desperately.
Sonya’s lashes fluttered. She knew precisely what she was doing to her mother, but did she know what she was doing to me?
Nerves squirmed in my lower belly like a coil of snakes, and heat flooded every inch of me.
She did. The minx knew exactly what she was doing. There was no other explanation for what came next.
“You see, it’s not just that he has a nice cock, straight as a ramrod, but when it’s hard, it curves upward just so, so that, well—” She made a gesture with two curved fingers and her gently closed fist that had my heart threatening to blow apart in my chest. My head was on fire. It was. It had to be.
Sonya stared right at me as her fingers fucked her hand. The thing was, those fingers had—
I’d—
Well, I’d had those fingers inside me. There was little to do at court, and Sonya and I had tried everything our young minds could think of. She’d not wanted to go to a husband with no knowledge, and I’d been sick of relieving myself. Distractions were necessary when the winter nights stretched out forever and we were all stuck in the palace. Experimentation was natural for young people, damn it.
Everyone said so.
And truth was, there was nothing we had done that I’d liked half so much as her pushing those fingers inside me. I’d asked her to do it when I was only sixteen, stammering and uncertain. She’d been delighted to try—it was one of her best qualities, really, a readiness for anything—and when she had found that place that spread magic through my whole body, I had gasped, and she had laughed, and I’d come apart like the stripling I’d been.
At nineteen, was I any different?
Now, that startling pleasure was all I could think about. But a man handling me that way? A man with a man’s rough fingers and brash confidence?
I’d had boys before, but none of them stood quite so tall as Prince Mikhail.
I very nearly squeaked like Grusha.
“Not only that,” she said, glancing around at us with a smile. Some of the ladies were shifting closer to our little group, intrigued now that they’d realized we were discussing something lewd. “But it’s the way he thrusts his hips, leaving no quarter. Each movement so . . . so fierce.”
Sweet blood, did that actually sound appealing?
Fuck.
It did.
“Are you talking about Prince Mikhail?” Lady Semenov asked.
Fuck. She was married. She’d been married for years. How did she identify him so readily?
That was two women, at least, that Prince Mikhail had taken. What if he preferred women to men?
What if he left me alone each night to bed them?
The whole court would know. Every lady in this room would have opportunity to snicker behind my back. I’d be the laughingstock of all of Voronezh—not man enough to keep my husband’s interest. Just a bauble.
With a groan, I dropped my head into my hands. Bad enough that I was marrying a beast, but this one wouldn’t even be satisfied with me.
Sonya tapped her nails on the decanter hanging from my loose grip. “Take another sip. You’ll feel better.”
“Actually, I think I’ll feel . . . worse.” Hard to imagine how this could get any worse, really. “I—I should go. Check on Mother. Make sure she’s—”
Getting me out of this? Absolutely.
With a shrug and no answer, I left the ladies to their gossiping, but when I made my way to the residential wing of the palace, I heard raised voices and froze at the end of the hall.
It was not far from the ladies’ sitting room to our quarters. The palace arranged so that every living area, each place a person of position might want to spend time, was toward the center. Storage rooms and servants’ quarters took up the outside walls, but here was better insulated and more likely to stay warm in the long winters.
My feet scuffed the long carpet that covered the length of the hallway we lived in. I could hear my mother’s shouting from the corridor’s mouth. Grusha had scampered behind me from the drawing room, but when I walked toward the door, he hung back in fear of her.
“He is mine, Ivan! Mine.”
“He is a man grown, and he’ll act like it,” my father replied. He wasn’t shouting, but he had a way of speaking in a voice so loud that it filled whatever room he was in. Like Feo, he enjoyed taking up space in the world.
“He is a boy still, and he is mine. After Ekaterina—”
She came up short, and I could imagine the tick of her jaw when she shut her mouth.
“You said he was mine,” she hissed.
Ekaterina had died—their last child, the daughter she had always hoped for. Mother had been heartbroken, and Father, disappointed. Losing Ekaterina was only one of a long line of disappointments—lost pregnancies and those poor children bound to creatures they couldn’t handle, who had died as a result of Father’s hubris—tragedy after tragedy. Now there was just Feofan and me, and I could still remember sinking my tiny hand into Yuli’s soft fur while tears streamed down my mother’s cheeks and my parents negotiated our futures.
They would not try again. Father would raise Feofan to be a soldier, and Mother could do as she liked with me. I had feared then that I wasn’t enough to make up for all her sadness, but afterward, she’d come to me with the softest smile and swung me up into her arms, and things had gone back to being precisely as I liked them. Mother and I played all day and ate biscuits at teatime each afternoon.
Feofan learned the sword, and I—
Well, I supposed I learned to sit still and look pretty, but I also learned how the court really worked—the things that husbands missed and rulers overlooked.
“You cannot trade him away without discussing it with me first. And to that boor? It’s unconscionable. I won’t allow it.”
“It is already done, Ulyana. But by all means, drag him before the king and make your case. I’m certain His Majesty will understand why you’d throw the generous offer of a prince for our son’s match back in his face.”
King Dmitri would take that very poorly. Everyone knew that he had no love for Prince Mikhail, and even less for Prince Konstantin after the tragedy that had blinded Princess Darya and her dragon. But still, it would be seen as an insult, and nothing, nothing, was worth risking the king’s wrath.
The room beyond the door had gone silent, but I still waited for my heartbeat to slow before I cracked the door open. Only my mother was standing there in the center of the foyer, practically shaking with fury, her lovely face red. Redder on one side than the other, I noticed.
The moment I stepped inside, she turned to me, her expression crumpling into one of depthless sorrow.
“I will fix this, lapochka,” she swore, but her breath shook, and I knew that she was promising more than she could give.
There was nothing to do but soothe her fears, and my practiced smile had yet to fail me. “There’s no need. Prince Mikhail may not be what everyone says.”
She huffed, a faint line appearing between her brows when she frowned.
“And there’s always divorce,” I offered when she remained unconvinced.
It was the law of the land—marriages could fail, and assets were split fairly between partners. If this was a disaster, I would require nothing of Prince Mikhail but a clean escape, and maybe he would be happier for it. We could tell the king that we had tried and failed.
There was no need to feed me to his terrifying dragon simply to be rid of me.
Unless, of course, the prince wanted to offer the king an affront of his own.
When Mother sighed, some of the tension went out of her shoulders. I reached for her hand and squeezed it.
“I should at least meet him. I would . . . I would like to meet him, I think. Before causing any affront to His Majesty, at the very least.”
That was certainly the only reason. Sonya had not said one single word to pique my interest in our hotheaded prince.
Not one.
Lacey DaizeLacey lives in New Mexico with her four critters. She’s a Jill-of-all-trades by day, but loves writing in her spare time. She dabbles in a variety of pairings, but jumped feet-first into the deep end of omegaverse the first time she read it. She loves the play on social expectations and the different ways to express romance.
Sick of the slogging rat-race of her 9-5 job, Pandora Pine put pen to paper (literally!) to make her ambition of becoming a romance novelist a reality. She cut her teeth in the dog-eat-dog world of fan fiction, still dreaming of the day when she would be a published author.
In her spare time, Pandora fancies herself an amateur nature photographer. She enjoys mucking around in swamps, hiking through the woods and crawling around on her hands and knees in her backyard seeking out the perfect shot. Pandora is a fan of roadside seafood shacks and always thinks Mexican food is a good idea at the time.
Some of Pandora's favorite things are chocolate, writing longhand with purple pens, and handsome men falling in love with each other.
Michele is married to an awesome guy that puts up with her and all the burnt dinners she makes—hey, sometimes characters are a bit distracting, and who doesn’t plot when they’re supposed to be cooking? They live together in Baltimore, Maryland with two little monsters, a three-legged fiend, and a little old man (aka their two sons, their cat, and their senior dog). She hopes to rescue another cat soon, and if her hubby wouldn’t kill her, she’d get more than one… and maybe a few more dogs as well.
She loves creating worlds filled with lots of love, chosen family, and of course, magic, but she also likes making the characters fight for that happy ending. She hopes to one day write all the stories in her head—even if there are too many to count!
Jordan L HawkJordan L. Hawk is a trans author from North Carolina. Childhood tales of mountain ghosts and mysterious creatures gave him a life-long love of things that go bump in the night. When he isn’t writing, he brews his own beer and tries to keep the cats from destroying the house. His best-selling Whyborne & Griffin series (beginning with Widdershins) can be found in print, ebook, and audiobook.
If you want to contact Jordan, just click on the links below or send an email.
Sam lives in the Midwest with husband and cat, which is even less exciting than it sounds, so she's not sure why you're still reading this.
She specializes in LGBTQIA+ fiction, usually with a romantic element. There's sometimes intrigue and violence, usually a little sex, and almost always some swearing in her work. Her writing is light and happy, though, so if you're looking for a dark gritty reality, you've come to the wrong author.
W.M. Fawkes is an author of LGBTQ+ urban fantasy and paranormal romance. With coauthor Sam Burns, she writes feisty Greek gods, men, and monsters in the Lords of the Underworld series. She lives with her partner in a house owned by three halloween-hued felines that dabble regularly in shadow walking.
Lacey Daize
Pandora Pine
Michele Notaro
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EMAIL: michelenotaro.author@gmail.com
Jordan L Hawk
WM Fawkes
Tinsel Time Treasure by Lacey Daize
Dead Weight by Pandora Pine
A Ruse to Unchain Us by Michele Notaro
Dragon's Dawn by Sam Burns & WM Fawkes
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