Aug 12

New Release Blitz: We May Be Fractured by Jessica Lascar (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  We May Be Fractured

Author: Jessica Lascar

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Graphic Designer: Denise Bozzo

Release Date: 08/12/2025

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 93850

Genre: Contemporary, #ownvoices, asexual, bisexual, coming of age, contemporary, demisexual, enemies to lovers, found family, friends to lovers, gay, new adult, romance, slow burn, tattoos

Add to Goodreads

Description

A queer coming-of-age about a grieving teen whose plan to move abroad and find his own “Neverland” is derailed by community service, only for it to lead him on an unintentional journey of self-discovery — navigating love, coming to terms with his demisexuality, and redefining what home truly means.

Haunted by the car crash that took his family, eighteen-year-old Aaron is on the brink of fleeing London for Australia. Inspired by his late sister’s dream of working in a wildlife park, he searches for a fresh start — a place he can finally call home.

But on the eve of his departure, Aaron is caught with weed at a party, arrested, and sentenced to community service cleaning up the grounds and reviving the gardens of a neglected local retirement centre, anchoring him to the very city he longs to escape.

At the centre, Aaron meets an eclectic crew of misfits, including Landon, a fellow young offender with a reputation for trouble. As Aaron spends more time with the group — especially with Landon — he begins to feel a sense of belonging he never expected. Beneath Landon’s tough exterior, Aaron discovers a kindred spirit, someone who sees beyond his scars, both physical and emotional.

Through sleeplessness and late-night conversations, a connection sparks unlike anything Aaron has ever known. For the first time, he feels attracted to someone.

Just as Aaron begins to embrace his demisexuality, Landon’s difficult past resurfaces, threatening their fragile relationship. Torn between honouring his sister’s memory and staying with Landon, Aaron must decide where his true “Neverland” lies: in Australia or right where he is.

Excerpt

We May Be Fractured
Jessica Lascar © 2025
All Rights Reserved

Neverland

[Now playing » Somewhere I Belong—Linkin Park]

Aaron’s cheek scars tingled as he got lost one last time in the Barbican Centre’s maze. But the pendant pressing against his chest gnawed at him more—a haunting reminder of the night he’d survived and a promise waiting to be fulfilled.

He yanked his hood low, adjusted his earphones, and claimed his usual spot on a low wall. With one knee hugged to his chest and the other leg dangling, his faded black canvas trainers tapped out a rhythm in the air above the deserted courtyard. Surrounded by the stillness of the fountains and the ghostly playground, the song’s melody began to untangle his thoughts, knotted like the strings of his hoodie.

In less than twenty-four hours, he’d be in Australia, soaking up the magic of the Southern Lights and taking care of koalas and other wild critters. It felt unreal that the trip was happening after being on hold for what seemed like forever.

First, he’d completed school, then exams, and he’d even hung around for those A levels and uni interviews. Not that he was into it, as he couldn’t care less. It was all to keep Aunt Olivia off his back. She was convinced he was taking a gap year, after all. But the truth? He’d be leaving for good, with no plans to return.

As the last notes faded away, muffled silence swallowed Aaron. The eerie calm, a stark contrast to London’s typical hustle, amplified the very thoughts he’d been attempting to quiet.

He grasped his necklace, fingers tracing the jagged edges of the pendant’s glass. The uneven texture grounded him.

Taking a deep breath, Aaron pulled out his phone and opened the call log:

Tori

Tori

Tori

Each unanswered call echoed his growing desperation. Shivers ran down his spine. A name shouldn’t wield such power.

But it did.

With a shaky thumb, Aaron pressed the call button and held the phone close to his chest, waiting. Once again, Tori’s familiar voicemail message greeted him.

Hey there, it’s Tori. Can’t find my phone…as usual! But leave a message after the beat and maybe—just maybe—I’ll get back to you!

The chorus of “Something Just Like This” by The Chainsmokers and Coldplay hummed in the background. Not his favourite tune, but its catchy melody often played on a loop in his mind.

“Hey, Tori, it’s me, Aaron,” he said, his voice rough and choked as if he’d downed a shot of vodka. “I keep hoping you’ll answer one of these days. I wanted to tell you that tomorrow, I’m leaving and not coming back. I’m heading to the place we always dreamed of, far away from everything and everyone. You remember, right? Our Neverland.” He paused, his throat tightening as memories of that imagined future flooded back. “I wish you were coming with me, but—”

An incoming call cut off his message, and Cliff’s image, grinning as he clutched a bottle of tequila, flashed on the screen.

After a moment’s hesitation, Aaron answered the call with, “What now?”

“You sorted for tonight’s party?” Cliff’s voice buzzed with excitement, and Aaron pictured him bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Oh, right, the costume party. It had slipped Aaron’s mind as his great journey loomed over everything.

“I’ll pass,” he replied curtly.

“Don’t be such a mood killer! Afraid you’ll bump into your ex?” Cliff teased.

Aaron straightened, feet planted firmly on the ground. “For the last time, she wasn’t my girlfriend. We hooked up. Once.” It wasn’t even that great.

“Come on, mate. It’s your last night here.”

“I’m off to Australia tomorrow, and—”

“All the more reason. One last wild night. See you in a bit.”

Without waiting for a response, Cliff ended the call. He was always the life of the party, always pushing Aaron out of his comfort zone.

But as Aaron’s gaze lingered on the Barbican Centre’s vastness, a hard realisation struck him: this was, indeed, his last night in London.

Aaron sighed, something between giving in and gearing up hanging in the crisp air. He stared at the three huge concrete blocks cutting sharply against the sky, their jagged edges slicing through the fluffy clouds above.

He’d always been fascinated by those brutalist giants, with their bold, no-nonsense lines. They took him straight to the world of sci-fi movies as he got lost in the grid patterns of the surrounding buildings, scanning the balconies arranged in a gravity-defying architectural ballet.

The place never got old, no matter how many times Aaron came here.

He’d often scratched his head over the maze-like layout. He could see where he wanted to go, but getting there always involved a mad dash of ups, downs, and loads of twists and turns. He figured some genius had dreamed up the structure, an endless loop that always spat him back where he started. The sky-high walkways didn’t make things any easier, linking identical buildings, distinguished only by the occasional plant hanging on the railing.

How odd to see bits of green in such a grey landscape. It seemed out of place. Much like himself.

But for Aaron, the combination of green and grey had its own charm. It made him think of places from myths and bedtime stories reminiscent of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. A place as fantastical as Neverland.

A brief smile crossed his face, but it didn’t stick around for long.

It was time to say goodbye—to the city, to this life, and maybe even to Tori.

His phone buzzed again in his pocket, but this time, a message from Aunt Olivia flashed on the screen.

Aunt Olivia: Coming back for dinner?

Dragging his feet, Aaron made his way towards the exit. He couldn’t help but chuckle when he passed a bewildered group trying to navigate the maze of pathways.

Once he stepped outside, the familiar noise of the city hit him—the constant buzz of traffic, bursts of laughter spilling out from nearby pubs, and the occasional distant wail of an ambulance siren.

Heading to the Tube station, Aaron moved mechanically, phone in hand to swipe through the turnstile, a quick dash down the left side of the escalator, and an agile pivot towards the platform where the train would whisk him back to Aunt Olivia’s.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Born in Boston (USA) and raised in Naples (Italy), Jessica has always had a desire to explore beyond borders, leading her to live in Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, and now the UK. These experiences have given her a deep appreciation for different cultures and a sense of being a true citizen of the world.

Writing is her way of making sense of things—a space to explore the complexities of identity and belonging. During the pandemic, she rediscovered this passion, leading to the publication of her first YA novel in Italy, Love is a Mess, which won the Italian Wattys Award in 2021.

For the past 11 years, Jessica has called London home, and the city’s rich diversity inspires her to dive deeper into LGBTQ+ themes in her stories, with a special focus on the asexual spectrum, reflecting her own experience as demisexual.

When she’s not writing, Jessica brings her creativity to the fintech world as a digital product designer. She’s also on a mission to perfect the art of sourdough baking and stays busy as the chief tin-opener for her two cats.

Website | Facebook | Twitter |
 Instagram | Pinterest | TikTok

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Button 2

Jul 29

New Release Blitz: Dream Swimmers by Jo Carthage (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Dream Swimmers

Series: The War Between Cedar and Oak, Book Two

Author: Jo Carthage

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 07/29/2025

Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex

Pairing: Male/Male, Female/Female/Male (Female/Female interaction)

Length: 47400

Genre: Historical Fantasy, anti-colonialism, bisexual, conflict, dark lord, dark prince, East Africa, Fantasy, historical fiction/1800s, hurt/comfort, insurgents, lesbian/sapphic, lit/genre fiction, mages/magic users, pirates, porqué no los dos, romance, sexual assault, torture/whips, woman mage, Yemen

Add to Goodreads

Description

Every night, Noor saves a drowning prince.

In her dreams, she finds him drifting deeper, ever farther from the midnight stars of a half-remembered Gaza. She hauls him to the surface, forces him to breathe, to talk, to tell her where he is.

He doesn’t know.

Noor awakens on the Cormorant, a once-and-future pirate ship searching for Rami, the former prince of Yemen whom she aims to rescue from his British captors before it’s too late. While Rami fights to survive the secret British prison, Noor will have to use her magic, cunning, and skill to find him. But she won’t be alone. Her found family is with her. Lovers, inventors, pirates, rebels, and deserters, they all must come together as they hunt the Arabian Sea for the lost prince.

Dream magic connects Noor and Rami, but in the end, what saves him won’t be magic or science or even love, but the stars themselves.

Dream Swimmers is book two in the War Between Cedar and Oak Quartet and reading the books in order is advised.

Excerpt

Dream Swimmers
Jo Carthage © 2025
All Rights Reserved

The Arabian Sea

A month before winter monsoon season, Yemen

1227 A.H. / December 1812 A.D.

Noor fell asleep in her hammock onboard the Cormorant and opened her eyes beneath the cold waters off the coast of Gaza, two thousand imperial miles northwest. The full moon revealed the strange shapes the tides had wrought on the rocks deep in the water beneath her. She searched the sea floor for Rami, born the son of Yemen’s rightful ruler, lately a traitor and alam mage for the British invaders. Their shared dreams haunted her sleep as Rami rotted in a British prison, and Noor planned to free him and bring him to face his people’s justice.

She found his body near the lagoon floor and struck out, able to swim in her dreams. Noor couldn’t in the waking world, a still bleeding lacuna from her earlier life when she’d been enslaved by a cruel master in the spice markets of Tadjoura. He’d kept that knowledge and much more from her until she’d killed him with a scavenged dagger and fought her way to freedom. Rami had sunk deeper and deeper in each dream, but Noor didn’t let the burning in her lungs pull her back up. She wrapped her arm around his still-warm body and pulled him to the surface. Once there, Noor dragged him through the shallow waves and into the cave she’d once sheltered in with other families beneath the ancient city.

“Breathe, damn you.” Noor pumped his chest, willing him to live.

Rami gasped and shot up. He struggled away from her, dark eyes wild. The scar she’d given him on the HMS Victory stood out, stark on his dark skin.

“Have it your way,” Noor said and moved to the other side of the cave. In the waking world, she’d spent one week here a half-decade ago, camping out as her then-master Musa sold fake holy water to pilgrims.

But in dreams, all things were possible, so Noor concentrated on a patch of brilliantly white sand, and a moment later, a clutter of kindling lay stacked there as if it had always been. It took no haya magic, no life power, to conjure here in a dream. She would have never been able to turn nothing into something like this on the Cormorant. In dreams though…

“The fire will be ready whenever you are,” Noor called out. She folded her legs and gazed out at the moonlit Mediterranean Sea.

Rami approached. He stood so close the water ran out of his long hair and dripped down the back of her guntiino—the red-and-gold wrap dress she wore—trickling down her spine. Rami knelt beside her, careful not to touch, and frowned at the wood she’d conjured.

“Let me,” he said, and the wood burst into flame, nearly consuming it all in a single fireball.

She laughed at the extravagance, at his powers’ excess.

He stiffened and glared.

She couldn’t help that she found him absurd sometimes now, this terror of a man who had haunted her friends’ nightmares. If he was going to pout, she would just go swimming with the hammerhead sharks and pilot whales off the coast for a few hours before waking up and trying again tomorrow night.

It wasn’t as though he could sulk in the waking world.

And it wasn’t likely his British jailers allowed it.

He moved to the other side of the fire and grumbled, “What’s so funny?”

She bit her lip.

His voice was hoarse and raw. She hated this change in him, the damage done to his deep, soft voice. She’d only heard it a few times during their brief time together aboard the HMS Victory. The Victory had once been Lord Admiral Nelson’s flagship, and Noor had sunk it with her own extravagant display of magic, turning the ship into a burning heap of broken oak planks and sails of flame. It had been enough of a mess to block British warships from taking Aden. And they’d bought Yemen’s resistance precious months to prepare to defend themselves again.

Noor had wrecked the ship and freed Rami from a cruel master who’d taught him only pain and the style of magic that came from it, but she’d been unable to take him with her. So here they were, mysteriously connecting through her dreams as he grew thinner and more ragged under his jailer’s persistent hatred. The British had once seen the mage as their best weapon and now viewed him as a traitor to their empire. Rami’s body showed the wear of their unkind hands, as did his voice’s increasing hoarseness. She figured it was from the screaming, his dream mind not remembering how a voice should sound free from hurt.

Noor hated the guards at whatever prison he was in. It didn’t matter that he had wielded his master’s whip against them when they’d served together on the Victory. No one deserved to suffer like this, night after night after night.

He eased a little closer to the fire, drawn to the heat or the company or something else entirely.

“What’s so funny?” He repeated.

She had to answer that terrible grate of a voice coming out of his irritated, strange-soft face. “You are.”

He huffed and folded his legs, then held two large, sword-calloused hands out to the smaller, swiftly burning fire. She glanced at his arms, but the intricate cuts that had covered them like a trader’s route tattoos when she’d seen him in a dream the night before weren’t there now. Whether he’d healed himself or his mind wasn’t including them, she didn’t know. Noor was grateful for the expanse of clean, dark skin, flecked only with moles.

“I think you need to let me go,” Rami said, and every bit of the fire’s warmth left Noor’s body.

She’d thought they wouldn’t talk about this, not give voice to it.

“Hmm?” she said, hoping he would drop it.

He leaned around the fire, voice darker and steadier. “Your magic—it’s warping. You can’t have missed it. You can’t be both a haya and an alam mage, not in this world, not in this time. I think—” He choked this time, weakening for the barest of breaths, and it squeezed her heart as if he’d slipped his fingers beneath her skin. “I think you need to let me go. I’ll never be free. I’m getting weaker. There’s no way you can get to me in time. After Taiz, after Sidon, after everything I’ve done, there is no one left in the resistance who would want you to.”

Noor stood. “Just you try me,” she said and strode to the edge of the lagoon. She dove in and let the dark sea close her ears.

But speaking wasn’t the only way they could connect in dreams. His words followed her in her mind as, in the darkening deep, she took solace from a world gone mad.

That’s what I was afraid you’d say.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Jo Carthage is a bi, cis woman living in Silicon Valley. In her career, Jo has worked with survivors of labor and sex trafficking in DC, helped get incredible women and queer folks elected to state and national office in three states, and thinks politics and science fiction go together beautifully. Jo’s grandfather worked as a nuclear physicist at Oak Ridge in the 1950s, but it wasn’t until a 2019 family road trip veered off course and she spent an afternoon at EBR-1 that she started to write Atomic Age fiction.

Jo was honored to have Nuclear Sunrise favorably reviewed by the Director of the Mescalero Apache Cultural Center and intends to donate a portion of proceeds to their important work. As a writer, Jo loves slow burn, hurt/comfort, queer history, enemies-to-lovers, and happy endings.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Tumblr

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Button 2

Jul 22

New Release Blitz: The Coach’s Daughter by Alex Winters (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  The Coach’s Daughter

Series: Good Sports, Book Four

Author: Alex Winters

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 07/22/2025

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 24600

Genre: Contemporary, Romance, sports, new adult, lesbian, university, running team, freshman, father/daughter relationship

Add to Goodreads

Description

Hastings’ life is finally on track: a freshman on the Haversham University cross country team, independent, and on her own for the first time in nineteen years, she’s fit, frisky and finally free of the constraints of living back home in smalltown South Carolina. Free to be herself, to dip her toe into the waters of girl-on-girl romance for the first time in her life. And when she sets her eyes on the sultry redhead she sees conferring with their track coach one day, she’s sure she’s found the object of her affections. The girl who might finally take her V-card and teach her the ways of feminine affection, once and for all. The only problem: she’s the coach’s daughter!

Peyton Billings is at her third college in as many years, thanks to her father’s wandering eye, philandering zipper, and fiery tongue. Never one to play by the rules, Dawson Billings has been kicked off every track team he’s coached so far, finally landing him at the small, Division Three school of Haversham University. And, in the process, dragging his daughter Peyton along for the ride. She’s not happy about the move until she spots a fiery, sexy, long-limbed runner one day after practice, never sensing that Summer Hastings will be her undoing, in all the best possible ways.

Excerpt

The Coach’s Daughter
Alex Winters © 2025
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One
SUMMER

“Hubba, hubba.”

Summer Hastings glanced over at her new teammate, Kendra Miller, and rolled her eyes. “Girl,” she said with a droll expression, dabbing her face with one of the cooling towels on the break station by the side of the track. “You can’t ‘hubba, hubba’ every new guy you see.”

Kendra, ebony skin aglow under the late afternoon sun, reached for a bottle of water. “Why not?” she asked, screwing off the cap before chugging half the bottle in one long, sensual swallow.

“I dunno.” Summer didn’t really have a reason for her admonition; she was just tired of hearing Kendra fawn over every male she came into eye contact with. “It starts to lose its meaning after a while, I suppose.”

Kendra paused, nodding at the latest “hubba, hubba” recipient in question, none other than their cross-country coach, Dawson Billings. “Not to me it doesn’t,” she snorted, tossing her empty water bottle in the recycling bin beside the break table.

Summer followed her friend’s gaze to their coach, a fit, lean, rigid slice of man with salt-and-pepper curls, a barrel chest, and three-day stubble who looked to be in his early to mid-forties. She shrugged and trailed after Kendra, who’d jogged off for another cool down lap as their practice wound down for the day.

“Maybe you should have a ratings system,” Summer huffed playfully, nudging Kendra as they ran together. “You know, Hubba-Hubba Level One and Level Two or something.”

Kendra frowned, sinewy arms pumping as they loped around the smooth, red clay colored track, side by side and stride by stride. “Is two higher or lower than one on this rating system of yours?”

Summer chuckled, rushing along behind a series of other runners on the cross-country team, most of them upperclassmen returning from the previous year. As two of the only six incoming freshman, Summer and Kendra had quickly bonded during Welcome Week, a ten-day kind of “soft opening” to the fall semester at small but exclusive Haversham University in quaint and picturesque Briar Ridge, Tennessee.

“I feel like one would be the hottest rating, like Defcon Hubba-Hubba, and ten would be the lowest, like…Ho Hum Hubba-Hubba.”

Kendra nodded like she was actually considering the notion, soft black stubble atop her head glistening in the shimmering prelude to twilight that smothered the little valley they were in with a most flattering auburn glow. “But isn’t a hot guy considered a ten, so…”

Summer grew distracted, motion out of the corner of her eye signaling a “hubba, hubba” of her own as a smooth, sexy siren inched closer to their coach on soft, silken legs so smooth they glowed in the late afternoon sunlight. “Or a woman…” she said so softly she doubted Kendra heard over the slapping of their high-tech running shoes on the even higher tech track surface.

She struggled to ignore the newcomer as they rounded the track for another pass past their coach and the sultry, auburn-haired beauty by his side. But she wasn’t the only one to notice. “Who’s this now?” Kendra huffed as they approached, watching their coach and the sexy newcomer chuckle over something on a clipboard she was showing him.

Summer snorted at her overdramatic friend. “Guess you’re not the only one who thinks Coach is Hubba-Hubba Defcon One, Kendra.”

“Witch,” Kendra puffed as they cruised by, careful to avert their eyes less their ire—or, in Summer’s case, desire—be noticed by the feather-ruffling newcomer and her snicker-inducing clipboard.

Summer smiled secretly to herself, glancing up just as they passed to notice the sexy ginger look up as well. Their eyes locked for a moment, maybe less, and Summer felt the thrill of allure as their gaze lingered that one second longer than perhaps it should have, given the circumstances.

It was Summer who broke it first, looking down at her shoes and nearly stumbling as she struggled to keep up with Kendra, who had pulled a few paces ahead. “We’re supposed to be cooling down, remember?” She forced herself not to glance back at the sidelines.

“Sorry,” Kendra chuckled, slowing her roll and letting Summer catch up. “Little Miss Pigtails got me all heated over here!”

Summer nodded for very different reasons. “Same, girl,” she muttered, the soft, vaguely yearning sound of her voice drowned out by the gentle slapping of rubber soles on track coating beneath them. “Same.”

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Alex Winters is an Amazon bestselling romance author with a passion for holiday music, junk food, cheesy 80s horror movies and Epcot. His stories in the Good Sports series for NineStar Press tend to be sizzling and sweet, with a whole lot of laughs—and spice—along the way! Visit him at www.amazon.com/author/awintersromance to see what he’s cooking up next!

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest | Bookbub | Bluesky

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Button 2

Jul 18

New Release Blitz: Black Leather Night by Will Okati (Excerpt & Giveaway)

 

Title: Black Leather Night

Author: Will Okati

Cover Art: Bryan Keller

Genres: Action Adventure, Box Sets, Dark Fantasy, Mystery & Suspense, Paranormal, Romance, Sci-Fi

Themes: 2nd Chance Romance, Alternative Universe, Dark Romance, LGBTQ+ Gay, New Adult, Second Edition, Vampires, Voyeurism and Exhibitionism

Series: Dante’s World (#6)

Book Length: Box Set

Page Count: 299

Add to Goodreads

Synopsis

Dante’s World. A dystopian off planet colony where life is hard and the supernatural exists side by side with everyday drama — or not so everyday. Joy and pleasure must be paid for at a high price, and to feed from a human means death — or worse.

But sometimes the line is crossed, and vampires fall in love with mortal men — or men lose their hearts to the nightwalkers. Anything can happen, and often does…

Publisher’s Note: Black Leather Night and Other Tales includes the previously published novellas Black Leather Night, Into the Shadows, The Hunter, Tale of the Night, Memory, Don’t Look Now, Sixty-Nine Reasons, and Missing Pieces.

Excerpt

Black Leather Night and Other Tales
Second Edition
Will Okati
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2025 Will Okati

Gods damn it.

It was, so far as the vampire Robhain could tell, very early in the evening, barely past dusk, yet his human employees, Del and Byrne, had already arrived for business. Del, yawning widely enough to show off all his white teeth, clutched a cup of the expensive cafe imported from Terra, likely bought from a street vendor. Still laughing a little at some joke the boy must have made, Byrne shrugged off his street jacket to hang it on the post by his desk.

Watching the pair, Robhain knew he should only be proud of them. They were, after all, expecting an important shipment of magical artifacts at any time that night, and they needed to be ready with both warding spells and records of what they’d netted. But watching them from his office, behind a tinted window — protection against occasional bursts of light as day approached — Robhain’s teeth began to grind.

Let the gods have mercy. Byrne! He wore his favorite pair of ass-hugging leather pants for the second night in a row. Hurrying to arrive early enough, he must have taken his motorcycle to the stores and left it parked up top, above the basement showroom.

Watching him, Robhain’s expression soured. Byrne. Fresh off the street and every inch a contradiction with his prim, rimless glasses and helmet-mussed hair, starched linen shirt and painted-on pants… didn’t he realize how tight they were? Molding as they did to his legs and the too-damn-perfect curve of his shapely ass? Leaving nothing to the imagination?

Especially when, as a vampire, Robhain could smell what he’d been doing, wearing them.

Who was she? he seethed. Some bit of blonde fluff from one of the flesh-parlors, all dazzling smile and tight ass or generous tits? Even across the room, he could smell that Byrne reeked of come.

Robhain’s mouth worked, and he swallowed. By rights, that come should belong to him. Should flow into his mouth alone. But what was he but a coward? Unable to approach his very human mage-employee, or to make but the meekest suggestions that were blithely misunderstood as innocent… Fool. As if a vampire could ever be innocent.

His molars were beginning to creak ominously and his small, pointed fangs cut into his lips. Reluctantly he loosened his jaw. Facts were facts. Humans did not mingle willingly with the vampire-kind. It stood as miracle enough that Byrne worked with him in the business. Likely it caused him no little loss of caste in human society.

Not for the first time, he wondered why Byrne chose to work for him. The man’s talent could have secured him a place in the Suzerain’s palace. Instead he chose to work as mage and record-keeper in a secondhand artifact store, where lesser magicians and warriors came to buy enchanted goods.

Robhain would never, on that level, cease to be grateful for Byrne’s assistance. Able to detect the slightest nuance of malicious spell-craft on a weapon or artifact, he was damned good at what he did. Robhain could not do without him — most such charms were made to harm those of his bloodthirsty ilk, and did not care whether he drank blood fetched from the slaughterhouses or from the hot human vein. With his magics, Byrne had saved his hide a hundred times over.

Watching him, Robhain laid a hand on the glass, as if he could touch the man as he flipped through papers on his overloaded cubby desk. Not that he had never felt the warmth of that skin before, of course — their hands had brushed, their hips had bumped — just enough contact to entice him, to send him to daylight slumber with his cock so hard and ready that barely a touch brought him to a scorching completion.

And then, other times, they had actually embraced in relief when a spell turned out a success. Hip to hip, pounding one another’s backs. Each time, holding that slender body to his, Robhain had burned for more. To take that slim face between his hands, tilt it just so to one side, and press their lips together…

Well. Byrne was the sort of temptation that could cause a centuries-old creature to shame himself by soiling his own trousers with a climax as soon as he reached the safety of his office.

Not for the first time, he tried to puzzle out why. Byrne was nothing special. An ordinary man — but ah, with such an extraordinary face, his eyes blue as the sky Robhain had not seen for so long, blue as the ocean, blue as lapis lazuli. His smile — rarely seen, for he was seriously-natured — warming as the long-forgotten sunlight on Robhain’s skin. To luxuriate in those eyes and smile were more than he dared dream on.

And ah, such an impossible dream. For a vampire to force himself on an unwilling human meant death from those who handed down laws saying what a vampire could or could not do. They must not drink from the vein. They must not antagonize the humans. And not to be forgotten, they must not molest the humans in any way. Their tolerance was zero and justice swiftly delivered. While he knew Byrne to be faithful and fond of his employer, he was also a proud and powerful man. No doubt he would never suffer unwanted advances without immediate retribution.

Yet he taunted Robhain constantly, unconsciously, with his very presence, and in particular on days when he wore those thrice be-damned leather pants.

Crossing the room, Byrne glanced at him behind his window and threw up his hand, smiling in greeting. Robhain nodded in return and discreetly, behind his back, snapped a stylus in half.

That man would be the second death of him.

Purchase at Changeling Press

Meet the Author

Will Okati (formerly known as Willa) has lived through a few Interesting Times, but come out the other side a little grayer, a little wiser, and ready to get writing. Still as passionate about coffee, cats, and crafts as ever, but knowing that to your own self you must be true. Also still one of the quiet ones to watch out for, but life — like storytelling — is always a work in progress.

Website | Facebook

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $10.00 Changeling Press Gift Code!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Button 2

Jul 11

New Release Blitz: Terror by J. Hali Steele (Excerpt & Giveaway)

 

Author: Mychael Black

Cover Art: Bryan Keller

Genres: Action Adventure, Dark Fantasy, Mystery & Suspense, New Releases, Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy

Themes: Dark Romance, LGBTQ+ /Sex/Gender Shifters & MPreg, LGBTQ+ Gay, Vampires

Series: Splintered Bloodlines (#1)

Book Length: Novella

Page Count: 77

Description

Humans and vamps were never meant to be mates, but an accidental meeting changes everything.

Cam Sharpe is just trying to make ends meet. Living in the city can easily break the bank, but that’s where the jobs are. It’s also where crime runs rampant. One night, he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, putting him in the crosshairs of the city’s ruling vampire coven.

Nikolai Hart loves his job — maybe a little too much. When hunting a rogue proves to be a pain in the ass, he’s the one House Saridan brings in to find the unfortunate soul. The latest job, however, has hit a snag: a mortal has witnessed everything.

Excerpt

Burn (Splintered Bloodlines 1)
Mychael Black
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2025 Mychael Black

Cameron

I hated living in the city. There were too many people, most of whom couldn’t drive worth a damn. I barely managed to dodge a car that threatened to sideswipe me. I thought the asshole driver shouted something, but I just tossed the man a one-fingered salute. Rain pelted the city, which made deliveries a bit more complicated, especially on a bicycle. Still, the bike afforded me the chance to make it into tight spots a car could not. Traffic was a bitch, but that was city life. I’d been here for three years now and had managed to escape the need for a car. The exercise was good, at any rate.

I reached the towering apartment building and secured my bike to a lamppost. The expressionless doorman stood at the front. Dressed in a black tux, complete with white gloves, he fit right in with the building’s occupants.

Once inside, I flashed my badge hanging on its lanyard to the guard behind the desk and continued toward the elevators. A few well-dressed residents gave me a bit of the good ol’ side-eye, but I ignored them. Hell, I’d probably delivered dinner to them half a million times.

The elevator doors opened, and I held it for the others. When they didn’t move to enter, I shrugged and stepped inside, letting the doors close before they could change their haughty minds. I watched the display tick through the floor numbers until it reached the seventh floor. As soon as I exited, I heard music.

Down the hall, an apartment door opened, and a half-naked man waved. I met him and handed over the food.

“Wanna join?”

I laughed and shook my head. “Thanks, man, but I can’t. Still a few more hours before I can officially ‘clock out’ for the night.”

“You clock out?”

“Not really. I set my own hours, but this pays the bills, so, yeah, set times and all.”

“Ah.”

Shouts from inside cut the chat short. “Well, thanks!” the guy said, holding up the bag.

“No problem.”

Alone in the hall, I went back to the elevators. Thank the gods the tips were included in the app when ordering.

Back down on the street, I sighed. I wished I could stop for the night. I was tired, utterly sick of the damn rain, and hadn’t eaten in several hours. The sun had already set enough to make the streetlights come on along the sidewalks. I rolled the bike a few feet away from the lingering crowd and headed off to my next pick-up.

People swarmed the streets, most of them club hoppers. I’d done that years ago but had outgrown it. Random hook-ups in dark corners no longer satisfied me, but in a city this big, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find anyone who would. Most of the people I’d met so far were superficial and vain, perfectly content to spend a night getting laid by one person before moving on to the next.

An order came in, and the GPS piped up to let me know there was a shortcut to the restaurant. Happy to avoid the crowd, I turned down the alley the GPS designated. I ignored the few slumped figures along both sides. I’d learned the hard way a couple of years ago after a mugging not to carry cash. Now I only carried my ID, keys, phone, and a trusty can of mace.

The end of the alley branched left and right. The GPS told me to go left. Just as I started that way, commotion to the right startled me.

A tall, black-clad figure landed feet-first onto the wet pavement and grabbed a man from the ground. The man choked and struggled as the stranger spoke, voice low enough that I couldn’t hear what was said. Whatever it was, though, seemed to terrify the man he held captive.

The stranger growled — literally growled — and tore the man’s throat wide open with his fucking teeth.

I nearly wrecked the bike trying to get away. I pedaled as fast as my legs could, and the burn was almost too much. I reached the Chinese restaurant and stuck as close to the building as possible. After a few seconds of struggling to catch my breath, I locked my bike to a lamppost before heading inside.

I had zero doubt that I’d just seen a vampire executing someone. Vamps weren’t unknown, but they tended to keep to themselves. They also weren’t anything like what stories and movies portrayed them to be. Real vampires weren’t undead; they were an entirely different species. Stronger, faster, and far more deadly than any human could ever dream of being.

Safe in the restaurant, I shot a quick glance back out the door. Whatever I’d just witnessed wasn’t my business. Not like cops would do shit anyway. Vamps governed themselves, and the police were scared shitless of them.

Pushing it out of my mind for now, I shuddered and headed to the counter. Ten minutes later, I was on my way to the drop-off point. Despite needing the money, I ended my shift after handing over the food. Just before I left the area, though, I caught sight of the stranger from the alley. Those eyes locked onto mine.

Hopping onto the bike, I made a beeline for my tiny efficiency apartment. It wasn’t much, but it had a wonderfully huge deadbolt on the door.

I leaned back against the door as soon as I locked it. Eyes closed, I tried to get rid of the images from the alley. It wasn’t the first crime I’d seen in this damned city, but it was definitely the first time a vampire had been involved. At least that I knew of, at any rate.

“Get a grip, Cam,” I muttered. “Not the first, won’t be the last.”

I pushed off the door and tossed my keys onto the narrow bar separating the kitchenette from the living area. I couldn’t even call it an actual room, really. The only true room was the bathroom, and even that was about the size of a small walk-in closet. Overall, the place wasn’t much, but it was home and, to be honest, all I could afford.

Before I could contemplate dinner or a shower, my grumbling stomach made up its own mind. A quick glance in the fridge, and then the freezer, reminded me that I needed to hit the store down the block sooner rather than later. I didn’t cook, despite knowing how to, since it was just me here. Most of my meals tended to be sandwiches or frozen dinners, or, if money allowed, something quick while I was working. Tonight, though, peanut butter and jelly would have to do.

A few minutes later, I settled onto the futon that doubled as my bed and watched the news on my only splurge: a smart TV. I nibbled on my meager dinner as one report after another went on. I popped the last bite into my mouth, only to nearly choke on it.

The same dark-clad figure I’d seen in the alley was positioned behind one of the head vamps in the city during a news conference that, according to the info at the bottom of the screen, occurred earlier today. The muscle-bound watchdog stood ready to spring to action at the slightest hint of trouble.

Pitch black hair hung over broad shoulders, and the man’s five-o’clock shadow covered a stern, tight jawline. Eyes that looked almost as black as his hair seemed to scan the entire room. Though he kept his hands behind him, I could imagine those strong arms tensing. And he was tall. Jesus, he was fucking tall. Even more than the vampire in front of him. A morbid desire to stare up into those insanely dark eyes swept through me.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Bad thoughts. Bad thoughts. Vamps are fucking trouble.”

I changed the channel and found a nature documentary instead. Maybe watching meerkats would cleanse my brain of insane ideas like wanting to unwrap all those muscles.

Gods, I was nuts.

Purchase at Changeling Press

Meet the Author

Mychael Black has been writing professionally since 2005. He writes gay romance and erotica, but also het romance as Carys Seraphine and queer fantasy as Katherine Cook.

He’s an avid PC gamer with a love for RPGs, a horror fanatic, and a fantasy nut. He also has a weakness for anything relating to skulls, dogs, and Spongebob Squarepants.

Mychael lives on the Eastern Shore of the US with his family. He loves to hear from readers, be it via email or Facebook.

Website | Facebook

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $10.00 Changeling Press Gift Code!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Button 2

Jul 01

New Release Blitz: The Rivers Will Run Red by Keira North (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title: The Rivers Will Run Red

Series: House of Drǎculeşti

Author: Keira North

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 07/01/2025

Heat Level: 1 – No Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 81100

Genre: Paranormal, urban fantasy, dark, supernatural, immortal, vampires, shifters, werewolves, merfolk, MLM romance, found family, nonbinary character, Transylvania, Romania, Romanian mythology, folklore, #ownvoices: Romanian author, #ownvoices: nonbinary author

Add to Goodreads

Description

In the wake of a devastating attack by a rogue coven of vampires, hunter-turned-werewolf Ileana returns to the ruins of her family home. Believing her sister, Tamara, survived the attack, Ileana seeks the help of Liviu, the werewolf who turned her, and Evdochia, a hauntingly powerful vampire descended from Vlad Țepeș himself.

The attack is the first strike in a looming war threatening the fragile truce between humans and mythical nightwalkers. With time slipping away and danger closing in from all sides, Ileana and her allies must race to find Ravenswatch, the ancient fortress where the vampire coven is preparing to strike again.

Excerpt

The Rivers Will Run Red
Keira North © 2025
All Rights Reserved

Girl Who Cried Wolf

“When the blood moon rises, beware of the pricolici.”
— From the wisdom of werewolf hunters in Crișana-Banat

“It’s here, I swear,” Luca said. “Just a little farther.”

With a small nod, Ileana said, “Uh-huh.”

Her companion couldn’t see that, of course. He was already charging ahead through the underbrush, so she had no choice but to follow, pulling her ratty cardigan tighter around her bony shoulders. She was all of thirteen and outgrowing her old clothes faster than she could get new hand-me-downs. Whatever survived her nightly escapades usually found its way to her younger sister, Tamara, much to the latter’s chagrin.

Luca didn’t need to worry about the cold. He wore a thick, fur-padded coat that molded perfectly to his slim body. A boy of fifteen, more nimble than strong and taller than Ileana by a head, his hair was wheat-colored and unruly, and he had piercing blue eyes and thick brows that made him look like he was always frowning. Ileana felt a strange flutter in her stomach whenever he looked her way. She wanted him to look at her but also not, and she found the whole thing equal parts vexing and confusing.

Luca was already blooded too. On a family hunting trip to the southern reaches of Oltenia, he’d found and killed a moroi, a risen dead who’d been walking around for so long it was more bone than corpse. Luca talked about it like he’d offed the great Impaler himself. Still, his one kill trumped Ileana’s none.

Despite the full moon crossing the night sky somewhere above, the jumble of branches overhead cast a dense shroud over the sodden, uneven ground. Where Luca moved with the sure step of a journeyman hunter, Ileana had to stop and feel her way around tree stumps and patches of half-melted snow, pushing her long bangs out of her face every other step. Her hair was a dark, muddy brown in the sunlight. Here, under the canopy, it was black, and thick, and annoying.

“C’mon!” Luca shouted from somewhere ahead.

She walked faster, or at least as fast as her skinny legs could carry her. Where Luca was growing like a weed, Ileana was more of the short persuasion. For now, she’d tell herself whenever she looked in the mirror, standing on tiptoe and tilting her chin up.

A soft patch of earth gave way under her foot. With a startled yell, she fell forward, arms flailing in search of something to stop her fall. She felt a sting across the back of her right hand when she scraped it against the rough bark of a tree, but at least she’d stopped herself before she tumbled forward and scraped her knees too. Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, swiftly followed by shame. She sniffled and bit her lower lip. Cradling her injured hand with her good one, she scurried ahead.

Soon, the trees dwindled away and the ground sloped gently downward toward a small pond, its ragged edges obscured by a dense thicket of cattails and pickerel weeds. With nothing to blot it out, the moon shone bright, its light tracing sparkling ripples across the water.

Pretty, Ileana thought.

And then, stealing a glance at her companion, He’s pretty too.

Luca was waiting for her by the water, toying with his hunting knife, his hair shimmering like threads of spun gold. He caught her eye and grinned wide, tossing the knife up in the air. He caught it by the tip, then tossed it again, catching it by the handle this time. The blade flashed in the moonlight. It looked like silver. Good for werewolves and basilisks, Ileana’s mind supplied, a rote response. She had her own knife stashed away in her boot, but the blade was steel, not silver. She rarely parted with it these days. Like a real hunter.

“Over there,” Luca said, turning away from her to wave his hand toward whatever they’d come here to find.

Ileana turned to follow the line of his finger to where he was pointing. She spotted a storm drain on the other side of the pond, an old, battered thing with bits of rebar poking through the crumbling concrete. She’d ventured inside a few times over the years. The way was barred by a sturdy metal grill some twenty paces in, but that hadn’t stopped her from pretending she was descending deep into another realm in search of glimmering treasure and forbidden magick. That was all make-believe, though, and she was done with it now that she was well on her way to being a grown-up. Hunters didn’t waste their time with make-believe. They found it, and they killed it.

“What’s there?” she asked.

“It’s a wolf,” the boy said, “and I’m gonna kill it.”

A gust of wind tickled them from the side, poking through Ileana’s cardigan and the flimsy shirt underneath. She stuck her hands deep into her pockets, hissing as the wound on the back of her hand scraped against the rough fabric.

“A wolf?” she said, her eyes flicking back to the drain. “Just the one?”

“Maybe it got lost, I dunno.”

“So how do you know it’s a wolf?” Ileana pressed. “It could be just a stray dog or—”

“Because I saw it, all right? Earlier, when I was…” The boy’s face twisted in a scowl that was more comical than angry.

“When you were, what?”

“Gramma sent me looking for frogs again.” He shuffled his foot.

Ileana snorted a laugh. “So, the mighty hunter went out to whack some toads with a stick. How’d you fare on that perilous adventure?”

“They taste good, okay? And, and anyway, that’s not—it doesn’t matter. I know there’s a wolf in there, and I’m gonna kill it and make something from its pelt.”

“You’re going to kill the wolf with a knife?” Ileana said, her left eyebrow quirking higher than the right one. “They’re stronger than humans, y’know. Faster too.”

“Don’t be stupid, Leana. This is what I’m gonna kill it with.” Speaking, Luca pulled aside his woolen coat enough to show her the revolver tucked into his waistband.

Ileana had seen that gun before, on an ornate plaque above the mantelpiece in Luca’s ancestral home on the other side of the hill. She’d asked one of her cousins to hold her up so she could look at it once, when she was smaller, and she remembered it clearly. The grip was silver with intricate bone inlays, a relic of a time when craftsmanship was still a thing. Luca’s family could trace their lineage all the way back to Aron Vulpe—Aron the Fox—the famed hunter who’d driven the vampires of the Țepeș clan from the hillsides of Crișana-Banat and into the far reaches of the Carpathian Mountains. Three hundred years later, their coffers still ran deep.

“Does your dad know you took that?” she asked, a hint of unease tinging her words. She’d seen the bruises on the boy’s face and wrists more than once.

He flashed her another grin. “I’ll have it back before he knows it’s gone. And you’re not gonna tell on me, yeah?”

“Maybe I won’t, if you ask me nice.” The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind, but Luca didn’t need to know that.

He pursed his lips. “If you’re gonna be like that, you can go home already.”

“But I already know,” Ileana said smugly.

“Then I’ll—I’ll make you something nice from its pelt, how about that?”

“I’ll kill my own,” she said, sweet as it was to think about getting a gift from him. “Or maybe I’ll kill a werewolf and take its pelt. And I won’t do it with some rusty old gun.”

He scoffed, looking her over. “Yeah, right. Maybe in a year or two.”

Ileana bristled at that. Every night, when her family went to sleep, she snuck out into the woods behind her home, Nightshade Lodge, and hacked and slashed until her arms grew so tired she couldn’t raise them anymore, practicing her knife throwing and fending off imaginary beasts. And she was getting good, she could tell.

That was where Luca had found her earlier tonight. “I wanna show you something,” he’d told her, and she’d let him talk her into coming along. Mostly because there was something about him that made her want to punch him in his stupidly handsome face and then kiss it all better. Not that she’d ever kissed anyone before, but she’d read about it in a book, and it didn’t sound all that bad.

The object of her secret thoughts snapped his fingers right under her nose, yanking her back into the present with a startled, “Huh?”

“I said, I’m going. You can stay here if you’re scared.”

“Pfft. I’m not scared. But,” she said after a moment, “are you sure—”

“Good. Let’s go.” He started ahead without waiting to hear the rest of the objection.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Keira North is a queer, nonbinary, Romanian author living in Montreal. They use storytelling as a medium to explore their heritage and identity and strive to be the change they want to see in the (literary) world. When they’re not writing, they like to make music, play video games, and read copious amounts of fanfiction and indie works.

Website | Instagram | Bluesky

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Button 2

Jun 27

New Release Blitz: Jack & Gil by Emily Carrington (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title: Jack & Gil

Author: Emily Carrington

Publisher: Changeling Press

Cover Art: Angela Knight

Genres: Action Adventure, Box Sets, Dark Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller & Suspense, New Releases, Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy

Themes: 2nd Chance Romance, Elves, Dragons & Magical Creatures, LGBTQ+ Gay, Multicultural & Interracial, Shapeshifters

Series: Jack & Gil (#4)

Multiverse: SearchLight Academy (#11)

Book Length: Box Set

Page Count: 470

Synopsis

Gilbert Sullivan, crown prince of the basilisks, hates his name, but he fears the rhyme may be prophecy.

Rhyme of Longing (Jack & Gil 1): When Prince Gilbert Sullivan meets Jack Sowerby, the new head of SearchLight, his attraction won’t let him stay away. Jack’s need for Prince Gilbert blossoms and he’s unable to resist — until he’s forcibly changed into a magical creature. Will their shattered relationship ever be restored?

Rhyme of Longing (Jack & Gil 2)

Jack is falling apart, but no one seems to notice. As Jack withdraws, the tide of war rises. Jack must find a way to regain his strength and determination or SearchLight will fall. And he’s convinced he must do it alone.

Rhyme of Love (Jack & Gil 3)

Gil struggles to hide his loss of status from Jack, but when he finally confesses, Jack blurts out his secret. Jack knows he screwed up. Well, almost. Running the risk of losing Gil, Jack must learn to lie convincingly, or he’ll lose SearchLight, his life, and Gil, as well.

Excerpt

Jack & Gil
Emily Carrington
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2025 Emily Carrington
Excerpt from Rhyme of Longing

Jack wanted so badly to be done with this night that he felt uncomfortable in his skin. That was not the proper way to begin thinking about his sixty-eighth birthday, his five-year anniversary as the head of SearchLight Academy. This was a party for both those things but no one said “no” to Agent Weinberg.

Not necessarily the most powerful magical being in the world, she was still the head of the entire organization. Even though she held the nominal title of “head of Public Relations,” SearchLight’s whole reason for existing was to protect the relationship between magical and nonmagical peoples. Which was, of course, officially, no relationship at all. SearchLight was a secret and must remain so.

The influence she held would make most magical creatures bow in submission. Jack, being merely human, was suitably impressed. And although as yet not cowed, he was too fond of his life to waste it needlessly. Not that Agent Weinberg had killed anyone. Recently.

Jack took a deep breath in through his nose as the limousine pulled up to the curb. He’d been commanded to take this limo and the implicit service of a driver, and although he hadn’t enjoyed it particularly, he was glad that he hadn’t needed to find a place to park in downtown Washington, DC. So, unsure if he was supposed to tip the driver but wanting to show his appreciation, he stepped around to the driver’s side after the car was parked at the curb and offered the person behind the wheel, whom, his telepathic sense, told him wasn’t human, ten dollars.

“Would you be trying to bribe me to take you home, Agent Sowerby?”

Jack saw the humor in the green eyes turned up to his and smiled. “Never in life,” he told the Irish-sounding sprite or Faery or leprechaun. Damn, sometimes he wished for a werewolf’s sense of smell so he’d know the magical creatures around him at once.

“You’re a good man, Agent Sowerby. Don’t let her bully you now.” And with that, he winked and rolled up his window. Jack stepped around the car to the sidewalk and watched the limo drive away.

“Hey there.” The voice was soft, lightly accented, and full of a syrupy, sarcastic undertone that put Jack’s hackles up. He turned more slowly than he could have, wanting to appear older and so less threatening. He gazed at the three people facing him and saw they were all armed.

He was aware of others watching from the doorway of the restaurant but knew they wouldn’t intercede unless it became obvious he couldn’t handle himself. That was one thing about Agent Weinberg he didn’t like much. She believed in the “sink or swim” philosophy.

The woman who’d spoken was smiling in a particularly condescending way. “Got a handout for me?” She twirled the knife in her right hand as she reached out with her left for the ten spot Jack still held.

Jack offered it, keeping a good distance from her, forcing her to step forward to take the bill. He was aware of the other two moving to flank him. He disliked using his telepathic sense against what he considered to be defenseless people, magical or mundane, and yet he wouldn’t risk his own life to preserve theirs. “I suggest you take this and be on your way,” he said softly, putting a slight psychic push into the words. He blanketed the area with his calming presence, lacking the ability to focus on more than two people at once. Both of the men who’d been flanking him stopped. One of them shook his head but the other was definitely under Jack’s control.

“Back off,” Jack said and watched the woman lower her knife a little.

She snatched at the bill and her knife hand flicked upward.

Jack dropped the ten spot and caught her wrist. The knife’s blade skidded across the waterproof material of his trench coat. He forced her to drop the knife as he said, “Go away.”

The man under his control turned and fled. But the other lunged at Jack. Yanking the woman close, Jack used her as a shield. The other man’s blade slid between her ribs. He swore, stumbling back, and lost his grip on his knife. As he turned to flee, Jack lowered the woman to the ground. He shouted, “Someone call nine-one-one.”

Someone joined him out on the sidewalk. It wasn’t Agent Weinberg. It wasn’t a SearchLight agent he knew. There was regal bearing in the other’s posture as he crouched beside Jack. “Let me heal her.”

Jack didn’t protest, although he did skate his telepathic sense outward to determine if this was a magical creature. The fact that he’d said “heal” rather than “help” argued for him not being human. He came into contact with an impenetrable psychic wall and winced as his telepathic sense bounced off. Well, there weren’t all that many humans who could resist even his most casual reach. Ergo, this was a magical creature.

Jack nodded and said, “Go ahead.” He retreated inside his own head and as he pulled out his cell phone, unwilling to trust to others to call for help, he watched the broad-shouldered male beside him spit into his hand and press the palm against the wound even as he pulled the knife free.

Dragon, Jack thought. Dragons could heal with their saliva or a blood exchange. But this wasn’t a dragon Jack knew.

Purchase at Changeling Press

Meet the Author

Emily Carrington is a multipublished author of male/male and transgender women’s speculative fiction. Seeking a world made of equality, she created SearchLight to live out her dreams. But even SearchLight has its problems, and Emily is looking forward to working all of these out with a host of characters from dragons and genies to psychic vampires. And in the contemporary world she’s named “Sticks & Stones,” Emily has vowed to create small towns where prejudice is challenged by a passionate quest for equality. Find her on Facebook at Shapeshifter Central or on her website.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Shapeshifter Central

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $10.00 Changeling Press Gift Code!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Button 2

Jun 24

New Release Blitz: Almost Human by Jo M. Airing (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  Almost Human

Author: Jo M. Airing

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 06/24/2025

Heat Level: 1 – No Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 71400

Genre: Paranormal, Romance, urban fantasy, gay, lesbian, werewolf, vampire, magic user

Add to Goodreads

Description

Miles and Sammie haven’t seen each other since high school, and while they’re able to reconnect and pick up right where they left off, their happy reunion is short-lived when Miles is bitten and turned by a werewolf. They find themselves working through budding feelings as the supernatural world sinks its claws further into their fragile lives.

With the help of an Alpha who takes Miles in to help him learn his new powers, they uncover a winding plot to start a war between their two worlds. They find a few friends and even more enemies along the way as they go from one near death experience to the next. They just hope they can survive long enough to figure out their fragile newfound love.

Excerpt

Almost Human
Jo M. Aring © 2025
All Rights Reserved

Miles!”

The shout was drowned out by the sound of splintering wood, rumbling growls, and the feeling of his arm bending the wrong way as he landed on the old wood floor. Awesome. Really. This was just…the absolute best.

He groaned, wincing as he tried to get up, only for his arm to flare with pain from fingers to shoulder as soon as he moved it. “Dammit…” He looked up as footsteps approached, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Crap. He was going to die. There’d been a lot of close calls, but this was it. Was he a little relieved? Maybe, if he was being honest with himself…

“Are you dead?” a familiar voice called, and he relaxed as a woman crouched through the hole he’d left in the cabin wall. She looked pretty battered from the fighting outside, black hair matted with blood by her temple, claw marks on her forearms and sides, one of her boots half bitten off, even. “Ooh, looks like you might be wishing you were—” She knelt beside him and blanched. “God, Miles. Your arm…”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, I didn’t notice something was wrong with it. What’s the verdict, doc? Mild sprai—ah!” He yelped as she reset his arm, with little more warning than grabbing his bicep and forearm and twisting. He let out a strained breath through his teeth and glared up at her. “Your bedside manner sucks.”

She grinned. “Glad to know your sense of humor is still intact.” She looked away, and through his ringing ears Miles could hear the fighting outside getting worse, another voice yelling for help. She looked back down at him. “Listen, it’s getting rough out here. As soon as you heal up, you need to grab Sammie and get out of here.”

Miles shook his head. “What, but…no, I can help.” He grimaced as he got to his feet, cradling his arm against his stomach. “Just gimme five minutes, I’ll be good to go. You seriously can’t expect me to leave you alone out there.”

She shook her head. “I don’t, but you have to.” She gently pushed him back to the floor and settled him with a look, one he’d been on the receiving end of many, many times. “Miles, this is my mess. I don’t want either of you getting killed because of this. Now please, for once, just listen to me.”

He wanted to argue, but… “I… Fine.” He looked up at her as she started back out through the hole. “But don’t you get yourself killed, either. You better come back alive, all right!”

She glanced back over her shoulder at him one last time before Miles couldn’t see her anymore through the wall. He slumped back and looked down at his arm.

Pins and needles filled his fingertips before red-hot pain seared along his arm. Before his eyes, the bruising and lacerations melted away, the numb feeling in his fingertips fading with them. He clenched his fist a couple of times, just to make sure everything worked properly, before he got to his feet.

She had to be okay…right? She’d been at this for longer than he had; she knew how to handle herself in a fight.

Miles’s jaw clenched as he peered out of the cabin window to see at least a good couple of hundred hulking monsters outside, tearing through trees and one another, completely mindless, just thirsty for violence…

They weren’t going to make it, not like this. It was going to end here.

Miles looked down before he huffed out a breath. “At least I’ll have died fighting, right?” He stepped out and jolted as his foot passed through the Earth and kept going, and going and—

“Wake up!”

Miles jumped, then yelped as he rolled out of bed and slammed into the ground with a loud thud, earning a yell from his neighbor downstairs.

Where…what was…?

Oh.

“Wake up!”

“Shut up.” Miles untangled himself from his sheets and patted over his nightstand until he found his phone. He tapped the screen until it went quiet and slumped back to the floor. He really needed to change that.

“—les?”

Miles blinked an eye open and glanced about. He didn’t even know what time it was, or the day. Did he have something planned today? He could look at his phone to check but…sleep.

“Miles, yo, you up?”

“No,” Miles mumbled into the floor. Then the voice finally clicked in his tired brain. Sammie? But Sammie was halfway across the country.

“Miles, I swear, if you are still asleep, I’m gonna just leave. Pretty sure I can hang out with your roommate if you—”

“Ah!” Miles yelled, jumping from the floor and immediately slipping on the sheet and catching himself with a loud bang against the wall. “Dude, one sec! What the hell are you doing here?” He threw open his door and rushed out to see, waiting in his living room and looking just a little bit jet-lagged… “Sammie.”

Sammie laughed, standing from the couch and holding his arms out. “How am I doing here, huh?”

Miles shook his head and ran across the apartment to hug his best friend. It’d been years, it felt like, since he’d seen him. “Shut up, you’re so annoying.” He sighed as Sammie snickered. Sammie squeezed Miles back before pushing him away and straightening his glasses as he looked around Miles’s apartment. “Seriously, what are you doing here? I thought you were in college?”

“Dropped out,” Sammie answered nonchalantly, then let out an interested sound as he started toward the kitchen. “You mind if I make some coffee? The shop at the airport was closed because of some cleanup thing they needed to do so I’m desperate for some caffeine.”

Miles started to answer when Sammie opened the cupboard to find an empty coffee container and the words died in his throat. “Oh. I guess not. Pete must’ve used the last this morning.”

Sammie snarled. “I knew he was a dick. I could sense it.” He threw the container on the counter. “Who the hell puts back an empty one like that? That’s just pure evil, dude. Seriously.”

“And who the hell raised you where you don’t put trash in the trash can?” Miles quipped, grabbing the container and wiping up the spilled leftover grounds into the bin. “In that case, if you can wait long enough for me to get dressed, you wanna head out? I know a place that has some pretty good drinks.”

Sammie smirked. “Are you asking me out?”

Miles rolled his eyes. “You wish. Gimme a sec.”

“Wear something blue. It’ll compliment your eyes.”

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Jo M Aring is based in Kansas City, working in mental health by day, plunking away on her many works-in-progress by night. She is a moderately loud but supremely proud lesbian, who dabbles in D&D, video games, and whatever sparks her serotonin.

Facebook | Twitter

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Button 2

Jun 16

New Release Blitz: To Defend a Damaged Duke by Fearne Hill (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  To Defend a Damaged Duke

Series: Regency Rossingley, Book Two

Author: Fearne Hill

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 06/17/2025

Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 76700

Genre: Historical Romance, historical romance, gay, UK, aristocracy, rich man/poor man, second chance romance, hurt-comfort, humorous, slow burn, reunited, opposites attract, scoundrels, brothel owner, horses, horse racing, scheming ingenues

Add to Goodreads

Description

Benedict Fitzsimmons, the reclusive fourteenth Duke of Ashington, nurses a secret desire for his own sex he’d much prefer nobody ever found out about. Indeed, having only ever given in to his urges as a youth—and with disastrous consequences—he never imagined they would. Preferring the company of his racehorses to people, Benedict spends most of his time working on estate matters, longing for a lost love he can never have.

When an anonymous letter threatening to expose Benedict lands in his lap, he’s shocked to the core. He doesn’t have any enemies; why would anyone want to destroy him? Terrified, and with his family’s impeccable reputation at stake, Benedict joins forces with loyal friend, the Earl of Rossingley, to track down the culprit.

Risen from poverty and with a sordid past he’d rather forget, Tommy Squire has a mind dedicated to growing his business ventures and a heart shaped from stone. When the man who once broke it in a life-changing betrayal requests Tommy’s help to avoid a scandal, he finds himself embroiled in a daring scheme to bring down a blackmailer. As their plot unfolds, Tommy realises it’s more than his former lover he’s endeavouring to protect, it’s his battered heart.

This second book in the Rossingley Regency romance series turns to friends of the fourteenth earl of Rossingley, Lando Duchamps-Avery, who once again has a hand in the shenanigans set in London’s wealthy Ton society. This book can be read as a standalone.

Excerpt

To Defend a Damaged Duke
Fearne Hill © 2025
All Rights Reserved

London, 1813

At the back of the fruit and veg market in Convent Garden, a showman scraped a living. Every Tuesday and Friday, for more years than Tommy Squire had been alive. Same patch, same old rickety stall, same old rickety routine. Same anticlimactic finale. Declaring himself the world’s greatest magician, he’d hold aloft a playing card, purse his wrinkled, whiskery lips, and pretend to blow the spots off it. Tommy had watched him fumble the cards up his sleeve hundreds of times; seen him drop them on occasion too. And yet, on his mother’s grave, even as he wriggled a grubby knave down from his elbow to his wrist, the old sot still swore it was magic.

Tommy was reminded of that showman whenever the lordling’s black eyes, like two jet pearls, fluttered closed. Usually, the memory came seconds after the lordling’s throat made a helpless little whine, speaking its own language, directly into Tommy heart. It heralded the shortest sliver of time before he spilled into Tommy’s mouth and then pressed his lips against Tommy’s, tasting himself on them. Whispering sweet nonsense.

Those were the times Tommy remembered that old showman and his frayed cards, and it was only years later he understood what he meant. The daft sod had spun the story to himself so many times, believing in the magic of it, he ended up fooling himself.

*

“Our young lordling’s here, Tommy. Waiting in the best room.” Ma Duggan’s expression soured, matching the sallow hue of her downturned sneer. “Taken off upstairs already to get hisself ready. He’s asked for you.”

Fancying himself as a bit of an actor—he had to be in this business if he wanted paying right—Tommy pretended not to notice young Dickie flouncing out of the parlour. Nor Sidney’s jealous sulk. After all, who could blame them? The handsome lordling had caught everyone’s eye.

“I’ll be there when I’ve finished me tea. Won’t hurt him to wait a minute or two.”

Tommy could control his face, keep it blank. And his voice flat. But the mad thumping in his chest? Not a chance. No more than he could prevent the spirited rush of joy to his head, nor the twitching of his prick. Not when his beloved raven-haired beauty impatiently paced six feet above his head.

He carried up a jug of ale, not pausing to check himself in the glass hung at the bottom of the stairs. He didn’t need to; Tommy’s pretty looks hadn’t waned since he examined them last. Dress him in a corset and stays, and Sidney declared he could work alongside the girls in the bawdy house on the corner. He scratched at the door, thrice, his pulse hammering.

“Tommy. At last. I was growing quite weak with want.”

Already, the lordling had removed his hat and coat, all the better for Tommy to admire his raven locks curling over his stiff collar. Unfastening his cravat with an urgent flourish, he was as eager as Tommy, more so, if the swelling in his breeches was any measure. They were of an age, the raven and Tommy—Tommy eighteen years young to the raven’s seventeen. Yet both so sure.

“My lord.” In the demure fashion he’d perfected, Tommy bobbed his head. The lordling blushed with delight. He relieved Tommy of the laden tray, and his plump mouth twisted into a smile. His hooded eyes, dark as night, latched onto Tommy’s.

“Afterwards with this, Tommy. My…my need for you can wait no longer.”

The best room wasn’t much to crow about. Nothing but a slender bed with a mean pillow, worn sheets, and a wooden chair upon which his handsome raven had tossed his coat. Around a water pitcher, his paying guest’s silk cravat lay unfurled like a banner. Tommy’s threadbare neckcloth joined it.

“Then you must have at me, my lord.” Behind his ribs, his soft heart trembled. “I am yours.”

In pulled up undershirts and pushed down breeches, they tussled on the bed. A pair of kittens let loose in the sunshine. Tommy kissed his raven on the mouth, the only madge he’d ever kissed, but then none of the other madges tasted so sweet. Or returned his kisses with such unmatched desire.

“Tommy,” the lordling groaned as Tommy’s hand found his heavy cock. Already, his smooth fingers gripped Tommy’s more modest member with a familiarity borne of a summer of snatched rendezvous in this simple, private chamber. “Want you,” he sighed, his promise slipping over Tommy like satin. “Forever.”

That first release, as always, came blessedly fast. A race, a relief, a ritual. And if Tommy let his mind go there, it was an unhappy reminder of his true purpose—to let the raven pay for Tommy’s clever hand, and handsomely too. The prettiest youth in the house must pleasure him as he saw fit. That the lordling only ever asked for the plainest of pleasures, and that he pleasured Tommy in return, that he whispered words of affection and held Tommy in his arms as they dozed awhile afterwards, were transactions they kept to themselves.

“Alas, I have but a few more minutes,” the lordling said, wiping Tommy tenderly. Dropping the cloth to the dusty floor, he scooped him up against his chest. “Mama and Grandmama are conducting the serious business of purchasing hat ribbons at Madame Bellevue’s. I am to join them. Apparently”—and at this, he blessed Tommy with a wicked grin—“I am in dire need of two new cravats.”

Tommy fumbled for the one so hastily discarded earlier and pretended to examine it, rubbing the fine fabric between finger and thumb.

“Goodness, yes. This is so last season,” he drawled in an approximation of the lordling’s own cultured vowels, making the other laugh. A most joyful sound, Tommy wanted to capture it and pin it like a moth.

The lordling caught the length of silk as Tommy tossed it aside. Then, easily, because he was so much bigger than Tommy, he rolled him onto his back. Taking Tommy’s slim wrist above his head, the lordling turned it over and pressed his lips to the thin skin, tracing the fragile tangle of blue veins with his tongue as if a path leading to his wildest dreams.

“You dare mock me, Master Tommy?” His scolding was ruined by an escaping giggle. “Then I shall punish you by tying you to the bed. With last season’s cravat, too; oh, the shame of it.”

Pouting, Tommy fluttered his eyelashes. With his fair curls and eyes the docile blue of a china doll, he was a picture of innocence. “That is no punishment at all, my lord.”

“Don’t be too hasty, Tommy.” The lordling wound a loop of cloth around Tommy’s wrist, playfully pulling it tight. “I haven’t yet outlined my plans for when I have you all tied up and at my mercy.”

Anything. You can do anything.

He kissed Tommy’s mouth. “I shall tease you, relentlessly,” he murmured, his tongue stealing Tommy’s breath. “Starting here.”

With his wrist now secured to the bedstead, Tommy tugged a little, sighing with pleasure as lips ghosted along his jaw. Groaning, the lordling buried his face into Tommy’s neck.

“Why do you always taste so divine, Tommy?”

Tommy rolled his hips, his prick hard for his lover once more. “Perhaps because I was made especially for you.”

The lordling leaned up onto an elbow. Solemnly, he studied Tommy. “I do believe you were.” A flush crept up his neck. They could stare at each other all day and never grow tired of the view.

“You were saying,” Tommy prompted, his need growing. “Something about doting on me until I spend again?”

His raven grinned, showing all his beautiful teeth. “Yes! And I shall make it my life’s work.”

Warm fingertips glided up Tommy’s thigh as the lordling came back to himself. “We shall grow old together, you and I. And I shall pass the years teasing you endlessly. Each morning, I shall touch you like this, everywhere but here.” The tip of his thumb tapped the head of Tommy’s swollen prick. “Until I have you begging for me.” Again, his black eyes lifted to gaze adoringly into Tommy’s. “As, hourly, you have me begging for you.”

Lain over Tommy like a thick blanket, the lordling’s body was supple and smooth. If God chose to take Tommy in that moment, he would thank Him kindly and consider it a life well lived. As they deepened the kiss, the lordling’s hips ground into Tommy’s. One day soon, Tommy decided, he’d suggest more; his empty hole craved it, a topic they had yet to broach. Sometimes, Tommy wondered if his lover even knew that was a thing men like them could do. He would explain it, then take the youth’s innocence as tenderly as if it were his own first time.

Soft lips melded as they lost themselves to love. The lordling rubbed himself against Tommy, his teases forgotten. His eyes shuttered closed, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth, the alabaster skin of his cheeks glistened with heat. He was close; they both were. Slipperiness built between their bodies, and with his one untethered hand, Tommy clasped the lordling’s tight buttock.

“I lov—” the raven began.

And never finished.

Cut off by a holler from below. Rattling Tommy’s soul like a musket blast.

“Raid,” Sidney screeched. “Everyone out! Raid!”

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

Fearne Hill lives deep in the southern British countryside with three untamed sons, varying numbers of hens, a few tortoises, and a beautiful cocker spaniel.

When she is not overseeing her small menagerie, she enjoys writing contemporary romantic fiction. And when she is not doing either of those things, she works as an anaesthesiologist.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Button 2

Jun 10

New Release Blitz: The Spy by Mell Eight (Excerpt & Giveaway)

Title:  The Spy

Series: Princes of Toval, Book Three

Author: Mell Eight

Publisher:  NineStar Press

Release Date: 06/10/2025

Heat Level: 1 – No Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 57800

Genre: Historical fantasy, adventure, baking, magic, missing person, MM Romance, politics, royalty, spies

Add to Goodreads

Description

After spending two years away at culinary school, learning the arts of baking and magic, all Karl wants to do after graduation is return home to the kitchen where he grew up. However, when Karl’s adoptive uncle asks him to do a little favor for him along his journey, of course Karl says yes. He needs to find a missing person, one who may have been captured somewhere in Yaroi, a neighboring country to Karl’s home in Toval.

Finding the missing person is hard enough. Add in each of their secretive pasts, and the implications and dangers inherent with being a Prince of Toval, and a simple rescue turns into a deadly adventure. Especially once Karl learns just why Ama was arrested in the first place. Karl’s chances of returning home to use his newly honed baking skills dwindle as escaping the situation with their heads still attached is proving to be almost impossible.

Excerpt

The Spy
Mell Eight © 2025
All Rights Reserved

Prologue
Ama knew how he had gotten into this situation. The Yarokai had excellent noses, so sniffing him out, tracking him down, and capturing him had been far easier than in most of the places Ama went to sneak around. Even his magic hadn’t been enough to prevent his capture, warning him too late that he should have taken his chances heading for the border rather than holing up and trying to hide.

What Ama didn’t know was how he was going to get out of this with his head still attached to the rest of his body. The Yarokai were, in general, a suspicious bunch, insular, and parochial. Any strangers in the cities within the country of Yaroi received extra scrutiny. Tracking them all had to be difficult, since the majority of Yaroi’s cities were coastal trade cities along the Eiroi Strait with merchants, sailors, and travelers from other countries coming and going constantly. They were the main entry port to the rest of the continent for land-based travel too, so Yaroi always had caravans of foreigners crossing through.

Ama had planned to blend in. He arrived at Yaroi’s capital city of Yari with a merchant caravan, acting as a guard to deter thieves, and then spent plenty of time each day visibly working to negotiate a contract to leave Yaroi with a different caravan. Only in the quiet hours around noon, when any good Yarokian was meditating and business was never conducted, or in the dark of night, had Ama tried sneaking around.

He had never failed so miserably.

Sensory deprivation was the worst sort of punishment for a Yarokai, so Ama’s cell didn’t have any windows to allow light or air in. The door was thick wood with only a small flap at the bottom to push meals through. While depriving sight, sound, and smell might be particularly terrible for the Yarokai, it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for Ama either, especially since he was basically convicted before they could put him on stage for a sham trial.

At least Ama would go to his execution knowing his last mission had been successful. Queen Trina would be relieved to know that much. Aunt Millie would be sad to know he was gone, although given her abilities, she probably already knew he was in trouble. She was too far away to help, though, so Ama wasn’t counting on that. Aunt Millie knew better too. In her four years since taking the throne in Namin, she had become a good and trustworthy ruler, and Namin was beginning to return to prosperity. She wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that, including engaging with Yaroi on his behalf, particularly after what he had just done. Even if Yaroi didn’t use military assets to attack Namin, they controlled the trade from the Eiroi Strait. If they leveled extra tariffs on Namese goods or simply refused to allow Namese goods to be traded through Yaroi ports, Namin’s economy would backslide. No, Ama was definitely on his own there.

At least Ama had visited home recently, to see all his aunts, uncles, and cousins, and had visited Namin too. Seeing Aunt Millie was always fun. She had been too busy at the time to really talk though. The last time Ama had actually sat down with her alone for more than a hurried lunch, before she went on to her next meeting and Ama returned to work, had been four years ago, right after her coronation. Ama had hoped her words at the time meant he had a happy future in front of him, but now he knew better. She had meant he shouldn’t worry about his future because he would be executed before he had a chance to actually achieve his dreams.

“If you want my advice, I think you should continue adventuring on Prince Braxton’s behalf. Have some fun for a few more years, and maybe someday you’ll find whatever it is you’re actually searching for.”

Even Toval, who had assigned him this delicate mission, wouldn’t be able to save him. They couldn’t admit they had sent him to Yaroi, that they were involved at all, nor that they knew Ama even existed—all for the same reasons Namin wouldn’t dare help Ama. No, Ama had to take complete responsibility for this fiasco. That was the only way to save Toval and Namin, as well as to ensure the last parts of this mission were successful.

Ama shifted on the hard stone bench, the only furniture in his cell, and leaned against the rock wall, attempting to get as comfortable as possible. He tried to focus on happier memories as he waited to die.

The first time he had seen Prince Braxton, looking so strong and powerful on a horse as he rode through Ama’s home village. Ama making the decision to help Prince Braxton any way he could and going about gathering information so he could convince Braxton to hire him. The second time he had seen Braxton, he had snuck into Braxton’s camp and startled him. Once Braxton calmed down, Ama had managed to convince Braxton Ama was only there to share information. That memory made him smile.

Another of his favorite memories was more recent. Namin’s aggressions against Toval had grown too much, so Toval had decided to intervene by sending troops to support a coup. Braxton had asked if Ama might be able to find someone suitable to sit on the Namin throne after they removed the king of the time, which meant finding someone capable of wielding Namin’s royal magic. Ama had traveled only a few hours before finding Aunt Millie, who had chosen to come to him, to support Ama in Ama’s quest to help Braxton in any way the Tovalians needed. Now Aunt Millie was Queen Carmillian of Namin.

Ama couldn’t say how much time passed as he sat in the tiny prison cell, inwardly focused on his memories —a couple days, at least, but he couldn’t be sure. Food came, but not at regular intervals, so Ama couldn’t use that to gauge time. After what felt like a very, very long time, he finally heard the scrape as the lock was turned. The door opened with a slow groan, the light beyond almost blinding Ama. He blinked, trying to clear the spots from his vision, and a grinning guard eventually came into view. A pair of manacles in his hands were held out in Ama’s direction.

“Your punishment has been decided,” the guard stated as Ama stood and walked over to the door, arms outheld for the guard to place the manacles around Ama’s wrists. He didn’t say anything more, instead, shoving Ama forward so he stood in the middle of a circle of guards. They walked for a while, the floor sloping slowly upward, only the torches set into the walls at intervals supplying any light. The group paused when they reached a door, then waited for the guard in front to unlock it and pull the door open. He stepped aside and waved for Ama to go through first.

The guards and the excited crowd surrounding the perimeter of the stone-flagged amphitheater just outside the door let Ama get a good look at his punishment for a few long moments. Eager anticipation emanated from the crowd as they let him take it all in. Ama swallowed hard, but his resolve was firm. He would complete his mission no matter what they did to him.

“Anytime you want to tell us everything, this will stop,” the guard growled in Ama’s ear.

“There’s nothing to tell. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Ama replied. He tried to sound unconcerned, but his throat was dry and stomach clenched. He had hoped for a quick hanging or beheading, not a slow death like this, but either way, he would endure–for the sake of everyone he had to protect.

He had to.

Purchase

NineStar Press | Books2Read

Meet the Author

When Mell Eight was in high school, she discovered dragons. Beautiful, wondrous creatures that took her on epic adventures both to faraway lands and on journeys of the heart. Mell wanted to create dragons of her own, so she put pen to paper. Mell Eight is now known for her own soaring dragons, as well as for other wonderful characters dancing across the pages of her books. While she mostly writes paranormal or fantasy stories, she has been seen exploring the real world once or twice.

Website | Facebook | Twitter

Giveaway

One lucky winner will receive a $50.00 NineStar Press Gift Code!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Blog Button 2

Load more