Read The Books

Warning ~ These samples, like my books, are spicy!

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ONYX DRAGONS: MALACHITE

Mal rested his fists on the desk and leaned over her. “Are you currently married?”

She sat up straight and gripped her tablet in both hands. “No.”

“Are you capable of mating?”

Mating? Her hoodie suddenly felt too hot and tight. Every time she looked at him, she was extremely capable. “Uh…what do you mean?”

“Do you desire sex for the purpose of producing dragonlets?”

Sex. Dragonlets. That was what they called their babies.

Oh god.

He knew. All those times she’d been watching him. Eating him up. Stalking him in her mind. All those times she’d brushed against him and thought he would never notice. He had noticed.

Hard shivers ran down her sides. How had this happened? She was quiet, she dressed like she hated her body, and she slipped unnoticed from class to the internship and home again in an infinite, boring cycle of deadlines that didn’t even matter. Except, of course, her final portfolio that would determine whether she graduated with job offers or starved in the street.

He had looked into her mind and read her fantasies. Her whole body pulsed, hot, as though he had opened her innermost secret diary and begun reading the pages. What else did he know?

Mal waited for her answer.

She pinched the sleeves of her hoodie, worrying the soft fabric.

He was not asking her to make babies together. No. There was no way. This was a misunderstanding. He wanted her to design wedding invitations. With baby dragonlets. Yes, that was what it was.

“Um…” Her throat closed, and she cleared it. “You mean…uh, do I want, uh…”

“Sex,” he supplied.

Her heart thundered. His direct answer seemed clear. She squeezed the hoodie sleeve. “With, uh, me and you? Us?”

“Yes.”

No way. No way. No way.

“Er…”

“Yes or no,” he said. “Answer.”

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SEDUCED BY THE SEA LORD 

Torun opened his eyes.

He was dry and in some kind of wood box. A loud rumble masked his surroundings, coating his senses in a thick layer of impenetrable silt. High-pitched, buzzing lights washed out the interior. Air wafted across his skin.

Where was he?

He jerked upright.

His head bashed a low overhang with a resounding gong.

He fell back. The gong reverberated in his skull, and a second thunk sounded below his resting platform.

Oof.

He lay still until the throb in his head receded and reason returned.

The mer would never transport him through the air. He must have been captured by humans.

How lucky.

He rose more carefully, ducked out from under the low overhang, and rested his human feet on the floor. He was on a boat, wrapped in some sort of cloth. Perhaps he was in one of their wooden sleeping places. What was it called? A bunk?

A woman appeared in the doorway. “Hello?”

Praise the Life Tree.

Her soul light shone in her chest brighter than any he’d ever seen. Brighter than any of the beautiful women who swam around the shores of Cancun. Brighter even than the sun.

She was his soul mate.

His chest lifted. Finally! After days of searching, after a desperate fight for his life, after defying his city and the rules of the mer, his quest was over. He’d found her.

His one.

“You’re awake.” His soul mate’s lips pursed. “Are you okay?”

Her voice was quiet and musical, like all humans’, and her words were created by an alluring movement of her lips in concert with her tongue. They crossed the air to his ears and tickled. Huh. So different from his normal method of communication, but one he had trained for his entire life.

Her chin lowered. “You are okay, aren’t you?”

He forced his lips into position. “Yes.”

“Oh, good.” She sighed and smiled. “Welcome back to the land of the living. I just dragged you out of the ocean.”

“I am today’s catch.”

She blinked. “Ha! I guess you are. How’s your throat?”

He touched his neck. “It is raw.” The vibration on his throat when he spoke tickled his fingers strangely.

“You took in a lot of seawater.” She stepped into the small room.

Her body was perfect. Soft and delectably round, with dark eyes and hair the color of fine wood. Large curves and generous hips teased him beneath her thin white covering. Pink algae colored her toes and fingernails. No, not algae. What had he researched? A colored lacquer called “nail polish.” What a playful human decoration.

“And something chewed you up pretty badly.” Her brows pulled together in gentle concern. “Oh, that’s funny. I thought the wounds were a lot deeper.”

He brushed the shallow scabs. “I heal quickly.”

“I’ll say.” She shook her head, and her damp hair rustled against her white covering. “Only half an hour ago, I would have sworn that you’d ended up on the wrong side of an outboard motor. Now, you look like you tangled with a mildly irritated house cat.”

“Is it a problem?”

“Only for me. And my mental capacity.” She rubbed her forehead and emitted a shallow huff. “So much has gone wrong recently, and just now, I thought... Well, if I can’t trust my own judgment, what can I trust?”

Her soul light dimmed.

No. The brilliance of his destined mate must never fade. His nearness should only ever make her shine bright.

“You can trust me,” he said.

She snorted. A smile broke across her sweet face, and her soul brightened. “I don’t even know your name.”

“I am Torun, honored warlord of Sireno.”

“A warlord? Wow.” She moved another step closer, placing herself within arm’s reach. “I’ve never heard of Sireno.”

“It is far.”

“Right. Okay. I’m Lucy. Lucy Shaw Edwards—” Her light dipped. “Uh, I mean, just Lucy Shaw.”

Hmm.

A warrior’s soul never faded or blazed in quick succession as Lucy’s did. She seemed to move from one extreme to the other with minimal suffering.

How?

The sacred island brides, like the warriors, had always controlled their soul lights—so far as Torun could remember. It had been a long, long time since he’d seen a sacred island bride.

Was it because she was a mainland woman?

The Sireno elders said mainland women would never acclimate to the ways of the mer. But this woman, Lucy, was his mate. He knew it.

Unless... His senses were muted by the air and the rumbling noise...

“Lucy.”

She focused on him.

He took her hand and stroked her strong scuffed and scratched fingers. “You are not afraid of the water?”

“Only when it comes pouring in from a crack in the hull.” She stared at their joined hands.

“But you would be unafraid to live beneath the sea?”

“Oh, yeah, if I could score a spot as a submersible pilot, like for one of the oceanographic institutes, I’d be set. That’s living the dream.”

He understood about half of those words. “Living under the sea is your dream?”

“Sure, I’d love it.” She traced the iridescent gold honor markings on his knuckles with a gentle index finger. “These tattoos are amazing.”

“They tell my history.”

“How did you make this color?”

“It is natural.” He captured her wandering fingers. “Are you seeking a male to join with?”

Heat flushed across her skin, turning her cheeks a delicate pink, and her lips parted. “Join with?”

“Together. Here. You and I joining as one.” He brought her fingers to his mouth. She tasted like the sea.

She closed her eyes and sucked in a breath. “Mm.”

The quiet moan was more than enough answer. Her unspoken desires flowed into his awareness. Arousal pounded in her heartbeat, desire strengthened her hands grasping his, hunger sounded in the hitch of her breath. She needed a male.

She needed him.

He drew her arms around his shoulders. “On behalf of the mer of Sireno, I claim you for my bride.”

Her eyelashes fluttered. “What?”

He sought her lips.

She resisted and then melted.

His.

Lucy was soft as floating seaweed, yet firm as a slippery fish. Her lips tasted hot and sweet, a flavor he had never known, but which curled deep in his belly and gave him a hard tug. He tilted her head to fully mesh their mouths.

With a hungry, feminine moan, she yielded.

He delved deep, discovering her shape, stroking neat teeth and dark crevices. She yielded to his insistent thrusting and then matched his demand, tangling him with her tongue. Waves of heat rolled off her body. She gasped for breath as if coming up for air, then dove back into his unyielding seduction.

Lucy was his bride. No other warrior would ever kiss her mouth. “You are mine.”

Her soul flared even brighter. She accepted his claim in her soul.

Yes.

He took her mouth again.

She sank into his domination.

Lucy was his.

Torun curved an arm around her generous hips and lifted her onto the bunk.

He would claim his bride!

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BLADES OF ARRIS: SITHE

I am confused by what I see.

She rises onto one elbow and tries to peer over the dress fabric. “Is it bad?”

“No. Your injury has healed.”

“Oh. That’s good.”

“You should still visit a medical center.”

“Right.”

But we remain in this position. Her, bent over the table, and me behind touching her now-healed interior.

This makes no sense. How could my race’s medicine heal her faster than it healed me?

Maybe it didn’t. Maybe I mistook the size of the injury before. I am entirely unfamiliar with female anatomy. Maybe humans have a strange ability to seal over injuries while they are still healing.

Or maybe she’s affected by my race’s substances even more than I am…

So many questions I should never try to answer. I am a soldier. My role is to execute and report, not to wonder.

But here I am, stuck thinking, and all the while my fingertips are still touching the softest substance in the entire universe.

It is one thing that feels exactly how it looks.

Heat floods my jack.

“Are you done?” She rises up on her other palm and cranes her neck to see into my face.

If I couple with her, as she earlier coupled with me, this strange heat will leave me. It will flow out of my celibate soldier’s body and into her where it belongs. She already once took me as her partner, used her mouth and fingers and so much more, and that’s what created these strange feelings. So, if I flip it around and take her on my terms, surely, these new feelings will recede. My body will become cold and inert again, and I will be able to control this.

I will just couple with her–

But before I make a single movement, she pulls away and straightens, the dress fabric piling onto my wrists. “You have to ask every time. Your partner has to agree. Every time.”

As if she can dictate to me. This lesser who took my body without my agreement, who wrenched feelings from it, who compelled me…

Her very gaze is hypnotizing.

I swallow on a dry throat. “Will you?”

Those long lashes flutter. She focuses on my flat cloak. “You want me?”

I separate my suit to expose the critical part: my jack, hot and throbbing.

She reaches her hand out to touch it.

I angle away. There is no need to experience her mouth, her fingertips, or any of the things she did to me before. I am ready to couple and lose my release in her. Get my own fix so that I can repair this fissure in my brain and once more become the cold, emotionless warrior my people require.

Her fingers curl around empty air.

She meets my eyes. “What’s your name?”

I have so many. Blade, Arrisan, destroyer. “Sithe.”

“Sai…th.” She sounds it out, her tongue curling around the unfamiliar syllables. Perhaps I was mistaken about needing her mouth on me. One taste of that sensation was not enough. “You have to know my name to ask me.”

“What is your name?”

“And you have to call it when you come.”

“Come?”

“Release.” She fixes me with those impossible eyes again. The desert irises of untold mountains. “Say my name. Catarine.”

Also an odd name. So many syllables, and they tumble across one another.

“Say it,” she demands.

“Will you agree to be my partner again, Catarine?”

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MARK OF THE ICARUS: CURSED

I fly down to her. “How in the world…?”

Ayanakalia squints at me. She reaches out a trembling hand and misses, falls forward into my arms, and I catch her hard.

Her rock ledge peels away from beneath her feet and disappears into clouds. An infinite time later, it clatters on the stone shore, the sharp noise echoing up the cliffs to us.

My heart thumps.

Truly, she is protected by the gods.

I fly her to the top of the cliff, over the manor, and land in the courtyard. Her feet touch the ground, and she sinks. I lower with her, catching her again, but she’s wriggling through my grasp on purpose to embrace the cracked tile, so I drop to my knees and pull her small body across my lap. She clings to me, shaking. I rest my back against my doorjamb. I have so many questions.

She’s soaked from the damp clouds, her hands are frozen into stiff claws, and her dark hair is plastered to her icy skin.

I enfold her with my wings and pull her slim form up against my chest, willing my warmth into her, and I make a hushing sound as I rock her. It’s the same instinctive noise I use to soothe Lifayis.

“You’re all right.” The heat of my breath is trapped by my wings, drying her. “You’re just fine.”

She whimpers through clenched teeth. “I didn’t move. I didn’t make a sound.”

“No.”

“I was there for hours.”

“I believe you.”

She makes a strangled sob and buries her face in my armpit. I rise, my wings retracting, and carry her inside. With her still nestled in my arms, I rekindle the fire and quickly warm a cup of water. The fish stew reheats. I pull off feather after feather, wrap her scraped hands and torn fingernails in fiery wishes. She sucks in a pained hiss as each white feather falls, but in the end, she stretches her hands out of the clawed shapes. My breath dries her hair, and her clothes steam beside the fire.

And then, finally, she releases me and inhales deeply, shuddering.

“Someone came,” I guess as I hand her the warmed water.

She nods, curls both hands around the mug without apparent pain, and sips.

“Did you see him?”

“No.”

I press a white feather into a long scratch across her cheek. She winces as it burns, but holds still as I carefully brush the scab away so her smooth skin won’t scar. “How did you get down there?”

“There were small footholds and handholds, but they broke off as I climbed down.”

“And then you couldn’t get back up.” Grimness overtakes me. This should have ended so differently. I see a vision of her broken on the shore, blood sprayed out, sightless eyes. I shake myself, banish the horrible vision. It’s not real. It’s not a prediction. “This person came early? Right when we left?”

“A bit after.”

“But before you could eat your meal.”

She looks at the pot of stew, then up at me. Her clear brown eyes are liquid, and the shimmer in them, for just this moment, reflects like stars. “Was that for me?”

A fist squeezes my heart. “Do we not feed you?”

“You do. Mostly Bafis does. I didn’t want to…I try to guess what you’re thinking because I don’t want to do something wrong, but it’s hard.” She swallows, looks away, into the fire, and her shoulders droop. “Everything I do displeases you.”

The fist squeezes tighter. “No.”

“Even now, you think I’m stupid and weak. I should’ve hidden somewhere else. The cliffs are fine for an icari, and I’m just a human.”

Our legs tangle. Her cheeks flush, and she skirts my eyes.

I have avoided this. I’ve avoided her.

But now her tendrils are seeking me, feminine and delicate, and I am only a man, after all.

My voice comes out low. “You are.”

“See? You’re so angry at me, and I don’t understand why.”

“I never asked for another creature to be totally dependent on me.”

“I’m doing you this favor.” She pulls her steaming cloak tighter. “It’s only for a little while.”

“I don’t want to care about another person.”

“Yes, well, you’re loud and clear that you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.” I capture her chin with my thumb and forefinger. “I hate everything about you.”

She turns those liquid pools on me, depthless, beautiful. “It’s the same thing.”

“No.” My voice descends to a whisper. “Because you keep invading, like a choking vine, digging your roots into cracks and tangling around my bones. You’ll own my soul if I let you. The only way I can keep you at a distance is if I drive you away.”

Her breath hitches.

Soft pink lips part.

She’s like an abyss calling me, hypnotic. The curse that will end me. End all of us. A promise of light in dark. That’s her.

I lean forward and cover her mouth with mine.