Labels

Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Hard Work by BJ Harvey


Title: Hard Work
Series: A Cook Brothers Novel
Author: BJ Harvey
Genre: Co-Worker, Unrequited Love, House Flipping RomCom
Release Date: January 30, 2020



Having watched his brothers meet their match, Cohen Cook is feeling something he never anticipated—envy.

With a demanding job, and helping his brothers with their biggest flip project yet, he doesn’t have time to sleep with, let alone date, anyone.

Skye Rossi is a free spirit. She’s a take-her-as-you-see-her woman who works hard and plays hard, but the person she wants to play with friend-zoned her the minute they met.

When sparks fly between Cohen and Skye, the only way forward is to propose a mutually beneficial arrangement that no one knows about.

Besides, what’s the harm in a few orgasms between best friends?







“This series just keeps getting better and better!”

“Fan-flipping-tastic that’s what this book is, holy mother of god do I love these Cook men.” 

“It is basically the perfect romance.”

“This series just keeps getting better and better!” 

“This entire series is some of BJ Harvey's best work to date.”






“Do you think living in the same building and working together is going to be too much?”

“If I thought it would be, I wouldn’t have said yes when Jamie suggested it,” I say with a shrug. “It’s not like we don’t spend time outside of work together already.”

“But… not like this. You’re literally two flights of stairs away.”

“Do you have a problem with it? I didn’t exactly ask before springing it on you.”

“It’s fine. We’re fine. Everything is fine,” she rambles. “I’m just in one of my weird overthinking, worst-case-scenario, the-world-may-end-tomorrow kind of moods.” She waves her hand in the air. “Just run with it, keep me fed and watered, and tell me I look pretty.”

“You’re fucking gorgeous, Skye, and you know that.”

“Well, that’s a bit much, but I’m not gonna stop you.”

“It’s true. And to take it one step further,” I say, leaning in, the smell of her perfume more potent the closer I get, “when you walked into the station tonight, I had to turn around and walk away to stop from becoming the laughing stock of the station and earning a new nickname.” A salacious grin transforms her face.

“That bad, huh?”

“That good. It’s like you purposefully forgot to do up the top button of your shirt just to flash me the blue lace underneath.”

Her eyes dance with mischief, and without even asking, I know it was all for me. She taps her chin with her index finger. “Hmm, I wonder what name you could have had.”

“Egg white,” I say.

“Okay, that’s not what I expected. Why that?”

“Stiff when well beaten.”

Skye barks out a laugh, and I join her. “What about Cocked and Loaded?”

“Or just Cocked.”

“Quick Draw?” Her lips quirk up and said cock twitches to attention. How is it that I’ve been able to control myself around Skye during the past year, but since that kiss and Skye’s declaration that sex with me could just be sex—no complications needed—I can’t get her out of my head? The genie is out of the bottle, and that stubborn bastard refuses to go back inside.

“And I think that’s a sign we should change the subject.”












BJ Harvey is the USA Today Bestselling Author of the Bliss Series. She regards herself as a smut peddler, suspense conjurer, and a funny romance thinker upper. An avid music fan, you will always find her singing some hit song badly and loving every minute of it. She’s a wife, a mom to two beautiful tweenagers, is a proud born and bred Kiwi and currently lives in Perth, Western Australia.




HOSTED BY:

Ten Seconds to Dead by L.A. Clayton blitz


Ten Seconds to Dead
L.A. Clayton
Publication date: January 20th 2020
Genres: Adult, Thriller

Ten seconds may be all she has left …

Kate Edison witnesses her father’s death and, in order to keep his memory alive, decides to follow in his footsteps by joining the CIA. She molds herself into becoming exactly what the CIA is looking for—and captures their interest, both personally and professionally. But before she can finish the CIA process, Kate is offered a position as an espionage agent in another highly secretive government agency, which she accepts.

While completing her agency training, Kate is catapulted into a shadowy world where wealth and power are the ultimate goal, and those in charge will stop at nothing to get it. While on the job, Kate uncovers secrets that, if revealed, would cost her life, but if kept, could bring down a nation. Isolated and unsure of who to trust, she brings in a fellow agent, but pulling him into the web of conspiracy and lies puts a target on both their backs – and it will take every skill they’ve ever learned as agents to stay alive long enough to stop the enemy no one else can see.

Goodreads / Amazon

EXCERPT:

“Ms. Edison, this is Officer Lyon.”

This was it. All my hard work, all the hours of studying—all the sacrifice came down to this moment. This phone call.

“I appreciate the opportunity, Officer Lyon,” I said, nervousness swirling in my belly. The phone in my hand felt big and heavy. I was sitting on my old bed, in the room I’d grown up in. The call needed to be made over a landline, and the best option was at my mom’s house. Though, if my mom had known what call this really was, she would have kicked me out of her house and slammed the door.

The room hadn’t changed much. My desk, where I had spent so much time, was still across from my bed, my old and likely useless computer still perched on top. The maps that showed the origins of all the languages I had intended to learn—marked with different-colored pushpins—still covered the wall above my desk. The same funny-nerdy science posters still flanked the maps. One read, “YOU MATTER. Until you multiply yourself times the speed of light squared. THEN YOU ENERGY.” That one still made me smile. Remnants of the sticky-sweet perfume I had used in my youth, in quantities far too large, still hung in the air.

Officer Lyon was all business. “This will be your first official interview with the Central Intelligence Agency. I must advise you that this call will be recorded, as well as all future calls, interviews, and interactions with the CIA throughout your interview process with us, however long that may be. This will likely be our most casual interview, so relax and answer the questions naturally. Please state your full name.”

I cleared my throat. “Katherine Elaine Edison. But please, call me Kate.”

“Ms. Edison.”

Right. I should have assumed formality would be important here. Mistake number one, check. That would be my last.

“I am curious to know if you have any notion as to why the CIA is interested in you.”

I didn’t mind talking about my accomplishments—I worked hard, after all—but I didn’t want to come off sounding self-important either. I thought through my words carefully. “Well, I speak several languages and graduated at the top of my class in both my undergrad and law school. I assume that has something to do with it.” I could have also mentioned that those schools were Ivy League, that my double major in international law and diplomacy and in journalism were both preferred programs at the CIA, and that I didn’t just graduate at the top of my class—I was the top of my class, as in the number-one student. But I assumed he already knew all of that and that it was how I had landed the interview in the first place.

If I came off sounding pompous, Officer Lyon didn’t react. “Those are all likely things that did add to your qualifications. What exactly do you think we do here in the CIA?”

Again, an answer I had to think about carefully. “I am aware that there are many different positions within the CIA: analytics, language, science, engineering, and technological positions, to name a few. Also, of course, directorate of operations.”

The last one—directorate of operations—was where I wanted to be. Where I was meant to be. Where my dad had been. The clandestine service of the CIA. This was my goal.

“Of course … the spies. I should tell you that if this is an area of interest for you, you will have to get in line,” Officer Lyon said. Derisiveness dripped from his words.

I wasn’t sure if he was trying to discourage me or motivate me with that comment. But I definitely felt the latter. I had worked hard for this opportunity. I kept myself out of trouble—not too hard a task when a person’s studies took up all of the daylight the sun had to offer and then some—and I was careful to only keep up friendships with people who also valued education and abiding by the law. I was always the girl who chose her studies over parties. When my friends were in need of a break from the monotony of school, they would go the beach for a weekend. While they were gone I cherished the quiet, taking the time to study harder. I never found school monotonous; I craved learning.

Officer Lyon asked questions for another thirty minutes. Then, before hanging up, he scheduled a face-to-face interview with me for the following week and recommended a book for me to read beforehand.

I smiled. I knew the book. I’d read it years ago.



Author Bio:

L.A. Clayton has been an avid reader her entire life, devouring books at an alarming rate. Her husband often jokes that if she didn’t buy so many books they could retire. She went to bed one night a reader and woke up with a fresh memory of a dream she’d had the night before, sat down and became a writer.

L.A. Clayton lives in St. Louis, MO with her husband and their four young children. She makes time for writing in between wiping noses and packing lunches.

Goodreads / Facebook / Instagram


GIVEAWAY!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

XBTBanner1

Stuart Duffelmeyer and the Master of Plagues by Dewey B. Reynolds


Fantasy
Date Published: October 2019
Publisher: Author Reputation Press

 photo add-to-goodreads-button_zpsc7b3c634.png


Ever been bullied?

How about badly mistreated?

Meet Stuart Duffelmeyer. He knows what it feels like to be treated like trash. Brilliant, quiet, nerdy, and kind-spirited best describe him. He is an NYU student whose classmates target him for total humiliation. Fooling with him was their ultimate mistake. Stuart suffered severely as a result of their malicious behavior. He harnesses the power of nature to serve a dish of revenge that is best served cold to them.



Excerpt

Many residents living in the Washington, D.C., area have always said that where you lived in the city said a lot about who you were. John O’Connor and his wife Susan were some of the first ones to make a
statement by moving into the Dumont condominiums over on Fourth and Massachusetts Avenue. Incomparable elegance and first-class amenities were the sophistications they enjoyed from their hard-earned success. John met Susan while both were doing internships at Children’s National Medical Center there in Washington. Since graduating from NYU’s School of Medicine for Pediatric Cardiology, he sought opportunities in the nation’s capital. Susan graduated from Boston University’s School of Medicine and also decided to head to Washington to pursue her career as a pediatrician.

During their tenure as hospital residents, they dated and would soon fall in love. Their love for one another fueled the passion to become engaged. The engagement soon led to marriage. Two sons, four-year-old John O’Connor, Jr., and three-year-old James O’Connor, became additions to their family. John got exactly what he wanted. Two sons were always his dream, ever since he was a little boy himself growing up on the upper east side of Manhattan. John and Susan felt their lives were complete with their family and careers.

Their boys were happy to have the rooftop pool with sweeping views of the DC monuments. Playing with other kids who resided at the Dumont brought joy to their parents. If their kids were happy, they were happy. John and Susan enjoyed retreats with their boys around the beautifully landscaped courtyard.

The sanctuary of nature brought them moments of peace to read a novel or enjoy the greenery of the flowers. When John Jr. and James were attended to by the nanny, the O’Connors snuck away to work out with the premium cardio equipment of the twenty-four-hour fitness center. John loved living only blocks away from the Capitol. Susan was delighted to live in the indulgence of the most powerful address on the triangle. John and Susan took on the daunting task of being a part of an internationally recognized team of pediatric healthcare professionals. Their team cared for more than 360,000 patients each year. Fifty million dollars in uncompensated care was provided by Children’s National Medical Center. John proved his worth by becoming one of the top cardiac physicians in the Children’s Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. Dually board certified in pediatric cardiology and pediatric critical care medicine. The life of an infant was in the hands of him and his surgical staff. Inside the operating room, the doctors and nurses were desperate to save the life of a two-month-old infant suffering from ventricular septal defect. A Desflurance anesthetic agent was administered.

The mounted surgical lights beamed strongly down on the surgical equipment being passed to John and other pediatric physicians. The integrated breathing system management of the electronic ventilator kept the infant stable. John used the powerful fiber optic illumination of the opthalmology microscopes to see deep within the left and right ventricles of the baby girl’s ventricular septum. Acutely, blood rushed through the stout walls which separated the lower chambers of her heart.

“Our patient is losing a normal heart rate!” John barked to his surgical team.

“Too much blood is leaking from the left ventricle into the right ventricle,” observed one of the top pediatric nurses.

“If the blood reaches the patient’s lungs, then she probably won’t make it.”

“We might have to perform a Median sternotomy.”

“Nurse, there’s barely a heartbeat!”

“Dr. O’Connor, the right ventricle has clogged with more blood.”

Seconds inside the operating room were precious. John and his team had many options to saving the baby’s life. Which life-saving method to use was their biggest concern. Incidentally, the monitor displayed no
heartbeat. Had the two-month-old baby died while under their care? Not if the divine intervention of the Universe had its say. The bright surgical lights were drowned out by an even brighter light which cut
through the ceiling. The doctors and nurses were lifted off the ground and suspended in mid-air by gravitational forces from the cosmos.

The deceased two-month-old was lifted off the operating table and also suspended in the air. A stream of cool ocean water and air came from under the door. The excess blood clogging the right ventricle of her precious heart was sucked out by the air and intermingled with the fresh ocean water. The blood caused the water to form a pinkish color.

Some of the water washed out all the infection. The wondrous forces of the Universe lowered the baby back down on the operating table. Loud cries from the infant filled the entire room. She cried as though she’d just been born into the world. John and the rest of his surgical team descended back to the floor. They just couldn’t believe what had happened. A stream of Gulf Coast water measuring about six gallons had done their jobs for them.

“Did you all see what happened in here?” John asked his medical colleagues, all of them stunned from disbelief.

The surgical team shook their heads at the same time.

“Where did that water come from?” John questioned, looking around and not seeing one wet spot in the emergency room. The surgical team silently replied with more movement of their heads.

“Long hours here at the hospital may be a bit too much for me.”

Standing right outside the surgery room without being noticed was Stuart. John came towards the door to make his exit. Stuart camouflaged himself behind a group of nurses going down the hallway. The infant
survived and it really brightened up his day.

Susan O’Connor had no idea her husband spent extra hours at the hospital only to spend time with a dangerously beautiful clinical dietitian specialist named Marissa Halifax. Talk about a true beauty! Marissa had doctors from one corridor of the pediatric hospital to the next trying to date her. Some doctors offered her money and gifts. She refused all of them. They offered her promotions within the hospital, and still, she refused them.

How did John get so lucky? His mouthpiece, bank account, and masculine magnetism were the goods to win her over. With the blinds shut, the door locked, the phone turned off, and lights turned down low,
John and Marissa decided to have a late night rendezvous inside his office. Their bodies pressed together while their lips smacked. They took a break from sucking face in order to catch their breath. Steam had generated from them exchanging saliva.

“Whew!” John huffed, fanning himself to cool off. “When I look at you, I’m looking at a masterpiece.”

“Consider yourself lucky, Johnny Boy,” Marissa nipped with arrogance, patting her curly brown hair back in place.

“Sure, I’m real lucky.”

“With all these doctors around here wanting me, you took home the prize, baby.”

“Can’t argue with you on that. Julius Caesar would’ve given up the Roman Empire for you.”

“I saw your wife today.”

“Where?”

“Down by endocrinology.”

“She finds out that we’re messing around, that’ll be my one way ticket to a divorce.”

“Your wife doesn’t have to find out. I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”

“You’ve got a deal.”

John and Marissa joined together to revive their body pressing and lip smacking. Small drops of water fell from the ceiling. More drops seeped through the cracks of the door and the windows. John went over to the windows and peeked between the blinds.

“Where’s that water coming from? It isn’t raining outside.”

“Are there holes in the roof?” Marissa asked, skipping from one side of the office to the next.

“No way does this hospital have holes in the roof.”

“John, I’ll see you later.”

Marissa sprinted over to the door. She found the lock wouldn’t turn.

“Who locked the door?”

“You can’t get out?”

“No, I’ve jerked on the knob several times.”

“The door can be locked from the inside and the outside.”

“Who’s playing tricks, John?”

“I don’t know.”

Winds in excess of over a hundred miles an hour blew in between the door and window cracks. The drops of water joined together and formed a tiny hurricane inside John’s office. The forceful winds picked John off the ground and slammed him against the wall. Marissa got sucked up to the ceiling. Her body remained pressed to the crumbling tiles. The frames of pictures and certificates were blown off the walls and smashed into pieces.

Colonel Boaz made his presence known to John O’Connor. “John, have you not learned your lesson yet?”

“What lesson is that?” John answered, the mighty winds having deprived him of normal oxygen.

“You have violated the codes of morality. You made my master suffer, now you have to suffer.”

“Who are you?”

“I have been sent by my master to be a plague upon you.”

“Who’s your master?”

“The secrets of the Universe will not permit me to reveal who my master is.”

“I don’t understand. There are no hurricanes in Washington, D.C.”

“You weren’t meant to understand the true laws of nature.”

“This has gotta be one bad dream.”

“Your evil ways and disobedience have come back to bite you in the backside.”

“But hurricanes don’t talk.”

“No, this hurricane does talk.”

Colonel Boaz used the power of its winds and water to throw John all around his office. The colonel threw him around like a boomerang. His face, hands, chest, and legs, they crashed hard against the wall. Slinging nearly ten gallons of water at him, John felt the stinging impact crash into his backside. “Errrrrrrrrrrh!” John screamed, clutching his tender rear with both hands.


About the Author

Dewey B. Reynolds is an author, screenwriter, short filmmaker, and computer expert. He has also written books in the mystery, suspense, young adult, and true crime genres. Dewey currently lives in his hometown of Kansas City, Missouri.




Contact Links



Purchase Links



RABT Book Tours & PR

Blood of Angels by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

Title: Blood of Angels
Series: Halfway Between
Author: Kathryn Ann Kingsley
Genre: New Adult Paranormal Romance
Release Date: February 4, 2020



When I learned the truth of what I was seventy years ago, let’s just say, I didn’t take it well. 



I’m not human. I never was. 

I’m a homunculus crafted by two creatures for their benefit. Azrael, the archangel of death, made me to be his daughter and Asmodeus, the archdemon of lust, created me to be his wife. 

That’s the simplest part of my life right now.

Now, there’s a murderous cult in the city of Boston who’s abducting angels and demons. I thought this had nothing to do with me, but Octavian, the cult’s leader, wants to show me how very wrong I was.

I’m trapped between my desire to fight the cult, and fighting my desire for Asmodeus. He loves me, and I loved him once. But in the face of all his lies, I’m not sure if I can—or should—love him again. 

With Octavian closing in, taking more and more of the archangels and archdemons for some mysterious purpose, I may never get the chance to decide how I feel.

I may not make it through this at all.







Chapter One

Boston 
April 1939


Selina stood and looked down into the open grave.

A coffin sat at the bottom of the deep trench, lowered there by the men with their ropes as they carefully set the polished wooden box into its final resting place. Atop it sat a wreath of flowers and several more single blooms added by the mourners who stood gathered…all of whom had already gone back to their motorcars or walked down the street from the graveyard.

Forest Hills was a beautiful cemetery, by all accounts, scattered here and there with monuments that were truly impressive and dominated by a large pond in the center. It was, in her opinion, exactly what all graveyards should be—part park for the living, and part a place for the dead to reside. Picnics here were neither uncommon nor discouraged in the large swaths of grass, even if the lawn was peppered with carvings to those who had passed.

It was long after the final words had been said. But he would not leave. Alistair stood at the edge of the grave, looking down upon the dark wood box and at the lacquered surface reflecting the warm glow of the sun overhead. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his long black coat.

If it weren’t for the tick in his jaw, she would have thought him a statue like those of granite and marble around them. He was handsome enough to be one.

The man in the grave had been one of Alistair’s own, a high-ranking, long-lived member of his association. Osmund Reinhardt had come from Europe when he was just a boy, many years back. A widower, he had died of an illness brought on by old age. It had happened fast. His children, grown adults now, had not made it from their respective homes around the country before he passed. But Osmund had not died alone. Alistair had sat at his side as it happened, for Osmund had been a dear friend.

Selina had known Osmund well. He had been a broad, stern man with a serious disposition. He talked with a thick German accent that had gone starkly out of favor in the past few years since the war began. She believed Germans always sounded angry, and therefore she didn’t hold his gruffness against him. Alistair and Osmund had argued frequently. Osmund served as one of the seniors of his society, and often had the gall to disagree with the archdemon he served.

“If I didn’t want to disagree with my leaders, I would have stayed in my homeland,” Osmund had told her when she pressed him on the curious behavior. She would never forget what else he had said that day. “Arguing with the men who control us is our right. Remember that.”

She had seen him briefly when he had been ill. Death did not scare her…but the moments before it did. For the broad, strong, mountain of a man who glared at Alistair like he was a petulant child had been reduced to a shadowy reflection of a man. A shallow, pale, and empty effigy that seemed less like the original and more like a mockery of what they were supposed to represent.

Walking up to Alistair, she forced her hand into one of his pockets. She fished his out and wove her fingers in between his and held it tightly. He squeezed back. It was the most she had gotten out of him in an hour.

She pressed herself close to his arm, resting her head on him. She shut her eyes and let the feeling of his presence sink into her. She would never get used to him. Never forget how it felt the first time she saw him and what raged within him. Like a thunderstorm in a glass jar. Every time she stood close enough to him to feel it crackle beneath her touch, she felt in awe of it. Of him.

Normally, she could break him out of his moods. Alistair wasn’t one for long bouts of sulking or brooding, but, from time to time, she would catch him lost in thought. Reliving his memories, as he would say. But one touch from her, and he would snap out of it. It was a heady kind of power she had over him, and it was addictive, to say the least.

But this time, it didn’t seem to work. Not at first. It took a few minutes of them standing there in silence before he finally broke it, his voice a quiet rumble. “I despise death.”

“That’s awfully rude of you. I thought you two were friends.” She looked up at him with a light smile. The sunlight caught the strands of his dark hair.

He chuckled once, nearly silently, and looked up at the sky and the clouds overhead. He was like a dark blot against the light blue sky. He didn’t fight the smile that came to him from her bad joke. “Well played.” He paused thoughtfully. “More accurately, I will say that I despise the emotion of grief.”

She leaned her cheek on his arm again and looked off into the graveyard. At the hundreds of tombstones, crypts, and monuments. “Everyone experiences grief. It’s much worse to live a life that no one is left to mourn, isn’t it?”

“It’s more humane, in a way, but I see your point.” Alistair shifted, freeing his arm from her grasp only to wrap it around her and hug her to his side. She nestled in against him and smiled at the scent of incense that seemed to follow him everywhere. “I have lost thousands of souls I have loved as family…and the burn never ceases to hurt me as fresh as the first. You will come to realize that immortality in a world of fragile humans is a cruel, sick, painful joke.”

“You could avoid them. Sit in hell and befriend nobody but demons and other fallen. Like the others.”

“That, then, is the same kind of man who lives the life no one will mourn. A life without the love of others is not one I am interested in living. I’ve tried. It doesn’t last long. I have miserable self-control.”

She laughed. That was true. He was like a kid with a candy jar. His restraint was a thing measured in seconds. She had experienced firsthand his extreme lack of self-control many times.

She furrowed her brow as she realized something and tipped her head to look up at him without lifting it from his chest. “It isn’t goodbye. He will go to serve you in Hell, though, won’t he?”

His expression grew tight. He looked down at her, emerald green eyes searching hers. There was pain there—sadness now tinged with regret. “No…he won’t.”

“He couldn’t possibly have been taken to Heaven. Not after spending his life serving an archdemon.” She grinned. “Unless they severely lowered the bar.”

His trademark lopsided twinge of the lips broke through his sadness, and he leaned down to kiss the top of her head. His mood simmered back down to a dour one. He pulled her around to stand in front of him, resting his hands on her hips. He filled her vision, standing this close to her, and she placed her hands upon his chest. She felt the strength there, hidden behind the layers of his formal clothing. She ran her fingers along the texture of his wool vest and let her gaze travel back up to his sharp features. He was so utterly beautiful, so perfect, it was hard for her to be distracted by his serious mood.

“I have a confession, my love. But you have to promise to keep it a secret.” He pulled in a breath and let it out. She felt his chest heave then sink again as he did.

His concern worried her. He was never afraid to tell her something. “Of course.”

“I have lied to you. It’s a lie I tell to all, even those who serve me. One that even some of those born from Heaven or Hell believe.” His eyes slipped shut. “You will find out on your own eventually. If I don’t tell you now, I know who will soon enough.” He paused again. “Human souls do not come to us.”

She blinked. She had heard him, but she couldn’t help it. “What?”

“There are no souls resting in Heaven or burning in Hell who were not created there. Osmund is gone to me now, for all eternity. This is my last goodbye to him.” Grief painted his features once more.

“Where…do they go, then?”

Alistair laughed, a dry, weak and humorless sound. “That is the best part of it all. We do not know. Azrael takes them to a…he describes it as a doorway or a gate. He takes them there, and they pass through it. After that? He knows not where they journey. But it is not to his realm or mine.”

“Why the lie, then? Why tell the humans otherwise?”

“If we were to let them sit in their ignorance, they would invent their own beliefs. That surrenders power. To control the narrative is to control faith. To control faith is to control the populace.” He let out a thoughtful hum. “It used to be, anyway. They’re catching on quicker as of late.”

“But why control them at all? If Heaven and Hell are not in a battle for souls, why does anybody care what humans do?”

Alistair smiled down at her. “You are always asking the correct questions. What a good student you have turned out to be.” His gaze darkened, and she felt the familiar nervous excitement as it turned distinctly predatory. His hand slipped under her chin, his thumb on one side, his fingers on the other, and tilted her head back further to face him. “I will have to reward you later.”

“You’re dodging the q—”

His lips crashed against hers. Like a roar of a fire consuming a home, he descended over her. The embrace was demanding, bruising, and shoved all thoughts of anything else to the back of her head. His hand slipped around behind her, and his arm now cinched her to him possessively.

She was helpless. She always was. He was a tiger in the darkness hunting his prey, and she would never win. She never wanted to win. When he finally broke the kiss, she was breathless. He was unfazed. The pad of his thumb rested lightly on her lower lip, swollen from his attentions. She felt his breath rush hot against her cheek as he leaned in to whisper to her.

“Heaven wishes to control all. Every variable must be inside their command. They cannot abide to let anyone, or anything, stray too far from their light. In their eyes, humans are sheep who must be herded, and they care as little for where the soul of a human goes as the shepherd does the souls of their livestock.” He let out a small, appreciative purr as she curled her fingers into the hem of his vest and pulled herself against him. She opened her eyes to meet his emerald gaze.

“What about us?”

“Wolves like me…we are a threat. We must be put down. And you? A doe who comes to sleep at the side of the beast?” His lips twisted up again in his lopsided and smug smile. “You are even worse. To them, you’re an abomination. No one should be able to love a creature like me, after all.”

***

Modern Day

“Michael…how good of you to come.” Alistair’s greeting was neither warm nor welcoming. 

Today had gone from awful, to fucking awful, to just-fuck-me-up-the-ass-with-a-baseball-bat-already awful.

Veil wasn’t afraid of dying. She had a very good reason to not be. She’d done it a few dozen times, and she would never get any farther than that cold and frozen lake in her mind that existed just before the door to true death.

But now, staring at the glowing, shining, metal-clad figure that took up the whole of the doorway into the church, she was starting to second-guess what she had previously accepted as fact. 

Michael. That was Michael.

If anyone in this universe could kill her, or at the very least make her wish she could die, it was going to be him. She wasn’t interested in finding out what the champion of the archangels was going to do to her. Veil shrank back from the two creatures standing at the threshold of the church and figured there had to be another way out of here out the rear.

Now, she realized, she was afraid of what was on the other side of the door she thought she’d never cross.

She hadn’t made it two feet in the opposite direction before she was forced to draw up short as something impacted the wood frame of the door in front of her face. It was one of Michael’s metal “feathers.” Really, it looked more like a razor-sharp blade. It stuck inches into the surface like a surgical knife. It didn’t even splinter the wood.

Yup. Today sucked.

“Stay,” the archangel commanded.

The blade yanked free of the wood from some invisible command and whipped past her face back the way it had come. She turned to follow its path back to the archangel and demon in the doorway. Her heart was pounding in her ears. Conrad and Gabe were both on their knees, struck with awe by something that looked that…well, holy. Gabe’s head was lowered in prayer, while the Irishman was staring, wide-eyed and gaping at the archangel.

The feather he had sent to intercept her rejoined his wing, spinning back in place where it had left with the sound of metal sliding against metal.

Asmodeus growled low, and the shadows that seemed to gather around him in this form darkened, coalescing like a living thing. It was only then that she realized she had never seen Asmodeus really fight. Not really. She couldn’t imagine the kind of damage the two of them were about to wreak on the building around them. If not the city itself. “Leave here, archangel,” the archdemon growled.

Michael jumped forward suddenly and without warning, shoulder-checking Asmodeus into the wall. Metal shards shot forward from his wings, pinning Asmodeus to the wood behind him. The metal stabbed through his wings, his legs, his arms, even his torso. The archdemon howled in pain but couldn’t move. He hadn’t been expecting an attack so suddenly from the warrior and was likely still working off the pain of having been trapped in the spirit realm for so long. 

Michael stepped back to observe his work, and seemingly content with it, he turned to walk toward Veil. Asmodeus howled and roared at him, yanking on his own limbs to try to free himself. Electricity arced from each of the metal shards, and the archdemon screamed in pain. The more he struggled, the worse it became. He went limp, slumping against the wall. Blood, black as pitch, ran from the wounds.

Veil was now backing away from Michael, retreating from his massive metal-clad form as he approached. The shards of his wings were constantly rotating and spinning on each axis. He would be beautiful if he weren’t so damn terrifying to her right now.

“Whatever you’re going to do, don’t. Just let me go,” she said to the creature in the shining armor. She raised her hands in front of herself in a useless attempt to show she meant no harm. She’d disappear into the spirit world or dash away through the wall, but she was too exhausted. After the events of today, she wouldn’t risk it. She’d make it ten feet before she wouldn’t be able to hold herself there, and then she’d probably wind up on the ground, passed out.

“You freed him.”

It was a statement, not a question. It was flat, emotionless, and even without an ounce of damnation in his tone, she couldn’t help but feel that she was on the stand. He was her proverbial judge, jury, and quite possibly her executioner. “I had to.”

“Oh?”

“This cult. Aren’t they after all of you? I know you don’t care about Mammon, but don’t they have Chamuel?”

He didn’t respond. Still, Michael kept walking toward her. Still, she retreated up the aisle toward the altar of the church. The flood of light through the entrance had faded, but the creature before her still glowed. Light glinted off his armor and his metal wings without any source that she could see.

She made more excuses. “They said he knew what they were after, that he had information on—”

“And you believed him?” He huffed a derisive, hollow, and metallic laugh. “After all the lies he’s told you?”

“Azrael said—”

“Azrael is adorably gullible. He agreed to help make you, didn’t he?” The tinny emptiness of his voice was worse than if he had just been outright judging her or had been angry. He was merely stating facts.

Veil’s foot caught the edge of the stairs to the altar as she continued to retreat from Michael. She yelped as she fell and landed hard on her ass on the stairs with a pained unf. Before she could react, he was standing at her feet. Towering over her.

She might be about to die for real.

Or dragged to Heaven and tortured.

Her mind raced with all the possible options of how this could go very poorly for her. He lifted his sword and hovered the point of it over her chest. Death by angel was something she hadn’t done before. Another one for the bingo card. “You freed him in hopes of stopping the cult that is hunting us.”

“Yeah…”

“Not because you’ve forgiven him for creating you?”

She shook her head.

“Not because you still love him?”

“Leave me alone, Michael.” It took her a second to realize she had clenched her fists. “I don’t want anything to do with him.”

“That wasn’t a no.” The tip of his sword moved closer to her, and she was forced to lean back to avoid letting it touch her. “Half-lies and partial statements don’t work on me. He has been my brother for much longer than you’ve been his student. I’ll ask it this way. Do you hate him?”

She glared up at him and remained silent. Screw him if he thought he would be able to back her into a corner. Screw him for asking questions she suddenly realized she didn’t have the answers to. She went to stand, but he pressed the tip of his sword against her throat. It felt impossibly sharp, razor-thin. The kind of knife that cut without pain. She leaned away from it. He’d called her bluff, and she had nothing in her hand.

“Don’t lie to me. I’ll know.” Electricity, yellow-gold and white, curled around his gauntlet and down his sword from hilt to tip. She drew back reflexively, worried they might ground out into her. “I’ll ask a third time. And it’ll be the last time.” Michael moved closer to her, his feet between hers, as he poised the sword over her throat, ready to drive down. “Do you hate Asmodeus?”

Once, the archdemon was her whole world. Once, she would have done everything and anything for him. She had. She had adored him and went every day wanting to be at his side. But then it all changed. She learned what he was capable of. The lengths to which he had gone to create her, to lie to her, to sculpt her into what he wanted her to be. A plaything and a permanent toy for his amusement.

She was furious at Alistair, yes.

But right now, she loathed herself more.

Because she wasn’t sure.

Tears stung her eyes, born out of frustration and hatred, not sadness. Born of how much she hated herself, and how Michael had very easily and very quickly dredged that to the surface. She didn’t know how to answer him. She didn’t know how she could. But she wasn’t eager to find out what that sword and his power were going to do to her. She fixed him with a glare, angry the archangel was dragging this out of her. 

“I don’t know.”





Kat has always been a storyteller. With ten years in script-writing for performances on both the stage and for tourism, she has always been writing in one form or another. When she isn’t penning down fiction, she works as Creative Director for a company that designs and builds large-scale interactive adventure games. There, she is the lead concept designer, handling everything from game and set design, to audio and lighting, to illustration and script writing. Also on her list of skills are artistic direction, scenic painting and props, special effects, and electronics. A graduate of Boston University with a BFA in Theatre Design, she has a passion for unique, creative, and unconventional experiences. In her spare time, she builds animatronics and takes trapeze classes.






HOSTED BY: