Fridays at Ofelia’s | Electric Candle by Elizabeth Noble

Today, Elizabeth Noble is here to share a little from her story, Electric Candle. Welcome, Elizabeth!

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Soulmates!

Hello and thank you Ofelia for hosting me today!

I’m Elizabeth Noble and I write in a variety of genres, but paranormal romance and romantic thrillers are the category most of my books fall into. All my books are MM and always have a HEA!

I cowrote a paranormal romance/urban fantasy series, The Sleepless City, with Anne Barwell. I wrote books two and four of the series, Electric Candle and Shifting Chaos.

When Anne and I were planning our series, we knew that all the books would feature soulmates and fated mates as a major plot element throughout the stories.

My pair of soulmates are both vampires. Jonas Forge has been a vampire for nearly 200 years. Blair Turner for less than a decade. They’re driven by nature to soulbond with each other. Soulbonds and fated mates don’t require dating and trying to meet the right person. That’d be great except these two guys barely know each other and one of these men is already in a relationship!

A basic premise of Electric Candle is what happens if fated mates aren’t perfect for each other?

When I was writing this book, I wanted to do something a little different than ‘they meet, and everything is automatically hearts and flowers and love at first sight’ sort of story. I asked myself the question, what happens if fated mates aren’t thrilled with each other? It’s one thing to have preordained feelings of love for another person. It’s quite another to learn to like the person you’re destined to spend the rest of what could be a very long life with.

Forge’s current role in life is as a homicide detective for the town of Boggslake. He not only hunts human criminals but supernatural ones as well. It’s during an investigation that his soulmate, Blair, arrives unannounced in Boggslake. Forge and Blair aren’t complete strangers. Over the years Blair offered Forge, and others, information on their investigations of supernatural criminals. Except Blair and Forge have never met in person, only via a voice connection over the internet. Neither one knows the other is a vampire. The real surprise is learning they’re soulmates!

Of course, they discover the other’s true nature when they meet in person. Forge and Blair are two completely opposite personalities. Blair’s only understanding of what being a vampire means is comes from pop culture. Forge has lived the majority of his two hundred plus years as a vampire. Things are complicated because Forge has been in love with another vampire, a man named Declan, for almost as long. Being soulbonded to another man creates an interesting conflict for everyone involved.

Forge and Blair travel a bumpy, imperfect path to becoming real partners, taking them a step beyond soulmates to friends, as well as lovers. It doesn’t happen overnight and it’s not a painless process, but one that makes them both stronger as individuals and as a soulbonded pair.

Excerpt:

No one was there, yet Forge couldn’t shake the feeling he wasn’t alone. He wandered down the beach a few yards. Water splashing against the shore and spraying made him go closer for a better look. The lake’s edge here wasn’t gently sloping sand but a sharp lip of concrete. Hunkering on the ledge, Forge leaned over for a look.  
 
The wall ran a good half mile in either direction. He could see large spots that were darker than the surrounding area. Forge had read about the secret rooms constructed all along Lake Erie during Prohibition. Illegal booze and guns were stashed in them. One could only access the rooms by going under water. At high tide, many of the outer parts of the rooms were completely submerged. He’d never been in one.  
 
More than likely he’d have to get wet to justify the expense of divers. Forge was still contemplated getting a dive team in when he heard shouting.  
 
“Stop. Wait!”  
 
The voice sounded familiar, but Forge couldn’t place it. That always made him nuts. Turning, he looked up at the top of the stairs. Then he squinted and shook his head. Who belonged to the voice made him stare in a type of horrified wonder, like one looked at a train wreck.  
 
The fact his cock picked then to persistently remind him of its presence and give a few twitches and throbs didn’t help.  
 
It was a man, though the horror Forge was feeling might have been less if it’d been a woman. He wore what appeared to be homemade steampunk goggles with dark lenses, a long sleeved black shirt, and black jeans.  
 
“Sweet mother of God, is that a cape?” Forge muttered and took a few steps forward. “No, stop, don’t—”  
 
It was too late. The oddly dressed man began to run down the steps—the slippery, wet steps, waving his arms. He’d gone about three steps when his feet slid out from under him and his rear hit the stone stairs. The man yelped, and Forge’s cock gave another twitch. He had the fleeting thought of how disturbing on several levels that was.  
 
“What the hell?” Forge ran to the bottom of the stairs.  
 
Bouncing head over heels down the steps, the guy finally flopped to one side and rolled the remainder of the way down, finishing his descent with a hearty splash in the chilly lake water.  
 
Floundering and shouting, the man slapped the lake’s surface, went under, bobbed up, and spit water out of his mouth, and garbled, “Can’t… swim.”  
 
Throwing his arms wide, Forge grumbled, “It’s not as if vampires drown.”  
 
The guy went under, the water churned, but he didn’t come to the surface. Jerking his jacket off and dropping it to the ground, Forge made sure his phone was with the garment.  
 
“This has got to be a joke. A really bad joke.” Forge ran to the edge and dove in. The only thing that prevented him from ejaculating the second his fingers touched the man was the cold water. He shuddered when he pulled the guy against his chest and wrapped one arm around him, using the other to help propel them to the surface.  
 
When he got to the concrete edge, he hefted the guy over and onto the ground. Forge hoisted himself out of the water and hit the guy, who looked to be in his twenties, between the shoulder blades to expel lake water.  
 
A shiver and spark of electricity ran from Forge’s palm and coursed down his spine to settle in his groin.  
 
This couldn’t be his soulmate. Yet even as he finished that thought, he knew, and there was no denying what his body was telling him. The fool dressed as some superhero wannabe in a really bad outfit was Jonas Forge’s mate for eternity.  
 
Forge wondered if other vampires would penalize him for killing his soulmate. 

Blurb:

When a vampire finds his soulmate, the bond is forever. It’s love at first sight.

Or is it?

Homicide Detective Jonas Forge has been a vampire for centuries. He’s fought wars, seen life go from the simple colonial days to the modern high-tech world. He’s evolved with the times, adapted to each new era, blended into each new life. The one constant is his best friend, mentor, and lover, Declan. Even though not fated to bond as soulmates, Forge and Declan are happy and settled in their life together.

Until Forge’s real soulmate falls, literally, into his life.

Forge isn’t thrilled with the guy, despite the pheromones attracting them to each other, and the feeling seems mutual. While trying to adjust to his clumsy soulmate and equally awkward feelings, Forge is also on the hunt for a serial-killer witnesses can’t identify who’s leaving a trail of bodies in its wake.

Will the bond Forge is finally forming with his soulmate be destroyed when the hunter becomes the victim?

If you like fated mates who aren’t perfect for each other, a paranormal killer who might not be caught and found families then you’ll love Elizabeth Noble’s Electric Candle.

Author’s note: This book was originally published in 2014 by another publisher. This edition has been revised and re-edited.

Electric Candle by Elizabeth Noble

A found family of supernaturals protects humanity from the stuff of nightmares.

Buy Link: https://amzn.to/2ZGC7Ud

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ASIN: B08D83MDG3

About Elizabeth Nobel

Mystery, action, chills, and thrills spiced with romance and desire. ELIZABETH NOBLE lives by the adage “I can’t not write.” She doesn’t remember a time when she didn’t make up stories and eventually she learned how to put words on a page. Those words turned into books and fan fiction that turned into a genuine love of M/M fiction. A part of every day is spent living in worlds she created that are filled with intrigue and espionage. She has a real love for a good mystery complete with murder and twisty plots as well as all things sci-fi, futuristic, and supernatural.

When she’s not chronicling the adventures of her many characters, Elizabeth is a veterinary nurse living in her native Cleveland, Ohio. She has three grown children and now happily shares her little, brick house with two spunky Cardigan Welsh Corgis and their feline sidekicks. Elizabeth is a fan of baseball, basketball (go Cavs and Guardians) and gardening. She can often be found working in her ‘outside office’ listening to classic rock and plotter her next novel waiting for it to be dark enough to gaze at the stars.

Elizabeth has received a number of amateur writing awards. Since being published, several of her novels have received Honorable Mentions in the Rainbow Awards. Jewel Cave was a runner-up in the Gay Mystery/Thriller category in the 2015 Rainbow Awards. Ringed Love was a winner in the Gay Fantasy Romance category of the 2016 Rainbow Awards.

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