Mind Scrambler is the sequel to Soul Eater. The guys, and Elora, in this series work in Rockshade’s Paranormal Investigations Department. They’re detectives who solve crimes connected to the paranormal world.
Soul Eater is about Thaddeus and Sandulf, but in Mind Scrambler, we get to follow Captain Kol Jaecar and Elijah Long. Eli is an empath and Jaecar a panther shifter.
I’d say Mind Scrambler is a little darker than Soul Eater, or maybe not darker – the evil wizards in Soul Eater were pretty sinister, but we’re dealing with past abuse here. Elijah has a house on an island, and he wouldn’t have left it had he not gotten kidnapped.
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So many intense emotions—fury, worry, lust.
Eli bit harder on his lips. He tried to block part of the avalanche, but when black dots invaded his vision, he allowed some emotions to seep into him again. He couldn’t pass out here. He had to escape. He could block it all out later to give himself a break.
“Step aside!”
Elora. His eyes stung as tears threatened to rise. She’d found him. The black dots multiplied, but he raised an arm in her direction. His knees buckled.
“Make way, I’m a police officer. We’re taking this man with us.”
A strong hand gripped around his arm before he hit the ground, and the lust he’d sensed in the crowd grew more prominent.
Eli didn’t do lust, it scrambled his mind too much, and he flinched as he prepared for the pain that always followed lust. He closed his eyes to block out as many impressions as possible while telling himself Elora would get him out of this—she’d done it before, she could do it again.
“He needs to go to the hospital.” It was the woman working in the station, and Eli chanced a glance around the small crowd. His kidnapper was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m aware of his medical history.” Elora’s voice turned sharp. “We’re rolling out of here. Now.”
The grip on his arm didn’t let go, no matter how much he prayed Elora would make it so. When the man led him toward the car, panic set in for real, and he struggled. No!
He wasn’t going anywhere with the sicko holding him. The lust coming off him was thick, and while it probably wasn’t directed at him, he was swimming in it, drowning in it, choking.
It made him want to throw up.
A growl, low and menacing, sounded near his ear, and Eli pulled at his arm. His vision didn’t work properly. It was all too much. He was battling his mind. It wanted to shut down, needed to shut down, but he had to stay conscious until Elora could get him into her car.
“This way.” Elora hooked her arm in his, and the man fell in behind them. “We’re getting out of here. Are you hungry?”
Her tone was fake. Fear, anger, and worry wafted off her, and he tried shaking it off.
“I need space. I want to go home.”
“You can’t.” The growly voice made him jump.
“I agree. It’s best if you come with us.”
“I can’t.” Elora lived in a city and he’d die in a city. All those people with their emotions, it wasn’t something he’d survive. “I need to go home.” It wasn’t more than a whisper and if he hadn’t been on the brink of passing out, he’d flinched at the desperation in his tone.
“It’s not safe there. We don’t know who took you or why, but we can guess, right?”
He didn’t want to guess, he wanted to pretend nothing had happened. He wanted the safe haven his home had been these last three years, the solitude, the water surrounding him. The quiet.
“I know it’s not ideal, Eli, but you can’t go back there. At least not until we’ve caught the ones behind this.”
He snorted. She knew as well as he did, only one person could be behind this.
He was of no use for anyone, no one would try to kidnap him for his skill or for ransom. Elora was his only relative, and neither of them had any money. Only one person would go through this much trouble to get his claws on him, only Varg.
“I can’t go to the city.”
Elora remained silent. “We’ll have to solve it.”
Eli looked around for the man who’d taken his arm. He stood a few feet away with a phone pressed to his ear. “Who’s he?”
“Who?” Elora followed his gaze. “Oh, Captain Kol Jaecar, my boss.”
“He’s a monster.”
She hesitated. “He’s not a wolf.”
“He still has claws.” Eli might not have seen them or experienced the slicing burn of them tearing through his skin, but he made damn sure to stay far away from anything that growled.
Mind Scrambler in the JMS shop
Years ago, empath Elijah Long made a bad decision, and he is still paying for it. He’s kept hidden from his abusive werewolf ex for years, but when he wakes in a dark room, cuffed to a wall, he knows he’s out of luck. Elora, his psychic sister, will come for him, he just has to endure long enough to give her a chance to find him.
Captain Kol Jaecar of Rockshade’s Paranormal Investigations Department detests slow times at work, so when Elora wants time off to search for her brother, Kol treats it as if it’s a real case and starts an investigation. What he assumed was a brother not picking up when his sister called turns out to be something else.
Elijah experiences people’s emotions so strongly, it prohibits him from living a normal life. Spending time in the city is out of the question, yet it’s where Elora takes him once she finds him. Elijah does his best to keep his distance, especially from the growling man Elora brought to his rescue. Elijah will never make the mistake of getting close to a shifter again.
The moment Kol smells Elijah, he knows he’s his mate, but how to get close to someone who doesn’t want to be near you? The man who abused Elijah is still on the loose, and Kol calls in the entire team to hunt him down. But how are they to keep Elijah safe when he can’t be around people? And how will Kol stay sane if he can’t touch his mate?
Ofelia Grand 