Guest Post | The Blood Witch by Holly Day

Guest-Post

Holly is stealing a spot on the blog because it’s release day!!! The Blood Witch is out today. It’s a story we wrote for National I am in Control Day.

Conri is a werewolf, he’s also the king of Northbridge, and he thinks he has things under control – he doesn’t. Someone is trying to take him down by planting his DNA on a dead body, but Conri has no idea who.

Nick is a blood witch which means he can change the getup of blood. He can copy DNA and transform his own or someone else’s blood into something it isn’t. It’s a handy trick in a world where supernatural beings aren’t given the same rights as humans and everyone have to leave blood samples as soon as they’re gonna apply for something.

One day, Nick walks in on a robbery. A werewolf woman has been hiding her identity and has started a restaurant, something supernaturals aren’t allowed to do. When she is shot in the arm, Nick changes her blood so it appears human.

Once Conri learns he has a blood witch in his kingdom, he becomes his prime suspect, and he goes to find him.

I had so much fun writing this one. It’s a fated mates story so you can all guess that when Conri goes to confront Nick, things don’t work out the way he’d planned. So much for being in control LOL

That little shit

Excerpt:

Nick looked up as a shadow filled the window of his balcony door. A second later, a huge man yanked it open and stepped into his one-room apartment.

He dove for the phone, but the man moved fast as lightning, and a growl filled the air. When his fingers gripped Nick’s wrist, he kicked the man’s knee and flung himself backward. He wasn’t strong enough to fight a shifter, but he only needed a few seconds to collect his thoughts.

With a deep breath, he released his magic. Power dripped from his fingertips as he allowed it to build.

The man advanced on him, but when Nick flung his magic at him, he halted mid-step. The look he gave Nick was curious at first, then his face twisted into something savage. Panic shone in his eyes.

“Right now, your blood is moving very, very slowly. Your body is shutting down. Leave and never come back, and I’ll let you live. If not, I can stop your blood flow. It’ll show up as cardiac arrest in an autopsy.” Nick was gonna be sick. He’d sworn he’d never be close to a king again. His power was draining, with black dots dancing across his vision.

He stopped the magic. “Leave.” His voice was hoarse, and his knees wanted to buckle.

“I’m the king.” The man didn’t sound any better off than Nick was.

“I’ve seen kings die before. Now leave.” He curled his fingers around the backrest of his chair, praying the king would leave before he collapsed. The black dots multiplied, and a roar rose in his ears. “Leave.”

He wasn’t sure if the man left or not as he sank down on the chair. He needed to rest. In an hour or two, he’d get something to eat, and soon after, he’d be back to normal. It would be fine.

When he had rested, he’d pack a bag and leave the city. It was stupid to think he could live here once he’d tipped his hand. Six years was too long to stay in one place—he should have known. He should have run as soon as he’d helped the female in the pizza place. So naive to think they’d leave him alone once they’d realized what he could do.

A hand landed on his shoulder, and he shot off the chair. He still couldn’t see properly, and he had no strength. A strong arm wrapped around his waist, a low growl sounding close to his ear.

“Stop fighting.”

Nick pushed at the man—the king—lazy sparks of magic jumped to his fingertips, but what could he do? He didn’t have enough power to slow his blood a second time. Shifters were so much stronger than humans. He could take down more than one shifter before blacking out, but then he had to act quickly, not hold on to the control and stand around chatting as he had.

“I won’t hurt you.” His words were soft and sounded far away despite the man holding him close. A sound followed. Nick couldn’t say if it was a moan or a growl, he couldn’t tell if it was a sound of pleasure or of pain. One of victory most likely—the king had caught himself a blood witch.

Blurb:

thebloodwitchNick Adore has been in hiding for six years. He does his best to pass himself off as human and only wants to be left alone. But one day, he walks in on a robbery. Instead of quietly walking away, he reveals himself as a blood witch, and now the werewolf king demands to see him. 

Conri Biast is king. He has been the king of Norbridge for eleven years, but someone is trying to take him down. For months, he’s known there’s a blood witch in his territory who refuses to pay his respects, and that puts him on the top of his list of suspects. But when he goes to confront the witch, things don’t turn out the way he’d planned. The witch is his mate.  

Nick doesn’t want to be anywhere near Conri. Being close to kings always ends with him getting hurt, but he finds himself sucked into the power struggle. Conri doesn’t know who he can trust, but he knows he needs Nick by his side. Together, they’re strong, but are they strong enough to keep the throne? 

Buy links 

Gay Paranormal Romance: 43,009 words 

JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/TheBloodWitch 

About Holly Day: 

According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.  

Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.  

Connect with Holly on social media: 

Website :: Facebook :: Twitter :: Pinterest :: BookBub :: Goodreads :: Instagram 

 

Cover Reveal | The Cake Shop

We have a cover!!! The Cake Shop will be out on April 9th, and it’s another one of those either-or stories. This time, we got to pick from either Rain or Shine – I picked Rain.

The Cake Shop is in the same series as Cup o’ Sugar and The Drunken Dog. They’re loosely linked, so you don’t have to have read one story to read the others, but it’s about people who belong to the same werewolf pack.

York is a member of the Halfhide pack, and after a run-in with a rivalling pack, he takes refuge in a bakery. The owner is a bear shifter who wants nothing to do with York, that they are fated mates matters little.

Are you ready to see the cover??

thecakeshop

Blurb:

York Winter and his packmates are attacked by a rivaling werewolf pack at a lumberyard. Injured and exhausted, York runs into a part of town he’s not familiar with, and when the enemy is closing in, he takes his chances and escapes into a bear-owned bakery.

Torbjorn Holt doesn’t do people, and he doesn’t do wolves no matter what the pull in his heart is trying to tell him. He’s learned his lesson and will not have wolves in the bakery, and he’ll definitely not mate one. Luckily, York isn’t too badly injured, so Torbjorn doesn’t feel bad about kicking him out into the rain.

York can’t believe what’s happening. He’s finally found his mate, but Torbjorn refuses to let him stay. Torbjorn will never trust a wolf again, and if York doesn’t leave soon, he’ll knock him out with a rolling pin and dump him in the alley. York has to make Torbjorn understand he means him no harm, but how will he do that when Torbjorn refuses to talk to him?

Pre-order link

Gay Paranormal Romance: 12,864 words

JMS Books

 

#WhatToReadWednesday | Green Reads

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, so I thought I’d do some green reads. I did that a few years ago, so there might be some repeats, but what are you gonna do? 😆

I’ll Be Your Drill, Soldier by Crystal Rose

I should reread this, but I’m afraid to. I loved it when I first read it many, many years ago, and now I fear I won’t. I remember laughing a lot and then some moments made me want to cry. One day I might dare read it again.

I'll be you drill, soldierRyan Gracin had a good life until he told his parents he was gay. Since they yanked their support for college he had to find a way to pay for it. Little did he know that joining the Army was going to change his life forever. Especially when he was introduced to a Drill Sergeant who was nicknamed ‘Big Daddy’.

Phillip Grabowski had joined the Army to follow in his father’s footsteps; by the time Ryan entered, he had already made a name for himself. He was a soldier’s soldier, but Ryan was making it really hard for him to remember that.

https://books2read.com/IllBeYourDrillSoldier

Motel. Pool. by Kim Fielding.

I’ve been glancing at this lately, thinking maybe it’s time for a reread. Awesome ghost story!

Motel. Pool.In the mid-1950s, Jack Dayton flees his working-class prospects in Omaha and heads to Hollywood, convinced he’ll be the next James Dean. But sleazy casting couches don’t earn him stardom, and despair leads to a series of poor decisions that ultimately find him at a cheap motel off Route 66, lifeless at the bottom of the pool.

Sixty years later, Tag Manning, feeling hopeless and empty, flees his most recent relationship mistake and takes to the open road. On a roundabout route to Las Vegas, he pulls over to rest at an isolated spot on Route 66. There’s no longer a motel or pool, but when Tag resumes his journey to Vegas, he finds he’s transporting a hitchhiking ghost. Jack and Tag come to find much-needed friends in each other, but one man is a phantom and the other is strangely cursed. Time is running out for each of them, and they must face the fact that a future together may not only be a gamble… it may not be in the cards.

https://books2read.com/MotelPool

Strain by Amelia C. Gormley

I’ve only read this story in this series. I like a good post-apocalyptic story, and I enjoyed this, but I’m extremely boring when it comes to monogamy. I don’t mind the main character going from one relationship to another, but I don’t do cheating, and I don’t do multiple partners if I can avoid it.

StrainIn a world with little hope and no rules, the only thing they have to lose is themselves.

Rhys Cooper is a dead man. He’s spent years hiding from the virus that wiped out most of the human race, but an act of futile heroism has him counting down his remaining days. The timely arrival of superhuman soldiers offers some feeble hope–but only if Rhys can reconcile himself to doing what is necessary to take advantage of it.

Sergeant Darius Murrell has seen too much death and too little tenderness. His job is seeking out the infected to put them out of their misery, or sending the uninfected survivors to a safe haven where he and his fellow Juggernaut troops will never be welcomed. Rhys’s situation is different, though. Not only is there an improbable chance that Darius won’t have to put a bullet in Rhys’s head, but he has somehow managed to get under Darius’s skin.

The virus Rhys must infect himself with in order to survive is sexually transmitted, and optimizing his chance of exposure requires him to submit as often as possible to Darius–and the other soldiers. Though the boundaries of morality have shifted in this harsh new world, Darius and Rhys question whether their humanity is too high a price to pay for Rhys’s survival.
 

https://books2read.com/Strain

Think of England by K.J. Charles

Allow me to fangirl for a moment. I love this one! Amazing characters, nice mystery, and creepy caves. What more can you wish for?

Think of EnglandLie back and think of England…

England, 1904. Two years ago, Captain Archie Curtis lost his friends, fingers, and future to a terrible military accident. Alone, purposeless and angry, Curtis is determined to discover if he and his comrades were the victims of fate, or of sabotage.

Curtis’s search takes him to an isolated, ultra-modern country house, where he meets and instantly clashes with fellow guest Daniel da Silva. Effete, decadent, foreign, and all-too-obviously queer, the sophisticated poet is everything the straightforward British officer fears and distrusts.

As events unfold, Curtis realizes that Daniel has his own secret intentions. And there’s something else they share—a mounting sexual tension that leaves Curtis reeling.

As the house party’s elegant facade cracks to reveal treachery, blackmail and murder, Curtis finds himself needing clever, dark-eyed Daniel as he has never needed a man before…

https://books2read.com/ThinkofEngland

Secrets by Jordan Castillo Price

This is the fourth story in the series, so I’m suggesting reading the first three first, but the cover is pretty green so I’m including it. I reread the first seven of this recently, and I love Vic. He’s an awesome character.

SecretsVictor Bayne’s job as a PsyCop involves tracking down dead people and getting them to spill their guts about their final moments. It’s never been fun, per se. But it’s not usually this annoying.

Vic has just moved in with his boyfriend Jacob, he can’t figure out where anything’s packed, and his co-worker is pressuring him to have a housewarming party.

Can’t a guy catch a break?

On a more sinister note, Vic discovers there’s absolutely no trace of him online. No trace of anyone else who trained at “Camp Hell,” either.

Everyone Vic knows has signed a mysterious set of papers to ensure his “privacy.” The contracts are so confidential that even Vic has never heard of them. But Jacob might have.

What other secrets has Jacob been keeping?

https://books2read.com/JCPSecrets

The Ego Wall

I have a few green ones too…

kissesandcabins-small-1

Kace Channing has been best friends with Luke Holland for thirty-five years. He can’t imagine his world without him. But over the last twelve months, they’ve hardly seen one another. And life without Luke seems empty.

When Luke shows up on Kace’s doorstep, asking for a place to stay, Kace is happy to say yes. But he isn’t prepared for the kiss that follows, or ready to admit he could kiss Luke forever. What they already have is too important.

And when Luke, the least outdoorsy person Kace knows, tells him he’s buying a cabin in the woods, Kace tries to talk him out of it. But Luke’s made up his mind. He says they need it, the two of them.

But won’t kisses and cabins ruin their friendship?

https://books2read.com/KissesandCabins

when skies are gray

Levi Campbell made one huge, stupid mistake.

When his older boyfriend fears he’s holding Levi back from fulfilling his youthful dreams, he encourages him to break free and seek adventure. Levi, hurt and confused, does just that … But in an immature act of rebellion, he enlists in the army. The army!

Levi never wanted to be a soldier, and he never, ever wanted to go to faraway places, but he is now committed to serving his country for two whole years.

Madoc Griffiths did the right thing when he let Levi go, he knows he did, but if it was the right thing, then why can’t he move on? Every night he dreams about Levi; every day he misses him. But Levi is young, and Madoc will not stand in the way of Levi following his dreams.

But being a soldier isn’t Levi’s dream.

There is nothing Levi wants more than to do his time and return home to Northfield and fight for his man. Madoc was sure he’d be able to move on, but once he hears Levi will be home on a two-week leave, he can think of nothing except seeing him again. But can he stand to be with his lover for two weeks and then let him leave to fight a war?

https://books2read.com/WhenSkiesAreGray

Pine Tree Mary

Detective Quinn Manning wants nothing more than to see Diamond Dace, one of Fagerdal’s most notorious drug lords, behind bars. After years of the man eluding the authorities, when Manning accidentally stumbles onto an opportunity to catch the powerful dealer red-handed, he doesn’t hesitate. But what should be a simple tail instead drops Manning into a real-life world of myth and legend.

Hush is a hulder, a forest spirit also known as a pine tree Mary. Since the beginning of time, his people have lived in the forest, feeding off the energy they derive from the lust and desires of passing hunters. But Hush is an abomination, the only male of his kind.

After a lifetime of starvation, Hush has struck a deal with a human. A simple trade that will give the human what he desires and keep Hush from wasting away completely.

When Manning saves a young man from Diamond and one of his men, his view of reality is altered forever. And Hush, who has never met anyone like Manning, finds the man’s attraction to him enough to finally stave off his constant hunger.

Together they set out to rescue Manning’s partner, and their connection to one another grows. But can a human detective have a future with a creature of the forest, a creature who isn’t supposed to exist?

https://books2read.com/PineTreeMary