Lions' Pride

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2009 Ebook Cover

Book Description

Blurb

From Samhain Publishing:

To save the one they love, they’re going in with spells blazing…

Duals and Donovan: The Different, Book 1

Elissa Donovan is a real green witch—when she and her lion-shapeshifter husband have sex, the blazing heat is recycled to warm their house. Now her beloved Jude has been kidnapped by a shadowy government agency, and the last place she can turn for help is her high-powered family, who considers her magic mediocre.

When Rafe Benedict gets Elissa’s call for muscle to back up her magic, he risks his law enforcement career to answer. He’s spent a lifetime hiding his Dual ability, but something about Elissa and Jude’s magic awakens the cougar within him.

Tempting, bronzed Rafe is the perfect fuse for Elissa’s sex-fueled magic. Danger lies in breaking her vows; joining with anyone other than her true mate could not only send her marriage up in flames, it could burn out her powers in a last, all-or-nothing explosion. But Jude is worth the risk. And for Rafe, potential heartbreak is nothing next to the chance to help the two people he’s coming to love.

First, though, Rafe needs a crash course in Cougar…

Warning: This title contains evil fae, guys with guns, shadowy government conspiracies, a snarky ghost, and smoking-hot, three-way sex.

Excerpt

From Samhain Publishing:

A solid punch hit Rafe in the jaw around the same time a jolt of something that had to be magic glanced off his shoulder. If he hadn’t rocked back from the punch, the magic would have hit him square in the chest, with the possibility of real damage. As it was, it just seared, stung like hell.

Ruined a perfectly good jacket, for that matter.

White magic was fueled by sex and growth and happy, fuzzy things, but when it was used for defense, it could hurt you. Supposedly it couldn’t kill you, except by freak accident, but it could definitely put you in a world of pain.

He fumbled for his gun and came away empty-handed.

“Don’t bother,” the woman said. Her voice was deeper and richer than he would have guessed, and not as angry as she probably had a right to be, considering he’d invaded her kitchen at a moment most women would prefer to keep private. “Unauthorized weapons don’t pass the wards. It’ll be lying in the yard.”

“Why are you talking to him, Elissa?” the big man demanded. To Rafe’s ears, the voice burred and roared. Rafe could imagine it purring, too, but not right now.

The dual pushed between Rafe and the woman.

Good. The big guy could probably beat the crap out of him, even if he didn’t bother to go lionside, but at least he could fight back against that. The woman, on the other hand, pulsed with magical energies. Against magic, he was screwed unless he wanted to hurt her, and he didn’t.

He took a swift punch to the ribs, somehow managed, still breathing shallowly, to duck under a side kick aimed for his head. Great. Wasn’t it enough the guy could turn into a lion without him being a fucking black belt, too?

Rafe shook his head, hoping to shake off the effects not only of the punch, but of the weird-ass journey, the whole weird-ass evening.

No such simple luck.

Instead, a secret door opened in his brain, as if one minute he stared at a blank featureless wall, the next minute at a treasure trove he’d never known existed.

You’re a predator. You know what to do. Go for the center of mass to take him down, then go for the throat. From a crouch, he sprang forward, his muscles remembering things his conscious mind had never known.

He crashed into the dual, who staggered back and hit the floor hard with Rafe on top of him. Rafe went for the throat, but instead of grabbing or punching, he instinctively slashed with his fingers, which ached to sprout claws trapped by Drozz. The big guy laughed, grabbed Rafe’s flailing hands, then got his feet under him and bucked up to throw Rafe off.

Rafe twined his legs around the other guy’s, trying to dredge up high school wrestling, since the crazy instincts that guided him seemed to think he was a big cat, not, for all practical purposes, a human. The other man twisted. Rafe twisted with him and found himself riding the other man’s hips.

Rafe became acutely aware the man under him was naked and handsome and well-hung and smelled of sex and snow and feline.

They might be engaged in an all-out effort to hurt each other, but their dicks either didn’t know this or didn’t care. Despite his recent orgasm, Rafe was getting hard again, blood rushing to his cock, and damned if the dual wasn’t swelling against him.

Maybe if he just kissed the guy, he could take advantage of the resulting confusion, in one sense of the word or another.

Either it would work—though whether more like a porn film or a slapstick comedy he couldn’t say—or it would give the guy one more reason to beat the crap out of him.

Just as he was thinking that, he was flipped over, the strong, solid body pressing into him, controlling him utterly.

Pinned. Trapped.

The smell of man and woman and animal—pure sex and pure adrenaline—filled his nostrils. Unable to resist its lure, he took a deep breath.

A heady, fiery mix of desire and danger surged through him and he was electrified by the image of being bent over the table, fucked hard like the woman was earlier, while she watched, or helped…

Or maybe doing the same to the guy.

His body thought either sounded like a great idea.

When they were done, they could take turns making the pretty redhead scream.

The other man took advantage of his brief distraction to get his hands around Rafe’s throat.

“Stop!” the woman commanded, and it was a command, because the air shimmered around her and grew thick, and suddenly Rafe couldn’t move. Luckily, the other guy couldn’t either.

The woman stepped forward.

My God, she was beautiful. Almost miniature, but lovely, everything in perfect proportion. Her eyes were light honey brown, her fair skin dusted with adorable freckles, her red hair a curly cloud, her nipples pale rose and perky…

And she might be about to rip out his lungs, Rafe reminded himself hastily.

Instead, she placed one hand over his heart as he lay on the floor. He braced for the unknown-but-probably-bad.

Something shot through him. It didn’t hurt. It probed, rather like the twining energy earlier, but more intelligent and purposeful. Uncomfortable, yet almost friendly, like a nosy but well-intentioned neighbor.

Finally, it exited where it had entered. It had been a matter of seconds, but it felt more like hours, leaving his nerves raw and his brain flayed.

“Well?” The big man twitched, clearly waiting for the go-ahead to smack Rafe into next week.

Not that Rafe blamed him. If some stranger materialized in his house while he was enjoying post-coital bliss with a beautiful redhead, Rafe would have gone postal on him.

“Jude,” the woman said—no, once again commanded—“let him up.”

The man called Jude obeyed with a sigh. Rafe rolled away and clambered to his feet with a muttered “thank you” the woman either didn’t hear or chose to ignore.

“What the hell is going on?” Rafe and the other man asked almost simultaneously. Under other circumstances, it might have been funny.

“I don’t understand,” the woman said slowly, her voice confused, incredulous, “but he belongs here. At least my magic thinks he does.”

“What are you talking about, Elissa? I’ve never seen this guy before—and he’s a cop.” Jude spoke on a roar—not a human shout, but something deep and throaty that seemed to emanate from his lionside.

Rafe wanted to put his hands over his ears. Even more than that, he wanted to bolt out the back door, but frankly he didn’t dare. He wasn’t convinced what he’d find outside the door would be the same muddy, snow-splattered backyard he’d left behind. It might look similar, but it might not be on the same planet, for all he knew. Even if it was the same Geneva backyard that ought to be there, he’d never see it the same way again.

A niggling voice in his hindbrain suggested maybe the world had always been a stranger place than he’d thought, but the Drozz and his own determination to maintain the illusion of humanity had kept him from seeing it.

He crushed the voice down. He’d worry about the larger implications when he wasn’t trapped in a kitchen with two naked strangers, one very large and righteously furious and able to turn himself into a lion and the other presenting an unknown level of magical threat.

Publication History


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