Visit my Website for all the blurbs, excerpts and news!!

Visit my Website for all the blurbs, excerpts and news!!
Visit my Website for all the blurbs, excerpts and news!!

Friday 30 November 2018

New release - L.D. Blakeley - Shadowy Pines

Delighted to have L. D. Blakeley on my blog with her new release, Shadowy Pines. Scroll to find blurb, teasers, and all info!

Thanks so much for having me on your blog :-) A few years ago I went sightseeing in my own backyard and fell in love with a beautiful area just a few hours outside of Toronto called the Kawarthas. It's the kind of place where I could imagine buying a cottage, or even picture moving to on a more permanent basis one day. You see, it has a vibe. I know – how very woo. But it does. It's magical, almost otherworldly. And I knew in an instant I was going to create a fictional universe based on this bewitching region in Ontario, Canada.  


SHADOWY PINES by L.D. Blakeley Available: November 28, 2018 Paranormal Romance, MM Romance, Magical Realism Publisher: Evernight Publishing ISBN: 978-1-77339-846-4 Cover Artist: Jay Aheer | Editor: CA Clauson

When an over-educated, underemployed millennial is called home to help with the family business, he jumps at the chance to leave his crap job, crappier love life, and the city behind. But moving to Shadowy Pines isn’t quite the idyllic life change Finn Parks imagined. How the hell do you cope when you find out magic – actual magic – is real? Or that you also happen to come from a long line of powerful witches? And that handsome man with all the sizzle? Yeah, he might be trying to kill you. FML. Read an excerpt  

Where To Buy:

Evernight Publishing$3.99 $2.99 until Dec. 12 Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookstrand | | Kobo | Smashwords

Excerpt:

“You’d be surprised how easily swayed I can be by a handsome face.” Not for nothing, but Finn was fairly certain that was a come on. It had been a while, but he did remember what one sounded like. This one was … nicer, somehow. It still had the promising lilt of innuendo, but it didn’t sound like it had been rehearsed or lifted from bad porn dialogue. “My aunt says you’re new in town, too. What’re you here for?” “Business. Boring family business.” “How vague,” Finn teased. “Seriously. My father sent me back here to check out a vineyard. He’s interested in adding it to the wine brewing facility we already run, the Sharpe Wine Butler on the outskirts of town. You know it?” “Can’t say I do, but it sounds more interesting than why I moved here.” “Why are you in Shadowy Pines?” “Jude and Poppy needed my help, I had nothing worth holding on to in the city, so—here I am.” Finn shrugged. “Now that’s boring,” he added with what he hoped was a charming smile. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Finn.” Owen pulled his chair closer and placed his hand on Finn’s knee. “Feel that?” Of course he did. It felt as though a live wire had been placed against his bare skin. “Yes.” Finn cursed the breathy, needy tone his voice had taken on. “What…” He wasn’t sure how to phrase his question so it wouldn’t offend. “What is that? I mean, I get the concept of electrical attraction, but this? This isn’t normal.” When Owen didn’t reply right away, Finn prodded, “Right?” “No, not really.” Owen’s fingers were slowly caressing Finn’s leg and inching their way up his thigh “Not for most people.” Owen leaned forward and took Finn’s face in both hands and brought their lips so close Finn swore he could taste him. Owen’s eyes visibly blazed in a way that barely seemed human. Finn froze, his breath catching in his throat. When Owen finally pressed their lips together, Finn felt another jolt of electricity arc through his entire body and he gasped at the sensation. Owen’s fingers at his nape trailed delicious sparks across Finn’s skin as he licked at the seam of Finn’s mouth. Finn opened eagerly and nipped at Owen’s bottom lip. Never had a kiss made him so crazy with want. He needed to touch, wanted to crawl inside of Owen and feel him from the inside, out. But as Finn reached out a hand, Owen pulled away, his breathing every bit as labored as Finn’s. “We’re different, Finn.” Owen licked at his lips and watched Finn’s eyes follow the tip of his tongue. “You’re different. You know that, right?” Finn had no response. None that made any sense. Right now all he wanted was to tear at Owen’s clothes and taste every last inch of the man. But for some reason, Owen had put on the brakes and wanted to discuss—what, exactly? Finn was at a loss. And his dick could have cut glass. “The woman in the grocery store. You mentioned that wasn’t the first time you’d seen her, right?” “Right.” Finn’s voiced faltered slightly. Not sure where Owen was going with this, he gestured for him to continue. “I think she saw you for what you are.” “And what exactly is that?” Finn asked, not sure he wanted an answer. “You’re a witch, Finn.” Owen’s face was so serious, so earnest, Finn almost believed him for a split second. Almost. He threw his head back and laughed uproariously. He laughed so hard, he could feel tears well up in his eyes. Well that’s an effective way to kill an erection. But Owen’s expression hadn’t changed an iota. He simply sat and stared at Finn. “Are you—oh, god, you’re serious aren’t you?” Dammit! He knew there was a reason he’d established his dating embargo. He certainly could attract the crazies.




About the Author:

L.D. Blakeley is a pragmatist with a romantic soul & a dirty mind. She loves horror movies, hot sex, and happily ever afters. She’s easily distracted by shiny things, and is a slightly neurotic, highly ambitious dreamer who enjoys dabbling in photography & pretending she can carry a tune. In another life, L.D. was a newspaper reporter, an entertainment & music writer, travel writer, website content editor, and a marketing shill. Now she prefers to spend her time writing hot, steamy fiction (with a healthy dose of romance) about intriguing, sexy men. Although she dreams of living some place isolated with an endless supply of wine and an infinite number of titles on her eReader, she currently lives in downtown Toronto with her husband and their rock star cat. Find L.D. online: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Amazon | Goodreads

 

Tuesday 27 November 2018

New Release - Denying the Alpha - Anthology

"...a great collection of stories that feature lots of heat, intrigue and connections between the characters."


➛➛➛Delighted to host some really awesomely talented Evernight authors and their sizzling Denying the Alpha Anthology 😈

 

Nine hand-picked stories are hot enough to curl your toes. 


Caleb by Loralynne Summers
Crossing Boundaries by Rose Wulf
Guarding What's Hers by Kait Gamble
The Librarian and Her Dragon by Doris O'Connor
Eagle's Seduction by Elyzabeth M. VaLey
Make Her Purr by Sam Crescent and Stacey Espino
Claiming the Coyote by Roberta Winchester
My Very Soul by Tesla Storm
Bearly Caught by Sarah Marsh

Here's a teaser from Kait Gamble's story, Guarding What's Hers

 Here is a teaser from Sarah Marsh's story, Bearly Caught:



Daniella Holt needed to get away from a controlling ex that wouldn’t take no for an answer, she thought that a few weeks in Hillion Falls renovating her Aunt’s house before she could sell it would be just the ticket. But there’s something odd about the small community that she can’t quite put her finger on and the handsome town mayor she runs into is definitely a distraction that she doesn’t need. Emmett Greyson is the pack Alpha of Hillion Falls and things usually come fairly easy for him. Until he meets the niece of one of his former pack members and she has his bear all tied up in knots. Unfortunately, Dani doesn’t seem to be like any other woman he’s met before, and if he thinks it’s going to be easy to get her attention or her trust—he’d better think again. When Dani ends up hurt they’re all in for a surprise no one could have anticipated, but will the crazy changes happening in her life drive her back to the man she didn’t want, or will Emmett find a way to catch Dani’s skittish heart once and for all?

  And we have a hotsy-hot little teaser from ELyzabeth's M. Valey story,  Eagle's Seduction:



“Give me my stuff now. There’s no connection and no mating happening here. If you think I’d ever go into bed with a guy like you, then you need therapy.” 
He didn’t retract. To her dismay, he moved so close she could see the specks of gold in his eyes and smell the coffee on his breath. 
“Why are you fighting it? Haven’t you dreamed of this moment?” 
“What do you think I am? A damsel in distress?” 
She didn’t give him time to respond and, leaning over the table, she lunged for her stuff. A large hand squeezed her ass. Gasping loudly, she scurried upright. 
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. 
“Just giving you a helping hand,” he replied. “You’re short. I thought I’d give you a boost.” 
“This is harassment.” Kit laughed. 
“It would be if it weren’t because I’m attuned to your arousal, little owl. Lust is pumping through our blood hard and fast, our birds begging to fly together and perform the mating ritual. You want me as badly as I want you.” 
She shook her head but her damn bird was screeching for release and her libidinous body ached with a throbbing rhythm that demanded to be satisfied. 
“Give me my belongings.” 
“Your wish is my command, little one.” He handed her the black school bag. 
“Unfortunately, I have to go, but this isn’t the end of our conversation,” Kit stated.
“If that’s what you want to believe, suit yourself,” she said, shouldering her backpack. Kara turned to leave. 
“Don’t forget your clothes,” he said. She spun around. Kit held out the jeans and shirt she’d been wearing earlier in the day. 
Scowling, she took them from him.
 “And my underwear?” 
“Oops.” His eyes held a playful glint. “I must have forgotten it at my hotel room, but you could accompany me and we can go get it. Although the idea of knowing you might not be wearing any panties makes me drool.” 
“You’re disgusting,” she said, even though liquid pooled between her thighs. 
“And yet I’m your mate. Isn’t life full of hard … things?” His gaze dipped and she mistakenly followed it. Her eyes widened at the impressive bulge in his jeans. Heat crept up her neck. 
“G-goodbye.” 
Tha devilish man chortled. “See you soon, little owl.”

Elyzabeth M. VaLey


Are you intrigued?

Find it at Evernight

Or on Amazon 

Saturday 24 November 2018

Book News, A Muse to Live For

What happens when a gender-queer romance meets with the author's lifelong obsession with D. G. Rossetti, his stunning models, and the great poets of the 19th century?
Hopefully, good things.
The "Victorian Story" was at first called Paint Me True, and it originated from a curiously vivid and "well narrated" dream I had pretty exactly a year ago. I filed it under "future short stories" and left it at that, because I was writing Spice & Vanilla and I was completely taken up by it.
And it was to be a short story (of course) and very straight(forward) (of course). Easy peasy.
Well, unfortunately (?) I am crap at anything easy-peasy, so when I actually started to tinker with it last February,  the tale immediately grew in the telling, especially when it appeared that it could be connected to Spice & Vanilla, however tenuously, so that it became the third installment of my "transgender trilogy". After that there was no chance of keeping it simple. Ahem.
Despite the gender queer aspect however, the core of the story is the artist's experience, his inspiration, and the obsession, passion and depression that go with it, a topic that is very very deeply rooted in my own soul and experience.
Sometimes the story became a strange almost supernatural experience. The more I read and wrote about Rossetti the more eerie coincidences I found.

It is also a very, very heartfelt love story. I love it passionately, and I think that together with Woman as a Foreign Language it is my favorite piece of writing ever.
I made many character sketches for this story, mostly of Gabriel/le, not surprisingly,  but also of Nathaniel, although he is very much my alter-ego and didn't like to have his picture taken.


London, 1884.
An artist lives to create. When Nathaniel’s urge to paint died, so did his will to live.
Until the night he meets Gabrielle.
Gabrielle may be a just a poor prostitute, but she has the beauty of a Pre-Raphaelite stunner, and the otherworldly aura of a fallen angel. She also has a secret. Gabrielle is Gabriel, and when Gabriel’s dark past comes knocking and Gabrielle must abandon her new career as an artist’s model, Nathaniel’s  whole world comes crashing down again.
Better to die than living without her love, and the breath-taking creative drive she brought him.
But it’s dead easy to die for love. Any fool can die for love. To live for it, that takes altogether more courage, doggedness and imagination.
#transgenderromance #queerromance #crossdresser


Model for Nathaniel is Henry Ian Cusick. Model for Gabriel/le, Danila Kovalev... as always. I am struck by how much Danila K. resembles Rossetti's models, and often, when describing Gabriel/le in the story I found myself using contemporary descriptions of Lizzie Siddal and Jane Morris.And once, I discovered, which was both beautiful and rather unsettling that Rossetti and I had picked exactly the same words, independently, because I am sure I had not read that before, to describe the agonizing separation from our muse and love... Writing this story has been indeed a strange experience...


Here's a few pages from the beginning of the story, just to get in the mood of it...
(unedited)



A Muse to Live For

Chapter One


London, November 1884

Nathaniel

A mirror is an awful thing to have about one’s home.
One can, with care, go about life lightly, without knowing of one’s own existence, which is not a bad state of affairs, considering. Invisible and insensible, one can live on. In a manner of speaking. I, of course, have been a dead man for five years. But one can go on, in a way. In a sort of muffled darkness. Careful not to make a sound, or raise any dust.
Until one has to shave. The mirror stares back at me haggardly, telling the whole tale over again.
Dead. Dead to the world, and buried in these two darkened rooms.

It is fairly poor taste to disturb the dead, and I resent the intrusion as much as any dear departed would. If only Henry would let me lie in peace.
This mania for the music hall has become a perpetual nuisance. Hardly a month passes that I don’t have to go through this torment. It’s Henry’s way of doing me a kindness, or so he says. Says it will cheer me up. It doesn’t. It’s sickening. But I go anyway, because Henry’s ruckus if I don’t go is worse. Not in the amount of noise and exertion perhaps, but it’s more personal. At the music hall, I just float away. It’s just noise.
It might be easier to go and spend one and a half penny at the barber shop; but I dislike the man’s hands on me; he chatters without pause; his suspiciously pliant and universal political views annoy me; and besides, I’d have to walk the length of the road in my current state of unkempt overgrown shagginess. Worst of all, I would have to pass Mrs. Crabwood’s parlor downstairs. She thinks unshaved men should come and go through the traders’ door, which I would not mind, as such, but her reproving look would be unbearable.
I wish people were not so ready and eager to look me in the eye. If eyes are windows in the soul, should we not grace them with some privacy? There’s not one person on this earth whom I’d want to know my soul, and me theirs.
No, better to face the soulless mirror, and my own darkness. Marginally better, at least. I find scissors and snip unevenly away, before taking up the razor. The scissors are blunt like everything in here, and each cut pulls the skin, as if niggling at the puckered proud flesh over a half healed scab.
The scab being me.
It’s a twenty minutes-walk to Henry’s, most of it along the river. In summer it would be a pleasant walk, under the spreading plane trees, with the boats plying on the sunny water. Now my boots plash softly into sodden fallen leaves, and slick horse muck. Still, the bare trees looming in the mist have a gaunt beauty, and for a moment, the briefest moment, I wish I had a pencil and a sketching pad with me, to jot down the twisting, muscular forms of their outstretched limbs.
Time was when I never went anywhere without paper and pencils. But that man is long gone.
I am just in sight of number 16, Rossetti’s house—he’s gone these last two years, poor tormented soul, with all his women and his menagerie, may he rest in peace—when a gentleman in a dark coat steps out of a cab not two yards from me and hands out an elegant lady, who turns around to shake out the folds of her gown and unwittingly looks me right in the eye. I shudder, hurrying on.
Really. I mean it. If it’s true that eyes are windows in our soul, why do we look people in the eyes? How many people have you ever known that you’d want to share your soul with? One? Two? Twenty? Fifteen thousand? Or maybe none at all?
****
Gabriel

There is this to be said for my profession.
I can sleep in.
That unspeakable time of day, the early hours of the morning, when the whole world trudges along the streets with dead eyes and heavy feet, on to another day of toil, is spared to me.
I see the tiredness of the world at the other end of the day. But by then it’s dark, and there is not much to see, and the tiredness has a different flavor. To me, that’s mostly the flavor of a man’s spendings, which I mostly spit on the pavement. You get used to it. You get used to almost anything, given time.
Darkness or no, I must be seen of course. I am the one in the stolen foggy spotlight of the lamppost’s golden halo. But the darkness outside stares back blankly, and mostly I like it that way. I have seen enough of the world to last me a lifetime. My business needs the night, in any case.
I wish I could say my bed is warm and comfortable, but mostly it’s lumpy, damp and cold. But it’s mine and quiet, here at the top of the silent house. Mrs. Gride doesn’t like noise. She says it makes her temples ache, which is all stuff of course, but still, we all creep about as quiet as mice. No, much more quiet than mice. They do not listen to Mrs. Gride’s injunctions about walking along the drugget, talking in a low voice and making no sounds. I can hear them chewing and scrabbling behind panels and wainscots at night, when the house sleeps, and I come home to my lonely room. Usually they are the only ones to welcome me back. I’m always the last one to return. I feel a bond of likeness with them. We all live at the edge, behind screens. It doesn’t stop me from throwing shoes at them when they cross the room too boldly, or go close to my wardrobe. I have little enough as it is. The mice will have to nest elsewhere. I am not a charity institution after all.
In the morning the bed has a narrow strip of warmth in the middle, a stripe exactly as wide as my body, and I must not move, lest I stray on the flabby cold linen outside, but still, eventually I find the nerve to reach out and fetch my cigarettes, and light the first of the day. I smoke it in bed, my one and only indulgence. I have become adept at smoking in bed without shedding ashes on the sheets or setting myself on fire.
I watch the thin, ghostly, white smoke curling and floating towards the pale grey skylight, swirling into a puff of breath. It’s likely to be the most beautiful thing I’ll see all day.
I have a small pile of work to do for the girls downstairs, so I finally heave myself out of bed. I don’t ask money for these small jobs. By tacit agreement, I help out and the girls close an eye on my strangeness. It works very well for all involved.
Later, much later, in the light of a single candle, I shave at my little mirror (an evening ritual, for those like me). As usual I give fervent thanks that nature hardly gave me any beard to shave. Then I shed my trousers and my waistcoat and my shirt and wear my other things.
The stockings, which need mending again, but will do for one more night, in the dark, a small chemise. Then I put on my boots, with small heels and about a thousand fucking tiny buttons. They are old, second hand or third, like everything I own, but well-greased and waxed and buffed to a sheen. It’s cold out there, and wet.
And then my tight, tight corset. It needs some fancy bending to lace it up by myself, but I am limber. I pull the laces as tight as I can around my waist, feeling the shape of me change, like some creatures are said to change in the light of a full moon. The core of the corset is whalebone and steel, stiff like armor. It knows my true shape better than my body does. It hardly needs padding at the chest, hard as it is, but it suits me to pad it anyway, for the weight of it, with two silk cravats I keep for the purpose, so old, worn so soft by use, so waxy with the damp of my skin, that they almost melt to my chest. My skin is all tingling now, and it’s not the cold. Silk and steel hug me so close, so much tighter than my day clothes. I am almost naked, and yet every bit of me is more defined and clear, like I have come into sharper, truer focus in the searching eye of a telescope.
I paint my lashes and my eyelids, black and black, to make my eyes shine. I paint my lips red. That marks me as the whore I am, and I don’t mind.
I am what I am.
My wig hangs from the corner of the wardrobe. Freshly brushed, the blonde hair shines in the candlelight and waves like a ghost in the faint breeze as I open the wardrobe door. Maybe the ghost of the woman whose hair it is, who knows. She might well be dead. I don’t know what would be creepier, to wear the hair of a dead woman or the hair of a live one. Still, I’m stuck with the wig for now. I am not pleased with the color, which does not mix with my dark hair. But I got it almost cheap in Middlesex Street. It was the sort of bargain where nobody asks too many questions.
I wear my violet skirt over a small horse-hair bustle and a blouse and tight bodice. I don’t button this all the way up, but I put on a shawl, for the cold. The wig, which in summer would hitch and sweat, is almost a comfort now. I look at my mirror one last time as I tie my hair in a loose chignon at the nape of my neck, and stab it through with a horn comb. No pins.  I learnt the hard way not to trust a man around a hairpin. The mirror is too small to see much. My pale face, the dark circles of my eyes, the red lips, the ghostly locks. All the rest I can only imagine.
But that is my life. Imagining myself, conjuring myself into existence … especially the parts that don’t fit in the narrow, narrow picture.


A MUSE TO LIVE FOR
Coming
2019


Friday 23 November 2018

E. D. Parr - String of Pearls - New release



Thank you for inviting me to your blog today with new release MM romance,
String of Pearls

The story is set in the same SciFi fantasy city as last year’s release, The Dreamboat.
Indigo Vaughn, the warlock head of security, features in the story along with a new cast of characters. When I wrote The Dreamboat, I already had the new characters in my head along with their story. Tobias Mars and Dante Pepper, the elite space pilots for the royal court, very nearly made an appearance in The Dreamboat, but because that story is about Indigo at last finding love, I decided they needed their own story.
Once upon a time Dante and Tobias were close to becoming lovers, but Dante met Viridian and fell in love. Tobias has yet to meet his love when String of Pearls, opens. He’s a man of high integrity, handsome, caring, but also longing for love and sex. String of Pearls is his love story.

Blurb
Handsome, elite space pilot, Tobias Mars is completing a special mission, when on a water planet, recently ravaged by space pirates, he discovers Dreft Hann hiding and injured in the sand dunes.
There’s instant attraction between the two men, but honorable Tobias believes the fact Dreft is in his care precludes him from showing his growing love for the young man. What’s worse is his shocking discovery of Dreft’s real identity. Even so, Tobias can’t deny his feelings for Dreft.
When head of royal security, powerful warlock, Indigo Vaughn discovers Dreft’s secret, he anticipates trouble.
As beautiful Dreft falls in love with Tobias and dreams of joining the elite pilot squad, trouble is brewing from someone in Dreft’s past.
Will love finally win with so many obstacles in Tobias and Dreft’s path?
Warning, the book contains MM sex, MMM sex, gay anal sex, MM oral sex

BUY the book
On special new release discount price only on the Evernight Publishing website

Read an excerpt
Tobias Mars gazed at Dreft lying on top of the bed in room ten of the infirmary. Hari’s treatment had worked wonders and not only on Dreft’s wounds. Hari had cleaned Dreft up. His hair, now a dirt-free glossy hazelnut brown was brushed back to show off the handsome planes of his face. Hari had replaced Dreft’s strange boy-like clothes with the infirmary’s grey cotton pants and t-shirt. The man was, as his colleague, Dante, put it, deliciously pretty. For a fleeting moment, Tobias wondered what it would be like to kiss those perfect lips and hold that muscular body to his own. He shook the thought away.

Dreft opened his eyes and a shy smile spread on his mouth. As Tobias neared him, he shuffled up the bed to sit. “Thank you so much for helping me, sir.”
Tobias pulled a chair beside the bed and sat. “My name’s Tobias, Tobias Mars—no need to call me sir. How are you feeling?”

The handsome man’s eyes held gratitude. “I’m so much better. Thank you. I noticed the insignia on your jacket, sir.”

Tobias grinned as his fingers went to trace the gold and blue embroidered crest. “I’m one of the queen’s pilot explorers. I guess you could call us the elite unit. All the same, call me Tobias. I’d like that.”

“I’ve heard that you have to be aristocracy to be chosen for the unit. Is that true?”

A little frown creased between Tobias’s eyes. “Have you? Where’d you hear that?” A spike of worry prevented him from answering with the truth. His intense security training from the warlock, Indigo Vaughn, threw a question into his mind. Could Dreft be a rival court’s spy or even assassin?

“Sorry. I mean no harm. I heard a lot of things during my years as a slave.” Dreft’s voice held anxiety. His blue eyes clouded.

Witnessing Dreft’s unease, a wave of kindness softened Tobias’s look and tone. “How long were you a slave?” He remembered Hari’s description of the scars on Dreft’s back.

Sadness passed in Dreft’s eyes. “Five years—I’ve been a slave since I was stolen from my home when I was eighteen. I, I’d become desperate, hence the leap from the ship when we cruised reasonably low to take water from the lake on the planet where you rescued me.” His voice cracked a little.

Tobias watched fear replace the sadness in the young man’s eyes. He wanted to lighten the mood. “Hey, are you hungry? I bet Hari hasn’t given you breakfast and I’ve not eaten yet. Do you feel up to a little walk? My home isn’t far. I have loads of food—fruit, pancakes, savory pastries, and coffee. What do you say?”

Dreft gave him the most endearing look. “I’m very hungry.”

Tobias stood and pushed the chair away from the bed. He held out his arm for Dreft to take and helped him stand. “Hang on. You have no shoes.” Tobias left Dreft perched on the side of the bed. He went to the closet inset at the end of the wall and brought back a pair of felt slip-ons for Dreft.

Dreft pushed his feet into them. “Thank you. I think the medicA threw away what I was wearing.”

“Hari is the best medicA available. I trust him implicitly, but he’s a hygiene fanatic. He probably burned what you were dressed in.” Tobias laughed. “Can you manage or will you take my arm. It’s a gesture of support.”

Dreft’s gaze raked Tobias’s face and he smiled softly. “I know the clothes you found me in probably gave you the impression I’m a pirate’s plaything. I’d like to explain—”

“You don’t need to—” Tobias hurried to assure Dreft.

“I want to.” He held Tobias’s arm.

“After you’ve eaten, then.” Tobias led the way from the room, along the corridor and out of the infirmary door. His villa was two doors down from Dante’s and he walked slowly favoring Dreft’s halting steps.

“I’m limping but Hari said my legs were only bruised under the abrasions. Sorry. I didn’t expect them to hurt so much. My ribs don’t and they were broken.”

“Hari fixed your ribs and administered slow release pain reliever at the site. He fixed your abrasions somewhat, but it’s good to heal naturally where possible. He wants you to rest.” A smile sprang to Tobias’s lips. “If he sees us, he’ll probably say to me, ‘Sir, you got Dreft Hann up too soon.’”

©E.D. Parr, Evernight Publishing, 2018

Find E.D. Parr