Book Info
Paranormal
Romance, Wolves
Publisher:
Harlequin Nocturne
Pages: 304
Release
Date: June 1, 2016
Book Blurb
Who's been sleeping in
the Alpha's bed?
Exiled from his pack by his father, Brice Walker has
secretly come home to visit his ailing grandmother only to discover a human and
very desirable female sleeping in his bed. Their attraction is instant. But his
new bed buddy seems determined to resist his Southern charm and Alpha
allure.
For Brice, fiercely independent Cassie not only represents a
chance to build a new life in Walker's Run but is also his one true mate.
Cassie's reluctance dissolves when a rogue shifter kidnaps her, and now she and
Brice must work together to save his pack. But once she witnesses the savagery
of wolfan justice, can Cassie accept Brice as man, beast and her true love?
Find the Book
Excerpt
Excerpt #1 (language
warning)
The mixed feelings Brice had about his homecoming knotted
into concern. Granny knew wolfan law forbade adult males and females of blood
relation to share bedding, so why had she fallen asleep in his room?
“Granny?” He eased onto the edge of the mattress and touched
her leg.
An unfamiliar feminine gasp prickled the skin along his
spine.
“Who the hell are you?” Brice didn’t mean to sound so rough
and angry, but pain and exhaustion made him edgy and terse.
“Stay away from me!” The woman kicked out of bed and
grappled with the bedside lamp.
“Fuck!” The sudden
brightness stung like a fistful of sand slung in his face. Shielding his
light-sensitive eyes behind his arm, Brice tuned into his other senses. The air
thickened. He could almost taste the sharp tang of her fear. Her breaths came
hard and fast.
“Get out before I call the cops,” she demanded.
“With what? Telepathy?” To his knowledge, Granny had one
telephone. A landline in the kitchen.
“I have a cell phone.” The uncertainty in the woman’s voice
said she didn’t.
“Nice try.” Swiping his eyes, Brice sensed a change in the
air pressure, heard a hitch in her breathing. His instinct warned that she had
inched to her right.
“I don’t need my eyes to track you.” He pointed to where he
knew she stood.
The woman stopped moving and quite possibly stopped
breathing. Nothing but howling silence filled the space between them. Any
second she would hit the floor in a dead faint. Brice forced his eyes to open.
Not that he had any doubts, but the fragile-looking young
woman pressed against the wall was definitely not his grandmother. Wild spirals
of red hair gave her a sexy bed-head look regardless of the cornered animal
glint in her cinnamon eyes.
She wore an old Maico High baseball jersey. Wait. That was his old baseball jersey.
His bed, his clothes. What else had she claimed that
belonged to him?
And why?
She was human and likely unaware of the implications of
marking a male Wahya’s belongings with her scent.
As if he could smell her anyway.
Still, that this small slip of a woman had claimed his
discarded clothes and his abandoned bed sparked a possessive thump in his
chest. His gaze prowled the small swell of her breasts and the narrow curve of
her hips cloaked beneath his shirt.
She sported the longest legs he’d ever seen on someone so
petite. Soft, toned legs that inspired steamy visions of them tangled around
his hips as he moved inside her until she shattered in ecstasy, breaking him
with her.
The full moon had passed, so his attraction was real. Not
something prompted by primitive hormones riddling him to fuck the nearest
willing female. That this one didn’t look so willing was like an ice dump on
his stiffening cock.
Excerpt #2
“Do you ever keep that thing covered?” The huskiness in
Cassie’s voice caused his thing to
twitch.
“You like seeing me naked. I can see it in your eyes.”
Securing the towel around his hips, Brice padded barefoot across the cold tile.
“What you see is my brain being fried from too much exposure
to all your glory.”
“You think I’m glorious?” Brice unfastened her silver hair
clip. Red ringlets splashed over his hands and slid through his fingers. He
held fast to one curl and stroked the luxurious strands across his cheek. A
thrill zipped straight down to his groin.
“That’s not what I meant.” A slight tremble parted her lips.
Brice ached for a kiss and so much more. Her taste on his
tongue, her scent on his skin, her luscious legs wrapped around his hips. A
deluge of erotic dreams had eroded his resolution to keep things platonic.
Cassie’s scent wove a spell of need and want that smothered
reason. Helpless to resist, he slipped his arm around her waist and lowered his
face to hers. She squinted and puckered her mouth, but not to receive his lips.
The unexpected rejection jolted Brice. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want this.” She gestured a between-you-and-me hand
signal. “I have plans for the future and you’re not in them.”
Damn. That stung.
Even though he agreed they had no future together, he
disliked hearing her say it.
“You need ground rules.” Cassie wormed out of his hold and
faced him with a straight back, squared shoulders and both hands on her hips.
Her eyes slanted with censure. She pointed her jaw and
scrunched her mouth like his fourth-grade teacher when he’d neglected to do his
homework three days in a row. When he’d been a wolfling, the no-nonsense,
better-get-your-shit-together look had mortified him into compliance. Now that
he was an adult male in his prime, that look on a feisty, petite human female
did something entirely different.
“I don’t like rules.” He smiled.
Excerpt #3
Brice’s mouth christened her lips with a kiss, soft and
wispy, like the fluttering of butterfly wings. There was a promise in the
whispered touch. A promise to be kind and gentle. Never to expect more than she
offered. Never to demand more than she could give. She might’ve considered the
notion a wishful fantasy except for the deep-seated knowing in her spirit.
Surrendering to the need to taste more of him than a breeze,
Cassie captured his face between her palms and pulled him to her lips. His
breath hitched. Then he crushed open her mouth. Lightning sparked at the point
of contact and zipped through her body, a white-hot bolt of electricity that
left no nerves, no cells uncharged. Fingers twisted in her hair, he tilted her
head for a better, tighter seal. Spearing into her mouth, his tongue gentled
when it met hers probing in soft darts.
He tasted like a storybook Christmas, sparkly, exciting and
overwhelmingly wonderful. Her body quivered from the starburst of pure joy.
Excerpt #4
The car jostled over deep potholes in the washed out road.
Through the thick nest of trees, Cassie glimpsed a farmhouse. While Hadler’s
attention focused on not driving them into a ravine, she shoved open the car
door and jumped.
She slammed into a ditch, pain searing her shoulder. Seconds
later, the car careened to a stop.
Cassie rolled to her feet and ran for her life. The soft
soil beneath her sneakers grabbed at her feet, and the muscles in her legs
strained to propel her forward.
In one week, Cassie had ended up right where she started.
Being chased by a wolfman.
“I’m coming, Cas. Do
whatever you can to stay safe. I will find you. I promise.”
Cassie shook Brice’s imagined voice from her mind. This
wasn’t the time to succumb to delusions. She wove through a thicket of trees.
Sapling limbs snagged bits of her hair, yanking strands from her scalp.
Unforgiving branches and leaves scratched her arms as she protected her face.
Sweat and blood trickle down her skin. She had a hard time catching her breath.
Up ahead she saw the farmhouse, rundown and abandoned. The
place she ran to for safety didn’t look safe at all.
Stopping, she swallowed the bitter frustration that in the
dead of nowhere, no one but Vincent Hadler would hear her scream.
About the Author
Southern born and bred, Kristal Hollis grew up amid cane
fields and orange groves. Books fed her imagination, providing adventurous
portals to ancient civilizations, medieval fiefdoms, alternate realities and
futuristic worlds. Then, a friend gave her Johanna Lindsey’s FIRES OF WINTER, a
historical romance which ignited a life-long love affair with romantic fiction.
After earning a degree in psychology, Kristal has enjoyed
career and volunteer endeavors that have included sales, banking, social
services, and animal rescue. When a family medical situation required her to
take a work sabbatical, she began penning deliciously dark paranormal romances
as an escape from the real-life drama. Even though the crisis passed, her
passion for writing continues.
Currently, Kristal lives with her husband and two rescued
dogs at the edge of the enchanted forest that inspires her stories.
The Giveaway
Kristal is giving away a print copy of Awakened by the Wolf!
Open INT.
To enter please fill out the giveaway widget!
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Thank you for spotlighting Awakened by the Wolf's cover release! :)
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You are most welcome, thank you for stopping by! :)
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