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Look for these titles by Teresa Noelle Roberts
Now Available:
Knowing the Ropes
Out of Control
Duals and Donovans: The Different
Lions’ Pride
Foxes’ Den
Fox’s Folly
Cougar’s Courage
Witches’ Waves
Coming Soon:
The Chronicles of the Malcolm
Thrill-Kinky
Logic says wait. Their bodies scream go. And their spirit guides are playing dirty.
Cougar’s Courage
© 2013 Teresa Noelle Roberts
Duals and Donovans: The Different, Book 3
Toronto cop Cara Many-Winters Mackenzie is still reeling from her fiancé’s murder when her orderly life takes a turn toward the weird, complete with voices in her head and phantom bleeding wounds.
This violent awakening is the rise of her Different gift—a chaotic, Bugs-Bunny-on-crack magic that she must learn to control before it destroys her. There’s only one place to get help: her mother’s ancestral village, and a mentor who seems to have stepped straight out of the smoke of her erotic dreams.
Cougar Dual Jack Long-Claw reluctantly agrees to take Cara under his wing, though he’d much rather take the beautiful city girl into his bed. As he guides her through a crash course in shamanic magic, sparks fly—some sexy, some snarky. But when an ancient enemy attacks the village, they must work together to hone a magical weapon against certain destruction.
Common sense tells them it’s a terrible time to fall in love. Their spirit guides have other ideas. And shamans who don’t listen to their spirit guides are dead shamans…
Warning: Hot shape-shifting feline hero. Strong but shell-shocked heroine. Snarky, meddling spirit guides. And lots and lots of sex: angry sex, crazy sex, magical sex, and just plain sexy sex.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Cougar’s Courage:
“Officer Mackenzie?” The voice sounded like her captain’s, but Bell wasn’t known for his stealthy tread. Had Cara been that lost in thought?
Cara jumped a little and looked up from the incident report she was struggling with, the words dancing behind a rising headache and the pervading sense of anger and uselessness she’d been fighting since Phil’s death five months ago. She expected to see her captain’s bulky, blue-clad form looming over her with that awkward no, I’m not checking up on you expression that was way more annoying than open concern would be—and open concern had gotten annoying sometime before her fiancé’s grave was filled in.
Instead, she saw a totally unexpected person, a tiny, wiry old woman with long white braids, no taller than most ten-year-olds, who bristled with energy.
Cara’s rational brain took in a few things. Normally, civilians didn’t get into the squad room without an escort, but the elderly lady was alone. Maybe someone had dropped her off, said something about why she was there, and then left? If that were the case, that was bad even for the mess Cara had been for the past five months.
The visitor wore a pale buckskin dress ornamented with beads and porcupine quills, not a fashion statement but traditional Native clothing, and no coat despite the frigid February weather. Her silvery braids were fastened with rawhide strips. Not something you saw every day in Toronto. Maybe the old lady figured serious business like a visit to the police station merited her version of a weddings-and-funerals suit or dress uniform.
“May I help you, ma’am?” The unusual visitor had roused her curiosity, which could only be good.
“No, but I can help you, Cara.”
How did she know Cara’s first name? Her name plate just said Mackenzie.
The elderly woman extended a small, bony hand, and Cara instinctively took it. She expected it to be icy. Instead, it was hot. As soon as they touched, Cara felt like she was focusing properly on the other woman for the first time. She blinked and recognized her visitor at last. “Grand-mère? Is that you?”
It couldn’t be. Cara had been ten the last time she’d seen the elder of her mother’s village, and the old lady must have been over eighty then. But the woman nodded and smiled. It was an odd smile, like a tree smiling, serene in a way that you didn’t normally see on a human face. “Of course it is, silly. Who else would I be? It’s time to come home, Cara. Come to Couguar-Caché before it’s too late.”
Couguar-Caché—“hidden cougar” in French—her mother’s ancestral village. A place so remote Cara had never been able to find it on a map, even though she knew she’d been there as a little girl. Yeah, just where she wanted to visit in the depths of winter.
As the old woman spoke, the room closed in, leaving only Cara and Grand-mère. The rest of the squad room was still out there—Cara could hear voices, a ringing cell phone—but they were hidden somehow, masked by a fog. Grand-mère had been seated, but suddenly, with no transition Cara noticed, she was standing in an archway made of snow-weighted evergreen boughs. Behind her, where Cara should have seen Dalhousie’s chaotic desk and the captain’s neat one, was forest and snow, woodland twilight and the corner of a log cabin. A cold, bracing wind blew through the archway, smelling of snow and pine and wood smoke. Somewhere in the background, she could make out a tall man with long dark hair. He turned and looked through the weird portal straight at her with intense amber eyes. He was movie-star gorgeous.
That proved it. She’d dozed off at her desk—it wouldn’t be the first time since Phil had been killed, seeing that the busy squad room felt safer and less lonely than her empty bed—and was having a particularly vivid dream. It had to be a dream, right? Because no one else in the squad room was even glancing at her unusual visitor, when normally, on a quiet, snowy afternoon, Goulding, who was a wolf dual, would have been literally sniffing the air and the others would be leaning in, hoping for something interesting. It was the first time Grand-mère had joined the cast of beloved dead people who romped through Cara’s mind whenever she closed her eyes, but unlike the others, Grand-mère was cheerful. And she’d brought a very decorative man with her.
But Cara shouldn’t be dreaming about handsome imaginary men. In some ways, that was more disturbing than dreaming about bloody dead ones. The involuntary surge of interest reminded her of the real man she’d lost.
Cara jumped to her feet, hoping the movement would bring her back to reality. As soon as she moved, pain drove an iron spike into Cara’s head, blurring her vision so Grand-mère appeared transparent and blended oddly with the tree behind her. The wrist Cara had sprained playing hockey in college swelled and stiffened. One leg buckled, screaming with pain—the one she’d broken as a kid.
And blood began to pour from the place she’d been shot two years ago in a domestic gone horribly wrong. More people she hadn’t been able to save. Like her mother and father. Like Phil.
She leaned against her desk, frantically trying to stay upright, but the pain was too much. As she collapsed to the floor, faces swam around her—Phil, both as he’d been in life and with a great hole in his chest and a look of shock on his death-pale face; her mother, talking to the trees in the backyard as if they were answering; her red-faced, angry drunk of a father in his own Toronto police uniform, and in his coffin. The wife and children a perp had murdered before shooting her, then turning the gun to his own crazy head.
Suddenly, she was in that crazy head, the dead man’s life crashing on her like a wave. He’d tried to be a good, gentle man, but he’d fought a lifelong battle with the monsters in his head, and in the end he’d lost. She knew things about him she’d never read in any of the reports, horrible secondhand memories that made her wonder how he’d lived that long before putting a bull
et to his head to stop the pain and made her comprehend, a little, why to him, killing his wife and babies seemed like saving them from an ugly world.
On the floor by her desk, bleeding, in shattering pain, Cara began to cry as she hadn’t been able to cry for Phil.
Grand-mère touched her cheek. “It’s time, Cara-child. You’re ready. He’s ready. Go to Couguar-Caché. Or share your mother’s fate.” The old woman knelt and kissed her forehead, then stepped back through the doorway of evergreen branches and vanished.
The squad room popped back into focus, the electric lights bright and jarring. Someone was leaning over her—Goulding, she thought, but her eyes couldn’t focus through the tears. She brushed him away and pushed to her feet.
For about half a second. Then her leg buckled again and the world turned black. The last thing she was aware of was Goulding’s strong arms catching her as she fell, and someone shouting to call for an ambulance.
One wrong move and it all goes up in flames.
Make Me Burn
© 2014 R.G. Alexander
Fireborne, Book 2
A few perks usually come with being Fireborne, but not for Aziza. Her powers have only made her a pawn in the endless struggle between the Jinn, the Niyr, and another, more dangerous force that hides in the shadows. They all want to control her, but Aziza has a life to live—and a new determination that should terrify them all.
Ram, newly exiled from the Jinn, seeks to fill the emptiness inside him by indulging his darker urges—and tempting Aziza to join him. When he’s implicated in a string of ritualistic murders, only she believes in his innocence.
Brandon has his own demands, and not just in the bedroom. His werewolf “family” wants her loyalty, but when all the evidence points to Ram’s guilt, she can only hope that Brandon’s feelings for her are stronger than his enforcer instincts.
Torn between what she’s supposed to be and what she is, caught between two…or three…very different men who set her on fire, the time has come to make her own rules. And damn the consequences.
Warning: Explicit content, and even more danger and heavy drinking than book one. Fetish clubs and role-play, whips and chains, voyeurism and exhibitionism. More inappropriate use of supernatural powers for deviant activities. In other words, burning down the house.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Make Me Burn:
It’s almost time. All you have to do is let go.
No. If she let go she would fall.
Adrenaline made every muscle in Aziza’s taut, outstretched body tremble and her grip tighten instinctively on the silk fabric, the only thing keeping her from crashing to the floor far below.
Her mind was flooded by the memory of falling backward carelessly and plummeting from Penn’s roof with her arms wide. Though the world had gone black, before she realized it, Ram had saved her from crashing into the unforgiving ground.
He wouldn’t save her this time. He wouldn’t need to. Things were different now. She was different.
A small handful of people standing beneath her craned their necks, waiting in absolute silence to see what would happen next. They wouldn’t save her either, but she had their undivided attention.
Show them how to live. Let go…or I will.
Pushing away that disturbing thought, Aziza listened for the cue of the music through the pounding of blood in her ears. When she heard it, she relaxed her pose and let go of the silk. Her body dropped, twirling down, the floor rising up to meet her so swiftly that to the untrained eye it may have seemed accidental. But she was in complete control. That was the point. She wasn’t falling. She was in control.
Of this, if not her love life. If not of the Jinn or the Niyr or her emotions. Of this, if nothing else.
The silk that had been coiled purposefully around her waist was now held in both her hands as she swung her legs upward and wrapped the fabric around her ankles. The swaying rigging helped as she used her body’s weight and momentum to spin in a dizzying circle through the air.
Flying.
The music she’d brought to practice on the aerial silks—a club-style remix of “Come Josephine in My Flying Machine”—reminded her with every precise movement who she was. The vocals were haunting, the beat hard and invigorating.
Discordant.
It was how she felt. Just a little…off. Not completely herself. She was missing something.
Brandon. She wavered on the silks before pushing him out of her mind. The song. Focus on the song.
The tune from her nightmarish dreams had now become a sort of anthem, a melody meant to keep her mindful of what she’d done…what she’d been told she still needed to do. The more she listened to it, the more familiar it became. Not only from the dream, but from a childhood memory that remained frustratingly out of reach. Sometimes she saw flashes of laughter and her father’s smiling, bearded face, but nothing else.
She never forgot anything. Every word she’d heard spoken and every moment in her life was filed away and easily accessible in her mind. Even the memories she’d rather not keep—like the lifeless eyes of last night’s victim—would always be with her. So why was this apparently happy memory eluding her?
Her arms and legs straightened as they’d been trained to do, slowing her spin and pulling her body up with a strength she’d never had before, a strength that had only grown in the last few weeks, giving her this newfound agility.
Aziza pushed her legs back against the silks, her body curved and breasts jutting out like the busty carving on the prow of an ancient ship, her skin warm, more from excitement than exertion. Forgetting her pain and fear, she let herself fall forward once more, loving the momentary sensation of weightlessness as she did flip after perfectly controlled flip until she landed on the padded mat and the music came to an end.
Back on solid ground again, she sighed in disappointment.
The smattering of applause made her grin in spite of her dark mood, as her instructor, Anthony, left the others who’d been watching her and came to her side.
“Either I’m a miracle worker, which you are perfectly free to profess to anyone within hearing distance,” he said with the self-effacing British charm that was so much a part of his personality, “or you, Aziza Jane Stewart, are a prodigy. One week at your American school and not much more time here, and already you’ve given our seasoned performers some true competition. That was inspired. Are you quite sure you won’t join in this season’s student performance?”
Aziza laughed, placing her hand on his arm as she bent down to grab her towel and water bottle. “Thanks, Anthony, but I’d rather be in the audience than in the spotlight. It’s the best place to watch your show.”
“I am glad of that.” Anthony cupped her shoulder in a friendly gesture before dropping his hand awkwardly. “Though my joy is tempered with the knowledge that my charm is not what it once was. Both you and your handsome friend have turned me down again.”
Handsome friend. Her instructor was no more immune to Ram’s charms than anyone else in this city. He drew people to him like moths to a dangerous flame. From what little she’d seen, the Jinn had the market cornered in the sultry and breathtakingly beautiful department. And Ram was a prime example of his species, even without his powers.
“Ram was here today?” She looked around, attempting a casual air, as if she weren’t dying to see him. To warn him about the murders. To be near him. Usually she passed him on her way in or saw him watching her practice, but she hadn’t caught a glimpse of him yet this morning.
She’d talked him into coming with her a couple of weeks ago when she saw him at Underbridge. Dared him, really, since “talking” implied a conversation between two people and Ram tried to avoid those whenever possible. She’d had to do something. His body had healed but the rest of him was taking longer. Whether he admitted it or not, he was hurting and she owed him.
&n
bsp; Luckily, the dare had paid off. He still wasn’t back to his old self—with her, at least—but as soon as he arrived here, so many people had fallen all over themselves to be near him, she wasn’t surprised when he came with her the next time. And the next. Ram had trained as a warrior most of his life, and he had enviable skill and control over his body—and enough arrogance and ego to appreciate the way everyone here admired it. Admired him.
“He’s still here.” Anthony tilted his head, his smile broadening. “I understand he and another man are having an impromptu sparring session in one of the training rooms. I believe that’s why it’s so empty in here. Shall we go take a look?”
Smiling back, she nodded and followed him through the grand room crisscrossed with ropes and wires, carefully staying out of the way of a young man in a harness who was running along the wall.
The Hangar was a large industrial building in Greenwich, a little bit hard to get to but more than worth it for Aziza. The Aircraft Circus held performances throughout London, and The Hangar was where they all worked and trained in aerial silks and trapeze, among other things. With four studios, acrobatics, yoga and flexibility classes, along with these one-on-one sessions, this was the best place to get the kind of workout she needed. One where she was her only competition, and all her battles were internal. It was her meditation, her workout. And it was by far the preferable option to werewolf boot camp.
Thank God she’d discovered this place—this very human, no-magic-needed-for-feats-of-daring place. When she’d marked “running away to join the circus” off her bucket list back in Texas so long ago, she’d been sad to leave the small class behind. Because of her memory—the woman performing on an aerial hoop beneath a hot air balloon—but also because of the atmosphere. The acceptance…the feeling of joy and family. The trust.
When they arrived in a crowded hallway, Anthony steered her through the huddled group so she could look inside.
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