Tossing his head back, he laughed heartily. Let them think they’ve won for now, at least until they named their children.
“Foolish, foolish lycans. Don’t they know there isn’t a creature alive who can best a clever troll?”
The End
About the Author, Michelle M. Pillow
Michelle M. Pillow, Author of All Things Romance™, is a multi-published, award winning author writing in many romance fiction genres including futuristic, paranormal, historical, contemporary, fantasy and dark paranormal. Ever since she can remember, she has had a strange fascination with anything supernatural—ghosts, magical powers, and oh… vampires. What could be more alluring than being immortal, all-powerful, and eternally beautiful? After discovering historical romance novels, it was only natural that the supernatural and love/romance elements should someday meet in her wonderland of a brain. She’s glad they did for their children have been pouring onto the computer screen ever since.
She has been on the Amazon bestseller list multiple times, nominated for the Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award 2011, the winner of the 2006 RT Reviewers’ Choice Award, nominated for the 2007 RT Award, a Brava Novella Contest Finalist and a PAN member of RWA.
Michelle is a journalist for Paranormal Underground Magazine. She has a BGS in History/Business with an English Minor, and a Photography degree. In 2009 she and fellow author Mandy M. Roth started their own highly successful self-publishing endeavor named The Raven Books.
Michelle has titles published with The Raven Books, Pocket Books, Random House, Virgin Books, Adam’s Media, Samhain Publishing, Running Press, and more.
She loves to hear from readers. They can contact her through her website www.michellepillow.com.
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To learn more about Michelle M. Pillow please visit her website www.MichellePillow.com
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Winner of the 2006 Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award
Maiden and the Monster by Michelle M. Pillow
Medieval Historical Romance
Vladamir of Kessen, Duke of Lakeshire Castle, is feared as a demon in the land of Wessex. The Kings have granted him a title of nobility in exchange for his part as a political prisoner. Discontent, he bides his time in his new home until war will once again rip through the land. But boredom soon turns to devious pleasure as the daughter of his most hated enemy is left for dead at his castle gate. Now the monster bides his time plotting revenge.
Lady Eden of Hawks' Nest doesn't know what to think of the man who saved her life, but she can't wrench her thoughts away. His words are those of a tyrant, true to his vicious reputation, but his touch is that of a man, stirring passion and lust when there should only be fear. It would seem the infamous monster is not as monstrous as he appears.
A Romantic Times Magazine TOP PICK!
“4 1/2 STARS! This is a perfect blend of history, emotion, tension, hot sex and fascinating and sympathetic characters, and the writing is superb. Pillow chooses magical details to set the scene, and they add to both the history and the emotion.”
Page Traynor, RT Bookclub Magazine, April 2006 Issue
Maiden and the Monster Excerpt
“If m’lady wouldn’t mind,” Ulric continued. “I had a few questions of my own. Mayhap then I’d be better able to answer yers.”
Eden again nodded, this time with more severity. What else could she do? She was trapped on the bed by her nakedness. Even if she was to brave an escape, she couldn’t see where to go.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Why were you in the forest alone outside this castle? Fer ‘tis obvious you are a lady by yer dress. Did you separate from yer traveling party?”
Eden’s eyes teared. She felt like a scared child, locked inside a dark room. “Yea.”
“You were separated?” Ulric persisted.
“Yea.”
“You are a lady of gentry?” She felt him move closer as if inspecting her.
“Yea.” Eden focused her eyes forward, intent on convincing him that she was a lady and above him.
“Who are you? Where were you heading?”
“I’m Lady Eden. I was on my way to a nunnery in East Anglia.” As she spoke her hands shook. She forced herself to swallow the lump that kept rising into her throat to crack her voice. “I’m to live there.”
“Which nunnery?” Ulric asked smoothly.
“The one to the south,” Eden weakly offered her lie. In truth she didn’t know the name of any nunneries in East Anglia. Surely, with the pagan king newly converted there would be something. She only hoped that whichever lord lived in the castle would see fit to send her there. “I don’t believe that they have named it, for ‘tis new.”
“Hmm.” Ulric’s voice pondered her answers. “So you have already taken yer orders? You are a nun?”
“Nay, I’m to take them there.” Eden turned her face away from him. She couldn’t lie about such a thing as already being ordained. It would be too blasphemous. The fact she said she was going to be was bad enough. “I’m sure they expect me. If you would see fit to send—”
“I see,” Ulric broke in, thoughtful.
Eden wondered at the delighted tone in his words. His blurry figure shifted away from her, only to come back. She leaned away the best she could on the uncomfortable bed.
“Please, good sir.” Eden sighed and tried to relax, feeling no immediate threat from the old man. “Where am I?”
“You don’t know?” Ulric laughed lightly in surprise. “You are at Lakeshire Castle. We found you near death in front of the castle gates. Methought you might be able to tell us how you came to be here and most importantly why.”
“Lakeshire?” Eden gasped in horror, looking down as she mumbled in shock, “He left me here? How could he have left me here?”
“Who left you?”
Eden stiffened. The irritated voice wasn’t that of Ulric. It instead came from her left, near the fireplace. Her skin tingled and she noticed that the fire burned hotter than before. The man’s tone sounded wicked, spoken in a strange accent. The word “who” was murmured with a softened “v”.
“Are you…?” she began, but had to take a calming breath. It didn’t help.
She was frazzled. Her heart already beat in fear only to pound in time with her head, resounding in her ears like a battle drum. She shook with fear, her body so hot it was surely on fire. The way the flames spread through her, she wondered if she was in the company of the devil himself. Rubbing her chin on the fur to make sure it still covered her body, she asked weakly, “Are you the Monster of Lakeshire?”
Vladamir eyed the trembling creature before him with unconcealed disdain. The way his nickname came from her lips irritated him to no end, and he was all too aware that she refused to answer his question. By her own admission it was obvious someone planted her in front of his castle, perhaps thinking she was already dead.
It was clear from the first moment that she didn’t know he was in the chamber. The way she kept squinting at Ulric belied the fact that she couldn’t make out the figure before her. Was her impaired eyesight due to her natural vision or a result of her beating? He told himself he didn’t care and didn’t wish to be in her company long enough to find out. In fact, he didn’t want her in his home longer than necessary.
The maiden’s hair was dirtily matted to her head, so much so that he was unable to make out its true color. From what he saw of her frame under the thin fur, she seemed slender in stature, probably more so due to her prolonged illness. Her skin pulled tautly against her cheekbones, bones that were high and proud. Beyond that simple observation he couldn’t make out her features.
“Are you the monster?” Her breath continued to come out in audible pants and her one good eye searched for him. �
��Am I to be your sacrifice?”
Vladamir watched her lips tremble at the question. Her mouth was in the best condition of her whole face with a fine arch of the upper lip and the full pout of the lower. If the rest of her face healed to displeasure, he would be contented to look only at her delicate mouth. His body hummed to life, reminding him how long it had been since he’d taken a woman to his bed. The painful mass between his thighs only annoyed him. He didn’t want to feel desire—not for her, not for any woman.
Who could ever willingly accept a monster into their bed?
The duke felt a glimmer of regret at the timid way she searched for him with her troubled, swollen gaze. The faint white of her eye was a bloody red as if she’d been strangled near death. He suddenly frowned as he realized that someone indeed had tried to kill her. Did they think to have succeeded? Who would want her dead? What exactly had she done?
He saw the fear in her and didn’t believe for an instant that the woman planned on joining a nunnery. There was something in the proud way she lifted her chin and the aristocratic tilt of her head. He saw her breeding, even through her marred expression.
“I have been called that,” he answered at last, afraid if he didn’t respond, she would continue to grow pale until she passed out once more on the bed. He needed too many answers from her to let her rest quite yet.
Yea, m’lady, there are those who would think me a monster.
To find out more about these books or to read other books from The Raven Books visit www.TheRavenBooks.com
Master of the Hunt (King of Prey Book III) by Mandy M. Roth
Paranormal Bird Shifter Romance
When the oracle warns Prince Aeson that his future mate is in the human realm and is in great danger, he wastes no time going in search of her. Problem is, he has no idea who he’s looking for. He’s never met her and the oracle couldn’t give him anything more than small clues as to who she is and where she might be.
Sent to one of his favorite hangouts—a sex club—Aeson is stunned when a beauty shows up on the arm of another man, a man void of emotion. He senses trouble surrounding her and something else—something that marks her as his. He doesn’t care if she is or isn’t the woman the oracle told him about, she’s the woman he wants. Anyone who dares to stand in his way will feel his wrath and, before the night is out, she’ll feel exactly what it’s like to be taken by a prince.
WARNING: This book contains hot, explicit sex and violence, dominant alpha bird shifting males who think they’re always right, even when they’re dead wrong and a woman who isn’t about to stand by and let them boss her around.
Master of the Hunt Excerpt
Accipitridae Realm, Buteos Regalis main castle…
Aeson stepped back, allowing his nephews to run past him, each babbling about something he could not understand. Their father, the king and Aeson’s eldest brother, chased behind them, appearing winded. In the nearly four hundred years he’d known him, Aeson couldn’t recall a time when Kabril looked so unraveled. His duplicate in looks in every way, it was as though Aeson were seeing himself in such a situation.
The sight was sobering indeed.
“Kabril, you are showing your age,” Aeson said, enjoying goading his brother as often as he could.
“I am two minutes older than you,” Kabril replied. He motioned to his triplets, who were pushing the age of three. “I know naught how our father did it. Eight sons.” He looked horrified by the idea. “They are my heart and joy, but brother, they never tire. It is the equivalent to one laying siege to the castle nonstop.”
Chuckling, Aeson nodded. “So I see.”
“Brother, the moons hold great pull over them. When the moons are full, I swear my sons sleep not.”
Aeson laughed. Four moons orbited their planet. One of the moons was large enough to be seen during daylight hours. Often, the moons were attributed when madness, or in this case, too much energy came into play. “I do not believe for a moment they are subject to the moons’ pull. They are merely young boys—fledglings—Kabril. We are old. They are not. It stands to reason they would have more energy than us. It is good to hear the sounds of children in the kingdom. For too long it was void of such noises.”
Kabril motioned to the nanny charged with overseeing the boys before turning to face his brother. “No word of new births among our people has reached me. To date, only Rayna and I, and Sachin and his mate Paige have been successful. You know, Rayna believes we should consult the Oracle on the matter. She thinks it may provide valuable insight into what our next move should be.”
Aeson cringed at the mention of the prophecy giving globe. From an early age he’d learned to both fear and stand in awe of the oracle’s power. It was often consulted on matters associated with the gods or destiny. Kabril, unlike their father, wasn’t superstitious. It made him a better leader in Aeson’s opinion than their father had been, not that he’d been a bad one. “And I say you decree that all your loyal subjects must procreate like mad,” Aeson said.
Kabril rolled his eyes. “Still chasing skirts in the taverns throughout the realm?”
With a sly smile, Aeson rubbed his stubble-covered jaw. “Not in this realm, brother. I’m unsure a maiden exists here that I’ve not bedded. Earth is another matter altogether.”
That caused his brother to stumble over seemingly nothing. “You? The famed lover of women of our kind and hater of all things human, now seeks out the beds of human women?”
“No. Not beds. But I do enjoy chaining them to walls and having my way with them,” he replied. His cock hardened at the very thought of it. He did so enjoy women of all sizes and shapes. And he very much enjoyed taking them in different ways. “Did you know they have taverns or rather sex clubs, as they call them, devoted to that very thing? They rival our torture chambers and the women there line up for it, wanting to be punished by a man’s hand before being thoroughly pleasured.” He motioned with his hands, framing an invisible woman with exaggerated measurements. He then pumped his hips in midair, simulating fucking said woman.
“If my wife hears you speak of such things,” Kabril leaned in, “and of demeaning human women in such a way, she will skin you alive. She may be human but she is something to be feared, brother.”
Aeson tossed his head back and laughed. Rayna certainly was a fiery woman. She kept his brother in line nicely and brought out the best in him. He clasped his brother’s shoulder. “Should I find one such as she, mayhap I would wish to chain her to my bed for I am not foolish enough to think I am immune to all women’s charms.”
“Do you not wish for a family, Aeson?” There was something off in Kabril’s voice. “Do you not wish for love and happiness?”
To find out more about these books or to read other books from The Raven Books visit www.TheRavenBooks.com
The Barbarian Prince (Dragon Lords 1) by Michelle M. Pillow
Futuristic Romance
Breaking up was never so hard...
Going undercover at Galaxy Brides as one of the prospective mates to these Viking-like barbarians, Morrigan has no intention of getting chosen to stay. But when Ualan of the Draig picks her to be his wife with the aid of his mystically glowing crystal, it is all she can do to say no.
Waking up from a drug-induced night of torturous and unfulfilling pleasures, Morrigan discovers her spaceship has left without her and Ualan is claiming she is his wife. It’s not exactly the story this reporter had in mind. And to make matters worse, Ualan refuses to take no for an answer.
Being cursed by the Gods was never so frustrating...
Prince Ualan is like all others of his race on the male dominated planet of Qurilixen. He is raised to trust the mystic powers around him and when it comes time to marry, he is ready to follow those powers to choose his life mate. When the stubborn, yet achingly beautiful, Morrigan refuses to accept their shared fate and his supreme authority over her, it is all he can do not to break her lovely neck.
To find out more about these bo
oks or to read other books from The Raven Books visit www.TheRavenBooks.com
Strength in Numbers by Reagan Hawk
Futuristic Erotic Romance
Born into a life of sexual servitude and trained to please men, Sempia believes her fate is sealed—her virginity auctioned off to the highest bidder then life as a sex slave. She never dreamed her childhood sweetheart would resurface in her hour of need…or that he would be the winning bidder.
Now a seasoned warrior, Eterin is nothing like the boy she remembers—he’s all man and wants to possess her at all costs. But much has changed in the years they’ve been apart. Eterin has a new man in his life—one who wants to share them both. Sempia finds herself at the mercy of two incredibly hot and horny intergalactic outlaws who are dangerously close to stealing her heart.
To find out more about these books or to read other books from The Raven Books visit www.TheRavenBooks.com
Lilith Enraptured (Divinity Warriors) by Michelle M. Pillow
Alternate Reality Romance
Sorin of Firewall lives in a land forever at war. In fact, the Starian men are so busy fighting, their marriage ceremony has been reduced to a “will of the gods” event where they simply pick a woman out of a lineup and claim her as a wife. With women becoming scarce, it’s necessary to trade the offworld Divinity Corporation for brides. Duty-bound to attend the ceremony, he has no intention of picking a bride, let alone one from another dimension. That is, until he sees Lilith, the bewitching woman sent by the gods to reward—or punish?—him.
Naughty Cupid Trilogy Page 37
