Title: Limitless Author: Kaylene Winter Series: Less Than Zero #2 Genre: Contemporary, Rock Star Romance
“She snuck up on me and stole my heart…”
Friends with benefits, that’s always been my relationship speed. My band Less Than Zero is set to conquer the world. Nothing and one is going to tie me down. Except ethereal animal lover, Alexandria LeRoux, made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Our secret, spontaneous global hookups are decadent, erotic, extraordinary. For the first time in my life, I picture my future with her. Until one fateful night threatens to destroy my chance forever…
“I’ll travel the world for him…”
I set out that summer with only one goal in mind. Conquer sexy Viking drummer Jace Deveraux before he left on tour. Our first time was so sublime, it ruined me for anyone else What’s a girl to do? Enjoy him in as many countries as possible, that’s what. Now, he says he wants a future. But I’m tired of putting my own dreams on hold for the band. Unless we can find a compromise, things aren’t looking hopeful.
Our lives orbit on different courses. But gravity always seems to pull us back together…
Will Alex leave Jace when a blast from his past threatens all they have built? Or will Jace take matters into his own hands?
Under any other circumstances, spending Christmas in my hometown with my band, Less than Zero, would have been something to look forward to. Over the past few years, we’d spent the holidays together but we’d been on the road. In the early years, dinner would have been take-out food in a shared hotel room from whatever restaurant was open. After our success, the past few years had been spectacularly catered events.
My plan had been to immerse myself in the chaos at my Deveraux family home with the woman whom I hoped would represent my future. That’s not how it panned out. Instead, I was at our lead singer Tyson Rainier’s house watching him propose to Zoey Pearson, the girl who had stolen his heart almost a decade ago.
Ty and Zoey’s romance had permeated the fabric of LTZ since the day they met at our epic Mission show all those years ago, and I’d played a big role over the years in facilitating their star-crossed lovers myth. Gossip sites and social media couldn’t get enough of them. Fan fiction about their love story had taken a life of its own ranging from bubble-gum, heart-eyed, teeny-bopper swooning to the dirtiest erotica. Which translated to tremendous profits in both record and merch sales for all of us.
Our crazy rock star success story meant that we were all now rich enough to retire. We were too young for that, but every single one of us was looking forward to having at least a year off to chill, reconnect with family, and have some personal time to relax for the first time in a decade. Personally, I had been looking forward to settling down as well.
So, my feelings about being here tonight were bittersweet. After so many years apart and the ups and downs of reuniting, they were finally together and getting married. I loved them both, and should only have positive, happy thoughts today.
Except my world had crashed down around me, and no one knew it.
Happiness for my friends was far from what I was feeling. More like tired. Terrified. Pissed. Confused. Heartbroken. Petrified. Scared. Panicked. Alone.
But, also loyal. Always loyal.
So yeah, I needed to be here today. Ty and Zoey were also my family. Despite my own problems, I loved them both.
I couldn’t focus, though, with all that was on my mind. Sure, I kept a slight smile fixed in place and my gaze deliberately aimed at the happy couple to appear normal. Inside, my stomach churned and my brain was all over the place. My entire future was up in the air, a fact that I’d kept secret from everyone but one person.
Like a beacon, my eyes were drawn to her.
Alexandria Le Roux, Zoey’s best friend, was the ethereally beautiful woman of my dreams. Her honey-blonde hair bounced like sunbeams off her tanned, defined shoulders. She clapped her hands gleefully when Zoey kissed Ty and accepted his proposal. Tall, lithe, with legs for days and the most perfect, perky breasts, Alex wore a fitted, white, off-the-shoulder sweater, skintight Levi’s and red jingle-bell earrings.
And, her ever-present black Frye boots. Boots that had traveled the world. Sometimes, even with me.
When she was only 15, Kaylene Winter wrote her first rocker romance novel starring a fictionalized version of herself, her friends and their gorgeous rocker boyfriends. After living her own rockstar life as a band manager, music promoter and mover and shaker in Seattle during the early 1990’s, Kaylene became a digital media legal strategist helping bring movies, television and music online. Throughout her busy career, Kaylene lost herself in romance novels across all genres inspiring her to realize her life-long dream to be a published author. She lives in Seattle with her amazing husband and dog. She loves to travel, throw lavish dinner parties and support charitable causes supporting arts and animals.
Title: Rycks Author: Marteeka Karland Series: Black Reign MC #1 Genre: Contemporary, Motorcycle Club Romance
Lyric: I’m in so much trouble. My orders are to find the highest ranking member of Salvation’s Bane or Black Reign MCs and sleep with them. Worm my way into their bed for longer than one night so I can take back information to Kiss of Death. Little did I know I’d find the one man I could never forget. The man who broke my heart six years ago and left me to fend for myself against a ruthless club who would break me the first chance they got.
Rycks: The second I saw here I wanted to punish her. Lyric ran out on me six years ago. Not that I’d given her any reason to stay. Now, she waltzes back into my life with an agenda I can’t figure out. When I do, I can’t decide what to do. The truth is as scary as it is infuriating. Lyric is my torment. She’s sent to me as bait in a bigger plan I can’t fathom. Mainly because I’m too distracted by what she reveals. Now I’m questioning my loyalties to both her and my mentor, El Diablo. She pulls at my need to protect at the same time she might just prove herself to be a traitor.
WARNING: Contains scene of violence, explicit language, and adult situations. Rycks is the first book in the Black Reign series. While you can read it as a stand alone book, you may better understand the characters and situations if you read books in the Bones MC and Salvation’s Bane MC series.
My heart was pounding. Something wasn’t right. When I entered the other room, there was a long, semicircular table. In the center, in front of the table, was a chair on a black mat. Men sat at the table while more stood in the background. Wouldn’t you know it, Rycks led me to the center chair and indicated I should sit.
I looked up at him. He didn’t meet my gaze.
“You’ll answer their questions truthfully and completely,” he said softly. Then, finally, he met my gaze. When his eyes locked with mine, I knew I was looking at death itself.
Sucking in a little gasp, I swallowed. Then I nodded. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“You’ll address yourself to us, Lyric.” Havoc, the vice president of Salvation’s Bane, instructed. “Rycks isn’t a member of our MC. He’s here out of courtesy to him and his club since he’s helping us with this ongoing matter.” Havoc’s tone wasn’t unkind, but it wasn’t gentle either. The man meant business. Whatever had happened to lead to this meeting was serious. And more than just me confessing something to Rycks in an effort to help their club. “Do you understand?” When I nodded, he continued. “You told Rycks last night that you’d been sent by Kiss of Death to glean information from us.”
It took me a second to realize he expected an answer, that it wasn’t rhetorical. Then I responded simply, “Yes.”
“Did you pass on anything you saw? Anything you heard?”
“No. I was with Rycks from the time I met up with him until now.” I thought about the bugs. Was now when I needed to tell them? What was the protocol? Before I could answer, I was interrupted.
“We’re aware of that,” Havoc said. “What I want to know is, did you make it so that Kiss of Death could gather information on our club from the inside. Did you plant any listening or video devices?”
So they had found them.
“Yes. Not tonight, but when I was here before with Wrangler. In the common room. Last night, I was searched before I came in.”
“So you had nothing we could readily see or detect if we didn’t know what to look for.”
What was he getting at?
“Sir, I was with Rycks the entire night. Yes, I did as I was instructed and planted three bugs. I have no idea if they were visual or audio, but they had to be pressed into a wall or flimsy piece of wood. I didn’t go anywhere other than the common room, and the bathrooms I was allowed into all have tiled walls.”
“But you were there an hour and a half before you left with Rycks.”
I paused, thinking. “I suppose so, yes. But I was in the common room the entire time.”
Havoc nodded once, then used a remote to turn on a big TV across the room. My attention automatically focused there. On the screen, I saw myself at the bar with the time stamp. After a couple of seconds, the camera zoomed in. It focused on my left hand where I had apparently removed something from the pocket of my shorts and placed it under the lip of the bar. Then another scene with me doing the same at a table. And a couch. All of them out-of-the-way places that were easily accessible, but wouldn’t be noticed if they hadn’t been looking for them.
“I didn’t do that.” I said softly. “If you pan back, you’ll see it’s not me. I didn’t have anything that stuck to anything. It had to be pushed into the wall. Like a thumb tack.”
He did. And it was me.
“After checking the places in question, we found listening devices. There were also a couple of video devices. Then, you left the room. You stopped to talk to a club girl and get directions to the bathroom. She pointed you in a direction down the hall, which you followed. Only you didn’t go to the bathroom. You went to Thorn’s office.”
The next video on the screen was of her, rifling through the drawers in the president’s desk. Again, it looked as if she planted bugs all around the room.
“I’m going to need you to show us where all those bugs are, Lyric,” Havoc said. “We found some of them, but they’re extremely tiny. There were at least three places where it looked like you planted something, but we couldn’t locate the device.”
“But I didn’t –”
“Stop lying!” Rycks growled. “I gave you a chance to come clean with me, Lyric. You told me about Kiss of Death expecting you to infiltrate Bane and set yourself up with a patched member to feed them information. You neglected to tell me you’d already bugged the whole compound. How many times have you been here with Wrangler?”
“Only once. It was when I planted the bugs I was given. I didn’t lie to you, other than not telling you about them. I intended to, but our conversation was pretty intense and emotionally draining. Other than this, I’ve been completely honest with you. It was an honest omission.” “Bullshit,” he spat. I felt like he’d slapped me. I even flinched a little before I could stop myself. If I’d lost Rycks’s protection, I was fucked. Whatever happened down here, I had no hope of preventing. At that moment, I wasn’t sure I cared. Because, no matter what Salvation’s Bane did to me, it was going to be so much worse for Bella. And she’d never understand what was happening. Rycks had just ripped out my heart for more than one reason. I loved Bella with everything inside me, but I hadn’t realized how much I was beginning to care for Rycks. I hadn’t realized how tightly he had a hold of my heart until he ripped it from my chest. If they killed me, at least the pain would go away. But what would happen to Bella?
Romance author by night, emergency room tech/clerk by day, Marteeka Karland works really hard to drive everyone in her life completely and totally nuts. She has been creating stories from her warped imagination since she was in the third grade. Her love of writing blossomed throughout her teenage years until it developed into the totally unorthodox and irreverent style her English teachers tried so hard to rid her of. Now, she breathes life into faeries, space hunters, werewolves, vampires, shapeshifters, and a few just plain ole ordinary people. She loves to see the awkward, self-conscious band geek get the captain of the football team and make him beg for it.
The mating heat ignites between a dominant alpha-heir and a forbidden wolf-witch hybrid when they’re forced to find his kidnapped sister and stop a war. Now is not the time for Kane to have found his mate. But the Goddess is never wrong. If he gives in to his desires for Sheridan, her lineage could cost him everything. Yet as his body aches for her, and thoughts of her curves cloud his mind, he finds himself willing to risk it all to claim her.
Forced, out of friendship and loyalty, Sheridan joins the hunt and gets more than she bargained for with a dangerous attraction to a darkly handsome wolf. While she seeks to distance herself from pack politics, Sheridan can’t deny that the first place she has ever felt she belongs is at Kane’s side. Not everyone agrees, and some will stop at nothing to destroy their love, their family, their future.
“I know you’re awake so you may as well open your eyes. The lights are dim so they shouldn’t hurt your head. Our healer would like to get a good look at you before she does any healing.”
The faintly sardonic voice prodded her, and the rest of the events coalesced. Kane MacKinnon. Kayleigh. The accident. Her eyes flew open, and she winced at the light that sliced into her brain.
“Turn it down.” Her voice was raspy, hoarse as if she’d been screaming.
The lights went lower until they just illuminated the figure sitting by her bed. Kane leaned forward until his face was a few inches from hers. “Sorry. I thought it would be low enough. You’re pretty light sensitive for a human.”
Yeah, she wasn’t about to tell him about her wolf half or that she had some heightened senses. She’d keep that to herself, especially now that she was in the belly of the beast. Kayleigh had figured it out and swore to keep her secret, though she told her that the MacKinnons would support her and not be like the ones who’d killed her father. For now, Sheridan would reserve judgement.
She tried to lift her head, but the pain sliced right through her as if an axe had tried to cleave her.
Kane stood and pressed a firm hand to her shoulder. “Stay still. Our healer will be right with you. She was working on Vanessa, since she was awake. She wanted you awake before she started, especially since she doesn’t know you.”
“What… What about Kayleigh? Is she okay? What happened?”
Sabrina Silvers began her writing career dreaming of elves, orcs, and hobbits in the fantasy section of her local library, looking in wardrobes for Narnia and Aslan, and hunting for gnomes in the forest. To her dismay, she never found any of them except between the pages of her books. So, she had to go out and create them for herself, leading to her lifelong love of reading and writing and dreaming about adventures, fantasy creatures and love in fantasy lands! She divides her time between writing sexy contemporary romances under a different pen name, reading, knitting and being owned by a very spoiled cocker spaniel who does not share her love of fantasy creatures.
