I fell hard and fast for the son of an elite wolf pack. Then he rejected me.
Asher was my fated mate, and he took off when I needed him most, rejecting me and my inner wolf. Then my half-sister is murdered at an exclusive college that’s enshrouded in magic and secrets. When the school offers me a scholarship, I accept and move onto campus. I’m going to find out who killed her, then rip them apart. And if I run into Asher while I’m there? He’ll learn I’m no longer his sweet little thing. He’s about to taste the fury of a wolf shifter scorned.
Everly’s everything to me, but to protect her, I had to shove her away. If I go near her, the Drudge Pack will discover who she truly is. My father—their enforcer—will kill her. But when she shows up at Ravenmire College, my inner wolf hungers. I’ll do anything to keep her safe—even if that means sacrificing myself and betraying my dangerous family.
Asher stood beneath a long-needle pine. When I paused, he strode forward, letting the moonlight touch his gorgeous features. He cupped my face with his warm hands.
Likes him, my wolf sighed.
“Missed you,” he whispered.
“You, too.” My heart rate picked up to double time.
His lips captured mine, softly at first, then harder and with growing need.
I wasn’t sure where this was going between us, but I did know one thing. Cats might rule and wolves might drool, but Asher was my catnip. Whenever he touched me, I purred.
“Jeez,” Shorty groused through the screen door of the food truck behind me. “Don’t be doin’ any of that crap so close to my truck. Go on with you. Take a walk on the beach or something. Kids.”
Pulling away from Asher, I snorted out a laugh. I gazed up into his warm brown eyes that sparkled solely for me and held out my hand.
“Take a walk with me, Ash?” I asked coyly. He told me I was the only one who could call him Ash.
He took my hand and tugged me close, wrapping his arm around my waist and holding me against his warm frame.
Likes, my wolf sighed again. Likes him lots.
Asher guided me around the truck, across the sidewalk, and out onto the sand.
During the day, crowds of humans mobbed Old Orchard Beach. Once the sun had set and the tourists headed to their rented condos and hotels, the locals could breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy the quiet. And late at night, especially when the moon bathed the sky with her milky gaze, wolves like me and Ash could run.
I kicked off my shoes and shimmied out of my jeans and long-sleeve shirt—I wisely wore thin shorts and a tank underneath.
Asher watched, his smoldering eyes tracing my every curve as I moved. We’d come close to going all the way but hadn’t done it yet. I wasn’t sure why I resisted. He made it clear he wanted to. The heat simmering in my veins told me I did too. I guess I wanted to wait. We’d only known each other for a few months.
He had to leave for college soon, but he said he’d come back for each of his breaks. We had plenty of time to do things then.
“Shift?” he asked.
Yesss, my wolf sighed. She rose and stomped her paws, eager.
The first time I shifted, it felt like my skin turned itself inside out, ripping muscles, tendons, and breaking my bones to morph five-four, skinny old me into a gorgeous white wolf with steel gray tufts on her ears and the tip of her tail.
Go for it, babe, I told my wolf, stepping back in my mind.
She leaped forward, jumping into my skin.
Ash joined us, and I could feel his grin as our wolves touched noses then rubbed necks.
Likes so much, she said. She gave him a wolfy grin and raced toward the water, charging a wave and yipping with joy. He followed, only a bit more sedate.
When she kicked up her feet and ran through the shallows, he kept pace, nipping at her ruff and huffing with pleasure.
They ran for what felt like forever, and it recharged my soul. Shifting might turn me inside out, but it put me back together again after, making me brand new.
My wolf flopped on the sand and rolled, shimmying her back to scratch an itch. Asher’s wolf stood nearby, watchful. As protective as Ash.
Time’s up, I finally said. She’d run and play with him all night long if I let her. I wanted to, but Ash would leave for college in three days, and I needed to be with him more than I wanted to breathe.
We morphed back.
Ash gathered me into his arms. His kiss drank me in as the final push settled, turning me back into what I was before. My wolf changing back to me. His wolf into him. Us.
I moaned, pressing myself fully against him.
We eased apart, and he took my hands with that special gleam in his eyes he shared solely with me.
Things couldn’t get any better than this. Sometimes, I dreamed we were fated.
A feeling I couldn’t define sped across my skin, leaving goosebumps behind. I told myself it was nothing. The wind with a hint of the crispness of fall. A bit of stray magic lingering in the air.
It couldn’t be us. Nothing would come between me and Ash.
Marty writes young adult fiction with plenty of suspense and romance, plus a touch of humor. When she’s not dreaming up ways to mess with her character’s lives, she works as an RN. She lives in New England with her husband, three children, three geriatric cats, and a spunky Yorkie pup who keeps her on her toes.
She also writes adult contemporary romance and romantic suspense under the pen name, Marlie May. Marty/Marlie was a 2018 RWA ® Golden Heart ® Finalist in contemporary short and romantic suspense.
The falling leaves of autumn are like the deceit in my family lineage. Closing the door on the infinite cold—winter blossoms into the spring of new beginnings. In the next season of my life, I’m mending the pieces back together. Opening myself up, I even begin to date, which is a big step for me.
After graduating from high school, a shocking development causes me to be on alert. When nothing comes of it, I move forward, wanting desperately to put the past behind me.
About to start college, I bump into someone from my complicated past, and my heart is torn. The dilemma I struggle with: Do I let other people’s opinion define who I am? I must decide if I’ll push through the ridicule and pave my own path. Could the face that’s scorned me be the key to my resolve? I’ll never know if I take the easy way out.
I’ve unlocked my darkest secret only to have it return to torment me. As the thorns of his obsession encompass me, I discover I’m part of a twisted ploy. If I don’t figure a way out of this predicament, then the life I’ve known may cease to exist.
Don’t miss the riveting sequel to Madison’s story that will have you dangling on the edge of your seat.
“My own kinfolk are an actual reality show,” Kenya gushes.
Kenya shuts her mouth when Uncle Clemens scowls at her. Kenya’s mama hasn’t uttered a word. I think Aunt Pam is in shock. Regan stands abruptly. He glances at Tanya, his anger softening a bit, before he storms off.
“Regan, wait!” Charlotte pleads.
Aunt Cass giggles. “Wonder what your precious Regan thinks of you now.”
Charlotte explodes. “I’ve had it with you! You’re a two-faced, vindictive bitch!” She lunges across the table with lightning speed and punches her sister in the jaw.
“Oh, man!” Ryan shoots up, moving out of their path. But not before grabbing his plate of food.
Enraged, Aunt Cass grabs onto Charlotte’s head. She uses her weight, shoving her into the large mirror hanging on the wall. Charlotte’s head crashes into it, shattering the glass. Huge cracks form across the mirror in blood. Charlotte lets out a high-pitched shrill, and then goes bananas, wrapping her hands around her sister’s neck. Aunt Cass manages to loosen Charlotte’s hold by kneeing her in the stomach. Grabbing Charlotte’s hair with both hands, she body slams her onto the table. The force of impact causes the turkey to fly off. Rolls tumble over, scattering in several directions on the floor. Aunt Cass takes Charlotte’s head, ramming it into the bowl of sweet potatoes.
I’d been frozen at first, then reality hits. Dari, Kenya, and I scramble out of the way.
“Ma, stop!” Dari shouts.
Aunt Cass is beyond reason. Charlotte blindly grabs a fork, stabbing it into her hand, and Aunt Cass screams. Uncle Clemens jumps up, running over to try and break them apart. Uncle Drew seems shell-shocked—slow moving to make his way over to them. Uncle Clemens pries them apart momentarily, holding Charlotte back. Uncle Drew has his wife’s arm. Struggling, Charlotte breaks from her brother’s grasp, charging like a bull ram. Aunt Cass happily obliges, knocking her husband out the way. They appear to be fighting to the death.This is nuts! The Thibodeaux family is full of secrets, bigger than I ever imagined—starting with Gigi’s daughters. The secrets have turned into a deceit that is spreading like a plague. Venomous lies, jealousy, and backstabbing. The total opposite of how it should be. It seems as if our family is hexed by a thorn of secrets.
B. Truly has wanted to be an author since she was fifteen years old. She is grateful to have accomplished this dream. B. Truly has very vivid dreams and a wild imagination. She likes to read, watch tons of TV shows, and movies. She’s addicted to romance and gets a thrill out of suspense and sci-fi. She writes young adult, new adult, and adult romance, sci-fi, dystopian, and paranormal genres.
B. Truly likes to explore conflicted plots of romance with thrilling twists. She also loves creating impossible situations for her characters to grow from and try to overcome.
B. Truly has three wonderful children, and a husband who defines the person that she is today. She works full-time as an Ultrasound technologist in Houston, Texas.
Knives Out meets One of Us is Lying with a hint of the Inheritance Games. Like the original whodunnit, Clue, this suspenseful mystery also has three possible endings explaining what could have happened.
They all have secrets. They all have motives. They all tell lies.
Every year, at a prestigious boarding school, Professor Groff hosts the Midnight Masquerade. But this year, before the festivities, he’s discovered dead in his office. Yet six students still receive invitations. The same six students who’re questioned about his murder.
The show must go on. At the Masquerade, two additional students claim to know the truth. The lights go out and when they come back on, one of them is dead. Anyone could’ve been at fault.
Francisca blind in one eye and deadly on the rugby field. Toshi a number ninja and the campus punching bag. Taz who struggles with anxiety and lingers in the shadows. Fish the golden boy hiding wounds and not only in his heart. Caroline the heiress and the image of perfection. Gorgeous George the resident Greek God with nothing to lose.
The six receive anonymous notes, making them question themselves and the assumptions they’ve made about each other. Brought back together, they must prove their innocence before the all-school meeting the next morning, otherwise, they risk humiliation if their secrets are exposed exposed—and worse, if they’re found guilty.
It’s a long night of theft, danger, and threats by a secret society that shows Professor Groff was right during his final lecture.
Dean Hammond straightens a stack of papers then looks up. With a severe lift to her eyebrow, she scans those of us present, and then says, “Oliver Groff was found dead in his office at 3:22 pm, shortly after his last class of the day.”
A weight in my stomach sinks just as it did when Arpad made the announcement in the dining hall. Questions roll through my mind and collide when the realization hits me full force. He was alive, teaching earlier today, making dire pronouncements about how basically everything sucks.
Boy, was he right. Now, he’s gone.
The circumstances were different the first and second times someone in my life died but the familiar emptiness, the void, vacancy returns—or maybe it never left.
“Yeah, we heard—” George’s tone tells me he wants to say something more about loss and tragedy, something sentimental perhaps, but he’s hard-wired for nonchalance as the campus crush and most likely to smoke, hook up, and skip classes.
Caroline clasps her hands in front of her chest. Her knuckles pale. “I’m so sorry to hear that.” She pauses. “He was an…efficient teacher.”
I imagine she struggles to think of a nice thing to say about Groff. I sneak a glance at the others because I can’t be the only one wondering why we’re here.
Arpad already announced the news in the Refectory. There’s a good chance not everyone was there. Hammond inhales.
“Francisca Thompson-Sanchez, nice seeing you again.”
Francisca’s expression doesn’t suggest the feeling is mutual, although she is wearing a mud-streaked rugby uniform and likely feels as out of place in the plush office as I do.
“Can you please tell me where you were from the end of English class until now?” Hammond asks.
She focuses on something on the wall behind the dean but her hands tremble slightly. “I went to talk to Mr. Groff after class, but he looked, um, busy. Then I went to the bathroom.” She glances at Caroline. “Uh, then my dorm, followed by rugby practice, and then the Refectory.”
Arpad writes rapidly on a yellow pad.
Hammond’s penetrating gaze lands on a math whiz, gamer kid whose dorm room is by the day student room in my dorm. “I was at the Library then Refectory.” He speaks clearly, but he’s all-over sweaty.
“Tazmin King?” Hammond says, going down the line.
“Taz,” she corrects. Eyeliner stains the space around her big brown eyes like she’s been crying. “After class, I went to my dorm and then dinner. If Oliver died, it was because of a broken heart,” she blurts. Emotion streaks across her features, but she captures it and makes it disappear.
“And how would you know that, Tazmin?” Hammond’s tone is dark.
“It’s none of our business,” she answers. Then it’s as though she ghosts even though she’s still in the room with us. Hammond barely conceals a look of disgust.
“Moving on. John?”
“Maybe the professor was tired of his life and wanted to escape. Suicide? Or maybe he just wanted out. Faked it. On a plane to Tahiti.”
By Hammond’s pinched expression, I instantly realize this is the wrong answer. My sweat now rival’s Toshi’s. I cannot get kicked out. I cannot afford to go back to Burningham. Whatever this is about… I cannot lose my spot here.
“No, we found the body. Poetic though. However, the question was where were you this afternoon?” Accusation fills Hammond’s tone.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I misunderstood. I was in the dayroom at my dorm, Varth Dader, then lacrosse practice in the lower fields.”
She glances at me dismissively and nods at Caroline. I know all too well not to allow relief to replace the nerves inside. Best to stay alert.
“I was with the Promenade committee, finalizing some items for tomorrow. Wait. You’re not canceling prom because of this are you?” Typical Caroline, always concerned about her agenda.
The goth girl, Taz, narrows her eyes. “It should be after the tree went up in a blaze and now Oliver, I mean Professor Groff, is dead.”
Hammond hardly looks at them. “Ladies, that’s none of your concern. Now, George. If you please.”
“I was in the student center. You can ask Mrs. Carson.” He smirks. Likely, he was hooking up with someone.
“Do any of you have a reason to want Oliver Groff dead?” Hammond’s question is like a stone thrown in a lake. The ripples of this implication could be devastating.
Deirdre Riordan Hall is the author of the contemporary young adult bestsellers Sugar and Pearl as well as the High School Murder Mystery series. She’s in an ongoing pursuit of words, waves, and wonder. Her love language involves a basket of chips, salsa, and guacamole, preferably when shared with her family.
