ROUND THREE SURVIVORS!
A COMPLEX SOLUTION,
HELL’S PARADISE, Romance – other
RED, YA Paranormal Romance
LIFE RIGHT NOW, YA Rom Com/Chick Lit
MIDNIGHT’S BALANCE, Paranormal Romance
UNCONTROLLED HOPE, Paranormal Romance
AT FIRST BLUSH, Contemp Romance
THE WESTERMAN AFFAIR, Non-Regency Historical Romance
KISMET, Rom Suspense
CHIME, YA Sci Fi
BLINDFOLDED, Contemp Romance
UNTITLED #1, Paranormal Romance
LOVE’S NO JOKE, Romance – other
CASANOVA EXPOSED, Contemp Romance
HIS DARK TEMPTATION, Paranormal Romance
Why no top 5? Because basically we had a 10 way tie. Things are really close, so make sure you vote in the next round – ALSO the rules change for voting in the next round so please make sure to read them if you don’t want your vote deleted!
Charles Westerman sipped his champagne and leaned against a yellow-veined marble column in the noisy and crowded foyer of Rutford House. He surveyed the guests in search of a familiar face—or, at least, an inviting one. Really, there should be halos of light above the people with whom he wanted to socialize so he could know them instantly in such a throng. Colorful waistcoats and ties—outrageous choices in evening wear—were one way to divine artistic tendencies.
The door to the Happy Clam Family Restaurant blew open, bringing in a gust of cold air and the haunting ghost from Hope Windward’s past. Confusion and suspicion swirled in her belly, working its way up her esophagus, nearly choking her with fright. No, not him. She flicked the beer tap back, her hand trembling as she slid the Sam Adam’s down the bar to her customer.
I opened the pantry to get a box of cereal, and my brother’s AK-47 fell over with a clang at my feet. I jerked out the magazine, pulled the bolt to check the chamber and popped out the round.
“Mom, Nicholas left his AK loaded again,” I said and set the weapon on the stainless steel counter.
Nicholas skidded into the kitchen, sliding on his socked feet.
Dorran took a step into the hotel room situated above one of the taverns in the Temple Bar District and cursed every undying god he knew of.
He had been searching for his female, his mate, for almost a thousand years and she had been in this very room within the last twenty-four hours.
And he had missed her.
Roaring so that the generic decorations and frames on the walls rattled, he placed his palms flat against the door frame and hung his head, taking in deep breaths of the scent that electrified each and every hair on his body, that set fire to the blood rushing through his veins.
Gripping the penknife in my pocket, I shuffled down the hall, my pulse racing. The heavy wooden doors thudded shut as the buzz of voices died away. I needed to do this. Quickly.
Ghost had grown accustomed to the shadows.
Living in darkness had become a haven and a prison sentence.
His job was to stop bad things before they happened to good people. He protected the innocent, even if it meant sacrificing himself, even if that made him a not so nice person, even if it was the reason he was away from her.
“Another day, another date, another dollar, who shall I be today?” I smooth my dress and give the doorman a wink as I walk through the main door of the luxurious Titan Hotel. I feel the stares of strangers, but I’m only focused on finding the man whose photo was messaged to me only moments ago. My steps falter when my gaze lands on the most intriguing man I’ve seen.
“911, what is the address of your emergency?” He had been a dispatcher so long that the words just fell out of his mouth when answering the phone.
A female voice responded, hushed and sounding frightened, “I just… I think I just saw a man go into my neighbor’s window.” For some reason that address seemed familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite place his finger on it.
Goodbye dignity.
Hovering over a toilet in a stall with her borrowed cocktail dress squeezed between her knees to keep it from falling in had to be the final nail in Kate Vernon’s dignity. Normally she didn’t eavesdrop, but when juicy gossip paid the bills…
“I don’t know why you’re bothering with Mark Stanton,” the woman by the mirror said in a bored and jaded tone.
“Do you think you could squeeze an entire life into one day?”
It wasn’t the question that froze my brain–it was the girl. She was gorgeous, but it was her water drenched eyes that stopped the flip answer I’d had ready.
“I guess that depends on why you needed to,” I said, a little worried she was going to start a full on girl-cry thing right there on the plane.
“If you take another Instagram snap, I’m going to feed you to the alligator.”
She didn’t acknowledge the threat, but waved glitter tipped fingers in my direction, and continued tapping her phone in a blaze of glory.
For the first time in 300 years, I was struck speechless by a familiar…on her first day no less.
I snatched the slim rose gold device from her palms, and a full two seconds passed before its absence registered.
Beneath the inky black of a moonless night, Nyah Kendrick hiked through the dense Maine forest, her heart racing with anticipation of the hunt. The artic wind rattling the branches above her carried the clean scent of fresh snow mixed with the stench of the humans waiting to die.
Some of her clan, including a few she hunted with tonight, felt sympathy for these weak creatures—not Nyah. Humans had ripped apart the very fabric of her existence when they slaughtered everyone she loved and left her for dead.
I closed my eyes and raised my nose to the wind hoping for a scent of the girl. It was there, the cloying ballroom scent of lavender…and him.
Only instinct blocked my brothers’ familiar scents and the lightened tread of their boots on the hunt. And then, as the wind turned, it hit me–the blunt, iron scent of blood.
The brunette inching up to the Blackjack table had the perfect mix of resting bitch face, obscenely short skirt, and red patent leather “fuck me” heels. Basically catnip to Mara Antonini.
“Look at her.” Mara paused by the row of nickel slots and locked her gaze on the brown-haired beauty.
One can hear the Earth in the absence of human noise.
Here, high in the jagged mountains, the valley far below and the empty sky above, Micah could hear it whispering to him.
Today, the Earth whispered, “you are no longer alone”; someone was coming up the mountain.
And even though the Earth wasn’t alive in the same sense he was, for just a moment, he felt the presence of another Elemental in those words.