Friday, August 29, 2014
Here's another excerpt from "Oath of Service."
Morgana and her team are staking out a BDSM club, searching for a serial killer they believe to be a werewolf.
Involuntarily, her gaze flashed across the bar to the rear booth where her team sat. The three men looked ready for battle at a moment’s notice, between their holstered 9mm SIGs and the long swords they wore diagonally across their backs. Illegal weapons, of course, but also invisible to mortal eyes, thanks to the spells Morgana had cast.
While the club’s Masters wore everything from monk’s robes to biker leathers, her teammates needed no special regalia to look like dominants. Instead they’d chosen clothing that would allow them to blend without hampering their ability to fight: leather vests over bare chests, faded jeans and tooled leather boots, perfectly broken in.
Looking at them lounging in their booth like a trio of lions on the veldt, Morgana couldn’t deny their effect on her. But then, if a woman didn't feel a tingle at the sight of Percival, Cador and Marrok looking ready to break all Ten Commandments, she needed to check her pulse.
Someone who didn't know them would probably register Marrok first. He appeared the most menacing of the three, being six-five and brawny as a bull, with a lantern jaw, deep-set brown eyes, and a lazily sensual mouth. His crooked nose had been repeatedly broken during childhood by his abusive prick of a father. Despite the air of brutishness, he was a laughing, genial soul who often played peacemaker between his hot-tempered teammates.
Which made what happened if you managed to truly anger him all the more shocking. His berserker rages could make even Arthur Pendragon step softly. He’d been known to cut through enemy forces like a plow through a wheat field, leaving broken bodies and barren earth in his wake.
Then there was Cador. At six feet, he was shorter than the others, but that only made him look more like a muscular male wall. Which was something of a natural result given that all three spent hours a day swinging battle-axes and broad swords.
In contrast to Marrok’s short dark hair, Cador wore his long, braided tightly for combat. At the moment, though, it tumbled past his shoulders in a curling mane. The eye-catching effect was intensified by its color, a rich, dark auburn, glossy as a fox’s pelt.
His features looked as if God had calculated every angle for maximum impact on anyone with estrogen in her veins. Thick auburn brows dipped over laughing eyes the striking turquoise blue of the Caribbean. His nose was straight and knife-blade narrow, while his wide, mobile mouth was prone toward deceptively charming smiles.
Deceptive, because Cador had a sadistic streak as broad as the Thames. He was not the kind of man you wanted to meet in combat, particularly if you'd done something to piss him off. He and Morgana often locked horns; he had a cutting, cynical sense of humor she found irritating. For his part, he called Morgana arrogant, though she preferred to think of it as natural self-confidence.
All right, she supposed she was a little arrogant.
Last—but hardly least, since he was the trio's leader—there was Percival. At six-three, he was a bit leaner than the others, with all the muscular power, explosive speed and hypnotic grace of a puma. His broad-shouldered, elegant body was marked here and there by scars from spears, arrows and swords—reminders of his mortal life fighting Arthur Pendragon’s wars.
As if to emphasize all that stark masculinity, Percival had the kind of face that called ancient gladiators to mind: angular, square-jawed, with a flaring swoop of a nose that just missed being too long, and a pugnacious cleft chin. The overall effect was softened by a wide, lush mouth that Morgana had hungered to kiss for a very long time. His deep-set gray eyes were cool and watchful, heated by flashes of erotic cruelty she wished she didn’t find so intriguing. One of his blond brows was bisected by a thin scar, a reminder of a wound that had almost cost him his right eye. He wore his thick, honey-gold hair just barely long enough to curl. Morgana longed to run her fingers through it, but it wasn’t a good idea to give into temptation where Percival was concerned. He’d take ruthless advantage of any weakness she handed him.
Percival wanted her. Had wanted her for years—centuries—though she doubted the desire he felt was anything more than physical. If she wasn’t damned careful, Morgana knew she’d end up the latest in his parade of hapless submissives. The really galling thing was that she’d probably love every minute of her subjugation—until he moved on to the next sub, leaving her heart in ruins. Dangerous ruins.
The kind with nuclear land mines.
Yet sometimes when she gazed into those demanding gray eyes, Morgana wanted to confess all the secrets she’d kept so long. She knew better, though. She didn’t dare let Percival discover how close she skated to the edge—or how far she had to fall.
She’d been skating along that edge for fifteen hundred years, since becoming one of the immortals tasked with protecting mankind. That was when the wizard Merlin and his enchantress lover Nimue had appeared at King Arthur’s Camelot court, where Morgana had been a Druid healer.
Merlin had told the king those who drank from his enchanted Grail would gain immortality and vast power—if they could pass the couple’s tests. For the knights, that meant duels to prove their strength and courage.
For Camelot’s ladies, the challenge was mental rather than physical. Nimue’s psychic spells forced each woman to confront her worst fears, while giving her the illusion of vast magical powers. The enchantress then evaluated her response to determine whether she could be trusted with real magic.
But when it was Morgana’s turn, even Nimue was astonished at the results…
###
Morgana balanced on a stool on the tips of her toes, her rope-burned, bloodless wrists bound in front of her, dark spots dancing before her eyes. She couldn’t draw breath for the pressure of the noose around her neck, its taut rope looped over the hook in the cottage’s ceiling.
A little boy screamed, his voice ringing high with terror. Morgana’s blood chilled as a man in a priest’s robes dragged the struggling dark-haired child into the room. “Mamma!” the boy shrieked. “Mamma, help me!”
“I can give you the power to save your son—and yourself,” a bodiless voice whispered in her mind. “Will you accept?”
Desperately fighting to suck in a breath past the strangling noose, Morgana wheezed, “Yes. Horned God, yes!”
Energy poured into her, a flaming wave of it that seared its way up her spine. Magic such as she’d never known, effortless and blazing. It made the power she was used to wielding feel like a feeble trickle.
She sent that blaze shooting down to her bound wrists and up to the noose around her neck. When her new power hit the loops of rope, it burned them instantly to floating flecks of ash. Sucking down a relieved whoop of air, Morgana fell off her tiptoes, rocking back down onto her heels so suddenly she almost toppled off the stool.
As the sensation of suffocation lifted, she looked down at the priest who’d just forced her shrieking son to the floor. Rage flooded her with the blind need to kill. Her hands began to burn, casting a furious yellow light over the dark, dirty little cottage with its stink of piss and terror.
The priest stared up at her, his eyes widening at the sight of her blazing hands.
She stepped off the stool. Bennett leaped to his feet and backed away, his watery blue eyes darting beneath his balding pate, his thin lips peeled back from yellowed, crooked teeth. Morgana’s hands shot out, seized the sides of his face and jerked him close. The old man jerked against her grip, fighting like a rabid fox in a wolf trap.
“Enough!” she snapped. “Be still!” Her will blasted him, paralyzing him where he stood and locking his terrorized mind in winter ice. The need to kill lashed within her like a flaming snake. He deserved it for what he’d done to her, to Mordred.
And yet… killing left a stain on the soul. He’d taught her that. Better to leave the bastard alive — but make damned sure he never did to anyone else what he’d done to them.
But more, he needed to suffer for his crimes, share the pain and terror of his victims, feel the weight of his betrayal of his God and his flock.
Morgana’s will slashed Bennett like a steel-tipped flail, forcing him to experience the full horror of his sins. By the time she was done with him, she knew he’d never harm another innocent as long as he drew breath.
If you would like to order the Kindle book from Amazon, go here.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
A teaser excerpt from LOVE BITES
Here's another excerpt from the novel-length story OATH OF SERVICE in Love Bites, an anthlogy of my vampire kink.
LOVE BITES will be out Sept. 2.
Other stories in LOVE BITES:
In “Oath of
Service,” Angela Knight introduces the Doms of the Round Table and a kinky
circle of pleasure, pain, and power as she returns to her “sexy as hell”
(Heroes and Heartbreakers) Mageverse world for a new twist on the Arthurian
legend.
Morgana le
Fay finally gets what’s coming to her in this novel-length story. After a fight
with a dragon goes wrong, Morgana takes an Oath of Service to Percival, vampire
Knight of the Round Table. Percival and his partners, Cador and Marrok, decide
to give Morgana a taste of bondage and submission she’ll never forget. What
they don’t know is that the lovely witch is keeping secrets that could destroy
them all. To make matters worse, the dragon is plotting a deadly revenge….
In this scene, Morgana has given Percival and his partners her Oath of Service. She swears to don a magical collar that will strip her of her powers, letting them take sensual revenge for everything she's ever done to them.
Percival and his men are really, really...
Tempted.
Morgana stared at
him. Her beautiful green eyes widened as her lips parted. Percival's sensitive vampire
nose picked up the unmistakable scent of arousal.
In the ticking
silence, he realized Marrok and Cador had frozen with the same kind of
predatory hunger he felt—and he could
drive nails with his dick. “Well?” he demanded.
The witch angled her
chin up in a gesture he knew far too well, a glitter of defiant determination
in her eyes. "I've offered you my Oath, gentleman. The only question is,
are you going to take me on?" She curled a lip. "Unless you're afraid
you're not up to the task...."
That, of course,
aroused an entirely predictable reaction from Cador. He lounged back on the
couch in a sprawl that called blatant attention to his massive erection.
"Oh, darling, I can assure you, I'm definitely up to the task of putting
you in your place." One hand cupped his balls as his grin took on a
carnivorous edge.
"We need to
discuss this," Marrok said, a muscle rolling in his broad jaw. "Give
us a minute, Morgana."
"Of
course." She angled her head in a courteous little nod, then turned with a
roll of lush hips and sauntered out. A gesture had the door closing behind her,
propelled by a rolling wave of golden sparks.
"Oh, God, that
arse..." Cador moaned. "I can't wait to flog it a nice rosy pink
before I give it a grinding fuck. You know Morgana le Fay has never let anybody
touch that cherry arse. I'll bet it's tight as a miser's purse."
"I'm sure it
is," Percival growled, shooting him a glance of narrow-eyed warning.
"I'm also sure you're not going to be the first to claim it."
Marrok shot off the
couch and began to pace. "Which is exactly why accepting her Oath is such
a piss-poor idea. You two are going to end up fighting over that bloody witch
like two stallions with one mare. No bit of pussy is worth wrecking the
team."
Stung, Percival
stared at his friend. "Of course we're not going to wreck the team. We've
shared women before, and it's never been a problem."
Marrok met his gaze
with a level stare. "Those women were bed-sport. You always cared for
their needs as a dom’s duty demands, but they weren’t more to you than that.”
He shrugged. “True, you weren’t any more than that to the women, either. But
still.”
Percival curled a
lip. "Are you suggesting I'm in love with Morgana le Fay?"
Cador snorted and
stretched his long legs out, propping them on the coffee table’s granite top.
"Yeah, right. Because he has such a weakness for flaming bitches."
"As to
that," Percival growled, "I believe we can break her of that
particular character defect."
“Clamps on her
nipples would probably be highly effective.” Cador grinned and licked his lips.
Marrok stared at him,
and scrubbed a hand over his face with a groan, his massive shoulders slumping.
"I'm wasting my fucking breath. You've already made up your minds."
He glanced at Cador. "Both of you. I'm outvoted."
"Christ, Marrok,
are you kidding?" Cador demanded. "Think of all those little zaps
every time we went out with her the past few years. Think of the way she always
insisted on leading missions, though Percival has more field experience.” His
lip curled. “Personally, I think the bitch witch just gets off on giving us
orders and watching us jump.”
Marrok smiled
reluctantly. “I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“Now we have a chance
to put a collar on her and get a little of our own back." Cador’s mouth
curled into a dark smile. "And I, for one, am looking forward to it."
God, so was Percival.
Maybe too much. His cock ached with the stark need to do everything Cador had
mentioned. Flog that delicious arse, fuck it.
Fuck her.
Unfortunately, Marrok
had a point. He didn't like the idea of Cador touching her, sadistic bastard
that he was. His friend would hurt her. Carefully, with precise self-control,
but he'd still hurt her. And he'd like it.
Never mind that
Percival would do the same thing. He still hated the idea of either of his
friends touching that ridiculously lush, tempting body. Hearing her breathy
moans. Fencing with her as she used that sarcastic, biting wit. Making her bend
that stiff neck to his dominance.
Holding her in the
aftermath, listening to her breathe, to the deep thump of her slowing
heartbeat...
Oh, hell. Hell, no.
Not Morgana le Fay. Despite her carefully
camouflaged compassion, the witch was manipulative, arrogant, and generally in
desperate need of several painful lessons in humility.
This would be nothing
more than sex and revenge. He wouldn't let it be anything else. Especially not
anything that would damage his relationship with the two men he'd fight and die
for. His brothers in all but blood.
Yeah, he'd collar
her. He'd get her out of his system by fucking her in every way he'd ever
dreamed of in his darkest, most frustrated fantasies. He'd do everything he'd
ever jerked off thinking about, no matter how humiliating it would be to her.
He'd bring her to her
knees—and make her suck his cock while she was down there. He'd even share her
with his brothers and watch while they fucked her. He'd ignore his instinctive
possessiveness, force himself to endure it just as he'd learned to endure the
pain of sword wounds in order to win battles in Arthur's service.
"Are we agreed
then?" he demanded.
"No,"
Marrok growled. "But that point is basically…” Suddenly he stiffened, and
his eyes narrowed. “You know,” he said slowly, “I have no problem believing
Arthur would order Morgana to offer Percival her Oath. What I have trouble with
is that he’d tell her to offer it to all three of us.”
“Oh, come on,
Marrok…" Cador began.
“No, you come
on. Stop thinking with your dick and consider the implications. How much stress
would sharing her put on the team?”
Cador opened his
mouth, only to immediately close it again. “You’re right,” he admitted
reluctantly, grimacing as if at the taste of something foul. “We’d be fighting
over who got to fuck her, how, when and where.”
Marrok nodded grimly.
“Exactly. Would Arthur do that to us?”
“No.” Cador shot
Percival a speculative glance. “But I could easily see him ordering Morgana to
offer Percival her Oath.”
Fury swirled through
Percival, and he curled his hands into fists. “And I could see Morgana
disobeying his exact orders out of a desire to play us against each other.” He
rose from the couch, aware of Cador doing the same. "Morgana?"
She entered with that
lazy, seductive stride, her expression politely inquiring. If she felt any anxiety
over the outcome of their discussion, it didn't show—but then, she'd always
been a damned good actress. "Yes?"
He stalked toward her
and stopped, aware of Cador and Marrok moving up behind him to watch. “Did
Arthur tell you to offer your Oath to all three of us, or just to me?”
Her gaze flickered,
but she angled her chin upward. She knew better than to lie outright to a
vampire who could smell deception. “To you alone.”
He ground his teeth.
“Why did you disobey him?”
She shrugged
gracefully. “He didn’t tell me not to offer it to the three of you.”
“Did you intend to
destroy the team?”
Her eyes widened, and
panic flashed across her face. “No! I wouldn’t do that…”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Percival stared at her with narrow eyes. “What do you think would happen if the
three of us disagreed about which of us is to fuck you, or whose orders you
should obey?”
She opened her mouth,
only to reluctantly close it again. “All right, I can see how that could cause
friction. But it wasn’t my intention to create it deliberately.”
“I’m sure that would
have been a huge comfort if the team cracked wide open because you were fucking
playing games.”
Morgana angled her
chin upward in a familiar gesture of defiance. “You would have done what you
always do, Percival. You’d have led, and they’d have followed.”
“Maybe,” Percival
growled. “But when you throw sex in the mix, things get complicated.”
Marrok huffed.
“That’s the damned truth.”
Cador rocked back on
his heels and gave Morgana a flat, cold stare. “I have no interest in accepting
your Oath. Not when it’s so obvious you can’t be trusted.”
Marrok bared his
teeth in a snarl. “Neither do I.”
“I, however, will
happily accept your Oath.” Percival smiled. He knew it wasn’t a pretty smile by
any means. “By the time I get done with you, it’s safe to say you won’t dare
lie to me again, whether by implication or otherwise.” He lifted a blond brow.
“Unless you’d care to rescind your offer, of course.”
She swallowed. “But
if I rescind it, Arthur will reassign me.”
He shrugged.
“Probably.”
Morgana raised her chin, an edge of defiance in her gaze. “Then, no, I will not rescind it.”LOVE BITES will be out Sept. 2.
Other stories in LOVE BITES:
In “Be
Careful What You Wish For,” a beautiful vampire and her two vamp lovers lock
horns with a wizard with the ugly habit of refusing to take no for an answer.
When he casts a spell on Beau and Decker, Amanda finds herself the object of
both men’s lust. She’s had some yummy threesome fantasies along the same lines,
but since the men hate each other, she figured it was never going to happen.
But when it does, things get a lot more kinky than Amanda expects.
In The Bloodslave, Angela Knight’s classic “must read…highly erotic” (*The Best Reviews) novella, a female mercenary comes under fire during a hunt. The beautiful, virginal, and very human Verica is captured by three hungry alpha vampires driven deliriously feral by her purity. But they desire more than her warm blood. They want her body, leaving Verica more vulnerable than ever before—and loving every minute of it.
Click to order LOVE BITES.
In The Bloodslave, Angela Knight’s classic “must read…highly erotic” (*The Best Reviews) novella, a female mercenary comes under fire during a hunt. The beautiful, virginal, and very human Verica is captured by three hungry alpha vampires driven deliriously feral by her purity. But they desire more than her warm blood. They want her body, leaving Verica more vulnerable than ever before—and loving every minute of it.
Click to order LOVE BITES.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)