Another taste of "Oath of Service" in Love Bites. Look for it on Tuesday, Sept. 2. Here's the Amazon Kindle link...

The Table Chamber’s massive carved oak door swung silently wide. Percival, Marrok and Cador stalked out, still in their bloodied armor. None of them said a word as they strode past. Morgana had never been so thoroughly ignored. “Percival!”

He kept walking, refusing to even give her a glance. Only Marrok looked back at her. His expression was so cold, the sick knots in her stomach tightened even more. If even ‘Rok was that pissed, she was in serious trouble. Because of his issues with anger management, the knight usually cultivated a deliberately sunny attitude, or at least the pretense of one.

Arthur’s deep voice rumbled from inside the chamber. “Step in, Morgana. And close the door.” Judging by that icy tone, he was in one of his Pendragon rages.

Merlin’s balls, this is going to be nasty. Swallowing, she obeyed.

Entering the great circular chamber, she found Arthur sitting in his seat at the Round Table, the muscles of his jaw working, his black eyes cold and narrow with rage. She took her usual seat at the massive gleaming circular table with its chairs carved with images of knights and ladies. She straightened her shoulders and refused to cower.

He stared at her through an uncomfortable, weighted silence. Arthur wasn’t a tall man, but he had a thickly muscled build that made him look lethally intimidating. Black hair fell to his shoulders, and a short, dark beard framed his wide mouth. “What the fuck did you think you were doing?”

“I hate to mention this, but we’re equals now, Arthur. As Liege of the Majae, I don’t answer to you.” She was responsible for assigning witches to teams, just as the former king directed which vampires worked with whom on what. Both of them had recently been reelected by their respective constituencies yet again; she’d lost count of the number of times it had been now.

“You answer to me if you almost get three of my men killed,” Arthur growled. “To say nothing of the two girls you almost got eaten."

She lifted a brow. "You've never had a mission go off the rails, Arthur?"

He snorted. "You know better than that. Everybody's had missions go off the rails. Which is why you analyze where you fucked up and determine how to avoid it the next time. In this case, I strongly suspect it has something to do with Percival's calling you on your sexual arousal in that fucking bar."

Mortified heat flooded her face. "That had nothing to do with it."

"Bullshit.” He sat forward in his chair, hunching his massive shoulders. “You got your arse on your shoulders, decided you had a point to prove, and stranded your team in that alley. They lost fifteen crucial minutes contacting the next team on call, waiting while Caroline retraced the steps you'd already taken, then gated them all to the scene. It's pure luck you and those girls weren't halfway down that dragon's throat by the time they got there."

Morgana glared at him, refusing to be cowed…or admit he had a point. "If I'd taken the men with me, they might have been the ones on the receiving end of the teeth."

"That's their damned job, Morgana! Besides which, I'll remind you that they rescued you."

"After I brought the dragon down! If we'd all gated there first, the killer would have done exactly what he did when I arrived—go airborne. What the hell was the team going to do with him flying around three hundred feet over their heads? I had to shift and go after it, which is what I knew I was going to have to do to start with! Kel had told me if I could stall the dragon for a half hour, he’d be able to come help me fry the bastard."

"Yeah, assuming you could survive that long. Given the fucker was twice your size, I seriously doubt you’d have been able to make it a half hour. Face it—you and those girls would have ended up eaten if the team hadn’t arrived when they did."

"I had it handled, Arthur!"

"Bullshit! You had no business playing Lone Ranger with the scaly bastard.” His face turned grim. “Especially not today. Your judgment has always sucked on February third.” He smiled, but it had the quality of a grimace. “Not that I blame you. Mordred could warp anybody.”

She blew out a breath, staring sightlessly at one of the tapestries that lined the chamber. This one depicted battling knights fighting with sword and shield. “Yeah, but I should be over it by now. I thought I was, dammit. I thought I’d banished my ghosts, but I’m still having nightmares.”

“Kiddo, unlike mortals, we never forget a fuckin’ thing. Makes it tough to get objective distance.” He drummed his fingers on Excalibur’s hilt where the big sword hung at his hip. “Which is why these post-mortems are so important, even if they do sting like a motherfucker. You should have called in more backup, not left the backup you had cooling their heels on Mortal Earth."

Really, what could she say to that? He was right. "All right, maybe I miscalculated. I'll remind you, it's not like I make a habit of it. It won't happen again."

Arthur was silent so long, Morgana had to look at him again. She found him studying her with such calculation in his dark eyes, she instantly had to wonder what the hell he was thinking. "Unfortunately,” he said at last, “I don't think that's the case."

"What do you mean by that?" She glared at him.

Being Arthur, he didn’t look away. "I mean it's going to happen again unless you address the root cause of this mess: the sexual tension between you and your team that's interfering with your ability to assess situations coolly and unemotionally."

"My sex life is not your business, Arthur."

"I will repeat: it is when it interferes with the mission. You're arrogant, Morgana. You have a deadly habit of underestimating your foes and overestimating yourself." His ebony eyes narrowed in a calculating expression she didn't like a bit. "Your team might be just the ones to give you the lesson in humility you so desperately need."

She gritted her teeth. "All I need from those three is their sword arms."

"And if you mean to keep them, you'll offer Percival your Oath of Service.”

Morgana stared at him in horrified shock for a heartbeat before she thought to wipe the reaction from her face. “If you think I’ll willingly become the next thing to Percival's sex slave for the next year, you've taken too many blows to the head.”

Arthur studied her, and she suddenly remembered why he’d been England’s greatest king. He knew how to read people with an accuracy that was terrifying. “You’re afraid you’re going to fall in love with him.”

Her heart seemed to stop beating as the shot sank home with a sniper’s unerring accuracy. She forced a scornful laugh. “That’s absurd.”

His deep voice lowered to a dark male purr. “So you’re telling me you feel nothing at the thought of being bound hand and foot while he rides you like a mare?”

"You're being crude, Arthur. It doesn't suit you." As Morgana’s mouth went dry, she looked away before she remembered herself and jerked her eyes back to his. She couldn’t afford to show him any weakness at all.

"And you didn't answer the question." There was an unyielding note in his voice that told her she'd better damned well answer.

Panic stung her. Oh, God, what was the question? She mentally rewound the conversation. “No, there's nothing sexual between Percival and me.”

Arthur lifted a brow as one corner of his mouth quirked. “Vampires have a keen sense of smell.”

Morgana felt herself blush scarlet as she realized what he meant. He’d smelled the arousal that had flooded her sex from the moment he’d mentioned giving Percival her Oath. She gritted her teeth. “You can be quite the bastard, Arthur.”

“Yes, and you’d do well to keep that in mind. Because if you refuse to offer Percival your Oath, I’m going to reassign his team. You’ll need to pick which of your witches to assign to them. You’ll be with Lamorak and Baldulf.”

Morgana jolted. “No! They wouldn’t be able to…” At the last moment, she managed to bite the sentence off. Arthur didn’t need to know why she needed the team so desperately. If he ever guessed she could become a greater danger than some of the monsters they fought—that she only trusted Percival and his team to control her…

He frowned. “Lamorak and Baldulf are Knights of the Round Table, Morgana. They’re hardly second-stringers.”

“That’s not the issue. I’ve spent centuries learning to work with Percival and his team. We're so good at reading each other's minds in combat, we're practically Truebonded. I wouldn’t be as effective with anyone else.”

“Unfortunately, at the moment you’re not effective at all. You and Percival and his boys have too much baggage. It’s getting in the way of doing the job. One way or the other, I'm putting a stop to it before you get somebody killed.”

She stared at him, barely breathing. His black gaze was unwavering, fierce. It was his King Arthur face, the expression that said you’d better damned well do what he wanted, or you’d regret it.

He means it. Her stomach sank. She was going to lose them if she didn’t do something.

“All right, you high-handed bastard.” Morgana rose to her feet and glared across the Round Table at him. “I’ll offer Percival my damned Oath.”

Maddeningly unruffled, Arthur lounged back in his chair. “He has to accept it, or the deal’s off, and you go to Lamorak and Baldulf.”

“Fine. I’ll convince him.” She spun on her heel and stalked out.

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.

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.

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.