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Tiny and Fierce

Page 13

by Margo Bond Collins


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  Books by Margo Bond Collins

  Reverse Harem Sci Fi Romance

  Snatched

  Her Captives (coming 2021)

  Urban Fantasy

  The Shifter Shield Series

  The Vampirarchy Series

  Paranormal Romance

  The Cat Scratch Fever Shifter Series

  The Dragonfire Heat Shifter Series

  Sci Fi Alien Romance

  The Khanavai Warrior Brides Series:

  Entered in the Alien Bride Lottery

  Captured for the Alien Bride Lottery

  Claimed for the Alien Bride Lottery

  More Alien Romance

  Alien Embrace

  The Alien Warriors’ Reparation Brides Series

  About Eli Constant

  Eli Constant, also writing under the pens Eliza Grace & Ellie Meadows, is the author of The Victoria Cage Necromancer Series.

  A diverse speculative fiction author, seeped in heady flavors of horror and the paranormal, Eli isn’t afraid to be a bleeding-heart non-conformist & she supports the LGBTQ community, equal rights and treatment for minority communities, the importance of the arts in education, a woman’s right to choose, free speech, and more. Generally, she thinks ‘treat others how you want to be treated’ is the damn golden rule to beat all others, but she also recognizes there are times when kindness has to give way to self-preservation and social revolution.

  She lives in the states with her loving husband, three daughters, and whoodle pup Miles. Also, if there’s good sushi around, don’t get in her way.

  Keep in touch with the author online.

  http://www.authoreliconstant.com

  Facebook – Joint Fan Page

  Books by Eli Constant

  The Victoria Cage Series

  Garden of Lilies

  Water of Souls

  Body of Ash

  Hellhole Bay [arriving end of 2020]

  Junkyard Fae [arriving 2021]

  Cat O’Shea Shifter Novels

  A Victoria Cage Spin-off

  Catfights in Faeland [arriving 2021]

  Pixie Dust Panic [arriving 2021]

  The Dead Tree Series

  Invasion

  Lifelines

  Hybrids [arriving end of 2020]

  Futurity [arriving 2021]

  The Shadow Forest Series

  Eliza Grace

  Magic Burned

  Spell Tricked

  Curse Kissed

  A Shade of Hades

  Eliza Grace

  The Lottery

  The Harvest [arriving end of 2020]

  The Rapture [arriving 2021]

  King of Castleton

  Ellie Meadows

  Bully

  Brat

  Brawl

  Balls [arriving end of 2020]

  Heart Notes – A College Romance Ellie Meadows

  The Water is Sweeter – A Dark Fantasy Romance Eli Constant

  Scatter My Ashes – A Gothic Romance Eli Constant & Bokerah Brumley

  Cowritten Series

  Red Eye: The Armageddon Series – co-authored with Eli Constant

  Darwin’s Fall – co-authored with B.V. Barr [re-releasing end of 2020]

  Born to Darkness – The Bratva Mafia Twins duet – co-authored with Claire C. Riley

  Her Alien Crew –A Reverse Harem Alien Romance – co-authored with Margo Bond Collins

  More from the authors

  SNATCHED

  A Reverse Harem Alien Abduction Romance

  Margo Bond Collins

  When her world is destroyed, a lone pilot sets out to see her dreams come true—even if it means kidnapping the men she needs to make that happen.

  I was supposed to belong to a Lorishi warrior—one of many females in his harem. But then the Alveron Horde demolished my planet, along with all my hopes for the future.

  So here I am—alone in the galaxy.

  But I refuse to stay that way for long. I’m not going to be any warrior’s handmaiden, either.

  No. If other planets’ males can abduct their mates, so can I. And I know right where I’m going, too.

  Earth. Home of the universe’s most interesting men.

  Time to gather my own harem.

  I’ll find three or four perfect specimens…and then they’ll get SNATCHED.

  Snatched is a steamy reverse harem alien abduction romance featuring a displaced alien spaceship pilot, three gorgeous (but confused) human men, and one extraordinarily astonished kitten hurtling through space toward a surprising new world of happy ever after!

  Get Snatched on Amazon

  Bound

  A Reverse Harem Alien Romance

  Eli Constant

  Read on for a sneak peek…

  The Jungle Book meets Avatar in this mesmerizing reverse harem romance.

  B O U N D

  …to her tribe

  B O U N D

  …to her heart

  B O U N D

  …to three human men who change her fate

  Kaa’s planet and her people were conquered long ago by strangers from the sky. Yet, she does not shy away from the invaders as most do. For her heart has always belonged to something she cannot define—

  A force outside the confines of her tribe.

  On the day of the gathering—when she is chosen and marked by the hunters to be taken to the great city for purchase—Kaa wonders if her heart’s desire will finally be revealed or if she’ll regret being so eager to abandon her jungle home. The world of human men is frightening and strange. They take what they want with wild abandon and they have no respect for the planet they’ve stolen.

  Sent by their father, the controller of the city, Kane, Caspian, and Ryker must find a suitable Mowgli girl at the market to entertain visiting Earth dignitaries. The three brothers are completely focused on their task—make the purchase, deliver the alien to their father, and then be done with this bizarre planet for good. The trio is set to return to Earth soon and all they want is to be back where they belong.

  Until they see her.

  BOUND

  -SONGS TO SET THE MOOD-

  uncut gems – Daniel Lopatin

  strange love – Shevonne Philidor

  i’ll be – Edwin McCain

  starlight – Jai Wolf, Mr. Gabriel

  the world is ours – Jai Wolf

  found you – Kasbo, Chelsea Cutler

  light – San Holo

  stars – Skillet

  sacrifice – Black Atlass, Jessie Reyez

  Listen to the playlist

  * * *

  Bound: An Excerpt

  MOWGLI

  The jungle is deep and dark. I know it intimately.

  The undulating shades of passing shadows tell me that the woods are alive with my people, the Mowgli. We are spread out, like wildlings, between the trees and moors of our planet. Our cultures consist of small groupings, the structure of our ruling system inelegant and easily shaken.

  We did not always live thus. And we were not always called the Mowgli. Long ago—in what feels like such a distant past that it might not be real at all, as if our history is a fabrication and what we exist as now is all that we have ever been—we were the Moo-tu-kie-ling-dua.

  Then they came, piloting their great ships down to the surface of our planet, staking claim with a flag of flora-hued colors. Red. Blue. White. They poured out of their crafts—metal beasts, as we thought they were when first they came—like dust motes. So many, they polluted the very air with their presence. They overwhelmed us. They overwhelmed everything.

  Our name, our language, our lives were too elaborate for the invaders. And as the conquered often do, my people adapted and acc
epted. Only the eldest of us still cling to the old ways, refusing to speak in the human tongue, which they call brutal to the ears and baffling to the mind. I was different. I have always been different. I relished the learning of their strange ways and strange words. Their differences, both in body and spirit, were hypnotizing. I stole away books from cargo crates, and I devoured the truth of the strange ones. The humans. I was never caught, though my father would have held such fury had he known I stole away to spy on the human cities.

  Once upon a time—as so many of their stories go—we lived in sprawling cities, our little families growing in sparse homes elevated above multi-colored, cobbled city streets. We always embraced the land, growing with it rather than against it. Our energy was harnessed from the four golden suns that grace our sky. They were like gods, bright and shining down on us with infinite wealth. Our buildings were sustainable, and so was everything else. We even communed with the animals as if they were our equals. Because they are our equals, if not our betters. Their ingenuous spirits twined with ours, furthered and enriched our living. We traveled the land on the backs of the Lanai-poi, and they were our friends.

  The humans call them horses, but I have seen the pictures of those Earth animals and our beloved creatures are nothing like those hair-covered, four-legged beasts. The Lanai-poi are taller than the tallest of our Mowgli men and they do not have arms; instead, their long manes of ebony tentacles feel, hold, and reach. They are covered in hard-scaled skin to armor them from the frequent attacks of the Jag-lua, the sleek predators that live in the many lakes and streams that riddle the forest floor. The Jag-lua are singularly focused, waiting beneath the wetness for a Lanai-poi to come near enough the water’s edge for a drink. They target the soft spot at their necks, where the armor is thinnest.

  But at least the Jag-lua hunt for the purpose of eating. They do not hunt for pleasure. They are part of a cycle that is natural. There have even been tales of a Jag-lua protecting a Mowgli babe from the dangers of the woods.

  The Shere-khan are not so. They hunt for the rush of it. They are… Mowgli, but not. They are those who parted from the pride so long ago that they barely resemble our peoples any longer. They are man-hunters, flesh-eaters. They are the only thing to truly be feared in the forest. Merciless. Mad. I will not miss them if I am chosen. But I will miss Baloo, my little brother who still sees the wonder in the world and how life can be lived with the slightest of necessities and happiness still be achieved. He is old at heart and so wise, despite his young age. He is thick as thieves with Bagheera, my intended mate if I am not taken by the humans. My mother says I can do no better, that he is loyal and kind and handsome. And he is all of these things, I suppose—with his ebony skin so deep and glossy that it shines like the black rock on the faraway mountain. Yet, my heart has always pulled me away from the possibility of him.

  I sit in a tree now, contemplating tomorrow. The gathering day. Only we girls need fear the date—the noisy approach of the hunters. I do not fear it though, not even the slightest bit. But I am strange, different than other Mowgli. I am a wildling Shere-khan in my own right, only less driven by blood.

  I am driven by that voice in the distance.

  The otherworldly call that only I can hear.

  I am drawn to the strangers who stole our planet.

  I am called towards the unknown.

  They come for us because we are an oddity to them, a beautiful possession. They gather us every five years, in exchange for human items. Bolts of silk. Solar lamps that capture sunlight during the day and brighten our camps at night. Human foods that are foreign and exotic to our tongues.

  Many choose to flee or hide to escape the choosing. I do not. And I know it is that thing which pulls my heart from Bagheera and towards the city that is now the city of man. Whatever calls to me from beyond the borders of the forest will have me. Because I will let it. And I will be Mowgli no longer.

  GATHER ME

  It is the day… the tomorrow I have thought of for many yesterdays.

  I am standing tall in front of the cavern that houses my father. He refuses to wake this day, knowing his only child may leave him. And there is little hope of my return if I am chosen. He should be here, among the Mowgli as their Akela—their chief—accepting the crates of items the humans leave behind in exchange for the precious life they take. Maybe they think leaving the objects in exchange for our people is fair, it absolves them of guilt somehow.

  It is a very human thinking.

  I love you my mother. Raksha.

  I love you my father. Daruka.

  I love you Baloo. Little brother. Grey Wolf.

  I am dressed simply, the draping of cloth across my body dyed by the emerald moss that covers the woodland floor. My hair is more intricate, trailing the length of my back in a lovingly plaited braid of blue strands that have been dipped, also, into the moss dye so that my hair is like sky meeting grass. The expanse of my high forehead is decorated by my mother’s yellow amulet. She says it will bring me luck, as it did on her gathering. She was not chosen and to her that is lucky. I wish to be chosen, but I do not remove the golden chain that dangles the sunstone. I will do this last thing for her, for my mother. It is a small gesture and I know it will afford her some peace when I am gone. At least, I hope it will.

  Because my entire life has been building towards this moment. I balance on the precipice of change. On the edge of forever, I dangle my body forwards and do not think about the fall.

  I will be chosen. I will be chosen.

  It is the mantra that sings within my head, my heart, and my legs—my legs that wish to run towards the hunters.

  I must be chosen. There is no other girl this year with skin like mine—with all the colors of a rainbow blinking beneath the surface of her body. I am also the only blue-haired female of gathering age and the hunters value rareness. It means a higher price will be paid. Perhaps they will leave an extra crate of goods, things that will bring my village fortune. My breasts are small, but in time, they will be full like my mother’s are. My face is pleasing, the downward slant of my bright blue eyes giving way to high cheeks and full lips. The three nostrils of my nose are petite, the bridge extending in a long, thin line upwards where it meets the azure hair line. My features, if not my coloring, could almost pass for human.

  Yet there is a stone of doubt roiling in my stomach. If I am passed over this gathering, there will not be another for me. The girls are only wanted in their prime and five years from now I will be well and truly old by their standards. Twenty-two seasons is already a lifetime on our planet. I often wonder what happens to the Mowglis that are taken, once they are less desirable. Do they stay in the city of men? Do they fall back into the shadows of our planet, and try to survive? Are they still Mowgli? Or are they so changed that they can never sing the songs of our tribes again?

  In the near distance, the gathering vehicles push through the high brush, crushing plant life beneath black tires. I lift my body to its full height. I am lean, the muscles in my small arms defined. I will be chosen. It will not be long now. They are coming. And with them… my destiny.

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  Entered in the Alien Bride Lottery

  A Sci Fi Alien Romance

  Margo Bond Collins

  There are a million ways to end up in the Alien Bride Lottery. But it takes only one.

  Every unmarried female human over the age of 21 gets entered once a year. You can also accept extra entries for legal infractions—instead of paying a parking fine, for example, you can request an extra entry. Lots of women do that. I mean, why not? The chances are astronomical that your name will get chosen to be one of the hundred or so women who get shipped off to space every year.

  And even if your name is drawn, the odds are slim that you’ll match up with an alien who’s looking for a mate.

  Most of the lottery-drawn women come back to Earth every year and r
esume their lives as if nothing changed.

  But some don’t.

  And no matter what, getting drawn in the Lottery means you have to compete in the Bride Games.

  Guess that's where I'm heading now.

  I only hope I can avoid catching the eye of one of the giant, rainbow-hued brutes whose mission is to protect Earth—and who can claim me as a mate.

  All because I was Entered in the Alien Bride Lottery…

  Fans of Grace Goodwin, Laurann Dohner, and Ruby Dixon will love this steamy new series featuring gorgeous, bright alien heroes and the sassy human women they choose as mates!

  Every book in the Khanavai Warrior Bride Games series is a standalone romance. Join these brides as they find a whole new world of happily ever afters.

  Get Entered in the Alien Bride Lottery on Amazon

 

 

 


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