Sweet Queen
Page 19
Please, please leave a review for this book, even if you didn’t love it. Reviews mean everything to new authors like me and I keep all of them close to my heart (even the not-so-good ones.)
I have more on the way! If you got a hint from this book, my next read in this series will be Queen of Kings — Isabel, Mattie & Moises’ story. It’s a sweet menage that will be much deeper rooted in MC culture, with some new characters and much more angst. (I’ve listened to Issues by Julia Michaels on repeat writing this one if that gives you an inkling.) I’m still in the early stages of it so I’m anticipating an October-ish release date. If you’d like an unedited sneak peek at the cover art and Chapter 1, keep on reading!
Queen of Kings Excerpt
Chapter 1
Isabel restlessly scratched and scrubbed her graphite pencil against the coarse linen paper of the sketchpad she kept in her station at the tattoo studio. She’d learned long ago to channel her self-loathing, her lust, her frustrations — any negative emotion her twisted and tortured heart could conjure— she let it all bleed out onto the pristine page.
When clients came in and oohed and ahhed over the warped workings of her creative mind, asking for the portraits to be permanently pressed into their skin, she always conceded. The darker, the more deranged her drawings became the better tattoos they made, but when she let them out into the world, she felt more alone than ever before. Like the people who asked for her ink took a part of her soul with them and yet they still didn’t fully see her. Not in the ways she was desperately asking for someone, anyone to see her.
She leaned up, craning her neck and looking around the stillness of the silent shop. All of the other stations were abandoned and the closed sign hung still against the glass door. The shades were drawn tightly over the wide windows and a lone lamp lit the little four-by-six workstation that Isabel considered her second home. It was in the early morning hours, still long before dawn would crest over the distant crescent hills and she knew she’d be in trouble by the time she made it back to the compound. After Mina discovered just how often Isabel ended up sleeping at the shop following late night purge sessions like these, she’d made the her promise to at least come back to the club to sleep in the safety and security the tall walls provided.
Isabel stood, bowing her back and attempting to stretch out her aching muscles. She released her ironclad grip on the pencil and flexed her fingers, tenderly massaging the tendons winding up her deeply coal-stained hands. In the tall mirror centered in her station she could see the deep, dark smudges of the stuff around her temples where she’d thoughtlessly rubbed her head after working in some shading, but the dark circles under her eyes were au natural. The gaunt glint of her cheekbones, the emptiness that haunted her gaze, it was hard to look in the mirror anymore and see herself, just a shell of the girl she’d one been. Twenty-five was far too young to feel so hopeless, so listless, so finished.
Sick of her own maudlin musings, she flipped the front flap back down over her finished page. During these late-night pencil purges she usually worked through a wide variety of new material. Some nights it was vintage-style classic tattoo art, some it was perfecting portraits, some focusing on clean modern lines, but every single night, at least since she’d been here in the valley with the Hellacious Honeys, ended in the same final piece. Three tarot cards held by a gnarled hand, rings dotting every finger and the art filled the full page with as much realism as the first day. The twins, the king, and death — the three gilded harbingers haunted her every waking thought, her every motive and move since she was fifteen and their true meaning made even less sense ten years later than it had when she first witnessed them.
Talking to a therapist hadn’t helped, inking the design in a wide, realistic black-lined piece than encompassed her entire right leg from knee to hip hadn’t helped. The cards were laughing at her, mocking her with each day that she missed their true meaning and she was done. Angrily, she stuffed the thick pad of paper into her desk drawer and slammed it shut, the harsh clink of metal only soothing her slightly. She hitched the strap of her jean overalls that had fallen as she worked back up over her shoulder, inching down her cropped black tank top down from where it rose as she stretched. Her thick leather jacket and helmet were waiting for her on the hook by the back door, so she clicked off her lamp and wound her way back through the shop by moonlight, eager to make it home before Mina got word she was missing that morning.
The muscles across the flat of her back felt stretched thin as she shrugged into her worn leather jacket. It was late summer and definitely warm enough even in the dark of night for her to ride without it, but she took the safety of her skin, more specifically her tattoos, seriously. And so, she always covered up, even for short hometown rides.
Her eyes felt heavy, her movements thick and sloppy as she held her helmet under her arm and tried to lock up the door. She’d pulled two other all-nighters already this week and the lack of sleep was beginning to show in signs of strain throughout her body. Shelli’s accident two nights before triggered some memories she preferred to forget, especially when the tow-truck brought her damaged vehicle back to the compound, the familiar sound of twisting metal and screeching tires had ricocheted in her ears as the SUV was unloaded behind Reina’s shop.
Finally slipping her key into the lock and giving it a sharp turn, Isabel mounted her bike with a fluid grace that belied her weary body. The only thing that helped the volatile visions of her past fade away was leaning into the wind behind the handlebars her trusty old road warrior. She cranked the engine, listening to the old girl’s understated purr and letting herself slip away into a quiet calm. She rolled quietly out of town at a slower speed than normal, hoping to draw out the winding drive to the compound as long as possible. She leaned into the corners and coasted down the hills, happy to be embracing the stillness of the early morning hours.
As she rounded the curve, she saw something close to the road ditch up ahead, inching its way into the center of the road close to the upcoming curve. The figure was small and black as night, only noticeable by the thin light of the moon and its movement against the light colored gravel of the road. It moved with a hobbling limp and Isabel figured it was a small animal like a possum. As she pulled up closer, she tried to slip her bike over to the side of the animal leaning over to get a good look, but just as she got within good range, the critter leapt up onto her leg, latching in with sharp claws.
She swatted at what she now knew was a rangy, feral cat with one hand as she sped toward the curve, not noticing how quickly the bend in the road was approaching. When she looked up and saw trees filling her vision, she overcorrected tipping her bike sideways and laying it over in the center of the bend with a grinding, screeching halt. Her head snapped back against the gravel and the bike weighed heavily against her left leg. The cat was still latched fearfully onto the top of her right thigh as she pulled off her helmet to examine the situation.
Dirt and grime coated her black helmet as she lay it down beside her. Tentatively, she saw to the cat first. The poor creature was terrified and in pain against her, hissing every time she reached a hand toward it. Its left rear leg was badly mangled and she figured it was either hit by or thrown from a car earlier in the night. After giving a gentle pat to the cat’s back covered in a raised ridge of fur, she moved on in her exploration testing her arms and checking her jacket and helmet for any signs of road rash. Thanks to her slow rate of speed, she appeared to be in decent shape. No road rash that she could feel beneath her gear and her toes still wiggled on her left foot. Nothing felt broken or overly abused except for the location of the bike itself. The bike’s front tire had wedged itself in the road ditch, deeply embedding it in the thick, sandy gravel at the road’s edge and try as she might, she couldn’t get it to budge. She needed more leverage but couldn’t push up high enough to get it and with one leg pinned dangerously beneath it, she didn’t see a way to force her way up. Adding to the issue was her location in the midst of
the roadway. With her darkly colored bike and her own thick black hair and black jacket, she’d be lucky to be seen before a vehicle came barreling around the corner and flattened her like the poor, snarling little creature by her side.
With Mina and Victor still at the hospital in Taos with Shelli and the rest of the Honeys locked safely in the compound for the night, she knew there was really only one option to call.
Isabel fished her phone out of the top front pocket of her overalls, glad she’d secured the little snap at the top before she left the shop and started to dial the number, only to get halfway through and quit, unwilling to finish the job.
“Ugh, kitty. They’re going to be so smug about this. I’m never going to be able to ditch them now.” She poked in the rest of the numbers and she scratched the cat lightly, trying to calm it and herself as they lay hurt and helpless on the side of the road. After she gave it a few seconds to get used to the idea, she hit the call button and settled in to listen to it ring, ready to subject herself to a pair of similarly stubborn men and all the stilted situations accepting their ‘help’ would inspire.
About the Author
Luna Maye spends most of her days reporting and reading plain old boring news at a small-town newspaper in rural Kansas. She spends her evenings tending mini-pigs, chickens and her garden on her 1920s style farmstead and she'd never even ridden on a motorcycle but hey, a girl can dream! Luna loves to write sweet and sexy heroes and heroines who extra-deserve a little TLC.