Voracious Vixens, 13 Novels of Sexy Horror and Hot Paranormal Romance

by Travis Luedke

  “Is Ameana the first Guardian?” I ask.

  “She acts like she is, but Marcus is the first Guardian. He’s our leader. Just like Julian was. The second-in-charge is Ameana, then me and Rio, and then the two knuckleheads out there.”

  “You guys don’t seem worried about finding this Triplex thing. That must mean you’re close, right?” I ask, trying to downplay my fear.

  “We’ve been trying to track down Julian. He’s the best link into how the council thinks. He can give us a better idea of what we need to look for. Marcus went to check out a few places he could be. We’ll find him soon. Try not to worry.”

  “Why did the council leave him to roam the Earth when he knows where the bridge is?”

  “Julian was sent back by Omnis, so the council could do nothing about that, but they stripped him of some of his memory. He doesn’t remember where the bridge is, but he does recall the council.”

  “He remembers them?”

  “Yeah, but he thinks they’re aliens who abducted him,” Miku quips.

  “So, all the alien stuff is true?” I have to ask.

  “Well, Julian’s aliens are true, I can’t say for the rest of them.”

  Reese shouts to us from the living room, “C’mon ladies. Some of us have to recharge!”

  I look at Miku blankly, “We find a spot that is absolutely quiet and perfectly still. It recharges us. Like what sleeping does for you,” she explains.

  “Oh, like meditating?”

  “Without the annoying sound of the ocean and the smelly mats,” she smiles.

  “Okay. Five more seconds and I’m coming in. You two better be ready!” Reese barks.

  So much for the patience of angels, I think.

  Someone calls out from the living room. This time, it’s Jay. “He’s back!”

  “Good, I bet he has a lead on Julian. C’mon.” She drags me back into the living room.

  Standing there among a room full of gorgeous angels is the most perfect creature I have ever seen. If beauty were measured by water, all of them would be a full glass, while I would be the proverbial half-empty. But Marcus’ beauty spans two oceans; seriously, he’s flawless.

  He stands at 6’1. His hair is chestnut with natural auburn highlights. His eyes are blue green with flecks of gold. His lashes, jealous of the attention the eyes are getting, stretch out like a proud peacock. His nose, lips and cheeks are the original blueprint of beauty. His shoulders are broad and strong. His arms and legs are well defined but not bulky.

  He’s wearing dark Diesel jeans, a charcoal gray cashmere sweater, and an open black leather jacket. The simplicity of his outfit in no way detracts from his stellar beauty. The only time I’ve ever encountered something close to the beauty of Marcus was when I first met Ameana. And even that encounter would be a distant second.

  I refuse to blink and miss a moment of him. The water builds up in my eyes. It stings. It burns. No, I won’t blink. It’s like having a thirst so deep water cannot quench it. The more I drink him in, the more of him I want.

  Tears gather in my eyes, waiting, begging for me to blink. I won’t. So the tears run down my face. My vision gets blurry. No, I won’t blink. My eyes feel like they’re being pricked by hundreds of small pins. It stings badly. But I remain steadfast. The second round of tears falls from my eyes. I won’t blink. I will not move from the vision before me.

  My stomach quickens. My whole body is warm with the exception of my hands, which are ice cold and trembling. I don’t know a lot about the heart, but I’m certain it’s not supposed to beat this fast. I want to look anywhere besides his face, but the thought of looking away from him makes me dizzy with despair.

  Suddenly I’m very aware of how I’m dressed: faded jeans and a Winnie-the-Pooh “Piglet” T-shirt with the cartoon pig trying to catch a runaway balloon and saying “Oh, d-d-dear.” Great, Emmy, that’s real sexy.

  And if my hair looks the way it usually does after I’ve slept, right now I resemble a mad scientist. I want to go back into the room and fix it, but it’s too late. He’s already seen me. I mean, it’s already time to go.

  Miku, whose existence I have all but forgotten, pokes me lightly. I blink. A third round of tears make their way down my face. It’s embarrassing but I’m powerless. Not for the first time today. Get a hold of yourself.

  He had been studying a small red leather-bound book. Miku introduces us. “Marcus, this is Emerson Baxter. She’s gonna help us save the world.” He looks up at me, says a quick “hey” and goes back to the book. His dismissal stings worse than my eyes.

  “Tomorrow we need to go over your life and find out about everyone you know, everyone who knows you. They know that you’re not a boy like they originally thought. We’re going to keep you in school because you’re safer in a crowd of humans,” he contends.

  “They attacked me in a crowd today,” I say.

  He continues to flip through the book and responds without looking up. “They weren’t trying to kill you, they just wanted to get you before we did. If Lucy wanted to kill you, she would have sent Akons. But since we got to you first, she’s gonna have to get past us now. The only way she can do that is to send out all six Akons.”

  “So, this Lucy person isn’t out to kill me?”

  “She is, but only after she’s tortured you and gotten enough information out of you to locate the Triplex. Then she’ll have the Akons finish you off or do it herself, if she has time.”

  “Oh,” is all I can say.

  He is speaking about my death so casually; Miku and the others exchange a look. I guess I’m not the only one who thinks he’s being rude.

  “The council forbids Akons from attacking in public. So you should be okay if you stay in public places. You are never to be left alone unless we are standing watch. Do you understand?” he asks, once again never looking up at me.

  Why isn’t he looking at me? I know I’m not “angel-good-looking,” but I’m not a dog. What’s his problem?

  “Where do we pick up Julian?” Miku asks.

  “We don’t. Lucy got to him first. There’s a good chance he’s dead.”

  “Wait, you told me that the council couldn’t kill Julian but this Lucy woman can? Who is she?” I ask Miku.

  “Don’t worry, Emmy. We’re not gonna let her get to you,” she says.

  “Who is she?” I demand.

  “Atourum,” Marcus says plainly.

  I can’t breathe. The air is too thick that I’ve forgotten how. I lean against the wall for support.

  “The devil is a woman?”

  “You tellin’ me!” Jay jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  “For this cycle, yes,” Miku says.

  Jay looks into my ashen face and what he sees there causes him to worry. He comes up to me. “I can calm you down, if you want.”

  My voice cracks, “No. Just take me home. Please.”

  Marcus speaks with the authority of a general. It sounds strange coming from a boy barely eighteen. “Jay and Rio will watch over you tonight. Reese, when you’re done taking her home, get back here and help Miku search a few Runner hangouts. See if anyone knows anything.” Reese nods in agreement.

  Marcus turns his attention to Ameana and says, “Mina, can we talk?” There’s something in the way he says her name. It bothers me. Then it bothered me that it bothers me.

  She leads the way and he follows her into her room. Why can’t they talk in front of the rest of us? Wasn’t all business talk done on the roof or in the living room? Why did he want to be alone with her? He said her name with such care....

  I try hard not to look at Rio. I don’t need an angel mood ring to tell me what I’m feeling. I don’t want to know. I just want to get as far away as possible.

  I tell myself it’s because I’m being hunted by the source of all evil. I tell myself it’s because the fate of the world rests on information I don’t have.

  But when Reese lifts me up into his arms and Blinks me out of the house, the t
hing that I’m upset about isn’t Lucy or the end of the world. There’s only one thing that upsets me: He said her name with such care....

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  FREE Guardians: The Girl

  SEE LOLA’S OTHER BOOKS

  Taken & Pursuit

  The Alpha’s Captive – Books 1-& 2

  By

  V. M. Black

  Book Description

  Curvy Harper Bailey’s ordinary life was turned upside down by a chance encounter with the handsome werewolf Levi Harris. On the run from the vampire mafia, he pulls her into his high-stakes world—and straight into the crosshairs. Soon she’s got no car, no job, and not even any dry clothes.

  To make matters worse, Harper’s falling for Levi hard at the most inconvenient time. And he seems to be developing some very definite ideas where she’s concerned, ideas she’s not so sure she wants to be a part of.

  Harper just wants to get through the next couple of days alive—and heart intact. Whatever Levi’s plans might be

  Taken

  The Alpha’s Captive – Book 1

  By

  V. M. Black

  Chapter One

  The asphalt blurred under Levi’s front wheel, the engine between his knees sending him flying north along the country road.

  The plan hadn’t worked. It almost couldn’t have gone worse. The bloodsucker’s minions had caught him with his backside hanging out of the third-story window, loot in hand and about to begin his descent.

  Wolves didn’t care much for vertical surfaces. That was more of a feline attribute. Trying to stay in human form while naked, gripping a stolen dagger, and being threatened with very serious looking weapons was just about impossible.

  He hadn’t tried.

  Instead, he’d taken a header into the bushes, shifting on his way down so that he hit the branches in his wolf-form and rolled free, the dagger in his teeth. Legs and heart pumping, he ran in a flat sprint for the gate. Every leaf etched against his vision in the darkness, and the wet foliage slapped his body as his long lope ate the ground beneath his paws.

  Worst of all, it’d been his own kind that had come after him, howling through the woods until he hit the fence and shifted just enough to use his hands to catch the top edge and propel himself over, into the woods on the other side and to the motorcycle waiting beyond.

  Paws were good for a lot of things, but driving wasn’t one of them. So he’d had to shift all the way back to human as he hit the seat, bare ass cheeks on cold leather, and slammed the keys home. The engine had roared to life as the pack following him burst from the treeline, and he’d driven off stark naked with the dagger still clutched in his teeth, shooting the bird at every single one of them.

  Lap dogs.

  That had been satisfying, but it wouldn’t take long for the damned vampire to send a more effective force on his trail. And though his Ducati Superbike could outrun pretty much anything on the street, the desire to not attract attention required that he stop long enough to pull on his clothes before he hit a major road.

  Of course, before he’d done that, there had been the very nice-looking lady in the minivan, whose shocked face behind the glaring headlights still made Levi chuckle to himself....

  The truth was, though, he was in deep shit. Probably the deepest he’d ever been in. His brothers had been completely against the heist. The entire clan had vetoed it, in fact. So, technically speaking, he was now an outlaw.

  Levi had never bothered much with technicalities before. But he did wonder how he was going to get out of this one, since his plan had pretty much depended on not getting caught.

  Now the bloodsucker’s goons had a good fix on his scent, and they knew what he looked like, too, and knew his ride. The problem with high-up vampires wasn’t so much their own power but the sheer force they could bring to bear if they wanted to.

  And given what Levi had just taken, Mortensen would be pretty damned motivated to do whatever he could to stop him.

  Screw him, though. Screw the vampire, screw Levi’s clan, and screw everybody who stood in his way. Levi had something that represented real power, the first chance for everyone in his clan to finally be free of vampiric threats or dependence.

  No more uneasy truces. No more negotiations. No more contracts. With what he had, he could cut ties to them, and they couldn’t do a thing about it.

  Of course, that would only work if he survived to use what he now had. And the first step in raising his chances of survival would be to ditch his motorcycle, which was probably being broadcast on police channels across three states by now, and get another ride.

  The thought gave him almost a physical pain. He had scrimped and saved for his bike for a whole year back before he’d established his main business, taking jobs he had no interest in for rich scumbags and paranoid husbands, all with the goal of owning this beautiful beast. Riding a motorcycle was the closest he could come to feeling like a wolf in human form, and on it, he kept all the keen intelligence and analytical ability that gave way to primal instinct and visceral immediacy as a wolf.

  And riding this motorcycle, in particular.... If riding a motorcycle was like sex, he thought, the Supersport versus his old, secondhand hog was like the difference between having a long night with a beautiful woman and rubbing one off in a dirty bathroom stall.

  But now it was a liability. If everything worked out well, he could buy as many Ducatis as he wanted. If it didn’t, well.... Dead men—or wolves—didn’t have much use for a bike.

  He had to ditch it.

  As if on cue, a car appeared on the opposite side of the road as he crested the hill, a golden Buick from the late ‘60s or early ‘70s. If he could get it running, that could be perfect. He blew past it and made a U-turn in the middle of the empty road to come up behind it again at a more sedate pace.

  He could see a girl with a butt to die for leaning into the open trunk, and he spared a moment’s pity for her, since he was planning on commandeering her ride. It was a shame to upset the owner of such fine assets.

  But he’d take what he could get—and beat it before his recent past caught up to him in a very literal way.

  Chapter Two

  Harper was thirty miles from the Maryland border in the middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania, when her right front tire exploded.

  The sound, as loud as a rifle going off, drowned out the top-fifty station. The car jerked to the side, yanking the wheel out of her hands as it lunged across the center stripe.

  She slammed on the brakes, pulling hard to the right, and came to a rest on the muddy shoulder. For several seconds, she sat frozen behind the steering wheel as the panicked tempo of her heart slowed while Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” blared and crackled in her speakers.

  And then she started to curse.

  It had been a bad day. A very, very bad day, which had started off with a call from her shift manager, who had wanted to fire her even though she’d arranged for her absence with the diner owner a week before.

  It had gotten worse when the big party for her grandmother’s eightieth birthday had devolved into a shouting match between her sister Christina and her cousin—and worse still when the cops arrived just as Harper stepped between the two and was rewarded for her efforts with her sister’s punch, which missed their cousin by a mile to land squarely against Harper’s cheek with enough force to leave her with a tender eye.

  Harper had managed to talk herself out of a charge of disorderly conduct and had left the party in a furious black mood, damning her entire family—okay, except her grandmother—as she tore out of the drive.

  And now this.

  “Why’d you have to go and crap out on me now?” she asked her car.

  But she couldn’t be mad at it. The ’68 Buick Skylark was her baby, and she spoiled, petted, and coddled it.

  And in return, it broke down, seized up, smoked, and just now, tried to kill her by throwing her into oncoming traffic.

  Harper sighed. Well, the tire
really was her fault. She was flat broke after helping out her deadbeat ex-boyfriend—which she’d done for a month before she’d realized that he really never was going to try to get another job as long as he had her to mooch off of. So she hadn’t had the money to replace her tires even though she knew they were getting bald. Anyway, she didn’t want any old cheap tires for her Baby. It deserved only the best. And she couldn’t afford the best, yet, so she hadn’t gotten any at all.

  She just couldn’t resist a bad boy, even when the ‘boy’ in question was her car....

  Harper put the parking brake on and killed the engine but left the radio blaring. She leaned across the wide bench seat to crank down the passenger window so she could to listen to the music as she changed the tire, then popped the trunk. She got out of the car, pausing to squint up and down the two-lane county road hopefully, wondering if there might not be some helpful guy in a pickup who might want to lend a hand.

  She heard the sound of traffic in the distance. But of course, there was nothing in sight.

  Just my luck, she thought. She was perfectly capable of changing a tire herself, but she wouldn’t refuse a white knight, if one came along.

  Or a black one, for that matter.

  She shrugged and set to work pulling out the full-sized spare and dropping it in the grass next to the flat tire, surveying the damage for the first time.

  Crap. The old tire was just shredded. Gone. She hoped she wouldn’t need a new wheel. She got the jack and lug wrench and tossed them next to the spare. She pulled off the hubcap—an original spoked model that she’d bought to restore the car to its former glory—and slotted the wrench into place. She pushed, but nothing happened.

  Damned pneumatic tire-changing tools. They tightened the nuts so hard they locked up sometimes. Well, Harper knew one way to deal with that. She shifted the position so that the wrench was parallel to the ground, then stomped it with all her weight.

  The lug nut gave, and she smiled in satisfaction. She was no rail. She was big, just like her personality, and she knew how to use her body—around cars, around horses, around the kitchen, and with pretty much any problem that needed solving. And there were plenty of men who appreciated that about her—the big boobs, full hips and butt. Too bad she kept going for the losers.