by Lisa Alder
She would have never done something like this before.
Before Brian had died.
Before her life had been reduced to scrabbling for existence.
She remembered the world before the Demons were freed.
She’d been in computer sales. She’d had a good life in the city. A condo in a high rise and her fiancé in her bed. Sewing, hand-stitching, had been a hobby. An activity that linked her to her roots and helped her stay connected to her grandmother who lived in a quaint cottage in Ireland.
But once the Demons emerged, the energy in their bodies disrupted the electricity grids. Soon after they ascended from the depths of their Hell, systems started going haywire. Within a month, the entire world’s electronic infrastructure had crumbled. The information highway was a rutted, unused back road. Banks, stock markets, the tech industry collapsed without the proper conduits in place.
The entire world regressed to a pre-electronic age.
And without the electronics to power systems, other industries soon fell into chaos. Ten years later the entire world had gone back to an age she had barely even read about. She’d had to relearn how to do everything without the aid of electricity.
The reality of her daily life still had the power to throw her.
But she’d dealt with everything until yesterday.
Yesterday. Before she’d delivered the bookseller’s wedding dress. Yesterday before the Fae had attacked her.
Yesterday had been the final straw. They’d attacked her.
The memory of their hands groping, hurting played in her mind like an old-fashioned movie strip. Each roll of the film sickened her more and more, until she wanted to scream and explode with her rage and her fear.
Every single miserable moment in her life could be attributed to the Fae. And she wanted them to pay.
She would get her revenge.
And who better to use than the mortal enemy of the Fae? The Demons.
Specifically, the Prince Gaap. He commanded all of the Water Elemental Demons.
The urge to hum a protective chant was strong but she knew she needed to wait. The instructions she’d found on how to summon a Demon were very specific.
When the fire was lit and the flames fanned into a crackling offering, she lay down on the blanket, feeling a bit silly, even though her purpose was deadly serious.
She remembered life before the Demons had come.
Her life had been good. Solid. Happy.
Now? Not so much.
The Fae had attacked her. Stolen the one thing she had left. Her dignity.
She’d made her own way in the world, without a man to protect her, without a family behind her. She stayed out of the way and concentrated on survival. All the while mourning her fiancé Brian and the rest of her family.
But the Fae had changed all that when they’d attacked her. They had violated her body and suddenly the injustices of the last ten years rose up like a tidal wave inside of her and threatened to pull her under. She wouldn’t let them destroy her.
Only the Demons could aid her revenge against the Fae.
The sand chilled her through the wool weave of the old blanket. Goosebumps shivered across her skin and pebbled her nipples.
Lili closed her eyes and called a Demon.
“Gaap,” she whispered as she slid her hands up her body to cup her breasts. “I offer myself to you in exchange for your help.”
Jake's Wild Bride...Coming Soon
Lisa Alder has two sides, a naughty side and a nice side. You've gotten a taste of her naughty side, come take a peak at her nice side.
Jake's Wild Bride is a sexy, contemporary romantic romp.
Lilah Mason is a woman on the brink of realizing her dreams of respectability and security when her fiancee dumps her the night before their wedding. Actually, he has his best man, Jake Forrest dump her. Jake is back in town only long enough to see his best friend married and to clean out his childhood home so he can leave behind his past reckless behavior once and for all. But first he has to babysit his old friend's ex-fiancee. It doesn't help that he is wildly attracted her her, but he's been down that road and vows to keep his hands to himself. What he doesn't count on is Lilah.
Excerpt from Dark Mercy (Masters of Mercy)
By Rebecca Lyndon
June 1098, outside the walls of Antioch
She came from the water.
Richard of Guildford caught sight of someone rising from the waves of the Orontes. Gooseflesh rose up along his arms despite the lingering heat of day. He couldn’t tell through the dark desert night who disturbed the surface of the river, but he held up his balled fist, silently signaling the eight men following behind him to stop. Richard hadn’t kept them alive on their trek to the Holy Land these past three years by ignoring his gut instincts.
They were far from the reinforcements of the siege camp, and, even though Richard believed to his core that his men were the best there were, none of them would stand a chance against a large enough ambush.
He pulled his sword from its scabbard as a lithe form rose above the water. A lone woman that moved with an unearthly grace. Gossamer silks clung to her body as she floated toward the bank. Silver moonlight glistened off the curve of her breasts and the wide swell of her hips. Her dark mound showed clearly beneath the thin fabric. Richard tightened his grip around the hilt of his blade even as his cock hardened.
She smiled as she stepped onto the grassy bank. Hardly the reaction one expected of a seemingly defenseless woman facing an armed band of warriors. But this was no ordinary woman. Even if Richard had not seen her gliding across the river, he still would have sensed it. Her amethyst eyes sparkled with their own light.
“Put down your weapons.”
Richard heard her voice, clear and loud in his mind, but her full, red lips had not moved. He was certain of it.
When Richard shook his head in an exaggerated manner, commanding his men to stand firm against her, she waved her hand. The steel tip of his sword was forced to the ground with such strength that it buried in the cracked earth at his feet. Richard turned to see that the same unseen force had disarmed them all.
“What are you?”Richard demanded.
The willowy creature slid her gaze appreciatively down his body as she stepped closer. Her dark nipples puckered. “I go by many names, but you may call me Ashira.”
“And I say, we are better off calling you by your true name,” Richard’s second in command, Rhys, said from directly behind him. “Demon”
“Whatever name you choose for me is of little importance. What you should be interested in is what I can do for you.”
“We want nothing from you she-devil,” Richard said.
She dragged a slender finger down his chest. Richard tried to raise his hand to slap her away but found he was frozen, held fast by invisible bonds.
“Is that so? Your minds, all of them, tell a different story. Each one of you is a powerful warrior. Together you are perhaps the most potent fighting force in this war. This crusade of yours has made brothers of you, but it has also worn you thin. You are all tired,” she said, weaving through the line of men as her dark magic held them immobile. She stopped in front of each man, looking deep into his eyes, taking his measure. “You are tired of watching good men cut down. You grow tired of watching your friends waste away with disease, their minds devoured by madness. But most of all you are tired of waiting to get your due.”
“Lies,” Geoffrey Stark said as she passed him, but his voice lacked conviction.
But her words were all too true. They had all started out on this journey with thoughts of securing their places in heaven, but if the last three years had shown them anything it was that hell was not some far off realm. The fires of perdition would pale in comparison to the agonies they had all endured in this infernal place.
“I can give you all that you desire,” she said.
“You can end the siege?” Richard asked.
“Of course. But I can g
ive you much more than that.”
“What else?” he asked.
“Riches. Power. Immortality.”
Richard struggled to free himself from her spell, but he was hit by a powerful wave of lust as she returned to him. He imagined those red lips of hers wrapping around the length of his cock, sucking him dry.
Those same lips curved up in a knowing smile. “Yes, that as well.”
“And the price you ask for these gifts.”
Her teasing look turned serious. “Surrender your own release, and instead offer to me the pleasure of all the women you touch.”
Give up his orgasm and become an incubus? He weighed the temptation of nearly limitless strength and wealth against the cost.
“For all eternity?”
She shook her head. “One day a woman will return your release to you. On that day you will know that your service is no longer required.”
“It is the devil’s bargain,” Rhys called out, but his voice was heavy with the same desire that rushed through Richard. “We would be empty shells. Nothing more than pleasureless demons.”
Ashira rubbed her breast with her hand as she looked up and down Richard’s Welsh friend. “Not pleasureless. You would still feel the ecstasy of every lick and stroke, but there will be no release." She turned and rubbed her ass against Richards’s groin for emphasis. His cock was close to bursting. “Just think of all the comforts that would come along with all that wealth and power. Enough to fill a hundred lifetimes.”
Richard swallowed hard. He knew some of his men would be swayed by this creature's promises of treasure and power, and Richard didn’t fault them. But he had lost half of his fighting force since he had left the shores of England, and he would gladly let heaven damn him if it meant he didn’t have to lose another friend.
“Spare my men, even any who don’t agree, and I will accept your deal,” Richard said.
Ashira smiled, and her look changed to one of pure hunger. She fell to her knees before him. She pulled at chausses, freeing his cock. Her tongue snaked out to wet her lips.
“Then you are mine.” Her mouth descended on him, taking his full length in a single motion.
Richard groaned as her wet tongue encircled him. Her cheeks pulled in as she sucked hard on his shaft.
Realizing he was free from her divine bondage, Richard brutally grasped on to her long fall of golden hair and held her head still. Her glittering purple-colored eyes looked up at him, their corners lifted. She approved of his show of control.
He surged again and again into her mouth. He waited for the telltale sounds of her throat’s resistance, but she took all of him without complaint. He could feel the power surging through her body. His heart began to pound to the beat of it. He thrust in time to the primal rhythm. Her long fingers bit into the flesh of his hips, holding him as brutally as he held her.
He had gone past the usual point of his climax, but she continued to pull the dark pleasure from him.
“Do you swear to serve me?” Her voice was clear in his mind even though her lips were wrapped tight around around him.
“I swear,” Richard said through gritted teeth.
White hot ecstasy overtook him. His release gushed down her throat, and he roared out into the dark night as he came his last.
Richard staggered backwards, and away from the creature he had entered into this damnable pact with. His skin felt branded by her touch. He opened and closed his fist, marveling at the feel of the unnatural strength flowing into his body.
Then Richard watched as all eight others took their turn with Ashira.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE