COWBOY ROMANCE: Devon (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 2)

by Amanda Boone

  “Go!” he ordered.

  All of his soldiers who were alive left the room in an instant.

  “Free her, Tyr,” Hermo’our insisted. “Take your uncle and leave, and we will let you go.”

  “Odin has not said as much.”

  “We will,” Odin agreed.

  “If Hermo’our wants this female, he must take her from me,” Tyr said. “I offered her to him once, but she said she did not want him. I will not offer again. Now he must fight me and earn her.”

  “Don’t do this,” Hermo’our pleaded. “I need her. Please, Tyr. We’ve been friends for a long time. Please, let her go.”

  “Our friendship ended when you deceived me. You told me that you do not want her, just like she told me that she did not want you. But I know that was a lie. I saw you mating in the sitting room. You cannot deny it.”

  Now Jane knew what the noise was that she heard. It was Tyr closing the door.

  “I won’t deny it. Just let her go.”

  “You may have her if you can stop me before I slit her throat. This is a long, sharp sword. It might cut through her neck and sever her head.”

  Jane gasped at the thought. He wanted to behead her!

  Then Hermo’our dropped his sword. It clattered to the floor. What was he doing? He was giving up when she needed him most. Hermo’our took a step toward Tyr—then another and another, slowly until he reached them.

  “I will not fight you,” Hermo’our said. He grabbed Tyr’s arm and jerked it toward himself. “Jane, drop!”

  Jane dropped to her stomach a moment before the sword moved again. She looked up and saw that now Hermo’our had the weapon, and he thrust it into Tyr’s abdomen with an upward motion. Tyr fell to the floor before her, his own sword piercing his body, his eyes glazed in death.

  Scrambling to her feet, Jane flew into Hermo’our’s arms and hugged him tightly.

  “Oh, God, Hermie,” she said, still panicked, “thank you. You saved my life. You’re my hero.”

  “I love you, Jane,” he said. “I’m just glad that Mom told me what love is, or I wouldn’t have known. We need to mate again without it being in secret.”

  “I love you, too, Hermie. But before we can be together, we need to help your father. I believe that you have effectively ruined any possible coup today. Tyr is probably dead, and Fenrir is likely headed the same direction.”

  Hermo’our draped his arm around her neck and led her to his father, who lay unconscious on the floor.

  ***

  Jane stood on the balcony with Hermo’our, Odin and Melanie and gazed down at the crowd beneath them. Then Odin spoke words that Jane never thought she would hear.

  “People of Cartonia,” Odin said, “since I am no longer able to do everything a reigning prince must do, I wish to abdicate the throne. Forevermore my son, my hero, the rightful heir to the throne will be King Hermo’our and his mate will be Queen Jane. No longer will we bow to Fenrir and his ascendants. We and our descendents claim the throne for all eternity.”

  THE END

  Wanted by the Alien Lord

  Kahara Lords

  Book 2

  (Can be read as a standalone book)

  By: Lindsay Blanc

  Wanted by the Alien Lord

  Chapter One

  Javen slammed the door shut and bolted it. The sound rang through the walls, but was swallowed up by the spacious panic room his government favors had landed him. He pressed his palm against the cool metal, resting his forehead in the space between his hands. Once the ringing disappeared, an eerie silence descended on the room. All that could be heard was the sound of his own breathing bouncing off the metal… and that of his wife’s whimpering.

  “Tyri.” He turned away from the wall.

  She had folded her lanky body, sitting with her legs crossed and her hands resting on her thighs. Fat tears plopped onto the skin exposed by her short skirt.

  Javen sat down across from her, mirroring her position. He could feel her emotions seeping into his mind. The despair made his eyes tingle with tears. He set his jaw and held them back, a small part of him resenting her for not even attempting to control herself. It took a moment or two, but Javen regain his own composure, stretching his mind to block out the sound of her sobs and the sensation of the warm water flowing out of her eyes.

  If she was afraid, he wasn’t allowed to be.

  He took her face in both of his hands, his fingers intertwined in her thick, black hair and his eyes trained on her hazel ones. “Remember the wheat fields.”

  She didn’t respond at first, only averting her gaze.

  He knew that she didn’t want to be reminded of her younger self. She wanted to stay inside of that pain. She wanted to feel her fear in peace.

  Javen lifted her chin up and tried again. “They glistened like gold in the setting sun.”

  “You ran towards me.” She almost hiccupped the words out of her mouth, each sound catching as if it had snagged onto something.

  Javen smiled. Her energy was calming, becoming far more bearable. “You forgot your smock.”

  “I wanted to forget it.”

  It was perfect: the little poem they had composed together.

  “Your mother never liked me,” Javen said, a mischievous smile spreading across his face.

  Tyri smiled, her plump, pink lips revealing a set of pearl white teeth. A puff of pleasure colored Javen’s mind. Clear evidence that she was feeling better. “She never needed to,” She said, placing her hand on Javen’s cheek.

  Javen wrapped his arms around her, loving how this big magnificent character could make herself so small for him. He kissed her, their trembling lips touching. They stayed like this while the impact hit.

  Their luxury condo on the 56th floor of a building in the heart of Leeda wavered from side to side. The panic room contained nothing but sealed cabinets they were only to open when the hunger struck. It became more and more difficult to remain affixed to each other but Javen managed it. He clutched her tighter and tighter. She was no longer the thing making him fearful. She was his rock.

  The shaking slowly eased to a stop. Everything was calm. Even the air seemed to have settled.

  Tyri dared say it first. “Was that it?”

  Javen’s heart turned over in his chest. Could it have been? He stood up and approached the door, not sure if he wanted to open it or not. The panic room seemed like a good idea when it was being built, but now he resented it. He could hear no activity from the outside world.

  The door opened with a whine. He peeked out into the short hallway of their condo. He could see that their living room looked as if it had been completely ransacked. Outside of their large window, he could see a cloud-like mixture of mist. The smog completely covered his view. It cast the entire condo in dark light.

  “Javen, my love?”

  Javen could sense his wife standing up. He reached for her hand and led her out into the hallway.

  She was not so relieved to see the state of the place. A tiny sob leapt out of her mouth. She ripped her hand out of his, clutching her head. Javen reached out to touch her when the ground shook beneath his feet. The floor shifted up and to the right, throwing them both into the wall.

  Tyri yelped, the stomach-turning crack of her shoulder punctuating the rumble.

  “Tyri!” Javen yanked her away from the wall and dragged her out into the main room. They stumbled over their feet, struggling to overcome the violent shaking. Their glass dove slipped off of a shelf up high. He pushed himself in front of Tyri, shoving her out of the way. Their wedding present came crashing down onto the marble floor.

  Javen’s gaze shot up at the high ceiling. He winced at the rubble raining down on him. It was only a matter of time before it collapsed. “We have to get to the roof!” he yelled.

  Tyri gave a frantic nod and took off for their front door. She was a star runner, had participated in all the Olympiads as a child. Javen followed her, silently thanking the gods for the fact that
she did not protest him. She stumbled over the threshold, but Javen snaked his strong arm around her torso before she could go crashing down onto the ground.

  She picked at his hands. “Come on!”

  Just like that, she was in the lead. She opened the door to the service staircase and started hopping up them, two at a time. Javen, who was far less lithe than his wife, travelled much slower, calling to her to slow down. But she wouldn’t. She was driven by hysterical fear and determined to get to the top of the building. Javen could feel it.

  But he could also feel the steps giving to his weight. They had been weakened by this aftershock of the earth quake. The structure was far from sound.

  “Tyri!” he roared.

  She glanced over her shoulder, one whole flight ahead. “Javen?” But her voice was lost in the whine of a chunk of ceiling dislodging directly above her.

  Javen yelled as he stomped up the stairs but the ceiling was already falling.

  Soon enough, Tyri followed his eyes, looking up. She had time only to gasp before a mix of stucco, marble and stone crushed her….

  Javen’s eyes flashed open. He lifted his arm to swipe the sweat off of his forehead. There he was again, dreaming about his past. He internally kicked himself as he climbed out of bed and made his way through his small bed-space to the kitchen beyond. He turned on the camera sitting next to his seat and began to record as he fixed himself a sandwich.

  “Day 24 on Earth. I have yet to find any possible matches. So far, I have scoured the southern-most coast of a province by the name of the United States.” He slabbed some butter on two pieces of bread and shoved them into his mouth. Through his chewing, he continued with, “Although, there is a woman getting a lot of attention on human media. She bears a striking resemblance to—”

  He stopped himself short. The bread lodged itself in his throat. He coughed it up, spitting it in the sink. He glanced around himself at the suffocating air and the stale lighting. He couldn’t bear to spend one more second in that research sub-vehicle. He had to get to the surface. He needed fresh air.

  Chapter Two

  Valerie’s fingers flitted across the keyboard in front of her. Her lips drove the words to appear on the screen in front of her.

  Edits.

  It was the third draft of her book on organized crime in America. The whole thing was hinged on her award-winning piece on the LaVici family. The media immediately picked it up and she called dibs on the story. Now, she was stuck with a burgeoning draft she didn’t even know what to do with. Everyone kept telling her to hire a ghostwriter. I mean, for heaven’s sake, she was an accountant, not some sort of word’s smith. But she couldn’t bring herself to lay all of her work out for some bimbo who would take part of her money for it. No. It was her story. She would write it herself.

  Valerie pursed her lips and sat back. She was in a warehouse in the industrial district just outside of Miami and right on the seawall of Southern Florida. The place stunk of industrial-strength cleaners and she could hear mice in the floorboards, but it was the only place she was safe.

  Her eyes fell on the two tall, muscular men who stood milling about around the front entrance. They slouched around. Valerie gulped, a spike cutting through her mind. There it was; the one on the left was hungry for something. In fact, they both were. She frowned. She couldn’t catch physical sensations, only emotions.

  Cravings.

  She stood up and practically tiptoed to the makeshift kitchen about eight hundred feet out of the way. It had only taken the city council and the FBI about two weeks to get this whole thing prepared for inhabitation. One of the things they so kindly thought of was a small stove, a four burner electric—something you could basically plug into the wall—and a kettle. They knew she would be working on a book… and that she was addicted to coffee.

  She went to work, pulling the two mugs out of the paper bag she had stowed away and throwing two hefty spoons of instant in them. She wasn’t sure if they had had any before the guard switch, which had only happened a little over an hour ago. She wouldn’t bring herself to ask in order to make sure. She knew that they would just wave their hands and tell her she shouldn’t bother herself.

  She placed the kettle on the stove and watched it turn red hot. As she leaned against the table, slipping her feet out of her shoe in order to air out her toes, she heard a banging sound. Her heart stopped, but she scoffed at herself, placing her hand on her chest.

  “Calm the fuck down Valerie,” She whispered to herself. This whole mess had turned her into a little stress sponge.

  “We’re here for the girl!”

  “Girl?” she grimaced at this.

  “Don’t come any closer.” It was one of the guards.

  A window shattered, something dense skidding across the floor.

  “Get down—!”

  “Ms. James!”

  Valerie dropped down onto the floor. Half of this was some sort of survival instinct, but the other half was just her being too frightened to hold herself up. No sooner had she clasped her head in between her knees did a blast shake the whole warehouse. The ground lurched, throwing Valerie out of her hiding place. She grunted, flexing her skidded knee.

  A gun shot cut through the air.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she said as she crawled her way back behind the small counter.

  There were more gunshots, but they sounded like they weren’t hitting anything; simply ricocheting off the walls and hitting metal cans. She only heard the thump of metal to flesh once…

  Twice…

  She didn’t need a finance degree to put that together. She stood up, revealing herself to the mobsters she knew had just won the fight, wildly regretting not informing the guards that she was going to make coffee before she did it. Maybe then, they might have died knowing they were sacrificing their lives for someone who truly cared.

  “James!”

  Valerie glanced over her shoulder. Three masked men. Always masks. It was that eerie detail that let her know they wanted more from her than just her life.

  She took off into a sprint, veering off to the right, then to the left. They were running too fast to be able to aim their subpar guns properly, but she did it just in case. She slammed herself against the backdoor. As soon as it gave way, a red, hot alarm poured into the entire establishment.

  Valerie zipped through the cool, crisp air, the smell of the ocean assaulting her nose. She had made as many as twenty steps before she heard the door slam open for them. She was on her way. Eight years of track had trained her to outrun almost any human she’d ever come across. A smile slipped across her face, a strange kind of defense mechanism against the stress that threatened to overcome her.

  But as soon as she had followed the road all the way to the sea wall, she saw something just ahead. There was one more body rushing towards her, masked, just like all of the others.

  She let out a gasp and lurched to a stop, glancing all around her for an out. Then, she took it, crossing the street, and running straight into an alley… but the alley didn’t actually have another side. She slammed into a brick wall, her arm scratching across the rough surface.

  I still have time.

  She rushed right back out into the main road, but she had miscalculated. There was a body right there waiting for her. His heavy hands grasped her shoulders, cutting off the circulation in her arms. “Let me go!” Stupid, instinctual words.

  He wiped his hand across the face, the slap easily drawing blood. Her cheek split on the inside of her mouth and she turned to discard the blood and spittle onto the asphalt. One breath, then another, then she drove a hard kick into his gut. For however big and strong he was, this small gesture was enough to decapitate him. She squeezed from in front of him, but before she could take another step, another man yanked at her arm and twisted it behind her. He slammed his body against her back and, in one fluid motion, slipped a knife out of his belt.

  She could already feel the blade cutting into
her skin…

  Chapter Three

  Javen strolled along the seawall. Sometimes he couldn’t help but detest earth and everything about this forsaken planet, but at other times, he could not deny the uncanny resemblance between it and Kahara. It was easy to see how some of his own had managed to immerse themselves here. The warm wind greeted his face, drying his hair and wetsuit. He climbed up the next flight of stairs he could find, stepping onto street level.

  It was as he was reveling in the peace of the night that he saw something odd in the distance. He slowed down and stared harder. It was a woman racing towards him. A street lamp bathed her in its warm glow such that he could just make out the long thick hair, the high cheekbones and strong jaw… the hazel eyes.

  “Tyri!” he said, but he shook his head before the words could even finish leaving his lips. No. Not Tyri. Tyri was dead.

  Valerie James. Odd that on the very night he video blogged about her for the first time, they happened to actually run into each other on the street. When he looked back up at her, it became apparent that she was running… from something. Two men followed her closely, right on her heels. He could sense her as clear as day.

  Fear.

  There were other emotions, but that one dominated above all else. He sped up just as she veered off the street and into an alley.

  “No.” Javen had been there before. He knew it was a dead end. She was handing herself a death sentence. His heart raced as his mind started whirling around in circles. His mission was straight forward: collect a census of humans that carried the Kaharan blood line, then report back to Kahara for further instructions. If he were to seriously entangle himself into human affairs, he would give away his presence. That had to be avoided at all costs. He could not leave a footprint on earth whatsoever.

  But Valerie had just run right into one of the men. Javen stopped walking, biting his lip. Maybe, by some miracle, she could take care of herself. Maybe she had been secretly trained to fight. He watched her drive her knee into that man’s gut, clenching his fists in approval, but then the other man kicked in and grabbed her. Javen saw the metal of a knife glinting in the moonlight.