Release Blitz: The Detective's Mate by Alexa Piper #GayRomance #DarkFantasy @prowlingpiper @changelingpress @GoIndiMarketing

 

Title: The Detective's Mate

Series: Dusk & Dawn #5

Author: Alexa Piper

Publisher: Changeling Press LLC

Release Date: April 2, 2021

Heat Level: 4 - Lots of Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 143

Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Mystery, Thriller/Suspense, murder mystery, urban fantasy, paranormal romance, shapeshifters, werewolves, vampires, dark fantasy

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Synopsis

Orrin and Gordon come from different worlds: Orrin is a werewolf with the New Amsterdam Police, and Gordon is a vampire who likes the quiet of his morgue. Yet, they decided to be with one another even though Orrin’s vampire was at first afraid to commit.

Now, new complications come barreling at the two when Orrin realizes he will have to step up to become a parent to an orphan shifter, while New Amsterdam has become the haunt of a serial killer who targets mixed supernatural and human couples.

Gordon was slow to realize he loves his werewolf mate, but it takes him even longer to figure out he still has his own demons to deal with. A past hurt has left a scar on his soul. Gordon’s werewolf detective might just be what Gordon needs to heal the scars from his past. The only question is whether geeky Gordon is enough for serious and seriously handsome Orrin.

Together with Maxim, New Amsterdam’s bardic vampire hunter, Orrin and Gordon are on the case to save the city from sinking into fear and panic as more murders challenge the peace. Through turmoil and death, Orrin and Gordon must find a way forward.

NOTE: This book contains scenes of assault and kidnapping that may be triggers for some readers.

Excerpt

Copyright ©2021 Alexa Piper

New Amsterdam Police Station was a nice neoclassical building, and all things considered, it wasn’t a bad place to work. Most of the time, the coffee was even decent.

Orrin had not usually been one to leave the station early, but Bachman, his protégée, was more than capable and didn’t need him holding her hand while she finished her paperwork. Also, Orrin had a hot date at the morgue. He checked the time on his computer, finished one more email, then logged out. Bachman briefly looked up from what she was doing.

“You always look cheery when you are going to see the boyfriend,” she commented, then did a double take and looked straight at him. “Or should I be saying mate?”

Orrin grabbed his bag and stuffed his work tablet into it. “Boyfriend is fine,” Orrin said, because it was, and it also was easier around the station, since most of Orrin’s colleagues weren’t werewolves but were human like Bachman herself. “Also, are you saying I’m usually grumpy-looking, Bachman?”

“Just very, very serious, sir.” She went back to typing. “I think cheery suits you. And I think the mate-slash-boyfriend does as well.”

Orrin couldn’t do anything about the wide grin that threatened to make his cheeks ache. “Well, thanks. I’ll tell Gordon you said hi.”

“Hmm-mmh.” Bachman winked at him as Orrin walked toward the elevators, and even he noticed the spring in his step.

* * *

The worst thing about any morgue was the smell of lingering death. Orrin sniffed the air when he got to the basement hallway in the Forum that housed the forensic labs, though he was hoping to pick up a whiff of Gordon’s dusty rose scent rather than eau de corpse. Yet all he got was vinegar and bleach cleaning solution. Gordon had probably received a fresh batch of New Amsterdam University interns and had set them to cleaning every nook and cranny so they could familiarize themselves with the place.

On the bland-looking wall on the left, a framed, vintage <em>Dracula</em> movie poster added a dose of vampiric cheer in bold print and even bolder colors to the basement labs, and opposite it, Gordon’s office door stood ajar. Orrin peeked around the doorframe to see if Gordon was in there.

<em>What a nice view,</em> Orrin though, watching Gordon hanging a framed piece of artwork, his nimble surgeon’s fingers adjusting the frame this way and that. The view was much helped by the skinny jeans Gordon was wearing. The jeans were a silvery gray, clashing with the raspberry surgical top, but nicely bringing out Gordon’s latest hair color, electric blue that shifted to icy white at the ends. <em>I am very fortunate to have found a mate who looks great in skinny jeans and likes wearing them</em>.

Orrin indulged in a quick fantasy centered on removing said pair of skinny jeans, and in the fantasy, that task was easy, and Orrin’s mate had decided to go commando. Orrin imagined Gordon hard and ready, imagined touching, tasting…

He smothered that fantasy quickly when he felt his own aching physical reaction. Instead, he refocused back on the present: Gordon, tinkering with the frame.

“Hey,” Orrin said.

Gordon jumped, dropped the frame, and cursed as he turned around. “Fucking hell,” he said, his stance relaxing as he saw Orrin. “Make some noise every now and then, will you?”

Orrin chuckled. “Thought I was a living corpse, Doctor?”

“Never,” Gordon said, picking up the frame once more and putting it on its hook with much less fumbling than before. “Those shamble, noisily.” He turned to Orrin again. “And you are sneaky, like a true predator, Detective.”

Orrin walked into Gordon’s office, which smelled of roses, Gordon’s scent. It still had an undertone of morgue, of course. The Lord Helmet cookie jar added the herby flavor of good weed cookies, and all the mint-in-box collectibles came with their own aroma of high-end plastic, but Orrin focused on Gordon. Two more steps, and he was pulling the vampire into his arms and pressing his lips to Gordon’s.

Gordon yielded to being held after a moment, turning fully to Orrin and allowing the werewolf to fuse their mouths and run hands over Gordon’s body, all the way down to his ass.

“Hi,” Orrin said when they broke their kiss.

“Hello, handsome,” Gordon said, and while the vampire wasn’t one to give pet names, Orrin still enjoyed being called handsome, not least because it came out of his mate’s mouth. “Are you here to cuff me and take me away?”

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Meet the Author

Alexa Piper writes steamy romance that ranges from light to dark, from straight to queer. She’s also a coffee addict. Alexa loves writing stories that make her readers laugh and fall in love with the characters in them. Connect with Alexa on Facebook or Instagram, follow her on Twitter, and subscribe to her newsletter!

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Release Blitz: From the Dark We Came by J. Emery

Title: From the Dark We Came

Series: Pointy Ears & Pointy Teeth, Book One

Author: J. Emery

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: March 16, 2020

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 50600

Genre: Paranormal, NineStar Press, LGBTQIA+, Paranormal, fantasy, other-world, action/adventure, bisexual, cisgender, asexual, demisexual, vampire, vampire hunter, fae, magic/sorcery, dark, humorous, revenge

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Synopsis

Belar has made lying into an art form. His neighbors know him as a mild mannered music teacher, but to his fellow monster hunters he’s a senior agent with one of the best track records in the organization. Werewolves, malignant spirits, and other oddities—you name it, he can track it. And kill it if necessary.

But when a vampire shows up in Belar’s parlor, his two worlds crash into each other. The vampire is named Cassian, and if he had any sense of decency he would be dead since Belar has already tried to kill him. Twice. Luckily, Cassian isn’t interested in holding a grudge. He wants to hire the hunter. Someone in vampire society wants Cassian dead and they’ve been using Belar to do their dirty work. Finding the culprit will save them both.

Their search for answers takes them through a nighttime world of ancient vampires, demon tailors, and monsters of pure shadow. But Belar hasn’t been the only one lying, and enemies and allies are harder to tell apart in the dark.

Excerpt

From the Dark We Came
J. Emery © 2020
All Rights Reserved

Vibrant pink and amber dawn streaked the sky before Belar finally clambered down from his perch in a nearby tree. He moved with spidery grace. Heights had never bothered him, not when he had perfected the art of sneaking out of his bedroom window before the age of six. He had only gotten better since then. Nothing soothed like a narrow ledge beneath his fingers and a world of sky behind him, waiting to catch him if he fell. Granted, the fall would most likely kill him. But until then—pure ease.

He should have been born a bird instead of a man.

The abandoned house was silent. He had searched the area for days before he’d found the place, half swallowed by the encroaching forest. The perfect place for a vampire to hide, empty as it was, but not so distant from human society to make feeding difficult.

There had been a brief moment earlier when he had even worried his guess was wrong, and the house really was as empty as it appeared despite the feel in the air—blood possibly—that called to him. Then he’d gotten his first sighting as the vampire had come lurching back to his nest and removed any lingering doubt. Belar had gauged him as average height (for a vampire as they ran tall) and probably quite old based on the speed of his movements. He wasn’t graceful—exhaustion rendered him clumsy—but he was certainly fast. Belar had lost track of him for seconds at a time as the vampire zigzagged through the dense underbrush in the woods. But by now the vampire should be fast asleep, hidden away where the sun couldn’t disturb him or his rest.

Belar had waited an extra hour to be certain. Not that he was worried. Because he wasn’t.

Vines grew thick over the sides of the old house, its sagging roof full of patched holes, half the windows empty staring eyes, their glass long since shattered. Utterly abandoned. Dilapidated. Save for the curtains hanging in a lower room, a cheerful, if faded pattern of blue on white like the border on a fancy plate. They had no reason to be there. Not here in an empty house, in an empty town where all but the birds had moved on. Even the bones of those caught in the fire that had destroyed the village years ago were gone. The forest had reclaimed everything but a handful of houses, their crumbling walls marked by smudges of soot and a few scattered patches of paving stone that had once been the town square. The bridge arching over the nearby stream verged on collapse. The rest was mossy, green, and still.

His eyes strayed again to the curtains in the window. Something about them unsettled him.

“Or maybe you’re just losing your touch after the last time,” he muttered. In the stillness, his voice sounded loud as a shout, and he flinched despite himself. But anyone was liable to be a bit jumpy after his recent near miss, he reasoned.

His last hunt had begun as they typically did. Weeks of research and information gathering about the area before he successfully pinpointed the resting place of the vampire and felt safe making his move. He’d always been thorough. Usually it served him well. But despite his many precautions, despite waiting for the sun to rise high enough to assure his target was deeply asleep, Belar had found himself trapped in a tomb with a very angry and very awake vampire who was fully capable of fighting back. Belar had recovered from the blow that threw him into the wall just in time to see the dark figure of the vampire eclipsing the sun streaming in the open door. For one moment, as impossibly beautiful as a wrathful god to Belar’s dazed mind. Then he ran out into the daylight. Everyone knew what happened to vampires touched by the sun. No part was pleasant. No one seemed to have told this vampire though. There were no screams. No flames. Not even the slightest sizzle of searing flesh. Nothing but a rapidly retreating vampire.

Belar had been lucky to escape with nothing worse than a black eye, a sprained wrist, and enough cracked ribs to make breathing exciting for the next few weeks. In a lifetime of brushes with death, this had been the closest of all. By rights he really should be dead. Not that he was complaining on the last point.

And clearly he hadn’t learned his lesson well enough since here he was stalking yet another vampire. Other hunters might have taken the job if he’d wanted to give it up. The thought had never even occurred to him.

Belar slithered in through one of the gaping eyehole windows and landed softly atop a floor carpeted with moldy leaves and splintered wood that had once been a shutter. He took a moment to get his bearings. There wasn’t much to see. He’d surveyed the house from every imaginable angle outside, but hadn’t ventured inside. He hadn’t dared. The risk of spreading his scent around and alerting the vampire to his presence was too great. Now it wouldn’t matter. The sun was up and so was the vampire’s time.

The stairs leading to the cellar were almost completely broken away. What remained was as rotten as everything else in this place. A few jagged timbers and a yawning darkness below. He would have to be careful climbing back up so he didn’t end up full of splinters.

Belar checked his axe and the knives strapped to his wrists before he snugged the knot of the scarf tied over his face. Then he leaped down to kill himself a vampire.

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NineStar Press | Amazon | Smashwords | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

Meet the Author

J. Emery is slowly writing their way through every fantasy trope imaginable. And if they can make it weirder and queerer while they do, that’s even better as far as they’re concerned.

They spend their free time gaming, working on their cosplay creating skills, and drinking large quantities of tea, occasionally all at the same time. They have also been known to document their ridiculous levels of terror while watching horror movies on twitter as @mixeduppainter. Sometimes they even discuss upcoming projects.

They have also written and self-published two queer short stories: An Offering of Plums and Help Wanted.

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