The Maw of Mayhem, When Revenge is Best Served Hot

 Hey all, AK Nevermore here. This month I've got a bunch of Maw of Mayhem MC freebies for you to binge!  I hope you enjoy the excerpt, Best Served Hot gets super steamy! 

And if you end up wanting more, you can download a bunch of free goodies, including the prequel to the series, The Maw of Mayhem. Link's at the bottom of this post!

Sometimes the only way to dish out revenge is piping hot...

The events surrounding Satan’s Vengeance splitting from the Maw of Mayhem MC isn’t something any of the founders talk about. Neither are the circumstances surrounding Grim’s birth, or the implications of what Clay and Abigail’s hate-fueled encounter will bring into the world…

Excerpt:

His head snapped up at the crack of a branch, going for his gun, then abandoning it as a tawny spotted lynx pushed through the bracken.

Finally. His heart rate ticked up. Abigail’s cat form shimmered, then resolved into a nude, lithe woman straight out of Norwegian porno. He didn’t fucking like her, but his dick sure as hell stood up and took notice of those pert breasts and flat stomach.

Forbidden flesh. Well, it had been.

She met his gaze, then dropped hers to the bulge in his jeans, tongue teasing her pouty lips, long blonde hair swaying against her backside in the breeze.

Clay tore his eyes from her, running a hand over his jaw and wincing. She picked through the undergrowth between them to ghost her long, white fingers over the bruise darkening the right side of his face.

“You should have hit him back.”

Clay grunted, not disagreeing. Yesterday he would have said he deserved the ass-beating just for the number of times he’d fucked his fist while thinking about his best friend’s mate… but he’d never considered acting on it.

Not until Abigail had approached him, aglow with the witch king’s prophecy, and commanding him to do just that.

And Clay’d been stupid enough to tell Reaper exactly what he’d thought about it—and her. Offering to throw her a quick fuck on the off-chance they could make that prophecy reality.

A true shifter queen to restore their paranormal sect to its rightful place in the hierarchy.

The potential of that via of his dick punishing Abigail’s slick cunt was all Clay could fucking think about, his loyalty to Reaper be damned.

There was nothing left between them to be loyal to.

He reached out, his calloused hands digging into the impossibly smooth skin of her arms, pulling her close. His nose twitched as he skated it up the slim column of her throat, past Reaper’s mating bite to the hollow beneath her ear. Goddamn, the pheromones her cat was putting out, the phase of the moon…his cock thickened. Rest of the prophecy might be utter bullshit, but, “When did you go into heat?”

“Last night, after you left,” she said, smug. Her quicksilver eyes trapped his, the satisfaction in them a gut punch. “Reaper barbed me. Said he was done fighting destiny, but would damn well insure I’d carry a Cain to your Able. Unfortunately for him, I don’t believe there’s a female version to that parable.”

“Of course he did.” Didn’t matter if the sex was wrong, the message was clear; he was declaring a blood feud between them. A muscle in Clay’s jaw ticked. Pissed at Reaper for falling for Abigail’s shit, at the fucking witch king for kicking off this clusterfuck, and at himself for not being able to walk away from his petty revenge.

Her arms threaded behind his neck, tightening the noose. “My alpha command…you could’ve resisted it. You’re more alpha than Reaper is.” Her hands slid over his shoulders, a finger tracing the patches on his cut. “But this is always what you’ve wanted, isn’t it?”

Clay’s teeth grit together. “I never wanted any of this, Abigail. Not for Reaper, not for my club, and I sure as fuck could do without playing the villain in all this.”

She laughed, the sound silvery and soiled. “Yet here we are…none of us able to escape destiny.” The unadorned fatalism in her voice made him pause, shit was a mirror image to Reaper’s fanaticism. “If it’s any consolation, I doubt history will view me in a particularly favorable light, either…but it’s not about us.”

He snorted. No. It was all about her and the fucking witch king’s predictions. Clay wasn’t sure if he actually believed the prophecy that nut job had rattled off to Abigail like it was a take-out order, but fuck if Clay wasn’t a big enough piece of shit to use it as an excuse to screw her.

Reaper had certainly thought it was just the latter, along with a heavy dose of heresy. Clay wasn’t sure which of the two had set the zealot off more.

Christ, a Cain to his Able—

“Stop thinking.” Her lips met his, fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him to her. His stubble scraped against her flesh and she gasped, melting against him, skin pebbling beneath his touch. The taste of her overwhelmed rational thought, female musk and that shit boxed wine she drank, stoking his need until all that was left was wanton lust ...

You can get your copy here: Best Served Hot

Want more? Download the prequel,  The Maw of Mayhem for free here: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/7mhr8w0xtd

and get your Bites of Mayhem here: https://aknevermore.com/bites-of-mayhem/

You can find out more about my books on my website, https://aknevermore.com/ or see what I'm up to on my sadly neglected socials:

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AK Nevermore enjoys operating heavy machinery, freebases coffee, and gives up sarcasm for Lent every year. A Jane-of-all-trades, she’s a certified chef, restores antiques, and dabbles in beekeeping when she’s not reading voraciously or running down the dream in her beat-up camo Chucks.

Unable to ignore the voices in her head, and unwilling to become medicated, she writes Science Fiction and Fantasy full time. 

AK pays the bills writing a copious amount of copy, along with a column on SFF. She belongs to the Authors Guild, is an RWA chapter board member, volunteers for far too many committees, teaches creative writing, and on the rare occasion, sleeps.

The Song that led to an entire story...

 

Do you know Puff Daddy’s song Come With Me? It's from the Godzilla soundtrack. When I first heard the song, I wanted to write a dramatic scene in which the already dirty and exhausted hero reaches out to help his girlfriend out of a chasm and tells her to stay close to him so he can protect her to get out of the jungle. I fantasized about this scene for so long that my muse (who I drove half-crazy with my idea) and I wrote a book that included a kidnapping and escape, a chase through the woods, and a narrow miss by the pursuer who wanted his prey back.

It doesn’t happen very often that a song inspires me to develop an entire plot just to fit the scene and get what I wanted. It took my muse and I about three months to flesh out the story, but in the end we were happy with what we accomplished. I still think it’s one of the best books we’ve written together. And, yes, my muse is still with me, even though she rolled her eyes a lot during the brainstorming process.

Here are excerpts from Ruined Vacation, showing you what I mean. (Listen to the song in the background…)

 

Imagine Jacklyn and Nicolas trapped in a hole in the ground, covered by an iron plate. Because Nicolas is a tall guy, Jacklyn can kneel on his shoulders to reach for the plate…

 

“We’re on our own.” Jacklyn ripped the lining and retrieved the knife. With a smile that should convey strength but was obscured by worry, she showed him the small blade. “But not lost.”

Nicolas lifted his hands so that she cut the plastic. “No, my love, we aren’t lost.” He kissed her chastely. “And we won’t get lost.” He freed her, too, and opened another tool in the knife set. “Here we go.”

“A screwdriver. What do you want to do with it?”

“I can’t do it. But when I put you on my shoulders, you can reach the screws.”

“And why not push the bolt?”

“It’s in the center of the iron plate. You can’t reach that far. That’s why you have to unscrew the plate and pull it together with the bolt.”

“You just made this up, right?” Jacklyn shook her head, obviously amused in spite of their situation. “You can’t know that.”

“I looked at the construction when we stopped at the rim. It’s rather simple—but effective if you can’t reach up.”

“I bet he didn’t think of that when he overwhelmed us.” She crouched to open her shoelaces and take off the shoes. “What did he do with you that you were out for so long? I was really worried.”

“He shot me with an arrow. He’s an excellent marksman.” Nicolas bent to lift Jacklyn onto his shoulders. “If this doesn’t work, you have to stand on my shoulders, okay?”

She looked up to the grating. “I don’t see this happening, Nick. Who knows how long these screws have been exposed to the weather?”

“We don’t have another choice. If we can’t get away before he returns—”

“All right. Don’t frighten me. I’m frightened for both of us.”

Nicolas chuckled as he put his hands against the wall to have a better stand. “Can you reach the screws?”

“No.” Jacklyn let the screwdriver slip into her coat pocket to have her hands free. “Remind me that I need to do more workout. I don’t know—” She sighed. “Did I mention that I’m scared of heights? That I’d never climb anywhere higher than a ladder?”

With his support, she knelt on his shoulders. It was a precarious position, but the only one from where she could reach around the iron plate and not hit her head at the grating.

“Catch me if I fall.”

“A music quote in the wilderness. I’m impressed.”

“I’m scared shitless,” she replied breathlessly.

“You’re gonna make it, ma chérie. I know that.”

“How can you be so sure? Oh, wait.” She balanced her weight by inching forward. “Think positive, huh? Never believe in a bad outcome.”

He understood and moved closer to the wall so that she could put her knees against the hard soil. He stabilized her even though he almost hit the wall with his nose. “Exactly. Take it like an adventure.”

“Fantasy Island? I hated that show.” She reached up and put the screwdriver to work. “I never understood why people find it fascinating to run through the wilderness.”

Nicolas tried to breathe evenly though she held tight with her thighs to his head. “For some it’s a dream come true.”

“A dream? My dreams are very different from this here.” She whined. “It doesn’t move. What shall I do?”

“You have to hold the nut on the lower side. Pull your sleeve over your fingers so you don’t scrape your skin.”

She looked down. “Did you do this before?”

“I’m an FBI agent.” He tried for a light tone, and she nodded gravely.

“It’s in the manual for escapes in the wilderness.”

“Some knowledge comes in handy.”

Jacklyn followed his suggestion, but still whined that the screw didn’t move.

“Try one of the others,” Nicolas said.

“Okay.” Jacklyn moved to the left and put the screwdriver into the screw slit.

Nicolas looked up. She was working hard, but it was a combination of skill and strength needed to loosen the screws.

“Try to scrape the sand away around the screw. Maybe that will help.”

“It’s sure a damn fucking trap. Fuck!”

Nicolas heard the knife hit the ground.

“I need to come down again.” Jacklyn sounded close to tears.

“Do it slowly.” He reached up her legs and helped her climb down along his body. “See? Done something you haven’t done before.”

“You’re still trying to cheer me up? Brave lover.” Jacklyn wiped her nose and looked at her reddened fingers. “The screws are tight, and I don’t know whether I can move even one of them.”

“Take a break. Your hands are trembling.”

“What about your shoulders?”

“You’re light as a feather.”

“I’ve gained weight since we met.”

“Oh, those were the days.” Nicolas caressed her face, trying to convey confidence with every fiber. He didn’t want to imagine what the criminal would do with them once he returned. “If I could lend you my strength, I’d do it.”

“I know. I’m not so sure—optimism is a fine thing, but right now, I don’t see us running away.”

*

“Take a break. It’s all right.” He kissed her with deep affection, becoming aware that he was more in love with her than a year ago. “I love your strength,” he whispered and wiped away her tears. “You can do this. Just two more screws—”

“Or we’re screwed? Yes, we are.” She nodded emphatically and fumbled for her handkerchief. “If I can’t turn those screws, this crazy shithead will return with a weapon and force us to—”

“Shh.” Nicolas pressed his lips on hers again and held her when she wept. “Take your time. Recover. I bet he can’t be back soon. We’re far from the main road.”

“Wherever we are.” Jacklyn sniffled. Her gaze went up to the dark gray sky. “You think he did this before, right?”

“Yes.”

“It’s the hideout of a serial killer.”

“We don’t know that. Don’t make assumptions.”

She bit her lower lip. “FBI work rules?”

He nodded once. “Stick to the facts, don’t assume anything. Put together what you’ve got and come up with the correct conclusions. Jason uses a whiteboard to collect his notes and hints. It’s a kind of mind map for everyone to see. We found out many connections just by comparing the details we had.”

Jacklyn kissed his nose. “I love you more every day. You’re the guy I want at my side—you’re trying to make a story out of this gruesome situation. That’s a gift.” She sighed and got back on her feet. “Let’s see whether I can work a miracle and get us out before midnight.”

“Because at midnight the wolves come out?” Nicolas helped her settle on his shoulders once more.

“Because if we can’t get out before nightfall, we’re not only screwed, we’re fucked up.”

*

To Nicolas’s astonishment, the last screw was the easiest. Jacklyn dropped it with a triumphant “Tada!” and stood on Nicolas’s shoulders so that she could push back the plate with the latch. It was a challenge to her strength and balance to lift the heavy lid. Jacklyn cried out when she slipped the first time and the weight crashed down again. For a second, she swayed, and Nicolas feared she’d lose hold and fall down.

“Shit!” She panted loudly. “Any good idea how to push it open?”

“I can try and shove you.” He held tight to her calves. In any other situation, this would be the clue to a sexy remark—something about her long legs and her underwear. Nicolas swallowed hard when he thought of the predicament they were still in. He had the bad feeling that their time was running out. “Ready?”

“Yes.” She put her hands around the grating. “Do it.”

Nicolas got down on his knees a bit and then pushed her up with momentum. Jacklyn thrust the lid with all strength so that it crashed to the other side.

“I did it!” she shouted.

“Yes, you did.” Nicolas’s heart hammered against his ribs, and he thought his shoulder muscles were torn. He clenched his teeth in pain. His legs trembled with strain, but he stood upright until Jacklyn reached the rim and climbed out. Only then did he put his hands on his knees to catch his breath and roll his shoulders.

“Run and get the ladder!” he urged. Standing alone in the deep hole, Nicolas feared that their kidnapper would return and catch Jacklyn. He wouldn’t be of any help to her. Worse—he would stand in a hole in the ground, hear her scream and become witness of her suffering without a chance to change her fate. Until she returned, he prayed under his breath for another ten minutes alone in the woods. He was sick with worry that the one minute they needed would not be granted.

Jacklyn was out of breath when she pushed the heavy ladder into the opening. Nicolas cast up her boots and climbed the steps as fast as he could.

*

 

 

Book News! Pre-order and New Paperbacks!

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Books books and books!

Four Play is a brand new quickie moresome. A mini reverse harem if you will. Definitely NSFW! It is available for preorder now and I hope you love it!

Plus, The Road Home and Northern Rescue are now available in paperback! Yay.

I’ll be at Readers Take Denver next week and will have limited copies of The Road Home and Northern Rescue. If you are going and have your own copy, bring it along for signing,

More books to come!!

Now in paperback!

Now in paperback!

www.shanagray.com

 About Older Heroes and Older Heroines

 

Charm, confidence, a sense of humor that comes with experience, that sexy aura. Haven’t people always said these things about older men? Yes, they have. And now they’re being said about older women.

Finally.

Come on: let’s show our age in a positive way.

Twenty years ago, I saw elegant, beautiful women with silver hair all over Germany: they looked wonderful. Now, here in France, more and more women are, proudly, letting their natural hair color and their age show. How nice. But what do 75% of all American women do? They use hair dye. And, according to Nielsen, they spent $1.3 billion to cover their gray hair last year.

Why? Let’s accept ourselves. No matter what all those commercials (and your children) tell you, silver hair is beautiful. Wrinkles are fine. Stop using hair dye: believe me, that stuff is dangerous (look up the National Cancer Institute reports), and hair dyes are constantly — and horribly — tested on innocent animals. Stop pumping in products like Botox, another health risk, and one that equally relies on terrible animal suffering.

Take a deep breath; make the decision to treat yourself well, and to respect your body regardless of age. Instead of being a consumer victim who uses dangerous products in the hope of being appealing, become a rebel! Refuse. Use your talent, the talent that comes after a certain age: the ability to walk into a room with grace, to draw people out, to charm, to amuse, to titillate.

Like fine wines that have been well treated, when we respect ourselves, we improve with age.

All the heroes and heroines in my books are over 40. Felicity, the heroine of Felicity’s Power, is in her 60s when she meets up with Marek Sumner forty years after their romance ended. And what fun that meeting was to write!

***

Felicity Powers beside him again?

She’d crossed continents to see him. Now, here she was, sitting beside him at this dinner table. For what must have been the hundredth time this evening, his eyes slid over toward her. He needed to see her; he had to confirm the reality of her presence.

She was different now. Very different. Or was she? Still slender, fragile-looking. The mass of hair, wild, rebellious still, and just as long, was caught—with very little success—into a high knot. Some things never change. The fiery red color had faded entirely, was replaced by a chaos of white and silver. But the same luminous, dark eyes sparkled in a face intense with excitement. Here were the soaring cheekbones, the arched nose, and thin mocking mouth. Both the sun and time had etched lines into the skin around her eyes, her mouth, her forehead.

Her very presence was stirring deep old emotions inside of him, emotions so intense, he was almost loathe to acknowledge them.

 

***

San Francisco, 1971: hippies in the streets, music and revolution in the air. The evening Marek Sumner opened his door to the wild-looking Felicity Powers, he knew nothing would ever be the same. But even love and passion couldn’t keep them together.

Forty-three years later, having lived in the world’s most dangerous places as an aid worker, Felicity is back, still offering love, passion, and adventure. Now a well-known author, Marek loves his calm life in an isolated farmhouse, and he knows their relationship would never work: he and Felicity are just too different. Besides, why risk having his heart broken a second time?

But Felicity is as fascinating and joyful as ever, and the wonderful sexy magic is still there too. Can love be more delightful the second time around?

 

Felicity's Power

Trailer: https://youtu.be/T1EvqNOIY2M 



Purchase links
https://books2read.com/FelicitysPower

 

 

Dream drugs and god-magic laced with love

Finally, he opens the pebble and sprinkles the dried and desiccated petals inside his rolling paper. He repeats the process with leaves gathered from nearby undergrowth and adds more herbs retrieved from his tin box. Olek rolls the paper carefully, twisting the ends with an artist’s grace and a scientist’s precision. The god-queen watches through half-mast eyes, enthralled by the curve of his Cupid’s bow and the soft pout of his lower lip as he brings the joint to his mouth.

He lights up. Embers bleed into crushed herbs, creeping up the paper, going up in smoke. He blows and the smell is everywhere, burning and burnt, and Titania’s almost certain there’s god-magic inside his cigarette. Her fingers tingle, and the place between her legs comes alive as the edges of her vision dissolve into light.

She gazes into Olek’s eyes, such alluring eyes framed by long, thick lashes that know too well the taste of tears.

There! A hint of light peeks out from behind the ring of his irises. That’s not good …

Titania stands. She would have fallen if not for the human’s steadying hand.

“You’re leaving already?” His words reverberate too long.

“For now. I … I have to get away.” Her head spins. Every atom in this body pulses with the thump-thump-thump of its heart. If there’s even a heart inside—who knows? Titania stumbles behind a fig tree, leaving the mortal to his smoke and strange compounds.

But the storm builds inside her, unabated by the distance between her and the cigarette. Discordant music rings in her ears, a chorus of life and death, of time compressed into quantum spaces, elongated and entwined and echoing in the void.

She leans against the tree and discovers it won’t take her weight.

She falls through it, weighing nothing at all.

The lush green garden is now awash with light. No—the garden is light, and soon there’s nothing but light as the physical Titania disintegrates in despair.

💖 Read the rest in Yet We Sleep, We Dream 💖

Photo by Larm Rmah on Unsplash

Yet We Sleep, We Dream by JL Peridot

Love triangles get bent out of shape when restless gods come out to play.

Relationships are complicated enough when only humans are involved — something the crew of the starship Athenia know plenty about. These children of a changing climate are no strangers to conflicts of the heart. And it seems there's a lot of conflict going on, even out in space.

When an alien dust finds its way on board, the veil between realms begins to fray. Old gods of a long dead planet resume their own romantic bickering while ancient magic wreaks havoc across the ship. Grudges resurface, friends turn to enemies, unrequited love turns to passion — or does it? It's kinda hard to tell with everyone at each other's throats.

Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show; but wonder on, till truth make all things plain. Yet We Sleep, We Dream is a romantic space-fantasy inspired by Shakespeare's endearing hot mess, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

“I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.”

— Bottom, A Midsummer Night's Dream

🚀 Dream where old gods linger … 🚀

Genre(s): Science fiction romance, science fantasy romance, space fantasy, new adult, Australian romance, futuristic romance

Content advisory: Strong language. Drug use. On-page sexual encounters. References to harassment and infertility. Depictions of perilous situations. Depictions of marital disharmony. Awkward social situations. Technical language.

---

JL Peridot writes love letters to the future on devices from the past. Visit jlperidot.com for the full catalogue of her work.