High Moon
The
F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad Investigation Series
Book Four
Genre: Urban Fantasy/PNR/
Paranormal Mystery
Publisher: Devil on the Left Books
Date of Publication: 9/16/14
ISBN: 978-0-9893944-6-8
ASIN:
Number of pages: 296
Word Count: 90,000
Cover Artist: Jennifer Harlow
Book Description:
CLASSIFIED: A F.R.E.A.K.S. LOVE STORY
Telekinetic Special Agent Beatrice
Alexander has fought a horde of zombies, psychotic vampires, even a troll. But
now she faces her greatest challenge: love.
Fully recovered from her holiday from
hell, Bea has returned to the F.R.E.A.K.S. with a mission, to gain the love of
her werewolf team mate, Will Price.
Of course nothing is ever easy when it
comes to love and war. And when the killing fields of a pack of murderous
werewolves is discovered in the wilds of North Carolina, the situation goes
from complicated to deadly.
Because though Bea always seems to get
her man or beast in the end, this time she does not know if she will survive
with her love intact. Or her life…
Available
at Amazon
Excerpt
Chapter One- Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered
Watching the man you
love suck face with a gorgeous woman is not the best way to start a birthday.
Welcome to my world.
He sits at a back booth,
lips and every other body part pressed against that succubus, appearing to love
every second and caress, the rat bastard. And how can he not be? The evil slut
queen of doom has everything I don’t. Long, straight hay-colored hair, big blue
eyes, big breasts, long lean legs, tight body all encased in a skintight black
dress clinging to her perfect curves that only a plastic surgeon could ever
recreate on me. I’ve envied women like her all my life, and now that succubus has
my future husband in her enticing clutches. Literally. An actual succubus is
clutching his soft brown hair and kissing him as if her life depended on it.
Which I guess it does—as she feeds off sexual energy to live—but still. Does he
have to frigging enjoy the whole experience so much?
Howdy. The jealous,
insecure, emotional wreck before you is Special Agent Beatrice Alexander of the
covert branch of the FBI known to the underworld as the F.R.E.A.K.S. We fight
the monsters under your bed: the vampires, the ghosts, and the soon to be
decapitated succubi of the world. Those terrors in horror movies? Real. Trolls,
zombies, even giant snakes. Killed them all so the citizens of America can go
about their normal lives. Why am I so lucky? Because technically I’m one of
them. I can move anything with my mind. It’s called tele or psychokinesis. I
can carry in groceries or stop hearts without lifting a finger. And let me say
doing the latter is mighty tempting right about now.
The man having his
tonsils examined by the succubus is my teammate Special Agent Will Price. He’s
technically a monster too, at least once a month. He’s a werewolf, not that I
hold that against him. After all us freaks can’t help who or what we are. We’re
actually a lot like everyone else. Though Will did literally eat my last
boyfriend. The psycho was trying to kill me at the time, so I gave Will a pass
on that. But this…
Will shifts in his seat
to get closer to her. They haven’t broken apart in over forty-seven seconds.
Forty-seven! He’s kissed her longer than he’s ever kissed me all three times
combined. I don’t care that she’s more or less bewitched him. I don’t care that
it’s all for a case. My hands ball into fists, fingers digging so deep in my
own flesh it hurts. A cool hand touches mine. I look away from this nauseating
PDA toward the hand’s owner. My friend, the delectable Oliver Montrose gazes at
me, his gray eyes warning me not to put into action what I’ve been
contemplating. Namely storming over there and cold cocking that female dog with
the butt of my Glock. Though she so deserves it. In Virginia Beach alone she’s
been linked to two deaths. Two young seamen were found naked and dead in their
own beds of apparent heart attacks after going home from a club with a hot
blonde. Who knows how many others she’s sucked dry over the years?
For those not in the
monster killer business, a succubus is a woman who Hoovers up the life-force
from her lovers, much like a vampire feeds off blood. Now, I don’t begrudge a
life form getting whatever they need to live. I watch Animal Planet. Sometimes
it’s kill or be killed. But a succubus doesn’t need to kill anymore than a
vampire does. A little can go a long way. Some people are just evil. And right
now evil has Will in a lip lock.
“Whatever course of action
you are contemplating inside that beautiful head of yours, I suggest you forget
it post haste,” my vampire friend warns. His hand remains heavy on mine, a
reminder about restraint. We don’t want to blow our cover. While Will plays
doctor, Oliver and I sit at the bar, just another couple enjoying the Virginia
nightlife. A few stools down, Agents Rushmore and Wolfe, in their chic Ralph
Lauren polo shirts and buzz cuts, nurse ginger ales, and keep their eyes locked
on the same booth. Chandler is lucky enough to be out in the parking lot
waiting for the signal to take her down. Darn you, innocent bystanders. Darn
you.
Lord, I hate clubs.
They’re loud, crowded, expensive, and filled with hormone crazed men and women
with no sense of shame or decorum. I’ve lost count of how many strange crotches
have rubbed up against my backside while “dancing.” I’d only been a handful of
times before I joined the F.R.E.A.K.S., and now it seems as if I live in one.
Why preternaturals feel so at home in these places is beyond me. I guess to
them it’s nothing but a smorgasbord. Easy pickings. Everyone’s mind is so
filled with sex and booze they forget basics like safety and common sense. And
now Will has joined their ranks.
“I wasn’t contemplating
anything,” I snap, downing my screwdriver. “I’m not bothered by them. Not a
bit. It’s work. We’re working. Another drink, please! Now! Now!”
“That is not a wise
idea, my dear.”
“Wise is so overrated,”
I mutter.
I glance back at the
couple. Still making out, still…oh, no she isn’t! Her graceful hand slides up
Will’s thigh, resting on the bulge in his pants. At first she just traces the
outline with her fingertip, and then rubs against him with her whole harlot
hand. He doesn’t push it away.
Rage boils over.
Involuntarily I leap up, every inch of me tense and ready to rip her shining
hair out at the roots. Before I’m totally upright, a hand on my shoulder
presses me back into my seat. “No.”
“But she—”
“No,” Oliver says as if
I’m an ill-behaved dog.
“But he—”
“No.”
Torture. This is nothing
more than torture. This is worse than the time I was actually physically
tortured. At least that ends. Bones heal. This will be seared into my brain for
years to come. I could kill her, just pop a vein in her brain or squeeze her
heart until it stops. But I reign in the homicidal part of my nature, instead
gazing at my ridiculously handsome friend in an effort to calm me the frak
down.
I don’t normally act
like this. I’m a good, sane person. Or at least I was until I fell in love with
a man who refuses to acknowledge he loves me back. He does. I mean, I’m eighty
percent sure he does. The man all but said he did, and his kisses shouted it
from the rooftops. He just won’t give in. Won’t let himself admit it because
apparently I make him nuts. I cloud his judgment. Of course my worst offense is
I give him hope. But to a control freak who watched his wife get eaten by a
werewolf, these are apparently bad things. I’m in love with an idiot.
And absence did not make
the heart grow fonder, at least in his case. Me, I was watching Beauty and the
Beast with my goddaughter and burst into hysterical tears at the end when Belle
saves the beast. Will has fared better in the past two months. I had to remain
in San Diego longer than expected because of my elbow. I broke it while I ran
from a crazed cop hopped up on troll blood. Long story. Ended with previously
mentioned psycho ex-boyfriend being eaten by the current object of my
affection. I needed surgery to repair the damage, then it healed wrong and I
had a month and a half of physical therapy before I was cleared for duty. I got
back two weeks ago. So I was stuck in San Diego with nothing to do but watch
sappy movies and think about Will.
He returned only one of
my ten phone calls, and then just asked after my health and family. I could
tell he couldn’t wait to get off the phone. And since I’ve been back, well this
is the longest he’s been in the same room with me. I walk in, he walks out.
When we’re working, I’m either assigned to a different team or barely
acknowledged. If he didn’t blush every time he looked at me, I’d be put off.
But I’m no quitter. I love him, and per the songs, that can conquer all,
including the neuroses of a bull-headed werewolf. I’m banking my heart on it.
“You must calm
yourself,” Oliver orders. “You are acting as wretchedly as he usually does. If
you recall, this was your plan.”
“Yeah, but you were
supposed to be bait. Or one of the other guys. Not him.”
“A succubus feeds off
living energy, which I am lacking and werewolves possess in abundance.”
“Yes, and thank you for
pointing that out in the meeting. Why didn’t you just wrap him in a bow for her
while you were at it? Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“The victims’,” he says.
Fudge. Now I feel like a total jerk. “It is our job to keep predators off the
street the quickest and safest way possible. And occasionally that requires
sacrifice.” He glances back at Will, and Grin Number Two, with the tips of his
fangs, forms. “Though I doubt William minds playing the martyr at this moment.”
I have to look again.
Great, not only is she feeling him up, but he’s returning the favor, kneading
her breast with his strong hand. Can she feel those rough calluses? Does she
even care how he got them? Years of rowing on the Potomac River, that’s how.
And yet she gets to second base with him before I do. “This is hell. I am in
hell.”
“I do not know why you
are distressing yourself over that man. I really do not. He has not showed you
the slightest regard since your return. Or prior to that while you convalesced.
He made his position abundantly clear.”
“You don’t understand,”
I sigh. They pull apart for air,
and she says something that makes him smile. He usually never smiles, except
for me. She’s even stolen that from me.
“Understand what,
Trixie?”
Will caresses her face
and dives in for more. “Some things are worth fighting for. They make no rhyme
or reason to anyone but you, but you just know. It’s outside logic, it’s
outside reason, it’s just something you sense in your very core. And if you
don’t listen to it, if you allow it to slip through your fingers, then you
spend the rest of your life regretting it. You spend the rest of your life an
empty shell. If that’s not worth a whole damn war, let alone a fight or two, I
don’t know what is.”
Will moves his lips down
the succubus’ neck, and I turn back to Oliver, who studies me with a mix of
sadness and anger that takes away only a fraction of his exquisiteness. I can
safely say he is the most physically handsome man I’ve ever seen. Pale skin,
lush red lips, cleft chin, wavy shoulder length brown hair with blonde
highlights, and straight nose all in perfect proportion. The impossible balance
of masculine and feminine. The only other man who holds a candle to him in the
looks department is the Lord of San Diego, and even Connor doesn’t come close
to this level of perfection. Not outside and certainly not inside. No one does.
“You are…” he touches my face with his ice cold fingertips, “such a fool.”
About the
Author:
Jennifer Harlow spent her restless
childhood fighting with her three brothers and scaring the heck out of herself
with horror movies and books. She grew up to earn a degree at the University of
Virginia which she put to use as a radio DJ, crisis hotline volunteer,
bookseller, lab assistant, wedding coordinator, and government investigator.
She is the author of the Amazon
best-selling F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad, Midnight Magic Mystery series, The Galilee
Falls Trilogy, and the steampunk romance Verity Hart Vs The Vampyres. For the
soundtrack to her books and other goodies visit her at www.jenniferharlowbooks.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jenharlowbooks
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/jenharlowbooks/
~*Tour
giveaway*~
5 ebook copies of High Moon
Oh that looks like one I might need to try :D
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