Men And Mayhem by Leigh Ellwood

Author:Leigh Ellwood
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: gay romance, paranormal romance, gay paranormal romance, gay romance box set, romance box set, gay fantasy romance, gay erotic romance, gay vampires
Publisher: Leigh Ellwood
Published: 2015-05-22T23:00:00+00:00

Jack

Jack is a combination of two shorts I wrote about ten years ago: Jack of Hearts and Jack of Diamonds. This is another case of a series stopping short because I couldn’t get the rhythm right, among other life-getting-in-the-way plans. I suppose series are not my forte. When I regained the rights to both stories I heavily revised them to keep the M/M aspect of the story intact. Jack of Hearts was written originally as a cliffhanger ending, but readers responded with the impression that the book had been cut off midpoint. Lesson learned there. Anyway, I find I like this version better because it flows and it keeps the story focused on the main couple.

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Her firm handshake welcomed him, and all apprehension faded. He noticed her fingernails, blood red and so smooth one might expect the color to ripple like a tide pool when touched. These were not the hands of a charlatan, or of a person who might bite her nails in fear of seeing her deceits uncovered. This dark and sensuous woman—draped in fringe and knotted lace lining cuffs, collars, and hems—knew her business.

Lars folded a crisp fifty dollar bill and a rose quartz pendant into her waiting palm and took a seat in the plush chair opposite hers, then touched his elbows to his knees. He hovered over the splayed deck of cards on the table before them. “You can dispense with any theatrics,” he told her. “Just tell me what I need to know, not what I want to hear.”

He hoped, however, what the psychic had to say was what he wanted to hear. He wanted to hear that Lila had indeed become reincarnated and now lived in this age. Her current age was immaterial; he could restore the youth of an elderly woman with his bite. He’d wait for a child. Vampires only had time...and the desire to feed. Besides, he had waited this long...what of a few mortal years?

The soothsayer said nothing as she pocketed the cash, then turned the heart-shaped quartz in her palm. He had given it to Lila nearly two hundred years ago as a promise to marry. She had been wearing it the day Lars was changed, the day his creator slashed past the ribbon around her throat as she blocked the vampire from Lars in a weak attempt to protect him. The memory of that terror—Lila’s shrieks of pain, his creator’s cold indifference—bubbled in his memory as he watched card after card slide through the woman’s fingers. He swallowed back the pain and tried to focus on the deck. He refused to mourn and let his anger overshadow the potential rediscovery of his joy.

The whisper of each turned card absorbed the echoes in his head, until nothing remained but steady breathing and rapid shuffling, quiet yet tense. The purred her revelation in a honeyed voice that tickled the back of his neck and slithered up his skull.

“Something very important was taken from you.”

“Don’t tell me what I already know.

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