Page 101 of Payne's Envy

“You weren’t you! Not to mention, I was so confused and had been locked up for days.”

My mood darkened. I’d been in her mind enough to know the kidnapping bothered me far more. My mate was strong, but I was still worried.

Her shoulders drooped. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I wish Harvest hadn’t tortured you. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner.”

“You saved me,” she whispered and grabbed my hand. “Yes, it sucked dying repeatedly, but I’ve experienced it before. The scariest part of being his captive was not knowing when I might lose my powers.” I felt her fingers trembling as she exhaled quickly. “You got there before it happened.”

That didn’t improve my mood. She didn’t deserve to be killed in the ways she had. Thinking of her shackled in that cave, fearing the second her power vanished… I swore my heart stopped. My vision blurred as I squeezed her palm.

“Payne.” Placing her palms at my cheeks, she leaned her forehead into mine. “Loving me will never be easy. It makes us incredibly human to know fear. We have that emotion because we have loved ones. Your worry for me is precious. I won’t take it for granted.”

“I will always protect you,” I whispered. “I’m much stronger now.” I sensed her fear and pulled her close. She tried to be brave to ease my concern. “You are precious to me, my girl. You are everything, so of course I’m scared to lose you, but we will fear together. “

“I don’t mind our fear. I’d rather have it than not have you.”

I kissed her head. “You said something about our other forms…”

She faded and re-faded beside the bed. “I did.”

The hairs on my arms and neck stood on end. I spread my arms out over the bed slowly, not wanting to frighten my mate. She had made herself the prey. “I told you how it makes me react when you run or fight me. That instinct had nothing to do with the heat.”

She backed away slowly. “Don’t shift in our home. The dragons are destroying it enough. On that note, catch me if you can.”

I sprang out of bed with a grin. My mate wouldn’t get far without wings. It excited me to feel her lithe form wrapped around mine for a different reason. A pleasurable one.

Joy Reaper was finally mine.

The End

Keep reading for a snippet of book six…

Note from Author:

As always, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed Payne and Joy’s story. I know it’s been a long time coming. I’ve struggled a lot mentally with writing and the self-doubt was crippling the last couple of years. Things are getting much better for me. The words are flowing and I’m super happy about it.

There are a few things I want to mention about the series and what’s about to happen, and the first is: I write happy endings. Things are getting rough for the Reapers. Trust that I won’t ruin anyone’s happy ending from any of my previous books—that includes Melanie and Grim. I would never do that, but I might break your heart a little before we get to the very end. The end of everything is here and realistically, the stakes are high, so sad things are happening. Trust the process, even if it hurts because it might. A lot.

That being said, how disappointed are you that I didn’t give you a detailed sex scene of those two in their dragon forms? If you wanted the details, I’m sorry, I love those juicy bits, too. But there is a reason why I chose not to. I didn’t know if all my readers would be comfortable reading such a thing. At the beginning of the series, you know you’re reading about a group of immortals, but I don’t mention anything at all about future romances because I’d rather tease you guys here and there. That’s the ONLY reason I chose to exclude anymore because I’m already nervous of what I included. I didn’t want to make someone uncomfortable. I already write some odd things—take Gwen accepting Barron’s wrath into her body. If you’ve read my book, ‘One Percent of You’, you know Elijah is obsessed with his woman’s “leaking tits’ as he calls it, and literally sucks them, knowing she’s breastfeeding and has milk.

Now, the reason I’m bringing this up. Actually, two reasons.

We’ll start with the one that includes the Seven Deadly series. I need my readers to understand that Kara’s (Kitty) love interest—come on, now we all know who it is—will never take on his appearance of what he was before he came to the Underworld. Meaning, he will always have that monstrous look to him, like the very underworld is ripping out of him. There were some details of his appearance in book one, but all the specifics will come in the final book. That being said, if you don’t like the idea of him looking creepy, you can picture him however you want. I just want my readers to know what to expect.

Secondly:

After I finish this series, I’ll start writing under a pen name. When I do this, I’ll be writing about a bunch of wild things that I have loved reading about for years. This will include alien romance, knotting, werewolves, and basically anything that’s nonhuman. You guys have no idea, NO IDEA, how excited I am about this. Make sure you’re following any of my socials or join my Facebook group to stay updated on all things.

And don’t worry, I’ll still be writing paranormal and contemporary romance under this name.

(I just want a free and comfortable place to write some raunchier scenes in my stories like knotting without turning someone off.) Dragon mating is definitely something I’d go all out on for the pen name.

Again, thank you so much for reading! I know it’s been so long, and it makes me happy that so many of you have reached out. You guys don’t know how much that helped. Seeing that people wanted more of this series was very encouraging. I’ll always feel like my reapers deserve so much more love. Maybe one day they will.

You can find an unedited snippet of Villainous Greed on the next page. I’m so excited for you guys to learn who August really is as a person. And Nova—this woman is so freaking powerful. BOOM! Their book will be told in two parts. The past will be told in part one, then it will follow where we’re at in the present.

And if you’d like to leave a review on Amazon, that will help the series so much! I always hate saying this at the end of all my books, but reviews are so important for Authors.

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