QSFer Belinda McBride has a new MM paranormal book out, book two in the Arcada series: “Silver/Steel.”
When dream hunter Dylan Ryve spots a beautiful shapeshifter raising hell in a bar, he knows he wants the wild young man. But Travis Feris is more to Dylan than a few hot minutes outside in the snow; he’s the assassin’s ticket into the magical town of Arcada. He didn’t plan to rescue the kid, but when he found the shifter being attacked, the opportunity to play hero was too good to pass up.
Through the solitude of a long winter night, Dylan walks in Travis’s fevered dreams, learning about Arcada and the pack, and showing the shifter the man he’d been so very long ago. When morning comes, both men know their lives will be forever entwined.
From Dylan, Travis learns that he is a strong, valued member of the pack. The dreamwalker sees his own worth reflected back at him in the dark blue eyes of the wolf. Yet when Dylan has the chance to free himself from centuries of enslavement, can he betray the man he has come to love?
This is a re-release.
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Excerpt
It should have felt like a disgrace to be close for so long, but Dylan didn’t care. Circumstances led him to Arcada, and while the town rejected him, she’d also hooked him like a fish on a line. He had enough money to remain indefinitely. This one final job would free him, and when he finished, he could stay, even if he merely lived on the fringes of the town’s power. He needed to be here. After his many years in exile, Arcada was a precious gem, a place where the human world overlapped the magical, much like Homewood, from which he’d been cast out so very long ago.
The waitress swapped out his beer for a fresh one and smiled at the hefty tip he set on the tray, then rewarded him with a saucy twitch of her jeans-clad ass. Dylan was horny, and he watched appreciatively as she wound through the crowd, deftly avoiding tipsy blondes and drunken bikers. He’d come out for company tonight, and the waitress was looking like a viable option. She passed a young man, and Dylan glanced from the waitress to the boy—and caught the marker he was looking for. His skin prickled, and the hair on his nape stood on end.
Power.
He narrowed his eyes. The kid wasn’t as young as he seemed. He was this side of tall and deceptively slender. An unruly mop of dark curls framed his almost angelic face. Tight blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and a battered leather jacket gave lie to that borderline innocent appearance. The young man surveyed the room boldly, as though he owned each and every chair and table in the place. His arrogance was challenging in more ways than one; Dylan’s body surged with a need to confront the kid, to force his submission. It responded in other ways as well, causing his cock to lengthen and grow tight. He didn’t have the ability to scent like other predators, but Dylan’s sharp gaze caught the feral grace of the young man, the coiled strength and banked heat.
Shifter. Damn, he was far too refined and pretty to be a wolf. Yet he looked oddly similar to that big, butch alpha wolf Dylan had spotted months ago. A cross, maybe? If Dylan had to bet, he’d say the young shifter had more than a touch of the Fair Folk in his background. He stretched out his legs, getting a bit more comfortable in the hard wooden chair.
Dylan wasn’t the only one watching the kid. Women of all ages stared at him avidly. Their men glared. He met their glares head-on, never flinching, never dropping his gaze. He was either supremely confident or amazingly stupid. Whatever the case, after the bartender poured him a beer, the shifter headed for the ratty old jukebox and dropped in his quarters, hands braced against the machine as he made his selections. And then he grinned and shook his ass, dancing as he turned to survey the chaos he’d just wrought. Joan Jett and her rock ’n’ roll overtook country, throwing the dancers completely off step and out of the mood. The dance floor emptied, the pool tables filled up, and Dylan smiled behind his beer, wondering how long till someone took a swing at the punk. He glanced at his watch, guessing it’d take no more than five minutes.
The first blow came in four, just as “Bang a Gong” began to ring through the bar.
The kid ducked the drunken swing, laughing and holding his drink steady. He slapped the trucker on the ass, whispered in the man’s ear, and then hopped backward as the drunk bellowed in anger. Dylan’s hearing was sharp, but even he couldn’t hear over the throbbing music. No doubt the shifter had made an outrageously indecent proposal.
After dodging that fight, the shifter moved to the pool tables, got in on a game, and lost badly. He set his drink down on the edge of the table, then dug out a wad of cash from the pocket of his perfectly too-tight jeans. The gaze of more than one man dropped to the front of his pants and appraised the substantial bulge behind his fly. Some were humbled, others unwillingly tempted. Those looked away, their faces tight with mortification.
The young charmer might not know it, but he was playing to both sides of the fence. Dylan enjoyed the slow burn of his arousal. There hadn’t been much sex for him on this job, and he hadn’t particularly missed it. His needs were fairly basic, yet his tastes were quite specific. The young flirt was exactly what he liked: brash, beautiful, and with a surprising edge of vulnerability. Under that cocky attitude was a frightened youth. A kid who was getting off on the rush of his fear.
Author Bio
Belinda is an award-winning, top selling author of erotic romance, speculative fiction and LGBTQ romance. She lives in far Northern California with her family and a pack of Siberian Huskies.
A graduate of CSU Chico, she managed to attend the notorious party school without once getting drunk, arrested or appearing in a “Girls Gone Wild” video. Her main focus of study was classical and archival history, cultural anthropology and
theatre arts.
Belinda has won the EPIC Award in Paranormal Romance with Blacque/Bleu, and in Science Fiction Romance with The Bacchi. She won RWA’s Passionate Plume in Science Fiction Romance with An Uncommon Whore. In addition, she’s had numerous wins and placements in these and other juried competitions. She is the co-creator and author of the wildly popular Doms of Dark Haven series, with Cherise Sinclair and Sierra Cartwright.
Belinda’s books are available at all the typical distributors as well as on the publisher’s homepages.
Please visit her (and sign up for her newsletter) at www.belindamcbride.com