QSFer Shannon West and Susan E. Scott has a new MM Fantasy book out:
Luca Wessex is Dragon Spawn. Son of a human mother and a Red Dragon father, he has been trying his best all his life just to survive and get by. His father is abusive, his mother is dead, and most recently, a vicious and dangerous group of neighborhood Spawn have begun trying to recruit him as a member of their gang. When a pushy and gorgeous Golden Dragon named Dmitri appears, full of questions about the gang and his role in it, Luca tries to cooperate, but he’s no snitch. Suspicious, the gang attacks Luca one evening while he’s working, and he’s rescued by Dmitri, who then kidnaps him and—for his own safety, he claims—takes him to his home in what some say is the most remote spot on Earth, an area of Russia called the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Dmitri has come home with a treasure, because what Luca doesn’t know is that he isn’t a Spawn at all but a species called a dragonet and the very last one of his kind. Because of a mysterious prophecy, Dmitri has discovered the beautiful boy’s life is in danger and he wants desperately to save him. But Dmitri is up against not only another Dragon, but also a powerful mage. Dmitri takes Luca under his wing—literally—and they begin to navigate a minefield of love and dangerous ancient prophecy. For the first time in Dmitri’s life, something is becoming more important to him than treasure, if only he can hold onto it.
The Dragon Prophecies Book 1
Giveaway
Shannon and Susan are giving away a free ebook, to be chosen randomly. Comment on the post below for a chance to win.
Buy Links
Excerpt
The door flew open with a loud crash and a flurry of breaking glass. Several shadows disengaged themselves from the darkness of the sidewalk in front of the store and crowded their way inside so aggressively that a couple of them got stuck in the door. It would have been almost funny if it hadn’t been for the fact that they were some kind of Dragon Spawn I’d never seen before.
Most Spawn couldn’t shift, but a few could bulk up and look vaguely reptilian and even sprout some rudimentary wings to fly for short little hops. Some could breathe a little fire, in a pitiful parody of the Reds and the Goldens, or puff out bolts of lightning in short spurts like the Silvers. All of them were big and mean—but I had never seen anything like these guys.
They had to be Spawn, but if they were, then they were Spawn on freaking steroids. They were like something I couldn’t have dreamed up in my worst nightmares, and that’s saying a lot. More transformed than any Spawn I’d ever seen, all four of them were tall and a kind of yellow-green—not the green of new things that come up in the spring, but more like the baby shit on the diapers the mothers throw away sometimes in the bathrooms. They smelled about as bad too.
Their skin had scales and their eyes and noses were mere slits in their faces. The one who started toward me had black hair growing on his head like a Mohawk that extended on down his neck and back. It was his face that was the worst, though, a long snout like an alligator’s with teeth that were serrated like a saw. He had short arms like a croc’s, the only thing that was currently preventing him from putting his hands around my neck as I tried to hold him off.
A long, thick tail whipped around behind him, knocking off all the cans on the shelves as he and I struggled in the aisle. A couple of them were standing by us and watching as I wrestled with the thing. They were Spawn too, though they weren’t quite as reptilian. One of them was by the door and I heard him yell out something, which seemed to be hard for him with that croc mouth of his. That’s when I saw Dmitri come pushing into the store, and the Spawn rushed to meet him.
By this time, I was pretty busy myself, so I missed what happened next. The thing on me suddenly knocked my feet out from under me, fell down on top of me and went into a death roll, again, just like an alligator. He wound up on top of me, his bony hands gripping my shoulders as he brought his mouth with those godawful teeth down toward my face.
I kicked up to where his balls ought to be with my knee and was glad to see him open his mouth and roar with pain. His putrid breath almost knocked me out before he fell off beside me, and I took a moment to check on Dmitri.
He had apparently twisted the knife in the Spawn’s hand and brought it up between them to jab in the Spawn’s eye, because its eye spurted blood, and it let out a high-pitched shriek. It clapped a hand over the wound and stumbled out the front door.
He grabbed the next one by its tail and incredibly swung it up and over his head, flinging it against the wall with so much force it shuddered once and then lay still. He walked over to it and kicked it in the teeth, smashing in its mouth to make sure it didn’t move again. By that time the gator guy was on me again, and Dmitri grabbed it around the neck, tumbled it off to the side and put his boot to its neck to hold it down. Its claw-like hands scrabbled on the floor, trying to get away, but Dmitri pulled back his leg and his foot connected with its ass.
The Spawn scooted forward like it was on wheels and crashed into the wall, its bony skull caved in and red blood poured out, staining its black Mohawk and spreading out all over the floor. Dmitri turned back to me. “Are you all right? Did they hurt you before I got here?”
“No, I-I think I’m okay. I’ve never seen Spawn like that before.”
“No, neither have I, but I suspect they’re part of Samboa’s gang, altered by some kind of drug or…something,” Dmitri said, taking hold of my arm to help me off the floor. “I was hoping we’d have more time, but they got to you before I could. They were sent here for you, Luca. They came to kidnap you or maybe kill you, and that’s why I’m here. To protect you and take you with me. I know you don’t understand now, but I need you to go upstairs and get your things. Hurry. You’re coming with me.”
Author Bio
Shannon West currently lives in the South with her husband and family. A lover and avid reader of M/M romances, she began writing them a few years ago and now has over a hundred short stories, novellas, and novels to her credit. She was a finalist in the Rainbow Awards every year since 2013 and was an All Romance Ebooks Top Ten Author for 2013 and 2014. She is a breeder and lover of British Shorthair cats, but also loves dogs and has a big, handsome bulldog named Rambo in her back yard who is quite the stud. She loves men and everything about them, and believes that love is love, no matter the gender. She mostly spends her days at the keyboard, trying to elude housework, which stalks her relentlessly.
Susan E Scott lives with her husband in a small town in north Georgia. Susan enjoys scrapbooking, traveling and reading and writing romance. She has a very spoiled labradoodle named Nicky and she loves to read M/M. Susan writes M/M contemporary erotic romance, with a dash of paranormal.