Angela Knight's Blog, page 8

Angela Knight is a Sexist Pig

By Angela KnightYep, you read that right. I was shocked too. I mean, I’m a feminist. I don’t believe people should be judged by their appearance. If some male confessed he expected a woman to be dumb because she was blonde, gorgeous, and had impressive headlights, I would be the first to accuse him of oinking. Yet last week I discovered I was guilty of the same kind of thinking, only in reverse. Like many mortal sins, this one took place in Vegas. My husband and I attended the RNC Convention Aug. 7-11. I will admit, I didn’t have high expectations. This was the first year for RNC, and the first time you put on any big event, there are going to be bugs to iron out. Attendance was part of an all-inclusive package of $250 for five nights at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino, which I knew to be an older hotel. So given the fabulous deal, I expected the venue to be a bit seedy, and the event itself to be a little disorganized. Especially since Jimmy Thomas, cover model and RNC’s CEO, had never put on a conference before. (And yes, the huge, gorgeous hunk on the banner is Jimmy.)I didn’t think any of that sounded encouraging.I was wrong. The hotel has been renovated, and it’s huge. Among its attractions are a three-level pool with water slide. Now, plenty of hotels have a water slide, but this one is enclosed, and it shoots through a shark tank. With actual sharks. Then there’s the Grotto, a seafood restaurant with a floor to ceiling tropical aquarium and an amazing menu; I loved the swordfish.  The food was fabulous, and thanks to the deal Jimmy wrangled for us, we got $300 worth of meals at our choice of the hotel’s nine restaurants for $75. (There were other deals, but that was the one I picked.)As for the classes, I learned great tips about book covers, promotion, and self-defense. (!?) I’ve gone to a lot of conferences over the past nine years, and it’s rare I find out something new in every class.
Too, Fiona Jayde designed this really nice banner and conference ad for me. The actual banner itself was sturdy and easy to put up; kudos to Jimmy, who worked the deal for the banners for his attendees.Being a cover artist, I actually created a design myself, only to have Jimmy present me with two designs Fiona did for me. I instantly realized that Fiona’s were much better than mine, and so I went with hers.By the way, my husband Mike and I went out to dinner with Fiona, who is delightful as well as a damned good cover artist. I really like her work. So how did I find out the sexist pig thing? Well, part of the reason my expectations were a little low is because I didn’t know Jimmy.Now, mind you, I love shopping for cover novel photos at his website, http://www.romancenovelcovers.com/.  Jimmy really understands women’s fantasies, and he knows exactly how to play to them when he poses. During a couple of different classes on creating memorable covers and swag, he gave us some great tips on the topic.One of his points is that he has the photographer shoot a lot of images, then he just lets his eye skim over them to see which one pops out. He puts those on the site, because they’ll be more likely to draw the attention of romance readers. He also stressed that what you’re looking for in a good cover is strong emotion, whether it’s a sense of sensual heat for erotic romance or tenderness for sweet romance.
Hand posing is very important in creating that emotion. When you’re aiming for passion, he said the fingers should dig into the skin of the other person, because that’s what you do when you’re that turned on.Eyes are also important: both people should be looking at one another, not gazing off-screen. Which makes sense: if you were with Jimmy, would you be staring blankly into space? I didn’t think so.The models’ arms and legs should be bent, forming triangular shapes rather than extended into stiff, straight lines that lead the eye off the cover. You want the reader’s gaze to circle around inside the image. If the characters’ eyes, the arms or the legs are pointed off-screen, he said, you’ll destroy the effect.Jimmy is 6 feet tall, but he says he prefers to pose with women 5'2" or so on his covers because he wants to create the sense that the hero is physically overwhelming compared to her. (Though I’m tall, and I still found Jimmy physically overwhelming. He may not be 6’3”, but that is still one big human being.) He said even if the woman crouches, the length of her arms and the size of her hands will unconsciously bother the viewer, because they’ll reveal she’s much taller than she looks.So today I took his tips and went shopping  at Jimmy’s site, http://www.romancenovelcovers.com/. Royalty-free high-resolution print-ready photographs are just $15, which is a great deal. I bought nine of them, including those shown here. A couple of them I got not because I have a book for them, but because they give me ideas for books I can’t wait to write.
Take the one on the left. I love this image. Look at his face. It just screams, “Yeah, she’s got me right now, but I’m gonna get loose in about five minutes and bang her like a kettle drum.” Ah do declare, he’s givin’ me the vapors.
Then there’s the one below with BDSM Barbie and the guy on the other end of her leash. There's a whole book in this one shot. How did she get the drop on him, why did she do it, and what’s he going to do when he gets loose? And he will get loose if I write it, because that’s just the kind of perv I am.
Like I said, Jimmy knows his stuff, and he understands romance readers in a way few men do.
Which brings me to the self-defense class he taught with Fiona. Most of those class things at conferences are fun to watch, but you wouldn’t be able to actually use those techniques if you were in danger. I was attacked once, and I completely froze. I couldn’t move at all while the guy beat me like Apollo Creed whaling away on Sylvester Stallone at the end of Rocky. All I could do was scream, which did eventually drive him off. Jimmy demonstrated how just digging your fingers into the notch of the collarbone can inflict pain enough to dissuade an attacker and give you a chance to run like hell.
Then he asked for someone to help him demonstrate how to fight off someone with a knife. He needed a partner taller than he is to do the move he had in mind. And since that described only one person in the room, my 6’3” husband sighed and volunteered. Mike’s been a cop for 25 years, and he knows something about self-defense. He said he was tempted to counter Jimmy’s move to see what he’d do. “But I was afraid he’d hurt me.”Besides, the sight of my big hubby and Jimmy going at it would probably have given me the vapors…I did mention my pervy streak, right?Heh. Anyway, about the sexist pig thing…I must admit part of the reason I didn’t expect much from the conference is that I figured any guy who looked like Jimmy would have the IQ of a Cobb Salad.Say it with me, girls: “Oink. Oinkoinkoink.”Jimmy’s actually damned smart, he knows romance readers, and he has insights about art, covers and photography romance writers would do well to listen to. I enjoyed RNC, which is going to be at the Golden Nugget again next year. I hope to attend it if my writing schedule allows. And Jimmy, I promise to do a lot less oinking.

The First Chapter of The Once and Future Lover

 Hi! Thanks for stopping by my blog. This is an excerpt from a novel-length erotic romance in Wicked Games, an anthology of my erotic novellas which will be published in April, 2014. Please note that this book is not intended for readers under 18, so if that’s you, please head to Pintress or YouTube or whatever. You do not need to be here. Anyway, The Once and Future Lover is a prequel to my Mageverse series about the vampire Knights of the Round Table. It tells the story of how King Arthur and his knights became vampires, while Queen Guinevere and Morgana le Fay became witches. It also deals with what exactly did happen with Lancelot…  I hope you enjoy it!The Once and Future Lover  By Angela Knight  Chapter One
Gwen dreamed of death, of blood and terror and grief. She jolted awake. In her panic, she almost shot from the bed, but her husband’s brawny arm was wrapped around her waist. She stilled, his breath warming her nape.Arthur Pendragon slept as he so often did, curled around her, surrounding her in his swordsman’s hard strength.He’s not dead. It was only a nightmare. Going limp as a soaked rag in her relief, Gwen turned her head to press her cheek against his broad bare chest. His heart thudded in her ear, steady and strong and comforting. Like Arthur himself.As her dream panic drained away, she heard the deep voices of the guards out on the balustrade murmur something to each other. They sounded unusually tense.Gwen stiffened as reality hit her like an armored fist. Today was the day Arthur would fight to the death.Against Mordred. His son, heir, and enemy.Her stomach curled into a sour knot. She had to pace, do something, or she was going to start screaming. What if this morning's dream had been more than a nightmare? What if it had been a vision?Slowly, carefully, she eased Arthur’s warm, muscled forearm from around her waist, swung her feet to the stone floor, and rose, trying not to wake him. They’d been up late last night, making love out of desperation as much as desire. Arthur needed to sleep every minute he could.A cooling breeze poured through the open shutters of the chamber’s sole window, which overlooked the courtyard where he and Mordred would do battle in a few hours' time. A shaft of blue dawn light spilled in, illuminating her husband as he sprawled in tanned, brawny nudity across their bed.Arthur was not a tall man, though Gwen suspected he was actually more muscular at thirty-seven than the nineteen-year-old she’d married, back when they’d called him the Princeling King. He still drilled with his knights every morning, going full out with sword and shield. Whenever she pointed out the likelihood of being hurt in such practice, he’d snort. “I’ll not grow too soft to sit a horse.”Her beautiful man. Her handsome king.Responsibility more than age had salted Arthur’s hair with gray. More pewter threaded the beard that framed his lushly sensual mouth, and sprinkled the soft, dark thatch that covered his powerful chest. Still, the hair on his groin was as dark as ever, a sable ruff surrounding the long cock she’d always adored, the heavy balls she loved to cradle in her palm.If he dies, I might as well crawl into the grave with him.Gwen had seen too many battles over seventeen years as Arthur’s queen. She knew what happened when an older man fought a big brute nineteen years younger, and it wasn’t pretty.The wizard Merlin had promised power to the winner of today’s battle. Arthur wanted that power to better protect his people from the invading Saxons, not to mention a Celtic warlord named Varn who had been a thorn in his side for the past two years. Then there was the collection of former rulers whose kingdoms Arthur had conquered more than a decade before, any one of whom would love to topple the High King.As for Mordred… Well, he just wanted an acceptable excuse to kill his father. Anything more was just gravy on the goose as far he was concerned.Arthur deserved better than a bastard son who hated him.If only I’d been able to give him the heir he needed. The most important job I’ve ever had, and I failed him.Three pregnancies. Three miscarriages.Barren. A term that conjured images of winter fields covered in dead, brown stalks. Devils and angels, how Gwen loathed that word.A familiar bitter sting gathered behind her eyelids, and she clenched her jaw, blinking hard, forcing her twisted features to smooth. You will not cry. You will show only smiling confidence. You will not make Arthur doubt himself.Doubt can kill a man in a fight like this.Mordred had enough advantages as it was. Gwen wasn’t going to hand him another arrow for his assassin’s quiver.Wheeling, she paced naked across the chamber. All too soon, they’d have to walk out into the courtyard below to face the prince’s challenge. Gwen only hoped Mordred didn’t win. Not only would his victory be a catastrophe for her and Arthur, it would be a disaster for the country.Her mind flashed back to a night months before, when Mordred had tried to convince Arthur to declare war on the Picts. The king had refused.“Our people are enjoying the longest stretch of peace we’ve had in thirty years,” he’d told Mordred. “Let them savor it a little longer.”“Peasants.” Seated at Arthur’s right at the Round Table, Mordred speared a bite of mutton on the tip of his dagger and ate it with a wolfish snap. Chewing, he sneered. “What do we care for the opinion of peasants?”Arthur eyed him. The Table went silent as courtiers, knights and ladies listened for their king’s response. Sitting at Arthur's left, Gwen watched the two men just as attentively.“My son, peasants are the ones who do most of the dying in war. Marching armies too often murder peasant children, rape peasant wives, and burn peasant crops, leaving the survivors to starve. A good king doesn’t start a war unless it’s the only way to secure peace.”Mordred dipped his head as a practiced courtier’s smile lit his face. “I will remember your wise council, Father.”Arthur turned away to speak to Lord Kay. As Gwen watched, Mordred stared at him, rage and malice flashing across the face so much like his father’s. Then he saw her watching him, and the fury vanished, leaving behind the smiling Mordred she'd thought she knew. The man who, for all his arrogance, was the embodiment of a dutiful son, willing to lead patrols and drill the men while his father handled affairs of state.At the time, Gwen had told herself she must have been mistaken. Mordred had to have been reacting to someone else, anything else, not the father who loved him. Clinging to that belief, she hadn’t told Arthur of the hate in his son's eyes.Last night she’d learned the king had seen enough to have his own doubts. Arthur had ignored them because he’d remembered paranoid accusations his own father had leveled against him when he’d been the prince and heir, though the thought of treason had never even crossed his mind. When he’d begun to entertain doubts about Mordred, Arthur had decided paranoia must be one of the hazards of kingship.He’d been wrong.Gwen squeezed her eyes closed. With a queen's ruthless discipline, she concentrated on making her mind as smooth as a frozen lake, feeling no fear. No doubt. No pain. Feeling nothing.“You know,” a deep voice purred in her ear, “you do have the most beautiful rump I’ve ever seen.” Arthur’s big hands cupped both her bare cheeks. “I made you queen for this arse.”But there are better things to feel than nothing. She turned her head to smile up into her husband's wicked grin. If he was working just a little too hard at it, she'd do them both the favor of refusing to notice. He's not dead yet. And neither am I. "At the time," she drawled, "you told me it was my eyes that won you. Or perhaps my mouth.""And so they were. You're a woman of many parts." He slid his arms around her and leaned down to take her lips in a kiss so passionate, it made a fine distraction. She opened her mouth with a sigh and leaned into his warm strength. His tongue slipped inside her lips, explored sensitive flesh, teased with gentle strokes. Heat gathered between them everywhere they touched, dancing along the surface of her skin, coiling in the tips of her breasts and between her thighs.Arthur's arms curled around her, tracing the naked rise of her hip before sliding down to cup her between her thighs. One finger stroked her sex with an exquisitely gentle touch that brought heat rushing to her core.As delicious as that felt, though, she knew they would be interrupted. “My maid and the servants are due…”“We’ll send them away.”“…and you did order Lancelot to attend you for new orders.”“He can damned well wait with the servants. None of them will begrudge us whatever moments we can steal.”She considered arguing, but Arthur’s free hand distracted her as it traced a leisurely path up her torso, his swordsman's callused palm a little rough. The erotic scrape of his skin along hers made Gwen squirm.The thought of the duel tried to surface again, but she thrust it down hard. Arthur was right.If this is to be the last time, let’s make a memory to keep me warm through all the lonely winters. Everyone else can wait.Especially Mordred.Arthur found her nipple, twisted it with the perfect pressure. He knew just how hard she liked his touch, when she liked it, and where.Throwing her head back on his shoulder, Gwen rolled her rump against his erection. “Mmm,” she purred. “You’re very, very…tempting.”“I could say the same to you.” The hand teasing her sex parted her innermost lips to stroke the delicate flesh. “Sweet as cream, and just as wet.”Guinevere turned her head and smiled up into his dark, hot gaze. “As I said, tempting.” She let her body relax, let all her fear and tension go. It was a trick she’d learned years ago, before other battles, other wars.Arthur gave her nipple a harder tug, drawing it out to the edge where pain and pleasure met.She groaned in delight. It had taken her years to convince him to be even slightly rough with her. His instinct was to treat her as if she had no more heft than a cobweb, easily shredded by careless hands.A second finger joined the one in her sex, and he opened and closed them as he milked one nipple. The combination of heated sensations maddened and teased. She writhed, pressing back against his hips, until his shaft slid deliciously along the valley between her cheeks.As Guinevere rolled her hips against him, he groaned. “Watch it, woman. You’ll make me spill.”“I’ll take that chance,” she panted.“I won’t.” He pulled his fingers from her juicy sex, caught her by the shoulders, and spun her to face him. She went into his arms with an eager moan. His mouth covered hers, hot and wet and fierce. She kissed him back, starving, loving the feel of his hands cupping her arse, the hard length of his erection.His tongue slipped into her mouth, and she chased it with her own, suckling and circling it as if it were his cock. He growled against her mouth and lifted her off her feet, cradling her arse in broad, strong hands. With an eager moan, Gwen wrapped her legs around his waist and hooked one heel over the opposite ankle. She started to lift herself with her horsewoman's strong thighs, meaning to impale her sex on Arthur's meaty shaft.“No, I don’t think so.” Turning to the bed, Arthur spilled her onto her back across the mattress. Before she knew what he intended, he dropped to his knees beside the bed, spread her thighs wide, and buried his face between them. The first long, skillful lick tugged deliciously at her labia without touching her clit. Not quite.“Arthurrrr,” Gwen moaned. “God, Arthur, let me suck you. I need to…”He lifted his head long enough to growl. “I think not. I’ve other plans.” He licked her again, then leaned in to find that exquisitely sensitive spot between her pussy and anus. His tongue pressed hard, swirling with surprising force, triggering a tingling jolt up her spine. Her knees went lax. He used his fingers to part her lips and admire her glistening folds. “You’re so pretty here. So delicate. My own sweet rose.”He leaned in, licking her with that seductive skill of his, exploring her folds with the tip of his tongue, then licking slowly up and down each interior lip.Gwen shivered and lifted her knees, catching her ankles in both hands to spread herself completely.He rumbled in approval. Sliding two fingers into her pussy, he pumped in, out, again and again until she twisted in delight, unable to keep still. “You’re so wet,” Arthur growled, his voice deep and dark. “You really want my cock, don’t you?”“Jesu, yes! Please, Arthur…”The king grinned, hungry as a fox contemplating a helpless hen. “No.”He thrust one finger up her arse. The sheer unexpected kick of wicked pleasure ripped a gasp from her mouth. The gasp turned into a groan when he began licking circles around her clit, not quite touching the hard little nub, but swirling close enough to make her body ring with pleasure. All the while, he pumped his finger in and out of her backside in a storm of sensation that intensified as he caressed her body.Pausing, he brushed her bellybutton, tickling her until Gwen squirmed. “Arthur, you wretch, stop that!”"Would you rather I do this instead?" Laughing softly, he subjected each nipple to a series of twisting tugs that sent pearlescent ribbons of sensation up her spine."If..." She had to stop to pant. "If you insist.""Oh, I do." Lifting his head, Arthur studied her slick folds with possessive eyes. A second finger joined the one plugging her backside. “One day I’m going to fuck you here. Hard.”She shivered. “Now. Do it now.” There may not be a later.Arthur laughed. “No. No, I think I’ll save it for a special occasion.”Before she could wail a protest, his mouth covered her clit and sucked so hard, his cheeks hollowed. Gwen's climax hit in a storm of fiery sparks that bowed her spine and ripped a scream from her lips. Never mind the servants who probably heard; for once, she didn’t care.Even as the pulses started to fade, he started finger-fucking her arse in long, ruthless digs. His black eyes watched her face with dark male hunger.“Fuck me, Arthur.” Gwen gasped, writhing, desperate. Lost. “However you want it, do it. Jesu, please!”With a low animal growl, Arthur surged to his feet and grabbed her behind her knees. A hard tug dragged her to the edge of the bed. He snatched up a pillow and shoved it under her backside, angling her pussy for his use. One big hand gripped the ruddy jut of his cock and presented it to her opening.His gaze met hers, hunger stark in his warrior's eyes as he reared over her, broad-shouldered and massive from hours swinging sword and shield.He entered slowly as he always did, making sure she was ready for him. As if I could be anything else. Gwen tightened her inner muscles, loving the sensation of that thick, meaty cock stuffing her by hot inches."Jesu, you feel delectable." Groaning, he brushed his thumb over her clit, first circling it with his thumb, then teasing the inner lips stretched tight around his shaft. He seemed to know every point on her body where he could trigger pleasure. Gwen moaned helplessly as he filled her deeper and deeper, until every inch of that thick member was inside her. Slowly, he rolled his hips, rocking, grinding. “So tight. So hot and slick.”It took Gwen almost a minute to manage speech. “You are so…” He circled his hips, and her mind went blank. “Good.” That last word emerged as a whimper.Arthur laughed, low and wolfish. “As are you, my lady.”His cock…Angels and devils, his cock! Each stroke seared her with distilled pleasure, goading her into rolling her hips against his.Arthur grabbed her behind the knees. Knowing what he wanted, she rested her heels on his broad shoulders, a pose that tightened her, heightening the sensation for both of them.Pleasure pealed through her in bell-like reverberations of delight. Reaching up her body with his free hand, he caught the peak of one breast. Arthur knew just how to pull and tug the way she liked it best. Sensation piled on sensation with every hard thrust, until she hurtled into pleasure, the deep, hard pulses bowing her spine. Gwen screamed in delight, barely aware as her king drove to the balls, head thrown back with an orgasmic roar.###Arthur collapsed on the bed beside Gwen, breathing hard, his heart pounding, his skin sweat-slick. For a moment he was content to simply listen to her pant. “Why are you breathing…so…hard…?” he joked. “I did all the work.”“I…offered,” she gasped. “You…turned me…down.”“Good point.” Scooping one arm under her, Arthur hauled her over on top of him and tucked her blonde head under his chin.“I’ve got…an…idea,” she panted, her heart thundering against his chest. “Let’s…just stay…right here. All day.”“Tempting…” He managed to catch his breath, at least enough for a feeble attempt at a joke. “But I’d hate to disappoint the boy.”“Fuck him.” The violence in her snarl made him blink. “You have given him quite enough as it is.”“Apparently he doesn’t think so," Arthur said, keeping his voice light despite the desolation he felt. "And he is my son.”“But he isn’t mine.” As he blinked, startled, she gestured wearily. “Forgive me.""Nothing to forgive." But he frowned, for her outburst was telling. She had never reproached him about siring Mordred; for one thing, he and Gwen had yet to meet when he'd slept with the boy's beautiful mother. He'd been a callow seventeen then, fresh from his first major battlefield victory. Morgana, a year older, black-haired and beautiful, had been summoned to use her Druid healer's skills to save his best friend's life. Lancelot had lived, and the young king had celebrated his victory between the pretty healer's thighs.What neither Morgana nor Arthur had known back then was that they were actually half siblings. Evidently, Arthur’s father, King Uther Pendragon, had fathered Morgana during an assault on her Druid mother. They’d only learned the truth last week, when the wizard Merlin had sensed the incestuous connection.Ten years after Mordred’s birth, Morgana had brought the child to court as she sought to become Camelot's healer.Gwen, of course, had known Mordred was Arthur's son the moment she saw him. His mouth, his nose, the shape of his jaw, all bore the Pendragon stamp. Most other women would have been outraged at being presented with a husband’s by-blow, no matter when he'd been sired. Instead, Gwen had greeted boy and mother with joy. From then on, she treated Mordred as her own.For all the good it had done. Arthur sighed, absently caressing his wife's bare shoulder. “I would I knew what happened. Where I went wrong…”She shook her head. “It wasn’t you.”“It wasn’t Morgana either. She…”“My queen?” Gwen’s maid called through the door. “It’s time. We have the water for your bath…”Before Arthur could object, Guinevere scrambled out of his arms and grabbed the dressing robe she’d left draped on a chair. He rose reluctantly and reached for his own robe. “Wife, there are times you are too bloody efficient.”###The king groaned in pleasure as he sank into the huge bronze tub that required a team of servants to fill. The water was pleasantly cool, giving the building June heat. “God’s balls, that feels good.”Gwen dropped her robe and stepped into the water between his knees, then settled down opposite him with a sigh of appreciation. “This tub has to be the most wonderful gift you’ve ever given me."“Including the emeralds?”She considered the question, head tilted, expression judicious. “Those were truly beautiful…” Her smile turned wicked. “But I do believe the view from here is even better.”“I can say the same of you, though honestly compels me to admit that necklace was as much a gift for me as for you. I do love the sight of those stones against your pretty breasts.”“And here I thought you were just generous.”“Oh, I am.” He grinned at her. “I’ve also been fascinated by those lovely tits since the day I met you.”Gwen gave herself a glance far more critical than the view deserved. “They are not as firm as they were when I was sixteen.”“Those were a girl’s breasts, my dear. Now they are a woman’s. Don’t underestimate the attractions of a lover who knows what she’s about.”Gwen laughed. “Flatterer.”“You know better than that. I’ve never had the patience to think of pretty lies. The truth is so much easier to remember.”He smiled and relished her return smile of appreciation. Her oval face looked soft and lovely, her large blue eyes smoky over full lips. Her maid had used combs to secure her hair atop her head in a messy pile of blonde curls. If there was any silver among that gold, he’d never found it. Her body was still as lithe as a girl’s, her breasts pert, her legs long, lovely and strong.His one regret in seventeen years of marriage was that he’d never been able to give her the child she’d wanted. And now, of course, it was too late.We’re left with Mordred, unless I can contrive to kill him.The thought made his gut coil into a sick knot of guilt and pain. When he was growing up, his own father’s love had seemed as unreachable as the moon; he’d been determined to serve his son better. I should have saved myself the effort.Mordred had grown up to be as big a cold-blooded bastard as Uther. More so.At least Uther hadn’t wanted Arthur dead…###Knotting the thick leather belt around his waist, Arthur strode into the sleeping chamber, his chain mail hauberk ringing softly. As he closed the door behind him, he could hear women's voices as the maid dressed Gwen's hair.Knuckles banged the balustrade door in a decisive knock. “My liege?”“Enter, Lance.” He sat down on the bed and began pulling on his boots.His dearest friend strode in, dressed in a mail shirt almost as finely made as Arthur’s, his helm tucked under one arm. At thirty-nine, he was a big, dark-haired man, hard-eyed and steady, as well as the best swordsman Arthur had ever known—and the king had known many fine warriors over the years.“My lord Lancelot.” Arthur gave him a formal nod and dropped into one of the chairs sitting beside the cold fireplace.Lance had never been slow at picking up on cues. He promptly dropped to one knee and bent his head, though as boyhood friends, they weren’t normally so formal. “My liege, how may I serve you?”“Be seated." Arthur waved him toward the high-backed wooden chair Gwen normally occupied. "I would give you your orders before I begin this day’s work.”“Of course.” Lancelot rose to his feet as easily as if he wore wool rather than chain mail. The knight looked impassive as he sat down, but tension tightened his eyes.Arthur could make a pretty good guess what he was thinking. “You have my permission to speak, Sir Knight.”Lance paused as if choosing his words carefully. “Am I still your champion, my liege?”Arthur lifted a brow. “Have I told you you’re not?”“I wondered if I had given some offense. It is a champion’s honor to fight for his liege. Unless you don’t believe I can win?”“Unfortunately, that’s not the point. Merlin made it clear I must prove myself worthy to drink from this enchanted cup of his. If I refuse the challenge, none of my court will be allowed to attempt it. Given the political situation, we can’t afford to spurn any advantage.”"That cup’s still not worth your life, sire.""Don't assume the rest of the court shares your opinion. Immortality is a damned powerful lure.""True, but your subjects love you. You are fair, quick to rein in abusive lords even when it costs you politically, and generous with those who need it, whether noble or peasant." He believed every word he said, too; Lance had never stooped to flattery.Arthur grunted. "My father was a stone-hearted bastard, but on one subject he was absolutely correct: if God grants you a crown, He expects you to serve as much as you're served. Which is why I cannot allow myself to be branded a coward before my entire court."Restless, he rose and began to pace the chamber, his mail ringing. “Another thing—what if Merlin decides to repeat his offer to Hengrid and his Saxons, or even Vran and that gang of bandits he calls an army? I have no desire to face un-killable warriors with the strength of ten.”“So you believe Merlin's cup can do what he claims?”“You don’t?” Arthur leaned a shoulder against the wall and eyed his friend.“Merlin has worked some impressive magic,” Lance admitted. “But so did that magician who came to court two summers ago, the one who claimed he could bring the dead to life. Him you sent packing with a boot in the arse.”The king frowned. “Merlin is not some simple trickster. He proved that last week.” The wizard and his partner, Nimue, had stepped through a mystical gate in the air into the Round Table chamber. Arthur had wondered if they’d been fooled somehow—until Merlin opened a second gate to the Chanel, then invited them all to step through. The king shook his head in remembered awe. “Leagues covered in a heartbeat. You were as wonderstruck as I.”Lance braced his elbows on his knees, his expression troubled. “But what if it was some sort of illusion…?”“We all stepped through that gate, Lance. We smelled the sea, heard the boom of the surf. That shell Gwen brought back is right here. Still smells of the ocean.” Flipping open the jewel chest that sat on the mantle, Arthur grabbed the oyster shell and held it up. “Is this some fairy trinket, spun of air and moonlight?”Lance being Lance, he didn’t back down. “No, Sire. But even if Merlin does work magic, that does not mean he isn’t playing some deep and lethal game. We cannot afford to lose you. I don’t want to bend my knee to Mordred.”“Do you think I’m that easy to defeat?” Arthur hurled the shell against the far wall so hard, it exploded in a rain of shards.“No, but I do think Mordred is three inches taller, at least a stone heavier, and nineteen years younger. Any one of those things you could overcome, but all?" He shrugged.“Lance, I've been making war since I was fifteen. Hell, you were there, fighting beside me. Mordred may be built like a bull, but I can scheme rings around him.”“You can strategize rings around him. Don't underestimate Mordred's talent for scheming. And if he does kill you, what happens to the rest of us?” His lips tightened. “Especially Queen Guinevere.”

First chapter of ENFORCER

My new book, "ENFORCER," will be published in UNBOUND on Tuesday, March 5, 2013.

Here's the first chapter of it.  In Enforcer, Chief Enforcer Alerio Dyami and Enforcer Dona Astryr try to defeat the murderous Xerans in the climax of the TIME HUNTERS trilogy. At the same time, Alerio and Dona try to find their way to love despite all the forces working against them.



The dark, narrow stairway stank of murder. The reek seemed to coat her tongue with rot and terror, turning each breath into a bloody assault. Dona Astryr ignored the nauseating taste. She was too busy listening for the killers who’d butchered everyone in the house.
In the crowded town square beyond the house’s neat white shutters, a crier read the American Declaration of Independence in a rolling baritone. The Philadelphia crowd hooted and stomped for the more inflammatory lines, bellowing support for the Continental Congress. If there were any Tories among them, they had the good sense to keep their snarls to themselves.
A fist-sized evidence ’bot zipped past Dona, riding the blue glow of an anti-grav cushion as it searched for murder victims. She snatched the ’bot out of the air in a blur of cyborg speed. If there was a killer on the second floor, she didn’t want the device giving her away. The ’bot lit up, about to beep a protest, but Dona thumbed a button to mute it. ’Bot in one hand, shard pistol in the other, she cocked her head and scanned with every sensor implant she had.
Just below the roar of the crowd, a female voice whimpered pitifully in despair and pain.
Somebody’s still alive. Dona thumbed off the shard pistol’s safety. And they’re damned well going to stay that way.  Had to be Lolai Hardin. According to her dossier, the temporal guide owned this house, using it as a hostel for the time-traveling tourists who hired her to show them life at the time the Declaration was signed. The United States was considered the direct ancestor of the Galactic Union, and its historical milestones were major tourist attractions.
Hardin’s latest tour group had gotten a hell of a lot more than they bargained for. A vicious attack by forces unknown had left thirteen people dead or injured. Hardin’s two twenty-third-century employees were among them. Only Lolai herself was unaccounted for – a bit surprising, since she’d been the one to send the courier bot that had alerted the Enforcers that her tour group was under attack. She’d suffered at least one minor wound before she sent the bot; a bloody thumbprint had marred its smooth, white surface. Hardin's fingerprint.
Damn, I wish we could have gotten here before the bastards attacked. Unfortunately, nobody had ever managed to prevent this kind of massacre – and plenty of people had tried. You just couldn’t change history no matter what you did.
Of course, Lolai could have been working with the attackers. Could have been bought off or intimidated into cooperating. She could have been the killer. That whimper suggested otherwise.
But maybe Dona could save her. Victim’s condition? Dona started up the stairs in a padding rush, soundless as a ghost.
Extremely serious, replied the computer implanted in her brain. Sensors detect multiple stab wounds and extensive blood loss. She must have medical attention in the next 3.2 minutes, or she will die.
Which wouldn’t necessarily end the poor woman’s life. If Dona could get Lolai into regen at the Outpost infirmary within seven minutes of the time her heart stopped beating, she could be brought back. After that, brain death would be too extensive for regeneration, and she really would be dead.
Victim’s location? Reaching the top step, Dona paused for another scan.
First bedroom on the left.
Any sign of the attackers?
No.
That meant nothing. The killer or killers could be sensor-shielded, invisible to both Dona’s eyes and implants.
The evidence ’bot jerked in her hand, trying to escape. She stuffed it into one of the pouches on her armored belt and padded silently toward the bedroom door.  
Damn, I wish I had backup.
Unfortunately, every other Enforcer on the ten-agent team was either busy searching the house’s first floor or dealing with the two critically injured victims.
So I go in hard and pray I won’t find some bastard waiting to play “Let’s Kill the Time Cop.” Dona braced a meter from the bedroom’s locked entrance, lifted her shard pistol, and slammed an armored boot against the thick oak door. Propelled by cyborg muscle, the door crashed open and banged against the wall. “Temporal Enforcer!” She shot through the opening, crouched low, weapon ready.
Oh, fuck.
An arc of bright scarlet splatter marked the wall on her right. A small round rug squelched under her boots, bleeding streams of red across the polished wooden floor.
To her left, a naked woman lay spread-eagle on a canopied bed, wrists and ankles bound to its tall cherry posts. Dozens of wounds marked her breasts, belly, and thighs, drooling blood like witless red mouths. Her attacker had been particularly vicious with her face, cutting off her nose, slashing her cheeks and lips. It would take a DNA scan to identify her with any certainty, but Dona was willing to bet it was Hardin. Weight and height were right, anyway.
Send a message to Doctor Chogan, Dona told her implant as she padded toward the bed. Her feet left bloody footprints across the polished pine. We’ve got another survivor confirmed, condition critical.
One of Lolai’s eyes opened, rolling with terror until it fixed on Dona. The other appeared glued shut by dried blood. A tear spilled as her crusted lips moved soundlessly.
“I’m Temporal Enforcement agent Dona Astryr,” Dona told her, giving the room another quick, wary scan. Bed, armoire, washstand with china bowl and pitcher wreathed in painted roses. No attacker – or at least, none visible. “I’m going to get you into regen.” Bad as her injuries were, a few hours of regeneration would heal everything but Lolai’s memories.
The woman’s lips moved again, but the only sound she made was a low wheeze.
Where the fuck is Dr. Chogan? Dona wondered as her eyes flicked over the room again. Maybe I should just pick her up and Jump back to the Outpost. Comp, would she survive a temporal warp in her current condition?
Negative, the neurocomp replied. Given her wounds, an unprotected Jump would probably cause systemic organ failure and brain death. It would be better to wait for Dr. Chogan to bring a regeneration tube.
Frowning, Dona watched the woman’s bloody lips move. Her single open eye looked desperate. Leaning closer, Dona told her comp to amplify audio. “What did you say?”
The words emerged in a painful, wheezing hiss of superhuman effort. “He’s . . . still . . . here!”
Dona spun, bringing her shard pistol up as a figure in red and black temporal armor melted into view like a ghost. I knew it. Botfucker washiding behind a sensor shield. She fired before he finished his big reveal.
A spray of needle-sharp tritiumShe knew that red and black armor. A Xeran. Figures. Jolting aside,  Dona barely avoided the spray of flechettes he fired back at her. The bastards did a major upgrade of their tech a month ago. Their armor’s probably better than ours. 
Ducking, she listened to a second spray of flechettes hiss overhead.
It was a diversion. The Xeran charged in a blur of red and black and muscle. The impact of his powerful body knocked her breathless as they reeled backward, hit the bed, and tumbled across the victim’s bound and helpless body. Lolai wheezed in pain. Crashing to the floor, the two cyborgs rolled, each fighting to aim a shard pistol somewhere vital.
“Bastard!” Dona snarled into the Xeran’s black faceplate as she managed to jam the muzzle of her weapon against the underside of his jaw. The armor’s scales were thinnest there to avoid interfering with turning the head. He grabbed her gun hand with crushing strength and wrenched it away.
FuckitRequesting backup . . . Chief Dyami says the agents downstairs are also under attack. He will have to fight his way free before he can assist.
The comp was right. Shard fire hissed and whined downstairs, along with the thump of colliding armored bodies. A familiar Vardonese war cry rang out over the shouts, followed by a deafening crash. The Xerans responded with a chorus of curses. They sounded pained.
Chief Dyami really didn’t like people who murdered unarmed tourists.
That’s why you don’t piss off time cops. Dona peeled her lips off her teeth in something that definitely wasn’t a smile. Especially me. Despite the Xeran’s attempts to force the weapon away, she braced the shard pistol’s muzzle against his visor.
But before she could pull the trigger, her foe’s polarized plastium faceplate went transparent, revealing a twisted smirk she knew all too well. “Hello, baby. Miss me?”
Ivar Terje.
Dona stared at him for one suspended instant of disbelief that promptly dissolved into howling rage. “You ’bot-buggering traitor!” She slammed her left fist into his throat, aiming for the larynx, meaning to crush it right through his armor. A killing blow, especially propelled by genetically engineered strength amplified even more by the nanotech implants woven among muscle fibers to reinforce and strengthen them.
Ivar gagged, losing his crushing grip on her weapon hand. He didn’t die though.  Dammit.
Dona wrenched free to slam the pistol into his faceplate so hard, the tough plastium cracked into a spider web of jagged shards. Good. She couldn’t shoot him through it. Once it was gone…“You almost killed me, you son of a bitch. You ruined my life, my reputation, my career. They thought I was a traitor because of you!” Another furious swing sent more cracks radiating across the reinforced plastium, but the visor still protected her enemy’s hated face.
The third blow had every last superhuman erg of Dona’s cyborg strength behind it. Her ex-lover’s faceplate finally shattered in a spray of jagged, glittering fragments. “I can’t believe I was ever stupid enough to love you!” She aimed the pistol between his eyes, her finger tightening on the trigger…
Ivar slapped the muzzle away from his face. The blow looked casual, but it sent her heavy pistol sailing across the room as her arm went numb from hand to shoulder. Now, therewas a data point she could have done without. Oh, seven hells, he’s been playing with me. He’s easily three, four times as strong as I am. Maybe more.
That must have been some tech upgrade.
“You’re worse than a traitor. You’re a fucking fool.” Thrusting one booted foot against her belly, Ivar kicked her airborne. She sailed over the bed and crashed down into the midst of the washstand, pottery exploding, wood splintering into tinder from the impact of her armored body. Her helmeted head hit hard enough to dent the wooden floor. She tasted blood.
The battleborg rolled to his feet with a grace astonishing in a man so massive. “Every lie I told you, you believed. Love you? Why in all the hells would I love you?” The contemptuous jerk of his head made light glint off something inside the dark confines of his shattered helmet.
She squinted. A pair of objects glinted bright and sharp among the disordered, sweat-darkened tufts of his red hair. Something that looked almost like……A priest’s horns.
Xeran religious orders marked rank by the size, number and length of their surgical horn implants. He’s a Xeran priest now?They accepted him into their priesthood? A traitor? Dona rose from the wreckage of the washstand, though her back howled in bruised protest. Sinking into a crouch, she drew a knife from her boot. The blade chimed, a pure, high note that somehow sounded menacing. Well, not for long, you treasonous son of a bot.
Temporal Enforcement’s techs had improved the quantum weapons they’d invented six months before. The originals had been battle axes even Dona could barely swing, but the new blades were far lighter. And just as capable of cutting through heavy combat armor.
Another deep male roar sounded downstairs. For a split second, Dona felt comforted. Somewhere the Chief’s kicking ass. Just like I’m about to. Tech or no tech.  
Her quantum dagger hummed a higher note as she circled Ivar, boots crunching through broken crockery. “You’ve had this coming for a long, long time, you son of a bitch.”
“No, you’re the one who’s about to get a taste of what you’ve had coming.” He bared his teeth. They flashed at her from the darkness of his broken helmet. “So, are you still fucking Dyami?” Misinterpreting her shocked expression for surprise, he curled a lip. “Did you really think I didn’t know you were betraying me with that sanctimonious Warlord prick?”
“I never…” she began, before she realized she didn’t owe him explanations anymore.
“Don’t waste the oxygen.” Ivar lunged, crossing the distance between them in a blur of battleborg speed. “I always knew you rutted with him, you little bitch-whore.” His fist flew at her face.
Dona twisted, avoiding the blow by millimeters as she drove the quantum blade at his armored belly. He knocked her wrist aside, and she went with the blow, spinning aside before his backhanded blow could hit her head. “I never betrayed you, Ivar,” she gritted, knowing she was wasting her breath. “You were the one who spat on everything you ever claimed to believe in. Me. Chief Dyami. Your Enforcer’s oath.”
“My oath? Only an idiot would buy that beefershit.” He curled a lip and paced to his right, circling. Looking for an opening. “Unlike you, I’m not that stupid.”
He’s so busy sneering, he forgot to keep his guard up. Dona’s eyes narrowed, focusing on the left hand he’d dropped out of a proper defensive position. The only chance she had was to hit him hard and hit him fast.
Even before the Xerans upgraded his nanotech, Ivar was a combat class battleborg, easily a foot taller and fifty kilos heavier than Dona, every gram genetically engineered and nanofiber-reinforced.
But she was faster. Dona drove the quantum dagger at her foe’s massive chest in a blur of merciless strength.
He hit her with such staggering speed, she didn’t even see the blow coming. The stiletto cartwheeled from her hand as Ivar slammed a punch into the side of her head, knocking her off her feet and sending her skidding into a corner.
If not for her helmet, the blow would have shattered her skull.
The battleborg was on her before she could scramble up and away. Dona threw up a forearm block, but his fist still hit her right in the center of her visor. It cracked as her head bounced against the floor. Flat on her back, she counterpunched anyway, a diversion for the kick she planted right between his legs. He only snarled and started pounding her as she tried to twist aside and rise. Punch  after punch thudded into her head and torso, smashing her back against the floor.
Starbursts of pain thundered through Dona’s skull, but she ignored them as she fought to scramble to her feet. Managed it somehow, reeling upright, slamming punches and kicks into Ivar’s big body. He didn’t react to the blows at all. Seven hells, it’s as though he doesn’t even feel them.
And it was possible he didn’t, if his implant had blocked the pain. Yeah, I’m fucked.
A blur of red hit her face so hard, her skull seemed to detonate. The world seemed to blink.
Lifting her head, she realized she was flat on her back in the middle of the room. And she had no idea how she’d gotten there.
Ivar stepped into view and loomed over her, a savage grin on his face.
Oh, fuck. Frantic, desperate, Dona drove both feet into his gut in an effort to kick him the hell away from her. He didn’t even try to block the double kick. Barely even rocked on his heels.
“You’re dead, bitch.” His eyes glittered with a rage that was not entirely sane.
He’s going to kill me. He’d already made far too much progress toward that goal. The room revolved around her, and her head throbbed with a relentless kettledrum pounding.
Warning! her neurocomp blared. You have sustained a severe concussion. You cannot continue to take blows to the head without suffering traumatic brain injury.
And what the hell do you suggest I do about it? Terror spiced her rage like sawpeppers, tongue-searing and bitter. A punch she never even saw exploded against her faceplate, snapping her head back as the plastium shattered. Shards peppered her face, but she barely felt the sting as she staggered. Even with the helmet’s protection, Ivar was bouncing her brain around inside her skull like a grav-ball.
The comp’s right. He’s beating me to death.
Ivar rose to his feet, hauling Dona upright with a hand around her throat. He rammed her into the wall with such force, white flakes rained around her shoulders as the plaster cracked like dried mud. Stunned, disoriented, she hung in his grip as he reached up and did something to the underside of her jaw. Her helmet lost its grip on her skull. He pulled it off her head and tossed it aside to hit the floor in a series of rolling thumps.
Oh, fuck. Blearily, she peered at him, hanging limp in his hold, barely able to focus on his face as the world swung around her.
Grinning like a skyshark, Ivar drew back one huge fist for the blow that would likely shatter her skull.
Red alert! her comp squealed. Take defensive action immediately or… Gods curse him, I am not going to let this bastard butcher me. I will fight him to my last breath.
Drawing on the last dregs of her strength, she swung a clumsy fist toward that hated smirk. He merely swatted the blow aside.
“Is that the best you can do, cunt?” Ivar laughed, eyes glittering hot with knife-edged pleasure. “Then I guess you’ll die.” He cocked his fist back for one final blow…
And vanished.
Deprived of his support, Dona fell, tried to catch herself. Hit the ground anyway in a heap of knees and elbows. Dazed, barely conscious, she lifted her aching head.
A couple of meters sway, Alerio Dyami hammered punches into Ivar, relentless as a metronome. The traitor reeled as he fought to protect himself, arms jerking in a futile effort to ward off crunching blows. He’d lost his helmet, and his face was almost as bloody and bruised as Dona’s. Each blow tore a grunt of pain from his lips. Battleborg tech notwithstanding, Ivar was no Vardonese Warlord.
Alerio was a Warlord, however, and he was pissed.
Safe, Dona thought in dazed relief. I’m safe. The Chief won’t let him kill me.Darkness rolled over her in a black flood. She didn’t feel her head hit the floor.
Chief Alerio Dyami stalked Ivar Terje around the scene of the fucker’s latest crime, the instinct to murder growling in his heart.
The bastard neededkilling. Deserved it. Alerio fully intended to give him those just deserts.
A nude woman lay bound to the bed, blood smearing her body from multiple stab wounds. Alerio’s sensors told him the slick gleam on her spread legs was Ivar’s sperm.
But even as that crime filled him with a cold, righteous fury, what really drove Alerio insane was the sight of Dona Astryr lying in a bloody heap. If he hadn’t been forced to fight his way through all those Xeran priests downstairs, he could have spared her the savage beating Ivar had so obviously dished out.
The minute his neurocomp received Dona’s call for help, Alerio ordered the implant to send him into riaat. The stew of biochemicals the computer pumped into his bloodstream had instantly thrown him into the berserker state that made Warlords so feared.
Ivar certainly should fear him, because riaat increased Alerio’s already considerable strength by a factor of ten, while making him almost impervious to pain. All of which made it easy to beat the blood out of a traitor who richly deserved it.
One of Ivar’s eyes was already swollen shut, but the other glittered feverishly at him. “You’re such a fucking hero, aren’t you?” The battleborg’s bloody lip curled in a sneer. “But you didn’t save the bitch on the bed, did you? Or the ones downstairs. Even the kid. We butchered them all, and there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it. You can’t change history. No matter what you do, no matter when you Jump, they’ll die because we killed them. You failed, Chief.” He laughed. “Big hero. Big, noble Warlord. Utter fucking failure.”
Alerio ground his teeth against the need to kill. Get control, dammit. He wants me blind stupid with rage. He wants me to make mistakes. “You’re right.” He forced himself to retreat one step. Then another. Getting room to fight like the calculating warrior he was instead of a berserk killer. “I didn’t save the fourteen people you raped and murdered.”
But despite his battle for control, his murderous fury must have shown, Ivar’s gaze flickered, and for an instant, Alerio saw fear flash through his enemy’s eyes.
And that was the opening he needed. Oh,’botfucker, you’d better be scared. Alerio whipped into a spinning kick.
Ivar ducked, throwing up a forearm in an attempted block. Neither effort kept the Chief’s boot from slamming into his jaw. The battleborg crashed into the wall behind him, almost went down. Alerio, still balancing effortlessly on one leg, reversed the kick and snapped the toe of his armored boot into Ivar’s jaw.
The battleborg crashed backward, shattering the wall’s plaster but somehow managing to keep his feet.
Alerio took a gliding step forward and punched him squarely in the face with a left-right combination that rocked Ivar’s head on his shoulders. “You’re finished,” the chief growled. “You’ll spend the rest of your life in a penal colony, thinking of all the women you’ll never fuck.”
Ivar steadied himself, one corner of his bleeding mouth lifting in a smirk. “It’s not going to be that easy, Chief.” A punch blurred out of nowhere, blooding Alerio’s mouth and making his skull ring.
Huh, Alerio eyed his opponent’s vicious grin. Guess he’s got a little more left than I thought. He’s definitely stronger and faster than he was the last time we fought.
“The Xerans gave me an upgrade,” Ivar told him smugly.
Alerio curled a lip. “It’s not going to save you, asshole.”
“Yeah, well, yours definitely won’t save you, Chief. You, or any of those fucking tourists you’re so determined to protect. We’ve got T-suits, motherfucker.” He grinned, smug confidence in the bloody curve of his split lip. “The whole temporal plane is our little playground. We can screw and kill every tourist who falls into our hands. And we will.” His glinting eyes narrowed and went cool. Almost sane. “Unless you turn yourself in to the Victor’s . . . justice. You. Your little whore Dona. Those abominations, Nick Wyatt, his Warfem bitch Riane. Jessica and Galar Arvid. All of them.” Now that eye went damned icy. “And most of all, we want the T’Lir. So be a hero, Chief. Or watch me kill everything that moves.” Energy began to swirl around him, preparing to coil into a temporal warp that would shoot him across time and space.
Fuck, he’s getting ready to Jump. Alerio lunged toward his foe. Too late. A deafening sonic boom and a flash of light blinded him as Ivar’s T-Suit armor warped space and time, catapulting the traitor far from the Warlord’s reaching hands.
When Alerio could see again, Ivar Terje was gone.
Jumped. Goddess knows where. He glared at the empty space where Ivar had been. Yeah, run now, cocksucker. Sooner or later, I’ll hunt you down.
In the meantime, Alerio had more important things to worry about. Starting with Dona Astryr. One long pace took him to his agent’s sprawled, unconscious body.
But before he could begin a sensor scan to determine the extent of her injuries, a sonic boom thundered from the floor below. Another sounded, and then another and another, until Alerio felt the whole house sway in the grip of temporal forces like a tree in a storm. The priests were following Ivar’s lead and Jumping for home.
And there wasn’t a damn thing Alerio or his agents could do about it.
“Chief,”commed Galar Arvid, his second-in-command, “the Xerans have all Jumped, presumably for Xer. Do you want us to pursue or…?”
“What, chase them all the way back to the Crystal Fortress, where ten thousand just like them wait to kick your ass? Fuck no. Start getting the wounded to the Outpost and the dead into Stasis. We’ll figure out what to do about the hornheads later.”
“Understood, Chief.”
Wearily, Alerio sank to his knees by Dona’s side. She looked like he felt. The Enforcer’s pretty face was battered, both eyes blackened, her lips cut and swollen. Bruises distorted the clean lines of her high cheekbones and delicate jaw. He was almost afraid to scan for internal injuries. He was pretty sure he didn’t want to know. He scanned anyway. And swore.
Com Dr. Chogan,Alerio told his neurocomp.
The doctor answered a heartbeat later. Evidently someone had already fetched her from the Outpost. Good. “What is it, Chief? I’ve got my hands full with Riane. She took a gut wound.”
“Astryr got the worst of it in a fight with Terje,” Alerio said shortly. “She has a pretty serious concussion. My sensors say her brain is swelling.”
“Let me get Riane into regen, and I’ll head up there.”
Dona moaned, a breathy sound of pain that made the muscles in Alerio’s chest clench. It was more than the ache he’d normally feel over an injured agent. Her remarkable violet eyes opened to slits in her swollen lids. Registered him. Tried to widen. “Terje,” she gasped, apparently trying to warn him. “The traitor’s . . .”
“Already Jumped for home,” Alerio told her roughly. “Along with the rest of the Victor’s priests.”
“What about . . . woman . . . temporal guide. . . owns …house. She’s . . .” Dona lifted a wavering hand, gesturing weakly toward the bed and its bloody occupant.  “Alive when I . . . came in. Is she . . . ?”
He frowned at the still form. “That’s Lolai Hardin?” only to ask himself an instant later, Well, who the hell else could it be? According to the Temporal Jump plan Hardin had logged with the Outpost, she was the only one unaccounted for.  It had not even occurred to him that the woman on the bed could still be alive, considering the extent of her injuries. Scan her, he told his comp.
No cellular activity,the implant reported. Based on decay, she has been dead too long for successful revival. At least ten minutes.
Alerio cursed himself and Ivar with equal venom. “She’s gone,” he told Dona’s swollen violet eyes.
“Dammit.” A tear slipped down a bruised cheek. “I was hoping I could save her.” Her delicate jaw worked as if she ground her teeth. “Fucking… Ivar . . . wouldn’t let me Jump her… out.” She stopped to pant. “They all died… didn’t they? Ivar and the priests… killed everybody.”
He had no idea, so he commed Galar to ask about the two survivors. When the answer came, Alerio ground his teeth. Devils drag Ivar right to the seven hells. “Chogan did her best, but…no.  Couldn’t even save Hardin’s coachman, much less the boy. Both died in regen.” Which said everything that needed to be said about the savagery of the attack on them, since regen could heal damn near anything. Alerio leaned over to give her his most determined stare. “The Xerans are going to pay for what they did to these people.” Lifting one delicate, chilly hand, he wrapped his big fingers around it. “We’ll make sure of that.”
“I know. You always get justice for the . . . victims.” Her bruised eyes slipped closed.
“Dona!” Stiffening in alarm, Alerio ordered another scan.
She has a concussion,his neurocomp reported. There is swelling in a bruised area of her cerebral cortex that must be addressed before it becomes serious. Fortunately, her neural computer is compensating, and her other injuries are not life-threatening. She will heal quickly once in regeneration.
The tech didn’t stop there. Nanotech filaments reinforced her bones and strengthened her muscles, making her far stronger than any ordinary human, male or female. Yet even given  all that, Dona was no match for a battleborg like Ivar Terje. His implants were even more extensive, and his muscles were reinforced with nanofibers three times as thick as hers, giving him far greater strength. She’d known that, yet she’d still gone after Terje, determined to save a dying woman even if it meant her own life.
“Chogan!” he bellowed.
“Gods, Alerio, I’m herealready.” Dr. Sakari Chogan stalked into the room, trailed by a seven-foot regeneration tube that wafted like a leaf on a streaming blue anti-grav field. The doctor looked pale and grim despite her ethereal good looks, and she’d gathered her iridescent green hair into an untidy topknot that looked as if she’d been dragging her hands through it. As usual during temporal missions, she wore a bright red T-suit marked with a prominent white M for “Medical.” To most opposing forces, no matter how brutal, that would have made her a non-combatant.
The Xerans had proven time and again that they didn’t give a damn whether medical personnel were off-limits or not. If they’d gotten their hands on the doctor, they’d have shown her no more mercy than they had Lolai Hardin. Yet that hadn’t stopped Chogan from doing her best to save the injured and obtain justice for the dead.
“Chief?” she prompted him gently. “Mind giving me a hand?”
“Oh. Sorry.” Alerio rose hastily to help Chogan guide the unwieldy regeneration tube over Dona’s unconscious body. When they had it positioned to her satisfaction, the doctor flicked her fingers over a series of controls. The device obediently lowered to engulf the injured Enforcer. Seconds later, a pink healing mist flooded the tube, obscuring Dona’s unconscious face.
Chogan leaned over the huge device, her hands sweeping through its control field in graceful arcs that triggered a series of medical scans. Within seconds, the results flashed into view, scrolling over the three-dimensional schematic of Dona’s body. Heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen levels, cerebral activity, others Dyami didn’t recognize. Some readings appeared in shades of healthy green, but others  pulsed a warning crimson.
“Looks like the ’botfucker banged her brain around pretty hard,” Chogan told Alerio, a frown forming between her swooping green brows as she studied the readouts. “I never did like that bastard. There was just something so bloody mean about him. He hurt people and enjoyed it. Including Dona, lover or not.”
“Yeah, he’s a bastard.” Brooding, Alerio gazed through the tube’s transparent lid, studying Dona’s unconscious face. Her battered features were already healing, bruises fading, cuts vanishing under a tide of pink, healthy skin.
Alerio felt knotted muscles begin to relax between his shoulders. “Terje needs a fatal ass-kicking,”
  he told the doctor absently as he braced his palms on the regenerator’s lid and stared into Dona’s sleeping face. Her closed eyelashes looked incredibly thick and dark as they fanned over her cheeks. “Too bad he got away before I could give it to him.”
Chogan sighed. “At least now we know what lies under that slick smile. That’s preferable to being blindsided the way we were when he tried to kill Jessica.” None of them had known Terje was a hornhead double agent until the Enforcer had damn near strangled Jessica Kelly to death. The pretty redhead’s only crime had been her choice of roommate, a woman named Charlotte Holt, who turned out to be Xeran herself. Charlotte had managed to piss off the Xerans’ so-called “god,” the Victor, by trying to protect an alien race he wanted dead. The Victor had apparently decided to have her killed, along with anyone she might have talked to. Including Jessica.
So what the hell did Holt know that the Victor wanted squashed?
Then there were Holt’s alien friends, the Sela. Big-eyed, six-legged, cuddly little creatures -- with one fuck of a lot of power. The Victor considered them abominations, and he intended to exterminate every damned one of them. Now the Xeran “god” had apparently decided to expand his hit list to include every temporal tourist he could get his hands on, along with Alerio and his Enforcers.
Question is, how the hell do I stop him?
Minutes later, Dr. Chogan, Lolai Hardin’s body tube, and the regenerator containing Dona made the Jump back to the Outpost Infirmary in the usual showy explosion of light and sound.  With them safely away, Alerio rolled his knotted shoulders and headed back downstairs to check on the rest of his team.
He found the nine of them hard at work bustling around the bloody murder scene. To his relief, no one else had been as badly injured as Riane Wyatt, who was already in the infirmary.
We got lucky.
When he was satisfied they’d gathered all the evidence they’d need if this mess ever went to trial, Alerio gave the order to begin the Jump for home. His eight remaining agents began warping out from the wrecked parlor in teams of two, accompanied by evidence ’bots and body tubes loaded with the tourists they’d failed to save.
As was his habit, Alerio was the last to leave in order to cover his team’s retreat. Which, as usual, left him half-blind and completely deafened from the flash and boom of temporal warps. Luckily the T-suits’ dampening field kept anyone more than ten meters away from sensing the effects. No Philadelphia natives would wonder why there was a thunderstorm raging inside the house next door.
By the time it was his turn to Jump, the chief’s ears were ringing so loudly, it was all he could hear. Until the androgynous mental voice of his neurocomp began reciting the familiar string of coordinates that was the Outpost’s space-time address. Outpost coordinates confirmed, he told the implant. Engage temporal warp.
Engaging temporal warp in three . . . two . . . one . . .
It felt like being hit by lightning, a teeth-rattling electrical assault that shook his body until his consciousness blinked out . . .
. . . And . . . he was back again.
Temporal warp to the Outpost successful, the neurocomp announced.
Alerio made no answer, blind, deaf, stomach knotting in violent rebellion, muscles jerking from the electrical assault that was a side effect of the Jump. Bracing his knees, he stayed upright by will alone and waited for his implant to compensate. My team?
All members of the investigation team present and accounted for.
The chiefHe’d lost a Jumper once. Riane Arvid’s sabotaged T-suit had bounced her back and forth across Terran temporal space before finally dumping her in the twentieth century. Her suit was dead as a stone by then, unable to generate even the weakest warp field.
To make a bad situation truly gods-awful, a team of Xeran assassins appeared minutes later. They’d have butchered her with their usual viciousness if not for a timely rescue by Nick Wyatt, half-breed Xeran and superhuman guardian of an alien race called the Sela.
The two had bonded as they struggled to elude the Victor’s assassins. By the time Nick helped Riane return to the Outpost, the couple was desperately in love.
Still, almost losing an Enforcer was an experience Alerio had no desire to repeat. Especially considering Ivar’s threats. We can screw and kill every tourist who falls into our hands. And we will. Unless you turn yourself in to the Victor’s . . . justice.Like hell, ’botfucker.
Blinking the lingering Jump spots from his eyes, Alerio glanced around the cavernous room called Mission Staging. Heavily shielded to control the raging forces of temporal warp, it was lined floor to ceiling with evidence and equipment lockers, as well as regeneration tubes for the injured. Most temporal missions began and ended here, especially those featuring a large Jump team.
Though the chief longed to head for the Infirmary to check on Dona, he controlled the impulse. If his Enforcers managed to bring the Xerans to justice, he was damned if the killers would go free because somebody broke the chain of evidence.
“All right, let’s get the physical evidence stowed,” Alerio said in a command bark that had every Enforcer jumping.
Apparently inured to his growls, Chogan’s medical techs strode out, accompanied by a pitiful parade of body tubes. He ignored them as he rapped out instructions. 
“The evidence ’bots are to be logged in and their contents transferred into evi-stasis. And make damned sure they’re all our ’bots. Last thing we need is to give the Xerans another shot at sabotaging our central computer.”
The last time a spy had attempted such sabotage, the virus he unleashed almost killed every senior agent on the Outpost—including Alerio himself. The horrendous delusions the virus created had almost fragged his consciousness and stopped his heart. Not an experience he wanted to repeat.
Especially with the Xerans playing for keeps.

Transformation

Hi, folks. This is a chapter from MASTER OF DARKNESS I cut because flashbacks this long can be problematic. So I thought I'd share the full thing here to show you how my hero, Justice, became a werewolf.

It also shows why Miranda doesn't trust Alpha werewolves, and why both Justice and Miranda don't care much for the werewolf aristocracy called the Chosen. Enjoy! Three years agoJustice parked his unmarked navy blue Impala in the circular driveway, stomped the big Chevy’s emergency brake, and scooped up the radio handset. It felt cool and heavy in his hand as he triggered the transmit button with a punch of his thumb. “I-28, Greendale. I’m 10-8 at 425 Magnolia Avenue.” He released the button to let Greendale County Dispatch reply on the frequency. “10-4, I-28,” the dispatcher said, her drawl as sweet and Southern as a pecan pie. “If you need backup, just holler. I can send somebody when the wreck on Oakland clears.” An oil tanker had slammed head-on into a mini-van carrying two women and four kids under the age of six. The impact had spun the van into the path of a jeep driven by a seventeen-year-old boy. It had overturned, ejecting the teen. Two more cars had daisy-chained into the jeep, unable to stop in time. And all of this had occurred right at the height of rush hour. Because really, when else would you get a total goat-fuck? Every available patrol unit was tied up rescuing the injured, warding off rubberneckers, and dealing with the media who were already circling the carnage like vultures. Meanwhile firefighters sprayed the flaming tanker with foam and prayed it wouldn’t explode. So when dispatch announced neighbors had reported screams coming from 425 Magnolia Avenue, Justice decided to swing by and take care of the call himself. Yeah, he’d been on his way home after spending the past sixteen hours working a homicide. Yeah, all he really wanted was a beer and a burger. But screams were screams, and the burger could wait. Justice thumbed the handset. “Hopefully I won’t need help, Greendale, but you never know.” “Yeah. Watch yourself, I-28. Be advised the neighbors say there’s a history of CDV.” Oh, perfect. Justice hated Criminal Domestic Violence cases with a pure and holy passion. Hell, the homicide he’d just worked had been the climax of five years of repeated domestic abuse. The vic had finally gotten sick of trips to the ER covered in bruises, so she’d taken their five-year-old daughter and fled to her mother’s. Her husband had hunted her down and slit her throat with a box cutter while she tried to shield their child. Happy psychic scars, kid. Daddy loves you. The killer had confessed to Justice while wearing an expression of self-righteous satisfaction. “Bitch had it coming.”Too bad Sheriff Jones frowned on taking assholes out behind the department and shooting them in the head. Fucker had it coming might be true, but made for really bad press. Christ, he wasn’t in the mood for another go-round with an abusive prick.Justice got out of the car, flicking his gaze warily over the three-story brick Colonial surrounded by neat holly hedges. He couldn’t help comparing it to the blood-splattered double-wide where Amy Miller had died the night before. Funny how the same nasty shit happens at both ends of the money spectrum. He headed up the flagstone walk, one hand riding the weapon on his hip. Hesitating a moment, Justice listened hard, scanning the house’s peaceful facade. No shouts, no masculine bellows, no feminine screams. Maybe this’ll turn out to be nothing. God, he hoped so. He climbed the brick steps and strode to the front door, a thick hunk of blond oak that probably cost what he made in six months. In the door’s center, a cut-glass oval depicted a stylized wolf head. Justice would later learn the aristocrats of the Chosen always marked their front doors with the image of a wolf. But he hadn’t known about the Direkind then.Just as he reached for the doorbell, a woman screamed. “Christian, no! I’m sorry, I can get the stain out, just give me the shirt and I’ll put baking…” “You clumsy little cow, that was my favorite shirt!” A hand rang on flesh, and the woman yelped. And there’s my probable cause. “Police!” He tried the knob. It didn’t turn.The man’s voice dropped into a vibrating growl. “And you’d better not even think about shifting.”“Dad, don’t!” This voice was younger, lighter, probably late teens. “You’re not going to hurt her again. Not like last time. I won’t let you.” “Police!” Justice roared through the door. He was seriously tempted to kick it in, but he figured all that pretty incised glass would shatter into knife-blade shards that would slice a certain cop into barbecue hash. So instead he thumped the door frame with the side of his fist. Bang, bang, BANG. “Open up! Now!”“Shit, it’s the cops!” the teenager cried. “Dad, calm the fuck down! It was an accident. You can get the fucking shirt dry-cleaned, for God’s sake. Do you want to go to jail?”Something growled, sounding like a cross between a Rottweiler and a grizzly bear. Holy shit, what was that? “Sheriff’s office! Open up!” Justice shouted, ignoring the mental voice that told him to call for backup now. There isn’t any fucking backup. They’re all prying bodies out of mangled cars on Oakland Boulevard. He’d be lucky to get Bell City’s single on-duty patrolman – and it would take the officer twenty minutes to make it here from the other end of the county, even going full out lights-and-sirens. And while Justice waited, another wife could bleed to death at her husband’s hands. Fuck that.The woman screamed, her voice high with agony.“Dad!”“Open up or I’m breaking it down!” Justice jerked off his suit jacket. He’d wrap it around his arm and use his elbow to break the glass, then reach in and unlock the damned door. “Oh, fuck! I’m coming!” The teen’s voice dropped to a hiss. “Dad, let her go!” A misty form hurried behind the glass, and the door jerked wide, revealing a gangling kid, maybe seventeen or eighteen. “Hello, officer.” The boy gave Justice a wide, nervous smile as he ran a smoothing hand over his short blond hair. His bony, good-natured face might have been handsome, if not for the fear in his eyes. Eyes an odd shade of blue so pale, it made Justice think of arctic wolves. “Where are your parents?” Justice demanded, shrugging back into his jacket -- and making sure the kid noticed both his badge and his gun. “Uhhhhh…” The boy licked his lips. A stud flashed on the tip of his tongue. Tiny black rings pierced his lower lip and right eyebrow, and two round steel gauges stretched quarter-inch holes in his earlobes. He wore a ripped Green Day T-shirt, tight jeans on skinny legs, and black Converse All Star sneakers that made his big feet look even bigger. Wolf tracks, tattooed in blue, ringed the stringy biceps of his right arm, and he wore a studded dog collar in black leather. “My mother’s fine.”“That’s not what I asked you. I asked you were she is. I heard a woman scream. She sounded hurt.” He took a step forward, crowding the boy without quite stepping over the threshold. Yet. “May I come in?”The kid shot a panicky glance over his shoulder. “Uh, yeah. Sure. She’s fine, though.” He gave Justice an unconvincing smile. “You probably heard the television. Mom loves Law and Order.”“Kid, I’ve been a cop for eight years. I know real screams when I hear them.” He shouldered past the teenager, who trailed him, radiating worry. Justice scanned his surroundings, checking for signs of potential attackers, blood, guns…whatever the hell just growled...The two-story foyer featured a curving oak staircase and a hardwood floor gleaming with so much polish, he could see his reflection in it. Watercolor landscapes hung on the white walls, depicting Victorian houses surrounded by mounds of azaleas and oaks dripping Spanish moss. Somebody's working really, really hard at looking normal. Justice shot a hard look at the kid. “You the kind of guy who’d let somebody hurt his mother?”The boy flinched. “No, I…”“Who the hell are you,” a male voice interrupted, “and what are you doing in my house?”Justice pivoted, his hand going to his gun. He didn’t draw it – quite. “Who are you?”“Christian Andrew Price.” The man tilted head so he could look down his nose at Justice -- quite a trick, considering he was three inches shorter. “I know you aren’t getting ready to draw a weapon on me in my own home.”We’ll see, asshole. “Where’s your wife, sir?”“Who are you again?”Justice tapped the gold badge on his belt. “Lieutenant William Justice, Greendale Sheriff’s Office.”Price smiled thinly. “Oh, yes. I donated to the sheriff’s campaign.”“So did I.” He took a single menacing step closer. “Where’s your wife, Mr. Price? She screamed.”Price curled a contemptuous lip. “Carol screams quite frequently.” He was a pale aristocrat of a man – blond, thin, and elegant in chinos and a sky-blue silk shirt open to reveal a wisp of chest hair. “She’s a bit high-strung.”“Funny how people get high-strung when other people hit them.” Justice smiled, letting the curve of his mouth imply how much he’d enjoy making Price “high strung.” “If I don’t see your wife by the count of three,” he added in a conversational tone, “I’m going to assume something’s happened to her. In which case I’m going to handcuff your ass, throw you in my patrol car, and go looking for her myself. One…”“My wife is none of your damned business!”“This badge says otherwise. Two. Thr…”“Carol, get out here, you clumsy cow!”The woman who stepped around the corner was delicately pretty – if you ignored the set of five vicious cuts that raked the side of her face. The top slice ran from her temple to the corner of one green eye, while three others slashed her cheek right to her nose and the corner of her mouth. The bottom cut laid the length of her jaw open all the way to her chin. Blood streamed from the wounds to mat her shoulder-length chestnut hair, soaking her pink knit shirt. Her neat white pants were splattered with crimson flecks. Shit, Justice thought in horror, that’s going to scar like a bitch. What the hell did he attack her with – a box cutter? She smiled at Justice through the gore. One side of her lip sagged oddly, as if the cuts had damaged nerves. “Hello, Lieutenant. I’m afraid you’ve caught us at a bad time.” There was a curious light in her eyes, an odd blend of triumph and revenge. Something that said I’m going to show him for what he is. “Mom!” The boy stared at her in shocked horror. “Why in the hell didn’t you shift first?”“Dammit, Carol!” Price spat, taking a threatening step forward. “I’m going to…”“That’s enough, sir!” Grabbing the man by one wrist, Justice swept behind him, jerking his arm back and around to pin it painfully high against one shoulder blade. Teeth bared, Justice used the leverage to slam Price face-first into the wall. The watercolors shook with the impact, their elegant silver frames rattling. The blond yelped. “That hurts! Let go, you…”“No.” Maintaining the arm bar with practiced skill, Justice used his free hand to pull his handcuffs from the leather case on his belt. “I’m charging you with Criminal Domestic Violence, High and Aggravated. Which means you’re going to jail, and your wife is going to the emergency room. If you’re lucky, a plastic surgeon will be able to save her face.”“Don’t be absurd -- she’s fine!” Price snapped, and rammed back against Justice’s grip with impossible strength, breaking the hold and sending him stumbling in surprise. Whipping around, Price glared at his wife with his lips peeled off his teeth. “All she has to do is shape-shift, and she’ll heal – at least until I slice her open again for bringing a human into Chosen business!”Oh, great, the bastard’s psychotic, Justice thought, and drew his gun again. Swinging the weapon up into a two-handed Weaver stance, he aimed it right between Price’s eyes. “You’re not doing a damn thing except going to jail. Turn around and brace your hands against the wall, feet apart.”The blond rocked back in offended astonishment. “I’ll do no such thing! You have no authority to…”“I’ve got a badge and a gun, asshole. That gives me all the authority I need.” Justice took three steps forward until the nine-mil almost touched Price’s thick blond eyebrows. “Lean both hands on that wall and brace your feet apart. I will not tell you again.” “This is really not necessary.” From the corner of one eye, Justice saw the woman wring her hands in distress. “This isn’t what I had in mind. I don’t want you to arrest him – just make him leave me alone!”“Lady, the only way to make an abuser leave you alone is to leave his ass and make sure he doesn’t know where you’re going,” Justice snapped. “Which is what I strongly advise you to do. Get your kid to pack your shit while you’re in the hospital and the creep is in jail. Then hop a flight to anywhere else, and don’t come back. Have your lawyer serve the divorce papers, and stay the fuck away from this lunatic.”She stared. “I can’t divorce Christian! The Chosen don’t do that.”Great, she was as crazy as Price. This is why I hate domestics. “Then I give it a month before I’ll be working your murder.” He glared into Price’s furious eyes. They actually seemed to glow with sparks of insanity. “It won’t exactly be a whodunit.” Carol lifted her chin. “Christian won’t hurt me.”Justice kept his gun aimed directly at Price’s skull. “Check the mirror, sweetheart. He already has.”“Carol, you stupid slut, look what you’ve gotten us into!” Price exploded. “You’ve exposed us, you fool! When this human makes his report and the media gets involved…”Green eyes narrowed. “He won’t be making a report. I’ll fix this, Christian. You’ll see.”And then, just like that, she became a monster.Light sparked around her as if she’d detonated hidden fireworks, and her body began to contort, twisting, growing, as her skin went dark in a rolling wave. Sheer reflex made Justice jerk his weapon toward her. In the instant it took to switch his aim from Price to the woman, she’d grown from barely five-six to well over seven feet tall. Her delicate female features contorted, swelling, shifting, into a wolf’s long tapered muzzle and pointed ears, and her manicured hands grew huge, tipped with gleaming curved claws that had to be three inches long. She balanced on powerful lupine legs, clawed toes curling against the hardwood floor. Her fur was the same rich chestnut as her hair, short and fine over most of her body, thickening into a long mane that surrounded her head and formed a ruff over her round breasts. He wondered numbly where her clothes had gone. “You…what did you…?” Justice heard himself stammer. He felt as if someone had hit him hard, right in the side of the head, disconnecting his dazed thoughts like a derailed toy train. “How did you do that?” “I’m sorry about this,” the monster told him gently in a deep, rumbling voice. “But you really shouldn’t have tried to arrest him. The Chosen don’t go to jail.” She lunged at him. He fired, but she kept coming with impossible speed, ducking around the gun in his extended arms, opening her jaws…Her teeth engulfed both his forearms, and she bit down. At the same time, one huge clawed hand wrenched the gun out of his hands as if she were taking a rattle away from a toddler. Justice screamed as knife-blade fangs sliced into his skin. Blue sparks flashed around her jaws. Hallucinating. He had to be hallucinating. What the fuck did they drug me with? Gas? I didn’t drink anything…Fire shot up his arms in blazing agony. Yelling, he jerked away just as her jaws released his wrists. She caught his elbow, steadying him with solicitous care. Straightening, she towered over him, her gaze oddly regretful. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I really am.”“Carol!” Price screamed. “What the fuck?”“Mom! You don’t bite cops!” The kid grabbed Justice with surprisingly strong hands and pulled him away from his mother, supporting all two hundred pounds of dazed detective as if he weighed nothing at all. Glaring fearlessly up into her furry wolf face, the boy snapped, “Have you lost your mind?”"Apparently." Price’s eyes narrowed. “You’re going to pay for this, bitch.”Justice watched numbly as sparks raced over the little prick and turned him into a monster even bigger than his wife. In seconds, he was covered in shaggy gold fur, his body muscular as a boxer’s. He flexed clawed hands and snarled like something out of a horror movie.“I’m sorry!” Carol yelped, recoiling in fear. “I had to!”“You’re not as sorry as you’re going to be, you stupid bitch!” Price lunged at his wife, who yipped and fled, bounding off into the house. Justice’s gun tumbled from her hand to hit the floor and skid across the slick wood. Neither werewolf stopped to grab it. Thank God it didn’t go off, Justice thought numbly.Price raced after his wife, bellowing threats in a voice as deep as God’s.“Well,” the kid sighed as he lowered Justice to the floor until he could lean back against the wall. “This is a completely fucked situation. Why in the hell did she bite you? That was crazy.”Justice’s hands burned furiously, but he gritted his teeth and fumbled for his belt. Somehow he forced his fingers to close around his cell phone and pull it from its plastic clip. He lifted it clumsily to his mouth and thumbed the SEND button. “Call dispatch,” he rasped. Obeying the verbal command, the phone started dialing 911.The kid’s long fingers closed over the phone and hit the END button. “You don’t want to do that, sir.” Something was wrong with the tendons in Justice’s hand; he couldn’t make his stiff fingers overcome the kid’s grip. The boy tugged the phone away from him with no effort at all and slid it into his back pocket. “Hospital,” Justice protested, fighting to find the words and get them out of his mouth. “Gotta go to the hospital.” No way in hell could he drive. “Losing…I’m losing too much blood.”“Look, dude, you’ll be okay.” The boy hesitated, frowning. “Probably. But the last thing you need is an ambulance crew. You’ll end up shifting in front of them, and then we’ll all be fucked.”Shivering in waves, Justice blinked at him. He felt so damned cold. Shock, something whispered from the back of his brain. I'm going into shock. “What the…hell are you talking about?”Glass shattered somewhere upstairs. Price bellowed a curse. More glass broke.“Fuck.” The boy sighed. “Sounds like Mom just went out a window. Dad’ll chase her through the woods for the next hour or so, and then they’ll have sex.” His tone was utterly matter-of-fact. “Swear to God, they do this once a month. First time they’ve ever involved a cop, though. This totally blows.”“Did your father drug me...with something?” Panting, Justice gave the boy the best cop stare he could manage, considering that he was barely conscious. “Some kind of...gas?”“Look, you’re not hallucinating.” The kid stared back at him, his gaze utterly level and completely serious. “My parents really did turn into werewolves, and my mother really did bite you. And you really are going to turn into a werewolf.” He paused and sighed. “Well, probably. That, or you’ll die.”“Call 911." He started shivering in waves. The pain was so bad he could barely form words. "Whatever... they used to... drug us...Need treatment.” “My name is Pete, not ‘kid,’” the kid said with enormous dignity. “And nobody drugged either of us. I’m a werewolf, and if the humans find out about us, they’ll hunt us down like dogs. You want to be responsible for all the people they’re going to kill – including the folks who aren’t really werewolves at all?”Shit. He means it. Crazy!But what if he's right?“The...moon's not...full.” God, his arms hurt. Felt like he'd dipped his wrists in battery acid.“The moon thing is bullshit,” Pete said patiently. “So’s the bit about silver and wolfs-bane and all the rest of that superstitious crap. And no, I didn’t get cursed by a gypsy. I was born like this.” He folded his arms and propped them on his raised knees, settling more comfortably against the wall. “We don’t run around killing and eating people either. All of that is pure Hollywood horror movie made-up bullshit.”Justice licked his dry lips and studied the boy sitting next to him. He felt numb everywhere he wasn’t burning. “Werewolves exist?”“Yep. So do vampires and witches. Merlin made us all.”“Merlin?” Must have misheard. “Wizard? King Arthur...knights?”“That’s him.” Justice let his head fall back against the wall. “Full of shit.”“No, really. He created the vampires to protect mankind, and he created us to keep an eye on the vampires. That’s why he gave us the magic bite, so we could recruit people like you.”“Magic bite.” Justice clenched his teeth and rubbed his calf with one wounded hand. A muscle there had drawn into a knot the size of a tennis ball. It hurt like a motherfucker. “Horse...shit.”Pete snorted. “Tell me that when you’re seven feet tall and furry. The spell’s already changing you. It’s only a matter of time.”A wave of fire shot up his arms, so sudden and vicious Justice threw his head back, rapping it hard against the wall. He gritted his teeth and banged his head again, deliberately this time, and then again. He’d half-hoped the raps would reboot his brain, but no such luck. “Fuck me!”“I know, man.” The boy’s pale gaze was sympathetic. “I went through my first Shift a few months ago. Figured I’d die.” His pale eyes darkened with an ugly memory. “One of my friends did. He burned right up in a blaze of blue light. One minute he was there, the next he was ashes on the ground. We’d been friends since fucking kindergarten, and he just died. He was only sixteen, dammit. He wanted to be a lawyer, wanted to be able to defend us when we finally come out of the kennel to the humans. Instead he died, and I’m alone.” His voice turned bitter. “Except for parents who keep trying to kill each other.”Justice sucked in a breath through his teeth, fighting another wave of pain. “Did.." For a moment he couldn't remember what he was saying, then found the thought again. "Call...cops?”“And tell them what? ‘A spell ate my best friend? And oh, by the way, I’m a werewolf.’” He shook his head. “Dude, I don’t think so.”“Teachers? Classmates?" Someone should have noticed. “His folks have money. They’re Chosen – werewolf aristocracy, just like my parents. They told everybody they sent David off to boarding school in fucking Sweden, and then they just never mention him again. People forget.” The ring shifted in the boy’s eyebrow as he ground his teeth. “Everybody but me. I can’t forget. And I’ve tried.” He glanced at Justice. “Fuck, I hope I don’t have to watch you die like that. What the hell was Mom thinking?”“Didn't want him...jail.” The blood dripping from his wrists was turning into a pool between his feet. He felt dizzy, his thoughts dull, plodding. “Yeah, I get that. I’m talking about when Dad clawed her to begin with. All she had to do was turn into a wolf, then turn human again. The cuts on her face would have healed. She could have come out and talked to you, and you’d have never known anything happened. Instead, she freaking showed you what he did. On purpose. She had to know you’d arrest him.”“Vics...always batshit.” Justice closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, trying to rest. The pain had abated, at least for the moment, but he knew it would be back. And the blood loss still sucked. “Wave your.. magic badge...make bad man stop." Then they realized you were going to arrest him, and when he got out of jail, he'd be really pissed. Next thing you knew, the vic was slamming a frying pan upside your head. But the idea was too complicated to get out of his mouth, and he gave up. The boy blinked at him. “So this is like, typical behavior?”“Yeah.” Pete grimaced. “That sucks.”“Hate working...murders."Pete went pale. “You meant that? About him killing my Mom?”“Yeah.” “I’ll get her to leave.” The boy squared his thin shoulders. “I can convince her.”“Careful ...may pick...father over...you.”If anything, the boy went paler. “She loves me. She wouldn’t do that.” "Hope...won't.” “No.” A flat denial, delivered with all the stubborn conviction in the boy’s soul. “She’s not like that.”Justice nodded, studying him, taking in the blend of guilt and grief that haunted those pale eyes. “Maybe ... right.”Pete rested his chin on his knees and hugged them tight in his skinny arms. “Man, you’re cynical.” “I'm a cop.” Justice sucked in a breath as pain stormed up his nerves in a wave so searing, it was all he could do not to scream. This was more than just the pain of a set of puncture wounds. The kid was right. Something was happening to him. He knew it in his gut, which was why he hadn’t already tried to wrestle his cell away from Pete and call 911. He really didn’t want to turn into a werewolf in front of an ambulance crew. Or maybe he’d just go up in flames instead. Either way, it wouldn’t be good.Better to sit here with the kid and do whatever he was going to do. Die or go furry.Jesus, what a choice.“Change with me.” Pete said the words suddenly, his tone hard and fierce.“What?” Justice looked up.Pete caught him under his upper arm and rose, lifting him effortlessly to his feet. “It’s time for us to Shift. When it’s your first time, it’s easier if another werewolf shifts with you. His magic pulls you along, helps you transform.”Justice braced his feet and fought not to fall on his face. “What if...burn?”“Then you’ll die.” The kid’s gaze held steadily on his. “But dude, you don’t have a choice. Your body is going to do this one way or another. Change or die.”And then Peter Price began to transform, energy burning around him. It seemed his power reached out to Justice’s, caught him, surged into a blue raging blaze…And Justice Changed.Look for Master of Darkness on August 7, 2012. Thank you SO much for dropping by to read this story, and I hope you enjoyed it.
Best,
Angela Knight

Chapter 1 of Enforcer, Take 2

Based on the feedback you folks were kind enough to give me on the original version of ENFORCER'S chapter one, I did a major rewrite. I was told the chapter was too slow, and had a lot of info dumps. And when I read it here, I couldn't help but agree. So I spent the last few days completely retooling the chapter. Would you nice people take a look at it for me? Let me know what you think!

Dona Astryr paused on the dark, hot stairs that were scarcely wider than her shoulders, and listened for killers. A fist-sized evidence bot zipped past her shoulder, riding the glowing blue cushion of an antigrav field as it searched for murder victims.In a blur of cyborg speed, Dona snatched the ‘bot out of the air. If there was a killer on the second floor, she didn’t want the device to give her away. The ‘bot started to beep a protest, but she thumbed a button to mute it. Drawing her shard pistol, she cocked her head, sensor implants scanning.In the town square just outside the two-story house, a crier read the American Declaration of Independence in a fine, rolling baritone. The Philadelphia crowd hooted and stomped for the more inflammatory lines, bellowing support for the Continental Congress. If there were any Tories among them, they had the good sense to keep their snarls to themselves. Dona, a time-travel veteran, barely even registered the words. She was a lot more interested in the soft female voice whimpering, a hopeless sound of agony coming from somewhere upstairs.Fuck, somebody was still alive.Victim’s condition? She started up the stairs in a soundless rush.Extremely serious, her computer implant told her. Sensors detect multiple stab wounds and extensive blood loss. She must have medical attention in the next 3.2 minutes, or she will die.Which wouldn’t necessarily end the victim’s existence. If Dona could get her into Regen within seven minutes of the time her heart stopped beating, she could be brought back. After that, brain death would be too extensive, and she would be dead in truth. Where is the victim? Reaching the top step, Dona paused. First bedroom on the left.Any sign of attackers?No.Which meant nothing. He could be sensor shielded; invisible to Dona’s eyes and implants.The evidence bot jerked in her hand, trying to escape. She stuffed it into one of the pouches on her armor belt and headed for the bedroom door. Damn, I wish I had backup, Dona thought. Unfortunately, every Enforcer on her team was busy searching the house’s first floor, while dealing with the thirteen victims they’d found. Two of them were still alive, including one fourteen-year-old with multiple stab wounds.Dona braced in front of the closed door, pointed her shard pistol, and kicked the door down with her armored boot. Propelled by cyborg muscle, the door crashed open and banged against the wall. “Enforcer!” She entered low and fast.Oh, fuck.An arch of bright scarlet blood splatter marked the wall on her right. A small round rug squelched under her boots.The source of all that blood lay on the canopied bed in front of her. The woman was naked, wrists and ankles bound to the bed’s tall posts. Blood rolled sluggishly from the dozens of wounds marking her breasts, her belly, her thighs – even her face.One eye opened, rolled with terror until it fixed on Dona. The other appeared glued shut by dried blood. A tear spilled, and her crusted lips moved soundlessly.“I’m Temporal Enforcement agent Dona Astryr,” Dona told her, giving the room a quick scan. Bed, armoire, wash stand with a china pitcher and a bowl. No attacker, at least none visibl. “I’m here to help you.” Send a message to Doctor Chogan, Dona told her implant. We’ve got another survivor, condition critical.The woman’s lips moved again, but the only sound she made was a low wheeze. Where the fuck is Chogan? Dona wondered, moving closer to the bed. Maybe I should just pick her up and Jump back to the Outpost. Would she survive a temporal warp in her current condition?Negative. Given her wounds, an unprotected Jump would probably cause systemic organ failure and brain death. It would be better to wait for Dr. Chogan and a Regeneration Tube.Dona frowned, watching the woman’s bloody lips move. Her one eye looked desperate. What the hell was she trying to say? Dona leaned closer and told her comp to amplify audio. “What did you say?”The words emerged as if with superhuman effort, in a painful, wheezing hiss. “He’s…still…here!”Dona spun, bringing her shard pistol up just as a towering figure in red and black temporal armor appeared out of thin air, having evidently dropped his sensor shield. She fired, sending a spray of need-sharp tritium shards hissing toward him. The shards hit the Xeran’s armor and bounced in a series of musical pings.Damn, Dona thought. The fucking Xerans have upgraded their armor.The Xeran hit her in a furious bull rush that rolled them both across the victim’s body. Dona’s sensors picked up her moan of pain as they crashed to the floor.“Bastard!” Dona snarled into the Xeran’s black faceplate as they rolled across the blood-soaked rug. He grabbed her gun hand with crushing force. She ignored the pain, fighting to twist the weapon around and aim it at his faceplate. Backup! Goddammit, I need backup!Requesting backup…No response. It appears the agents downstairs are also under attack. Her comp was right. Dona could hear the hiss of shard pistols downstairs, the thump of armored fists hitting armored bodies, the snarled curses in Xeran and Galactic Standard.Her opponent’s polarized faceplate turned gray, went transparent.And revealed Ivar Terje’s face smirking into her own. “Hello, baby. Miss me?”Dona stared at him for one suspended instant of disbelief. Which quickly morphed into howling rage. “You botfucking traitor!” She rammed her left fist into his throat, aiming for the larynx, meaning to crush it right through his armor. It would have been a killing blow, especially propelled by genetically engineered strength amplified even more by her nano-implants. She had the pleasure of hearing him gag. His hand lost its vicious grip on her gun hand, and she wrenched free, rolling on top of him. And promptly slammed the pistol into his faceplate so hard it cracked. “You almost killed me, you son of a bitch,” Dona snarled. “You ruined my life, my reputation!” She rammed the gun into his faceplate again, sending more cracks radiating across the reinforced plastium. “They thought I was a traitor because of you!” Her third blow had every last erg of her cyborg strength behind it.His faceplate shattered, jagged fragments flying. Ivar snarled, knocking her weapon away from his face. “You’re worse than a traitor. You’re a fucking fool.”Bracing his booted feet against her gut, he kicked her off him with brutal power. She sailed over the bed and crashed into the wash stand, pottery shattering, wood splintering around her body as she hit the floor. Ivar rolled to his feet with astonishing grace for a man so massively built. “Every lie I told you, you believed. Love you?” He laughed, a hoarse, ugly bark. “Why in the fuck would I love you?”Short horns glinted on his forehead among red hair cropped short and tight against his skull. A priest’s horns.He’s a Xeran priest now? Dona thought in sickened horror as she rose from the wreckage of the wash stand. Her back ached in protest as she sank into a combat crouch and drew a knife from her boot. The blade chimed, the sound low and menacing.The techs of Temporal Enforcement had improved the quantum axes they’d invented six months ago. The new weapons were smaller, lighter, but just as capable of cutting through temporal armor.A deep voice roared from somewhere downstairs in a familiar male bellow. Something crashed. For a split second, Dona felt comforted. Chief Alerio Dyami was in the fight.Dona’s quantum dagger hummed a higher note as she circled with Ivar, their boots crunching through broken crockery. She studied her foe with grim attention. Blood flowed sluggishly from a cut under Ivar’s eye as he glared at her from the ruins of his helmet. “You still fucking Dyami?” Misinterpreting her shocked expression for surprise, he sneered. “Did you think I didn’t know you were betraying me with that sanctimonious Warlord prick?” He lunged, crossing the distance between them in a blur of battleborg speed, an enormous fist flying at her face. “I always knew what a whore you are!”Dona jerked aside, avoiding the blow by millimeters, and slashed the blade at his belly. He knocked her arm aside before the blade could rip into his guts. She danced back and spat, “I never betrayed you, Ivar. You were the one who betrayed everything you ever claimed to believe in. Me. Chief Dyami. Your Enforcer’s oath.”“My oath?” Nobody but an idiot would buy that beefershit." He curled a lip. “Unlike you, I’m not that stupid.”He’s so busy sneering, he’s forgetting to keep his guard up. Dona’s eyes narrowed, focusing on the left hand he’d dropped.Ivar was a hell of a lot stronger than Dona – easily a foot taller and twenty kilos heavier. But Dona was faster.She struck in a blur, driving the quantum dagger at her foe’s massive chest.He hit her wrist so fast, she didn’t even see the blow. Her arm went numb to the elbow, and the blade cartwheeled from her hand. Ivar twisted, slamming a backhanded punch into the side of her face. The blow knocked her off her feet, sending her skidding into a corner.He was on her before she could scramble away. Dona threw up one arm in a block and counterpunched, trying to force him back so she could make it to her feet. He only snarled and began to pound at her, driving punch after punch, sending her reeling against the wall. Starburst of pain thundered through her skull, but she kept fighting, throwing punches and kicks into his big body. He didn’t even react to the blows at all, as though he didn’t even feel them.Then his fist arched into her face, and her skull seemed to detonate. The next thing she knew, she was flat on her back with no memory of how she’d gotten there. Ivar loomed over her, a savage grin on his face. Frantic, desperate, Dona drove kicks against his armored ribs. He snarled into her face, his eyes glittering with a rage that was not quite sane.He’s going to kill me, she thought through the spinning confusion of her battered brain.Warning! Her comp blared. You have sustained a severe concussion. You cannot continue to take blows to the head without severe brain injury.She could only snarl.Ivar shot to his feet, hauling Dona upright with a hand clamped around her throat. He rammed her into the wall, sending plaster raining around her shoulders. Dona cried out as pain bust through her abused back. Blood ran hot down her chin as she watched him draw back his fist for a blow that would likely shatter her skull.Gods curse him, I am not going to let this bastard butcher me. I will fight him to my last breath. Drawing on the last of her strength, she drove a fist toward Ivar’s hated smirk. He swatted her fist aside. “Is that the best you can do, you little cunt?” He laughed, eyes glittering hot. “Then I guess you’ll die.”And he cocked his fist for that final blow.Then Ivar simply…disappeared.Deprived of his support, Dona felt her knees give way, dumping her into a heap on the floor. Dazed, barely conscious, she lifted her aching head to look around.And saw Alerio Dyami’s broad, powerful back, arms swinging in pistoning punches as he drove Ivar against the wall.Safe, she thought in dazed relief. I’m safe. Alerio won’t let him kill me.Darkness rolled over her in a black flood, and her head thumped to the floor.***“You’re a dead man,” Alerio snarled through set teeth as she stalked Ivar Terje around the scene of his latest crime.A nude woman lay bound to the bed, blood smearing her body from multiple stab wounds. Even worse, Alerio’s sensors told him Ivar’s sperm slicked the poor woman’s thighs.But even as that crime filled him with a cold, righteous fury, what really made him burn was the sight of Dona Astryr lying in a bloody heap.If Alerio hadn’t been forced to fight his way through all those Xeran priests downstairs, he could have spared Dona the beating she’d just suffered.Instead he’d found her backed into a corner, bruised and bloody. Beaten by the man who’d once called himself her lover.Knowing he faced a fight, Alerio had gone to riaat on his way up the stairs. His computer implant had pumped biochemical into his bloodstream, throwing him into the berserker state that increased his considerable strength by a factor of ten.More than enough to pound a traitor who richly deserved it.“You’re not fighting a woman now,” Alerio growled, as his enemy scrambled away from his advance. One of Terje’s eyes was already swollen closed from the impact of Alerio’s fists. “You’re such a fucking hero, aren’t you?” His bloody lip curled in a sneer. “But you didn’t save the bitch on the bed, did you? Or the ones downstairs, including the kid. We butchered them all, and there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it. You can’t change history. No matter what you do, no matter when you Jump, they’ll die because we killed them. You failed, Chief.” He laughed. “Some hero. Some Enforcer.”For a moment, rage choked Alerio, but he dragged that violent emotion under control. Ivar wanted him to lose control, get sloppy. Make mistakes.“You’re right,” Alerio said in a low, deadly voice. “I failed to save the fourteen people you raped and murdered.” Ivar’s gaze flickered. Alerio whipped into a spinning kick. Ivar ducked, tried to block, but neither effort was enough to keep the Chief’s boot from slamming into his jaw.Ivar crashed into the wall behind him and almost went down. Alerio, still balanced on one leg, reversed the kick and snapped the toe of his boot into Ivar’s jaw.The battleborg staggered, crashed into the wall with one shoulder, then managed to keep his feet.Alerio, both feet now planted, punched him squarely in the face in a left right combination that rocked Ivar’s head on his shoulders.“I’m going to make you pay for every stab wound, every punch, every kick.” Alerio bared his teeth. “I’m going to pound you into a red smear. And you’ll never rape another woman again.”Ivar staggered, then braced himself, glaring into Alerio’s face. “It’s not going to be that easy.”The punch came out of nowhere, a blur of knuckles and bone. Ivar’s fist hit him squarely in the mouth, rocking his head hard. Ivar bulled past him, almost knocking him on his ass.Shit, Alerio thought. He’s a hell of a lot stronger than he used to be. He’s upgraded his tech. Shaking off the moment’s disorientation, Alerio went after Ivar.The battleborg retreated, his lip curling. “You talk big, Chief,” Terje snarled. “But we’ve got T-suits. That makes the whole fucking time stream our playground. We can screw and kill every tourist who falls into our hands. And we will. Unless you turn yourself in to the Victor’s…justice. You. Your little whore Dona. Those abominations, Nick Wyatt, his Warfem bitch Rianne, and Jessica and Galar Arvid. All of them.” His one eye narrowed. “And most of all, we want the T’Lir. So be a hero, Chief. Or watch me kill.”Alerio bellowed and lunged toward Ivar, but he was too late. A deafening sonic boom and a blinding flash of light staggered him. When he could see again, Ivar was gone. He’d Jumped.Alerio swore viciously, then spun and headed for Dona. He dropped to his knees by her side as boom after boom sounded from downstairs. The priests following Ivar’s lead, Jumping for home.Her face was battered, both eyes blackened, her pretty lips cut and swollen. Bruises distorted the clean lines of her chiseled cheekbones and delicate jaw.Com Dr. Chogan, Alerio told his comp.The doctor responded a heartbeat later. “What is it, Chief? I’ve got my hands full with Rianne. She took a gut wound.”“Enforcer Astryr got the worst of it in a fight with Ivar Terje,” Alerio told her shortly. “She has a pretty serious concussion.”“Okay. Let me get Rianne into a regen tube, and I’ll head up there.”Dona moaned, a breathy sound of pain that made Alerio’s chest clench. It was more than the ache he’d normally feel over an injured agent. “Terje,” she gasped. “He’s…here!”“I took care of him,” Alerio told her roughly. “Send him Jumping back to the Crystal Fortress with the rest of the fucking priests.”
"The woman….” Dona lifted a wavering hand, gesturing weakly toward the bed and its bloody contents. “She was aive when I…came in. Is she…?”Alerio cursed himself silently. It had not even occurred to him that Harden could have survived those wounds. He ordered his comp to scan the woman.No life signs, the implant reported. Based on the cellular decay she has been dead too long for successful revival.Alerio’s shoulders slumped. “She’s gone, Dona.”“Dammit.” A tear slipped down her bruised cheek. “I was hoping I could save her. But Ivar… He wouldn’t let me Jump her out.” Her scraped lower lip trembled. “They all died, didn’t they? Ivar and the priests killed every tourist here.”“Yeah,” Alerio said roughly. “But they’re going to pay for it, Dona.” He picked up her chilly hand, wrapping his fingers around it. “I’m going to make the bastard’s pay.”She gave him an unsteady smile. “I know. You always get justice for the…victims.” Her voice weakened, and her bruised eyes closed.“Dona!” Alerrio ordered his comp to scan her with his full array of biological sensors. If she was too badly injured, he’d just pick her up and Jump with her to the Outpost Infirmary. But if her injuries weren’t that severe, it would be better to wait for Dr. Chogan and one of her field regeneration units.She has a concussion, the comp reported, and there is swelling that must be addressed before it becomes serious. Fortunately, her computer implant is compensating. But her other injuries are minor. She would be best served if you don’t move her and let Dr. Chogan treat her here.Alerio grunted, studying the young agent as she lay in the wreckage of the wash stand. She was tall and lean in her dark blue Temporal Enforcement armor. Like most enforcers, she was cybernetically enhanced. A network of biocrystals grew throughout her brain like a second nervous system. The computer implant that fed her brain sensor information and data, and gave her control of most bodily functions. A lacy sensor net lay beneath her skin – more biocrystal implants designed to detect everything from DNA to tachyon streams.But those weren’t the only implants. More biocrystal was embedded in her bones and muscles, reinforcing them and making her ten times stronger than a normal human woman her size and build.Yet even with her upgrade, she was no match for a battleborg like Ivar Terje. His implants consisted of thicker fibers that exerted three times the force Dona’s did.“Make way,” Dr. Sakari Chogan said. She looked pale beneath the untidy topknot of her iridescent green hair, dressed in bright red medical armor as she horsed a regen tube through the doorway. Alerio rose to help the doctor guide the tube over Dona’s unconscious form until it could scoop her inside. Once Dona was safely enclosed, Chogan ran a series of scans, watching the results appear in glowing green three-dimensional schematics of the human body.“He banged her brain around pretty good,” Chogan grunted. I never liked that bastard.” She shot Alerio a look from the corner of one vivid green eye. “There was just something so fucking mean about him. He hurt people and liked it. Including Dona, lover or not.”Pink mist flooded the tube and began healing her injuries. Chogan sighed. “At least now we know what lies under that slick surface.”“Yes – a traitor,” Alerio growled. “And he and his false god are going down for what happened here today.”***Alerio watched as Chogan, Lolai Harden’s body tube, and the regenerator containing Dona made the Jump back to the Outpost. Then he turned and headed back downstairs to check on the other members of his team.They started Jumping from the house's great room in teams of two, accompanied by body tubes loaded with corpses. Alerio kept watch as was his habit, covering his team's retreat. As much as he could, anyway, having gone half-blind and deaf from the temporal flares and their accompanying sonic booms. Luckily the suits' dampening field kept anyone more than ten meters away from feeling the effects. No temporal natives would wonder why there was a thunderstorm inside the house next door. By the time it was his turn to Jump, Alerio’s ears were ringing as his comp started reciting the familiar string of coordinates back to the Outpost. Coordinates confirmed. Engage temporal warp, he told it.Engaging temporal warp in three...two...one.It felt like being hit by lightning. His mind blinked out……And… he was back again.Temporal warp to the Outpost successful, his comp announced. Alerio made no answer, half-blind, stomach knotting in violent rebellion, his muscles jerking from the temporal warp. Bracing his knees, he stayed upright by will alone until his comp could compensate. My team?All members of the investigation team present and accounted for.Alerio breathed a silent prayer of thanks to whatever Vardonese goddess happened to be listening. He'd lost a Jumper once. Riane Arvid's sabotaged T-suit had bounced her back and forth across Terran temporal space before finally dumping her in the twentieth century. Her suit was dead as a stone by then, unable to Jump at all. Unfortunately, a team of Xeran assassins appeared minutes later. She’d have died then and there if not for a timely rescue by Nick Wyatt, half-breed Xeran and superhuman guardian of an alien race called the Sela. Nick and Riane had returned to the Outpost desperately in love.Still, almost losing an Enforcer was an experience Alerio had no desire to repeat. Especially considering Ivar's threats. We can screw and kill every tourist who falls into our hands. And we will. Unless you turn yourself in to the Victor’s…justice.Like hell, ‘botfucker. Blinking the spots from his eyes, Alerio glanced around the cavernous room that was Mission Staging. Heavily shielded for Jump traffic, it was lined with evidence and equipment lockers as well as regeneration tubes for treating the injured. Most temporal missions began and ended here, especially those featuring a large Jump team. He ached to head for the Infirmary and check on Dona, but he managed to control the impulse. If they managed to bring any of those bastards to justice, he was damned if any of them would get off because one of his agents had broken the chain of evidence. “All right, let's get the physical evidence stowed,” Alerio said in a command bark that had every Enforcer jumping. Apparently inured to his growls, Chogan’s medical techs strode out, accompanied by a pitiful parade of body tubes. He ignored them as he rapped out instructions. “The evidence bots are to be logged in and their contents transferred into evi-stasis. And make damned sure they're all our 'bots. Last thing we need is to give the Xerans another opportunity to sabotage our central computer."Within minutes, the Enforcers were scanning and decanting each ‘bot. After sealing the biological evidence in stasis tubes to prevent further decomposition, they logged everything in with the Outpost's main computer. That done, the agents slid the tubes into wall slots that shot them into the Outpost’s evidence safe. If the Enforcers—or the Galactic Union’s Temporal Court—decided they needed any of the evidence later, it would be instantly available.The procedure was one his people had done hundreds of times before. They didn't need Alerio hovering over them like a Soji Dragon with one egg. Especially since he was only putting off a job even more onerous than the one they were doing.Somehow he was going to have to persuade Colonel Genoa Ceres to order a moratorium on temporal tourist visas. At least until Ivar was captured--or Alerio twisted the traitor’s head off his shoulders. That action would not be legal under Galactic Union law, his comp informed him primly.I do not give a stinking pile of Soji shit. Especially if he even thinks about going after my team.Particularly Dona, who'd become Alerio's obsession over the past two years. As Ivar damned well knew. The battleborg had been violently jealous of her even when he was still pretending to be a loyal Enforcer. It had driven Alerio into a frigid fury, watching Ivar watch Dona's every move while shooting little verbal barbs her way. There’d been times Alerio had ached to kick his subordinate's ass from one end of the Outpost to the other.Unfortunately, being Ivar's commanding officer made that impulse impossible to carry out. Especially since Dona never reported her lover for his conduct. Alerio wasn't sure whether she just didn't notice--which strained belief, Dona being pretty damned observant--or whether she just had a very thick skin.Even though it looked so incredibly soft...

Chapter two of Master of Dragons

I wanted to share the second chapter of MASTER OF DARKNESS because it gives a preview of the next trilogy, THE FAMILIARS series. Let me know what you think of my critter and my new heroine...
Silence fell with Daliya’s death, heavy as a lead weight.“Belle. God, Belle . . .” Tristan leaned across the fallen couple and kissed his lover with sudden, desperate hunger. She kissed him back just as fiercely, a single tear trickling down her face, her armored fingers stroking his face.The naked love in that kiss made Miranda’s chest ache. She tried to pull her gaze away and give them some privacy, but there was something about all that raw emotion that was hypnotic. She’d never seen a kiss so ferocious with pain and need, born not in desire, but in the awareness that death could strip them from each other.Belle and Tristan were Truebonded just like Daliya and Kadir; the death of one would kill the other. Yet watching that kiss, Miranda realized neither would want it any other way.Envy struck like a punch in the stomach. She’d never known that kind of love. Her mother had chased chimeras of it, only to find abuse and death.Miranda glanced across Daliya’s body at Justice. He, too, watched the couple kiss, the same helpless longing she felt in his ebony eyes. She jerked her burning gaze away and dragged an armored hand across her face to wipe away the tears. She had no idea if she was crying for Daliya . . . or herself. “Dammit. Dammit, what was that about? Who’s the Mother of Fairies?”Justice lowered the woman’s limp hand to ground, giving it an oddly tender pat before settling back on his booted heels. He slid one arm around Miranda’s shoulders, drawing her closer. Astonished, she looked up at him.As if realizing the intimacy of the gesture, he straightened away so quickly his gauntlet scraped against her armored back. Clearing his throat, he looked over at Tristan, who’d finally broken the kiss. “And what the hell is Merlin’s Blade?”“Damned if we know.” The vampire’s deep voice sounded gruff, and his eyes shone as if he’d shed a tear or two himself. “Neither of us has ever heard of the Mother of Fairies or Merlin’s Blade. I’d think she was talking about Excalibur, but Arthur never lets that sword out of his sight.” A smile twitched the corners of Tristan’s lips. “I think he sleeps with it.”Miranda and Justice exchanged a frown. Tristan had been a vampire Knight of the Round Table for fifteen hundred years, while Belle had been a Maja for more than a thousand. Between the two of them, they knew damn near everything there was to know about magic. Anything or anyone they’d never heard of was going to be a bitch to find.“What happened to them?” Justice turned his attention to the two Magekind corpses. His intense, professional gaze reminded Miranda he’d been a homicide cop before somebody bit him. “Who took that vampire’s head? And where’s the rest of his body?”Belle sat back on her heels and sighed. “Warlock’s got himself a couple of new Beasts.”“Two of them?” Miranda demanded, appalled. It had been all they could do to kill the last one.Justice winced. “Oh, fuck.”“Fuck is right.” Tristan picked up the vampire’s head, cradling it in a big, surprisingly gentle hand. “Kadir was one of our best agents. He worked deep cover for five years gaining the trust of those Sword of Allah assholes . . .”Justice frowned. “Those are the terrorists who tried to buy the Russian nuke last year, right?”“Yeah, same bunch. Kadir’s the reason they didn’t succeed. He had them thinking he was God’s gift to jihad, even as he sabotaged every plot they put together. Whenever they’d start catching on, Daliya would cast a spell to make them forget their suspicions.”“Too bad she couldn’t make the fuckers quit trying to blow up the planet.” Belle opened her mouth, and Justice waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Doesn’t work like that.”Once a belief became deeply engrained in someone’s brain—particularly a religion-based obsession like jihad—you couldn’t erase it no matter how you tried. Too many associations with other memories that would eventually bring it back to the surface. You had to either change the mortal’s mind by old-fashioned persuasion. Or kill him.Arthur and his Magekind didn’t believe in killing any mortal unless there was no choice at all. Even terrorists.“So how did Kadir die?” Miranda asked.The knight looked up, the curl of his upper lip revealing one fang. “Warlock’s pet fucker ate him. Literally ate him. Poor bastard was halfway down the snake’s throat when we got here. We were only able to save his head.”Justice stared at his friend, his stomach knotting in revulsion. “Warlock must have recruited himself a pair of bugfuck crazy serial killers. Sane werewolves don’t eat people.” When you became Direkind, you kept whatever moral compass you had to begin with. You might take a bite out of someone who pissed you off, but you didn’t actually eat them. “And did you say ‘snake’?” He’d loathed snakes since he’d damn near stepped on a copperhead when he was nine.“Yeah. Some kind of cobra, but sure as hell not anything you’d see in nature. Had to be sixty, maybe seventy feet long, three feet around. The other Beast was a werewolf centaur the size of a truck. Built like a Clydesdale, armored from head to tail. Carried the biggest damned battle-axe I have ever seen.”“Damn,” Miranda muttered. “That sounds nastier than the first one.” Warlock’s original monster had looked like a cross between a wolf and a grizzly bear. The creature also sucked down magical blasts like a kid guzzling Red Bull.“These bastards were definitely nastier,” Tristan agreed. “They ambushed Kadir—I think he was on his way to some terrorist planning session. Daliya was back at the couple’s home, but she sensed the attack through their Truebond. She alerted Gwen and gated to help, but by then the snake was already swallowing Kadir. We arrived a minute or two later, but there was nothing any of us could do.”“Christ.” Justice winced, remembering some of the homicides he’d worked. The anguish of the victim’s wives had haunted him worse than the murders themselves. At least the dead had stopped suffering by the time he arrived. “I hope you made those bastards pay.”“We gave it our best shot.” Tristan’s brooding green eyes dropped down to Kadir’s face, and he returned the head to the protective circle of Daliya’s body. “The entire Round Table tore into them with everything we had. Our blade attacks bounced right off their shields . . .”“And our blasts were worse than useless,” Belle said grimly. “Just like Warlock’s first monster, they drank our magic and got stronger.”“We trashed six blocks of Mirpur City before we finally made them gate for home.” Tristan pulled off his helm and raked his hand through his hair, pulling it from its tight warrior’s queue to fall in disordered, sweaty strands. He looked tired, his face smeared with dirt and blood. “Had to bring in a hundred extra witches for crowd control when the fight brought the Pakistanis out to investigate. That damned centaur trampled six people and cut a three-year-old girl in two.”“Oh, my God.” Miranda recoiled, her expression sick. “Why?”“I think he was just pissed off. He killed that kid the way you’d swat a fly.” Tristan’s green eyes narrowed in fury, a muscle jerking in his jaw as he ground his teeth. “But it backfired on him, because Arthur lost his mind. You know how he gets whenever a child is hurt. Tore into the bastard so hard, he actually beat his way through the fucker’s magical shield. Excalibur must have just overwhelmed the spell. Bloodied the centaur badly.” Justice grinned in genuine pleasure. “Good for him.”“We all cut lose then, whaling away until the sons of bitches lost their nerve and gated for home.” He curled his lip. “Apparently they can dish it out, but they don’t like taking it.”“The civilians still paid the price.” Belle dragged her shoulders back and winced, putting a hand on her arm as if it ached. If anything, she looked dirtier and more exhausted than her partner. “We’ve had our hands full putting out fires and healing the wounded ever since.”Miranda glanced up. “I gather the Beasts kept you from tracking where their dimensional gate went.” The Majae had been trying to locate Warlock’s lair for months now, with no luck at all.“Per usual. We have got to figure out how to punch through that jamming spell of theirs.”“How did you explain all this to the Pakistanis?” Justice asked.“The usual suspects.” Belle shrugged. “Team of suicide bombers hit the neighborhood. We changed everybody’s memories to match the story. And made damned sure we wiped every camera phone for blocks around.”“Sure as hell don’t want that little fight going viral,” Tristan agreed. “All we need is for something like that to hit CNN, and we’re all fucked.”“Why didn’t Arthur call me in to help?” Justice asked in frustration. “Immune to magic, remember?” One of the joys of being a werewolf.Unfortunately, that immunity meant his magic was limited to shape-shifting. Miranda and her psychotic father, Warlock, were the only Dire Wolves who could cast spells, which meant they were also vulnerable to magical attacks.And now there were these new Beasts. Out there among the humans, eating people and blowing shit up. A snake, for God’s sake.“You’re more useful making sure nothing happens to Miranda.” Displaying a forearm, Tristan gave Miranda a tired smile. A set of bloody fang marks punctured his gauntlet. “The centaur got its teeth into me, but your vaccine really works. Otherwise I’d be dead now.”“My pleasure.” Her voice dropped to a mutter. “I just wish I knew how long that spell is going to last. I don’t want somebody dying because it took me too long to make more vaccine.”“Miranda, we don’t know when—or even if—it’s going to wear off,” Belle told her. “You need to let your psychic batteries recharge a little longer before you start working on a new batch.”As usual, the witch was right. Preparing enough of the magical drug to vaccinate the city had left Miranda frighteningly weak. She’d barely been able to move for days. Justice had ended up waiting on her hand and foot.Not that he’d minded. God, he was such a sucker.“Then I shouldn’t have wasted all that magic on building my new house last week.” Miranda chewed her ridiculously tempting lower lip. Justice dragged his gaze away. “That was stupid.”“Well, I don’t consider it a waste.” Tristan’s grin suggested he was trying to distract her from her obvious guilt trip. “It did get you and Justice out of our house.” They’d been Belle’s guests for three weeks, until Miranda had finished conjuring the cottage. “Don’t get me wrong, I like you two, but once in a while I’d really like to have sex on the . . .”Belle looked up at her lover. She didn’t say a word, but he carefully shut his mouth without finishing the sentence.“I didn’t notice you held back all that much.” Justice grinned, just as willing to play Let’s distract Miranda. “I felt like a contestant on Knights of the Round Table Gone Wild.”Tristan hit him lightly on one armored shoulder. It clanked. “You’re just jealous, furball.”Jealous, me? Watching Tris and Belle flirt, kiss and steal surreptitious little caresses? While he hadn’t dared lay one fuzzy finger on Miranda? Like the Big Bad Wolf at a barbecue festival.Justice glanced over at Miranda, to find her watching him wearing an odd expression, part longing, part fear. Of me? Why the hell would she be afraid of me? And why longing, for God’s sake . . . ?Before Justice could consider that puzzle, an empty soft drink can bounced and rattled its way across the alley. He glanced around, instantly wary.The woman who’d kicked the Coke can strolled toward them, a big video camera balanced on one shoulder. Yet none of the others seemed to notice.Taking a deep breath, Justice recognized the ozone reek of magic. She’s protected by some kind of spell. Probably an invisibility shield.Magic didn’t affect Justice, so he saw right through the shield, but the others had no idea she was there. He looked away as if he hadn’t seen her either, his mind working furiously. Since when do TV reporters work spells?There was no question she was a reporter, given the camera. While you could shoot video with a cell phone these days, professional equipment was a lot bigger and more elaborate. Just like the camera she was carrying.Plus, she had the kind of stunning looks typical of female cable news reporters: a heart-shaped face, striking violet eyes, and curling hair the gleaming black of a raven’s wing. Snatching another glance, he decided he recognized her. Brenda? Brenna? Something like that.But he’d thought TV news reporters traveled with an entourage, especially in this part of the world. A cameraman, a sound guy, a producer, a translator, and at least a couple of bodyguards. This girl appeared to be alone. Which was dangerous as hell in fundamentalist Pakistan, especially for a woman who looked like that.What is she, nuts?Justice’s protective instincts stirred. You’ve already got your hands full with one beautiful, endangered woman, dumbass, he reminded himself. You sure as hell don’t need another one. Besides, with her power, the reporter could probably twitch her nose and make jihadis compose sonnets to her eyebrows.Yet despite her admittedly stunning beauty, she didn’t make him feel anything like the kind of elemental lust Miranda inspired. It was like comparing a firecracker to a lightning bolt.Anyway, this chick is a reporter. Even as a human cop, Justice had never liked reporters. In his former-cop’s experience, they lived to stir shit up. Lacking actual shit to stir, they’d create imaginary shit and stir that. Now that he was one of the world’s tiniest minorities—Magical Americans—he really didn’t like reporters. And that little spell-casting bimbo intended to put them all on CNN?I don’t think so, baby. But what am I going to do about you?Justice watched from the corner of one eye as the reporter moved around them with her camera, shooting away. She turned to say something to her left shoulder and absently pushed a black curl behind one ear. One pointed ear. Justice put the ear together with the invisibility spell. Holy hell, the reporter’s Sidhe.The Sidhe were basically mankind’s cousins, an ancient race of magic-using humans who inhabited Mageverse Earth. Their kingdom lay on the other side of the planet from Avalon; their king, Llyr Galatyn, was one of Arthur’s more important allies.What the hell is a fairy doing in Pakistan? We’re broadcasting the news to Neverland now?And what was that moving around on her other shoulder, the one not occupied by the camera? He couldn’t quite make it out, since its bottom half was the same green as her silk blouse, while the rest matched the building behind her. In fact, he could see the pattern of the brick slide across the whatsit as it moved. Had to be alive.A quick inward breath brought him the scaly aroma of reptile blended with the ozone tang of magic and the woman’s natural feminine scent. Some kind of enchanted lizard? Like a magical chameleon, maybe?“Do you recognize these guys?” she asked it. She was talking to a lizard?“The big fella is Tristan, one of the Knights of the Round Table,” the chameleon said in an Irish accent as thick as mud—and about that clear. “The blond one is La Belle Coeur, what they call a Court Seducer. Don’t know who the redhead is, or the other fella, but . . . He’s starin’ at us.”Her head jerked around so fast she should have given herself whiplash. The CNN Fairy met Justice’s gaze, her violet eyes going round with horror. The camera vanished from her shoulder in an explosion of sparks as she whirled to run.Justice grabbed for his own magic and leaped, shifting to Dire Wolf as he dove over Tristan’s head. He was distantly aware of his companions’ astounded shouts, but he didn’t stop to explain.He grabbed the Sidhe woman by one arm as his clawed feet hit the pavement. Jerking her to a halt, Justice glowered down at her from seven feet of muscle, fur, and fangs. “Oh, no you don’t, News Fairy. Where the hell did the camera go? Bring it back now, or . . .”“Let her go!” The leprechaun lizard Shifted into a dead ring for a Gila monster, its body short and muscular, with a stubby tail and short ’gator legs. It was obviously a hell of a lot more agile than the real reptile, because it launched itself through the air like a flying squirrel. Landing on Justice’s astonished head, it started ripping at him with claws like box cutters. “Get your hands off her or you’ll be diggin’ me out of your face!”Justice barely grabbed the little beast in time to save his eyes. It screamed incomprehensible Irish curses as he dragged it off his head. It was surprisingly strong for something that weighed less than a house cat.Justice had to fight to hang on as the lizard lashed back and forth in his grip, all four stubby legs clawing the air, tailbeating his forearm hard enough to bruise. “Leave my Branwyn alone, gobshite!”He jerked the little beast close enough to get a good look at his much, much longer teeth. “Stop it, or we’ll find out if you really are magically delicious.”“Cac ar oineach!” The lizard snarled, its eyes narrowed to vicious, glowing slits.“Don’t hurt him!” the girl yelled, leaping up to grab Justice’s arm, trying to wrench his lizard-gripping hand away from his jaws. “You can have the camera, just don’t eat Fin!” Her eyes were wide with pleading, her lip trembling as she hung from his massive forearm, booted feet kicking a foot from the ground.Justice’s rage faded in the face of her genuine fear. “I’m not going to eat your lizard, all right? Just tell him to quit . . .”A fireball splashed against the side of his head. Astonished, he turned just as Fin huffed another green flame baseball into his eyes. “Get away from her, or you’ll get seconds!” the lizard howled.“I don’t care,” Justice snarled, “because I am immune to magic.”“Are your balls immune to teeth then? Because I’ll bite the bleeding bollix off you!”“Try it, you scaly little shit, and you’ll end up a pair of boots!”“Please don’t hurt him!” Tears spilled down the girl’s face as she braced both feet against his ribs and hauled on his arm for all she was worth. Being Sidhe, she was much stronger than she looked.“Then tell him to keep his teeth to himself,” Justice snapped, though he was starting to feel like a bully, “or I swear to God, I’ll dropkick his scaly little ass right over the rainbow.”“Téigh trasna ort féin,” the lizard spat.Justice decided it was just as well he didn’t speak Gaelic.“Fin, you’re not helping!” Branwyn cried, and started to sob. “Please, mister, please!”“All right!” He lowered his arm until her feet touched the ground. When he handed her the lizard, Fin promptly Shifted back to his original form—he looked a bit like a miniature Chinese dragon—and shot up her arm to wrap his long, limber body around her neck.The creature glared at him from the shelter of long black curls. “Lay one hand on my girl, you hairy skanger, and you’ll be spitting teeth.” No longer camouflaged, Fin’s scales shone green in the illumination cast by the burning square beyond the alley. They had an iridescent sheen, streaks of violet and gold rippling as he moved. A bright red frill ran the length of his back from his golden eyes to the tip of his long tail. More frills adorned the tail tip, as long and delicate as feathers.“All right, I gave back your scaly leprechaun,” Justice told the fairy, ignoring Fin’s dire Gaelic curses. “Now, where’s the camera?”She clutched her friend protectively close and glared at him. “Oh, all . . .”“Justice,” Miranda interrupted, edging closer as she spoke in the careful tone people use with schizophrenics, “who are you talking to?”“This sneaking little fairy reporter and her pet reptile . . .” He winced as realization hit. “Both of whom are still hidden behind an invisibility spell.”Which meant Miranda, Tristan, and Belle just saw him have a screaming row with empty air. No wonder they were looking at him like a candidate for electroshock.He glowered down at the reporter. “Drop the shield, Tinker Bell. And give me that damned camera before I forget I’m one of the good guys.”“Oh, yeah, you’re just a fuzzy Prince Charming, you are!” The reporter’s voice dripped sarcasm—along with a sudden brogue almost as thick as the lizard’s. “Picking on poor Finvarra. You ought to be ashamed of . . .”He stuck out a palm and snapped his clawed fingers. “Camera and spell. Now, Tink.”The scent of magic disappeared, then flared again as the video camera popped back into view. She handed it over with visible reluctance and a growled “And don’t call me Tinker Bell!”“Think you’re a hard man now?” The lizard sneered. His frilled tail snapped in contempt. “Tosser.”“Bite me, Lucky Charms.”“I tried, Scooby Doo, but the fleas beat me to it.”“That’s Branwyn Donovan.” Miranda stared at the reporter before turning an outraged glare on Justice. “You threatened to eat Branwyn Donovan? What next, Anderson Cooper à la mode? What’s wrong with you?”“I didn’t threaten to eat the damned reporter,” Justice gritted. “I threatened to eat her lizard. Which I gave back, despite being seriously provoked. Look, Miranda, she’s been shooting video of us from behind an invisibility spell. Do you want to be on CNN?”“I don’t work for CNN,” Branwyn announced with icy dignity. “I report for DCN. We have better ratings.”“Wipe that camera’s memory card,” Tristan told Belle in a cold voice. The Magekind were damned serious about making sure video of their activities never hit the air.“It’s as good as wiped.” But before she cast the spell, Belle gave Justice an approving nod. “Good work spotting her before she outted every one of us.”“I’m not going to out you, dammit!” Branwyn planted her fists on her hips and glared at the witch. “I’m Sidhe. I don’t want the mortals to know magic exists any more than you do. They’d either burn me at the stake or dissect me like a frog.”“So why shoot video of us if you weren’t going to run it?” Tristan lifted a skeptical blond brow. “How stupid do you think we are?”Branwyn transferred her glare to him, not in the least intimidated by fifteen hundred years’ worth of legendary, pissed-off knight. “I was going to show it to my brother. I wanted him to see what those . . . creatures are doing to those who don’t have a prayer of defending themselves.”Conal Donovan was the owner of DCN, as well as one of the richest men on the planet. He had fingers in so many pies, he should own his own bakery—and probably did. Figures he’d be magic, Justice thought.Tristan looked her over, frowning. “What creatures are we talking about?”She looked impatient. “You know perfectly well. That Budweiser Clydesdale thing and the giant snake that ate that poor vampire.” Her voice dropped to a mutter, and a tear rolled down her face. “And I liked Kadir, dammit. He didn’t deserve to die like that.”“How do you know Kadir?” Belle eyed her. “And why do you care?”“How could I not care? Those bastards killed half a dozen people and a three-year-old. They’ve got to be stopped. Kadir tried. God, he gave it everything he had. He blasted the hell out of that snake with his AK-47, but the bullets just bounced off it. Then it bit him and . . .” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “I’m going to hear that scream in my nightmares until the day I die.”And if I don’t get my hands on that axe of Daliya’s, Justice thought grimly, Kadir won’t be the only one Warlock and his bastards kill.
And again, here's the link to order MASTER OF DARKNESS from Amazon.. http://www.amazon.com/Master-Darkness-Angela-Knight/dp/0425247937/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1340128419&sr=8-4&keywords=angela+knight

Hi, folks. The ninth book of my Mageverse novel will be o...

Hi, folks. The ninth book of my Mageverse novel will be out August 7, 2012. So I thought I'd give you a sample of the first chapter.


Chapter OneWilliam Justice arched against the mattress like a man being tortured on a rack, his hips rolling upward as he braced his big feet on the bed. Breathing in pumping pants, he ground his head back into the pillow and growled. The low rumble didn’t sound human.An erection curved high over his taut abdomen, hard as a blade, flushed dark and thick with need. A single bead of pre-come clung to the curving tip of his velvet glans. He sucked in a deeper breath, making the long shaft dance. The drop broke free, hit his belly, and rolled into his navel.Dropping his hips to the bed, he went still, dark lashes fanning his cheeks as his eyes flicked behind his closed lids, tracking the dream that tormented him.One big hand fell into the sheets, curled into a fist around a handful of twisted cotton, and gripped hard. A bead of sweat rolled down the thick curve of his biceps, drawing a shining trail as it worked its way along the contours of muscle.As always, he dreamed of Miranda Drake. Miranda, with eyes the vivid gold of sunlight-shot amber, and a mane of hair as red as fox fur. Her breasts looked intriguingly full beneath the soft cotton T-shirts she favored, usually with some snarky phrase scrawled across the front. Snug blue jeans drew attention to her long runner’s legs and delightfully curvy ass.Justice had never seen her naked anywhere except his dreams. These days, that was damned near every time he fell asleep. Sometimes he dreamed her nipples were the color of peaches on the sweet cream curves of her breasts, or candy pink, or soft, dusky rose. But in every single dream, her scent intoxicated him with its rich, erotic promise as she reached for him with a wicked, witchy smile. Never mind that the real Miranda treated him with a cool, distant professionalism that made it plain he was her bodyguard. And that was all.All he was. All he’d ever be.“Dammit, Miranda.” Lips peeling off his teeth, Justice growled, the sound deepening to become a bestial rumble. “Miranda!”Magic flashed. Blazing sparks engulfed him in azure energy. The glowing outline of Justice’s big body grew even bigger, muscles bulging thicker, swelling along lengthening bones. Fingernails curved into claws, shredding the sheet he still gripped. A silken tide of sable fur raced across his body, thickening over chest and groin just as his short hair lengthened into a thick, black mane that extended halfway down his back.Justice woke with a jerk, pointed ears flattening against his skull. “Fuck,” he growled through the sharp teeth filling his long muzzle. With a disgusted growl, he rolled out of the king bed that was now too short for him, leaving behind shredded navy sheets.Third time this week he’d wrecked the bed. That damned witch was driving him insane.Justice stalked on clawed toes to the stained glass window, jerked the latch up, and swung the window wide. Fall air gusted into his face, cool and damp with the woody smell of decaying leaves. Judging by the angle of the sun, it was early afternoon. They’d started keeping Magekind hours, he and Miranda, sleeping during the day and going on missions at night.You did that when you worked with vampires.Bracing his hands on the window frame, he stared out across the elegant cityscape of castles, chateaus, and villas that surrounded Miranda’s cottage. Towering walls of marble and granite shone in the afternoon sun, surrounded by trees gone orange and gold with autumn. Topiary knights and ladies danced and jousted between the gilded oaks, swaying in the afternoon breeze.Avalon.An enchanted city built by witches on a world that was the other-dimensional twin to Earth, Avalon inhabited a universe where magic was a natural force, like magnetism or gravity. You could use that power to build a house—or turn into a werewolf.Two months ago, Justice had agreed to serve as the bodyguard Miranda desperately needed. Her father had sworn to kill her, and he was more than capable of carrying out the threat. Even King Arthur and his vampire Knights of the Round Table weren’t enough protection. Not against Warlock, immortal wizard, werewolf, and all-around son-of-a-bitch.Justice wasn’t sure he was good enough protection either, especially given this damned sexual obsession he’d developed. Bodyguards did not become obsessed with the bodies they guarded. Not and keep their clients alive.Yeah, that did it. Looking down, Justice saw that the thought of Miranda in danger had indeed killed his hard-on. He swung the window closed, turned to brace his back against the cool wall, and tried not to remember the dream.So of course he remembered it anyway. Miranda, naked on her knees, offering him the smooth, perfect peach of her ass. Her witchy eyes shimmered as she smiled at him over one slim, pale shoulder. Her oval face reminded him of an Art Decco goddess, with its delicate strength and long Roman nose. Dusky rose lips curved in a white and wicked smile, seductive as Eve’s. Her gleaming hair cascaded around her shoulders in a thousand shades, from fox-fur to antique gold, and her round, pretty tits danced as she moved. Her pink nipples seemed to beg for the swirl of his tongue and the rake of his teeth. Her slick sex pouted at him from the soft, fiery curls between her spread thighs. Ready for his aching cock . . .Which promptly stirred and began to rise again, unfurling with the hot flood of arousal through his veins.“You’re killing me,” Justice told the dream, raking both hands through his thick werewolf mane in pure frustration.Dammit, it wasn’t as if she were in her Burning Moon. The Dire Wolf equivalent of heat struck fertile werewolf females once a year. During that month, their bodies produced clouds of pheromones that drove every male around insane with need. Justice’s obsession would be understandable if he’d spent weeks drinking that seductive scent. Only Miranda wasn’t in her Moon. The crazed heat he felt was purely his own creation. Meanwhile, she treated him with the unwavering good manners of a lady of the Chosen, a werewolf aristocrat who could trace her lineage back fifteen centuries. God knew what had inspired the erotic nymph of his dreams. It certainly had nothing to do with reality.Dammit, he shouldn’t even be thinking about this. If he didn’t stay on his clawed toes, she didn’t have a prayer against Warlock.Protecting people was what Justice did. It was what he was. Even becoming a werewolf hadn’t changed that. He damned well wouldn’t let it.I am not going to let Miranda’s luscious peach ass distract me from keeping her alive.
*** Miranda Drake dreamed of her mother’s death.On some level, she knew it was a dream; she’d had this particular nightmare so many times, even her unconscious mind recognized it. Yet repetition hadn’t blunted its power to suck her into horror.She screamed at herself not to open the door, but the dream Miranda did it anyway. Just as on that night three months ago, Gerald Drake stood on the other side—seven and a half feet of enraged, fully transformed werewolf. Snarling, her stepfather stormed into the house, slamming the door behind him.Miranda backed away, her heart in her throat. He’d been beating her and her mother ever since she could remember. She knew this one was going to be bad.“You utter fool!” Baring the knife length of his fangs, Gerald backhanded her before she could block the blow. She slammed into the wall with a crash that rattled the foyer paintings as she fell flat on her ass. “You betrayed your people.” His voice rose to a roar. “You betrayed your god!”Miranda shook her ringing head as she fought to scramble to her feet. She had to get away before he hit her again.“Gerald, wait!” Joelle Drake darted between them, raising her hands in supplication. “Miranda has done nothing to betray anyone, much less Warlock!”He seemed to swell in his rage, towering over the fragile figure of his wife. “Don’t you dare lie to me, you stupid cunt! Calista Norman called—she told me all about what you did. How could you let Miranda anywhere near a Knight of the Round Table? You knew she’d talk!”Calista, you bitch, Miranda thought, steadying herself against the wall as the room rotated slowly around her. Stars flashed in her vision. He’d given her a concussion.Again.“We had no idea the knight would be there.” Joelle spoke in a desperate rush, trying to get through to him before he killed them both. “The ladies were holding a Grieving for Joan Devon, and . . .”“Joan Devon!” Gerald mocked her in a high, singsong voice. “Why do you think Joan’s husband is dead, moron? She gave him up to the knights! Just like she”—he pointed a curving talon at Miranda— “gave up Warlock!”“No, no, you’re wrong!” Joelle wrung her hands and darted a frantic glance at Miranda. “She told them nothing. Did you, darling?”“Not a damn thing.” Miranda forced herself to meet her stepfather’s furious yellow gaze without flinching. “The woman tried to give me a communication spell, but Mother knocked it out of my hand and told her to stay away from me. So we left.”Gerald’s long muzzle twitched, drawing in her scent.Oh, shit, Miranda thought. I should have talked around it. He’ll know I’m going to contact . . .“You lie!” He sprang at her, knocking Joelle aside with a sweep of one furry arm. Miranda skittered back, calling her magic as she retreated from his snapping jaws. The Shift raced over her body in a wave of fur as muscle and bone contorted like soft clay in the grip of her power.“You dare change?” As she met his frenzied gaze, she realized he’d lost control completely. Gerald intended to kill her this time. “You dare fight me? You dare?”Fear iced her veins, but she made herself sneer. She was tired of cowering before the bastard Warlock had appointed her guardian. “Oh, I dare. And if I get a chance to talk to Belle again, I’m going to tell her everything.”“Then I’ll have to see you don’t get that chance, you traitorous bitch!” He drew back a clawed hand, obviously intending to rip out her throat.Joelle threw herself between her daughter and the blow. “Ger—”His claws ripped into Joelle’s face before she could get the rest of the word out of her mouth. She flew sideways, her body slamming into the base of the stairs with a crash. Something snapped with a crack that seemed to echo in Miranda’s skull. “Mother!” Forgetting her stepfather, she crossed the room in one leap, landing beside her mother in a coiling crouch. It was even worse than she’d feared. Joelle’s head lay at an impossible angle, the life draining from her eyes.Oh, God. I finally got my mother killed, Miranda thought numbly. She started to snatch Joelle into her arms, only to hesitate, afraid she’d somehow hurt her mother even worse. “Call 911!”“It’s too late.” Gerald sounded utterly indifferent. It was no pose, either; he really didn’t give a damn. “She broke her neck. She’s dead.” He bared his teeth, stalking toward Miranda on clawed feet. Grabbing a fistful of her mane, he hauled her away from Joelle’s body as he drew back for another open-handed swipe of his claws. “And I’m not done with you.”He didn’t notice the short sword his stepdaughter conjured into the hand held down by her side. He damned well did notice when she rammed it into his chest.Miranda’s lips peeled off her teeth. “Well, I’m done with you!”“Miranda?” The female voice breathed into her mind.She jerked the blade out of Gerald’s chest, and her stepfather fell onto his knees, gagging in agony. Emotionless as an executioner, Miranda took his head with one swing of her sword.“Miranda?” The voice called again.He won’t be healing that, she thought.
Miranda jolted awake, sweating, her body trembling in waves. She sat up and buried her head in her hands as tears rolled hot and fat down her cheeks.“Miranda? Dammit, girl, answer your cell! We need you now!”Jolted from her misery, she looked up. She’d thought the feminine voice was some new wrinkle in that god-awful dream, but now she realized it was Belle, using magic to touch her mind.Miranda grabbed for the enchanted cell phone on the cherry nightstand. Reaching into another witch’s consciousness took a hell of a lot of power, especially when one witch was on Mortal Earth and the other was in the Mageverse city of Avalon. It was much more efficient to use a cell spelled for inter-dimensional communication. “Belle? I’m here.”“Finally,” her friend said, sounding relieved. “I need you and Justice. Now.”A minute and a half later, Miranda strode down the hall to Justice’s door. He was already up; she could hear him pacing. Must be in wolf form, she thought, listening to the click of claws on the bedroom’s hardwood floor.Breathing in, Miranda caught the seductive male scent of an aroused Alpha Dire wolf. And remembered his size, his strength, the tempting power of his hard warrior’s body.Which was exactly why she needed to stay the hell away from him, no matter how sexy he was. The very last thing she needed in her life was another Alpha werewolf. Just look what happened to Mom, she told the nipples that stood in tight peaks behind the lace of her bra. Besides, Belle needs us. It was night in Pakistan, and Dad’s pet monsters had come out to play.Miranda gave the door a businesslike rap of her knuckles. “Justice?”After an instant of startled silence, he laughed. “Ah, sorry. I didn’t even know you were out there. Some bodyguard, huh?”Actually, he was a pretty damned good bodyguard. He’d killed the werewolf assassins that had jumped them in Paris last month, along with the other assorted killers before and after that. She’d be dead a dozen times over if not for Justice.Miranda cleared her throat. “Belle just called me. She needs us. Apparently the Knights of the Round Table got in a fight with some monster Warlock dreamed up.”“But it’s still daylight.” Being vampires, the knights slept during the day.“Not in Pakistan.”“What the hell is going on in Pakistan?”“One of the witches is dying. Belle said she’s trying to hold on long enough to tell us about a vision she’s had about us. I gather it’s pretty damned important.”“She had a vision about us? Crap. Why?”“Don’t know, but we’d better haul ass. And Belle says we need full armor, so I’ve got to conjure yours.” Miranda already wore her own suit of interlocking plate. The bulletproof steel was engraved with spells that made it feel as weightless as silk, though it could protect against damn near any impact and most magical blasts. A silhouette of a dragon’s head was enameled in red across the breastplate. Arthur Pendragon had ordered Miranda and Justice to wear his personal heraldic symbol as protection against friendly fire. Magekind warriors had a tendency to think any werewolf was the enemy. All too often, they were right.“Give me a minute,” Justice said through the door. “I’ve got to change.”Miranda felt the explosion of magic as he Shifted. Clothing rustled, then the door swung wide.Oh, my.Working to keep her expression cool, she took in Justice’s broad, bare chest, faded jeans, and big bare feet. The way he held the door open made his biceps bunch until they looked the size of grapefruit. Sparks of werewolf magic still flickered in his black eyes, a remnant of his transformation.Miranda liked to tell herself that William Justice had a thug’s face, between his broad cheekbones, square jaw, and aggressive nose. Thick black brows slashed over deep-set ebony eyes. Cop’s eyes, watchful, assessing, maybe even a little paranoid.She could resist all that. Really. She’d be just fine if it weren’t for his mouth. Wide, curled in a wicked grin more often than not, with a full lower lip she really wanted to bite. Just hard enough to make those obsidian eyes go all hot.Then she’d run her hands down the powerful lines of his chest, exploring every thick contour, tracing her fingers through the soft curls that covered that chest, following the tempting line of sable hair that dove behind his zipper, pointing the way to . . .Alpha werewolf, Miranda reminded herself sternly, jerking her eyes away.“Uh, Miranda?” he asked in that velvet rumble of his.Licking her dry lips, she forced herself to meet Justice’s night-dark gaze without letting her eyes drift downward. She was not going to follow that maddening line of hair . . . “Yeah?”“I need that armor. You did say we’ve got to hurry.”“Oh. Uh, right.” Reaching for the energy of the Mageverse roiling invisibly around them, Miranda concentrated and began to spin magic into steel.Seconds later, Justice’s jeans had been replaced by armor that matched her own. Somehow all that ornate gleaming metal only emphasized his strength, drawing attention to the elegant V of his torso as it swept down to narrow hips and long runner’s legs.There was nothing muscle-bound about him; he fought with speed and agility, as ruthless and loyal in her defense as the wolf he was. If he were human, I’d be in love with him by now. She instantly banished the thought, afraid it would show on her face.Luckily, Justice didn’t notice her preoccupation. He was too intent on the sword she’d conjured for him, a length of steel designed for magical combat, its enchanted edge as sharp as a straight razor.Eying the weapon’s broad blade, Justice swung it with a skillful rotation of his wrist, testing its weight and balance. He gave her a brisk, approving nod through the open visor of his helm. “This looks good. Let’s gate.”“Miranda?” Belle’s communication spell reverberated in her mind. “Daliya won’t last much longer. If you don’t get here in the next five minutes . . .”“We’re on the way.” Miranda shot a laser-thin stream of magic into the air. The point flared blue and bright, expanding as she fed it more power, until it became a rippling opening in the air. The magical portal cut across the dimensions to Mortal Earth—the home of six billion humans with no idea thirty thousand werewolves lived among them.Justice led the way through the gate, wary and protective as always. Miranda drew her own sword and stepped after him. At least with his delightful ass covered in steel, she was less likely to drool at it.He stopped so suddenly on the other side of the gate, she had to sidestep to avoid running him through. “Dammit, Justice, what the . . .” Then she got a good look at what had stopped him in his tracks.The blasted ruins of a city square lay before them, buildings blazing against the night sky. Tumbled bricks lay in piles between chunks of broken cement spiked with rebar, as blackened wooden beams jutted like the fingers of charred skeletons. Magekind agents moved fearlessly among the burning wreckage. Witches cast spells to snuff the flames as vampires dug survivors free of the rubble, then handed them off to healers for treatment of their injuries. “Jesus, Dad has been busy.” Miranda’s feet were planted in something sticky. Flipping her helm’s visor up, she glanced down to discover she stood in a puddle of drying blood. Grimacing, she stepped out of it and sent out a mental call. “Belle?”“Behind you,” the witch called.Turning, she and Justice found they’d gated into the mouth of a filthy alley. Belle and Tristan knelt on the trash-littered ground, a woman in armor lying between them. Moving closer, Miranda realized the witch was curled protectively around a man’s decapitated head, one hand stroking its bloody cheek. Her despairing grief was so intense, it filled Miranda’s Direkind nose with the scent of sweetness gone acrid, like burning roses. Miranda hurried toward them, armored boots sending gravel bouncing across the alley. Justice followed more slowly, checking the alley for whatever had felled the woman and her lover.The dying witch lifted her head at their approach. Her eyes met Miranda’s, glazed with suffering and approaching death. Had she been a victim of a werewolf bite? Miranda sheathed her sword and dropped to her knees beside Belle.Justice moved to hover protectively over them, eyes scanning from one end of the alley to the other. Nothing would sneak up on them with him on guard. Miranda could concentrate on the victim. Sending a wave of magic rolling over the woman, she searched for lethal punctures. The magic in werewolf bites sent Magekind victims into fatal anaphylactic shock; only Miranda’s Direkind healing spells could save them. But since she couldn’t be everywhere at once, she’d concocted a vaccine a couple of weeks ago and administered it to every fighter in Avalon. Frowning, Miranda glanced at Belle. The blond witch’s pretty face looked soot-smeared and exhausted in the frame of her open visor, and she smelled of blood, smoke, and grief. “What happened? I thought I vaccinated everybody. Did it wear off?”Without answering, Belle bent closer to the fallen woman. “They’re here, Daliya. You can tell them what you saw.”“Good . . . Good.” The Maja lifted a shaking gauntleted hand.Miranda took it automatically. “Are you bitten anywhere? My magic . . .”“You cannot heal what kills me.” The woman sucked in a rattling breath, obviously struggling for strength. They’d taken off her helmet, exposing lovely Pakistani features and huge dark eyes. Her black hair pooled around her head in a lake of ebony silk that gleamed in the firelight. “And I don’t . . . want you to.” She stopped to pant.“That’s her husband,” Tristan explained gruffly, nodding to the head. “They were Truebonded.”Miranda grimaced, understanding at last. The Truebond psychic link was pulling the Maja into death after her mate. Actually, it was surprising she was still alive at all. Truebonded couples usually died within minutes of each other.“Daliya fought to survive long enough to see you,” Belle explained, a rasp to her normally musical French accent, as if she’d breathed in too much smoke -- or fought back tears. “She’s had a vision involving you and Justice, and she says she has to tell you about it.”“Wolf.” The dying Maja lifted her free hand toward Justice as if it took all her strength. “Wolf, I must speak . . . to you, too.”He hesitated, obviously surprised, then sheathed his sword and dropped to his knees to take the witch’s hand.The moment he touched her, light exploded in the depths of Daliya’s black pupils. Feeble fingers clamped around Miranda’s so hard, she almost yelped in surprise.The witch began to chant in a feverish cadence, her musical voice much louder than it should be, as if an alien power had taken over her dying vocal chords. “Listen! Seek the Mother of Fairies as she folds enchanted steel into blades she fills with the souls of lost gods.”Daliya’s black eyes flicked from Miranda’s face to Justice’s, magic sparking in her pupils like fireworks. “She waits in her forge for the hero wolf to come for Merlin’s Blade. Then will the Hunter Prince be free—then will he rule in bloody vengeance or bend his knee to his spirit’s feral king.”Her fingers tightened on Miranda’s until the steel of both their gauntlets creaked under the strain. “It will take the daughter of evil and a master of darkness to lead the night world into the light. If they do fail, humanity will drown in blood under the white wolf’s heel, and the crows will feast.”The Maja fell silent, panting as if she’d run a marathon, her last desperate strength visibly draining like water from a broken pitcher. Her dark eyes began to cloud in death. “Find the Mother at her forge, or Avalon . . . dies. Warlock will kill the . . . world. Magekind. Humans. Direkind. All will feed the ravens. All will die.”Her gaze slid away from Miranda’s to seek her husband’s head. She released Miranda’s hand to touch pale, bloody lips with fingers that shook. “Wait for me, Kadir. Now I come.” Daliya’s lips twitched as if to smile, despite the tear that rolled down one dark cheek. “Yes, yes . . . I’m always . . . late.”Her hand dropped to the pavement as her magic swirled away with her life, escaping back to its source in the Mageverse.As I said, the book will be out August 7. If you'd like to preorder it from Amazon, you'll find it here: http://www.amazon.com/Master-Darkness-Angela-Knight/dp/0425247937/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1340025453&sr=8-3&keywords=angela+knightAt Barnes and Noble, the link is:http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/master-of-darkness-angela-knight/1104878538?ean=9780425247938

The first chapter of my new book, Enforcer

If you haven't seen much of me lately, it's because I'm hard at work on my new novella, "Enforcer," which will be published in March by Berkley.

Enforcer is the long-awaited climax of the TIME HUNTERS series that so many of you have been demanding. I hope you find it worth the wait. In the meantime, I'd like to share the following chapter, just to give you a little taste of my futuristic world.

Enforcer

Chapter One

The one thing Dona had always hated about time travel was the smell. All those romantic temporal trids never mentioned the reek of horse manure and non-existent sanitation. But after three years as a Temporal Enforcer, Dona barely noticed the stench anymore.

This odor was an order of magnitude worse, a nauseating sensory assault blended with an overlay of human waste and the copper reek of blood. It seemed to coat the back of her throat until every breath, every swallow made her stomach roil.

Decomp was a smell you never got used to, no matter how many murders you worked.

Some of the bodies had spent hours ripening in the July heat of this dark, silent house before a courier ‘bot had arrived at the North American Temporal Outpost. The ‘bot’s report of a tour group under attack had every available agent scrambling.

Two and a half minutes after the ‘bot left eighteenth century Philadelphia, a team of ten Enforcers Jumped into the house’s parlor, weapons drawn. The smell told them they were too late.

It was soon obvious no frantic temporal tourist had sent the courier. Every one of the poor bastards was already dead when it made its initial Jump through time.

The killers themselves had sent the ‘bot. The question, of course, was why.

Now reasonably sure she had her rebellious stomach under control, Dona stepped through the open bedroom door. Her Enforcer’s gaze automatically tracked the arching patterns of blood-splatter across the wall to her left. The small oval rug felt sticky under her booted feet, saturated with drying blood.

She scanned the room warily. There wasn’t a hell of a lot to see, since there was barely enough space for the oak four-poster bed canopied in rose-patterned fabric, an armoire, and a wash stand. A china pitcher stood beside a matching washbowl on the stand, both painted with a delicate pattern of twining red roses that matched the canopy.

Beyond the bed’s canopy curtains lay a still lump so covered with dried blood, it appeared to have been dipped in brown paint.

Scan and identify victim, Dona ordered her internal computer.

She was perfectly suited to this kind of computer forensics. A nanocrystal computer wound through her brain, its artificial synapses linked to her neurons. More nanocrystal formed a lacy network of sensors just beneath her skin, designed to detect everything from DNA structure to the presence of tachyon weaponry. Deep within her bones and muscles lay still more nanobot filaments, making her far stronger than her long, lean build would suggest. All of which made her ideally suited for her job as a Temporal Enforcer.

DNA scan confirms there is a ninety-eight-point-five percent chance the victim in Lolai Hardin, the comp announced a moment later in its light, androgynous voice.

Dona muttered, “Yeah, that’s what I figured you’d say.”

Lolai had been the licensed temporal guide who owned Hardin's Independence Tours; this house was her Philadelphia base of operations. She’d been playing host to a group of tourists here to watch the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Until a gang of murderers gave them all a guided tour of hell.

Since the Enforcers had already determined Lolai wasn’t one of the victims downstairs, odds were she was this one.

But you couldn’t make assumptions. Not with these bastards; they were fully capable of killing a temporal native and putting her in Lolai’s bed. Though it was hard to imagine that dark lump had ever been human...

Play the file of Lolai's commercial trid again. Sometimes looking into the victim's face helped Dona see her as a human being. Helped her see evidence that wouldn't come into focus as long as she kept seeing the victim as a chunk of meat.

The comp made that little mental chirp that said it was acting on her last order. An instant later, the woman's three-dimensional image faded into view like a ghost.

The trid appeared perfectly solid, though Lolai seemed to be standing hip-deep in the bed, roughly where the corpse’s legs should be. There was a bit of nauseating irony Dona could have done without.

The temporal guide had been delicately beautiful, despite the fine lines that radiated from the corner of her blue eyes. According to her dossier, she was eighty-two, though someone from this time would have believed her no older than twenty.

Hardin wore an eighteenth-century walking dress in deep green silk, with a delicate lace apron and a matching kerchief tucked in the gown's low square neckline. A jaunty hat decorated with flowers tilted rakishly over one eye. She looked as comfortable in the historical garb as if she wore it every day.

Which she probably did. When not ferrying tour groups back and forth through time, most guides lived wherever they conducted their tours. It helped them blend in with the temporal natives and build relationships they could use to create more interesting historical trips for their clients.

"I’m Lolai Hardin,” Hardin said in Galactic Standard with a faint Colonial Philadelphia accent. “I have thirty-four years of experience as a temporal guide specializing in Colonial America, particularly Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. Before that, I was a guide in Civil War Charleston, South Carolina.” Hardin’s smile was bright, her manner calm and confident. Dona tried not to wonder how she’d looked when she’d realized she was about to die. Had she sensed the horror her last hours would be? “If you'd like to experience life as our ancestors did, Hardin's Independence Tours will give you a taste of the past you'll never forget."

"I certainly won’t be forgetting this any time soon -- whether I like it or not," Dona muttered. She’d be having nightmares about this one.

She desperately wanted a bath.

"Goddess Mother, this is worse than the butchery downstairs," Chief Alerio Dyami rumbled as he strode into the room. Dona's far-too vulnerable heart leaped in reaction, though she managed to keep the pleasure off her face.

You weren't supposed to be that damned happy to see your commanding officer walk in.

He was a big man, tall and broad in his dark blue temporal jump armor. A Vardonese tattoo swirled down the left side of his face in vivid shades of green and gold, emphasizing the angular strength of his features. As he scanned Lolai’s pitiful corpse, glacial rage burned in those dark pupils, flecking them with crimson light.

Dyami wasn’t just Chief Temporal Enforcer for the North America Temporal Outpost -- he was a Vardonese Warlord. A genetically engineered warrior born and bred to protect civilians, Dyami had the superhuman strength and speed to do the job. His eyes glowed whenever his emotions grew especially strong, probably as a warning to the unwary. Everyone assigned to the Outpost soon learned that when the chief’s eyes went red, you’d better duck.

“Fourteen people dead,” he growled, looming at her shoulder, eyes blazing like laser sights. “And there’s not a single fucking thing we can do about it. Sometimes it drives me insane. God, I'd love to go back in time and just slaughter those bastards. Except it wouldn't do any fucking good because...”

“...You can’t change history,” Dona echoed his snarl.

Lolai would die because she had died. Somewhere she was still dying. Thirty years of time travel had proved that all time is simultaneous. Past, present and future were an illusion, which made the concepts of predestination and time paradoxes equally meaningless.

“So we’ll just damned well make sure we catch the bastards before they kill anyone else.” A muscle jerked in his broad, square jaw.

Dona rocked back on one booted heel. “With Lolai, that makes all fourteen victims accounted for. Hardin, the ten tourists downstairs -- one of whom is a fourteen-year-old boy -- and the three support staff who posed as Hardin's house servants."

The chief grunted, his brooding gaze drifting to what was left of the tour guide. "At least the bastards didn't kidnap anybody."

“No, you definitely wouldn’t want to be a victim they could take their time with.” Dona grimaced. “It was bad enough as it is.”

The woman's wrists were bound to the canopy posts with mag cables. Loops of the metallic rope-like restraints circled the posts at the foot of the bed, but the ankles they'd bound had vanished.

Dona's comp helpfully informed her that Hardin’s right leg was that red lump under the bed, while the left one had somehow ended up beside the washstand. She swallowed hard and told her comp, Do not let me toss in front of the Chief.

Beginning anti-nausea treatment. Her stomach stopped bucking. “You think the killers were priests?”

He shrugged. "Hard to say, though they were definitely Xeran, based on the DNA scans." Several of them had gang-raped one of the staff and a female tourist, leaving plenty of DNA behind in the process. They hadn’t even bothered to destroy the genetic evidence, as if they’d wanted the Enforcers to know who they were.

Dona didn’t much care for the implications. "This isn't normal behavior even for Xerans. I had my comp run a simulation based on the scene downstairs. The comp says the killers hacked at those people in some kind of frenzy. Maybe religious, maybe sexual. Either way, it was ugly.”

He nodded, only to stiffen abruptly, his head whipping around toward the form on the bed. "Seven hells!"

"What?" Her hand dropped to the shard pistol on her hip. He'd gone so pale, his facial tatt looked almost gaudy against his pallor.

What the hell could be bad enough to make Alerio Dyami go white?

"I just had my comp run a DNA scan on this woman's rapist. It says he was human.” He actually looked sick, an expression that looked utterly alien on a man who was usually so coolly professional.

Dona stared at him, feeling her stomach drop to her boots as she instantly realized why he'd reacted so strongly.

Technically the Xerans were human, being descended from the human colonists of Xer. But over the past couple of centuries, genetic engineering had changed them into something…else. Something faster and stronger and light-years meaner.

To the Xerans, humans were inferior primitives, heretics who refused to worship their "god," a lunatic they called the Victor. Dona could think of only one human they’d trust to help them slaughter a houseful of human civilians. “Ivar Terje.”

“Yeah, Ivar. Again.” The chief curled a lip. “I told my comp to rerun the scan. It got the same results. There's a ninety-nine-point-eight percent chance Terje raped and murdered Lolai Hardin.”

“Gods.” Dona’s eyes slid back to the dismembered torso. “How could he have done something like this?” And why in the name of all the hells didn’t I know he was capable of it? "I slept with him. Oh, Gods...."

"I didn't know what he was either.” Dyami shook his head, the beads of his combat decorations clicking among his long black braids. “I still can’t believe he sold us out for a handful of galactors."

Well, it was hardly a handful. The chief’s own investigation of Ivar’s finances had determined the Xerans paid him 1.3 million galactors. But Dyami wasn't the kind of man to turn traitor for any amount of money.

Ironically, it was that bedrock honor that had made Dona turn to Ivar to begin with. If Dyami hadn't been so relentlessly honorable--not to mention inhumanly handsome in that Vardonese way of his, all height and muscle and hard black eyes--she wouldn't have felt driven to seek a lover in self-defense. She’d known Alerio was every bit as attracted to her as she was to him. If he’d made a concentrated attempt to seduce her, she’d never be able to resist. And she was damned if she’d get involved with another CO.

So instead she’d become lover to a traitor and a murderer.

Oh, beefershit, Dona thought, suddenly impatient with herself. I wanted to believe I was in love with the sociopathic bastard because he knew just how to play me. I was willfully stupid.

Her sensors had warned her Ivar used his comp almost continuously, controlling his body's normal emotional reactions at all times. If he'd been a suspect, she'd have recognized that elaborate control as an indication he was lying every time he opened his mouth. But because he was her partner – and her shield against the temptation Alerio posed --she'd ignored the warning signs.

She hadn't seen the truth until his fist hit her face.

Her gaze slid back to his victim. And apparently I got off lucky. The thought of what he’d done to Lolai tied her guts in rolling acidic knots.

"Would these people be dead if we'd managed to capture Ivar six months ago?" She caught herself rubbing her belly. With an effort, she forced her hand to drop.

Dyami snorted. "I hate to interrupt your wallow in guilt, but Ivar is nothing to the Xerans." Despite his tart words, there was sympathy in his dark gaze. "They don't think much of traitors. These poor bastards would be dead whether or not they’d let the fucker come along for the ride."

"I'm not very fond of the dickhole myself," Dona muttered.

Dyami suddenly lifted his head and half turned away. Probably listening to a private com message. The dim light from the evidence bot rolled over the dark blue scales of his armored T-suit, making its silver piping gleam. Her eyes helplessly followed the rolling line of light as it played over powerful muscle barely concealed by the tight-fitting suit.

"Dr. Chogan just commed me. They’ve completed the evidence collection. Let’s take care of this poor fem and Jump for home." Turning his head, he caught her staring at his ass. One black brow rose.

If not for her computer, her cheeks would be blazing beet red. "Uh, yes sir."

"Good." He gave her a decisive nod, beads clinking. "We need to finish the cleanup before one of the temporals decides to investigate."

No, they definitely didn't want some eighteenth century good Samaritan walking in on an Enforcer team in all its armored glory. "I checked before we left the Outpost, but I didn't see any record of a mass slaying on this date,” Dona told him. “If somebody’d found this mess, they’d have talked about it.”

Dyami snorted. "Assuming any reports survived the ensuing five hundred years."

That was the trouble with time travel. You might think you knew what happened, but you really didn't. Records were lost, to fire or mold or other ravages of time. Those who reported the events at the time could have lied to protect their reputations, to make a political point, or just for the hell of it. Ever since temporal exploration began thirty years ago, humanity had been shocked to learn how much "history" was pure beefershit.

You never really knew what had happened during historical events until you went back and watched them occur. Otherwise, the past might as well be the surface of an alien planet.

"Make way. Body tube coming in." The stasis cylinder floated through the door, the blue glow of its antigrav field lighting up the room. Dr. Sakuri Chogan followed, her face grim and pale under her topknot of iridescent green hair. A swarm of evidence bots trailed her, ready to process the scene.

Chogan stopped in the doorway and stared around at the arching patterns of blood splatter. "Seven hells!"

Dona automatically took a step closer, concerned by her friend’s sickened expression.

"Oh, back off." The Outpost’s doctor shot her an impatient glower. "I do autopsies for a living.” Then, as if against her will, her gaze drifted around the room again. “Though judging by the scene, I can already tell you this bastard’s crystal is seriously cracked."

“DNA scans say it was Ivar,” Dona told her.

“Oh.” Wincing on her behalf, Chogan promptly changed the subject. "We’d better get this poor woman tubed." Revulsion crossed the human’s expressive face. "As soon as we can find all of her…”

###

Grim, unspeaking, Dona, Chogan and Dyami went to work at the gory task. Luckily temporal armor was as effective at blocking biological contaminants as it was at protecting the body from time travel.

As they worked, faint slurps and thumps signaled that the evidence bots were equally busy, removing every last blood cell from the plastered walls, every hair and bone fragment and stray bit of tissue from the bed and floor. Every last alien anything that didn't belong in the eighteenth century. By the time they were through, you’d never know anyone had died here.

Dona lifted the stiff brown pillow that had lain under Hardin’s head. A courier bot popped out from beneath it, darting into the air in a blaze of blue anti-grav light. She jumped, barely managing to bite back a startled yelp.

"Alerio Dyami!" the bot thundered in a surprisingly deep voice. "I seek Alerio Dyami, Chief Temporal Enforcer of the North American Outpost."

"I'm Dyami." Alerio studied the device with narrow-eyed intensity. “My sensors say it’s a Xeran ‘bot,” he murmured to Dona.

She backed off, one hand falling to the shard pistol holstered at her hip. Luckily, the fact that the courier had traveled in time meant it was unlikely to be armed with any really interesting energy weapons. Anybody or anything attempting a temporal jump armed with a tachyon beamer would blow itself straight to the seven hells.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of other ways to kill, even a target as formidable as Alerio Dyami. Dona locked her sensors on the ‘bot, ready to fire if it tried to power up a weapon.

"I have a message for you," the courier announced. "Would you like to take it privately?"

"Chief, don't!" Chogan began urgently.

Dyami shot her a cool look. "Give me a little credit, Doctor. I'm not stupid enough to smear anything from that thing on my skin." To the bot, he said, "I'm not concerned with privacy. If you've got a message, play it."

"As you wish," the bot said cheerfully.

And just like that, Ivar Terje stood in the middle of the room.

Dona damned near drew her pistol before logic kicked in. It’s just a trid, idiot.

"Don't shoot the 'bot, Dyami," the three-dimensional recording said with a smirk. Being genetically engineered, Ivar was inhumanly handsome—at least until you realized his eyes were as cold and gray as the ice on a frozen planet.

And why didn’t I notice that when it could have done me some good?

He’d cut his hair since she’d seen him last, buzzing it so short it covered his head in a red bristle. The style was apparently designed to call attention to the silver implants jutting from his skull.

"Look who's wearing horns!" Chogan curled a lip. "Terje’s pretending to be a priest of the Victor now."

"What do you think of my handiwork, Chief?" Ivar's image flashed a vicious white grin. "Hells, that Lolai was a squealer. If not for the mute field, every primitive for miles would have come running." The grin widened still more. "It'll take a lot more work to get a scream out of Dona, but I'll manage--eventually."

To Dona’s surprise, Dyami stiffened, his eyes going solid red, his lips pulling back in a snarl. "You won't get the chance, ‘botfucker.” He took a gliding step closer, as if he’d forgotten it was only a recording.

Ivar chuckled, almost as if he'd heard the chief. "I'm sure you're growling manly Warlord threats right now. I'd be impressed —if I were there. Instead I'll just give you a choice. Surrender yourself to the Victor’s...justice. Along with Dona, Galar Arvid, Jessica, Nick Wyatt, and his whore Riane."

Every trace of humor vanished from his face, leaving nothing but vicious intent. "Otherwise, my team and I are going to butcher every temporal historian, every trid crew, every tourist and guide we can get our hands on. And that's a long list. Your choice, Dyami. Surrender now like the hero you are, or let innocents pay for your cowardice."

The image winked out.

Dyami lunged for the 'bot in a blurring surge of Warlord muscle, but before his fingers could close over it, the thing darted away. A flare of blinding light and a thunderclap sonic boom signaled the ‘bot’s Jump back to the Xeran home world.

When Dona's ears quit ringing, Alerio was still pacing and cursing. "Courier probably recorded our reactions to Ivar's little ultimatum. He'll want to gloat." He bared his teeth in something light years from a smile. "Glaciers will claim the Seven Hells before I surrender any of my people to those Xeran dickholes."

That reaction didn't surprise Dona in the least. "He meant it about the civilians, sir. They'll slaughter every tourist and historian they can."

"Then we'll just have to make sure they don’t get the chance." His eyes were solid sheets of flame now, damn near bright enough to cast a shadow.

And she was staring at him again. Her longing was probably written all over her face. Fool, Dona thought, dragging her eyes away. Never mind what happened with Ivar – what about Kagan? Wasn’t it enough getting your heart ripped out by one commanding officer? Do you really need Dyami to repeat the lesson?

###

The temporal journey back to the North American Outpost was as grueling as always. The Enforcers Jumped from the house's great room in teams of two, accompanied by body tubes.

Alerio kept watch as was his habit, covering his team's retreat. As much as he could, anyway, having gone half-blind and deaf from the temporal flares and their accompanying sonic booms. Luckily the suits' dampening field kept anyone more than ten meters away from feeling the effects. No temporal natives would wonder why there was a thunderstorm inside the house next door.

Finally only he and Dona were left. For a moment, Alerio let his gaze linger on the cool purity of her profile, with its high cheekbones, striking violet eyes, and the mouth that seemed gene-gineered for sin.

He looked away just before she Jumped. His ears were still ringing as his comp started reciting the familiar string of coordinates back to the Outpost.

Coordinates confirmed. Engage temporal warp, he told it.

Engaging temporal warp in three...two...one.

It felt like being hit by lightning. His mind blinked out…

…And… he was back again.

Temporal warp to the Outpost successful, his comp announced.

Alerio made no answer, half-blind, stomach knotting in violent rebellion, his muscles jerking from the temporal warp. Bracing his knees, he stayed upright by will alone until his comp could compensate. My team?

All members of the investigation team present and accounted for.

Alerio breathed a silent prayer of thanks to whatever Vardonese goddess happened to be listening.

He'd lost a Jumper once. Riane Arvid's sabotaged T-suit had bounced her back and forth across Terran temporal space before finally dumping her in the twentieth century. Her suit was dead as a stone by then, unable to Jump at all. Unfortunately, a team of Xeran assassins appeared minutes later. She’d have died then and there if not for a timely rescue by Nick Wyatt, half-breed Xeran and superhuman guardian of an alien race called the Sela

Nick and Riane had returned to the Outpost desperately in love.

Still, almost losing an Enforcer was an experience Alerio had no desire to repeat. Especially considering Ivar's threats.

It'll take a lot more work to get a scream out of Dona, but I'll manage—eventually.

Like hell, ‘ botfucker.

Blinking the spots from his eyes, Alerio glanced around the cavernous room that was Mission Staging. Heavily shielded for Jump traffic, it was lined evidence and equipment lockers as well as regeneration tubes for treating the injured. Most temporal missions began and ended here, especially those featuring a large Jump team.

Alerio spotted Dona deep in an animated conversation with Riane. The young Warfem and her cyborg wolf partner had been with the crew working the house's ground floor. His gaze drifted slowly down Dona’s clean, lovely profile, then along the curving contours of her body. There was something about her that had the power to stop him in his tracks every time.

Enough mooning, Alerio thought. I’ve got killers to catch.

Romance Fiction: Feminist?

I’ve always had a suspicion that romance novels are actually underground feminist literature. After all, the writers are women, the readers are women – even the editors at Big Six publishers are women, as are the vast majority of e-publishers.

And romance is the 800 pound gorilla of the book market. As Marla Bustillos notes in her article at the Awl.com, “romance is by far the most popular and lucrative genre in American publishing, with over $1.35 billion in revenues estimated in 2010. That is a little less than twice the size of the mystery genre, almost exactly twice that of science fiction/fantasy, and nearly three times the size of the market for classic/literary fiction, according to Simba Information data published at the Romance Writers of America website."

(This is a great article, by the way. She seemed to view romance the same way I always have. Which is what inspired me to write this blog.)

Yet despite the undeniable popularity of romance, everybody absolutely SNEERS at the genre. Why? That’s simple.

Anything involving so many women must suck.

Especially if it deals with subjects like how women perceive men and themselves; how they feel about men, how they experience sex, and how they manage their lives and children.

We romance authors use historical and fantasy settings to examine, in an metaphorical way, how women deal with social pressures such as the mother who demands “Why aren’t you married?”

Or how it feels to be a woman in a society which insists that women are inferior to men. Period.

Look at some of today's political discussions of women in combat roles. One female television commentator this week discussed the 60 percent increase in rape in the military. Her basic point was, Of course they’re being raped. What do they expect?

The subtext is, if you’re in the service and you get raped by a fellow soldier, you were asking for it.

Now, as a romance novelist, this is the kind of thing that makes me want to write something. Thing is, I can’t come right out and say what I really think about this commentator; that might offend a large segment of my readership.

What I can do is set a novel in, say, 1823, show a woman of the period who is raped, and then examine her experiences of both the rape itself and the reaction of Society matrons who are quick to say she must have asked for it.

I would then use the story to ask why a woman might say another women asked to be raped. Perhaps the society matron believes that since her own precious daughter doesn't wear revealing clothing or break social rules, she'll be safe from this horrific crime. (Perhaps the Fox commentator believes that as long as you don't serve in the military, you, too, will be forever safe.)

I could show the mind of the rapist, who really doesn’t give a damn what the woman was wearing. He just saw an opportunity and took it. His whole focus is on the sense of power raping this woman gives him, when in his ordinary life, he’s basically a weakling at the bottom of the male status chain. (This actually is closer to the psychological reality of serial rapists than the view of them as mysterious, all-powerful monsters.)

Using these characters, I can really look at the crime and explore it in a way that makes the reader experience ALL sides of rape: the victim’s, the offender's, the society matrons', and the judge’s.

I could show you how the law at the time viewed rape as basically a property crime: the woman’s father “owned” a virgin he could have married off for financial advantage, but who is now no longer valuable because she’s been raped. So the thief -- or rapist -- must be punished for his crime. Which is not really against the woman at all in this social view: it's against her father.

I could also give you a hero who comes to love the woman despite social attitudes that she no longer has value. I could examine how the two of them work to overcome her emotional scars.

And it would take BOTH of them. He couldn’t save her from the rape, but his willingness to love her helps her realize that she’s not a wounded, worthless object, but a human being who deserved far better from society than she got.

I could thus show you rape and its emotional effects, even make you experience those effects through my characters. I could examine the egregious way all societies treat rape. (In some countries, female victims are jailed for being raped, which makes no damned sense whatsoever.)

In so doing, I could create an argument against blaming the rape victim with considerable emotional power, without actively preaching to the reader.

This would have far greater impact on the reader than a ranting blog post talking about how a certain Fox commentator is a f****ing moron. If you happen to be a Fox fan, that’s not going to change your mind one bit.

But reading my novel just might.

Feeling the emotions of all those involved might make you think. Might make you reassess what you believe and why you believe it. (As long as I don’t overtly preach, and all my points are made in subtext rather than coming out of the heroine’s mouth.)

That’s the power of the romance novel. That’s why women write them, and that’s why women read them. It lets us talk about these things without having to worry about how men are going to react to what we have to say.

Unfortunately, said male reaction is likely to be: What IS this shit?”

Neurological studies have shown men and women have very different brains which process emotion in very different ways. So when a man reads a romance novel, the emotional experiences the book describes are not how he experiences the same things. So he just doesn't get it.

A man reads a romance and thinks, “This is not how I perceive reality. This is just smut for women.”

As a result, romance is viewed as unworthy, stupid, purple, florid….I could go on, but I’m getting depressed. Anyway, the end result is that only 9 percent of the romance readership is male, according to the Romance Writers of America.

Feminist critics are just as likely to deplore our fiction as men are. I suspect few of these women have read a romance published after, say, 1990. For one thing, many feminist literary critics proclaim our heroes are all rapists, something that has been unacceptable in romance fiction since 1988 or so.

Today we tell our readers that making a violent assault on a helpless person is not heroic. Today's romance heroes are far more likely to kill a rapist than BE one.

Then again, perhaps feminist critics decry romance for more pragmatic reasons. They have sense enough to know that if they defend the romance genre in the literary establishment, men will laugh at them. Which does not bode well for one’s academic career.

I, happily, am not a critic. I'm a romance novelist, and I'm damned happy to be one.

And I have this great idea for a book...