Page 24 of Claimed By Her Monsters

A just-for-fun teaser of what could come next for Madison and her men.

Alister trails a finger down my spine as we start down the stairs, spelling letter-by letter, L. O. V. E. Y. O. U. I laugh under my breath, so the mystery Y wasn’t yoga or yurt. It was part of a promise, momentarily forgotten but never lost.

We’ve reached the last step when the doorbell rings. I freeze, premonition tingling. For a minute I almost tell them to keep the door shut, that we don’t want to know what lies on the other side, but Mick is already there, swinging it open.

A hulking man stands at the doorstep with the full moon high behind him. In a thick Scottish accent, he says, “Mick. My brother. The pack needs its leader. We’ve been attacked.”

Mick goes rigid, every muscle strains. He lifts his nose and scents. “Blood of my kin has been spilled. I smell it on your clothes.”

The man falls to his knees, bows his head, and sobs, “Yes, my king. It is so.”

“We’ll hunt them down,” growls Mick, fury in every word. Then he softens, turns back to me. “But how can I leave you, Clover Witch? When I’ve just found you again?”

I move forward to stand beside him. “You won’t go alone. We’ll come with you.” I wave toward Alister and Caspian, already knowing they won’t part from me willingly.

The werewolf on the doorstep stares at me and trembles. He speaks in an awed whisper, “The Clover Witch has awakened. Please, my lady, come quickly.”

I incline my head like the queen I am, old habits slowly coming back to me. One last glance at the living room with the empty margarita glasses, the silver shoe token, and the fire that flickers a sad goodbye.

I turn to my mates, three men that match me, complement me in every way, and I tell them, “Come, my loves. It’s time to play a different game.”

***

Also by Melissa Dymond/Lexi Davis

Holiday Star- a celebrity holiday romance

Holiday Wedding- a holiday romance with suspense

Holiday Love- A best friend's brother, fake dating holiday romance

Paging Dr. Hart- a medical romance with suspense

Deeply Examined- a Dark Medical Romance.

Hold Me For Now- a spicy dark romance novella

Pretty Vicious. The Order. Book One: Obey- Southern Gothic Dark Academia Novel.

Pretty Savage. The Order. Book Two: Defy- Southern Gothic Dark Academia Novel.

Claimed By Her Monsters- a Why Choose Paranormal Monster Romance Novella

***

Ready for your next Lexi Davis read? How about a Southern Gothic Dark Academia Romance?

When pizza girl Laurel Turner witnesses a murder at the most elite fraternity on campus, she’s claimed by its cold, dangerous heir and dragged into a world of secret rituals, power games, and twisted attraction.

Welcome to the world of The Order. If you love morally gray antiheroes, secret societies, and feral, forbidden romance…this one’s for you.

Read on to get the first chapter for FREE!

Get it NOW! Click here →

Chapter 1

Laurel

The frat house rises before me, elegant columns and white brick. Peaked dormer windows set in a slate gray roof. The resemblance to the White House is unmistakable and no doubt intentional. A sign outside, lit with floodlights is planted into manicured grass. It reads,

Ashford House.

Established 1813.

The same year the college, the town, was built.

Of course it was. Everything about this place reeks of legacy, wealth, and secrets.

The students who live here reportedly own this college town.

They run it with an iron fist, controlling all illegal activities.

Drugs, gambling, guns. Rumor says their power bleeds into lecture halls, board rooms, even the police station.

At least, that’s the whispered gossip I’ve picked up in the month I’ve lived in this town my own personal hellscape, Ashfordville.

Now here I am, standing on their doorstep about to deliver half a dozen pizzas.

Pepperoni and pineapple.

Gross.

Although lights blaze through all the windows, no one answers when I ring the doorbell and knock repeatedly.

Nothing. The silence inside stretches thin and strange.

A glance at my watch shows it’s just past ten at night.

Frustrated, I blow a piece of wavy brown hair out of my eyes and adjust my baseball hat over my head.

I pull it low, after I’ve tucked my ponytail up in it.

I’m not trying to hide that I’m female but not trying to announce it either.

This job is the only thing keeping me in college and keeping my father fed.

It’s risky, taking me into shady neighborhoods and tangling me with questionable people, mostly men who stare a little too long, but the tips and gas money make up for it. Barely.

From somewhere in the vicinity of the backyard I hear a commotion. Male voices yelling, chanting. Loud and combative, almost like they’re egging each other on in a fight. Probably some dumb frat ritual where they scream at pledges and chug beer until someone pukes.

Idiots.

With a sigh, I turn my sneakers in that direction.

Gravel crunches as I trudge across the side yard, shifting the boxes that have started to burn the bare skin of my arms. Sweat slides down my neck, slow and ticklish, before vanishing between my breasts.

It’s summer, the air so thick and humid that I’m in cutoff shorts and a faded tee-shirt bearing the pizza shop logo.

The Saucy Slice.

Real classy.

I round the corner and jerk to a stop, unable to process the grisly tableau before me.

The back yard is a large rolling lawn bordered by neatly trimmed hedges and ancient oak trees, their branches draped with Spanish moss that hangs down like nooses.

In the center of the yard is a rectangular pool with a long diving board, the kind my mother used to warn me away from. You’ll break your neck, she’d said.

There’s a full moon tonight. I noticed it earlier, glowing yellow, heavy and bloated.

It’s by that light I see them clearly. Boys.

Or men, I guess since most of them are college students like me, in their late teens and early twenties.

At least thirty of them stand shoulder to shoulder in a perfect circle around two figures in the center of the lawn.

One is an adult man with salt and pepper hair slicked away from his temples.

He has three tear drop tattoos at the corner of his eye.

He lays on his back with his mouth agape and limbs splayed, but I barely notice that.

I’m transfixed by his eyes, like two marbles they stare glistening, open wide, at the night sky above us.

Lifeless.

A second figure straddles the dead man, but as I watch he rises slowly, straightening to his full height. He’s my age, maybe a little older. The kind of face you’d expect to see in a glossy admissions brochure with his sharp cheekbones, strong jaw, thick lashes framing cold, unreadable eyes.

He’s covered in blood.

It coats his hands, slick and shining. It streaks his shirt, spatters his arms, drips from his hair in dark, sticky rivulets.

A long, serrated knife dangles from one hand.

Even bloodstained, the blade has a sinister gleam that turns my spine to ice.

A wordless scream leaves my throat and my hands go numb, dropping the pizza boxes.

Cardboard hits concrete, pizza slices flying everywhere, smearing grease and sauce on the ground like a second crime scene.

The sound draws the attention of the men. Every face pivots toward me in eerie unison, and I feel it, an invisible shift in the air like I’m prey breaking into a clearing full of predators.

Even though they all stare at me, it’s him I can’t tear away from.

The boy with the knife.

His eyes lock on mine, so frigid and devoid of emotion that he appears as dead as the man before him. There’s no warmth in that gaze. Only ruin.

I run.