It's good to be the queen! Book 3 in the Knight Games series.
After saving her caretaker, Rick, from certain death, Grateful Knight is ready for their happily ever after. The date is set and wedding plans are in the works. But when the witch responsible for the candle that almost ended Rick's life shows up in Red Grove expecting payment, the price is more than Grateful can bear.
To make matters worse, Logan is barely speaking to her, and a murder at the Thames Theater leaves everyone reeling over the future of Julius’s vampire coven. She’s finally ready to walk down the aisle, but first Grateful must face the greatest challenge of her life.
Don't miss the other books in the Knight Games Series The Ghost and The Graveyard, Book 1 Kick the Candle, Book 2 Queen of the Hill, Book 3 Mother May I, Coming Soon
Queen of The Hill (Excerpt 1)
Sex is different with someone you love. New sex extinguishes a fire; old love stokes the embers. In a way, sex is a lot like wine—drinkable as soon as it ferments. But if you allow it to age, the result is a visceral experience—a nirvana of the senses.
When it came to Rick and me, we’d aged together for multiple lifetimes. Every touch elicited an irresistible array of memories. Each caress ignited a new flavor on the emotional spectrum. Sweet and aromatic. Complex. Layered. Having a long finish. An enticing intoxication of hormonal chemistry and raw heat.
I loved Rick.
In bed beneath me, he dug his fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck and tugged. I lifted my cheek from his chest to meet his gaze. His hooded stare held nothing short of reverence, his pupils almost black with need. “You must know you bewitch me in a way that has nothing to do with magic. I have crossed oceans of time to be with you. Lifetimes. I would do it again, but I hope I never have to.”
“You won’t,” I promised. “We’re together now, and I plan to be careful with myself.”
I trailed my fingertips up the side of his chest and over the length of his arm. Iridescent purple magic followed my touch, markedly beautiful beside his dark hair and the silky red pillowcase under his head. The streak wasn’t something I was consciously producing. Power poured out of me with so much love. At journey’s end, my left hand linked with his, my engagement ring squeezed inside the web of his long fingers.
The blue and silver cushion of gems that marked our coming nuptials was both old and new. The ring itself was antique, commissioned in the 1700’s, but its place on my finger was a novelty. Rick had asked me to marry him only a few short weeks ago, and I had said yes. I was engaged. To be married. To Enrique Ordenez—Rick. My caretaker.
I pressed my lips against the side of his neck. The heat of my breath brought his blood to the surface. Liquid ambrosia. My personal recipe for the elixir of life. During my first lifetime as a witch, I’d made the decision to store an immortal part of my soul inside Rick when Reverend Monk burned me at the stake in 1698. Of course, I don’t remember all the details, having died and been reborn several times since. But I had pieced together this much: I didn’t have to give Rick my immortality. I chose to. By using magic to create a symbiotic relationship between the two of us, I’d ensured we would be together forever. A lovely side effect was his blood healed me, and my blood strengthened him.
Queen of The Hill (Excerpt 2)
Pregnant. I could be pregnant. I trudged into my kitchen with my new dress in one hand and a Red Grove pharmacy bag in the other. The first I hung in the hall closet. The second I stared at blankly while images and incantations swirled through my brain. I attempted to make sense of the emotions brewing within me, but couldn’t sort them out.
As I stripped out of my winter clothes, my raven familiar, Poe, swept into the room on wide black wings.
“We need to speak, Witchy Woman,” Poe said. He landed on the back of the couch.
“What’s up?” I asked absently.
“Only that you have still not retrieved The Book of Light from the ghost-man Logan’s home. May I remind you once again that the rightful place for your magical grimoire is in your attic?”
“Ugh.” I tipped forward, conking my head on the kitchen island. “I know. I know. I know.” I banged my head in time with the mantra. “I keep texting him, and he’s always busy with the restaurant.”
“Perhaps pick up a phone? Get off your spell-casting ass and take back what is yours? Grow a spine and stop taking ‘later’ as an answer?”
“It’s not that easy. Logan gave me a key. Rick destroyed the key. Then, in the same conversation as I told Logan about the crushed key, I had to tell him I was engaged. I think I broke his heart.”
“More than enough reason to demand your book of magic back,” Poe insisted.
“I know. I know. I know.” Bang, bang, bang. “I’m just hoping if I give him enough time, he’ll get over it. I miss his friendship.” I straightened, scrubbing my face with my hands.
Poe scrutinized me from head to toe. “This isn’t just about The Book of Light, is it? As the kids say, what is up, buttercup? You have the pale malaise of a human suffering from the dengue.”
“I threw up this morning. Still nauseous.”
“The flu, perhaps?” Looking bored, he picked at his feathers with his beak.
I toyed with the corner of the bag on the counter. I was late. Not a lot late. Just about a week. “Can I ask you something?”
Poe shrugged his bird shoulders. “You can ask. I can’t guarantee an answer.”
“Do you think … with the candle Rick used … Do you think he was human? Like entirely human?”
“At the end? When you saved him?” Poe asked.
I nodded.
“As close to human as he could be. He was dying. If you hadn’t put out the candle, you’d be up witch creek without a paddle.”
The bag rumpled and ripped as I pulled it open and removed the pregnancy test.
“Bloody hell! You think you’re pregnant!” Poe covered his beak with one wing.
Mouth gaping like a fish, I tapped the package down on the counter. “I don’t know. I mean, I hope not. I haven’t been on birth control since Gary, and Rick and I definitely did the sexual healing thing when he was human-like.” I raised both eyebrows. “Plus, I’m late and perpetually nauseous.”
“You said it yourself. Human-like. Not fully human.” Poe gave a cynical snort. “The chances are …”
I furrowed my brow. “What, Poe? You know nothing about the magic of that candle. Are you going to babble off some made-up statistic about the chances I could be preggers? I’ll save you the trouble. It doesn’t matter if it’s one percent or ninety percent, I’m peeing on this stick.”
Genevieve Jack writes weird, witty, and wicked-hot paranormal romance for adults. Raised in a suburb of Chicago, she attended a high school rumored to be haunted, and sustains a lifelong interest in old cemeteries and ghost tours. Genevieve specializes in original, cross-genre stories with surprising twists. She lives in central Illinois with her husband, two children, and a Brittany spaniel named Riptide who holds down her feet while she writes.
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