Wicked Lies: A Dark Mission Novella (13 page)

Through the vee between his protective arm and the floor, she watched the mattress shimmy and vibrate its way to the other wall. Plaster fell in clumps, and she felt him tense over her. Heard him grit out something hard and painful.

He was protecting her. The dirty cop, the man who’d bargained with a Russian pimp for an hour of sex, was protecting her.

Katya’s hands fisted as the room shuddered.

Who the hell was this man?

And why did she suddenly feel that she’d seen this earthquake coming?

About the Author

After writing happily-ever-afters for all of her friends in school, Karina Cooper eventually grew up (sort of), went to work in the real world (kind of), where she decided that making stuff up was way more fun (true!). She is the author of dark and sexy paranormal romance, steampunk urban fantasy, and writes across multiple genres with mad glee. One part glamour, one part dork and all imagination, Karina is also a gamer, an airship captain’s wife, and a steampunk fashionista. She lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with a husband, a menagerie, a severe coffee habit, and a passel of adopted gamer geeks. Visit her at www.karinacooper.com, because she says so.

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Also by
Karina Cooper

Dark Mission Series

Sacrifice the Wicked

All Things Wicked

No Rest for the Witches

Lure of the Wicked

Blood of the Wicked

Before the Witches

The St. Croix Chronicles

Gilded

Tarnished

An Excerpt from

A F
ORGOTTEN
P
RINCESSES
V
ALENTINE
N
OVELLA

by Sophie Jordan

From
New York Times
bestselling author Sophie Jordan comes a Forgotten Princesses Valentine novella. All her life, everyone assumed Paget Ellsworth was intended for one man. Little did they realize she was destined for another . . .

S
he could delay no longer.

As much as she hoped to put it off another day, another fortnight, Paget could wait no longer. As it was, the winter winds might freeze her to the bones if she did not return home soon. With a heavy breath, she took the final step that brought her to the crest of the hill overlooking the sprawling manor house that belonged to the Earl of Winningham. Exposed to the elements atop the rise, her wool dress whipped around her legs.

Paget swallowed thickly. The earl himself was in residence. As he had been for the past month. He was all anyone discussed in the village. Every tongue wagged with his name. Speculation was ripe as to when he would surface. Whether he would attend Sunday service. Or even the annual Valentine’s Day fête. Everyone desperately craved a glimpse of him.

Everyone except her.

She released a heavy breath, blowing aside a pale strand of hair that dangled in her face. Every Sunday she sat in the first pew, eyes trained on Papa at the head of the church, hands folded neatly in her lap as she braced herself for the telltale titter among the congregation, signaling the earl’s long-anticipated arrival.

Thus far it had not occurred.

She fervently hoped he would not attend the baronet’s Valentine fête. The annual gathering had always been such a happy time. Memories of it were tangled up with her memories of Owen and Brand. Not Jamie. Never Jamie.
He
had never deigned to attend. He had looked down his aristocratic nose at such country gatherings. Only Owen and Brand had ever cared.

She blinked back the hot press of tears at the memory of her friends. Both were gone from her. One dead. The other fighting in a war halfway around the world. They should be here. Either one of them.
Both
of them.

An image of Jamie rose in her mind, that stiff walk of his with his hands clasped behind his back, his countenance dour, reflecting none of Brand’s warmth or Owen’s playfulness. He was the stiff, proper earl even when he had not been. Something dark twisted inside her heart. Perhaps he had known all along that the title would be his. Brand had always been weak and frail, after all.

Shaking off her bitter thoughts, she adjusted her grip on the basket handle. The aroma of warm biscuits drifted up to her nose as she sucked in a breath and descended the hill.

She wouldn’t be the first to call upon him. Her father had done so, of course. An obligatory visit. She usually accompanied him on his calls, but on that occasion she’d stayed behind, blaming an aching head. Sitting in the Winninghams’ opulent drawing room without either Brand or Owen . . . knowing
Jamie
was the new earl . . .

She could not have borne it.

She still could not stomach it, but her father had looked askance at her when she declared that she would not be calling upon the earl with the customary basket of homemade lemon biscuits that she presented everyone with for all noteworthy occasions—the birth of a new child, the announcement of a betrothal, the passing of a relation. The new earl returning home after years of war certainly warranted a basket of baked goods, and well her father knew it. Well
she
knew it.

All was quiet in the morning light. Swans glided across the lake, faint ripples stretching out in ever-widening arcs. She eyed the manor’s wide double doors as she approached.

The Earl of Winningham.
Jamie
was now the earl. This truth rattled around in her head as if looking for a place to settle. Dear, sweet Brand lay buried in the family cemetery on the other side of the sprawling manse. He’d never been long for this world. Never robust, never able to keep up and play with her or Owen. She and Owen had to backtrack for him constantly. For all that he had tried, Brand had always been more ghost than man.

Now the title belonged to Jamie. Taciturn and aggravatingly proper James. Always looking down at Owen. Always making certain Owen never forgot he was a mere half-brother. Always looking down at
her
, a mere vicar’s daughter.

A
N
A
VON
B
OOKS
V
ALENTINE’S
D
AY
A
NTHOLOGY

by Codi Gary, Cheryl Harper, and Jaclyn Hatcher

Pucker up on the most romantic day of the year with three debut contemporary authors and their tales of romance, seduction, and . . . Elvis?

She’s got a hot new makeover . . . and a boss to seduce! For prim and proper Ryan Ashton, sexy has always been an elusive quality. But with a little help from a new friend, she just might snag the one man who can set her seductive side loose in Codi Gary’s
The Trouble With Sexy
.

Stuck in a king-size suite with a sexy man . . . What more could a girl ask for? But for Julie Dillon, being snowed in at an Elvis-themed Memphis hotel with Luke Pearce can’t mean anything but trouble. Too close for comfort gets close enough to taste in Cheryl Harper’s
Love Me Tender
.

Her best friend’s brother just shook up her Valentine’s Day. Katie Quinn just wanted to spend the day watching
Jurassic Park
and eating chocolate. She certainly had no intention of running into Logan Cross—or running for her life! Suddenly caught in the crosshairs of danger, Katie and Logan must get together to find a way out in Jaclyn Hatcher’s
Love, Guns, and Heart-Shaped Chocolate
.

An Excerpt from

by Ellyn Oaksmith

(Originally published under the title
Knockers
)

Molly Gallagher does not like to be the center of attention, but before you can say “medical malpractice,” she wakes up from a routine procedure to find that her chart got switched with someone else’s, and now her A cup runneth over. Molly realized her new shape might change her life. She just never anticipated quite how much . . .

I
hold up my hand. “Whoa. Whoa. Hang on a second. Go back. Implants? You said implants.”

“Yes, implants. Breast implants,” the nurse says briskly.

I shake my head. “But I didn’t get implants. I had some scars repaired.” I wave my hand over the bandages as if this will clear things up.

The nurse purses her lips, reads the chart again, following with her finger. “Yes, you did.” Tap, tap with her finger. “Exactly the kind you and the doctor discussed.”

But I’m not listening. Lifting the sheets, I duck my head under the covers. The stitches strain. My chest radiates with pain, distant but hot. It’s too dark to see anything, so I throw back the sheets.

Angeli stares at my chest, mouth gaping in shock. Looking down at the gentle swell under the bandages, I scream and grab my chest. Aching warmth shoots through me where my hands touch but also a new sensation: mounds of flesh, breasts. They feel huge, like mountains on a once-flat mesa. Everything becomes a surrealistic blur, like an old foreign film without subtitles. People in newspaper articles get messed up in surgery, not me.

“I have breasts!” There is no way to describe how absolutely terrifying it is to wake up with an additional body part. Like Frankenstein; no, Frankenstein’s stripper. I have breast implants! My brain spins around wildly. Random thoughts flutter like cards in a hurricane. I remember a PBS documentary I once saw on exotic dancers. Each of them discussed their implants size and firmness like judges in the agricultural booth of a county fair.

“Holy shit! He gave her implants!” Angeli’s hand flutters over her mouth. Her newfound professionalism withers in the face of catastrophe. “She didn’t come in here for implants,” she hisses at the nurse.

She whispers in my ear. “You didn’t change your mind after I fainted, did you?”

“No, I didn’t change my mind! It wasn’t even an option!” I yell.

“You don’t have to scream!” Angeli shouts.

“Yes, I do have to scream. I’m freaking out. I have breast implants! How could this happen?”

The nose job girl and her mother happily perk up, heads swiveling back and forth between us, enjoying my predicament.

“Of course it was an option,” the nurse says soothingly, as though I am a mental patient. She reminds me of Nurse Ratchet from
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
“It says right here”—she picks up the chart, taps it with a fingernail—“350 cc’s saline implants: Glaxco-Smythe, which, by the way, are the best.” She lowers her voice to a confidential whisper. “That’s what I have, although now they say silicone is just as safe. I’m thinking of getting mine switched. They’re so much more realistic.” This last comment is delivered with a wink.

“My flatness was realistic!” I spit the words out so hard, it strains my stitches. “I came in here to get rid of my scars, not get fake boobs.”

The nurse winces. I realize, too late, I have insulted her. For a split second, I actually feel sorry—until she thrusts her chart under my nose.

“There it is in black and white.” Each syllable gets a finger tap for emphasis. This nonsense has gone as far as she’s going to let it.

I quickly scan the chart. “And you’d be right if my name were Christine McDaniel. But it’s not!” The chest ache becomes a throb. My heart races along with my mind. How in the hell could this have happened?

The nurse rushes from the room, leaving me, Angeli, nose job girl, and her mother in silence. Nose job girl mouths, “Oh my God” to her mother as if Angeli and I aren’t six feet away. Glaring at them, Angeli yanks the curtains shut around my bed.

An Excerpt from

by Megan Hart

(Originally appeared in the print anthology
A Red Hot Valentine’s Day
)

No one ever said long-distance love was easy, and, after being apart for two years, Edie and Ty are more than ready for some time together—especially on Valentine’s Day. But as their erotic journeys come to a scintillating conclusion, they’re about to discover that getting there is half the fun . . .

AN AVON RED NOVELLA

I
could get there by bus. Watch the country go by in ribbons of brown and green as we pass by towns the names of which don’t matter, because they’re not yours. The clatter-clack will lull me to sleep and I’ll dream of you. The mountains will become your breasts, the hills the slope of your hips, and the valleys . . . the valleys will turn into that sweet valley between your thighs, and I’ll wake with an erection hard enough to bore tunnels. And then, when I get there, all I’ll have to do is lay you down and fill you up with all of me.