A Taste of Shine (A Trick of the Light Book 1) Read online

  HE WATCHED HER GO, heard the bedroom door close, and looked up to the ceiling, having no clue what to do. Offering comfort to a woman had never been something he’d grown accustomed to. But damned if he didn’t think she needed it. Eli had torn her down good; said just the thing to hurt her.

  After washing the dishes and straightening up, he went up the stairs, hesitating outside her door. He saw the light go out and chose to leave her in peace, hoping a good night’s rest would set her to right.

  He could not have been more wrong.

  When morning came and Matthew made his way downstairs, it was impossible to miss the note and money sitting on the counter.

  This should cover whatever I owe for board. Have a Merry Christmas.

  -Charlie

  Rushing up to her room, he barged in to find it empty. The bed made. How on earth she’d managed to sneak away without waking him was beyond him. Her beat up old car’s engine alone would have made a racket… unless she pushed it to the road first.

  By the time his family arrived for breakfast, Matthew had chewed several toothpicks to pieces, sitting at the counter in a foul temper.

  Eli walked in with his head down, looking like a kicked dog. “Miss Charlie awake yet?”

  Matthew slid the note down the bar, looking to it with a nod. Eli and Nathaniel read quickly before Nathaniel bellowed, “God damn it! You ran her off, Eli!”

  “I’m sorry,” Eli whispered.

  “Ohh, you’re sorry, huh?” Matthew finally spoke, collecting the letter. “What exactly you sorry for? For humiliating the woman who’s been taking time to speak well of you to Sheriff Cormac? Yellin’ at her for being fond of Ruth? Or sorry she ain’t here?”

  Eli just shook his head, eyes downcast. “I’ll fix it. I’ll bring her back.”

  “And how the hell are you gonna do that?” Incredulous, Matthew pursed his lips. “Do you know where she goes to ground?”

  “Chicago.” His cousin barely breathed the word, knowing without looking that pure rage blazed in Matthew eyes.

  The very idea she might be back amongst those men, sitting at a table with Beaumont Radcliffe and his wife, or dancing with that jackass Tommy, made Matthew want to break things—starting with Eli’s face.

  “Last time she was there, Bugs Moran sent a man to rape her. Why, you ask? Because she’s family to Radcliffe,” Matthew explained in a violent hiss. “Walked straight up to her goddamn hotel room and knocked before I busted his teeth in.”

  Eli’s gaze darted up, eyes wide and guilty.

  “Who do you think they’re gonna send to finish the job this time? Bugsy himself?” The look of disgust on Matthew’s face grew. “And it don’t scare her like it should. Charlotte just accepts it ‘cause it’s all she knows.”

  Nathaniel’s face screwed up, lips in a tight line. “We gotta go get her.”

  Matthew crushed the note in his fist.

  Charlie and Matthew’s story is far from over!

  Book 2 of the A Trick of The Light Duet coming January 2019!

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for reading. Please review. I cherish every single one, so share your thoughts with me, tell your friends, and spread the love!

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  Now, please turn the page to enjoy an extended excerpt of BRANDED CAPTIVE: WREN’S SONG BOOK 1

  Branded Captive

  “Accept my seed, Omega.”

  The breath wafting over her cheek was rancid, but it was the last thing Wren might take stock of when that thing was cracking her pelvis in half. She had done as she’d been instructed. Remained docile when the man had yanked her legs embarrassingly wide over his thighs. She had even ignored the thick thatch of coarse salt and pepper hair on his chest scratching her back when he hoisted her up.

  He’d growled as her mother told her he would, and torn through her barrier with one impatient yank of her hips. Unable to scream, Wren had only arched her spine, head thrown back on his shoulder. The Alpha, either oblivious or uncaring for her comfort, grasped her hips, bobbing her up and down his veined cock three times. With the fourth rude shunt, he’d clawed at her softer places and driven her down until her ass cheeks slapped against his lap. Immediately something ballooned inside her aching guts. It pressed her bladder to the point Wren was certain she’d dribbled more than a little piss on her buyer, continuing to expand until squished bowels, organs, and jangled nerves all screamed for relief.

  “Damn you, Omega. Take my seed!”

  Take what where? She didn’t understand what she was supposed to do now.

  At her back, the stranger panted, shifting beneath her as if he too were extremely uncomfortable. When she failed to perform, his irritation quickly translated into anger. The stink invaded Wren’s nostrils, it made her skin buzz.

  Angry Alphas killed.

  Angry Alphas must always be appeased.

  Staring forward across the dimly lit, yet finely appointed space, Wren inhaled and exhaled on the count of three. There was nothing to be done about the stinging stretch where her legs were hooked over the man’s spread th
ighs. He had not offered to take her to a bed or even asked to see her build a nest. No, the couch in his fine house’s receiving room had suited his purpose well enough.

  Examine and test the stock.

  Fuck the virgin with her father on the other side of the cracked door.

  The man who’d brought her to sell listening to this. To the Alpha’s strained breaths, to his grunts and wheezing.

  Her father was listening to her failure.

  Wren forced herself to look down. She had not seen the Alpha’s cock before he’d shunted it unexpectedly into her, or even had a good look at the male. Her eyes had been downcast when they arrived, lest her father strike her for insolence. She had disrobed for inspection. She had moved as commanded and not resisted when the Alpha yanked her to the nearest seat.

  And her father had exited the room to listen so he might claim full payment for what transpired.

  Payment for... this. Wren stared where only the root of an Alpha cock was visible stretching her labia beyond imagining. There was a little blood, far less than she’d anticipated considering the sting. The red spread with their fluids, matting the hair that peppered his swollen ball sack.

  The knot in her belly gave an angry pulse, expanding again in a bid to ruin her completely. Gnashing his teeth, the Alpha almost whined against her neck, his balls thundering in twitching pulses. They too expanded, the skin under all that coarse hair growing shiny and white from the stretch.

  “Fucking Omega…” A meaty hand left her hip, landing on her belly as if that might force her even further down his meat. But there was nowhere else to go. She was tied to him by that pulsating knot spreading agony in her guts. From the way he fought to speak, how his breath hitched in a whine with each breath, the Alpha was in as much pain as she. “You have one purpose. Milk my fucking cock!”

  If that knot kept banging against her pubic bone, she was going to be sick all over his rug. Stalled, unsure what it was he wanted from her, Wren thought the wisest course was to remain still and wait.

  It was the wrong choice.

  “Your freak daughter is failing to comply!” The snarled shout was directed to the cracked door.

  The meek response was never the tone Wren’s father took with her. “Have you… umm… stimulated her, sir?”

  Wren’s new owner turned his head, yelling so sharply the girl flinched. “Of course I have! She belligerently refuses to bring me to orgasm. My fucking knot is full. Gah—” Slick with sweat, the Alpha squeezed her tighter, caught in a waving cramp of his own. “I’ll have your goddamn head for this, Carson!”

  “Wren, honey.” Through the cracked door, her father sing-songed, “Relax and take his seed. Show this illustrious Alpha you wish to serve as his mate.”

  I wanted to sign that I didn’t understand, to reach out for the man who’d brought me here to sell me. But he could not see me.

  My potential mate roared, “SEND IN HELENA!”

  Another door in the chilly room opened, a woman in a vivid robe rushing forward. “How can I serve you, my Alpha?”

  “Bend over the desk and wait for me!”

  Wren watched the woman quickly strip, viewing another naked female body for the first time in her life. With no preamble, the pretty brunette bent at the waist, the globes of her ass presented, her cheek to the wood.

  Beta female parts were on display.

  Cruel fingers reached for Wren’s stretched labia, the Alpha yanking at the sensitive flesh as he grunted and threw her forward with his weight. His ballooning testicles doubled in size, the man groaning with the worst sort of agony.

  His pain was nothing to hers. The knot that was meant to tie them together in life was deformed by his tricks until it could be pulled free of her body. Wren was dumped on the floor, hand pressed between her trembling legs as she wailed.

  From the corner of her eye, she watched the Alpha scythe his cock into the waiting female, wrecking her with the madness of his need to release. Unlike Wren, the Beta gave him immediate relief, the Alpha’s cry earsplitting.

  Bowed over, curled in on herself, Wren shut her eyes to it all.

  When her father was called forward, even then she refused to rise to meet his gaze. Naked and shamed on the floor of a stranger’s house, she sniffed, wishing she couldn’t hear the terrible things that were said about her.

  “Was she not trained?”

  “My wife took great pains to explain what would be expected, sir. You have my humblest apologies that she failed, but if you are not going to take her as your new mate, you still owe for the tearing of her hymen. She will be harder to sell unintact.”

  Of course her father would try to weasel credits from this man…

  The Alpha gave an incredulous laugh. “Your mute albino freak might be pretty to look at, but she is the worst fuck imaginable. If you think I’d expose that cunt to another Alpha in this city, you’re wrong.”

  “You owe me one-thousand credits for her virginity!” Her father never once came to her defense, never offered her comfort, he only tried to squeeze what he could from a far richer man. “The contract was clear. No matter the outcome of the first mating, a fee will be paid!”

  The sound of ice hitting the side of crystal, the pour of liquor. Far calmer, the Alpha took a long sip. “The contract,” a smile in his voice, the Alpha purred, “is null and void if the merchandise is defective. You get nothing, Carson. She will be tagged and dumped in the Warrens and you will leave here grateful to be breathing.”

  No! Ignoring sore muscles and the screaming pain between her legs, Wren scampered to her father and wrapped her arm around his leg. Signing frantically, she begged him for mercy.

  He looked down at his pale, violet-eyed child, deadpan as he said, “I should have had you euthanized at birth.”

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  Addison Cain

  USA Today Bestselling author and Amazon Top 25 bestselling author, Addison Cain is best known for her dark romances, smoldering Omegaverse, and twisted alien worlds. Her antiheroes are not always redeemable, her lead females stand fierce, and nothing is ever as it seems.

  Deep and sometimes heart wrenching, her books are not for the faint of heart. But they are just right for those who enjoy unapologetic bad boys, aggressive alphas, and a hint of violence in a kiss.

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