High Moon
The F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad Investigation Series
Book Four
Jennifer Harlow
Genre: Urban Fantasy/PNR/
Paranormal Mystery
Publisher: Devil on the Left Books
Date of Publication: 9/16/14
ISBN: 978-0-9893944-6-8
ASIN:
Number of pages: 296
Word Count: 90,000
Cover Artist: Jennifer Harlow
Book Description:
CLASSIFIED: A F.R.E.A.K.S. LOVE STORY
Telekinetic Special Agent Beatrice Alexander has fought a horde of zombies, psychotic vampires, even a troll. But now she faces her greatest challenge: love.
Fully recovered from her holiday from hell, Bea has returned to the F.R.E.A.K.S. with a mission, to gain the love of her werewolf team mate, Will Price.
Of course nothing is ever easy when it comes to love and war. And when the killing fields of a pack of murderous werewolves is discovered in the wilds of North Carolina, the situation goes from complicated to deadly.
Because though Bea always seems to get her man or beast in the end, this time she does not know if she will survive with her love intact. Or her life…
Available at Amazon
Excerpt Chapter One- Bewitched, Bothered, and
Bewildered
Watching the man
you love suck face with a gorgeous woman is not the best way to start a
birthday. Welcome to my world.
He sits at a
back booth, lips and every other body part pressed against that succubus,
appearing to love every second and caress, the rat bastard. And how can he not
be? The evil slut queen of doom has everything I don’t. Long, straight hay-colored
hair, big blue eyes, big breasts, long lean legs, tight body all encased in a
skintight black dress clinging to her perfect curves that only a plastic
surgeon could ever recreate on me. I’ve envied women like her all my life, and
now that succubus has my future husband in her enticing clutches. Literally. An
actual succubus is clutching his soft brown hair and kissing him as if her life
depended on it. Which I guess it does—as she feeds off sexual energy to
live—but still. Does he have to frigging enjoy the whole experience so much?
Howdy. The
jealous, insecure, emotional wreck before you is Special Agent Beatrice
Alexander of the covert branch of the FBI known to the underworld as the
F.R.E.A.K.S. We fight the monsters under your bed: the vampires, the ghosts,
and the soon to be decapitated succubi of the world. Those terrors in horror
movies? Real. Trolls, zombies, even giant snakes. Killed them all so the
citizens of America can go about their normal lives. Why am I so lucky? Because
technically I’m one of them. I can move anything with my mind. It’s called tele
or psychokinesis. I can carry in groceries or stop hearts without lifting a
finger. And let me say doing the latter is mighty tempting right about now.
The man having
his tonsils examined by the succubus is my teammate Special Agent Will Price.
He’s technically a monster too, at least once a month. He’s a werewolf, not
that I hold that against him. After all us freaks can’t help who or what we
are. We’re actually a lot like everyone else. Though Will did literally eat my
last boyfriend. The psycho was trying to kill me at the time, so I gave Will a
pass on that. But this…
Will shifts in
his seat to get closer to her. They haven’t broken apart in over forty-seven
seconds. Forty-seven! He’s kissed her longer than he’s ever kissed me all three
times combined. I don’t care that she’s more or less bewitched him. I don’t
care that it’s all for a case. My hands ball into fists, fingers digging so
deep in my own flesh it hurts. A cool hand touches mine. I look away from this
nauseating PDA toward the hand’s owner. My friend, the delectable Oliver
Montrose gazes at me, his gray eyes warning me not to put into action what I’ve
been contemplating. Namely storming over there and cold cocking that female dog
with the butt of my Glock. Though she so deserves it. In Virginia Beach alone
she’s been linked to two deaths. Two young seamen were found naked and dead in
their own beds of apparent heart attacks after going home from a club with a
hot blonde. Who knows how many others she’s sucked dry over the years?
For those not in
the monster killer business, a succubus is a woman who Hoovers up the
life-force from her lovers, much like a vampire feeds off blood. Now, I don’t
begrudge a life form getting whatever they need to live. I watch Animal Planet.
Sometimes it’s kill or be killed. But a succubus doesn’t need to kill anymore
than a vampire does. A little can go a long way. Some people are just evil. And
right now evil has Will in a lip lock.
“Whatever course
of action you are contemplating inside that beautiful head of yours, I suggest
you forget it post haste,” my vampire friend warns. His hand remains heavy on
mine, a reminder about restraint. We don’t want to blow our cover. While Will
plays doctor, Oliver and I sit at the bar, just another couple enjoying the
Virginia nightlife. A few stools down, Agents Rushmore and Wolfe, in their chic
Ralph Lauren polo shirts and buzz cuts, nurse ginger ales, and keep their eyes
locked on the same booth. Chandler is lucky enough to be out in the parking lot
waiting for the signal to take her down. Darn you, innocent bystanders. Darn
you.
Lord, I hate
clubs. They’re loud, crowded, expensive, and filled with hormone crazed men and
women with no sense of shame or decorum. I’ve lost count of how many strange
crotches have rubbed up against my backside while “dancing.” I’d only been a
handful of times before I joined the F.R.E.A.K.S., and now it seems as if I
live in one. Why preternaturals feel so at home in these places is beyond me. I
guess to them it’s nothing but a smorgasbord. Easy pickings. Everyone’s mind is
so filled with sex and booze they forget basics like safety and common sense.
And now Will has joined their ranks.
“I wasn’t
contemplating anything,” I snap, downing my screwdriver. “I’m not bothered by
them. Not a bit. It’s work. We’re working. Another drink, please! Now! Now!”
“That is not a
wise idea, my dear.”
“Wise is so
overrated,” I mutter.
I glance back at
the couple. Still making out, still…oh, no she isn’t! Her graceful hand slides
up Will’s thigh, resting on the bulge in his pants. At first she just traces
the outline with her fingertip, and then rubs against him with her whole harlot
hand. He doesn’t push it away.
Rage boils over.
Involuntarily I leap up, every inch of me tense and ready to rip her shining
hair out at the roots. Before I’m totally upright, a hand on my shoulder
presses me back into my seat. “No.”
“But she—”
“No,” Oliver
says as if I’m an ill-behaved dog.
“But he—”
“No.”
Torture. This is
nothing more than torture. This is worse than the time I was actually
physically tortured. At least that ends. Bones heal. This will be seared into
my brain for years to come. I could kill her, just pop a vein in her brain or
squeeze her heart until it stops. But I reign in the homicidal part of my
nature, instead gazing at my ridiculously handsome friend in an effort to calm
me the frak down.
I don’t normally
act like this. I’m a good, sane person. Or at least I was until I fell in love
with a man who refuses to acknowledge he loves me back. He does. I mean, I’m
eighty percent sure he does. The man all but said he did, and his kisses
shouted it from the rooftops. He just won’t give in. Won’t let himself admit it
because apparently I make him nuts. I cloud his judgment. Of course my worst
offense is I give him hope. But to a control freak who watched his wife get
eaten by a werewolf, these are apparently bad things. I’m in love with an
idiot.
And absence did
not make the heart grow fonder, at least in his case. Me, I was watching Beauty
and the Beast with my goddaughter and burst into hysterical tears at the end
when Belle saves the beast. Will has fared better in the past two months. I had
to remain in San Diego longer than expected because of my elbow. I broke it while
I ran from a crazed cop hopped up on troll blood. Long story. Ended with
previously mentioned psycho ex-boyfriend being eaten by the current object of
my affection. I needed surgery to repair the damage, then it healed wrong and I
had a month and a half of physical therapy before I was cleared for duty. I got
back two weeks ago. So I was stuck in San Diego with nothing to do but watch
sappy movies and think about Will.
He returned only
one of my ten phone calls, and then just asked after my health and family. I
could tell he couldn’t wait to get off the phone. And since I’ve been back,
well this is the longest he’s been in the same room with me. I walk in, he
walks out. When we’re working, I’m either assigned to a different team or
barely acknowledged. If he didn’t blush every time he looked at me, I’d be put
off. But I’m no quitter. I love him, and per the songs, that can conquer all,
including the neuroses of a bull-headed werewolf. I’m banking my heart on it.
“You must calm
yourself,” Oliver orders. “You are acting as wretchedly as he usually does. If
you recall, this was your plan.”
“Yeah, but you
were supposed to be bait. Or one of the other guys. Not him.”
“A succubus
feeds off living energy, which I am lacking and werewolves possess in
abundance.”
“Yes, and thank
you for pointing that out in the meeting. Why didn’t you just wrap him in a bow
for her while you were at it? Whose side are you on, anyway?”
“The victims’,”
he says. Fudge. Now I feel like a total jerk. “It is our job to keep predators
off the street the quickest and safest way possible. And occasionally that
requires sacrifice.” He glances back at Will, and Grin Number Two, with the
tips of his fangs, forms. “Though I doubt William minds playing the martyr at
this moment.”
I have to look again.
Great, not only is she feeling him up, but he’s returning the favor, kneading
her breast with his strong hand. Can she feel those rough calluses? Does she
even care how he got them? Years of rowing on the Potomac River, that’s how.
And yet she gets to second base with him before I do. “This is hell. I am in
hell.”
“I do not know
why you are distressing yourself over that man. I really do not. He has not
showed you the slightest regard since your return. Or prior to that while you
convalesced. He made his position abundantly clear.”
“You don’t
understand,” I sigh. They pull apart for
air, and she says something that makes him smile. He usually never smiles,
except for me. She’s even stolen that from me.
“Understand
what, Trixie?”
Will caresses
her face and dives in for more. “Some things are worth fighting for. They make
no rhyme or reason to anyone but you, but you just know. It’s outside logic,
it’s outside reason, it’s just something you sense in your very core. And if
you don’t listen to it, if you allow it to slip through your fingers, then you
spend the rest of your life regretting it. You spend the rest of your life an
empty shell. If that’s not worth a whole damn war, let alone a fight or two, I
don’t know what is.”
Will moves his
lips down the succubus’ neck, and I turn back to Oliver, who studies me with a
mix of sadness and anger that takes away only a fraction of his exquisiteness.
I can safely say he is the most physically handsome man I’ve ever seen. Pale
skin, lush red lips, cleft chin, wavy shoulder length brown hair with blonde
highlights, and straight nose all in perfect proportion. The impossible balance
of masculine and feminine. The only other man who holds a candle to him in the
looks department is the Lord of San Diego, and even Connor doesn’t come close
to this level of perfection. Not outside and certainly not inside. No one does.
“You are…” he touches my face with his ice cold fingertips, “such a fool.”
About the Author:
Jennifer Harlow spent her restless childhood fighting with her three brothers and scaring the heck out of herself with horror movies and books. She grew up to earn a degree at the University of Virginia which she put to use as a radio DJ, crisis hotline volunteer, bookseller, lab assistant, wedding coordinator, and government investigator.
Currently she calls Northern Virginia home but that restless itch is ever present. In her free time, she continues to scare the beejepers out of herself watching scary movies and opening her credit card bills.
She is the author of the Amazon best-selling F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad, Midnight Magic Mystery series, The Galilee Falls Trilogy, and the steampunk romance Verity Hart Vs The Vampyres. For the soundtrack to her books and other goodies visit her at www.jenniferharlowbooks.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jenharlowbooks
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/jenharlowbooks/
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