Sci-Fi Romance, BDSM
Date Published: November 22, 2024
Passion’s the pot when Rowan Kerr draws the Wildcard.
Though she lives in a world of Beyonce and iPhones, Indra Fox thinks she
may be an alien. She’s too strong, too fast, and heals too quickly to
be merely human. But she doesn’t know for sure, because her parents
refused to tell her. Nor would they explain why she — and her equally
superhuman best friend, Diana Newman — were raised to be warriors.
When their families are murdered, Indra and Diana seek revenge on their
killers, Satan’s Horsemen. Then Diana is kidnapped, and Indra goes
undercover at a strip club the gang owns to discover where her friend has
been taken.
But when Rowan Kerr walks into the club, Indra realizes he’s even
more powerful than she is. Rowan says he knows who she really is and what
she was created to do, but she must go with him to learn the truth.
Indra will do anything to save Diana. Including embracing her destiny as
something more than human.
Rowan thinks Indra could be the teammate — and lover — he dreams of. But
she’s mad as hell about being kept in ignorance, and she’s
convinced that she’s been betrayed by the woman he works for.
What’s worse, she’s not wrong. Can he convince her to take a
chance on him? And can Indra and Rowan defeat the very real aliens who are
behind Diana’s abduction?
They’d better, or humanity will pay the price for their
failure.
EXCERPT
Rowan
I eyed the long, low stucco building as I got out of the car.
Pink neon depicted the outline of a writhing nude woman with a tail and cat
ears wrapped around a purple neon stripper pole. More neon read “Pole
Katz Gentleman’s Club,” in red.
You sure this is the right address? I asked my computer implant.
Qubit’s silky female voice replied, Her nanos ping from this
location, and have been doing so for five hours a night for thirty-eight
days. There’s a 93.8 percent chance she’s working here.
Why? She sure doesn’t need the money. I frowned at the neon stripper.
Has to be hunting.
Odds are running at 87.6, Qubit agreed.
Indra Fox was going to be about as happy to see me as a serial killer
finding cops at the door. And for the same reason.
I headed for the purple awning over the club’s entrance. Even without
enhanced senses, I’d have been able to hear the music — Beyonce
purring about getting frisky in a limo.
Qubit displayed results from sensor scans and web searches along the
periphery of my visual field, flashing the club’s layout and the
number of people inside — one hundred and fifty-three patrons and staff. Of
those, one hundred and fifty-two were Nats — natural humans. There was only
one who wasn’t. Indra Fox.
Double doors led into a narrow, black-walled foyer vibrating with music
just short of deafening. To my left stood a cashier’s window where a
bored-looking woman in a bare-midriff Pole Katz T manned a Square station. A
sign over the window informed me of the twenty-dollar cover charge.
“Hi, there,” the cashier purred, giving me an approving
once-over.
Pulling out my wallet, I peeled off a twenty and handed it over.
“Thanks,” she said. “Enjoy.”
“I’m sure I will.” I turned to find a narrow-eyed bouncer
glowering by the curtained entry to the main room. He wore black chinos and
a black T that said SECURITY in all caps. He looked the part, too —
six-foot-three, 232.8 pounds, per Qubit’s sensors — with skin the
color of teak, a shaved head, and full-sleeve tats on massive arms. Judging
from his expression, he didn’t like the looks of me. Probably because
big as he was, I was bigger. I suspected he was also trying to figure out if
I was a cop. Or worse, if I’d get drunk and disorderly, and if he
could handle me if I did.
Dude, you wouldn’t have a prayer.
“Don’t touch the girls,” he warned. “Be a
gentleman.”
“I’m never anything but.”
He looked dubious, but I gave him a twenty-dollar tip, and he relaxed as if
reassured. Which might be a bit premature, depending on what happened with
Fox.
I stepped past him through the curtained doorway into an eye-searing storm
of thumping music and colored light. The club’s dark walls were
covered with neon silhouettes of women in erotic poses, and the floor was
scuffed dark wood. A curving translucent bar glowed to the right, edged in
yet more neon.
You need to buy a drink first, Qubit told me. There’s an etiquette to
patronizing these places, and you don’t want to draw attention.
Yeah, I’d hate to be conspicuous. I was six and a half feet tall.
Conspicuous was pretty much baked into the cake. Snorting, I headed to the
bar to collect an overpriced Scotch, then turned to work my way through the
crowd as Qubit scanned for our target.
The focus of the room was an oval stage with a pair of sturdy chrome poles,
a set of four steps at one end. A ring of plump chairs in red velvet
surrounded it, occupied by rapt patrons. Additional groupings of chairs and
tables clustered around that, mostly men, with a few couples scattered here
and there.
A blonde Nat girl worked one of the poles to the cheers and hoots of the
customers. I headed for the chairs around the stage.
If you sit there, you’ll be expected to tip every dancer, Qubit
warned as I dropped into the sole unoccupied seat.
Money not being a problem — one of the perks of working for Mama — I
shrugged. Fine. If Fox is dancing, I want to make eye contact. According to
her file, the only one of us Indra had ever met was Diana Newman. I wanted
to see how she’d react to me.
The blonde dancer bounced upward, grabbed the pole hand over hand and swung
her way around it, arching her leanly muscled body into a seductive curve.
She was down to a G-string and pasties, so she must be most of the way
through her act.
I would have been interested, but I could smell her. Not that she smelled
bad — fresh sweat, some kind of floral shampoo and citrus body wash, a hint
of mint from her mouthwash. But underneath that, she smelled Nat. So no, not
my type, though she had the kind of lean grace you get from swinging around
a pole for hours a day.
Frowning, I watched her spin and grind. Why hadn’t Mama ordered Indra
Fox and Diana Newman picked up when their parents were murdered? Or if not
then, once it became clear they were stalking the killers?
Instead, Mama had let the two run. Now Newman was offline too, and Fox was
still killing assholes.
The blonde finished her routine. Absently, I held up a ten. The Nat
sauntered over and knelt so I could tuck it into her G-string. Giving me a
dazzling smile, she winked. “Want a lap dance?”
I smiled and shook my head. Looking disappointed, she stood and headed for
the next bill. The guy who waved it looked a lot more enthusiastic.
This whole fucking thing is weird. Fox has capped four men in the past
year. Why not pick her up before now? Mama doesn’t approve of merking
people, even actual mercs.
It was a rhetorical question, but Qubit answered anyway. She didn’t
share her reasoning.
There’s a shock.
Not that I was shedding any tears for Fox’s victims. According to the
police files Qubit had hacked, they’d been members of Satan’s
Horsemen, a mercenary gang suspected in a slew of illegal shit — drug
trafficking, prostitution, gun running, murder for hire. No wonder the cops
didn’t care they’d ended up room temperature. Though judging by
the crime scene pics, Fox’s temper was almost as nasty as mine.
The local po-po also suspected Pole Katz was run by the Horsemen, though a
couple of raids had turned up jack in the way of evidence. All they’d
managed to do was charge two girls with allowing a little too much groping
during lap dances.
Any of the gang present?
About the Author
New York Times best-selling author Angela Knight has written and published
more than sixty novels, novellas, and ebooks, including the Mageverse and
Merlin’s Legacy series. With a career spanning more than two decades,
Romantic Times Bookclub Magazine has awarded her their Career Achievement
award in Paranormal Romance, as well as two Reviewers’ Choice awards
for Best Erotic Romance and Best Werewolf Romance.
Angela is currently a writer, editor, and cover artist for Changeling Press
LLC. She also teaches online writing courses. Besides her fiction work,
Angela’s writing career includes a decade as an award-winning South
Carolina newspaper reporter. She lives in South Carolina with her husband,
Michael, a thirty-year police veteran and detective with a local police
department.
Author Links
Publisher on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok: @changelingpress
