Tag Archives: Angela Knight

Arcane Kiss Blitz

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Alternative Universe, Paranormal Women’s Fiction

Date Published: Apri 12, 2024

 

 

Kurt Briggs has a spirit link to a tiger Familiar that gives him superhuman
abilities, but when his father is murdered, the military veteran becomes a
target for terrorist sorcerers. Alone, Kurt finds he’s no match for the
witch and her shape-shifting polar bear. He turns to Arcanist Genevieve
Reyes for help in fighting the killers’ spells.

As Genevieve and Kurt hunt the terrorists, shared danger leads to shared
desire. But they soon realize Kurt’s passion for Gen weakens his control
over his cat. The consequences could be deadly for them both. Genevieve is
attracted to Kurt’s animal sensuality, but she knows she may be in as much
danger from his tiger as she is from the terrorists.

Even if Kurt and Gen manage to stop the terrorists, their evil sorcery may
trigger a witch hunt that could mean the destruction of everyone with
magical Talent — including Kurt and Genevieve.

Arcane Kiss paperback

 

EXCERPT

The tiger bounded toward him in a blur of striped fur and powerful muscle.
Kurt Briggs braced himself as the big cat reared to thump huge paws down on
his shoulders. Somehow he managed not to fall on his ass, though eight feet
of cat made an awkward dance partner. Rumbling, the beast touched a cool,
damp nose to Kurt’s.

“Hi to you, too, Stoli.” Kurt dug his fingers in thick reddish
gold fur to give his Familiar a scratch.

Golden eyes narrowed in feline ecstasy and Stoli chuffed a greeting. The
tiger dropped to all fours again, and turned toward the lake with a flick of
his striped tail. Kurt strolled after him across the thick grass.

Through the trees ahead Kurt spotted the flickering glint of afternoon
sunlight on water — the spring-fed lake that lay at the heart of Briggs
Feral Sanctuary. Another tiger lounged in the shallows, six hundred pounds
of stripes, attitude and luminous golden eyes.

Dave gave them a lazy blink, indolent as a pasha. And like a pasha, he
apparently had a harem — or at least a gang of devoted fans. Ten female
volunteers clustered just outside the enclosure fence as close as they dared
get. Dressed in shorts, hats and T-shirts with the BFS lion logo, they all
wore grins of anticipation as they waited for him to do something amazing.
Or, knowing Dave, inappropriate.

Stoli catapulted off the bank, sailed through the air, and landed on the
other cat with a huge splash. The volunteers fled the arcing water, yelping
and laughing.

Dave roared, batting at Stoli’s nose with sheathed claws. “Back
off, Tigger! Do I look like fuckin’ Pooh Bear to you?”

Stoli raced off, chuffing like a giggling ten-year-old who’d pranked
his brother. Which was exactly what he was. The two cats had been
littermates before they’d melded with their human partners. Otherwise
they couldn’t have shared an enclosure. Their fights would have been
real.

“You’d better run, asshole! I’ll turn you into a
rug!” Dave flopped back down in the water with a huff of feline
disdain. “The crap I put up with.”

Kurt’s grin faded. Dave did indeed put up with a hell of a lot. A
year ago he’d been Dave Frost, a member of Kurt’s Arcane Corps
unit — a tall, lanky blond with a wicked sense of humor. But that was
before Dave had died, leaving his soul trapped in the body of Smilodon, his
Familiar.

Another man might have surrendered to bitterness and grief for his lost
humanity. Dave taught himself to talk by making the air vibrate with magic
instead of human vocal cords. Now he was building a thriving career as a
YouTube smartass.

“You got me all wet,” a blonde volunteer complained, pretending
to pout as she pulled at her soaked shirt.

The tiger gave her a toothy grin. “My pleasure.”

“Ladies, quit flirting with the wildlife and finish cleaning the
enclosures.” Kurt put a little subsonic rumble in his voice. Dave
wasn’t the only one who could manipulate sound with his magic.
“We don’t want BFS to smell like the world’s biggest
litter box.”

“Killjoy,” Dave complained.

“You heard the man.” Karla Morgen, the volunteer coordinator,
made a shooing gesture at the women. “The poop won’t scoop
itself.”

“You know,” Kurt told Dave as the volunteers scattered,
“you couldn’t be any more a ham if you were Porky
Pig.”

“How else would I bring home the bacon?” Dave flicked a paw,
and an invisible snare drum banged out a rimshot.

Kurt laughed. “You’re getting scary with the magical sound
effects.”

“I live to terrify. Speaking of performances, how many tickets did we
sell last night? Looked like every inch of the arena bleachers had
somebody’s butt on it.”

“Pretty much.” BFS’s Feral 101 show was designed to
educate sanctuary visitors about big cats. They’d livened it up with a
demonstration of Feral abilities, but the material had still been as dry as
sawdust — until Dave had taken the emcee job in his capable paws. “We
brought in five thousand in ticket sales and donations, plus another
thousand for selfies and souvenirs.”

And they needed every dime. Keeping fifty-nine exotic cats fed and healthy
wasn’t something you did on a shoestring.

Dave gave him a smug smile. “I has skillz. I also has half a million
followers.”

“You’re just lucky they don’t know what an asshole you
are.”

“I’m a tiger. We’re supposed to be assholes.”

Movement across the lake drew Kurt’s attention. In the next
enclosure, a lion came to the water’s edge, accompanied by his two
lionesses. Staring at the tigers, the Familiar roared.

 

 

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.

 

Contact Links

Author’s Website

Author on Facebook

Author on Twitter

 

Publisher on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok:
@changelingpress

 

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Arcane Deception Teaser Tuesday

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Dark Fantasy & BDSM

Date Published: April 21, 2023

 

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When her grandfather wanders off, witch Kate Marshall enlists a handsome
neighbor to help find Eli, who suffers from dementia. She doesn’t know
Mark Delaney is a magic-using undercover agent trying to bring down a gang
of drug dealers with deadly spirit animals.

Soon Mark and Kate find themselves falling in love, even as he wrestles
with lying to the woman he’s fallen for. Unfortunately, the gang lord
is having them watched, so Mark can’t come clean.

When the gang lord kidnaps Eli and Kate to force her to collude in his
crimes, she must trust Mark to help them escape, despite his lies, the risk
to her heart and the threat to her beloved grandfather’s life.

 

Arcane Deception tablet

EXCERPT

All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2023 Angela Knight

 

Kate Marshall hurried along the path as fast as she dared, scanning the
surrounding woods for a flash of white hair. Anxiety coiled in a sick knot
in her belly. Good thing it was late spring. If it had been winter,
she’d have to worry he’d forgotten the way home and succumbed to
hypothermia.

No sign of him. Nothing but squirrels rustling through the leaves as
courting birds sung from the pines, oaks, and maples looming around
her.

Dammit, where is he?

Kate stopped in her tracks, closed her eyes, and scanned again, but nothing
glowed behind her closed eyes. No sign of Eli Riley’s Talent shining
through the trees. Except…

Wait. Not a glow, but something. She concentrated, focusing until the sense
of power grew more acute. It seemed to be emanating from the lake.

Her eyes flew open, and she took off in long strides just short of a run.
“Granddad? Granddad, where are you? You’re scaring
me!”

Some days, Eli seemed just like the man who’d raised her during those
idyllic childhood summers, endlessly wise, skilled in art and magic and the
intersection where the two met. On bad days, he became a six-foot
three-year-old, prone toward tantrums and violent outbursts. Even worse was
the lethal combination of his raw magical ability and his failing memory,
which could easily kill him if he made an error with a spell. Which was why
she’d panicked when she’d woke up this morning to find him
gone.

Eli hadn’t been in the studio crafting something fatal, though his
backpack of magical gear was missing. She’d searched the rest of the
old Victorian house and its extravagant garden, but no luck.

What worried her most was the lake. Her childhood summer haunt was less
than a mile away from the house. Way too close for comfort.

He can swim. Hell, he taught me. But what if…

Flickering light flashed through the trees ahead — sunlight glinting off
the water. The sense of power was stronger now. Splashes sounded, suggesting
someone swimming.

Or drowning. Her heart shot into her throat.

“Granddad, dammit!” Kate broke into a sprint, ignoring the thin
branches that whipped across her face. “Granddad!” I can’t
lose him too
. She burst from the trees. “Granddad!”

But when she spotted the swimmer, it was not her grandfather. Not with the
long blond hair slicked around broad, bare shoulders that gleamed in the
morning sunlight. The man stopped swimming and turned, treading water,
wiping a big hand down his dripping face. “I’m sorry,
what?”

“Have you seen an old man?”

“No, nothing but couple of deer and about a dozen squirrels.”
He started back to the shore, muscular arms stroking the water, sending
droplets flying through the arc of a rainbow. “What’s the
problem?”

“My grandfather… He’s got dementia. I woke up this
morning to find him gone. He comes out here to paint.” Kate raked both
hands through her brunette hair, absently plucking out leaves and twigs from
her heedless run. “Oh God, he could be anywhere. The road — he could
have been hit by a car. Sometimes he doesn’t remember to check before
he crosses…” She started to turn away.

“Hang on, let me get dressed and I’ll help you look.” He
waded out of the lake, water streaming down a body like a gladiator’s,
all hard, carved muscle. He wore only a pair of black swim trunks and a
glowing golden tattoo in the center of his chest, a circle surrounded by
sigils. Looked like some kind of protective spell. And he was big, easily
six-one. On any other day in any other situation, she’d have
drooled.

“Where do you live?” He walked over to a pile of neatly folded
clothes. Picking up a towel, he started drying off, muscle flexing in his
broad chest.

“In the Victorian a mile that way.” She jerked a thumb over her
shoulder and looked away, trying not to ogle.

“Oh, you must mean Eli. I didn’t know he’d gotten that
bad.” He pulled on faded jeans despite his wet trunks, then shrugged
on an equally faded black T and stuffed his bare feet into running shoes.
The shirt’s white lettering read “USAC Academy.”

He was Arcane Corps. No wonder he radiated so much power, she’d felt
it a quarter mile away. Kate was tempted to close her eyes and check the
glow of his magic, but that would be rude.

He extended a hand, a frown of concern on his face. “Mark Delaney.
I’m so sorry about your grandmother.”

A spasm of pain stabbed her, but she forced a tight smile as his long
fingers enfolded hers. His skin felt calloused and cool. “Thank you.
I’m Kate Marshall.” She studied that tough, intensely masculine
face. Beard stubble roughened his square jaw and broad, cleft chin, blond
brows slashing over Feral gold eyes. It was hard to tell, but she thought
his hair would be honey blond when it dried. His lips were thin and
masculine, but they looked soft, kissable. Tempting, despite the
nerve-wracking situation she was in.

After a carefully calibrated squeeze, he let her go. “Don’t
freak out, I’m going to manifest so I can track him. I’m a
Feral.” Golden light exploded around him as his magic became visible
in a flare of sparks and whirling energy. A heartbeat later, it coalesced
into a huge shaggy figure with a long bullet-shaped head and foot-wide paws.
The raw power of the animal spirit beat at Kate’s senses as it towered
over her, almost ten feet tall. Mark was only dimly visible in its center,
cocooned within it like a man in armor.

 

 

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.

 

Contact Links

Facebook: @AngelaKnight2002

Twitter: @AngelaKnight

 

 

Publisher on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram: @changelingpress

 

 

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