Today I am so pleased to welcome T.J. Nichols to Joyfully Jay. T.J. has come to talk to us about a new release, Vanity and Other Monsters. Please join me in giving T.J. a big welcome!
Exclusive Excerpt
It was pain that woke Edra. Once he realized he was awake, it took everything he had not to open his eyes and figure out what was wrong. He was in dragon form, and even though he didn’t feel great, he knew wasn’t hungover. He also knew he wasn’t alone, and it wasn’t Jordan with him, so he kept his breathing even as he catalogued everything that was wrong.
His wing stung, and so did his thigh.
There was a weight on his neck.
And all he could smell was vampire and blood. His own blood.
That was enough pretending to sleep. He snarled and shook himself awake, which was far harder than it should’ve been.
A bowl scuttled across the floor, spilling blood as it spun. A vampire lunged after it, catching it before it overturned.
Edra sat up, and a heavy steel chain followed. While he couldn’t see the collar around his neck, he felt its weight, and fury coursed through him. For once, he wished he was a red lesser dragon and could breathe fire, as then he’d incinerate every vampire in the room.
“What the fuck have you done to me?” he roared, even though no one would be able to understand him.
One of the guards sneered. “Not so cocky now, are you?” He bent over and wiped his finger through a drop of blood on the floor, grimaced, but licked his finger clean. “Don’t want to waste a drop.”
Something dripped on the floor next to him. Edra looked down. Hanging out of his leg was a clear plastic tube. He stared for several seconds. They were collecting his blood, not biting him. That meant…that was why he felt hungover.
The blood star poison was still in his veins, slowly killing him. What he needed was a vampire to bite him, as their salvia was the cure. But they weren’t interested in keeping him alive; they just wanted to drain his blood. He pinched the tube with his claws or at least tried to. It took several goes before he was able to grasp it and pull it out. Blood trickled down his thigh in a steady rivulet.
Had he made the problem worse?
He couldn’t die here. He needed to tell Ardel what the vampires were up to and why they wanted the city. Tangled with the need to live was the geas. Would that be enough to keep him alive?
He roared again in frustration. The noise reverberated off the marble walls, and his pain echoed back to him.
Blurb
All the lines of fate have been pulling Edra Tendric to LA. It is the last place he wants to go, leaving his mate Inspector Jordan Kells in San Francisco to deal with a fractured mytho population and an increasingly tense political situation. Someone wanted Edra removed as Mytho Liaison, and they got their way.
With the exposure of their relationship, Jordan has to negotiate the fallout at work and among the people he called friends. As the elves arm themselves and favors are called in, Jordan will need to decide where he stands because doing the right thing doesn’t always mean following the law he swore to uphold.
Being a lesser dragon’s mate isn’t all mating flights and fun. Not when his mate is the Knight of a city on the brink of war.
Book 4 in the gay urban fantasy crime series that follows Jordan and Edra as they solve crime and figure out how to improve mytho and human relations.
You can pre-order the upcoming Books in the series here: https://getbook.at/MythoSeries
Bio
TJ Nichols is an avid runner and martial arts enthusiast who first started writing as child. Having grown up reading thrillers and fantasy novels, it’s no surprise that mixing danger and magic comes so easily, writing urban fantasy allows TJ to bring magic to the every day. After traveling all over the world and Australia, TJ now lives in Perth, Western Australia.
- Website: www.tjnichols-author.com
- Twitter: @TobyJNichols
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