Today I am so pleased to welcome Amanda Meuwissen to Joyfully Jay. Amanda has come to talk to us about her latest release, Son of the Arch Demon. She has also brought along a great giveaway. Please join me in giving her a big welcome!

Excerpt

My towel started to untuck, and I clutched both corners to keep it from slipping off. Marc eyed me with the same interested perusal as when I’d thought he was just a transfer student who might actually like me.

“Cleaned up the bodies for ya,” he said, hands still raised. “Locked up the shop. Even brought back yer pack, drawing pad, cap, and mobile included, no worries there, and righted yer bike outside. I’m a friend.”

“Y-you’re a…”

“Demon?” Marc grinned, and even without his fangs lengthened, that’s how I saw them now, sharp like a shark’s. “Oh, love. So are you.”

He kept saying that, but it couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be.

“Need another cuppa?” He lowered his hands, but then snapped the fingers of one, and a small flame hovered over his thumb. “I can get the kettle boilin’.”

I stared. I didn’t know what to believe. Was I dead? Had I died from that knife through my throat, and this was all in my head as the last of my neurons fired?

Marc frowned and blew out the flame. “Poor taste, eh? I can though, if ya’d like. Unless ya’d prefer one of the bevvies from the fridge?” He crossed to it, slowly, easing around me with plenty of room, and opened the door.

My present from Dad was a cake and a mixed six-pack from a local brewery with a note that read: Save one for me!

Marc snapped off two from the hard plastic ring. “Whadda ya say? I can explain everything.”

My empty stomach from throwing up probably would have done better with a slice of cake or some saltines, but I needed answers, and sharing a drink with a demon wasn’t the worst thing that had happened today. After securing the towel, I held out a hand, and Marc tossed me one of the beers.

He tried to sit next to me, but I moved to the opposite side as him, so the dining table was between us. I popped the top on my beer and downed half of it in a gulp. Marc drank some of his too and shifted to lean over the table. He hissed and snapped upright, holding his side. I couldn’t see any blood leaking through his apparent construct of a shirt, but that was where I’d fired that weird blast of energy at him.

“I… hurt you,” I said.

“Ya did.” Marc shifted again, choosing to not lean forward this time. “Just not with the knife.”

The knife—which was crumpled and still on the kitchen floor, along with the dish towel I’d tripped over.

“D’ya know how to hurt me again?” Marc asked, and it was probably stupid that I shook my head, but I had no idea how I’d hurt him the first time. “I can teach ya, prepare ya for what’s coming.”

“What’s… coming?”

Marc took another drink from his beer before answering, so I did too. “The princes of Hell, the arch demons? They’ll be sendin’… ambassadors, if ya will.”

“To recruit me?”

“To kill ya. And to steal yer power before ya come into it fully and take over Hell and the whole of the earth in the name of yer… whichever of yer parents is the arch demon who spawned ya. My bet’s on Mum.”

I was dead. I had to be. The beer wasn’t even making my head feel fuzzy.

“Yer their trump card, Avi. Whoever they are, they beat the others to the punch. Yer poised to start the apocalypse. And as the saying goes, better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven, amirite?”

The beer was definitely threatening to come back up. “Oh my God…”

“Not exactly.” Marc grinned. “But this is a good thing. An opportunity to be greater and more powerful than ya could ever imagine. I can help ya survive what’s coming. I can help ya thrive. And all I ask is a seat at yer right hand.”

I laughed. It seemed like the appropriate response to the most fucked of all situations. Here I’d been worrying Marc might want my Ethics notes or one of my drawings more than me. He did want something, but it was a front row seat to the end of the world, and I was supposed to be driving. “I’m not starting the apocalypse. I’m not taking over anything.”

“Ya will though, even if ya don’t believe it yet. Yer basically the antichrist. I’m sure ya’ve seen about a dozen and half billion movies about it.”

“I am not a demon! I can’t be. My mom—” I cut off before I could say it, but then I had to. “My mom… died giving birth to me.”

Marc sucked his teeth. “Hopefully that means she’s the liar then and not your pops and he offed her after boffing her.” He chuckled—chuckled, while my mind was whirring, and I felt like I was going to throw up three times over now. “Oops. Poor taste again. Sorry, bruv. But sugar-coating it ain’t gonna change nothing. You’re the son of an arch demon poised to remake the world, and I’m the guardian not-an-angel here to protect ya until ya do. To serve ya… however ya want.”

He got up from the table, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to fight or flee. I ended up doing neither, just sat there while he turned my chair outward from the table as if, even with me in it, it weighed about the same as one of those beer cans.

I’d parted my legs while they were hidden under the table. The towel was tightly tucked, but it had opened a little, revealing high up my thighs. Marc lowered himself to the floor between my knees, hissing again and touching his side, but it didn’t deter him. He’d kneeled in the alley too. Bowed. To me. I still thought he was beautiful. I’d thought his demon form was beautiful too, so much like my drawing, too much like my drawing.

I had to be dreaming. Imagining this. Dead.

“However ya want,” he said again and gripped my knees, pushing the towel higher up my lap as he smoothed his palms along my thighs, his thumbs grazing right between them. Even in the shower, washing off blood, I hadn’t been able to get my dick to temper down. It had been at least half hard since I saw him slaughter those men in the alley.

What was wrong with me?

Blurb

Sometimes the high road leads straight to Hell.

Avriel
Turning twenty-one is almost universally seen as the age of transformation, of coming into one’s own, reaching adulthood, and sometimes even as a symbol of death and rebirth. I never knew how literal that last part could be until, on my twenty-first birthday, I died and was resurrected as a demon.

Well, half-demon and would have died if I wasn’t prophesized to become the Antichrist and take over the world. All I wanted was to survive graduation, achieve my dream of becoming an artist, and maybe have Marc, the hot new guy who I thought liked me for me, be anything other than a lust demon hoping to guide me on my path to the apocalypse.

Marchosias
Occasionally, ya gotta make yer own destiny, my lovelies, so when I found a thin spot in the veil between Hell and earth, I leapt right through it. Sensing the soon-to-be successor to the throne of Hell, I insinuated myself on campus and into his life to await his awakening and fell to my knees in supplication once he did. Pity Avi is so set on denying his destiny.

But I can convince him. I will serve and aid and arouse my master in whatever manner necessary to get what I want. I’ve been an underling, a doormat, a lesser demon for far too long, and his path to glory is going to be mine.

Son of the Arch Demon is part of the MM paranormal romance collaboration Possessive Love.

Buy Links:

• Universal book link: https://mybook.to/archdemonson
• Series collaboration link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CBMJHZ9W

Bio

Amanda Meuwissen is a queer author with a focus on MM romance, dabbling in every subgenre from fantasy to paranormal, occasional contemporary, and more. Amanda is the author of LGBTQ+ Fantasy #1 Best Seller, Coming Up for Air, LGBTQ+ Horror #1 Best Seller and #1 New Release, A Delicious Descent, and #1 New Release in both Fantasy and Gay Erotica, Last Courtesan of Olympus, among her 30+ other titles.

Giveaway

Amanda has brought a signed paperback of Son of the Arch Demon to give away to one lucky reader. If there is an international winner, due to postage costs, the prize will instead be an eBook copy, and an additional eBook from the author’s backlist. Just leave a comment at the end of the post to enter. The contest ends on Tuesday, November 7th at 11:59 pm ET.

• By entering the giveaway, you’re confirming that you are at least 18 years old.
• Winners will be selected by random number. No purchase necessary to win. The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning.
• If you win, you must respond to my email within 48 hours or another winner may be chosen. Please make sure that your spam filter allows email from Joyfully Jay.
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• Prizes will be distributed following the giveaway either by Joyfully Jay or the person/organization donating the prize.
• All book prizes are in electronic format unless otherwise specified.
• By entering you are agreeing to hold Joyfully Jay harmless if the prize or giveaway in some way negatively impacts the winner.
• Readers may only enter once for each contest.  Duplicate entries for the same giveaway will be ignored. In the event of technical problems with the blog during the contest, every effort will be made to extend the contest deadline to allow for additional entries.
• Void where prohibited by law.