Maw of Mayhem MC, Book 2
Paranormal, Motorcycle Club Romance
Date Published: March 15, 2024
So much for sanctuary. Kit Parson doesn’t feel any safer than she was
before she first stepped into the Maw of Mayhem, and things are going from
bad to worse. Something big is definitely going down in the paranormal
community… and inside Kit. Now that her inner beast has awoken, all
it wants is out. The only thing Kit wants is Grim, but he’s got issues
of his own.
Fingered for a crime he didn’t commit and injured by the
witch’s spell, his cat Darke has control of their form. He
doesn’t play well with others, and tensions with the crew are at an
all-time high.
With the witches’ elite assassins on their trail, can Darke and the
crew put aside their differences to keep Kit safe and get back to the MC?
And as the clock ticks toward the vote with Grim’s reputation in
shambles, will there be an MC to go back to?
EXCERPT
Shades of the past tore through the consciousness Darke shared with his
man, threatening to swallow Grim whole. He fought against their poisoned
bite, but the witch’s spell had weakened the big cat’s
skin-brother and freed the memories from their fetters. They lashed at Grim
with inky black tentacles of torment. His agonized screams rose within the
crescendoing squall, raging through their split psyche. A growl welled in
Darke’s chest, ruff bristling at their assault.
— Mine! — he snarled, lunging into the fray. Sharp claws and teeth rent
the shadowed memories of the bad time from his man, scattering them back
into the depths of their mind. Grim was his. Him. A self separate, yet one.
His skin-brother. Darke nuzzled him close, tongue rasping over Grim’s
flickering light.
— heal —
Kit… his man whimpered, curling into a ball. His light dimmed,
giving up control of their form to the big cat.
— ours — Darke rumbled, shifting their body and sending Grim what
strength he could. Fur sprouted, limbs cracking and reforming. Two legs
became four, and a tawny gray mountain lion lay sprawled on the bed where
the others had lain his man to recover.
Within, his skin-brother’s light strengthened, its low glow holding
steady.
Darke ran a paw over his face, licking at his pad. He sneezed at the scent
of old blood, the room thick with the patina of its tang and the decaying
musk of the undead. A low growl rumbled in his chest, his pupils dilating to
take in the room’s blend of muted color.
Heavy furniture dominated the space, its angles stark amidst the gloom.
Tendrils of scent threaded through the room, age and linseed seeping from
the wood to twine with the rest of the civilized rot assaulting his nose. He
pushed off the bed, padding across the thick carpet. His shadow grayed the
fingers of scant moonlight streaming in from long, amber-tinted
windows.
Darke paused, his lip curling over his canines, disdainfully eyeing the
city spread out below him before turning his face to the bulbous moon.
Had Grim’s female changed and released her animal?
Clay’s cat had promised Darke a mate. Teased him with her scent,
captured within the weft of the afghan on Grim’s bed. The desperate
longing it evoked proved the connection. The tip of Darke’s tail
twitched. He’d trusted it would be so. Waited for so long. Too long.
Kit’s scent matched the afghan’s. That meant the beast within
her was his.
Darke chuffed his frustration. Sensing his mate without being able to claim
her was torture. He paced the breadth of the room, eyes narrowed at the
heavy oaken door leading out. Beyond it, faint voices pricked at his ears.
Part of his skin-brother’s pride was near. His crew. Darke growled at
the snippets of the MC’s inner cats’ near-unintelligible
murmuring punctuating the two-legged babble. That he could understand the
crew’s stupid yapping better than his own brethren’s yowls
irked.
A pang of loneliness shot through Darke’s chest. He missed Clay. When
his father’s inner lion had spoken, his deep rumble was clarion. The
lynxes out there? Yowls and hissing. Darke could pick out maybe one hard-won
word in six, and they couldn’t understand him at all. It had been the
same with his littermates, Grapple and Shiv, leaving Darke to rely on
instinct when forced to interact.
It got him into trouble. Lynxes were shady and the two-leggers lied. Said
things they didn’t mean, then hurt you. Clay had been different, but
he was dead while his murderer walked free.
Reaper.
Darke shivered, ears flicking back, remembering the bad time. The man who
called himself their uncle needed to die, and Grapple and Shiv with
him.
Darke’s temper spiked, his tail swishing. Keenly feeling the loss
locked within his mind again, in this stinking place of undead. His
skin-brother shared his sorrow at their father’s murder, but not
Darke’s isolation.
And now Grim had left him, too.
Darke shouldered through another door into a smaller room lined with tile.
It smelled faintly of excrement and strongly of fabricated pine, the water
in the bowl stale and chemical-laced. Darke shook droplets from his maw and
chuffed his distaste, returning to the window.
Soft footfalls approached from the beyond the oaken door.
Darke slunk into the deep shadow of an armoire as the heavy slab canted
open, then closed. Kit limped to the center of the room, favoring a leg. Her
arm was splinted, the opposite hand bandaged in gauze. A ruddy stain marred
its whiteness. She wrapped her damaged limbs around herself with a low sob,
the scent of fresh blood perfuming the air as she moved. Darke’s
nostrils flared at that thread of wrongness twining within the delicate
tendrils of citrus, cinnamon, and female musk.
His mate was presenting as wounded prey.
Darke bit back the growl building in his chest, fury pounding through his
temples. His claws extended and retracted from the carpet’s thick
pile. Healthy, she’d be a tempting prize for any predator.
Injured… He was going to kill —
No. Darke’s ears flattened against his skull. His man would think
before spilling blood.
But Grim thought too much.
Kit scanned the room, then dashed a hand across her face, stumbling to the
bed. Her feet froze at its foot, head snapping toward the bathroom, then
away. Another low sob eked from her throat, and Darke’s ruff stood on
end. He would destroy them. Destroy them all. Starting with those who had
failed to protect —
— Hey! Boy Vengeance! You really just gonna let her think her think
he’s gone? —
Darke jumped, fur bristling at the syrupy censure. He backed deeper into
the shadows, eyes wide and pulse pounding.
— Aww. Here puss, puss, puss… I don’t bite —
His lip curled over a canine, and a female’s mocking laughter flitted
through his mind as clearly as the gravelly chuckle of Clay’s beast
had. Darke’s heart leaped, his ears pricking forward, saliva pooling
in his maw.
He could understand her.
The beast inside Kit, his promised mate — when she spoke, her words were
clear, and she wanted to play.
About the Author
AK Nevermore enjoys operating heavy machinery, freebases coffee, and gives
up sarcasm for Lent every year. A Jane-of-all-trades, she’s a
certified chef, restores antiques, and dabbles in beekeeping when
she’s not reading voraciously or running down the dream in her beat-up
camo Chucks. Unable to ignore the voices in her head, and unwilling to
become medicated, she writes Science Fiction and Fantasy full time. AK pays
the bills writing a copious amount of copy, along with a column on SFF. She
belongs to the Authors Guild, is an RWA chapter board member, volunteers for
far too many committees, teaches creative writing, and on the rare occasion,
sleeps.
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