There are no bars or chains; he simply can’t leave. His sanity is starting to fray. When industrial magician John Blake arrives to investigate a case of witchcraft, he finds the peculiar, arrogant Thornby as alarming as he is attractive. John soon finds himself caught up in a dark fairytale, where all the rules of magic—and love—are changed. To set Thornby free, both men must face life-changing truths—and John must accept that the brave, witty man who’s winning his heart may also be about to break it. Can they escape a web of magic that’s as perilous as love?

    His ability to control technology attracts the attention of the minister of defense and thrusts him into the magical elite of the nation of Carolinia.The son of undocumented immigrants, Noam has spent his life fighting for the rights of refugees fleeing magical outbreaks—refugees Carolinia routinely deports with vicious efficiency. Sensing a way to make change, Noam accepts the minister’s offer to teach him the science behind his magic, secretly planning to use it against the government. But then he meets the minister’s son—cruel, dangerous, and achingly beautiful—and the way forward becomes less clear.Caught between his purpose and his heart, Noam must decide who he can trust and how far he’s willing to go in pursuit of the greater good.

    Rightfully feared in Tophet’s crime-ridden underbelly, a face-to-face encounter with an ATU is almost certainly a death sentence. But Ace has never been one to follow the rules.Soren Lau might be an ATU rookie, but he’s not naive enough to believe everything his superiors tell him. Then again, he’s not stupid enough to disobey them, either. If he doesn’t shoot and kill as ordered, he might be next on their list.But when Soren meets Ace, a moment’s hesitation is all it takes to put both their lives on the line. They don’t know each other, they don’t trust each other, and there’s no way in hell they can both walk away from this alive. But with suspicion and mortal danger mounting against both of them—and the forbidden attraction blazing between them—there’s nothing they can do but try.

    And once his deadly secret was exposed, it cost him everything—his birthright, his family, and his stellar military career.Ture Xans spent his entire life hiding from everyone around him—his family, his friends, and anyone who wanted to get close to him—while trying desperately to fit in and keep his head low. Badly hurt by everyone he’s ever known, he trusts no one except his own best friend. But honestly, he can’t understand why he trusts her. Nor can he believe her when she describes a loyalty between the League allies the likes of which he’s never seen.Yet when Ture is captured by the League in a coup he wanted no part of, his life is saved by a hero he thought only existed in fables. A man who is every bit as scarred and mistrusting as he is. One who has no interest in being dragged into another war for any reason. Having spent his life as a living study of doomed relationships, Maris is well aware of the fiasco that invariably follows. Still, there is something about Ture he can’t resist. Something that won’t let him walk away when he knows he should. But when old enemies return to threaten them both, they either have to stand together or die alone.

    Located at a nexus of mystical energy fields, Fulton Heights is practically an electromagnet for supernatural drama. And when a mysterious (and annoyingly hot) vampire boy arrives with a cryptic warning, Auggie suddenly finds himself at the center of it. An ancient and terrible power is returning to the earthly realm, and somehow Auggie seems to be the only one who can stop it.

    But he needs the job at Kempthorne & Co like he needs to breathe. The alternative—going back to the organized crime gangs of London’s East End—is unthinkable.So when Alexander Kempthorne, boss of Kempthorne & Co Artifact Retrieval Agency, wants him on a special case to track down an illegal artifact dealer, Dom can’t say no. It shouldn’t matter that Kempthorne’s world is full of deadly secrets. It shouldn’t matter that the billionaire is sexy as sin, and it really shouldn’t matter how there’s an American agent stalking Dom, an American who knows more than he should about Dom’s case, including the real reason Alexander Kempthorne hired Dom. The only thing that really matters to Dom is solving the case and finding the artifact dealer. Because there are worse things in London than a conflicted billionaire and a trigger-happy American. Something wicked is stalking London’s streets, and if Dom doesn’t stop it, its shadows will rise and consume them all. ***Twisted Pretty Things is the first book in the all-new Shadows of London MM urban fantasy series. Action, mystery, and MM romance combine in this fast-paced adventure from the author who brought you the award-winning Silk & Steel series and the best-selling Prince's Assassin series. Coming August 2021.Triggering content: mention of past mental and physical abuse. Please note the Shadows of London series is set in London and the characters are all British (so is the author). Although the series has been edited in US English for the larger US market, to include US spelling and grammar, many English slang words and spelling remain as part of the character of the work.

    Norrell in debut author Freya Marske’s A Marvellous Light, featuring an Edwardian England full of magic, contracts, and conspiracies. Robin Blyth has more than enough bother in his life. He’s struggling to be a good older brother, a responsible employer, and the harried baronet of a seat gutted by his late parents’ excesses. When an administrative mistake sees him named the civil service liaison to a hidden magical society, he discovers what’s been operating beneath the unextraordinary reality he’s always known.Now Robin must contend with the beauty and danger of magic, an excruciating deadly curse, and the alarming visions of the future that come with it—not to mention Edwin Courcey, his cold and prickly counterpart in the magical bureaucracy, who clearly wishes Robin were anyone and anywhere else.Robin’s predecessor has disappeared, and the mystery of what happened to him reveals unsettling truths about the very oldest stories they’ve been told about the land they live on and what binds it. Thrown together and facing unexpected dangers, Robin and Edwin discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles—and a secret that more than one person has already died to keep.

    Then I was a hermit. For so long—for years that seemed to go on forever—I couldn't bear to be touched. I put up not just walls but whole stone bunkers to keep everyone out, emotionally, and physically as well. I was protected from people, from ghosts, from specters real and imagined. Sure, I was alone. But I felt safe. Only, after a while, I wasn't sure any longer whether a totally "safe" empty life was really worth living.Then Tobin came along. Out of the blue, out of my past, with a summons from the king that he wouldn't let me ignore. I tried to cling to my isolation, but he wouldn't give up on me. Tobin never believed in walls.This story was written as a part of the M/M Romance Group's "Love Has No Boundaries" event. Group members were asked to write a story prompt inspired by a photo of their choice. Authors of the group selected a photo and prompt that spoke to them and wrote a short story.http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

    When the beautiful and sexy empath Calyx Starr is pulled from the streets and forced onto his team as part of the police captain's secret agenda, Black must deal not only with Starr's relentless seductions, but also a dangerous telepath with a deadly grudge who has targeted the empath and Black's team.Calyx Starr isn't used to being denied. Born on the streets and forced into a life of prostitution to fuel his Bliss habit, Calyx is street-wise and tough, and thinks he can use Black for his own secret plans. However the more Calyx learns about Black and his team, the more the empath begins to think Black may be more than a challenge...he may be the only man Calyx can trust with his life and his heart. Too bad Black is a man with dangerous secrets, and becoming involved with him means Calyx may wind up dead or psychically destroyed.

    A shadow is cast there one day when a tall, cloaked figure approaches the stand of Will Marchman, a young patent-medicine salesman. Fanule Perfidor, commonly known as the Dog King, isn't welcome at the Circus. No resident of Taintwell is; they're all Branded Mongrels, officially shunned. But Will is beguiled by the stunning, mysterious Perfidor. Their mutual wariness soon gives way to desire, and a bond forms.Soon the naive but plucky pitchman becomes embroiled in a dangerous quest. Fanule suspects Alphonse Hunzinger and Purinton's civic leaders are responsible for the disappearance or incarceration of countless Branded Mongrels. But why? As Will's passion and regard for his tormented lover grow, he's determined to help Fanule get answers and prevent any further persecution... or worse. They just have to stay together-and stay alive long enough-to see their plan through.

    His name carries weight across all of the seven continents. But he is a mystery to his kind, an anomaly among the self-indulgent. While he enjoys the pleasures of the flesh, he is exceptionally particular in his choice of partners and prides himself on his ironclad self-control.Yet with one look his control will become a thing of the past, and Alasdair will discover that eternal life doesn’t always last forever…A DEADLY ATTRACTIONThrust into a world he could never have imagined, Leo Chapel awakens in his worst nightmare. Taken hostage by the dangerously mesmerizing vampire, Alasdair, Leo must rely on his intelligence to escape before he reveals a secret he isn’t even aware he’s hiding.A FORBIDDEN DESIREUnaware that they’ve been brought together by an outside force and are little more than pawns to a higher power, Alasdair and Leo spend time trying to uncover the other’s secrets, the attraction between them growing stronger all the while. But enemies are watching and preparing to act against them. When decisions that will alter lives and destinies have to be made—can a dead, grey heart learn to beat again?

    Killer. Deviant.Monster, devoid of morals, incapable of human emotion. The villain known as Spark has been called this and more, and as a super-powered aberrant has masterminded countless crimes to build his father's inhuman empire. Yet to professor Sean Archer, this fearsome creature is only Tobias Rutherford--antisocial graduate researcher, quiet underachiever, and a fascinating puzzle Sean is determined to solve.But one kiss leads to an entanglement that challenges everything Tobias knows about himself, aberrants, and his own capacity to love. When his father orders him to assassinate a senator, one misstep unravels a knot of political intrigue that places the fate of humans and aberrants alike in Tobias's hands. As danger mounts and bodies pile higher, will Tobias succumb to his dark nature and sacrifice Sean--or will he defy his father and rise from the ashes to become a hero in a world of villains?

    Then rock star Chris Raiden died right before I brought his room service—stiffing me on the tip, by the way—and my life went to hell. My fifteen minutes of fame was more like five seconds, and my girlfriend left me in disgust.But even worse—Chris is haunting me. Not the room where he died, like a normal ghost. No, somehow he’s stuck to me and is insisting on taking care of a bunch of unfinished business in California. So now I have to traipse across the country with the world’s most narcissistic ghost.But . . . I keep having these weird thoughts. Thoughts about how much I like the way he makes me laugh. Thoughts where I kind of want to kiss the emo-narcissist, even though he’s a ghost and an asshole and I can’t touch him anyway. And even if I could, what will happen when he finishes his business and nothing’s keeping him here anymore?

    But a precious few begin even before birth.In the dual-gendered realm of Ylandre, the great divide between the high-born True Bloods and the lower-ranked Half Bloods is deemed impassable by most. Rohyr Essendri dared to cross it when he took young Lassen Idana from his provincial town and made him his paramour. Lassen perforce learned how to navigate the intricate byways of life at court. What he never expected, however, was to fall in love with Rohyr, a most inadvisable and impractical thing to do when one’s lover is sovereign ruler of the land. But anything worth having is worth fighting for, both figuratively and, as Lassen discovers, literally speaking.Contains hermaphroditism and explicit homoerotic sexual encounters.

    Sex? A felony. Insulated suits and gloves keep people from even the most platonic touches. Citizens line up in droves at simhouses for their rationed, prescribed orgasms in virtual reality machines.Keith Borden has worked in a simhouse for years, and he's never been tempted to break the strict no-contact laws… until Aiden Maxwell comes along. The attractive and dangerously flirtatious patient invites him into the seedy underground where people engage in real, wireless sex. Though Keith stands to lose his career and his freedom, he's curious and Aiden is irresistible. From the moment he sets foot in the wireless lounge, Keith is in a world of flesh and fantasy. He's hooked. On the sex, on the atmosphere, and most of all, on Aiden.Years of keeping everyone in his world at arm's length have left Keith craving a human touch, and Aiden offers all the contact--scorching sex, gentle affection, and everything in between--Keith can handle. That is, until an unexpected act of betrayal throws Keith's world into chaos, and he finds himself more alone than he ever imagined possible…