Somebody to Love

One of my favorite things to write is a character who feels unloved. Or worse—unloveable. I’ve written a few. Weird for someone who has always felt loved enormously.

My lion shifter Tryg feels very unloveable. He has every right given his history—people leaving him. Some for reasons that could be helped, some for reasons that could not. It doesn’t help that is pride—his supposed family—pretty much shuns him due to his personal nature. It’s a terrible thing to be discarded for something like who you choose to love.

No wonder he’s gruff and keeps most folks at arm’s length. Even lovers.

Until Luke. A drifter who turns out to be Tryg’s lion hearted. The one who can tame the raging beast within. Lion Hearted were talked about around the campfire when Tryg was young. They were mythical. Not real. Certainly nothing an enforcer lion like him would ever waste any time contemplating at length…or even thinking of at all.

So imagine his surprise when his own lion hearted guy shows up. A tiny bit shy, a lot sweet, a good heart and yeah…a body. A body that makes Tryg feel things he never thought he’d get to feel.

Oh yes, friend, this book was fun to write. I hope you’ll check it out and see why even though this is only book 1 of my Divination Falls series, I’m so far beyond hooked on this place and its residents it’s comical.

XOXO

Sommer

*****

Lion Hearted

By Sommer Marsden

EXCERPT copyright 2012

‘Here’s your whisky, Tryg,’ Matthew said. He slid the shot glass across the scarred bar top.

‘What kind?’

‘Rot gut, what other kind do you drink?’

Tryg grunted, almost smiled, and tossed back the amber liquid. ‘How about another?’

‘You up for trouble tonight?’ Matthew looked wary, holding the whisky bottle but not pouring. What kind of bartender didn’t pour?

‘Me? Never.’ Tryg fingered the scar that bisected his eyebrow and barely avoided his left eyelid. He realised Matthew was watching, and quickly dropped his hand. ‘I’m fine, Matt. Just pour.’

‘Word is –’

‘Word is none of your business and it’s just hearsay so … Maybe you should just pour and not worry about rumours.’

Matthew pressed his lips together, nodded, poured. ‘Fine. But any problems from you, Bolo, and you’ll be banned from my bar.’

‘Got it,’ Tryg said. ‘And don’t call me Bolo.’

Matt shrugged. ‘It’s your name, as far as I heard until you started drinking here. Damn, Tryg, I thought it was your name.’

‘A bolo is a knife,’ Tryg said.

‘And you’re an enforcer.’

‘Go away.’

Matthew grinned and went to fill another order. That had been close. Tryg had been itching to clock him to teach him some manners. But he wouldn’t do that.

We thought it might be good for you to have a break from the pride …

He shook off the echoes in his head and downed the glass of whisky. About 600 more and he might feel better. He might even get his drunk on. Tryg set his glass down with a bang and Matt looked up. He was annoyed.

‘So let him be annoyed,’ he growled.

Someone bumped into him and he practically roared, the urge to shift rippling under his skin and along his spine. This was not the day to provoke him. When your pride wants to send you away for “a break” you’re pretty much over. Especially if you’re supposed to be the muscle. Again he touched his scar and it made him angrier when he realised he was doing it. Whoever was behind him had better be ready.

‘What the fuck is your problem? You can’t see where you’re –’

Something made him bite off his words. Maybe it was the flash of fear in the man’s bright blue eyes or the nervous duck of the head that caused sandy blond hair to fall across his brow. Tryg bit back another roar because he found himself even more annoyed that he found the kid attractive.

‘Move,’ he growled.

The kid moved. Tryg called him a kid because he might be 25 to Tryg’s 32. Might.

Their shoulders brushed as he tried to push past, and he felt a comingling of instincts. The urge to lash out and hurt immediately contradicted by the urge to protect. What the hell?

‘Sorry,’ the kid said.

Again, he wanted to hit him and kiss him. Tryg shook his head and moved away. He needed some air. Maybe he’d had too much to drink.

Or not enough brain cells in your damn head…

He forced his way through the small bar. As he passed the first booth he heard Ozric. ‘What the fuck? You’re still here?’

‘You’re not on the road yet, Bolo?’ someone else piped in.

Tryg tried to drown out the voices. These were the guys who’d gotten him to the point of being asked to take an indefinite road trip. Ozric and his crew had issues with Tryg. Issues about his ways, his job, and who he chose to fuck.

‘Just keep going. Just keep walking,’ he told himself. He wanted to return to his pride after his mission was complete and be welcome. Even if his pride included assholes like Ozric and Ronnie and Dane.

‘We don’t need your kind anyway.’ This time it was Ronnie who spoke. He was short and sort of out of shape. Were they forced to live in their animal forms, he’d be the first to succumb to starvation and die. He was a shit hunter and a worse person. ‘It’s not like you help expand our numbers.’ He snorted, hefted a beer, looking smug and amused.

That was when Tryg snapped, his body rippling from the surge of adrenaline and rage. The toxic soup of hormones that ushered in a shift boiled under his skin and he felt his feet turn to rush the group instead of keep on a steady course toward the door.

The roar ripped up and out of him, but he heard it more than felt it. His fingers clenched, then went warm from his joints softening to reconfigure. He felt a canine tooth slide against his tongue and tasted blood. It was fine. He wanted to taste blood.

‘Remember what I said, Bolo!’ Matt called from the bar. Tryg caught a flash of his wide eyes and his fingers delving under the bar where a dart gun was kept. One shot from that thing and almost any shifter in the bar went down like 50 pounds of shit in a 10-pound sack. The only creature to ever manage to stay conscious had been a visiting shifter –a Kodiak bear.

The Bolo reference only made him angrier and he moved fast. Faster than was normal even for him. His nails had just bitten into the soft wood of the table, ready to tear the top off and maybe use it to beat the fuck out of the morons sitting there – but then a hand settled on his shoulder.

Two things happened. His brain said “attack”. His body said “relax”.

What the hell?

He turned to find that boy. Those water blue eyes wide but intent. ‘Easy,’ the kid said.

Tryg considered taking a swing anyway. Attempted to tell his brain to raise his fist to clock this kid and teach him a lesson. His body betrayed him. Under all the confusion, that made him nervous.

‘Are you insane?’ Tryg rumbled, but felt his muscles relax further, his claws contract, his muzzle reform. He felt a loosening in his solar plexus and a syrupy kind of peace.

Maybe Matt had hit him with that tranq gun, after all.

*****

Tryg Avondale is the muscle for his pride, and when he’s called upon to hunt down two missing teens, he sees the job for what it is – a chance to give his pride a break from him and his “nature”. Tryg is a gay lion and it’s not something his “family” seems to embrace.
He takes with him Luke Dorchester – an empath and the perfect travel companion. Luke can feel and soothe every emotion that coils deep inside Tryg, and the sex between them is the hottest Tryg has ever known. Tryg has no intention of letting his emotions go any further when it comes to this brand new man. But he also has zero intention of letting him go. What follows is a road trip from campground to campground, hot nights in hotel rooms and close encounters spent together as they follow the scent of the two abducted shifters. A scent that takes them to Divination Falls, a haven for shifters and associated magical folk; a place where an old evil will surface and Tryg will learn just how far his love for lion-hearted Luke must take him.

Available from:

Amazon UK
Amazon US

Coming to all other vendors January 2013!

*****

Sommer Marsden’s been called “…one of the top storytellers in the erotica genre” (Violet Blue), “Unapologetic” (Alison Tyler), “…the whirling dervish of erotica” (Craig J. Sorensen),and “Erotica royalty…” (Lucy Felthouse).

Her erotic novels include Boys Next Door, Restless Spirit, Big Bad, Wanderlust and Learning to Drown. Sommer currently writes erotica and erotic romance for HarperCollins (Mischief Books), Xcite Books, eXcessica, Ellora’s Cave, Pretty Things Press, and Resplendence Publishing. The wine-swigging, dachshund-owning, wannabe runner author writes work that runs the gamut from bondage to zombies to humor.

Sommer’s short works can be found in well over one hundred (and counting) erotic anthologies. Her short stories have also been included numerous adult and romance magazines–both in print and online. Visit sommermarsden.blogspot.com to see what’s up and drop her a line.