No Refuge (Known Universe) Read online

  My heart thudded, but not in panic.

  “Now.” He spoke softly and crept over me, his cock a hard length of thick deliciousness. “You’ll make me yours.” Fitting himself at the entrance of my pussy, he set his hands on my hips and drove into me. It was the most aching bliss I had ever experienced.

  All the air rushed from my lungs as his shaft stretched me. When I whimpered, he tried to stop, but I could see his control shredding.

  The muscles in his shoulders bunched and his neck went taut with strain. His groan carried tortured desire.

  “Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop,” I cried out.

  It was all he needed. Pushing deeper, he buried his cock to the hilt and kissed me. He kept on kissing me as he began to thrust. Gently at first, but with each stroke his breathing grew more ragged and he shoved with more force.

  I dug my nails into his ass and moved my hips in time with his. The oxygen vanished from the room, and I couldn’t catch my breath. His name became a litany tumbling from my lips as he rose above me, thrusting harder and harder.

  Arching his back, he cried out, his hot seed spilling inside my womb for the first time.

  The heat of passion seared my blood as my cries of completion mingled with his. I lay on our bed, eyelids drooping as Brody rolled off. The exhaustion tracking me across space finally won out as my eyes drooped.

  He nudged me as he rose from the bed and hurried to the bathroom.

  Something cool and wet wiped across my forehead.

  “Lucy?”

  I roused from an almost boneless state to find Brody watching my short slumber, worry etched on his face.

  He sat with a wet cloth in his hands. Spreading my legs, he then washed between my thighs. “You’re bleeding. I must have hurt you.”

  I was sore, but in a luscious way. “I think it’s normal on the first time. I don’t feel damaged, only thoroughly debauched.”

  He gave me disbelieving look.

  I crooked a finger at him. “Maybe we should practice some more.”

  10

  I discovered new muscles existing within my body the next morning, since they sent sharp zings with each little step.

  Brody had taken my offer for practice very seriously and decided we should train in attempt to become experts in one night. He went out to find food while I used all the hot water reserves in the shower to ease my delicious aches.

  The sound of the door closing alerted me to his return. I dried and dressed at a pregnant Metax’s pace.

  He stuck his head past the doorway with a silly grin. “I have hunted the food and returned victorious.”

  “You’re such a clever man.” I winked and zipped my borrowed jumpsuit, ran my hands over the material. How long would it last out here? We didn’t have any money or skills for living off the land. I’d lost my backpack when I switched disguises, so I had nothing to barter.

  I followed Brody and found a little tray on the table with a few food items. My Christmas book lay next to it with some shiny red things. I examined the trinkets and laughed. “You carried my painted nuts and bolts all this time?” I’d left them on the mining ship; my pack had been too full.

  “Of course. They were important to you.” He took my hand and pulled me to the open door leading outside. “I have something to show you.” Setting his cold hands over my eyes, he guided me only a few steps. “Look.”

  In front of our cabin grew a small, familiar cone shaped tree. “It can’t be.”

  Brody rushed inside and returned with my book. He flipped the pages. “I couldn’t believe it either, so I compared the pictures, and look…” He held the picture next to the tree.

  “It’s shorter.” Ours barely reached my hip.

  “I think this one is a baby.” He pointed past the colony toward the forest. “Those are the right size.”

  I stared with an unhinged jaw. “Do you think?”

  “It’s Earth? I reckon we’ll never truly know, but I want to believe it is.” He wrapped me in a tight hug. “Let’s decorate our little one.”

  I gasped. “Really?” The tree wasn’t big, but, then again, I didn’t have many decorations made.

  “Sure. Then you can read this book to me by the fire. I think today should be Christmas. We have lots to celebrate.”

  AnnieNicholas

  Annie Nicholas writes paranormal romance with a twist. She has courted vampires, hunted with shifters, and slain a dragon’s ego all with the might of her pen. Riding the wind of her imagination, she travels beyond the restraints of reality and shares them with anyone wanting to read her stories. Mother, daughter, and wife are some of the other hats she wears while hiking through the hills and dales of her adopted state of Vermont.

  Annie writes for Samhain Publishing, Carina Press, and Lyrical Press.

  The Omegas

  The Vanguards, #1

  Only a vampire is man enough to teach werewolves how to fight.

  Pretty librarian Sugar wants her life to stay quiet. That’s hard enough when friends and neighbors turn into furry werewolves every full moon. But when a hot vampire gets involved, life’s bound to get complicated.

  The Omegas have always been the pansies of the paranormal. Now Chicago’s top werewolf pack has issued them a life or death challenge. Their only option: hire a vampire warrior to teach them the moves.

  Daedalus has been a powerful vampire for ages. Intrigued by the chance to train the geeks of the underworld, he wasn’t bargaining on losing his heart to a human. Can he make the Omegas a success, fit into Sugar’s quiet life, and avoid being ripped to shreds in the process?

  The Alpha

  The Vanguards Book 2

  Someone is about to get some Spice in his life.

  Spice has nothing but the clothes on her back when she returns to Chicago. She’s looking for a better life, and that means reuniting with her estranged twin sister, Sugar. She isn’t thrilled to find out Sugar’s boyfriend is a vampire. But then she meets Eric, once the bottle-cap-glasses wearing nerd next door - now grown into the kind of man she’d love to snuggle with on this cold winter night…and he’s offered her his room in Sugar’s house.

  Eric can’t believe Spice has returned. He’d given up hope of ever seeing her again, let alone having her stare at him as if he’s sex on a stick. But now that all of his fantasies for them are coming true, reality rears her ugly head and Eric must tell Spice his intimate secret; he’s actually an Alpha werewolf looking for his mate and he thinks he’s found her.

  The Beta

  The Vanguards Book 3

  Three days of hell, in charge, and running out of antacids.

  As the pack’s Beta, Robert needs to watch over the Vasi werewolf pack for a few days. He hates the responsibility, but his job is to dissolve any problems while his Alpha honeymoons. Nevertheless, trouble comes to town and her name is Esther. She’s beguiling, beautiful and picks his pocket. Although Robert doesn’t trust her, he still wants to possess her.

  Esther arrived in Chicago with the intention of slaying a vampire named Daedalus. While trailing her quarry, she encounters Robert who unhinges her world. He doesn’t know her trade, and she doesn’t know his connection to the vampire. Disturbed by her attraction to this unusual werewolf, she can’t decide which prey to hunt—the one who’s stolen her heart or the one who’ll fill her bank account.

  Omegas In Love

  The Vanguards Book 4

  Some things are best to forget. But what if the past won’t be forgotten?

  Born in China of a pure shifter bloodline, Katrina was raised with only one purpose–to breed. Abused by her alpha, she runs away to America as soon as she can. With a new pack and her true mate, she thinks the nightmare is behind her, but when she is abducted on the streets of Chinatown, Katrina must face her past and fight for her freedom.

  It took Tyler a year to earn Katrina’s love, another to build her confidence and pride, and only a moment to lose her. Broken-hearted, Tyler won’t give up his search for Katrina.
But he never trained as a warrior like the other shifters. What chance does a real estate agent have in the fight for his mate?

  Sigma

  The Vanguards Book 5

  To defend and protect, at any cost.

  Sam is Sigma of his pack, defender of the innocent and frail. Too bad the one time it mattered most, though the urge to guard the weak runs strong in his shifter blood, he failed to protect his best friend from an attack. Just when his self-confidence can’t go any lower, he becomes entangled in a vampire skirmish and is left with an injured female in his arms.

  Vampire accountant for Pal Robi, Inc., Clementine can’t believe her master would ask her to commit corporate espionage. She’s shot when discovered, but a shifter comes to her rescue. It’s as if he’s made of her fantasies, and in the few hours with him she lives more than the decades she’s spent among her clan.

  Hiding with him on the streets of Chicago, in the midst of fighting together to stay alive, can a petite vampire break through her hero’s jaded heart?

  Irresistible

  Werewolves believe in soul mates. Sirens eat theirs.

  Sirens, a mutation of mermaids, need sexual energy to survive. Marie Laframboise lost her only food source when her strip club burned down. Not wanting to kill any of her victims, she’d learned to glean the lust off her clients, and now she is starving. She can’t resist the temptation to invite herself to the singles shifter party held by local werewolf stud, Maxwell Cox, and feed.

  Max doesn’t want a soul mate, but to his dismay, she shows up at his party. Just as Marie can’t resist the temptation to feed, Max can’t resist the instinctual urge to claim her. Marie has never wanted a relationship, but she can’t shake off Max’s pursuit. He offers her things she has only dreamed of, but she fears the hunger will turn those dreams into nightmares.

  Her appetite is not one to mess with. Max thinks he’s found the perfect mate, but Marie may have found the perfect prey.

  WARNING: Graphic sexual content, hot shifters, and one scary-ass siren.

  Kosihi

  The GateKeepers, Book One

  Never make a deal with a dragon.

  Sandra’s sister is dying. Doctors say nothing can be done, but she refuses to give up hope. She has depleted all their resources searching for a cure, when a little bird whispers in Sandra’s ear about secret worlds, gates, and the keepers who protect them. A dragon gatekeeper, who hoards magical treasure within his volcano home in Japan, possibly owns an item capable of curing her sister.

  Gates choose their keepers, and Koishi thinks his did an excellent job in picking him. Not many dare to cross, and none who try survive. However, one tiny human female with either the courage of an army or the intelligence of a gnat has arrived on the island asking for him. Curious, he waits for the locals to steer her to his human servant—actually him, in man form.

  Let the games begin…

  CONTENT WARNING: Goblins, mayhem, and sushi await you with hot dragon sex and Koishi’s odd sense of humor.

  Lyrical Press books are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2012 Annie Nicholas

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Lyrical Press and the L logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  First Electronic Edition: 2014

  ISBN-13: 978-1-61650-529-5