Title: Claiming Marcus
Series: Lords of Discord #1
Author: Jocelynn Drake
Release Date: 10/31/2019
Length: 100,000
Genre: Romance, paranormal romance
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Synopsis
Vampires slaughtered my family.
No one believed me until I met some new friends, who promised to help me get justice.
But nothing prepared me for Marcus Varik.
Tall, dark, and mind-numbingly sexy.
But he’s also shy, protective, and adorably eccentric.
Oh God, I should have never agreed to betray him.
Hopefully, it’s not too late to fix my mistake before I lose more people I love.
Claiming Marcus is the first book in an MM paranormal romance series that has vampires, betrayal, annoying brothers, music, heartbreak, hope, sexy times, and a raven named Ozzie.
This except gives you the first glimpse of Ethan Cline and his first experience with vampires…
The first scream had Ethan jumping from the bathroom door. That was his mother. He knew his mother’s voice. He’d never heard her scream like that, but he knew her voice. Stark terror had him frozen, staring at the back of the bathroom door. He couldn’t go out there. But someone had hurt his mother.
It was late. Middle of the night. He’d woken and stumbled from his bed to the bathroom to relieve his bladder. Been just about to shuffle to his room and warm bed again. It was a school day. He had a spelling test.
His father was shouting. Angry, but also in pain. Heartbroken. What had happened to his mother?
And then his father was screaming too.
Oh God, he had to hide.
Ethan turned toward the bathroom, his eyes skimming over old yellow tile and faded white walls. There was nowhere to hide. The shower curtain over the bathtub was clear, and there was no cabinet under the sink like at Kevin’s house.
His eyes finally hit on the linen closet. It was tucked behind the bathroom door and was a tiny cupboard, but the back of it was made of these boards rather than a regular wall like the rest of the apartment. One of the boards had come loose; his little sister, Macy, had discovered it and tucked herself into that opening when they’d played hide and seek one time. It took them over an hour to find her, and his parents had been so worried they’d almost called the cops.
Ethan silently jerked open the door and started shoving aside their various colored towels. It took a little work, but he managed to crawl into the opening. He forced his mind away from the fact that he was inside the wall. Mice and bugs crawled inside the wall. Never in his life had he ever been so grateful to be the smallest kid in his fifth grade class. It was the only way he was fitting in this hole.
Once in place, he pulled the stacks of towels back in front of the hole, further concealing himself. The last thing he did was carefully reach out and grab the edge of the closet door, pulling it closed as much as possible, plunging his little world into darkness.
But he could still hear.
There were sounds of pain from his father and a low gurgling he couldn’t quite place. And laughter. Strangers were in his apartment and laughing.
“Mom?”
No! His older sister’s voice wavered as she called for their mother. He wanted to shout at her to run, to hide. To grab Macy and get out of the apartment. He couldn’t save them. Their father couldn’t save their mother. What was he supposed to do? The only thing he could think to do was hide. Lucy and Macy should have been hiding too. Why weren’t they hiding?
A startled scream came from Lucy, and Ethan could hear her feet pounding down the hallway, back to their bedroom. Laughter followed his sister. High-pitched evil laughter from a woman.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the woman sang in her horrible voice.
There was a loud explosion like someone had kicked in a door, and Lucy screamed. But the scream was cut short. Macy was crying, but that too was silenced quickly.
Ethan grabbed a washcloth and shoved the balled-up mass into his mouth to keep from screaming, but there was no stopping the rush of tears down his face. His family…someone was killing his family. His sisters. They were gone. Why? Why were they doing this? His whole body trembled, and he pulled his legs tighter against his chest.
“Where’s the other one?” the woman demanded. She sounded like she was in the hall again.
“What are you talking about?” someone responded. A man with a thick accent. It reminded Ethan of the time they drove hours and hours south to a family reunion in Kentucky. His dad had called it the bluegrass state, but he hadn’t seen a darn bit of blue grass. A lot of the people at the reunion had thick, country accents like this man.
“There are three beds back here, but only two brats. Where’s the third one?”
“No clue.”
“Find him!” she snarled. A second later the bathroom door opened, and Ethan barely managed to stifle his scream. He could hear her moving around the bathroom for a moment, and then the door to the linen closet was jerked open. The woman poked her head into the closet for only a second, but for Ethan, it felt like an eternity. He was sure she could hear his pounding heart.
He got a clear view of the woman through a little opening between the towels, and he knew he’d never forget it. She had long, stringy brown hair and copperish eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness. Her pale face was narrow and streaked with blood. The blood of his family. Her thin lips were parted, revealing a pair of perfect fangs glistening with blood.
Vampire.
She was a vampire.
Oh God. Vampires were real, and they’d killed his family.
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It started with a battered notebook. Jocelynn Drake wrote her first story when she was 12 years old. It was a retelling of Robin Hood that now included a kick-ass female who could keep up with all the boys and be more than just a sad little love interest. From there, she explored space, talked to dragons, and fell in love again and again and again.
This former Kentucky girl has moved up, down, and across the U.S. with her patient husband. They’ve settled near the Rockies…for now. She spends the majority of her time lost in the strong embrace of a good book.
When she’s not hammering away at her keyboard or curled up with a book, she can usually be found cuddling with her cat Demona, walking her dog Ace, or flinging curses at the TV while playing a video game. Outside of books, furry babies, and video games, she is completely enamored of Bruce Wayne, Ezio Auditore, travel, tattoos, explosions, and fast cars.
She is the New York Times Bestselling author of the urban fantasy series: The Dark Days series and the Asylum Tales. She has just completed a gay romantic suspense series called The Exit Strategy about two assassins falling in love and trying to create a life together. Her newest project returns to her vampire roots with a new MM paranormal romance series. She is also the co-author of the Unbreakable Bonds, Ward Security, and Pineapple Grove series with Rinda Elliott.
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