Title: Split Shift

Publisher: Rogue Firebird Press

Release: April 19

Universal Link

Blurb: The hard thing about Night Shift is when you realize werewolves are bad news, but people can be worse.

After Night Shift officer Kit Marlow solved the murder of child star Haley Jenkins, he figured he was due a little down time. Maybe even a dinner date with Cade Deacon, the sarcastic security consultant, very good kisser, and werewolf who’d helped with the investigation.

That was before someone in a Night Shift uniform drove them both off the road. With the full moon up the only dinner date Cade is interested in…has Marlow served up on a plate. And not in a sexy way.

It’s the second time that corrupt Night Shift officers have tried to kill Marlow. If he has his way, it will be the last. Problem is he only has twenty-eight days before the next full moon. If he hasn’t identified who wants him dead by then, he’ll have to take to werewolf filled streets with a team at his back he can’t trust.

First things first, though. Get through the next twelve hours alive and uneaten, and hope that if a second date is still on the cards it’s less eventful.

 

 

First of all, thank you so much for having me! I’m thrilled to be here with my new release, Split Shift by TA Moore, the second novella in the Night Shift series.

For the blog tour I’ve written a short story set in the Night Shift world. I hope you enjoy Chapter One!

 

Chapter 1

After six months on Night Shift there were some things that Marlow had gotten used to. That the coffee in the break room always tasted like a twelve hour brew, even if you’d just put it on. The smell of a wolf’s mouth, ripe and meaty and sometimes cut through with the faintest aftertaste of toothpaste. The bruises that waxed and waned on his ribs and back from one month to the next.

Some things, though, he didn’t think he’d ever get accustomed to.

Like Piper, a man Marlow had once seen on TV carry an injured Night Shift officer on his back out of a burning building through a pack of frenzied wolves, asking about Marlow’s love life.

Piper stripped his bloody t-shirt off and shoved it into his bag. “So you and what’s his name…”

Marlow sat down on the bench and loosened the laces on his boots.

“Brian,” he said.

Piper paused as he considered that, head cocked slightly to the side. “Huh.”

“What?”

Piper shrugged and stripped his belt from around his waist. “Nothing,” he said. “You going to bring him to my BBQ this weekend or what?”

A scar ran down Piper’s back like wax, from his shoulder blade down to the top to his ass. It pulled, less flexible than the skin around it, as he reached into the locker to grab a towel. Marlow tried not to stare. He wasn’t entirely sure if the tickle down his spine was for the muscle or the reminder that he’d get his own collection of scars soon enough.

Wolves healed.

Nulls scarred.

It was a badge of honor, and everyone swore they’d get you laid, but the idea of it still made Marlow’s skin itch. He had a few, of course. Old scrapes on his knees, a nick on his chin where he’d come off his bike as a kid. Nothing that could have killed him though.

“No,” he said.

Piper slung the towel around his neck and looked down at Marlow. Both hands gripped the ends of the towels, bony knuckles pressed against scarred skin.

“Why not?” he asked. “You think anyone is going to give you shit because you’re dating a guy? Because I’ll put a pin in that right now. You’re Night Shift. That’s what matters, not who you want to fuck or whose name you’d yell out during.”

“I think someone will give me shit because that’s what they do,” he said. “Last week Bennett gave me shit for how I laced my boots. I signed up for that, but doesn’t mean I want to hear her opinion of my boyfriend. Or yours.”

Piper visibly weighed whether he believed Marlow for a second, then cracked a grin.

“You’re Night Shift now, Marlow,” he said. “You’ll have to introduce Brian to the family eventually.”

He stripped off the rest of his clothes and headed for the showers. Marlow snorted and pulled his boots off. There were bite marks in the heel, punctured almost all the way through the heavy, reinforced leather. He’d not lost any skin, but when he pulled his sock down his foot was bruised from his ankle halfway to his toes.

“Anything broken?” Bennett asked as she pulled her locker open. Her hair hung in crimped waves on her shoulders where it had been stuck in a braid all night. She checked her reflection in the mirror on the back of the door and swore at the black eye already in full bloom. “Great. I had to get hit in the face before my cousin’s fitting. Now I get to hear another lecture about how she doesn’t want a bridesmaid with facial injuries in her wedding photos. Little Miss Perfect and her perfect wedding. Jesus.”

Marlow considered that bit of information for a moment and then decided to ignore it.

“I can walk on it, so probably not.”

“You’d be surprised,” Bennett told him. “Last year I broke my arm in two places. Didn’t even realise it was sore until halfway home. Adrenaline’s a wonderful bitch.”

She grabbed her jacket from the locker and shrugged it on as she headed out.

“Hey, Jay,” Piper called as he leaned out of the showers. “We need pictures of you in that bridesmaid’s dress.”

“Why?” Bennet asked. She turned around and took steps backwards until she bumped into the door.

“We’ve got a bet on the colour,” Piper said. “Marlow went with mustard.”

“I did not!” Marlow protested.

Bennett shook her head. “It’s my cousin’s wedding,” she said, disapproval in her voice. “Not a race at the track. Show some respect. And put me down for ‘antique peach’. It looked worst on me.”

She pushed the door open with her shoulders and stepped out into the hall.

Piper watched her go. It was longer than he’d watch anyone else. Marlow occupied himself with his sneakers and with not noticing that. The jersey he’d worn to work was in the bottom of his bag, the cotton too old and faded to worry about wrinkles.

“Marlow,” Piper said abruptly while Marlow was half-in and half-out of his t-shirt. “You got any plans for after shift?”

He did.

Marlow dragged the t-shirt  down over his head and managed to find the sleeves after a brief scuffle with the twisted fabric. He raked his hair back from his face and looked at Piper’s expectant expression. It was hard to tell whether or not it was a real question, or one there was only one acceptable answer to.

“No,” Marlow lied, as he decided it was the second.

“Good,” Piper said. He ran his hand down his face to strip off the water and flick it onto the floor. “I’ll buy you breakfast. Wait here, I won’t be long.”

He ducked back into the showers. Marlow stared at the gap where he’d been and resisted the urge to promise to turn up at the BBQ with someone in tow. The anxiety was immediate and tasted sour on the back of his tongue. Marlow was good at his job–he knew that, he wouldn’t have gotten here if he wasn’t–but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Piper’s word was law on the Night Shift. If he’d decided that Marlow wasn’t someone he wanted at his back, Marlow would be bounced back to Robbery before he could collect his gear.

In the shower Piper started to sing to himself, off-key and ragged.

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Author Bio:

TA Moore –

TA Moore is a Northern Irish writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A childhood in a rural, seaside town fostered in her a suspicious nature, a love of mystery, and a streak of black humour a mile wide. As her grandmother always said, ‘she’d laugh at a bad thing that one’, mind you, that was the pot calling the kettle black. TA Moore studied History, Irish mythology, English at University, mostly because she has always loved a good story. She has worked as a journalist, a finance manager, and in the arts sectors before she finally gave in to a lifelong desire to write.

 

Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life. Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.

 

Website: www.tamoorewrites.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TAMoorewrites/

Twitter: @tamoorewrites

 

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