Book Title: Lost in Amber (RELIC #4)
Author and Publisher: Maz Maddox
Cover Artist: Shaleah Poster
Release Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: M/M paranormal romance
Tropes: Second chance, hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers
Themes: Being brave when it’s hard to do, forgiving yourself, lots of humor
Length: 58 000 words
It is a standalone story and does not end on a cliffhanger.
Buy Links – Available in Kindle Unlimited
Universal Link | Amazon US | Amazon UK
Blurb
Being alive for millions of years means I’m rarely surprised.
In the long expanse of my existence, I’ve been rescuing fossils for only a breath. During that time, my path has crossed with many different people — shifter and human alike.
Some friendly, some nefarious.
A hundred years ago, one such man graced me with his presence.
He was one of the few to have almost killed me.
Imagine my surprise when I see him again, buying the rarest amber fossil to have ever been discovered.
Precious. Beautiful. Unique.
A true treasure millions of years in the making.
I won’t let him get away again.
The other little gem to my trip was currently standing in the street with his fingers in his wavy hair, about a breath away from a full mental breakdown. I had been so close to finally getting him to unwind, and it was plucked away with that fossil. All my work had been undone, and it was very tragic. He had gone back to being a manic bundle of nerves.
A car made its way around him, honking its horn to try and chase him out of the street, but he was too busy craning his head backwards to peer at the tops of buildings. I ventured into the stream of traffic and guided him back to the sidewalk, parking him near a tree he could examine safely.
“I have a good feeling he’s long gone from this area.”
Lance shook his head, mouth thinning into a hard line.
“No, he couldn’t have escaped that fast. He’s hiding. He has to be hiding somewhere nearby.”
“Right. So you can stop trying to find him. Your neck’s going to be stuck like that.”
Lance rotated his head back into place and snapped it at me furiously.
“Why are you not freaking out right now? Some random d—you know what just stole the fossil!”
“It takes a lot more than a random dinosaur I don’t know showing up and messing with my plans.”
Lance’s face was not fit for scowling. The effort landed more as a pout, and it was more endearing than threatening.
“This happens to you often, then?”
“Once every hundred years.”
“I—you—” he sputtered, waving his hands in the air. “You messed up my plans!”
“We’re going to need a plan to find this person, whoever they are.”
“We?” he barked, but followed after me as I started walking.
“Do you want to try and find them alone?”
He cleared his throat. “How are we going to find them, then?”
“‘We?’”
“Yes, damnit.” Lance pouty-scowled again. “We’re in this now. Let’s find the damn fossil and go from there. But,” he stepped around me and pointed, the gesture more a jab, “no bunk. No double cross. This is a gentleman’s promise. We work together, find the fossil, and then we’ll settle this between us.”
I gave him a onceover. “Lance, you really don’t have the authority to be making the rules. Why on earth would I comply with that?”
“What the hell else can we do? Fight each other and whoever this…this other shifter is? I’m not asking for your loyalty, just that you won’t screw me.”
I let the connotations hang like a fog, and his face turned a lovely shade of red.
“Chisel. Cheat. Swindle. You know what I mean.” He rushed the last part, turning it into a hissing mutter.
“And you won’t do the same? You won’t…screw me?”
“Yulong.”
“Chisel. Cheat. Swindle,” I repeated his words back, much more calmly, and he ground his molars.
“I won’t.” Lance extended his hand. “You have my word.”
I clasped his hand and sealed his promise, squeezing enough to feel his grip tighten in retaliation.
“Deal.”
“Good.” He dropped his hand away and tried to take a deep breath, but it caught along the way down. “Now what?”
Maz is an m/m romance fanatic, dabbles in yaoi, adores dinosaurs and writes romance stories with a healthy heaping of adventure mixed in.
When she’s not pairing up Centaurs with bank robbers, she’s plotting new stories and sending inappropriate texts to her friends.
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