Title: The Brotherhood Vol. 2
Author: Willa Okati
Publisher: Changeling Press
Release Date: June 7, 2024
Heat Level: 4 – Lots of Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 277 pages
Genre: Action Adventure, Box Sets, Dark Fantasy, New Releases, Paranormal Romance, Romantic Comedy, Urban Fantasy
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Synopsis
The Out-of-Towner — Liam takes Micah to Amour Magique, where he’s about to get entangled with a bizarre out-of-towner who calls himself Joey. Micah knows better. He really does… But Joey isn’t just from out of town. He’s more from out-of-planet-Earth…
Tezcatli’s Game – When Quentin’s forever love dies, Liam drags Quentin to Amour Magique, hoping he’ll find something to live for. Quentin’s not interested. Until he meets Tezcatli, the powerful Cat shapeshifter who claims him body and soul.
Single White Fang — After surviving domestic battery by a former boyfriend, David’s lost the ability to trust — until he meets Jory. The man seems to be perfect. At least at first…
The Brotherhood Vol. 2
Willa Okati
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2024 Willa Okati
“… and then she just threw him, tossed him right down the stairs.” Laurence gestured with a candied cherry, sinking the red orb into his beer from a height of several feet. “Like he was nothing more than a stuffed doll.”
The bartender, a burly man with muscles stacked upon muscles and the ability to keep his mouth shut when he needed to — or so Laurence had discovered — shook his head to this statement. “Harsh, man.”
“Oh, yeah. Have you ever heard someone screaming just like when the monster under the bed has come out from hiding and wants to eat them? Like, like, like they’re walking on broken glass but they can’t stop? Doesn’t compare.” He paused. “Aw, hell. This cherry’s gonna make my beer taste like crap.”
“Not a problem.” The bartender selected a glass from the polished ranks behind his counter, stuck it beneath a tap, and expertly pulled another pint with a thick, foamy head. “On the house, seeing how you gunked up the other one in the interest of storytelling.”
Laurence cocked his head to look at the man. He’d introduced himself as Rocco, but Laurence felt pretty sure that wasn’t the guy’s real name. On the other hand, he didn’t feel inclined to question the veracity of someone who took a size 6X and didn’t have enough fat on him to grease a cake pan. Besides, Rocco had been a buddy so far, and Laurence didn’t like to look a gift bartender in the mouth. Er. Maybe he’d had one too many beers already.
Whatever.
After saluting the man, Laurence took a deep pull off the fresh beer and rolled the yeasty bitterness over his tongue, then swallowed with a deep sigh of satisfaction. “Oh, yeah. What’s the name of this microbrewery again?”
Rocco glanced at the keg and shrugged. “Na’am Thuul. Not a name I’ve heard before tonight. Bah, they’re always experimenting with my stock.”
“They?”
“They, them, the big cheeses.” Rocco waved his arm disdainfully at the ceiling. “Silas and his team of flunkies, the ones who ‘run’ this place.” He made quote marks with his fingers. “Run, my ass. More like get run over by.”
“No wonder you didn’t have Bud Light when I asked for one. Too mundane?”
Rocco hooted. “Ha! You might find some of that watered-down horse piss on a lower level, but not up here. Clientele’s kinda used to the exotic.” He rolled his eyes. “When they bother to show up, anyway.”
Laurence glanced around. Except for Rocco, he was alone in the whole of the large, roomy bar, a rosewood palace of a pub sunk back into an alcove. Cocooned inside, he could just barely — if he tried — make out the thumping beat of the music on Amour Magique’s main dance floor. Peace, sweet peace.
“Looks like they’re a no-show tonight.” He fished the cherry out of his abandoned beer and ate it. “Huh. Not too bad. I always did like these little things, though. Neon little bastards, though, aren’t they? Makes you wonder what they do to your insides.”
“You cuss a lot for a teacher, man.”
Laurence decided he could afford to give Rocco a pointed look. “Should never have let that slip. Look, I deal with a room full of fifth-graders all day long. Believe me, by the time I’m done with my working day I have to let rip with a blue streak to get the tension out of my system.”
“Fifth-graders, man.” Rocco shuddered. “Anybody under the age of twelve is a demon, man, and I know from demons.”
“Demon rum, demon alcohol…” Laurence twirled a tiny parasol by its toothpick handle. Rocco hadn’t insulted him by adding either the original cherry or the umbrella to his booze. Both had been left by a customer who must have taken off right before Laurence himself stumbled in. Rocco had appeared all too glad to get the business.
Funny that no one else was around. You’d think there’d be a lot of thirsty guys wandering in from the dance floor, right? Guys and, well, dolls, too. Laurence eyed the unknown patron’s abandoned glass and its flaming red lipstick prints. “You get some colorful clientele in here, huh?” he ventured.
“I have my share.” Rocco shrugged again and lifted the drink off the counter, dumping out the obnoxiously cheerful blue slush inside into a sink, washing it out, then upending the glass on a clean white towel all by itself, every move invested with the grace of a really big man who’s learned how to handle himself in small spaces. “This one, with the frou-frou booze? Not so interesting as some.”
“Bet you’re the one with a ton of good stories. And good beer!” Laurence toasted him.
“Na’am Thuul, man. Must be one of those guys with crazy hair and a homebrew setup in his basement. They’re the ones who turn out the really good shit. And I have a few stories, sure, but I like hearing what my customers have to talk about. Which reminds me, you were saying?”
Laurence inclined his head. He’d started the story, so he had to finish it up. “Yeah. This woman was crazy, right? Crazy like the mother of a kid you had to flunk because he never did his homework even though he swore to her, on a stack of Bibles, that he did. Just tossed that kitten right down the flight of steps. I had about a split second to see that fur-bearing missile coming straight at my face, all four sets of claws whipping around like razor blades.” He took a much-needed drink. “Not that I’m surprised, though, right? She and her boyfriend fought about everything, so why not the cat?”
“So what did you do then?” Rocco leaned forward, for all the world as if he really cared. Laurence tilted his head at the big man and silently gave Amour Magique props for hiring a really good class of bartenders. He’d have bet that even if the place were full, Rocco would have a light and a listening ear for everyone who wanted one.
Laurence gave an embarrassed shrug. “I’d like to say I caught the poor little scrap, but really, it caught me. All four sets of claws, remember? Hung on tight, too. So I took it inside long enough to find a box, and five minutes later we were off to the vet to see if anything had broken.” He took another deep chug on his beer and stifled a small burp. “I named him Panther, and he still sticks to me like white on rice from the minute I set foot inside my house. So, yeah. There you have it. The sad story of a gay man who, stereotypically as you please, would like to avoid the free sex show out there and just wants to go home to his newspaper and his faithful kitty cat. Would you believe my friend made me bring a new condom along just in case I got lucky? Man, the nerve of some people.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“Nutty little guy called Liam.” Laurence looked back out at the throng beyond Rocco’s cool sanctuary. “I have no idea where he’s gotten to.”
“Liam. Huh.” Rocco took Laurence’s glass and once more topped the beer off without being asked. “So, what, you think this is a bad thing, having something to take care of and love? Hell, man, that’s what most of these sorry partygoers are looking for, whether they’ll admit it or not.”
Laurence snorted and accepted the beer.
“Only the truth, my man. You gotta have somebody to love. And if you don’t have a body, then you might as well have a thing, right?”
“You’re a wise man, Rocco,” Laurence said solemnly, lifting his drink. Rocco chuckled and moved further down the bar, whipping out a towel to polish the already gleaming surface just that little bit brighter.
Laurence laughed himself, then settled down into his drink. He’d lost track of how many he’d had. Four, if you counted the cherry bomb, three if you didn’t, or two and one half if you wanted to be technical, since he was only halfway down the new arrival. Enough, though, that certain parts of him were beginning to protest a little too much liquid in the system.
He waved at Rocco. “Hey — bathroom?”
Rocco grinned as he polished away. “Sorry, friend, I don’t do casual hookups in the stalls.”
Laurence blushed. “Er, sorry. Flying solo tonight.”
“Nothing for the customers, sorry. There’s one outside close to the main floor, though, if you really gotta go.”
Cringe. “I’ll wait, thanks.” Laurence rearranged himself on his surprisingly comfortable barstool and took another drink of his beer. Mmm. “All hail Na’am Thuul,” he said before taking another reverential swallow. “So am I going to be the only one in here all night long? How many more drinks before you take pity and let me use the staff urinal?”
Rocco cracked up. “House management would have my head, pal, and not the big one either.”
“Ah, what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”
“They know everything that goes on in here.” Rocco’s face went flat, and he gave his towel a snap. “Trust me, man. I don’t know much about Amour Magique, but I know enough to follow the rules. You can either sit there until your back teeth are floating, or you can use the public stalls.”
Laurence sighed. “Damn. Are they within line of sight from here?” He had the oddest feeling that if he left the bar, he wouldn’t be able to find his way back.
“Yeah, just a little ways down.” Rocco pointed. “No worries, man. I’ll keep your beer cold for you.”
A new voice interrupted. “Cold beer? Who in their right mind drinks beer cold? Rocco, do you serve it this way on purpose? That’s a blasphemy against good alcohol, and you should be ashamed.”
“Jesus!” Laurence all but jumped off his stool as the voice came from behind him. He whipped around to face the speaker, and immediately froze like a mouse that Panther had cornered. Why? Because this man, this man was the icing on every cake ever made. You couldn’t help but want to lick him off your fingers.
He was dark-haired, with a truly dark shade nearing black that Laurence had rarely seen in nature. Most Goth kids tried to ape the color, but ended up with a dull, sooty mess. They tried going after the same alabaster hue of this man’s skin, too, and made themselves look like zombies.
Laurence did not think of a zombie or a Goth when he looked at the stranger. He imagined himself appearing like the wolf in old cartoons, the ones where the canine’s tongue unfurled like an old window blind and hearts began pounding in place of his eyes. Laurence thought about the wicked things someone could do in the dark with a willing partner. He thought about being one half of that equation.
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Willa Okati (AKA Will) is made of many things: imagination, coffee, stray cat hairs, daydreams, more coffee, kitchen experimentation, a passion for winter weather, a little more coffee, a whole lot of flowering plants and a lifelong love of storytelling. Will’s definitely one of the quiet ones you have to watch out for, though he — not she anymore — is a lot less quiet these days.
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