Title: Sound Can Shatter
Series: Liquid Onyx, Book Four
Author: BL Jones
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 02/11/2025
Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 83800
Genre: Science Fiction, sci-fi/fantasy, family-drama, superheroes, bisexual, gay
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Description
When Caleb Moon was eighteen years old, he took the powers forced on him as a child and began using them to protect the world as the superhero, Crescent, fighting alongside fellow supers his childhood friend Tate, girlfriend Mei, and brother in all but blood, Rex.
Two years later, he has a missing brother, an ex-girlfriend, and a whole lot of confusing tension going on between him and one of his best friends. Add to that the shattered bones of his relationship with his older brother, Jamie, and the perpetually strained one with his disapproving father, and Caleb’s entire support system is crumbling around him at the very worst time.
Facing pressure from every direction in his personal life, it doesn’t come as a shock when his superhero life starts spiraling into chaos, too. Between rage blackouts and bisexual awakenings, Caleb’s sense of self is shattering.
But Caleb Moon has been a survivor since he was four years old, and he’s not about to quit now.
Sound Can Shatter
BL Jones © 2025
All Rights Reserved
With Bo Peep and Lord Fang destabilised for the moment, I leave them to their shared complaining about being captured by a “shiny hoodlum” and rush to Frost’s side. When I kneel beside her, she tries to raise her head up and meet my eyes, but the effort proves too much. I get the barest hint of iris before her eyelids flutter shut as her head lolls again, chin dipping down towards her chest.
My heart clenches, squeezing too tight, like it’s stuck in a vice. Seeing Frost hurt is bad enough, her small frame seems far more fragile on the outside than I know it technically is, but the sound of walls shaking hard enough they could bring the whole house down makes it worse. Frost and Wrath always scare me with how small they are. They look even tinier when they’re hurt. It makes every protective instinct in me go off like a car alarm. Every time I see them go up against threats ten times their size, I want so badly to wrap myself around them until they’re swallowed up by my larger body, to keep them safe from harm. Both my friends would kick the shit out of me if I ever voiced those urges, but I can’t help it.
“Hey, sleepy.” I take a stray lock of her dark hair and push it back over her ear with a gentleness she would probably bat away at me for under different circumstances. It’s an effort to keep my tone light, when all I feel is that same creeping fear, an aftershock of the bone-deep helplessness I experienced when I saw her go down right in front of me. “Stop trying to stand, you’re shit at it right now. Accept your limitations for once. Quit trying to show off how much better you are than the rest of us.”
Frost offers a muttered, “Piss off.” One side of my mouth ticks up in relief. It makes me feel better to know she’s still capable of getting annoyed and telling me where to go. Her brutal condemnations hit differently now we aren’t together, as if the distance she carved out between us has lessened the impact.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re a strong independent woman who don’t need no man. Except right now when you can’t get up and need this one particular man to help you do the standing thing.”
Frost doesn’t respond verbally this time, rather lifting one hand and flashing me her middle finger. She does, however, allow me to lift her up. Once we’re both on our feet again, I loop one arm around her waist and she leans into my side, using my body to prop herself up, her own injured arm cradled against her abdomen.
“B okay?” Frost asks wearily, although she manages to sound genuinely worried.
With the perfect excuse offered to me by Frost, I finally give into the urge to cast a glance over at Barricade. Whatever tightness remained inside my chest uncoils at the sight of him smiling winningly up at his battlefield nurse fussing over him. A few of the other civilians have found some courage and drifted over to him as well, so they can thank him for saving them and ask if he’s going to be all right.
“Yeah, he’s fine,” I force out in a deliberately flippant tone. “Charming the pants off all the civvies, like usual.”
Barricade must hear me, because he turns his head in my direction and his eyes settle on my face. The soft smile he gives me, smaller and more intimate than the one he gave the nurse, than he gives anyone who isn’t a part of our family, causes something in my stomach to flip over a couple of dozen times. It’s a feeling I both recognise and have no idea what to do with.
Frost makes a reassured huffing sound and nudges for me to take us both in Barricade’s direction. I do as she urges, moving slowly over to our teammate, taking my time so as not to jostle any of Frost’s injuries too badly. She’ll heal fast, as a Liquid Onyx survivor, but the short time in between will still be very unpleasant and there’s no reason to add to it. With Bo and Lord Fang caught, we don’t have anywhere to rush off to.
All in all, this mission has been as successful as these things can be.
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BL Jones is a twentysomething British author who spends all her free time reading and writing and taming her three much younger brothers. She works as a BSL interpreter in Bristol and lives with a temperamental bunny named Pepsi. She’s been writing stories since she was five, rarely sharing them with anyone except her numerous stuffed animals. BL has had a difficult journey into discovering and accepting her own queerness, and therefore believes that positive, honest, and authentic stories about queer people are very important. She hopes to contribute her own stories for people to have fun with and enjoy.
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