Title: Locke & Co.
Author: E.J. Tett
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 07/08/2025
Heat Level: 3 – Some Sex
Pairing: Female/Female
Length: 78500
Genre: Paranormal, Lit/genre, paranormal, urban fantasy, lesbian, immortal, tree spirit, leprechaun, werewolf, angel, incubus, addiction, magic user
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Description
Immortal Allery Locke has been tasked with finding the key that opens doors to other dimensions. Find it and hand it over to the wardens for destruction. There’s only one problem—the key is a woman. Whenever the key—Deni—opens a door, it allows monsters, demons, and all manner of unsavoury supernaturals to cross over and wreak havoc. Allery must keep Deni from falling into the wrong hands, because if rogue wardens get hold of her, it will cause an interdimensional war. Can Allery make the impossible decision? Kill her lover, or risk the end of the world.
Locke & Co.
E.J. Tett © 2025
All Rights Reserved
The woodland beside the road was full of skinny-trunked trees that creaked unnervingly in the wind and when she closed the car door, it echoed in the distance. It was the perfect spot for wardens. All sorts of wardens.
As she stepped beneath the canopy, droplets of rain fell heavily to the earth, one catching the back of her neck and sliding under her top. She wiped it away with one hand as she directed the torchlight through the trees with the other. Ahead, a tree stump surrounded by fresh shavings caught her eye and she headed towards it. It hadn’t been long felled, by the look of it, and she leaned down to touch the damp wood, wondering what she’d feel if she was like Nick. She sat down on it to wait, turned off the torch, and gazed up at the lightening sky.
She’d been waiting some time, fiddling with the zip on her coat, when a voice said, “Miss Locke.”
“Jesus Christ.” She flushed at having jumped out of her skin. “You scared me.”
It was one of the old wardens, his hair grey and his skin wrinkled. His black eyes were dull and rheumy, and he blinked slowly at her. “You were waiting for me,” he said. He had the monotone voice of all the old wardens.
“Yeah,” she said, getting to her feet and brushing a hand over her damp backside.
“But you do not have the key.”
“Not yet, no. Look, I’m working on it, okay? I need you to do me a favour.” She expected a flicker of something on his face, some sort of confirmation he had felt something at her words, a confirmation that wardens could still feel. But he remained expressionless, so she sighed. “Open a door for me?”
“Opening a door up—”
“Upsets the balance,” she finished. “I know. Sorry. I wouldn’t ask, but it’s important. I need to speak with my father.”
“If I open a door, another will close, and something will end up trapped in your world. You ask too much, Miss Locke.”
“The last warden I spoke to opened a door for me.”
The warden closed his eyes and the lids flickered as he accessed the knowledge of his brethren. When he opened them, he said, “Yes. It was the price you asked for the key. You spoke with your father about the boy and yet, we still do not have the key.”
“No, I know.” She cursed and clenched her fist, forcing herself to calm down and not do anything stupid. “I need to speak to my dad or I can’t do anything else for you.”
Silence. She received no hint that he was thinking over her request, no hint she had angered or frustrated him. Instead, he turned from her and tore a strip from the world. It sounded like thunder, a low rumble that could’ve been mistaken for a passing lorry. Then, a strip of light appeared beneath the warden’s fingertips, expanding as he pulled, and Allery had to look away.
When she turned back, the door was open—a rectangle of light in front of her. She nodded her thanks to the warden and stepped into it. She passed through pins and needles and into a white, square room. The door behind her closed, leaving no trace it had ever existed, and she let out a slow breath to steady her nerves, reminding herself she’d done this before.
As she turned around, he appeared in front of her. He was beautiful, as always, blond and lovely as a painting. His feathered wings flexed and folded at his back and when he smiled, she threw her arms around him.
“Dad!”
“Allery,” he replied, holding her close. “If you’ve come about the boy—”
“I haven’t,” she said, closing her eyes as he ran his fingers through her hair, wishing she could stay this way for just a little longer. She pulled back to look at him. “I know who has the key. It turns out the woman in prison knows so much because the person who has it is—”
“Should you be telling me this?”
“—is her daughter!”
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E.J. Tett has been writing stories since primary school, some of which still survive in notebooks in her dad’s attic, and wanted to be an author as soon as she realised it was a possible career choice and “pony” and “ninja” weren’t viable options.
Her first short story, Club Freak, about an anonymous woman’s determination to find her husband’s killer, was published by Park Publications’ Debut magazine in May 2009. Since then, she has gone on to write many short stories and poems for various small presses and has achieved an honourable mention in the 2011 Writers of the Future competition. In 2014, writing as Emma Jane, she signed her first publishing contracts for not one, but two novels: Otherworld, formerly published by Torquere Press, and Shuttered, by Dreamspinner Press. She also has two novels published by NineStar Press, one a space opera and the other a contemporary romance. Learn more on her Website.
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