By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Susan Hayes

She survived impact…
But her dreams burned up on re-entry.

Spending her inheritance on a luxury cruise is the most reckless thing Hope has ever done, and she’s loving every second of it… right up to the explosion.

Now she’s stuck on a strange planet filled with countless dangers and just one chance to survive. The problem? He’s huge, scarred, and the scariest thing on this planet. He’s also the sexiest male she’s ever seen. His protection comes at a price, though. Her.

The life she envisioned is gone forever, but she might be on the brink of finding something better… if she can let go of what she wants to embrace what she needs.

When they heard the warning signal of a vessel coming toward their planet, Mayhem, Strife and Menace were working to fix a hole in Mayhem’s roof. They stopped and prepared to fight whatever mercenaries the verexi had sent this time. Prisoners on this planet, they have had to fight for their lives many times as the verexi try to eliminate them. They’ve salvaged what they could from those they have defeated and were doing their best to build lives here. Perhaps this time there would be much more to salvage.

Hope had been getting a massage when the emergency alarms went off. The AI didn’t give her clothing back and she was stuck with just the robe and slippers. Fortunately, she ran into Rissa who got her settled into one of the escape pods.

Her landing was not smooth it was a crash and she almost choked on the suspension gel that filled the pod, she did lose consciousness though and when she woke the gel had flowed out the open pod door. The pod was floating on an inflated ring on a massive river. She wasn’t sure she had the swimming skills to make it to shore.

She balanced herself on the edge of the ring to wash off the gel and was startled by something brushing against her leg. This of course caused her to plunge into the water. Because of that she wasn’t with the pod when Menace finds it and sinks it after destroying the beacons.

He finds his quarry on a rock in the river, from what he could see unarmed and possibly asleep. He manages to get her off the rock and to the shore safely but there is still the issue of the robe she insists on wearing.

This is a favorite scene.

“My eyes are going to stay on you until I’m certain you’re not going to attack me the first time I look away. As for your first question, my gear is stashed nearby so it didn’t get wet. Unlike you, my time in the water was planned.”

“You are clearly having a better day than I am,” she grumbled. “I bet you didn’t even have to deal with your luxury cruise ship getting attacked and crashing today. Now, will you please turn around and give me a moment of privacy to get dressed?”

“Your obsession with covering up makes no sense, but if it gets you out of the water, I will turn my back. If you try anything…” He trailed off, leaving the threat unspoken.

“I’ll talk the whole time, so you know where I am.”

“Good. Tell me about the ship that brought you here.”

She counted to three before looking up. Menace had turned away, so she stood up, tugged open the loose knot she’d tied in the belt, and did her best to wring out the robe before putting it back on.

While she dressed, she told him about the Bountiful Harvest. How it was a civilian cruise ship full of females like her, not an enemy vessel. It didn’t even have weapons as far as she knew.

She didn’t dare try to undo the tow rope, so she did her best to ignore it. Once she was covered, she said, “Thank you. Now I’m ready. And you can stop threatening me. I have no intentions of doing anything stupid. If I run away, my survival time could be measured in hours. If I attack you, that time shortens to minutes or possibly seconds.”

“If what you said is true, I suspect it would be seconds,” he said. “Why were you on this cruise? What was the point?”

Oh boy. This was the bit she hadn’t wanted to admit. Could this day get any more humiliating? “It was a mating cruise. Human women pay to be pampered, travel to a few planets, and get introduced to eligible males from compatible species. Hell, we even saw a few noncompatible ones. I’m not sure what they were after, but none of them were interested in me, so I didn’t ask.”

“Why would you pay to find a mate? Did yours die?”

“Die? No. I’ve never been married or mated. I haven’t even dated much. I wanted to see the worlds and maybe fall in love with someone.” She dropped her head, embarrassed. “That didn’t happen. No one was interested in me. One of them told me I should be ashamed of myself for even trying.”

“No one?” His tone was one of utter disbelief. “Were these males defective?”

“No.” She pointed to the spots on her face. “They think I am.”

“Then they are stupid,” Menace declared and then glanced over his shoulder. He gave a light tug on the rope she still had tied around her waist. “This way. If we hurry, we can be under shelter before the worst of the storm reaches us.”

The worst of the storm? That did not sound promising. “I’ll do my best to keep up.”

He didn’t say anything else until they were both on dry land. He led her through a field of the flame-colored grass and into the trees while she did her best to look at anything besides him and his really great ass.

The grass was soft and easy to walk on, enabling her to keep up with him without too much trouble. Once they were under the vibrant orange canopy of the forest, he stopped and then turned to face her.

Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t stop herself from indulging in a brief moment of appreciation for the vision of male perfection in front of her. And yes, he was big all over, from the thick trunks of his thighs to the broad planes of his chest, and everything in between.

“Um, aren’t you going to get dressed?”

“In a moment. First, I need to do something about you.” He drew a knife from where it had been lashed to his biceps and eyed her thoughtfully.

Hope backed up until the rope tightened and she couldn’t move any farther away. The blade in his hand held all her attention, looking well-used and dangerously sharp.

“Don’t hurt me.” The words were out of her mouth before she knew it.

He scowled at her. “Are you going to hurt me?”

“No. Of course not. Not that I think I could if I wanted to, but like I already said, I have no intention of trying.”

“I have no interest in harming you unless you give me a reason.” He softened his voice and lowered the hand holding the knife.

“Then why are you holding that?” She pointed to the blade.

“To fix that thing you insist on wearing. It will slow you down as much in this forest as it did in the water.”

“Fix it how?” she asked suspiciously.

“It needs to be trimmed.” He twisted his hand around the braided leather rope, shortening it slightly and bringing him a step closer to her.

“You’re going to use that? Um, don’t you have something smaller and less lethal looking?”

He actually smiled. The expression softened his features and made the skin around his eyes crinkle. “This is the smallest blade I have. Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”

“You go around cutting the clothes off a lot of females?”

“No. You’ll be the first.”

“The first? You’re not filling me with confidence here.” Hope sighed and lowered her gaze. “But you’re going to do it anyway. Aren’t you?”

“I’ve never seen a female in the flesh before, so no. I have not done this before. Hold still.”

He was beside her in a second, and the next thing she knew he had hold of her left sleeve. He cut through the seam at her shoulder, the tip of the knife so close to her skin it made her shiver in fear mixed with something else. Something she didn’t expect. Anticipation?

This was insane. He’d never even seen a woman before, so whatever was going on, it wasn’t attraction. Not for him. Desperation, maybe. More likely curiosity. They weren’t even the same species, and none of this was part of any plan she’d made for her future.

It only took a minute for him to cut away both sleeves and drop them on the ground by her feet. Then he kneeled in front of her and raised the knife again.

“Whoa! What are you doing now?” she asked.

“Cutting this shorter so you can walk.”

“Oh. Right.” She crossed her now-bare arms over her chest and tried to relax. Not the easiest thing to do when a huge, naked, and insanely attractive alien was kneeling at her feet. “Don’t make it too short.”

The second the words left her lips, she wanted to take them back and replace them with something less inane and ridiculous. Of all the things she had to worry about right now, showing too much skin wasn’t even on her list.

His only response was a low grunt. He made a cut just above her knee, pulling the fabric away from her leg as he worked.

“Turn slowly.”

She did as he asked and turned in place, hyperaware of every movement as the knife trimmed away more and more of her only piece of clothing. The knife never touched her skin, and he never laid a hand on her except to move the fabric.

When he finished, he gathered up the trimmings and handed them to her.

That’s when it happened. Her hand brushed his in what should have been a brief and inconsequential contact… Only it wasn’t.

She swayed forward, leaning toward him as he rose from the ground. Her admiration of his appearance changed to something else—desire. She wanted to touch him again. To stroke his fur-covered body and feel for herself whether his muscles were as hard as they looked. She craved contact and so much more. She wanted him. Without a thought or even a scrap of sense, she dropped the bundle of fabric and splayed her hands across his hard chest.

Whatever madness had taken over, it must have infected Menace, too. Instead of pushing her away, he made a low, rumbling noise deep in his chest. He gripped the belt of her robe and used it to pull her in closer as he bent down to nuzzle the side of her neck.

His fangs grazed her skin and she trembled in anticipation, her pussy suddenly wet with desire. Her clit throbbed and her breath caught in her throat. Not long ago, she’d thought he was a monster determined to eat her. Now she wanted to devour him. What in the nine hells was happening right now?
Hayes, Susan. Marked For Menace: An Alien Fated Mates Romance (Crashed And Claimed Book 4) Kindle Locations (478-542). Black Scroll Publications Ltd.. Kindle Edition.

Things heat up very quickly and they barely make it to the supply cave before the storm hits. They do begin to get to know each other beyond the attraction as well.

There’s a lot of dangerous things on this planet, and they need to survive them and get the rest of the supplies from the pod Menace sunk.

I love the way this story progresses, while it’s kindle melting sizzling it’s also heartwarming and hopeful.

I can’t wait for the next book in this series!

5 Contented Purrs for Susan!

Susan Hayes

Susan lives on Vancouver Island, off the Canadian west coast where the waters are patrolled by orcas, and the sighting of snowflakes leads to citywide panic. She’s jumped out of perfectly good airplanes on purpose and accidentally swum with sharks on the Great Barrier Reef.

If the world ends, she plans to survive as the spunky, comedic sidekick to the heroes of the new world, because she’s too short and out of shape to make it on her own for long.

By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Susan Hayes

It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime…
now she’s just trying to stay alive.

Rissa can’t believe her luck. She won an all-expenses paid trip on a luxury matchmaking cruise. She’s not looking for love, but a few weeks of five-star pampering while seeing the galaxy sounds perfect… until it all goes wrong.

Abandoning ship wasn’t on her itinerary, and neither is the growly but oh-so-sexy alien who is half convinced she’s the enemy, and utterly certain she’s his. She’s got a list of the reasons they’re wrong for each other, but when they’re together, everything just feels right.

Crash landing on a prison planet may not be the vacation she dreamed of, but it might turn out to be the best “worst” day of her life.

Rissa had been in the gym when the alarm bells started going off. She instinctively started for the engineering deck then stopped because she wasn’t crew on this ship she’s a passenger. A passenger on a matchmaking cruise, she hadn’t been one of the lucky ones to find a match.

As she deciphered the codes she knew they were in deep trouble and headed for the emergency pods. She ran into another passenger, Hope and hurried her along to the evac deck. She settled Hope into a pod before getting herself into one. As soon as she was clear of the ship, she took over flying the pod. She wasn’t just going to crash she was hoping to land it somewhat safely.

On the planet’s surface Strife and Mayhem heard the chirping of their early warning system. The screen showed multiple vessels with three heading close to areas Mayhem, Menace and Strife had claimed. Only vessels containing attack forces were allowed through by the verexi. They wanted them dead although this planet was originally thought to be a refuge for them all. They wouldn’t be caught by surprise though.

Strife and his brothers are fa’rel created by the verexi to be a fighting force, but they were unable to control them. Now they battled those sent to the surface and salvaged whatever they could from the ships to make life better and safer here. Strife makes only one quick stop for weapons before locating the ship.

This is a favorite scene.

Lightning arced across the sky as he reached his destination, illuminating a small, oval vessel in the middle of a clearing. It was an odd design with no obvious engine or armaments and so small it couldn’t have more than a single passenger. A scout, he decided. And not a very good one.

They’d set up camp only a few meters from their ship, and while the bright yellow structure matched the local flora with some success, it was all one shade. That didn’t help it blend in. It was also lit up from inside, the warm light making it glow like a beacon in the gloom. Strife revised his earlier assessment. No soldier would be this careless. It had to be a trap.

He circled the camp cautiously. No one was outside, but someone was definitely inside the shelter. They didn’t even try to avoid casting a shadow as they went about their business. Based on what he could smell, they were preparing a meal—one that carried the scent of chemicals and the loamy aroma of… vegetation? He shuddered in revulsion. Killing them would be an act of mercy.

A bolt of lightning shot down from the sky, the flash illuminating the entire clearing in brilliant detail. Two targets. One choice. Strife ignored the shelter and went for the ship. He’d disable it first and then deal with the scout.

He was almost to the ship when the first clap of real thunder pealed. Until then, it had been a distant grumbling, but not anymore. Strife grinned and resisted the urge to roar into the deafening noise. He felt exactly like the storm—primed and ready to explode.

Another noise caught his attention. Someone sobbed in fear. He hadn’t heard that sound since his earliest years of captivity. They’d all slept in the same room back then, and sometimes one of them would cry out in their dreams, waking the others.

It sounded like that… only different. The voice was softer but with a glittering edge of raw terror. It wasn’t a sound any soldier would make.

Strife turned back and approached the shelter. He drew his longest blade and held it high. Then he glanced up at the storm-black sky and lowered his arm. More lightning forked across the sky, leaping from cloud to cloud in brilliant arcs, closely followed by more thunder. The clouds opened and loosed a torrent of rain. It pounded the ground like a thousand small fists. He was drenched in seconds, the rainwater soaking his fur and running down the curve of his horns to drip onto his shoulders.

The noise came again and he moved toward it, suddenly consumed by a need to offer comfort to whoever made that sound. His fingers tightened on the grip of his blade, a silent reminder that he was here to mete out punishment to an invader. They’d come here to do harm to him and his clan. They didn’t deserve compassion.

The next thunderclap was met by a terrified scream—a female’s scream. He’d only heard such things on vids and recordings, but he was certain.

He dashed to the front of the shelter, half expecting to find the enemy waiting in ambush. The area was empty apart from a silver packet of uneaten food sitting outside the door. It was the same vile stuff he’d smelled earlier. It would seem even the enemy had some limits to what they’d consume. The partially open door made his next move clear.

He charged inside, adrenaline pouring through his veins with his entire focus on surviving the first moments of battle… only a fight didn’t materialize. He found no obvious enemy. The only person in the tent was huddled in a corner, her hands clasped over her ears and her head bowed.

“Surrender and your end will be swift,” he snarled before his senses could register the total lack of threat.

The female looked up then, her mouth open in a silent scream of shock. She scrambled backward, cramming herself as far into the corner as she could manage. In the buttery light of the glow-pod he could make out some of her features. Large gray eyes, golden-brown skin, and a heart-shaped face that would have been attractive if it weren’t for the deep lines of fear etched into it.

“What species are you?” he demanded. He knew the name and description of all the verexi’s allies. She didn’t match any of them. In fact, she almost looked…

“Human,” the female said. “So yeah, no one is going to care if you kill me.”

He lowered his blade and then shook his head to clear the water from his eyes. They’d sent a human female. It didn’t make sense. “Why is a human working for the verexi? They despise your kind almost as much as they do mine.”

The female wrinkled her nose. “I don’t work for them. Even I have some standards. I don’t even work on their ships if I can help it. They smell disgusting.”

“The verexi or their ships?” Strife struggled to follow the conversation. He’d come prepared for battle… and now he was a little lost.

“Both, I guess, though their ships are always drones or AI piloted, so I’ve never met an actual verexi. Their ships smell nasty, like rotting lemons. Or what I imagine that would smell like. I’ve never seen a real lemon.” She shrugged. “I don’t get out much. This cruise was my first time off Nanu station. A chance to see the galaxy, you know?” The female dashed a hand across her wet cheeks and made a rueful, bitter sound. “Now that I’m out here, I just want to go home.”

He sorted through her tearful babble and latched on to her last statement. This was something he could understand. “You can’t go home.”

“Of course I can. I just need to wait for someone to answer the distress beacon.” Her voice softened to a desperate whisper. “Can’t I?”

“This planet is a prison. Those who come here stay here. No one is coming to rescue you.”

The female dropped her head, her shoulders slumping in abject misery. “I’ve died. I must have. I died and this is one of the nine hells.”
Hayes, Susan. Marked For Strife: An Alien Fated Mates Romance (Crashed And Claimed Book 2) Kindle Locations (171-212). Black Scroll Publications Ltd.. Kindle Edition.

From the moment Strife sees Rissa he knows something is different. From the first touch, he thinks she’s doing something but then he realizes she isn’t. The things he’s feeling are almost overwhelming and Rissa is affected as well.

Things heat up between them very quickly, and mating marks appear although they don’t know what they are at that point. Bysshe would be the one with answers.

There are plenty of ups and downs in this one as Rissa resigns herself to staying on this planet and having Strife as her mate. Strife has anger issues to resolve as well.

I can’t wait to read the next book in this series.

5 Contented Purrs for Susan!

Susan Hayes

Susan lives on Vancouver Island, off the Canadian west coast where the waters are patrolled by orcas, and the sighting of snowflakes leads to citywide panic. She’s jumped out of perfectly good airplanes on purpose and accidentally swum with sharks on the Great Barrier Reef.

If the world ends, she plans to survive as the spunky, comedic sidekick to the heroes of the new world, because she’s too short and out of shape to make it on her own for long.

By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Susan Hayes

Her last shot at love just crashed and burned… literally.

Bella signed up for the interplanetary matchmaking cruise hoping for travel, adventure, and maybe a chance at romance. Now she’s crash landed on a strange planet with no one around but a horned, alien hottie who showed up and laid claim to her gear, her ship… and her.

He’s too brash, too pushy, and much too young for her. He’s also not taking no for an answer…
This wasn’t the adventure she imagined, but it might just be the romance of a lifetime, if she can stay alive long enough to enjoy it.

If you haven’t read the first book in this series, I recommend you go back and read it first. It sets up the scenario for the rest of these books.

At the end of Marked for Rage we learned that the plan to free his brothers has gone totally awry. They are now trapped on a planet with no one allowed in or out of the space around it. They are not free but still prisoners.

Bella signed up for this Interplanetary Courtship Cruise looking for adventure and maybe some romance. Now there’s alarms going off and the abandon ship command from the captain. Bella had raced to the escape pod and crashed to the planet’s surface. Now covered in suspension gel that saved her life she tries to figure out what supplies she has and what she needs to do to stay alive until rescue comes.

It’s been a year and Mayhem and his brothers along with Bysshe the android have made this planet more of a home. They have been attacked more than once by mercenaries hired by the verexi or ‘scrawnies’ as they called them. Now it appears another attack is happening. Mayhem, Menace and Strife were working on the roof of Mayhem’s home when the alarms go off. They discover small vessels would land in each of their territories, but the main ship was much further away. The immediate problem would be those close to their homes so that’s where they would head to first.

It didn’t take Mayhem long to find the intruder, He didn’t know what kind of mercenary would come here unarmed but he was going to find out.

This is just one of many favorite scenes.

She stayed where she was, hands raised in what she hoped he understood was a signal of surrender. “I give up. Surrender. Whatever. I’m kinda hoping you don’t kill me, though. Swift or otherwise. If I’d wanted to die, I could have stayed on the Bountiful Harvest. She’s probably at the bottom of a smoking crater by now.”

Big, gold, and grumpy snarled, one side of his mouth curling up to show more fang. He held a bladed weapon in one hand. It was long enough her brain wanted to call it a sword, but who the hells carried a sword these days?

In fact, his entire outfit was like something out of a historical vid. Straps of leather crisscrossed over his chest, and a kilt-like garment made up of thick, overlapping strips of dark leather hung from his hips to the midpoint of his tree-sized thighs.

“How many were aboard? Were other ships involved in this attack? What was the plan this time?” he demanded.

“Attack? No, no. I was a passenger on a matchmaking cruise. You know, one of those ‘see the galaxy, find your soulmate,’ type things. I’m not a soldier. Even if I wanted to fight, what military would want someone my age?”

“Matchmaking cruise?” His expression was one of utter bafflement. Not a surprise. The way he looked, he clearly didn’t need any help finding romantic partners. In fact, he probably had a waiting list.

She racked her brain to try to come up with an explanation that didn’t sound pathetic and quickly realized there wasn’t one. “Single women pay to travel together and visit other worlds. At every stop we’d have a few days to meet and mingle with prospective males looking for mates. That’s it. So, unless you’re afraid of being invaded by a bunch of single women, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

He didn’t look convinced. “Why are you here?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. One second, everything was fine, the next… Boom. Our ship’s star-drive failed or exploded or something and we fell back into normal space. The next thing I knew, we were all told to abandon ship.” She jerked with her thumb toward the banged up remains of her escape pod. “I’m alone. I don’t know if any of the others made it. There were other passengers and a small crew.”

Reality finally dawned on her, or more accurately, reality came crashing through the bubble of denial she was living in and shattered it. Her ship had crashed. Everyone else might be dead or injured. And unless someone managed to get off a distress call, no one knew she was here.

Her knees threatened to buckle, and she decided to sit down before she fell over. She took a careful step backward and then another, keeping her eyes on her demon the whole time.

“I need to sit down. I’m not armed. I just… they’re gone. That hadn’t sunk in until now.”

Something that might have been concern flickered across the male’s features. The black lines that marked his forehead from mid-brow to his hairline made it hard to be certain, but he didn’t tell her to stop moving.

Good enough.

She went back to the same mossy rock she’d been on before and sat down with a sigh. “Thank you.”

“For not killing you? I haven’t yet, but I still might.”

She barked with laughter and lowered her hands to her lap. “Sure thing. Until then, thanks for letting me sit down.”

“You have no weapons? At all?” He was moving again, prowling around the crash site with a smooth, gliding motion that reminded her of old vids she’d seen about long-extinct hunting cats back from Earth. Everything he wore was rustic and looked handmade. The kilt, the sword, the spear she could see strapped to his back. No shirt, only a few leather cross-straps and a couple of bands of leather tied around his biceps, holding two daggers in place.

He had sections of hardened leather bound to his lower legs, too. Greaves? She had no idea where she’d read the word, but it felt like the right one. Whoever he was, he’d come here dressed for combat not conversation. Though at least he had a translator. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be conversing at all.

“No weapons. No shelter either.” She gestured to the punctured emergency shelter. “I do have some food and things. Hungry?”

She didn’t have anything else to offer him. Whoever he’d come here expecting to find, she wasn’t it. She couldn’t give him answers, so she’d have to hope he was open to bribery.

“You hunted already?” He cocked his head to one side, his amber eyes narrowing. “I thought you said you had no weapons. Or did you throw your shoe at something else before I got here?”

Was that a note of humor she heard? She hoped so. “I never said anything about hunting. I was talking about rations. There should be some in that container over there. Shall I check?”

She knew his answer before she’d voiced the question. He didn’t trust her enough to let her do anything of the sort.

“No. I will look. You stay where you are.” He sheathed his blade and went over to the container, keeping one eye on her as he bent to unlock the top and sort through the contents.

With him distracted, Bella took the time to get a better look at him. His hair was dark at the roots but faded to a tawny blond by the time it reached his shoulders. The cut was shaggy and uneven, as if his barber had been into the booze between clients. Or maybe he’d done it himself. He had a short beard not much longer than the fur that covered the rest of his body. It was thick, but she could still make out the high cut of his cheekbones and the hard line of his jaw beneath. His eyes were incredible. They were slightly rounder than a human’s would be with no visible whites. Only the deep amber color of the iris around a jet-black pupil, all of it marked with a line of pure black fur that would have made a make-up artist jealous.

While she admired the view, the big alien went through the supplies. Food packets, water canteens, a first-aid kit and more were pulled from the container. He briefly examined and sniffed each item and then dropped it onto the pile growing at his feet.

He took a little more care with the flare gun and what looked like a fire starter, but after that she didn’t recognize much. It wasn’t surprising she didn’t know what half the stuff was. Most of her adult life had been spent as the kept woman of a dangerous and very wealthy man. What she knew about survival gear could be written on the back of a cocktail napkin and still have room for a game or two of hangman.

“This has many useful things,” her demon announced as he lifted the last item out and held it in his hand. “This is a transponder. Yes? An emergency beacon?”

“It is. Once we activate it, someone will come looking for me.”

“No.” He threw it against a large rock with enough force to crack the casing. Before she could say anything, he had his spear in hand and used the butt end to smash the transponder repeatedly. In less than a minute it was nothing but scrap.

“That was my only way off this planet!” she yelled at him. Probably not the smartest thing to do, but dammit, he’d destroyed her best chance of rescue. Unless the escape pod had its own beacon…

She looked that way before she could stop herself, and demon-guy followed her gaze.

“The ship has a tracker too?” “No. I mean. I don’t know. It’s an escape pod. I don’t know how it works.” Her words came out too rushed to be believable. She needed to get her shit together right the hells now, or she was going to end up dead out here. She took a swift breath, squared her shoulders, and got to her feet.

“Look. Can we start again? My name is Bella, and I’d be grateful if you stopped breaking my stuff.”
Hayes, Susan. Marked For Mayhem: An Alien Fated Mates Romance (Crashed And Claimed Book 1) (Kindle Locations 272-331). Black Scroll Publications Ltd.. Kindle Edition.

Going through Bella’s emergency pack, Mayhem destroys the portable transponder, and demands to know how to disable the one on her ship. It’s when she almost falls that Mayhem realizes something else. Bella is his.

There are many tense moments in this book, a scary planet for Bella and Mayhem only intrigues her more as things rapidly heat up between them.

This is a fun, sexy, page turning read, I can’t wait to read the next book in this series.

5 Contented Purrs for Susan!

Susan Hayes

Susan lives on Vancouver Island, off the Canadian west coast where the waters are patrolled by orcas, and the sighting of snowflakes leads to citywide panic. She’s jumped out of perfectly good airplanes on purpose and accidentally swum with sharks on the Great Barrier Reef.

If the world ends, she plans to survive as the spunky, comedic sidekick to the heroes of the new world, because she’s too short and out of shape to make it on her own for long.

By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Susan Hayes

It was supposed to be a delivery run…
How did it turn into a prison break?

All Mercy had to do was deliver her cargo and go. Now she’s got a bunch of irate aliens on her tail and a hot-as-Helios escaped prisoner in her cargo bay who insists she is his. She’s too old for this crap, and she keeps telling herself she’s too old for him, too. But his arguments and his… assets are very convincing.

If they’re going to survive this intergalactic crisis, she’s going to need a plan… and her hot, horned and handsome alien passenger is going to need some clothes.

As this book opens Rage a fa’rel has once again tried to escape. He’s thrown into isolation beaten and in pain but won’t give the guards the satisfaction of seeing that. An Android named Bysshe was an ally of sorts and he was trusted by Rage and his brothers. When Bysshe shows up a bit later, he informs Rage he is scheduled for termination. It seems the verexi, the race that created the fa’rel are tired of his antics. However, Bysshe has a plan and tells Rage to be ready.

The verexi are not physically powerful, so they created the fa’rel in their labs to be their army. Unfortunately, the fa’rel aren’t very obliging when it comes to blindly taking orders. Rage has three brothers also imprisoned here, he goal has always been to escape and free them. Now it seems his time has run out.

Captain Mercy Johnson has a contract to deliver cargo to this moon, she couldn’t call it a planet, and considers it a visual of what hell would look like. When she lands, she’s met by Bysshe and oversees the delivery. He also informs her that her contract may soon be over although he doesn’t know how soon. He does make her another offer, one that would end her contract now, but the payment would make it very worth her while to take on this cargo.

When her cargo arrives, she understands why the payment was so generous. This is a prison break. She needs to get out of here and fast. Her ‘cargo’ is injured on his way to the ship and after a brief message telling him to hold on, Mercy takes off.

Once they are out of immediate danger, Mercy confronts the alien she willingly brought aboard her ship. That encounter doesn’t go quite how she expects and is quite a page melter as she discovers the true nature of her passenger.

This is a favorite scene.

He lifted his head to speak but stopped when a new sensation blazed into his awareness. The skin on his chest tingled and then burned. His lips curled back into a snarl, but before he could do anything else the pain faded away.

He looked down at his chest, expecting to see blood or a wound of some kind. All he saw were black marks across his fur that hadn’t been there until now.

“Scars?” Mercy asked, her voice almost as soft as her touch when she traced the lines. “Like claw marks?”

She was right. He leaned back, giving himself enough room to move. He raised a hand, extended his claws, and held them over the new markings. They were a perfect match.

Mercy placed one hand over his, splaying her fingers widely enough to match the strange new lines. She drew her fingers down the lines, starting at his shoulders and crossing over his chest in an X. “What did this? Why?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I stopped asking that question a long time ago. The verexi never gave us any answers.”

“Us?” The little female’s tone had lost its sultry softness. “More of you are back there?”

“My brothers.” Her lips thinned, and she gave him a tight nod. “That’s why you wanted to go back.”

“Yes. Can we go back now?”

She shook her head. “We got lucky last time. We were nearly out of range before they got their guns primed to fire. If we go back, they’ll blow us to the nine hells long before we can land. This is a freighter, not a warship.”

He scowled and uttered a low growl of frustration. “Where can I find warships?”

Mercy snorted. “A sane person wouldn’t ask that question. Most of us try to avoid them at all costs.”

He slammed his fist into the floor, denting it. “Then how do I free my clan?”

He didn’t recognize the look in her eyes at first. He’d never seen it on another being, except in the videos the verexi allowed them to view sometimes. It was pity.

That wasn’t acceptable.

“No.” He lifted her up and set her down beside him on the chill floor. “We have to free them. I am the eldest. I swore…”

She raised a hand and pressed a finger to his lips. “Shush. You won’t save anyone if you’re dead. I understand promises. Made a few myself. Kept them, too. Mostly. Take it from someone older and theoretically wiser than you. Some promises take longer to keep.” She quirked a dark brow. “And that is the last time I will ever admit to being older than you. Bring it up again and I’ll make you pay for it.”

“I don’t know how much time they have.” Frustration still had him in a stranglehold, but he recognized her attempt to calm him with jokes. Her age didn’t matter. She was his Mercy. That was the only truth he cared about. She had to help him free the others.

“Bysshe knew. He told me that my contract would end soon because that place, whatever it is, was shutting down.”

He chewed on each word before spitting it out. “It’s a verexi laboratory. They made us. Experimented on us. If they are shutting down that place, the others…” The dent in the floor deepened as he slammed his fist down several more times. They’d kill them. Or move them so he’d never find them again. He wouldn’t let that happen. He would not lose them. They were all he had.

Mercy caught his fist in her hands. “Beating up my deck isn’t going to change anything. We’ll figure this out. Whatever they’re planning can’t happen right away. There are no ships in the area. We have a little time.”

We. No one besides his brothers had ever used that word. “You will help?”

She shot him a frustrated look. “Of course I’ll help. Bysshe paid me very well to get you off that planet. More than he promised me, in fact. I assume that’s because the job isn’t done yet. He knew you’d need the money. That is one sneaky android.”

He reared back, stung. “You think of this as a job?” This time, he didn’t just hit the deck plate. He punched his claws through it.

Her brows scrunched together, creasing her dark skin around her stormy eyes. Then the storm cleared and she shook her head softly. “Honestly? I have no idea what this is. You… this… this is as weird for me as it is for you.

I don’t normally sleep with my passengers. Hell, I don’t normally have passengers, period. But… she raised her arms. Black marks, smaller versions of the ones on his chest had appeared on her forearms. They started at her palms and wrapped around to cross over the top of her wrists.

“Whatever the fuck is happening, it appears we’re in it together.”

“What is that? What does it mean?” he asked.

Mercy laughed. “Fuck if I know. Humans don’t spontaneously manifest random markings. So whatever this is, I’m blaming you for it.”
Susan Hayes. Marked For Rage (Kindle Locations 479-517).

It’s a good thing Mercy has knowledge of how things work with the Galatic Legion although humans aren’t part of it. Her strategy is genius.

Rage and Mercy sizzle off the pages and hopefully the odds will be in their favor as they work to free Rage’s family.

5 Contented Purrs for Susan!

Susan Hayes

Susan lives on Vancouver Island, off the Canadian west coast where the waters are patrolled by orcas, and the sighting of snowflakes leads to citywide panic. She’s jumped out of perfectly good airplanes on purpose and accidentally swum with sharks on the Great Barrier Reef.

If the world ends, she plans to survive as the spunky, comedic sidekick to the heroes of the new world, because she’s too short and out of shape to make it on her own for long.

By
Award Winning Author
Susan Hayes

Hell’s best bounty hunter is about to meet his match…

After five centuries of service to the Devil, Carnage must decide if he will renew his contract or retire as the leader of the Hell Hounds. Before his time is up, the Devil has one more assignment for the hellhound shifter: track down a woman named Leta and deliver her to Hell.

Leta Fury should never have been born. Half angel, half demon, and all attitude, she can hold her own against anything the supernatural world can throw at her…until she meets an arrogant bounty hunter named Carnage.

It should have been a simple retrieval mission, but nothing is ever easy when you work for the King of Hell.

Author’s Note: **Previously released as Hell’s Fury, under a different pen name.
This book has been revised and expanded from the original.

I’m not sure what I expected when I started this book, but it sure wasn’t a lot of laughs which is what I got. The book starts off with a very down in the dumps Hell Hound, Carnage aka Car, wallowing in something like self pity. At least he was until Lucifer, aka Luc, shows up with an assignment and a piece of red leather for tracking the quarry.

Leta is an anomaly, she is the daughter of a demon and an angel, a dangerous combination. She is always the hunted and the hunter. She’s enjoying a double chocolate fudge brownie sundae when she senses Car’s approach. She is not pleased.

This is a favorite scene when she realizes just what he is.

Car wanted to laugh but he couldn’t, not in his current form. Instead, he let out a soft chuff and released his grip on Leta’s throat to lick her soft cheek. Fuck, she tasted as good as she smelled.

Another low growl rolled up from his throat, and he had an almost irresistible urge to bite her, to taste her blood on his tongue and sink his dick into the heat of her body— what the fuck was wrong with him?

“Ew! No licking, that’s disgusting,” Leta complained. “Get off me, you ugly mutt. And what is with the sulfur breath? Does your master feed you rotten eggs or something?”

Car was enjoying himself far too much to move yet, and he was amazed at the casual way she was treating him. Usually, his hound form reduced even the most fearsome of creatures to whimpers. Instead, she was treating him like he was a damned lapdog she caught chewing her favorite shoes.

“Off!” she snapped, and this time, she sent a blast of fire from her hands to reinforce her demand.

Heat washed over him, and the entire parking lot lit up with a cheerful glow, but that was all that happened. Lucifer knew that a Hound’s career path meant regular fights with supernatural creatures — or even the occasional rogue fallen — and so he had gifted his hunters with certain abilities, including an invulnerability to fire.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. A fireproof pooch? Nice pet, asshole…” she trailed off as she looked around and realized they were alone.

“Oh, fuck, no.” Her eyes widened, and she stared up at him with horror.

“Asshole, is that you?”

Car licked her face again.

“Ugh! Stop that.” She swiped at her cheek with the sleeve of her jacket and then shoved at him. “You’re a fucking Hell Hound, aren’t you? You have to be, because that’s the only thing in existence that can turn into…” she waved her hands at him. “This. Either that or they need to stop feeding the local strays toxic waste. Are those spikes running down your back? What are you, one-part dog, two-parts nightmare?”

He nodded his big head and gave her the canine version of a grin, certain she would understand. He was glad she knew what he was. It should make things easier.

“So, what does the Devil want with me? I’m a nobody, and I sure as hell haven’t done anything to warrant a visit from one of his Hounds.” She shoved at his chest. “And for fuck’s sake, will you get off of me already? You weigh a ton.”

Car had to admit, he was curious as to what Luc wanted with the sexy minx he had called an abomination. The thought of her being punished in Hell simply for being born didn’t sit well with Car. Not at all.
Susan Hayes. Carnage – instafreebie (Kindle Locations 260-280). Black Scroll Publications.

Ah, a mating dance, and frankly I laughed way too hard, even when Luc discovers Car didn’t bring Leta right to him.

Truly a fun and different read with plenty of heat and innuendo.

I don’t know when the next book will be out but I really want to read it when it does.

5 Contented Purrs for Susan!

Susan Hayes

Susan lives on Vancouver Island, off the Canadian west coast where the waters are patrolled by orcas, and the sighting of snowflakes leads to citywide panic. She’s jumped out of perfectly good airplanes on purpose and accidentally swum with sharks on the Great Barrier Reef.

If the world ends, she plans to survive as the spunky, comedic sidekick to the heroes of the new world, because she’s too short and out of shape to make it on her own for long.