"It is your choice," he said, stepping so close to me that our lips were almost touching. "Either do what I say - or get another job." My heart stood still as I gazed up into his deep, dark, dangerous eyes... In a world where women's only role in life is to sit at home and look pretty, Lilly is determined to fight for her freedom. There's only one problem: a powerful man blocking her way.

WARNING: This may be a slow burner. The story is intriguing me and I want to make it something meaty, something more than a short story, something I can be really proud of. The problem is I have very little time, so updates may be sporadic. Bear with me, I want to do it justice, so research will be involved - this may make it take longer still :) It's the story of a young Anglo Saxon woman, intelligent and somewhat willful, whose world is turned upside down by the arrival of brutal strangers. It is also the story of those strangers, what they meant for the people and places they encountered, and the legacies they left behind. I hope you enjoy it.

Once, we were certain we could drive the Roman Invaders from the land. Now, more and more of our kin in the South lay down their spears and kneel to foreign rule. I never thought we would fall too; not with the strength of our warriors, our intimate knowledge of the land, and tactics that had driven the invaders back time and time again. Yet, it seems I know nothing at all. When the chief of my tribe seeks to strike a truce with the invaders, everything changes. At a time when I should be learning from the elders of our tribe, or how to rule from my father, my hand itches to pick up a weapon instead. Yet the steel-eyed General who leads the soldiers camping outside our walls feels familiar to me in a way I can't explain, and for a man raised in Rome, he has a fire in him that I've only seen in my people. But talks of peace are threatened when a power that's lain dormant for decades is woken. . . . . .for our paths have crossed before.

Let me tell you what it was to be made vampire. It wasn't birth. Birth implies pushing, tearing forth into the light, screaming. Becoming immortal was to be pulled, to be tugged irrevocably into darkness, and it was silent. I should have fought, any person should fight, but my mind had been filled with a hazy calm which forbade any battle. Struggling had been the last thing on my mind, even when my bus arrived and my assailant waved it on, dismissing my last hope of escape. Yet my lack of rebellion was far from the most unsettling part of the stranger's control over me. The truth was that the man could've asked anything of me and I would've complied, but he didn't need to vocalise his request. I knew instinctively what he wanted. I sighed and surrendered myself as he held me against his front in a lover's embrace, tipping my head and willingly giving him access to my throat. "One day you'll understand," he whispered, his tone subdued. I've often wondered since if he was really talking to me. Perhaps he'd been talking to himself, persuading himself that one day I'd know and accept his reasons for what he'd planned for me. I wouldn't. I couldn't. Because when my fangs came in, my world altered irrevocably. It became somewhere dark, somewhere filled with murder and blood, where magic was sinister and where even my closest ally seemed more like an enemy... Even if he did make my heart skip a beat. VAMPIRE/PARANORMAL/URBAN FANTASY

Leof was gone. I wanted to scream again at the thought. My Leof was dead, laid out in the shrine where I'd left him just before dawn. It hadn't taken an army to kill him, all it had taken was one wolf, one man whom he'd shown mercy to. Fenrir had done his job just as predicted, and I'd lost the only thing that mattered to me, the only thing that had kept me sane after the truth of my past was revealed. Conn was my strength, my heart, the very best parts of me and I'd never see him again. Once his body was given to the sun and his echo vanished I'd never hear him say the three words that were my reason to exist. I love you. I love you. I love you... But I'm not ready to let be alone. I'm not ready for goodbye. Condemning my Leof to Valhalla is something I can't do, but what if there's no way to bring him back? Can I just fade away? Slip into the coma and forget everything? Would it be fair to when the cohort needs me to protect them from Osier, from the Bloodied Hand, and from our ever increasing number of enemies?

TBC

'Praying for the Devil?' With the war between the vampires and Varúlfur more brutal and blood-thirsty than it has ever been, Megan Garrick has been forced to seek sanctuary with the one person she hoped she would never have to turn to. By her side is her ever-constant companion, Lucius, the little boy who holds the key to opening the Gates of Purgatory and behind those gates awaits The Smiling Man himself. Now Megan fights a race against time to find the one being that can help her win the war once and for all. But where do you even begin to search for an Archangel? It seems the answers could lie within the journal of a seventeenth-century vampire and Megan just has to identify all the clues. Can she find them all before the Gates are opened?

TBC

Abigail Archer lived a non-existent life. That is until Death arrived at her door with an interesting proposition... He asks her to live. But what will Abigail do when she realizes her only reason to live is Death itself? And what will Death do when he realizes that in Abigail, he has found life?

Born with a damaged heart, Leanna Weston has lived a sheltered life with little chance at adventure. When she hears that Finvarra's Circus is coming to her small town, she sneaks off to witness the magic first hand, sure that this is her only chance at experiencing true magic-even if the frightening rumors about the heartless Ringmaster, Finvarra, are true. Caught by Finvarra, Leanna is given one chance at survival: she must join the circus. As slowly she becomes part of the strange family, Leanna learns that there is more than magic to this circus, but an ancient curse that has tied Finvarra's life to its rings. If the circus fails, he dies. Leanna vows to save the circus, but when a ruthless enemy emerges, set on destroying it and Finvarra, will Leanna be able to save them both, or will her broken heart fail her just when she needs it most? Cover Artist: Lisa Rhodes