Karma can kiss it.When Felix Simms took over the position of mayor in the small town of Havers-by-the-Sea, he had no idea he’d inherit so many problems. Between the town of Fayet suing them for magical appropriation, a looming budget crisis, and the butt cheek bandit’s reign of terror, the last thing Felix needs is to be saddled with his delinquent sister’s urchins over the holidays. And he certainly doesn’t have time to deal with Liam Montgomery trying to make amends for suggesting the disastrous “polycule proposal” that broke Felix’s heart senior year.
But Liam is desperate to prove he and Felix are meant to be together. Unfortunately, Liam’s pending divorce has taken a nasty turn, and juggling that and the Havers’s rumor mill is seriously affecting his mental health.
Meanwhile, a new threat is rising, putting all of Havers in danger. To face it, Felix and Liam have to put their differences aside. Because if they can’t, it’s not just the town that’s in jeopardy, it’s everyone they love, and Jena and Chase will be the first to fall.
Magic happens and sparks fly in the small town of Havers-By-the-Sea when a sassy warlock with oodles of style crosses paths with an angsty shifter. WARDS AND WARLOCKS, a spicy standalone slow burn M/M paranormal romance novel in the Star-Crossed Chronicles series by AK Nevermore.
Felix rubbed his freckled temples, elbows digging into the blotter on his desk, silence thick in his ears. He pushed back in his plush leather chair, one of many self-serving, sinful indulgences the former mayor had pissed away tax dollars on, and stared at the suspended ceiling above.
That was bowed and had a steadily growing water stain across it.
“How?” he asked his secretary. “How is a clusterfu—I mean a problem of this magnitude possible?”
“It’s the weres,” Lorraine said matter-of-factly from her mobility scooter parked in front of his desk. Her wrinkled lips pruned. “Alway stirring up trouble. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Decent, God-fearing folk don’t truck with all that alpha nonsense. Criminals and bullies, every last one of them.”
Felix’s eyelids fluttered as he prayed for strength.
Lorraine shook her cane to emphasize her point, though Lord only knew why the unpleasant old woman had one, aside from using it to threaten the populace. He was more than a little convinced she’d melded with her Lark to become a terrifying geriatric cyborg.
She sniffed at his silence, her self-righteous frown making her look even more like an ill-tempered bulldog in a wig than usual.
Breathe, Felix. Trying to correct her speciest bullshit wasn’t going to do anything but compound his headache. He blew out a slow breath, dispelling the power he’d inadvertently manifested. He didn’t need that kind of karma tipping his scales.
He had enough problems, as evidenced by the four hundred pages of calamity Lorraine had just wheeled in, levying formal charges against Havers-by-the-Sea for the willful misappropriation of magical resources.
“Has the town’s lawyer seen this yet?” Felix asked, riffling an edge of the stack.
“Our lawyer?” She pushed up the side of her glasses, sending their pearl chain swinging. “No. The Montgomery boy was on retainer—against my recommendation, I’ll have you know—but he up and resigned after the mess that Westside pack of his put us in.”
And it just kept getting better.
But it tracked. Felix pursed his lips with a slow nod. Who would want to come back here after getting the stuffing beaten out of them and landing in traction for eight-plus weeks?
Yeah, not it, and apparently Patrick Montgomery felt the same.
“Okay,” Felix said slowly, drumming his fingers on the edge of his desk. “Do we have any local candidates for the position?”
Lorraine opened her mouth, then closed it quick, shaking her head hard enough to knock her wig awry.
Felix cocked a brow as she wiggled it back into place. He was sure that meant there was, but for whatever reason, they didn’t have the Lorraine Murklin stamp of approval. Without it, he didn’t have a chance of prying a name out of her. Felix raked a pale hand through his flaming curls. Maybe someone else at town hall would spill, but either way, not having a lawyer available to look at this mess was a problem.
He steepled his fingers, trying to channel authority. “If there’s no one local, then we should probably be advertising the position outside of the church bulletin and the Pizza Palace community board.”
“We put an ad in the paper…” She looked at him blankly. “Or do you mean like the library?”
“Sure.” Felix tried very hard to remain calm. She’s like a trillion years old. Be nice. “But we’d probably have more luck on one of those internet job sites. In fact, I’m pretty positive there’s one specifically for municipal openings.”
Lorraine’s eyes narrowed. “The only thing you’re going to find on the internet is a bunch of hoodlums asking for money and showing their feet.” She scowled, probably thinking he was one of them.
Wasn’t a bad idea, actually. The hours would certainly be better, and he could write off his pedicures.
“Okay,” Felix drawled, putting a pin in that as a future career possibility, “but how about we post something and just see how it goes? Get me a copy of what we placed in the Havers’s Herald, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Fine, but it’s on your head.” She muttered something about perverts, threw her scooter into reverse, and backed into a chair. She glared at him like it was his fault, then floored it, heading out of his office at a disdainful mile-per-hour crawl.
Felix pinched the bridge of his nose. Heaven help him, but it shouldn’t be this difficult. Though, he suspected he should be lucky he had a secretary at all, considering the pittance the last mayor had approved for her salary. That was also a problem. They didn’t have the budget to hire the kind of legal counsel they abruptly needed. Fingers crossed, maybe they could find someone to do the work pro-bono, or pay them in reclaimed granite curbing. Public defenders were a thing, right? Felix raked a hand through his hair. Could he be more in over his head with this? Whatever.
Worst case, so were foot videos.
God. Yule might almost be here, but everything that’d happened on Samhain was the gift that kept on frickin’ giving. He glared at the ferret cage in the corner of his office. “I hope you’re happy.”
The previous mayor-turned-weasel poked his head up and chittered at Felix with zero remorse. The coven should’ve let Matilda turn him into a frog. That cage was far cushier than Chambers deserved, and that was even before this lawsuit had hit Felix’s desk.
He fell back in his chair and closed his eyes. What had ever possessed the man to use iron in those turbine foundations instead of the approved materials…Whatever. What was done was done, and glutton for punishment that he was, Felix had stepped up to deal with the fallout from the previous administration’s disruption of the leyline’s flow of magic into the neighboring town of Fayet.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t actually taken into consideration that it would mean having to interact with the miserable municipality. He’d put his neck in the noose because he wanted to help put Havers-by-the-Sea back together after Chambers, Malcom, and the Westside pack had done their damndest to flatten it.
Yep. Wouldn’t be making that mistake again. What they should be doing was advertising for a new mayor. Approved overtime or not, whatever civic duty Felix might’ve felt had long since evaporated, and his qualifications were sketchy at best. Being Chamber’s assistant had not prepared him for any of this.
Any inroads he’d attempted to make with Fayet on Havers’s behalf had hit a wall before they’d even begun. He couldn’t even see frustration in his rearview mirror he was so far past it. The animosity between the two towns was thick, and starving out their magical practitioners hadn’t improved the situation. Now with this lawsuit alleging…? There was zero chance of settling out of court.
In short, they were screwed.
Karma's a witch.
When witch Jena Seymore returns home to Havers-by-the-Sea to care for her dying aunt, old town politics and prejudices are rekindled. Between the local Westside Pack’s vendetta against her family and the coven pressuring Jena to become guardian of the magical node outside of town, she has enough problems without adding Chase Montgomery to the mix. Especially after he broke her heart by starting the devastating rumor that sent Jena running from town in the first place.
But Chase has plenty of problems of his own, and how to make amends with Jena and win her heart is at the top of the list. Unbeknownst to his pack, Jena is his fated mate, and after her leaving town the first time almost killed him, he’s not letting her get away again—no matter what the backlash might be.
And meanwhile, the node is turning wild, jeopardizing Havers-by-the Sea's existence as tensions threaten to tear it apart from within. Deep-seated small town secrets could hold the key to its future—but only if they’re discovered before Samhain, when the blue moon rises.
Magic happens and sparks fly when a sassy witch with curves for days crosses paths with an irresistible alpha shifter. WERES AND WITCHERY, a standalone spicy small town romance by AK Nevermore.
✦ Curvy Witch FMC With Sass for Days
✦ Irresistibly Bossy Alpha Shifter MMC
✦ LGBTQ+ Bestie With Ride-or-π Vibes
✦ Enemies-to-Lovers
✦ Small Town
✦ Fake/Forced Marriage
✦ Fated Mates
✦ Chosen Family
✦ Rejected Mate
✦ Knots/Knotting
✦ Fae Hijinx
✦ Warlocks and Witches
✦ Unknown Power
✦ Secret Identity
✦ Chosen One
✦ Unique Magic
π πΊππππ πππ―ππ₯ = πΆ️πΆ️πΆ️πΆ️
Explicit Scenes ~ Very Hot
AK Nevermore enjoys operating heavy machinery, freebases coffee, and gives up sarcasm for Lent every year. A Jane-of-all-trades, she’s a certified chef, restores antiques, and dabbles in beekeeping when she’s not reading voraciously or running down the dream in her beat-up camo Chucks.Unable to ignore the voices in her head, and unwilling to become medicated, she writes Science Fiction and Fantasy full time.
She pays the bills editing, wielding a wicked hot pink pen and writing a column on SFF. She also belongs to the Authors Guild, is a chapter treasurer for the RWA, teaches creative writing, and on the rare occasion, sleeps.
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Before Kara met Flynn, she was property of the Source.The genetic research facility owned by a powerful international conglomerate dominates the Northern Hemisphere. Valued solely for her DNA and her talent to bind matter together, when she receives her summons to breed, she panics.
Rescued from the brink of death, she’s offered the chance to escape and find her own destiny.
But the journey through the desolation of the Outside is fraught with peril, and the golden halos marking her as a Talent also paint her as a target. Kept ignorant of everything beyond the facility’s walls, Kara grapples to survive in the hostile wasteland. Humanity purists and roving gangs are only a fraction of her problems, because the Source, and Riegel, her contracted mate, aren’t just going to let her walk away…
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I liked the excerpt.
ReplyDeleteClever & fun cover.
ReplyDelete