Showing results by author "Anne Malcom" in All Categories

Nora Henderson is of the opinion that chocolate cures almost everything. Which, among a few other reasons, is why she opened her bakery in the small town of Jupiter, Maine five years ago. Nora's life is good. On the surface, at least. Underneath the frosting and the sweet décor of her bakery is a broken engagement, doubt, and anxiety spirals.

Life is counted in tiny breaths, ones that measure the length of your existence. Life stole the ability to make those breaths easy when Lily was nine years old. Turned her quiet. Made her curl into herself, and shut out a world that threatened to bury her under its weight. The end of her world is what brings him back - her biker. His chocolate eyes pierce her soul while his club tempts her with a life that she didn't know she could ever have. Especially not when she was clutching the tattered remains of her existence.

Living a life in darkness causes the soul to char to ash. Battling demons by turning himself into a monster is the only way he can survive...the only way he can keep a grip on sanity. That grip is precarious at best, every day is a silent battle with demons that threaten to yank him into the truest form of darkness, the abyss he'll never escape. Then it happens. Light shines through the cracks. Happiness. Mia Spencer's life is full of it. She has an amazing new job, friends, family, and the light of her life - her daughter Lexie.

My life is about the story. I've risked my life for it. Many times. I chase the story so I can escape having to face my own. But this one is different. This story will make my career. My life. Or it will end it. The Sons of Templar MC. The most notorious and dangerous outlaw motorcycle club in the country. And I'm going to get the scoop. Or I'll die trying.

Souls are interesting things. Not something you can prove you possess. Not something that can be measured, like a heartbeat. But something that can be destroyed by the absence of a heartbeat. No, you cannot prove you possess a soul. But once that soul dies, there doesn't need to be proof that you don't have one. Once that blackened pit opens inside you, the world can see it. The world cowers from it.

This isn't a fairy tale. I'll save you the trouble by telling you that now. This is the tale of a girl who spent her life bouncing around foster homes, who had her innocence stolen in the darkness before she knew it was something that could be lost. Her demons followed her everywhere after that night. They chased her to the medical school she dropped out of, to the strip club she sold herself in, and finally caught her in a river of sin where they tried to drown her.

My life was never black and white. Heck, it wasn't even black, white and gray. Lines were not drawn between good and evil, and if they were, I would have jumped those suckers for fun. But now it was simpler. It wasn't black and white. Or gray. It was only one thing. Blood. A crimson-tinted world. That was all I needed. All I wanted. Him.

Evil doesn't exist. Neither does "good". Vampires do, though. I just happen to be one. I've cruised through the centuries managing to avoid all the wars, supernatural and human, but still going to all the best parties. I would say I avoided bloodshed, but it's kind of part of the whole "vampire" thing. I've lived on the fringes of a society that considered cruelty and sadism favorable character traits for almost 500 years. Now, I'm in the middle of a war that might just put my non-beating heart in a lot of danger.

Heartbeats had a pesky way of complicating things. They almost always came with the nasty side effect of humanity and finally...death. Since Thorne came into my life, I'd been plagued with both. Heartbeats and humanity. Both of these things were going to be the death of me. One way or another. And the death of everyone I knew and loved, a list growing longer with every beat of my newly repaired - and irritating - heart. That pesky humanity was almost as toxic as the most debilitating illness on this hunk of rock, killing more humans than any vampire could. Love.

I don't know what it's like to feel. To hurt. The ability was stolen from me in my youth. I consider that theft a gift. Feelings got in the way when you were building an empire. Amassing power. I had the empire. I had the power. One moment in an alley changed everything. What took more than a decade to amass was snatched away in a second. He killed for me. But he didn't save me.