Dragon’s Ending (Wings Over Albion 4) by Joy Lynn Fielding

RELEASE BLITZ

Book Title: Dragon’s Ending (Wings Over Albion 4)

Author and Publisher: Joy Lynn Fielding

Cover Artist: Miblart

Release Date: September 24, 2026

Tense/POV: Alternating first person pov/past tense

Genres: Paranormal MM Romance

Tropes: Slow burn, Dragon-shifters, Flirtatious x serious MCs, Academic MC

Themes: Family expectations, Legacy and inheritance, Trust

Heat Rating: 4 flames

Length: 92 000 words

It can be read as a standalone story. It contains spoilers for earlier books in the series. 

It does not end on a cliffhanger.

Goodreads

Buy Links - Available in Kindle Unlimited  

Amazon US   |   Amazon UK

Dragon history was easy. This particular dragon? Anything but.

Blurb

I was sent to Dragon's Ending to uncover lost dragon history. What I found was Dominic Bedwyr.

The heir to one of Britain's oldest dragon-shifter families, Dominic has a reputation for turning heads and causing trouble in equal measure. He flirts. He provokes. He has an infuriating habit of appearing when least expected and interrupting my research.

And each time I think I've worked Dominic out, he proves me wrong. Because behind the studied indifference, I catch glimpses of someone else entirely. He’s a man born to inherit everything, yet trusted with nothing.

Before long, I catch myself listening for his footsteps. Waiting for him to appear by my side, pretending not to help and somehow making me laugh anyway.

But dragon families are complicated. Dominic’s, most of all.

It's one thing to fall in love with Dominic. It's another to fall in love with the Bedwyr heir.

Excerpt

Dominic tilted his head and met my gaze, amusement in those dark brown eyes, which deepened as I moved my chair away from him slightly. 

“Find what you’re looking for yet?” he asked.

I couldn’t be sure, but I felt that was double-edged. I chose to answer the question and ignore any other meaning. Perhaps he was used to guys simply keeling over into his arms whenever he wanted, but I had no interest in being one of them.

“I’m not looking for anything specific,” I told him.

“You’re sure about that?” he asked, and that lazily amused smile was still in his eyes. Which I was going to stop looking into right now.

Unfortunately, I tore my glance away just in time to notice the way he hitched his hip onto the table. Right next to me, making it impossible not to notice his thighs or think about the fluid ease with which he moved. It was as calculated as everything else about him.

“You know,” he said, “I’m sure I could help you out.” 

I wasn’t always the quickest to pick up when someone was flirting with me, but there was no mistaking the intent in his voice. It had lost its usual drawl, turning low and smooth.

“Can you read medieval Latin?” I asked him. “Because that would be helpful.”

He just looked at me, his lips tugging slightly at the corners. “Does Welsh work?”

“Oh, God, yes.” Because I’d already discovered the limits of my Welsh. Before I could stop myself, I was reaching for the document I’d had to put to one side earlier. “There’s this whole section here—”

 “So what made you decide to start halfway through the records rather than at the beginning?”

My irritation at his interruption evaporated as I realised what he’d said. Surely he couldn’t mean there were even more?

“I haven’t found anything further back than these yet,” I told him.

He shrugged and moved away. To my relief.

“And you’re just hoping something turns up.” He leaned against the shelves like he had every right to be there. Like they’d been put up for that purpose alone.

“That’s the general idea.”

“So what happens when the thing you need to see is actually somewhere else?”

That made me pause. “If you have something to say—”

“I do,” he said, pushing off from the shelves.

Too close again. Deliberately so. My dragon stirred, low and uneasy as he reached out to the ledger in front of me and moved it slightly, just enough to be out of square. It took every bit of willpower not to correct it immediately.

Dominic glanced down at the papers, then back at me, as if weighing whether I was worth the effort.

“Come on,” he said.

I frowned. “Where?”

“You want older than this,” he said.

My attention sharpened despite myself. “What does that mean?”

He watched me for an instant, and I saw that flicker of satisfaction again. He’d got me hooked, and he knew it.

“The castle.”

Phoebe had told me about it over supper. Only she’d said there was hardly anything left. “The ruins?” I checked.

“Unless you’ve found another one.”

“Your father—” I started.

“My father,” Dominic said, very mildly, “isn’t here.”

I hesitated. Rhodri didn’t like information shared without his consent.

“Come if you want,” he added, already turning towards the door. “Or don’t.”

Which was deeply irritating, because he knew I couldn’t resist. I closed my laptop with more force than necessary.

“If this turns out to be a waste of time—”

“You can come back and alphabetise something,” he said over his shoulder.

I stood up, because it was either that or hurl my laptop at his head.

About the Author 

Joy Lynn Fielding lives in a small English market town, where she nurtures enthusiasms for vintage aircraft, horses and gardening. An avid researcher for her books, she delights in uncovering unusual facts and sharing them with anyone within earshot. She insists this has never led to anyone hiding behind the furniture.

Joy writes at the pace her health allows, powered by enthusiasm, optimism and, above all, coffee. She hopes her books offer good company to anyone navigating their own winding paths.

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The Crucible by Aoibh Wood

NEW RELEASE

Book Title: The Crucible

Author and Publisher: Aoibh Wood

Cover Artist: Rebecca Frank

Release Date: September 28, 2026 (InkColors) / October 5, 2026 (Amazon, Kobo, and wide)

Tense/POV: First person, present tense, single POV (Mora), with a brief closing interlude.

Genres: FF Fantasy/Romance (adult sapphic romantasy; dark academy elements)

Tropes:  Enemies to lovers, forbidden love, hidden identity, slow burn, found family, morally gray love interest, sparring as flirtation, knife-gifting as a love language

Themes: identity and self-determination, loyalty vs. duty, surviving institutional cruelty, chosen family, queer joy (queernorm world — no homophobia)

Heat Rating: 4 out of 5 flames

Length: approx. 147 000 words

It is Book 1 of a planned series — the central romance arc resolves in this book (no romance cliffhanger); the wider series plot continues.

Goodreads

Buy Links

InkColors (early release, Sept 28)

Amazon (preorder, delivers Oct 5)

Additional wide retailers live on October 5 

What the Empire forges, the heart unmakes.

Blurb

The Crucible: the Empire’s brutal war academy, where the Aethyr-touched are forged into weapons and attachment is a crime.

Aethyrim like Mora Dray don’t enroll. They’re delivered.

Property of the Empire. Trained to kill. Culled when they break.

Mora walks through the gates with quick knives, a closed mouth, and a secret that will hang her if anyone looks too closely. So the plan is the one that’s kept her breathing this long: be nobody. Head down, scores middling, name off every list. She has invisible down to an art.

Nobody warned her about Liora Skaggs.

Violet-haired, knife-scarred, a Fourth-Year who teaches First-Years how to survive their own knives — lethal by training, worse by reputation, the most dangerous woman in the Crucible. Everything about her should read as threat. Instead, she looks across her crowded training yard and sees Mora for who she is. Not the quiet candidate. Not the middling scores. Her.

And being seen by Skaggs doesn’t feel like the death sentence it should.

It feels like the first time anyone’s ever said her name.

What Skaggs offers isn’t kindness. It’s a blade flipped into the dirt at Mora’s feet and an unspoken order to pick it up. After that, every rule bends. Keep quiet becomes stand out. Stay hidden becomes midnight matches in borrowed leather. Stay alive, stay alive goes out the window somewhere around the first sparring session that ends dangerously close to desire.

But they’re both property, and property isn’t supposed to want things. Wanting Skaggs is the first thing Mora has ever done just for herself, and she is stupid with it, reckless with it, starving with it.

Beyond the walls, the war she was built for is creeping closer, dragonfire is no longer rumor, and the Empire’s version of the truth is fraying at the edges.

Her secret could get her killed.

Skaggs almost certainly will.

She can’t get enough.

Excerpt 

Setup: Mora Dray, days into her first year at the Empire's war academy, is called into the pits for close-quarters combat assessment. The Fourth-Year running her ring is Liora Skaggs.

Skaggs is wearing a Mournborn knife on her hip, just like the one I’m carrying. Instinct has my hand dropping to hide mine, but all it does is get her attention, and her gaze dips. It lands exactly where my palm rests on the hilt and the corner of her mouth curves upward. Then she stalks over and looks down at me like I’m late for something, hands on her hips.

She has at least six inches on me.

I gulp.

She leans closer and sniffs.

“You, Northern girl,” she says, flipping her knife into the dirt at my feet. “Hand off that blade and follow me.”

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath. I really didn’t want to go first, but I do as ordered, handing my knife to Rendi. “Hold this, please.”

She takes it, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

I shoot her a rude gesture and make my way into the ring. I don’t strip this time. I’d rather she get a handful of shirt than, say, my arm. Or a tit. I like my parts where they are.

“Sir” has already engaged with someone in the other ring, and he’s not really trying very hard. He doesn’t have to. The kid’s slow as fuck and can barely remember to keep his hands up.

Ranson watches them for a minute, then turns to us. “Well?”

“Skaggs,” she says by way of introduction.

“I know,” I answer. “You have a reputation.”

She shoots a look over her shoulder as we enter the ring. “Do I? And what do they say, Northern girl?”

I look away trying to hide my flush, as my heart does that thing it does when a pretty girl looks at me like that. Kitty looked at me like that, and we ended up in bed ten minutes later.

I stuff that thought down… hard.

Head in the game, Mora. Head in the game.

In the ring, Skaggs drops into a pretty standard Mournborn fighting stance. I mirror it. I need to make this look convincing, but I need to lose. Probably not hard given the shape I’m in. Trina was outmatched by skill. This girl is on a whole different level.

She steps forward and takes a few half-hearted jabs at my face. I dodge easily.

She takes a few more. They’re a little quicker. I dodge left and right, then have to lean back as she follows with a hook.

My left hand snaps out and catches her in the mouth. Her head rocks back, but I don’t press. I swap my footing, hopping a bit.

As I circle, I catch Brask and Ranson watching us. I don’t pay attention to their conversation, not really, but I can hear them. I catch bits and pieces: “not bad,” and “scary with a knife.”

Skaggs moves in, putting in a lot more effort. Her blows come insanely quick, and the best I can do is retreat, block, or weave my head out of the way. It’s a pattern, though, and one Miriam taught me. I jump and spin-kick as her leg sweeps low. It leaves my boot print on her shirt and sends her to her ass with a loud grunt.

Everyone’s up now, watching us.

It won’t be much of a show. I’m already winded and my shoulder’s killing me. Still, give me a few months of conditioning and healing, and this will be a whole different match.

She rolls up, licking a bit of blood off her lip.

Well. I’ve got her attention.

She barrels in, and I’m down in four hits with a split lip and a vicious shot to the eye that I’m sure will swell shut.

It isn’t flashy. It isn’t even dramatic. It’s efficient and clinical. I lose the rhythm for half a second and she takes the rest of it from me.

Then she drops down on my chest, pinning my arms beneath her shins. Her weight settles like a verdict. She’s not even breathing hard, and her violet eyes lock on mine like she’s waiting to see what I do with humiliation.

Her crotch is practically in my face.

“Make her lick it!” someone calls.

I scowl, ready to spit back something filthy.

Skaggs’ hand settles at my throat. She doesn’t squeeze. She just leaves it there, long enough to let me know she could.

Heat floods me, somewhere between need and humiliation.

Her eyes bore into mine. Not offended, just… curious. Like she wants to see what I’ll do with that cat-call.

My mouth curves. “You’ll have to buy me dinner first.”

Her lips twitch with just the hint of a smile.

Not for them.

For me.

Then my hand slaps the sand.

Gods help me. My head is definitely not in the game… well, not the right one.

She stands and hauls me up like I weigh nothing, then marches me back toward my seat beside the ring. As she scoops her knife from the ground, her gaze flicks to mine. And the spark there is electric. Then she turns away and wanders off to select another victim.

“I couldn’t decide if she was gonna fight you or fuck you,” Sirenna says when I sit down.

I cough to hide my laughter, then pat my chest and whisper, “Be still, my beating heart.”

About the Author 

Aoibh Wood is the bestselling author of The Senator’s Widow — a #1 title in Amazon’s Lesbian Thriller category — and the Cait Reagan urban fantasy series. A veteran of the tech and cybersecurity world, she writes romance, intrigue, and the supernatural with queer women at the center. Her sapphic enemies-to-lovers romantasy, The Crucible, releases September 28 on InkColors and everywhere October 5. She lives with her wife and their cat, Papaya.

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Tabitha Unleashed by Robert W Adams

NEW RELEASE

Book Title: Tabitha Unleashed

Author and Publisher: Robert W Adams

Cover Artist: Awan Designer @dexpert30 on Fivver

Release Date: September 29, 2026

POV/Tense: First person/present tense 

Genres: Contemporary FF Paranormal/Urban Fantasy, Young Adult

Tropes: Found family, hidden powers, identity

Themes: Coming out, grief, mental health

Heat Rating: 1 flame

Length: 97 000 words/ 370 pages

It’s the first book in the series but also stands alone.

It does not end on a cliffhanger.

Goodreads

Buy Links - Available in Kindle Unlimited 

Amazon US  |  Amazon CA  |   Amazon UK

“I’ll risk anything to save her. Even the secret of what I am.”

Blurb

“I’ll risk anything to save her. Even the secret of what I am.”

Tabitha Griffin has plenty of things making her life hell—guilt, fear, shame, that suicide attempt thing, and her twin sister’s cancer.

But nothing terrifies her more than being the center of attention.

So naturally, she enters the biggest televised talent competition in the country to win the million-dollar prize that could save her sister’s life.

There’s just one problem.

Tabitha isn’t performing an illusion.

The impossible things she does on stage are real.

As the competition turns her into a national sensation, Tabitha finds friendship, first love, and a reason to believe she might deserve a future after all. But when a growing political movement turns her into an unwilling symbol of queer resistance, every secret she’s fought to protect begins unraveling.

It’s all a distraction from winning the competition. But as her two worlds collide, Tabitha must choose which secrets to keep, which to reveal—and to whom.

Because saving her sister’s life is the only way to save her own.

Excerpt 

The Heart

The house lights dim and the large screen comes to life.

“Hi Tabby.”

Kayla is gorgeous, bald head, scars and all. They’ve done her makeup. She’s simply radiant. Her eyes sparkle and her smile could melt lead.

“I’m so proud of you. People need to know what you’re doing goes against every fear you have. You’re trying to save me. But this is not your fight. It is mine. It is you that gives me the will to fight. It is you that makes me appreciate life. It is you that makes me grateful for every minute of my life, even if there are only a few left.”

Tears make a jailbreak. My heart rips. My lips quiver.

“You say your mission is to save me. Well, my mission is to save you. It’s out there. Everyone knows, so I’m saying it now to the entire world. I must make sure you stay after I’m gone. And when I’m gone, you need to remember this. I will always be there, Tabby.”

“And this,” she raises her left arm and shows the tattooed quote that runs along her inner forearm, “and this,” she shows the tattoo that runs along her inner right forearm, “is your destiny. You’ll always be my superhero. I love you.”

No one stands against the universe on behalf of another, declares mistakes have been made and then renders its judgment mute, except my sister. Who deserves to be loved this much by anyone?

About the Author 

Robert W. Adams writes emotionally driven YA speculative fiction where extraordinary circumstances collide with deeply human questions of identity, mental health, courage, and survival. His stories feature unforgettable young protagonists facing impossible choices, exploring what it means to find your voice when the world asks you to hide who you are.

Rob lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with his wife and family. 

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Housesitter – Renfield Concierge Services by TA Moore

RECENT RELEASE

Book Title: Housesitter – Renfield Concierge Services

Author and Cover Artist: TA Moore

Publisher: Rogue Firebird Press

Release Date: September 10, 2026

Pairing: MM

Tense/POV: Third person, alternating POV, past tense

Genres: Paranormal Romance, Romantic Comedy

Tropes: Forbidden love, Lust at First Sight, Pants on Fire, Dark Past 

Themes: Sometimes lying is a form of the truth.

Heat Rating:  4 flames    

Length: 50 000 words

It is a standalone story and does not end on a cliffhanger.

Goodreads

Universal Buy Link

 A full-time Igor? In THIS economy?

Blurb

Shepherd’s life was supposed to be simple, and short. Very short.

Then the FBI raided the cult compound he was raised in and suddenly there was no one left to sacrifice him to his demonic spouse.

So much for destiny.

Luckily even the damned and the dead still need errands run, curses managed, and carnivorous plants pruned. These days Shepherd works for Renfield Concierge Services as a jack-of-all trades.

His latest gig is house-sitting The Murder House, a necromancer’s delight in Connecticut. All he has to do is keep out nosy teens, feed the books, and stop the coyotes, or next door’s poodle, from digging up the “vegetable” garden. Easy enough.

Until the necromancer’s “son” shows up with a death certificate, a notarized will, and a suspicious lack of knowledge about the supernatural world.

Now Shepherd has to honor his signed-in-blood contract without attracting the attention of any legal—or infernal—authorities who might still be interested in his cult-related past. Because Hell loves a notarised document.

Excerpt 

Marble Falls, Connecticut, boasted a picture-postcard-perfect harbor, more antique shops than seemed feasible for a town with under 4000 residents, and a colony of elephant seals. They also had one coffee shop.

Shepherd pulled into the curb outside the Seal of Approval, behind a small, bottle-green scooter with the shop logo displayed on the panniers, and parked. He got out of the minivan, pushed his sunglasses up onto the top of his head, and squinted at the shop. Today’s special was a Lavender Mocha with a ham and provolone cinnamon bagel for fifteen dollars.

So it was bougie. That was promising.

Shepherd had been to places where the only coffee dealer in town had been Betty in the local diner, with a greasy carafe of whatever had been on sale at Target. It was never freshly brewed either. No matter what time of the day you went in, it tasted like it had been thinking about what it had done for at least 24 hours.

It wasn’t for Shepherd. Bad coffee and celibacy had been two of the three main reasons he’d run away from the cult he’d grown up in. 

Shepherd absently reached up to rub his throat, the clot of raised scar tissue over his collarbone slick and itchy under his fingertips. 

The fact his ‘family’ was about to sacrifice him to the Lady of the Furrow before they were interrupted by the FBI’s raid on the property did have a strong lead on first place. 

Still, the coffee and celibacy had been hard pills to swallow too.

These days he avoided both when he could. 

Shepherd locked the minivan and stuck the keys in the pocket of his shorts and headed into the shop.

The bells over the door rang as he pushed it open. A barista was in the middle of the shop, bucket between her feet, as she swilled away at footprints on the tiles. She looked up and gave Shepherd a quick once-over, one eyebrow quirked with interest by the time she got to his face.

“Hi,” she said and plunked the mop into the bucket with a wet squelch. “I haven’t seen you around here before. Tourist?”

Shepherd blinked at her for a moment. He missed New York already. Nobody there cared where he was from or why he was there. Most of the time they didn’t even notice him. That was how he liked it. It was one reason he didn’t like taking jobs out of the city. Unfortunately, his wallet didn’t much care what he liked, and travel contracts paid better.

“Not exactly,” he said. “I’m here for a couple of weeks.”

The bucket was on wheels. It squeaked over the floor as the barista dragged it with her to the counter. She propped it against the wall and left it there as she grabbed a clean apron to pull on.

“Airbnb?”

Shepherd fished his wallet out of his pocket and wrinkled his nose as he considered the answer. “Kinda?”

The barista—Emily, from her name tag stitched onto the apron—leaned one hand on the bar. She cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows.

“That’s the sort of thing you should really be sure of,” she said lightly. “What would you like? Today’s special—”

“I saw,” Shepherd interrupted her. “No. Thanks. Just a vanilla latte. To go.”

She nodded, grabbed a cardboard coffee cup from beside the till, and turned her back to get to work on his order. Once she had the grounds slotted into the espresso machine, she looked back over her shoulder at Shepherd.

“The soup of the day is Bloody Mary and Pumpernickel,” she said, pointing to the big, silver tureen being warmed over gas on the counter. “If you’re hungry.”

About the Author

TA Moore is a Northern Irish writer of romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and contemporary romance novels. A childhood in a rural, seaside town fostered in her a suspicious nature, a love of mystery, and a streak of black humour a mile wide.

Coffee, Doc Marten boots, and good friends are the essential things in life. Spiders, mayo, and heels are to be avoided.

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Wonder Boy: Owned by Calan Mercer

NEW RELEASE

Book Title: Wonder Boy: Owned

Author: Calan Mercer

Publisher: Valleyburn Press

Cover Artist: Neslihan Yardimli for BookCoverZone

NEW Release Date: OCTOBER 6, 2026

Tense/POV: third person, past tense, three alternating POV 

Genres: Contemporary MM Dark/Erotic Romance, BDSM

Tropes: Forbidden love, workplace, boss/employee, age gap, power exchange, possessive mmc, insta-obsession (touch him and die), psychological, hurt/comfort, aftercare heavy

Themes: Identity, Belonging, Complicity, Power as intimacy, Self-destruction, Legacy and ownership, Survival

Length: approx. 129 000 words

It is book one in a trilogy. It ends as an HFN where it is clear there is more to resolve.

Heat Rating: 5 flames

Goodreads

Buy Links - Available in Kindle Unlimited

Amazon US   |  Amazon UK 

He came for the job. He left owned.

Blurb 

Alex Mercer was supposed to be untouchable: the golden heir to his family's powerful law firm in Los Angeles, two years of associate experience under his belt, dispatched to Las Vegas to bring the chaotic Global Combat League to heel.

Instead, he met Jack Doyle.

Compact. Battle-hardened. Close-cropped dark hair just beginning to gray. The cold, calculating stare of a man who built an empire from nothing and never learned how to lose. One command from across the desk and Alex's perfectly tailored world began to unravel — jacket, tie, shirt — every step an exit offered and refused, every refusal a choice Alex made with open eyes.

What started as an interview ended with Alex stripped bare on Jack's desk, claimed so thoroughly he could still feel it weeks later. What started as a contract became something neither of them had a name for. And what started in Las Vegas wasn't going to stay there.

Some men break you. Jack owned him. And the worst part? Alex let him.

A dark MM romance about power, possession, and the cost of being chosen by a man who doesn't share what he claims.

Excerpt 

“Kid,” Jack said. “You any good at not fucking up?”

Alex registered the question for what it was, not the interview he had prepared for, but the one underneath it, the one that wanted to know whether he was going to give a law school answer or an honest one. He had prepared the law school answer on the flight. He looked at Jack and set it aside.

“Depends on the definition,” Alex said. Then he looked at Jack and reconsidered. “Yes, sir.”

Jack’s mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Sir. I like that. Most of these Ivy League pricks walk in here calling me Jack like we’re old pals.” He held the look. “What does ‘yes’ mean to you?”

“It means you tell me what’s coming before it arrives, I keep it from becoming a problem. You call me after it’s already a problem, I make it go away.” He held Jack’s eyes. “Either way works. I’d rather the first.”

Jack regarded him for a moment. Then he set down what he was reading and leaned back.

“Marco says you’re good,” he said. “That means something, coming from him. I know your father. I know his firm. They’ve been handling my contracts for three years.” He picked up his mug and took a drink. “If you’re even half the lawyer Richard is, you’re worth the conversation.”

“I’m not my father,” Alex said. There was no edge to it. He was stating a fact. “But I can do the job.”

Jack looked at him with the full quality of attention he would come to understand was Jack’s primary mode: complete, unhurried, costing the subject of it nothing and requiring everything. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Alex said.

Jack almost smiled. He set the mug down and leaned forward, elbows on the desk.

“Alexander Mercer. Thirty. Top of your class at USC Law. You know why you’re here?”

“My father said you needed a personal attorney. Available at all hours. Fighter issues, sponsorship conflicts, anything that doesn’t go through the league office.”

“That’s the version that goes on paper.” Jack tapped the desk once with two fingers. “Off paper it’s simpler. You work for me. The league, the fighters, your old man — none of them own you. I do. I snap my fingers at three in the morning because some idiot heavyweight punched a casino bouncer, you’re already in a car. I need an NDA before breakfast because one of my champions knocked up a ring-girl, you’re already writing it. You breathe when I say breathe. You eat when I say eat. You exist for the GCL. The GCL is me. I need someone I can trust completely to have my back. Not the league’s back. Mine.” He let that land. “You want this job, Mercer?”

Alex had known, somewhere on the flight over, that he wanted it. Not only the money, though the money was real. It was the room he was sitting in. The building below, with its blood smell and its training cages. The man across the desk, who had not yet said a single thing that was anything other than exactly what he meant. Alex had spent two years in an environment that prided itself on precision and had not yet been in a room where precision was this unconcerned with its own appearance.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “I want the job.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed, dark and unreadable. He let the words hang in the air for a long ten seconds, the air conditioner droning in the background. Then he smiled, slow and predatory, a smile that had closed million-dollar deals and ended careers in the same breath.

“Good,” Jack said. “Then you’re going to prove it.”

The shift in the room was immediate, like the temperature had dropped ten degrees. Alex’s mouth went dry. He’d expected a hard interview. Maybe some locker-room hazing. Not… this. Whatever this was.

Jack stood up. He came around the desk, without announcement, without the excess of motion that would have signaled awareness of being watched. He stopped three feet away and crossed his arms and looked at Alex the way he had been looking at him since Alex walked in, which was completely and without apology.

“Take off your jacket.”

Alex blinked. Once. His heart slammed against his ribs like it wanted out. Not standard. A line. A test. The kind powerful men drew in the sand to see who’d cross it and who’d run.

Jack’s voice stayed even, almost conversational, but there was steel underneath. “You heard me. Jacket. Off. Or you can stand up right now, walk out that door, tell your Daddy I’m a crazy prick, and we’ll both pretend this meeting never happened. Your call, kid. Last chance to keep your suit clean and your dignity intact.”

About the Author

Calan Mercer writes dark, character-driven romance about powerful men and the things they can't control. A nine-year Army veteran with deployments to Iraq and Kosovo, he earned his MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University and has spent years ringside, drawn to the brutal intimacy of combat sports and the speed of the ice.

Wonder Boy: Owned is his debut and the first book in the Global Combat League series. He lives in San Diego with his husband and four very opinionated cats.

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