Showing results by author "Annette Marie" in All Categories

I've said it before, but sometimes I'm a bad person. I cheated on my 12th grade math final, I've run countless yellow lights, and I gossip about how hot my kickass best friends are. (Good thing my job as a guild bartender doesn't require moral perfection.) But there's bad, and then there's bad. And I'm not sure which applies to a certain dark druid/wanted criminal/reluctant friend of mine. His transgressions include black-magic dealings, kidnapping, and murder, and he's about to add "revenge-fueled killing spree" to his resume - if I don't stop him. 

I'm bound to a demon. For my entire life, I avoided magic at all costs. Now, I'm responsible for a demon who wields magic more powerful than the toughest mage or sorcerer. Demons are evil. That's what my textbooks say. That's what I see. He's ruthless; he's temperamental; he's cold. But he protects me without fail. I wonder if he's hiding a heart behind his hostility. My demon is a monster. Whether he's heartless or not, my contract with him is illegal and beyond dangerous. Together, we must find a way to return him to his own world before anyone discovers our secret.  

When I arrived at my uncle's house, I expected my relatives to be like me - outcast sorcerers who don't practice magic. I was right about the sorcery, but wrong about everything else. My uncle chose a far deadlier power. He calls creatures of darkness into our world, binds them into service contracts, and sells them to the highest bidder. And I'm supposed to act like I don't know how illegal and dangerous it is. All I had to do was keep my nose out of it. Pretend I didn't find the summoning circle in the basement. But I did, and now it's too late.

When I found myself facing down the scariest black-magic felon in the city, practically daring him to abduct me, I had to wonder exactly how I ended up here. It all started when I accidentally landed a job as a bartender - but not at a bar. At a guild, populated by mages, sorcerers, alchemists, witches, and psychics. Good thing this lame-o human is adaptable, right? Then my favorite guild members - three sexy, powerful, and intermittently charming mages - asked for my help.

As a guild bartender, I can handle pretty much anything - mages, sorcerers, witches, the occasional demon. But show me anything family-related and I'd rather run for the hills. It doesn't even have to be my family. So I have no idea why I thought spending the holidays with Aaron's mom and pop was a good idea. Meeting his famous parents is already terrifying enough, but I've got a bigger problem. Students of his family's renowned mage academy are being attacked on the grounds - and somehow no one has seen a single assailant? 

When I first landed a bartending job at the local guild, I didn't know a thing about magic. These days, I'm practically an expert on the different magical classes, but there's one nobody ever talks about: Demonica. Turns out they have a good reason for that. My guild is strictly hellion-free, because who wants to risk life and limb to control the biggest bullies on the mythic playground? Well, some people do, and now, a demon has been loosed in the city. 

Three months ago, I landed a job as a bartender. But not at a bar - at a guild. Yeah, the magic kind. I'm not a badass mage like my three smokin'-hot best friends. I'm not a sorcerer or an alchemist, or even a wussy witch. I'm just a human, slinging drinks like a pro and keeping my non-magical nose out of mythic business. Seriously, I know my limits. So why am I currently standing in a black-magic ritual circle across from a fae lord?  

Clio might be a nymph living in exile among humans. And she might possess the rare ability to mimic any magic she sees. And she might have just seriously ticked off the most powerful family of spell weavers in the Underworld. But she is not in love with an incubus. Lyre is the rebellious black sheep of the Weaver family, and he's the only reason she survived her recent Underworld "vacation". He's also the sexiest thing she's ever seen. Together, they have to track down a catastrophically dangerous magic - a magic he created, she sort of stole, and they both lost.

Piper thought she could handle the Sahar, the most powerful magical weapon in existence. She thought she could protect her loved ones and stop a war. She thought she could make a difference. She was wrong, and her mistakes were paid for in blood. Leaving her world - and her failures - behind, she retreats to the Underworld with Ash and the other draconians. They forge deep into long abandoned mountains, the first draconians to fly the valleys and passes in centuries - or so they think.

When Clio conned her way into the Underworld, her job was to steal magic that could protect her homeland. Instead, she escaped with the rebel son of a notorious spell weaver family. And in the process, she exposed his most calamitous spell, putting her people - and all magic - in peril. Now she and Lyre face two impossible feats: Recover his creation, and do it before his family catches up to them. But when the spell is unleashed with devastating results, caution is no longer an option. 

From her first fateful glimpse of the Sahar Stone to the explosive battle in Asphodel, Piper fought with Ash and Lyre beside her. A draconian and an incubus - an unlikely friendship....

Piper is feeling a bit overwhelmed. With Seiya and Lyre missing, Ash recovering from near fatal injuries, and the Gaians picking fights with daemons all over the city, a girl can't help but think she might be in over her head. And this time she's on her own. Before she even has a chance to investigate the Gaians' new stockpile of mysterious, high-tech weaponry, an old enemy ambushes her: Samael's henchman, Raum.

After surviving a round-trip to hell, Piper figures that she can survive anything. After all, she just lived through the devastating loss of her consul apprenticeship and a torturous stint at boarding school. How much worse could it get? Well, she wasn't expecting a group of crazy radicals to burn her home to the ground and take her prisoner. The Gaians, aka the crazy radicals, plan to rid Earth of daemons, and they need Piper's help.

In the mesmerizing sequel to Red Winter, Emi can no longer hide within the safety of the shrines. The goddess has charged her with a new task, one that will take her deep into the perilous realm of yokai. Shiro is her guide and protector, yet his confusing, captivating allure is a danger of its own. With the fate of the world in her mortal hands, she cannot falter, but is she strong enough to sacrifice everything - including him?

Piper Griffiths wants one thing in life: To become a Consul, a keeper of the peace between humans and daemons. There are precisely three obstacles in her way. The first is Lyre. Incubus. Hotter than hell and with a wicked streak to match. His greatest mission in life is to get Piper into bed and otherwise annoy the crap out of her.

The most important rule for an Apprentice Consul is simple: Don't get involved with daemons. Well, Piper is planning to break that rule - big time. After a near-deadly scandal with the Sahar Stone, she has the chance to return to the only life she's ever wanted. All she has to do to keep her Apprenticeship is forget about Ash and Lyre. Ash might be enigmatic and notoriously lethal, and Lyre might be as sinfully irresistible as he is irritating, but they're not bad for a couple of daemons.

Broke, almost homeless, and recently fired. Those are my official reasons for answering a wanted ad for a skeevy-looking bartender gig. It went downhill the moment they asked me to do a trial shift instead of an interview - to see if I'd mesh with their "special" clientele. I think that part went great. Their customers were complete dickheads, and I was an asshole right back. That's the definition of fitting in, right? I expected to get thrown out on my ass. Instead, they...offered me the job? It turns out this place isn't a bar. It's a guild. 

Emi is the kamigakari. In a few short months, her life as a mortal will end, and her new existence as the human host of a goddess will begin. Carefully hidden from those who would destroy her, she has prepared her mind, body, and soul to unite with the goddess - and not once has she doubted her chosen fate.

As a nymph living in exile among humans, Clio has picked up all sorts of unique survival skills. But pilfering magic from the Underworld's deadliest spell weavers? Not so much. Unfortunately, that's exactly what she has to do to earn a ticket back home. Conning her way into the Underworld may have gone pretty well, but now she's got a new problem. His name is Lyre, and he's a sinfully alluring incubus, a skilled spell weaver, and the only thing standing between her and stealing some damn magic.

Once, Emi believed the heavenly gods were righteous and wise, while the earthly yokai spirits were bloodthirsty and evil. But with a traitorous deity poised to destroy her world, and the yokai standing as humanity's only defense, the lies of her upbringing have toppled to reveal a far more terrifying reality. Despite the looming threat, Emi can't escape her greatest distraction: Shiro, the fox yokai who has so deftly claimed her heart for his own.