Hidden
from humans in Minneapolis/St. Paul, there is a century-old divide between
vampires and shifters. All that changes when the youngest generation breaks
free from old traditions and changes the very rules they have all lived by.
Forbidden Series
Forbidden Addiction
Forbidden Series,
#4
by R.L.
Kenderson
Date of
Publication: August 1st 2017
Cover
Artist: Estrella Cover Art
Genre:
Paranormal Romance
BLURB
With a tortured past, she’s a
cat-shifter who refuses to get close to anyone. Yet she can’t seem to resist
the leader of the vampire protectors.
Phoenix Kaplan has never felt a
connection like the one she has with Dante Leonidas. She might service him
monthly, allowing him to feed from her blood, but as much as her body tells her
differently, she knows it can be nothing more, not with her insecurities and
inability to be intimate with a male.
That is, until she realizes the
one thing she desires most in the world is something he can give her…and she
propositions him to impregnate her.
She’s never wanted anything more
than to be a mother, and all she needs is this one thing from Dante.
Although he should refuse, Dante
can’t resist the temptation. He’s addicted not only to her blood, but also to
the enigma that is purely Phoenix. And he is determined to prove to her that he
can give her much more than what she asked for.
She might protect her heart with
an impenetrable wall, but he’s willing to do whatever it takes to break down
that wall in order to get what he desires most in the world.
Excerpt Forbidden Addiction:
Dante
Leonidas raised his head from the map spread out on his desk from where he’d
been studying it when he heard the rap at his door.
Phoenix.
Usually,
he prepared himself before she arrived, but he’d been so lost in thought that
he didn’t notice her scent or her presence, despite her blood in him. He cursed
himself for not paying attention, but it didn’t really matter. He’d never be
truly equipped to see her.
“Enter,”
he called out.
The
entrance to his office opened, and Phoenix slipped through before closing the
door behind her.
Dante
held his breath as the aroma of sunshine flooded the room, but it was too late.
Her scent teased his nostrils, and suddenly, his pants were too tight as his
cock hardened under his fly. He had to reach down and adjust himself under the
desk before the painful position caused him to wince. Males always talked about
having big dicks, but honestly, it wasn’t that great. It could really be a pain
in the ass sometimes. No pun intended.
“Hey,”
the beautiful cat-shifter said as she approached his desk.
She was
sans makeup with her long red-and-black hair in a ponytail while she wore her
usual outfit of shapeless clothing. Today, it was a sweater and jeans. But,
despite her baggy attire, Dante could still make out her curves underneath. It
didn’t hurt that he’d seen her without her clothes in the past. Picturing her
naked didn’t help his hard-on.
She
glanced down at the Minneapolis/St. Paul area map that he’d been reviewing
before she entered. “What are you looking at?”
He
pointed to the Xs he’d made in red. “I marked all the incidents on the list in
hopes that maybe a pattern or something would jump out at me.” Dante threw the
pen he held on top of the map as he leaned back in his chair and exhaled his
frustration. “So far, it’s been a bust.”
Over the
last few months, crimes had been happening to vampire and shifter residences
and places of business. It wasn’t like the paranormal community was immune to
crime, but the unusual part about it was how they were all coming in pairs.
Whatever happened to a vampire-owned place, the same thing would happen to a shifter-owned
place. The first incident had been graffiti at a vampire-owned restaurant on
the same night a shifter-owned restaurant was hit. It was an obvious message to
both vampires and shifters. The latest incidents were fires started at vampire-
and shifter-owned homes with an hour of each other. The worst part of the
entire situation was that the human police were starting to notice.
Phoenix
came around to his side of the desk and leaned over to read the map and his
notes. Her baggy pants hung on her hips, but when she bent over, they stretched
across her ass, and Dante had to fight not to ogle her. His erection got
harder, if that was even possible, and he fought his desire to pull her into
his lap, strip off her clothes, and bury himself inside her.
But that
would never happen.
Despite
the fact that she was there to feed him, they were not in a romantic or sexual
relationship. Dante didn’t know all the details about what had happened to
Phoenix in her past, but he knew she had been traumatized. So, while he usually
had sex with the females he fed from, the only thing he’d be sinking inside her
were his fangs. His little head didn’t get it, but his big head did, and he
wasn’t going to add to her issues. For now, feeding from her and being her
friend was enough. But, damn, this celibacy thing just might kill him.
Maybe,
someday, he would tell her how he felt about her, but today wasn’t that day.
She wasn’t ready to hear it.
Turning
his thoughts back to the task at hand, he asked her, “Have you guys come up with
anything?”
She spun
around and sat on the edge of the desk, the emerald greens of her eyes filled
with vexation. “No. Are you coming to the meeting tomorrow?”
“Yes,
we’ll all be there.”
“That’s
good.” She nodded her approval. “One of the wolf-shifter sentinels is an
officer in the Minneapolis Police Department. Damien told Vance that the
sentinel would fill us in on what the humans knew.”
The
wolf-shifter alpha was really proving himself to the cat-shifter alpha. Damien
wasn’t going to let the newly healed bond between the two subspecies get
fractured again, it seemed.
Dante
furrowed his brows. “You don’t have any cat-shifters in the police force?”
“Yes, we
do, but none of them are sentinels. They give us information, but we don’t
share what we know back with them. It’s a good idea, what Damien did, having
someone working both angles. I just hope Vance doesn’t make one of us sign up
for the police academy.” She made a face of disgust. “At least, I hope it isn’t
me.”
Dante
chuckled. “Humans aren’t that bad.”
She
looked at him like he was crazy. “Humans aren’t that bad? The same species that
traditionally comes at your species with a stake through the heart?”
“Pretty
sure none of the members of the St. Paul Police Department are carrying stakes.”
“No, just
guns.”
He
laughed again. “I suppose you have a point.”
“So, does
that mean you have vampires on the force? How does that work with the sun
thing?”
“Of
course we do. They enter the academy before their conversion, and after, they
work the night shift.” Dante frowned. “Although I never thought to have one of
the Guardians work for us and the police at the same time. It is smart.”
The
conversation stalled, and silence fell over the room. Their eyes met, but
neither moved.
The knock
at the door broke the quietness, and Dante looked at the bare skin on Phoenix’s
neck. “Come back later. I’m busy.”
He
swiveled his chair to face her and opened his legs. “Come here, Red.”
Forbidden Temptation
Forbidden Series,
#3
by R.L.
Kenderson
Date of
Publication: August 15th 2015
Genre:
Paranormal Romance
BLURB
Since one fateful evening at a
nightclub, Kenzie Swanson and Sawyer Lennar have shared an undeniable
attraction. They’ve had moments where they couldn’t ignore their desires,
succumbing to their needs, and Sawyer has marked Kenzie in a way that no other man
can.
But there is one problem that
continues to keep them apart.
As a cat-shifter with a traumatic
past, Sawyer hates humans—and Kenzie is all human.
Sawyer’s hatred pushes Kenzie
away, and they try to maintain their distance from each other—until they are
mistakenly kidnapped and have to act as a couple. When the unforeseen happens,
Kenzie can only do so much to deny herself from being intimate with Sawyer.
Given a chance at what might have
been, Sawyer and Kenzie are forced to face the forbidden temptation to be with
one another.
Buy Links:
Excerpt Forbidden Temptation:
She
stared down at Sawyer, asleep in her lap. He looked so peaceful, and she felt a
little bad that she would have to wake him. She brushed his tawny hair off his
face and neck before picking his head up and softly setting it down on the edge
of the driver’s seat.
She
climbed out of the vehicle and opened the door to the house, so there wouldn’t
be anything in their path from the car to the house once she woke him.
She
opened the passenger door and poked his leg. “Sawyer. Sawyer.”
Nothing.
This
time, she shook his arm. “Sawyer.”
Still
nothing.
She
leaned in and shook his shoulders.
Nothing
again.
Finally,
she reached into the car and lightly smacked him on the face while trying not
to fall on top of him. “Sawyer, wake up.”
“Mmm.”
“Sawyer,
you need to wake up, so I can help you into the house. It’s cold out here.”
No
response.
She went
back around to the driver’s side since his head was lying on the driver’s seat.
She sat down on the outside half and gave him a few more pats on the face since
that had seemed to get a response out of him. “Sawyer, you need to get up. Now.”
“Mmm,” he
muttered again. This time, he turned his head toward her and mumbled a word
that sounded like make or Nate.
“You big
oaf, will you please get up?” she hissed.
He opened
his eyes.
Finally.
Apparently, calling him names had worked.
She
leaned her head over, so he could see her better. He looked at her with his
amber eyes and smiled, as in an everything-is-hunky-dory-and-life-is-good kind
of smile. Sawyer rarely smiled and never a smile filled with such happiness and
contentment. And he certainly didn’t smile at her.
Something
wasn’t right.
She tried
to see his pupils since he had been drugged and knocked out, but the garage was
too dark to assess them.
“Hey
there, big guy. Can you get up for me, so we can go into the house?”
“Sure,”
he said with a dopey smile, still lying there without even attempting to get up.
Sure?
Now, she knew something was wrong.
This was
not the Sawyer that she knew. Sawyer was not passive. Sawyer was not cheerful.
And Sawyer certainly did not agree with anything she said.
The
sooner she got him into the house, the better.
“Okay,
big boy, let’s get you up.”
She
exited to go to Sawyer’s side of the vehicle again. As she walked around to the
open passenger door, he stared at her the whole time through the windshield,
almost as if he were in a daze. He was starting to creep her out a little
because he was never like this.
When she
reached him, she got his legs out of the car and grabbed his hands. “I’m going
to help you sit up. On the count of three, you push, and I’ll pull, okay?”
“Okay,”
he answered.
She wasn’t
sure if he’d even heard what she said.
“Okay.”
She nodded. “One, two, three, and go!”
She
yanked on his arms, hard, and it appeared that Sawyer was trying to help, but
holy shit was the man heavy. She got him into a sitting position, and his feet
were on the ground, but it hadn’t been easy. It took another ten minutes to get
him into the house, and despite the cold garage, she had started to break a
sweat.
“Let’s go
to the couch,” she told him.
Thankfully,
it was cleared off. Her brother was a bachelor, and even though he was in his
early thirties, he still lived like he was ten years younger. After she helped
Sawyer get to the couch, she looked around and noticed the place was remarkably
clean. She hoped it didn’t mean what she thought it meant.
She went
over to the thermostat and saw that the temperature was turned down to
sixty-two degrees. That wasn’t good either. She turned the heat up to seventy
before she used the bathroom. She prayed her brother’s girlfriend, Anna, had
left some feminine products there.
Kenzie
was in luck. She was relieved to get rid of her makeshift pad. Thank God that
she was on birth control, that her periods were really light and would only
last a few days, and that she was already on day three.
After she
was done with the bathroom, she rummaged around her brother’s coat closet for a
warm coat, hat, and gloves. Once she found a spot to leave the car, she’d have
to walk home. To say she wasn’t looking forward to freezing her ass off while
wondering if someone was out there, planning to kill her, would be an
understatement.
She
looked back at Sawyer and tried to ignore her irritation. She knew it wasn’t
his fault that he’d been drugged and injured, but it wasn’t fair that she would
have to do this all on her own either. She could really use his help right now.
After
finding everything she needed, she returned to his side to check on him before
she left. His eyes were closed, but he didn’t seem to be sleeping, so she
nudged him.
He opened
his eyes and looked at her. She could see his pupils now, and they didn’t
appear to be dilated. That was a good sign, yet something was up. Even injured,
she couldn’t believe he wasn’t taking charge, getting things done, and bossing
her around.
She’d
have to worry about it later though. If she had to deal with one more piece of
bad news right now, she might explode. “I need to go and get rid of the car,
but I’ll be back as soon as possible.”
She put
on her brother’s winter gear while Sawyer watched.
“Do you
think you’ll be okay while I’m gone?”
No reply.
He just
blinked and stared at her hands while she put on the gloves.
“Sawyer,
did you hear what I said? I need to get rid of the car. Are you going to be
okay?”
He slowly
raised his head and looked into her eyes. His brow furrowed, he asked, “Who’s
Sawyer?”
Forbidden Heat
Forbidden Series,
#2
by R.L.
Kenderson
Date of
Publication: December 16th 2014
Genre:
Paranormal Romance
BLURB
Payton Llewelyn, daughter to the
cat-shifter alpha, wakes up with a throbbing head and a bullet wound to the
hip. Recalling the events that led her there, the scent of a shifter permeates
her senses—not that of a cat though, but of a wolf.
Damien Lowell, future pack leader
of the wolf-shifters, has found himself in an impossible situation.
Cat-shifters and wolf-shifters aren’t friends, and what Payton doesn’t know is
that his father is behind her attack. He only meant to prevent her from being
kidnapped, and he now has the wounded princess of the cat-shifters in his
custody.
But when the heat becomes too
much to handle, Damien and Payton must choose whether to follow their instincts
or question the forbidden.
Buy Links:
Excerpt Forbidden Heat:
She tried
to open her eyes, but she had a headache, and the daylight hurt her pupils.
Then, there were the smells. She wasn’t at home or any other place that was
familiar, and the scent of wolf-shifter was strong.
Wolf-shifter.
Payton sat up in bed, jarring her side and sending shooting pains through her
head.
“Oh,” she
moaned as the previous night came back to her.
She’d
left the restaurant after dinner with friends. Three humans had come out of
nowhere and attacked. She had been injured, and then surprisingly, a
wolf-shifter had saved her. It was all very strange.
There
shouldn’t have been any wolf-shifters in the Twin Cities, but she supposed a
few would slip past their radar every once in a while. Since this one had rescued
her, she was shockingly unconcerned. So, that was not what bothered her the
most.
Actually,
it was the humans. Something about them and that whole situation disturbed her.
She’d been in the lit parking lot of a busy restaurant in a good neighborhood.
Why had they picked her to rob? Why there? Unfortunately, thinking only made
her head hurt worse. She’d worry about it later. She should be more concerned
about the present anyway.
She
looked around the room, finally noticing her surroundings. Hardwood floors and
walls all around showed that it was a cabin of some sort. From her spot on the
bed, she looked through the window and could see the cloudy winter sky and an
endless sight of bare trees with a small amount of snow coating the branches.
The scent
of cedar was strong, but it wasn’t the wood cabin. It was her wolf.
My wolf?
She
mentally shook her head. She’d meant, her wolf rescuer. It was obviously his
place. She looked at the empty spot next to her with the rumpled sheets and the
dent on the pillow. This was obviously his room. Had he slept next to her?
A
cupboard slammed in the other room. Sticking her nose in the air, she caught a
whiff of food cooking, and her stomach rumbled.
She
searched the room for a clock with no luck, and she assumed it was late morning
or early afternoon. It was light outside, and days were short in November, so
midday was a good guess.
Throwing
back the covers, Payton attempted to swing her legs over the side of the bed.
Bad idea.
Pain
radiated everywhere. She would need to do this a little slower.
Carefully,
she put her right leg on the floor first. She noticed her right leg was bare.
She looked down at herself. She could feel she was sans underwear. A man’s
flannel shirt was the only thing she wore. She grabbed the collar and brought
it to her nose. Although the smell was faint, it was the wolf’s shirt. It had
been washed after he’d last worn it, and now, her scent covered it, too.
She
pulled up the shirt to look at her throbbing hip. The wound was bandaged and
clean from what she could see. Next, she picked up a chunk of her hair, seeing
it had also been washed.
He had
bathed her, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She appreciated his
care, but she knew he’d seen her naked—as if things weren’t already awkward.
She
lowered her shirt and moved to place her other foot on the floor. She was
working up her motivation to stand when the wolf came to the door, carrying a
tray of food.
They both
froze.
“Payton?”
Wow. Now,
this was a man.
Forbidden Blood
Forbidden Series,
#1
by R.L.
Kenderson
Date of
Publication: July 14th 2014
Genre:
Paranormal Romance
BLURB
Next in line to lead the vampire
species, Princess Naya Kensington has always abided by her royal
responsibilities. At the urging of her best friend, Naya breaks the rules and
crosses the line when she goes to a human nightclub. Following a chance
encounter, Naya alters her life with a singular act forged from lust and blood.
Vaughn Llewelyn has secrets and
obligations of his own, but he ignores them when he spots Naya across the
nightclub. He wants her in a way he’s never felt before, and although he can’t
possibly have more than one night with Naya, he knows no one else will do.
One night of forbidden love
creates a bond that will forever change both of their lives…as well as their
worlds.
Buy Links:
Excerpt Forbidden Blood:
As Naya
moved closer, she found a small opening near the corner of the bar. When she
reached the counter, it was obvious as to why the space had been empty. Next to
her sat a disheveled man perched on a stool. He stank of alcohol and smelled
like he was about a week overdue for a shower. He ogled her, making her
uncomfortable, but people were swarming the bar around her, so she was unable
to put the space she wanted between herself and the dirty drunk.
However,
she was sick of people forcing her to do things she didn’t want to do, whether
it was consciously or subconsciously on their part. She was going to get a
drink, head to the floor, and dance until she started to have fun, even if it
killed her. She would not let anyone ruin her plans.
“Hey,
baby,” he said as he scooted closer, looking her up and down and almost falling
over in the process. Apparently, his intoxicated state wasn’t going to stop him
because he next slurred, “You’re hot,” as he swayed into her personal bubble.
She’d had
to hold her breath when he spoke since his teeth hadn’t met a toothbrush in
some time.
Naya
faced forward and ignored him, hoping he would get the hint. While situations
like this didn’t happen often, she had learned that silence was sometimes the
best policy.
He leaned
in closer. “I said, hey, baby.”
This time,
she gave him a stern look. “Sir, I am not your baby.” She turned away, praying
the straightforward approach would work.
“Wanna
come home with me tonight? We can grab a six-pack of beer and fuck.”
She
gasped. “No!” Gross.
“What?
You don’t like beer?” He laughed at his joke and extended his hand to touch her.
She
jerked her arm away and lifted her chin with confidence. “I’m here with
someone.”
If only
it were true.
He called
her bluff. “I don’t see anyone with you. Why are you playing hard to get,
dollface?”
She
groaned. Why won’t he go away?
She took
a small step back, irritated that she had to be the one to leave, when she
sensed a presence behind her. Even though she couldn’t see the person, she knew
immediately that he was big, male, and powerful. But she wasn’t afraid. In
fact, a calm sense of relief came over her, and she instinctively recognized he
was the one who had been watching her. The deep feelings he’d first stirred in
her now flared to life. Anticipation, excitement, arousal, and exhilaration
fused into one. Her head was spinning as her nostrils flared, and the lonely
place between her legs blazed to life.
From the
mirror behind the bar, she caught a glimpse of a virile male before he slipped
his arm around her waist and pulled her flush against him, engulfing her body
with his own. He kissed her neck and lingered there as if he had the right.
She
tilted her head and let him.
Author Info
R.L. Kenderson is two best
friends writing under one name.
Renae has always loved reading,
and in third grade, she wrote her first poem where she learned she might have a
knack for this writing thing. Lara remembers sneaking her grandmother’s
Harlequin novels when she was probably too young to be reading them, and since
then, she knew she wanted to write her own.
When they met in college, they
bonded over their love of reading and the TV show Charmed. What really spiced
up their friendship was when Lara introduced Renae to romance novels. When they
discovered their first vampire romance, they knew there would always be a
special place in their hearts for paranormal romance. After being unable to
find certain storylines and characteristics they wanted to read about in the
hundreds of books they consumed, they decided to write their own.
They both live in the
Minneapolis/St. Paul area where they’re a sonographer/stay-at-home mom/wife and
pharmacist/mother by day and a sexy author by night. They always love hearing
from their readers.
MY
INTEVIEW WITH R.L. KENDERSON
Q. How would you describe your style of
writing to someone that has never read your work?
A. Fun
and easy to read. We really aim to write for the average romance reader. We
like to write depth to our characters but we try not to make things too
complicated that readers’ throw up their hands and give up on us. While we do
have moments of tension, we are not huge fans of angst, and we want readers to
have a smile on their face when they are reading our books. Oh yeah, and we
write hot and steamy. If you don’t like sex, you shouldn’t read our books.
Q. What are some of your writing/publishing
goals for this year?
A. To
just put a book out. Ha! Seriously, though, we took a two-year hiatus for some very personal reasons, and we really
wanted to jump back on the horse and get going this year. Our goal was to get
one book done, and instead we did two. One of which was our first contemporary
romance, so that’s been really fun. Now, we’d like to just keep riding the
momentum and see how far we can go.
Q. Do you feel that writing is an ingrained
process or just something that flows naturally for you?
A.
Both. Sometimes we really have to make ourselves work, but often once we start
we just take off. So while we haven’t been doing this our whole lives, I feel
like we really have found our calling.
Q. Do you have a character that you have been
working on for a long time that still isn't quite ready, but fills you with
excitement to work on the story?
A. I
would have to say that our last one was like that. We both really loved Dante
and Phoenix but it took them some time to find their HEA. Also, Saxon. We like getting inside Saxon’s head, but he’s not ready to meet his mate yet.
Q. If you could spend one-week with 5
fictional characters, who would they be?
A. Renae: I want to spend a week with the hero
of our new contemporary romance, Luke. Then hands down, I would want to spend
time with Sam Starrett from Suzanne
Brockmann’s Troubleshooters series. My next three would be Cal from Susan
Elizabeth Phillip’s Nobody’s Baby But
Mine, Riley from Nalini Singh’s Psy/Changeling series, and Luke from
Kristen Ashley’s Rock Chick series.
Lara: Honestly, Nate from our book Dirty. I love him! I am lobbying for an
unplanned sequel so I can spend the night with him!!!! Sam from Mr. Perfect by Linda Howard, Cal from
Bet Me by Jennifer Crusie, Lachlan (Lock) from The Mane Squeeze by Shelly Laurenston.
And I’m torn for my 5th person. Either Tack from Motorcycle Man or Mitch from Law Man by Kristen Ashley.
Q. Where would you spend one full year, if you could go ANYWhere? What would
you do with this time?
A.
Renae: I would love to go to Europe, mostly Great Britain, but I’d like to go
to a lot of other countries too. I would spend the whole time exploring and stuffing
my face with authentic food. I’d like to go sight-seeing but also have some
relaxing downtime too.
Lara: I
don’t know that I could pick one place for a full year. But I have always
dreamed of Ireland, so I if I was going to pick a place, it would be there.
Q. Can you share you next creative project(s)? If yes, can you give a few details?
A. In July we
released our first contemporary romance, Dirty, and we are working on doing a
prequel novella about another couple what was in Dirty. Then we’d like to start
working on the fifth book in the Forbidden Series. We haven’t talked titles
yet, but it will most likely be Zane & Isabelle’s story.
Author Links:
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