I scream as the burning mist reaches my face and engulfs my entire body. A sharp gust of wind blows through the door, knocking me to my knees and the mist slowly dissipates.
I look down and see my body is covered now. Navy blue coveralls with bright orange stitching cover my body. There, on the right chest pocket, reads the words “New Recruit.”
I claw at the stitching, trying in vain to scratch it out of existence.
“No, this isn’t supposed to happen. I am not… this isn’t my future. This isn’t my destiny. It can’t be.” My voice catches as I slowly sit up, looking around the shack and staring at the two men. They both look at me with guarded looks. The smiley one looks uncertain and my Raven guide looks crestfallen.
“Check your left pocket.” He whispers at me, gesturing at the packet of papers that had appeared with my coveralls.
Slowly, I pull the thick packet out of my pocket and read the first page. A white hot rage unlike anything else I have ever felt fills me as I read:
Duty Orders: Dalia Rowen, Raven Clan Rowen.
Assigned Duty: Raven Sentry Recruit, Shadow Island SuperMax Prison
Training Officers Assigned: Raven Sentry #657 and #658
Duty Term: Permanent
Without a word to my hosts, I stomp out of the room and out the door, determined to find a way off this cursed island. Shadow Island SuperMax Prison is not my destiny. I will find a way out, if I have to fight The Fates themselves to do it.
The End (For Now)
Enjoyed Reporting For Duty? Be sure to leave a review! Want to be alerted when the Raven Sentries of Shadow Island comes out this summer? Be sure to follow my BookBub! Note: Raven Sentries of Shadow Island is a paranormal prison romance with MFM couplings.
About the Author
Bee Murray is an emerging romance writer based out of the Pacific Northwest. She enjoys spending time with her family, staring out at a stormy ocean, diving headfirst into the magical worlds created by her favorite authors and cheese plates. A voracious reader turned writer, she dreams of everything from grand adventures with deep complex characters to pun-filled romantic comedy and the strange nonsense that lives somewhere in-between. She likes to genre-hop but spends a lot of time writing in the realms of paranormal romance, reverse harem, mythology, and urban fantasy.
For more information on upcoming projects or to stay in touch, you can find her on Facebook and Instagram or on Twitter Come say hi?
Rock, Meet Hard Place
Magic, Mayhem, & Rebellion Series
Jen Ponce
About Rock, Meet Hard Place
Mayhem isn’t an ordinary gargoyle. He has dreams. He has a fricking boulder list and his number one desire is to go Above. Cue Korri Marchand, Queen of Hell. She has a job for Mayhem and his friend Crush if they’re willing: go Above and protect her friend Poppy.
The catch?
Gargoyle magic doesn’t travel, which means Mayhem and Crush must become flesh and blood witches. It’s all right though, their meat suits are large, their muscles hard, and their dimples on point. They’re ready to keep Poppy safe whether she likes it or not … and oh, she does not like it.
Rock? Meet hard place.
Chapter One
The woman who’d taken Hecate’s throne was bloodthirsty.
I liked her.
It was too bad she’d gotten caught up with the demons first, though at least she’d tangled herself with a few of the good ones. When she called me to the Star of Thirteen for an audience, our clan leader Muckrake didn’t want me to go. “They’re demons, Mayhem. They don’t hold true to their word to our kind,” he’d said, and I knew this was so. But I also knew that Malphas and Lux had always treated me with respect. I didn’t know either Abaddon or Baphomet very well, but they seemed to agree with their fellow demons that Korri Marchand Kronos was all right.
Better than all right considering the heated looks they gave her and the way they growled when anyone got near her.
Ah, lust. It was a beautiful thing.
Even though he disagreed with my decision to talk with Korri, Muckrake didn’t stop me from going. Instead, he asked me to take my brother with me. My brother then insisted he bring a couple friends, so of course I had to bring one too.
The five of us set off with a whomp of our wings and took to the red skies of Hell, flying south from our home to the capital city of the demons. I was a weird gargoyle in that I enjoyed seeing new places. Most of our kind liked to stick close to their homes, to the buildings they guarded and the mountains they roamed. I’d never had that same desire. I wanted to see the world or even other worlds and I had the niggling suspicion the demons held the key to fulfilling that desire.
“What are we doing?” my brother asked. Massacre was a big ‘goyle like me, though his skin was onyx, shot through with thin veins of ruby. I wasn’t that pretty and that was okay. My skin was the grey of a stormy sea and I turned silver when wet, way cooler than Mass, who just looked greasy.
“We’re flying to meet with the new Queen of Hell. Duh.”
He gave me a look that told me he thought I was an idiot. “Why are we at the demons’ beck and call?”
“We aren’t. We’re merely dropping in for a friendly visit with a nearby ruler. How can that be bad for our clan? And maybe we’ll get some boons from the new queen.”
He snorted. “You always were a dreamer.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“And yet I feel lighter and happier because of it.” I
