Contents:
The Cross and the Black 1. Diary of a Married Couple. Simon the immortal sex slave Vampire Lust. Midnight Wolves Part 1, Book 1.
Sold To The Werewolf. Lynx in the Blood. Courtland Chronicles, Books 1 - 3. The High Dragon Takes a Wolf. Hotel Boys Bundle Series Collection: The Werewolf Prince and I. The Virgin Witch and the Vampire King. Training a Submissive Mate. Love Wears A Stetson. A Werewolf Kiss Part One. Thrown to the Wolves. A New Spark - Volume 2. Stripped, Paddled, and Bound. A Turn of the Screwed.
The Prince With No Heart. The Alpha's Mate Werewolf Romance. Falcon," Deluna said, offering her hand. He took it and brought her fingers to his lips, kissing the backs of them very softly. She stared in surprise. It's nice to put a face to the name. Welcome to my home, and thank you for coming to the party.
Falcon was genuinely amused. Cord watched him with thinly veiled suspicion. He excused himself and on his way to the agitated woman waving less than discreetly to him, he stopped and directed one of the waiters to bring her a glass of champagne. Cord's blue and green gaze was hard when he met hers, and she shivered. The night was going to be a long one. The thought had barely passed into her awareness when she felt someone staring at her, the look almost a tangible touch that brushed her spine and made her entire body tingle.
There are things Cord should have told you. Rahve's voice was inside her head somehow and she looked around, trying to locate him in the large crowd. Chills that had nothing to do with the actual temperature make her quiver. She closed her eyes, her equilibrium gone as the room faded to grey shadows. Her last thought was that she'd never fainted in her life, and this was not the time to start.
Kindle Edition , 35 pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Stolen Rapture , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Dec 21, E.
Babcock rated it it was amazing. I loved this book. It was a great read and left me thirsty for more!!!! Jul 23, Amanda Chomiak rated it did not like it. I don't even know what that was. It was the start of a love story which never played out. It was murder for sex. It was an unfinished plot It played no part in the story. And I felt like I picked up a book and opened it to the middle.
So, after wrangling the dogs, buckling Zita's sandals and shouldering her little backpack, Giulia set off from the house with the little chaotic army of her own making, Zita holding her hand and skipping beside her, chattering happily. Caroline met them at the end of the private road in her Jeep , a pink bakery box on the passenger-seat, hidden from Zita's view as Caroline kissed her goddaughter and buckled her in to her booster-seat, and Giulia settled the dogs in the back. Who'd you like to listen to today? Caroline blamed Giulia entirely for Zita's eclectic musical tastes; there was no Taylor Swift for the littlest Miss Salvatore, no encouraging her to gain success by exploiting others.
Rowling; the earthy realism of Roseanne, challenging poignant topics others would shy away from with humour and dignity. And we've had two offers on Number Seven which is really encouraging. The site of the farmhouse Giulia had burned to the ground ten years ago, after the owner and sole resident had been killed by the nest of vampires feeding off her, torturing Stefan for information on Katherine, had reverted back to the town; Giulia and Caroline had bought it, the land backing onto the woods Giulia owned, and had developed it into four apartments and eleven two-bedroom houses with sizeable backyards and a playground, two parking spaces each and a small convenience store that saw a lot of traffic from people stopping by on their way home from work in Richmond.
They were homes for first-time buyers, young couples and small families who had previously struggled to get onto the property-ladder. The rest of Ms Gibbons' land had been turned into the Edible Schoolyard, a working farm, a project that was the brainchild of Giulia, Caroline and the Unified School District, wanting to teach kids about natural ecosystems, agriculture, nutrition and life-skills like budgeting and cooking, teaching kids who'd never seen a live pig what went into their meals.
After buying and remodelling neglected homes all over Mystic Falls, these new projects had been a little more ambitious, some were ongoing, culminating in the jewel of their burgeoning careers, the mall. They had given the town a much-needed facelift and a push into the twenty-first-century, at the same time keeping giant developers away from their town limits. Their projects were Giulia's passion and Caroline's baby. Sets the bar pretty high, just does not stop working!
Rose says he's amazing at the Boarding House - I was at the Edible Schoolyard when some of the little kids were there for a workshop, he was so incredibly sweet and patient with them. You can tell when you're talking to him, he really listens , and he thinks about how he wants to answer," Caroline sighed softly. Rose and I are totally crushing on him. They finished the job on Juniper really well, I'm really happy with the team we put together, those kids really take a lot of pride in the job they do. So much better than the guys we used on Sixth.
Take a left here…". You know, we have to be proactive, this is how we protect the town we love, ensuring more organic growth, bringing more money in… I think the mall going up really has helped people see things can be done, and done beautifully , to actually enhance the town… After all the resistance the town got, the abuse we got, I mean — it's amazing how people's opinions can change when there's money involved! And it has brought in the economy we needed.
Everything was starting to get so stagnant; there's actually stuff to draw people to the town, and young people can actually afford to live here. Giulia smiled to herself; these were all the arguments she had used to convince Caroline, four years ago, to help her put the idea forward to the town to build their first ever mall.
And everything was accessible through the town centre, drawing people in to Mystic Falls: Considering it's such an agricultural area, it's making me think of farmer's markets. Like Borough Market in London.
Stolen Rapture [ménage, vampires] - Kindle edition by Denyse Bridger. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features. Stolen Rapture [ménage, vampires] eBook: Denyse Bridger: www.farmersmarketmusic.com: Kindle Store.
Ten years ago, it had been a spooky part of Mystic Falls history left to rot. The decaying house located where a hundred witches had been massacred centuries before now no longer looked like a haunted mansion, the beautiful antebellum house now a crisp white, with sage-green shutters, pretty clematis and honeysuckle and a redbrick circular footpath in front of the house, the flowerbeds overflowing with herbs and plants and delicate flowers and succulents in pretty greens and purples, flecked with white, a stone birdbath water-feature bubbling delicately in the circular bed in the middle.
It was one of their earliest projects, after Giulia and Sheila Bennett had lobbied the town for historical status; because of the witch-spirits, they'd had a string of nasty accidents, until Sheila had put a stop to it. Now, the spirits were focused, kept busy; and Giulia had been working on something with Sheila that would keep them placated.
Something that can appease the witches and put some coin in our pockets to cover the cost of the renovation. You know, she's retired from full-time teaching and spends a lot of time with Penelope, but she's still itchy," Giulia said. It would be Sheila's legacy for Penelope and the Unborn… But for now, I've found a purpose for the house in the short-term. Caroline gave her a sunny smile. One has an insanely huge basement; the other has a really beautiful yard they obviously put so much love into, so if we buy it I think we really have to be careful to respect it.
I really want them. And then, there's this. Colonial farmhouse on three acres, it's been abandoned for years, the title-holder of the deed finally died so it's reverted back to the county. Two-storeys, non-symmetrical, with a redbrick two-storey porch to the left and a bay-room to the right.
Kyrene Femiani rated it it was ok Jan 01, It was one of her favourite parts of their day. I'm more than certain it was a freebie. Christina rated it liked it Oct 17, Giulia always knew where Zita was emotionally by the piano; if it was ever silent, she knew to coax Zita out of her shell with a pineapple dessert, hedgehog stickers, or an afternoon with Grandma Liz. The small ceramic ornament shattered, exploding with the force of a small grenade, dust flying. Silently, he appeared downstairs, behind Zita, playfully pinching her nose, disappearing when she whirled, then grabbing her from behind so she shrieked a delicious giggle as he lifted her into his arms.
And then, this one. It's actually a few properties along from our renovation on Briar Road, it's way back from the road behind tons of trees; access isn't challenging , but if you didn't know you were looking for something, you'd never find it," Caroline said. Giulia frowned at the photograph. A decayed three-storeyed Victorian with a cupola made almost entirely of windows. The potential for that little room alone drew Giulia in, as much as the usable attic space beneath.
Caroline loved timeless Practical Magic -esque Victorians they could breathe new life into. Alongside their small first-time-buyer properties, she and Caroline also invested in renovating larger, far grander properties — old colonial mansions, grand Victorians, farmhouses, barns and, more difficult and far more fulfilling to Giulia, protected historical buildings. They were trusted to do their research and really breathe new life into neglected old properties that had once had great significance to the town.
Let me take a look during the week, I'll run some numbers, see the maximum you can bid," Giulia sighed, and Caroline beamed. They knew the house, too. Zita loved the pretty backyard with the swing in the old plum-tree, and the creek where she'd often caught fish. Giulia took out her key, letting them into the house, Zita bouncing in her excitement. As soon as they were inside, Zita raced through the foyer, the sunshine glinting off the parquet floor trimmed with mosaic-inlays, the breeze stirring the delicate white sheers over the windows in the formal dining-room, and the huge glass vase of white peonies and lilac resting on the large round table in the centre of the foyer; Finn had cut the flowers from the Boarding House gardens, one of the perks of his job.
It had been their first project, and to date their only unsold property. Gorgeous staircase for her to trip down," Giulia said, and Caroline shot her a look. Turning it into a museum and dedicated research centre honours all the people who were killed here. Ensures they're not overlooked because it's uncomfortable for people to remember. Her imaginary friends," Giulia chuckled richly, raising her eyes to the mezzanine gallery, where a slash of dark appeared amid the creamy magnolia. Chestnut hair shorn close into a gorgeous fade at the sides, a little longer on top, pretty eyes, thin lips and a rich tan, insane shoulders highlighted by a slim-fitting charcoal Henley shirt, a smile softening the severity of his features, although his eyes lingered apprehensively on Caroline.
Silently, he appeared downstairs, behind Zita, playfully pinching her nose, disappearing when she whirled, then grabbing her from behind so she shrieked a delicious giggle as he lifted her into his arms. Giulia smiled and watched as he cuddled her in his arms, responding quietly as Zita jabbered away in rapid — and unbeknownst to her, medieval — Italian, grabbing his cheeks with her tiny, dimpled little hands to pepper his lips with kisses.
Zita cradled against his hip, he approached them, eyeing a bemused Caroline warily. He greeted Giulia with a half-hug around her waist, kissing both cheeks slowly, his expression solemn, closed off… questioning. When he spoke, it was in the same medieval Italian Zita had no idea she spoke to him, the same language Finn had been speaking when he had a silver dagger thrust through his heart nine centuries ago: Apart from compelled stylists, Giulia had never brought anyone but Zita to the house, and certainly without giving notice.
The fact that she had brought Caroline, who was known to Finn if only from afar, was an immediate indicator to quiet, shrewd Finn that something had changed. Giulia smiled gently, glancing past Finn, distracted by an excited, entranced Zita jabbering away in his ear, at the second dark slash in the doorway, this one petite and utterly feminine. Over the last ten years, they had been creating Mystic Falls as a sort of safe-haven. It would always be Stefan and Damon's home, had been for years; it would also be Caroline's home, too. Her first home, the place where she had lived.
Where she had grown up. It was part of her first life, her only human life. That would always make this town special, worth protecting. And it was now home to Rose, too. And it was home to Mason, and Hayley, and their son Spencer. It was Zita's home. In ten years, they had had no vampire-attacks.
No werewolf-encroachment on their territory. No campers had been found mauled to death in the woods. Giulia had made sure of it. Over the last decade, the ideology of Mystic Falls' secret Council had evolved to reflect the new enlightened generation's ideas. Caroline, Rose, Damon, Giulia herself, would always be welcome in town for as long as they helped protect it — from others. Not just from developers, but from the monsters that truly went bump in the night… The ones like Klaus. Giulia called it regression to the mean ; things had to find their way back.
Nothing could ever be wholly calm or wholly chaotic, not for long. Wars wound down, fashions evolved, every decade was a reaction — a counteraction — to the one before it. Full to the brim with adventures and chaos and delicious memories and heartbreak as the last ten years had been…they were due some upheaval. Klaus had demanded a decade of Stefan's life in payment for saving Damon's.
A pint of Klaus' blood, for Stefan's freedom. The little blood-bound clay totem shattering this morning had literally announced Klaus' return with a bang. Giulia had always been proactive.
Rather than wait for things to happen, she went out and seized life by the balls. Months ago, Giulia had pulled the silver-dagger out of Finn's chest, secreted the dagger away, and started helping the medieval vampire acclimate to modern life. After Elijah, the next-born in a sprawling family was Finn. A twin - the death of Finn's twin-sister Freyja had set their parents on a path that had led ultimately to the creation of vampires.
From them, every vampire in existence had been created. Brothers and sisters — Kol, a cousin, the son of their mother's sister, taken as an infant due to his mother's mental instability. The only child of Elijah's out of seven to survive. There was only one way to kill an Original vampire — and then, only temporarily. A mystical dagger, forged of silver and magic, when coated with the ash of an ancient white oak Elijah and Finn's mother had used in the spell that created her children as vampires — embedded in their hearts, rendered Original vampires…for all intents and purposes, dead.
Kol had escaped that fate. Because Giulia had stolen and hidden away the two spare silver-daggers Klaus had been careless enough to hand out ten years ago, superbly arrogant in his belief he was untouchable, trying to get Elijah out of his way to complete the sacrifice ritual to release his true nature. But Finn… He had spent a millennium inside a coffin, a silver dagger embedded in his breastbone.
Now, Finn's hazel eyes skimmed from Giulia and Caroline and back. She frowned slightly at Giulia. In his human life, Finn had shared the labouring of a farm with his older-brother Elijah. Everything they grew sustained their family, and a thousand years ago a failed crop meant a slow, agonising death. In trying to help him acclimate to this new time, Giulia had given Finn a job she knew was ingrained in his personality — a thousand years ago or now, farming essentially had not changed.
The methods and machinery had, but the backbreaking hard-work and dutiful care of the crops was the same. Working at the Boarding House put Finn in limited contact with people from whom he could learn more about the English language, the culture, how people dressed and held themselves; he had to puzzle out why no-one carried weapons — guns baffled him — and his job gave him something to do.
It was full of warmth, maturity; wisdom, born of experience. When she spoke, her voice was paradoxically light, young ; she looked barely sixteen. Her accent was also a crystal-clear English: The petite girl with incredibly fine black lashes and pretty lips, and a contradictory aura of fragility, humanity and unflappable courage slipped forward, a smile flirting at her lips as she snuck up and tickled Zita, who wriggled and shrieked with giggles in Finn's arms; he was always so careful with her, cautious of his immense strength around something so utterly delicate.
Zita giggled richly, beaming, and leaned down with her lips puckered for a kiss from her friend. Gyda wore a customised Star Wars vest tee, braless, a colourful printed mini-skirt and purple suede ankle-booties, delicate bracelets and bangles glittering on her slender forearms, unusual stud-earrings glinting at her earlobes, her cheeks flushed delicately, eating a passion-fruit with a teaspoon.
She was obsessed with fresh fruit. Gyda delicately cupped Zita's face in her slender hand, her fingernails filed, buffed and polished a beautiful glossy navy, pressing a tender kiss to Zita's lips, her smile so warm and genuinely affectionate. Gyda then turned to Caroline, her eyes twinkling. Since Giulia had woken her, Gyda had been researching the modern world, including its fashions, and she was cultivating an aesthetic of a polished, immaculate rebel, with a focus on the details, nodding to various aspects of her personal history, conscious of the socio-political climate she now found herself reintegrating into, consuming magazines and any newspaper she could get her hands on, exploring the Internet.
She was incredibly pretty, and it was a natural prettiness that transcended changing beauty fads throughout the ages; she had a delicate constellation of freckles across her little nose, and her fine black eyelashes framed beautiful dark chocolatey-brown eyes full of depth and warmth. Just like her father's. Petite in build, unassuming, she had learned through experience how to own any room she walked into, her posture extraordinary. Caroline turned wide eyes on Giulia, that characteristic look on her face, the deep breath before the plunge, the cogs whirring manically, biting her tongue, the bomb-blast look.
She may not have heard Giulia say the name Gyda in everyday conversation, but she had become as close with Kol as Giulia was, and especially after a few of his more adventurous cocktails, he tended to tell stories. Caroline turned to Giulia, communicating with her eyes what politeness and good breeding prevented her from exploding aloud.
The Gyda, the Gyda that Kol told stories about. In the company of the best groundskeeper ever employed at the Boarding House, who was ' so incredibly sweet and patient' with the little kids visiting the Edible Schoolyard, and on whom Caroline and Rose playfully admitted to being 'totalling crushing'. I think it's marvellous; Isak says he doesn't like it. Having been daggered in the Eighties by her uncle, Klaus, Gyda's first act to assimilate into modern life was to get a haircut. She had shorn her hair into a stunning pixie-cut; she was obsessed with and had taken on Emma Watson as her role-model and inspiration for her 'rehabilitation' into modern life, deeply impressed with the child-actress' career progression to university graduate, outspoken feminist, socio-environmentally-conscious, conscientious fashion-icon and U.
Gyda said Watson reminded her of Shirley Temple, another child-star with an extraordinary adult life.