Week Twenty – The Shadow Road

Friday Fun is back! For this week’s, we’re off to the Eight Kingdoms for a taste of sexy goodness. Book four, The Shadow Road, is currently available for preorder…and full of temptations!  




From The Back Cover: In the wake of Dealla’s latest atrocity, Macsen has learned a lesson he will never forget. To love is to fear, and he intends to make sure that his fear never comes to pass. Bran is less than pleased with being left behind while Macsen hunts Dealla, but he has trouble of his own to distract him. An unknown ability is growing in him—magic that has nothing of Summer in it. Disturbed, Bran convinces Macsen to come with him to question his mother. Only she knows who Bran’s father is, and the secret half of his bloodline is the most likely source of his new power.

Elenn agrees to Bran’s request, but for her own reasons. Faelan, one of the gancanagh, is to be Bran’s guide to his father, and she has ordered him to seduce the Red King and prove his love false. Faelan has no desire to follow through, but also no choice. His queen has commanded, and he must obey.

Macsen and Bran aren’t the only lovers whose feelings are being put to the test. After five thousand years of separation, Myrddin has no choice but to accept Kas’ help in restoring the spring and its rite to the mortal world. The difficulty is that he wants Kas to desire him for himself, not out of necessity, and the whole of reality is standing in his way.

Where is the line that divides determination from desire? Love is power—but is it enough?


Macsen ran his fingers through the wild mess of Bran’s hair, bent to his mouth and pressed Bran back against the table behind him, back and back until he was sprawled half across it. “Did you miss me? You taste like you missed me.”

Bran arched up into his arms, hooked a leg around Macsen’s legs and held him close for a deeper kiss.

“Does that mean yes? Bran… I missed you, Bran.” His hands were cold, cold like they hadn’t been since the beginning. His mouth, too, was cold—cold against Bran’s mouth, his throat, his collarbone, his shoulder. He could tell just by how hot Bran felt against him. “Missed you… Missed you.”

He wrapped his arms around Bran’s body, curled himself over him and kissed the curve of his ear. “Tell me you’re well, Anwylyd.” And again, against the line of his throat, “I missed you.”

“I’m fine. Fine. Better now that you’re home.” He turned a little in the circle of Macsen’s arms. “I missed you too.” He lifted his mouth expectantly, and Macsen pressed closer, kissed him again more deeply. “Hmm…” Bran pulled back. “You’re so cold.”

“Yes. And you are hot.” Macsen drew Bran up, kicked the bench out of the way and pushed him back onto the table. Bits of gold scattered, glinting in the firelight and ringing as they rolled and fell.

“Not here. You’re going to make a mess, Macsen.”

“Yes, let’s make a mess.” Macsen ran his tongue over the line of Bran’s throat as he tilted his head back, down along his collarbone to his shoulder. “A beautiful mess.” Faintly, the pattern of his own teeth was marked there, the scar of the bite he had left to heal on its own at Bran’s request, when they’d begun their courtship, when he’d had to leave…

As it had every time since the first time he’d noticed the scar, the sight filled him with desire, woke all his possessive instincts. Maybe no one else could see it, but it didn’t matter. Indelible, it beckoned him, called to him. This time when he gave in to his own desire and bit deep, seeking Bran’s blood, it was just in that place, aligning the new bite with the marks of the old.

Bran shuddered in his arms, groaned and twitched his hips up against Macsen’s body. “The floor—everything is going to—Macsen, you…ohhh…” But Bran couldn’t make the words into a sentence, and his body betrayed the truth of his desire. He didn’t relax his embrace, and one moaning exhalation after another came hot against Macsen’s skin. His fingers crawled up Macsen’s back and held tight.

I’ll help you pick everything up. Later. Now, make more sounds for me.”

Macsen’s voice was rough with blood, with the feral rush that was the result of such a feast as he had made for himself in the mortal world. Winter’s strength was restless in him, his own power was building on the heels of it, and beside all those things the wanton willingness of his lover—beloved, beautiful, groaning under him, muttering his name again and again… It flushed him with lust.

“Is there anything you wouldn’t give me, Bran?” He murmured the words against the soft heat of Bran’s throat. “Anything I could ask to which you might say no?”

There was no answer but moaning, the soft exhalation of hot breath as Macsen slipped his hands under Bran’s tunic. Bran moved in his arms, wrapped his legs around Macsen’s back, reached up into his hair with both hands.

Macsen knew what he wanted, all of what he wanted, and laughed all but silently against the curve of his shoulder. “A mess, you said. I will make a mess of you, and everything, everything. I’m going to take you right here.” He pushed Bran back onto the table. There was a clatter and chiming as more metal fell to the ground and Bran lay back across the empty space, his fingers grasping at Macsen’s arms.

For an instant he looked back over his shoulder, trying to see what had fallen, but Macsen took hold of his trousers in both hands and tore them from him—ripped the laces and the soft sidhe silk right down the seams. Then he bent and bit at the curve of Bran’s hip, kissed a line along the shallow curve of his pelvis, nipped the soft skin of his thigh and set the blood flowing. It made a red stream that he followed greedily with his tongue.

Moans, and “More,” and “More,” came from Bran, and Macsen wet his fingers with oil and pressed two of them deep. There was a dark flush on Bran’s cheeks, his throat, his chest, and Macsen knew there would be fire soon, the beckoning heat Bran could never restrain. He slipped his other hand from Bran’s thigh to his cock, rubbed his thumb over the head.

Fire reached out and wrapped around his arms, his waist, slipped into his clothes and under them, tugging at his skin. He resisted the urge to give in at the first touch, resisted while filaments of heat licked at his cock, brushed over his nipples, slipped past his lips on his every breath. He could feel Bran’s want of him in every touch, and there was pleasure in each one of those demanding caresses.






So much sun.


Summer, it was Summer green and gold, rich juices and wine. He knew he should pull back but Bran’s fingers were tight against his scalp, his skin. The heat of his cock was rigid and twitching against Macsen’s belly, and his hips rocked back against every thrust, begging for more. His whole body was begging for more, his eyes closed and his mouth open for wordless groans.

Faster. Deeper. Harder, until he had to hold Bran still with both hands, grip his hip and shoulder to keep him still against his mouth. The tightness and the fire, the almost-pain where Bran pulled his hair, dug his fingers into Macsen’s back… So good. Pleasure overwhelmed him, one sharp pulse after another spilling out of him and into Bran. Bran cried out a little, shivered, then begged.

“Please, I’m so close, please.” He tugged harder at Macsen’s hair, and Macsen slipped his hand between them, stroked Bran’s cock—but he still pulled, gasped, demanded, and the heaving curve of his throat was too much vulnerability, too much temptation for Macsen to resist. He bit deeper, took more, and Bran locked his legs behind Macsen’s hips and groaned out his release.

Want more? Preorder your copy of The Shadow Road!


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