Words, words, and all the words for me this week. I’m back at real-life work part-time, too, but I am loving life, enjoying the sun, and getting lots done! I hope wherever you are, whatever life is throwing at you, you are able to find something that makes you smile amidst the chaos. 

But now it’s time to spill the tea with Delaney Rain!

Delaney’s Quirky Questions

 Holly: If you could be an animal for a day what would it be and why?

 Delaney Rain: I think it would be fun to be a house cat for a day and experience all of their amazing senses and physical agility. Having the time of your life with a crumpled up paper ball would be pretty awesome too! LOL

 Holly: If you could have any superpower what would it be and why?

 Delaney Rain: I would like to have the ability to teleport because I hate to travel but I love going to new places. If I could just appear somewhere—aside from not having to pay for it!—then I wouldn’t have the stress of the journey to contend with before I get to experience the destination.

 Holly: Does writing exhaust you or energize you?

 Delaney Rain: Writing could do either. When I get stuck, writing can be exhausting. But when the words are flying out of me, it’s exhilarating.

 Holly: What’s your writing process like?

 Delaney Rain: Lately, my writing process has changed because I started posting my books on Patreon chapter by chapter each week. I’ve gone from a random, scattered writing/publishing schedule to releasing a new book every three months—sometimes two per month since I write more than one book at a time now! I feel like I’ve grown up as an author thanks to this new process.

 Holly: What’s on top of your fridge?

 Delaney Rain: LOL! Probably a whole lot of dust. I’m 5’2” so I can’t see up there without a step stool.

 Holly: What’s your favorite thing to do to relax?

 Delaney Rain: I have a couple of apps on my phone that are tap to color, so I’ll sit down and color pictures and just chill out.

 Holly: Where did your inspiration come from for your MCs?

 Delaney Rain: The overall idea came from a writing prompt meme I found earlier this year, and while sorting out who was who, I decided I wanted my main character, Dwyer, to be aware of the supernatural but no expert, flirty and funny, and unafraid. His love interest, Tamiel, I decided to make serious, possessive, and desperate to keep Dwyer for as long as he can. They’re one of my favorite couples.

Excerpt

Chapter 1

With a hand braced on the wall, I did my best to aim and piss into the urinal. Though I wasn’t twenty-one for a couple more minutes, I’d been drinking for a few hours in the crappiest bar I could find. Everything was pleasantly fuzzy around the edges.

Was the urinal cake giving me the finger? I supposed I’d be grouchy too if everyone peed on me. I redoubled my efforts to hit the thing, closing one eye and sticking my tongue out to help my aim. The cake thing was lavender but I doubted it smelled like a flower. No, wait, my glasses had a rose ombre thing tinting them. If I looked down, the cake was purple. If I looked up, it was—

I flinched at the sudden sound of a lot of doors slamming and accidentally squeezed my dick. “Shit! Ow. Sorry, buddy,” I told it and finished emptying my bladder. Looking over my shoulder, I saw several guys behind me. I snickered. “Be right with you, boys!”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

I frowned and looked again since wasn’t it obvious what I was doing? But none of them were looking at me. I finished up, got myself put back together, and flushed as the guys started talking over each other about this being their claim, who are you… Honestly, it was weird and confusing. Like, they all came in here at the same time without knowing why? Moving to the sink, I tried not to eavesdrop, but it was impossible to ignore them as their voices rose in anger.

A few of them were seriously hot, I realized as I peered at them in the mirror over the sink. One was a dangerous kind of brutally hot with a heavy brow ridge and muscles for days. He was using his size and barking voice to front on the others as they argued. I could handle an alphahole for a few hours. Maybe if his dick was hard his mouth would be shut.

Actually, I’d have happily fucked three of them in a heartbeat—together even—since they had that sort of stern daddy look of men who knew their way around a dungeon, you know? Tall, dark, and handsome was well-represented here tonight. And I had a serious hard-on for confident men.

Three other guys didn’t look like they belonged with the rest. One had a long-haired, hippy kind of thing going on. He was staring hard at me, arms crossed and looking like he was not having a good night. The two that really had me confused were the old guys—like in-their-eighties old—who were also squaring off with the rest of them. One of them  was four feet tall and wiry, but the other looked like a buff Santa Claus.

Seriously, had I missed the fact that it was daddy night at the bar?

“Hey,” one of the hotties said, “are you Dwyer Montgomery Eamonn?”

“Yeah?” I turned around while reaching for a paper towel and had to smack a hand on the sink to stop myself from spinning. Bracing my legs, I reached for the towel again and managed to snag it after two tries. I maybe should switch to drinking water for a while. “Unless one of you wants to take me home,” I said and winked at them.

“Who are your parents, boy?” Santa asked.

“What?” That didn’t make any sense. No way would my parents send me a guy for any reason, let alone a harem on my birthday. They tolerated my gayness like it would go away if they didn’t look directly at it. Which had me wondering if I was really seeing what I was seeing. I reached over and poked at Santa to make sure he was real.

Santa caught my hand in both of his and stepped closer to me. “Answer the question, boy.” He didn’t sound upset, which was nice. “What are the names of your parents?”

“Victor and Elizabeth Eamonn.” I squinted. “You want their middle names? I think Dad’s is—”

Some of them erupted with shouts and curses and languages I didn’t understand. I jerked back, somehow getting myself wedged between a urinal and a sink. At least they were yelling at each other and not at me. But why? I’d known plenty of people who got that mad at my parents, but to show up in the men’s room of a dirty little bar in downtown Cleveland? A place my parents wouldn’t set foot in if their lives depended on it? That didn’t make any sense.

“I’ll kill them,” the scary dude said.

“Don’t bother trying,” the blond hottie said as two doors slammed.

Hold on, where’d Scary go? He’d been right there. The dark-haired hottie in a sharp black suit was also gone.

The third hottie was suddenly in my face. “You know who we are?”

I flinched, whacking the back of my head against the wall. My sunglasses slipped down my nose as I rubbed my head. “No, I don’t know any of you. What the hell’s going on?”

His dark gaze roamed over me from behind his own lightly tinted sunglasses. He had on some kind of black jacket that was open down the front so I could see a light dusting of hair across his caramel skin and a tribal tattoo coming over his shoulder onto his right pec. His ripped jeans were so low that I could see more than half of his treasure trail. I licked my lips, and he chuckled at me before he took hold of the front of my open shirt and straightened it. He seemed to like what he saw of my torso under my red and blue plaid shirt. I suddenly felt like a country bumpkin surrounded by fancy city boys.

Two doors slammed. I twitched, and Tattooed Pec turned around, letting me see that Scary and Suited Hottie were back. How were they banging all these doors? There was only one door, and nobody was using it. Well, I wanted to use it. Maybe now was a good time to do that. I started edging toward the exit.

“We can’t touch them,” Scary barked and put his fist through the tile wall. I moved a little faster toward the door. “Some kind of protection spell is all over them.”

That made me pause. My parents liked to boast about the spells protecting them, and since I’d benefitted from some of those spells, I knew they weren’t bullshit woo-woo nonsense. Magic was real. Were these guys somehow involved with the magic my parents used to make themselves more powerful?

“I was trying to tell you,” Blond Hottie said while crossing his arms. “That’s what my deal was for. No supernatural can physically harm them.” He had on a cream V-neck that was now struggling to contain his bulging arms.

“Fucking fantastic,” Suited Hottie said as he ran a hand down his precisely-trimmed, dark beard. His deep blue eyes caught mine. As he lowered his hand, he revealed a slowly expanding grin that had something like surprised delight in it. I was so mesmerized that I could only blink at him.

“Good job, witch,” Scary snarled.

“Fuck you,” Blond Hottie said. “How was I supposed to know they’d promised him to all of you as well?”

The hippie finally spoke up. “How were they even able to do that? Shouldn’t the first deal have bound him and prevented the rest?”

“Not if he wasn’t born yet,” a squirrelly little old dude wearing a bowtie said. “Or they might have done a spell that gave the illusion of his soul being bound, but prevented any binding from adhering.”

“This is fucked!” Scary said and punched the side of the only stall in the room, making it collapse.

Time to go. I turned fully toward the door only to have Tattooed Pec haul me back and press me into the wall with a hand against my chest. “Not yet, sweetheart,” he purred. “We haven’t decided who gets to keep you.”

“What?” I gulped as I looked around and realized all of them were staring at me. “Seriously, guys, I don’t know what my parents might’ve done, but I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Scary waved dismissively at me. “Nobody gives a fuck what you want.”

But Suited Hottie might’ve because he glared at Scary like he disagreed.

“Alright now,” Santa said, raising his hands in the air for a moment. “Let’s all calm down and discuss this rationally.”

“Who the fuck are you to talk to me?” Scary got up in Santa’s face, and I held my breath as I reached for my phone in my back pocket. I wasn’t going to get between them, but I could call for help.

Suddenly, Scary was bouncing off the wall beside me, sending me and Tattoo scrambling to get out of the way. The fuck just happened? Did the old guy throw that muscle-bound menace across the room?

“I think,” Suited Hottie said in a buttery voice, “introductions might be in order.”

“Mind your own business, pretty boy,” Scary said as he got up off the floor, his dark gaze fixed on the old man. “I’ve got an old fucker to tear apart.”

“Fine,” Suited Hottie said and stepped back. “Make room, everyone, so this little bit of hell-spawn can kill Vegard, the god of patience, hearth fires, and ice storms.”

I was drunk, scared, and not fully versed in the names of Norse gods, but even I knew the name Vegard. Apparently, Scary did too because he paused and stared at Suited Hottie for a moment like he might be rethinking some choices.

“And my name, little demon,” Suited Hottie said smoothly with a shark’s smile, “is Tamiel.”

A fallen angel? I pressed a hand to my throat as I stared at him, absolutely sure I knew that name and amazed to discover the fallen were real.

Scary bobbed his head and stepped back, though I got the feeling he’d return to rabid dog levels of pissed off any minute. I looked at the ones not claiming to be gods or angels, but they didn’t seem to be afraid of becoming Scary’s next targets.

The Blond Hottie chuckled. “Two fairies, a witch, a minor god, and a handful of demons walk into a bar…”

Tattooed Pec laughed with him and held his hand out to fist-bump. So they were getting along, but was that really who these people were? There was no way these were guys doing some kind of role-playing cosplay thing because, while Vegard and Tamiel were powerful as all hell, they were pretty obscure to most people. I’d liked reading the weird shit in my parents’ library, especially the books in the hidden library in the locked basement of their mansion in Ireland. I’d had a lot of fun down there when my parents were ignoring me.

“But he’s an angel,” I said for who knew what fucking reason since no, I didn’t actually want their attention back on me. Which was what that dumbass statement got me.

“Oh, darling,” Blond Hottie said, “have a look at them without their glamours.”

I frowned as he reached out toward me and twisted his wrist like someone turning a doorknob. A heartbeat later, my breath caught in my throat as I stared at the collection of supernatural beings standing in front of me.

Blond Hottie still looked human, but his skin was crawling with incantations that glowed red or gold.

Tattooed Pec was about the same, but his facial features were exaggerated, he had a set of short horns on his forehead, and his previously lovely skin was covered in scales.

The hippie was still beautiful, but now his ears were pointed and his hair was a tangle of branches and vines, while his clothing was made of leaves and flowers.

Vegard still looked like a fit Santa, but he glowed with a soft and beautiful white light.

The squirrelly old guy creeped me out because he had flat golden eyes with matching claws and teeth.

Scary was… Fucking Christ, he was like a lava man, the darkened crust of him barely holding back the slithering liquid fire just under the surface and peeking through the cracks in his muscles. He opened his mouth, and I was pretty sure I saw hell inside.

My panicked gaze landed on the other hottie, the one who’d been pretty quiet so far, and I couldn’t quite figure out what I was seeing. He was a vapor, a haze of blue that solidified and vanished as if with a pulse. There and gone and back again, only a set of glowing white eyes staring into my soul.

I was having trouble breathing until I looked at Tamiel. I didn’t know what fallen angels were supposed to look like, but I knew they weren’t demons. Well, I didn’t think of them that way at least. They were angels who’d sinned, so okay, they weren’t all beauty and light anymore. And now I knew, as I looked at him, that the devil in him was seriously fucking hot.

Tamiel was mostly the same…on one side. Handsome face, gorgeous skin, a huge white-feathered wing. Then there was his left half which was burned black like he’d been charred in a fire. The wing on that side was missing most of its feathers, the remaining ones blackened and still smoking. One hand was manicured and the other had claws. He was the epitome of the duality of a soul, something angels weren’t supposed to possess.

And looking at Tamiel calmed me down. I could take a breath and relax back against the wall behind me. I had no idea why staring at one of the scariest things in the room was chilling me out.

Tamiel chuckled. I got the feeling he knew why.

“Fuck this,” Scary said, his voice like a predator’s growl. “I might not be the strongest one here, but I won’t give up on my claim. I have just as much right to the firstborn as the rest of you.”

“Firstborn?” I whispered, mostly to myself. Did he mean me?

The tattooed demon chucked me under the chin. “We’ve all made deals with your parents over the years that should’ve meant we get their firstborn child.”

I shook my head. No. No, that was not possible! My parents wouldn’t do that to me. No fucking way they would sell me for spells!

I ran. I twisted around and got out the door as voices raised in alarm behind me. I could see my friends at a table beyond the end of the hallway I was sprinting down. Why I thought getting to a bunch of biology nerds would make the world normal again, I didn’t know, but that was my goal. Just get to them and get out of there and everything would be fine. Just fine.

I didn’t make it.

One second I was in the bar and the next I was standing on grass and teetering at the edge of a drop-off above the endless black of star-filled space. I screamed, arms windmilling as I tried to stop my forward momentum, up on my toes and starting to fall.

Someone grabbed the back of my shirt and nearly ripped it off. A second later and a hand wrapped around my throat and pulled me backward. I slammed against a sturdy chest, and his other arm clamped around my waist. I didn’t mind his clutching hold since he had just saved me from a confusing but pretty certain death.

Broad and strong hands caressed my throat and stomach. I closed my eyes as I realized who held me. The crisp white cuffs and the black suit jacket were a dead giveaway. I covered Tamiel’s hands with mine and leaned against him.

“You’re going to be such trouble,” he whispered in my ear, sounding like he was looking forward to it.

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What I’m reading this week!

How fitting that I am making my way through the Possessive Love series. I’m just getting started with Jax Stuart’s My Demon Husband, but I have them all and am getting the new ones as they hit.

Check out the series here.

And in between Demons I’m reading Kesley Hodge’s incredible For the Love of the Protector, too! Yes I started with book four, but I’ll definitely be going back to the beginning and reading in order. 

Check it out today. 

I hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of Holly’s Quirky Questions.

 A huge thank you to Delaney. You are awesome! And I’m so stoked to have a whole chapter to get me excited for The Demon’s Dealbreaker.

Next week we have EJ Frost.

Until then: Find a Spark of Magic Every Day.