This is a teaser from the new WIP. I don't have a title for it yet.
Chapter One – Austin
Seventeen years later
HIS OLD man was nuttier than a five-pound fruitcake. That’s what his grandfather liked to say.
Austin's father had gone completely off the deep
end about a week after his eighth birthday. People thought grief and alcohol
were responsible for his breakdown.
It was actually the monster.
His father’s rantings about a seven-foot demon attacking him
had caught the attention of the grandparents. And his family’s peers. And the
media. And the whole world, pretty much. The ‘mad millionaire’ the press called
his father.
They didn’t know how right they were, on several accounts.
It had taken years, and numerous lawyers, but Austin’s grandparents had eventually managed to have his father declared incompetent and carted off to a retreat—meaning a fancy place where the rich sent certain family members so they'd be out of view of the public.
They took control of his father’s realty company and all of
his assets. Austin inherited everything when he turned twenty-five… and promptly
sold it all.
Money was allotted to take care of dear ol’ dad, and that was
fine. He didn’t care. It was worth it to keep his father away from him.
The grandparents raised him and paid for college. They had a
job to do and had done it, as they liked to tell him. Once he inherited, he
moved to the west coast.
He had a college degree that he never used and hated but a job
he loved. Being a best-selling author with one of the top publishing companies
had its perks.
His paranormal books were tremendously popular. The public couldn’t
get enough of the broody vampires and sexy werewolves, and he made a good
living off it.
Austin also didn’t hide the fact he believed in the
paranormal. Some folks probably thought he was a little nutty himself. They
were welcome to think what they wanted. He knew the truth.
Monsters existed.
Were there things that went bump in the night? Were there
creatures who lurked the darkness? Were there monsters under the bed? The
answer was yes to all of it.
Austin didn’t just believe; he knew for a fact something other
than humans existed. He’d met something. Sort of. Okay, he actually hadn’t seen
the monster, he’d only spoken to it.
Kind of hard to see much of anything when you’re hiding in bed
under the covers. Of course, he was doing that because his father was on his
way upstairs to beat his ass. Again.
His monster had saved him. Literately.
From that night onward, something had watched over him. He thought
it was a male. It sounded male. That distinctive deep baritone voice had
reassured Austin as a kid.
Now it made him horny as hell.
Which made him madder than hell.
And he still had no idea what the hell his monster
looked like or what it was. His father called it a demon but that didn’t really
tell Austin anything. He didn’t believe in the concept of Heaven and Hell so
the term demon was useless.
Over the years he’d caught a glimpse a time or two of
something tall and dark, like his father claimed, but that was all, he’d been
damn lucky to get that.
For a monster, it was ridiculously shy.
Which was infuriating. Austin had been asking the creature to
show himself for years. Instead he kept getting the same old song and dance
about not being ready. It made Austin do his own growling. Which, by the way,
did not sound as menacing as his monsters.
Now that was a damn growl.
Lightning danced across the night sky, drawing Austin’s
attention. Thunder grumbled soon thereafter. The smell of rain rode on the
wind, wind that screamed around him. A storm was in the way and his dumb ass
was out in the middle of it.
Bits of paper and other small trash swirled across the parking
lot of the bar. Turning up the collar of his jacket, he walked faster toward
his car.
If his monster would just sit down and talk to Austin, he
wouldn’t be forced to go to back alleys and damn dives in the hopes of getting
information.
