Stone
Silver Devils MC, 1
Written by: April Zyon
Published by: Evernight Publishing
All artwork by: Jay Aheer
Purchase Links:
Evernight Publishing: http://www.evernightpublishing.com/stone-by-april-zyon/
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0788TCMPV/
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Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0788TCMPV/
Amazon Aus: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0788TCMPV/
Bookstrand: https://www.bookstrand.com/stone-mf
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iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/april-zyon/id916028407?app=itunes&mt=11#see-all/top-books
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Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/768087
Blurb:
He'll do anything to keep her safe...
The last thing that wedding planner Ava Charleston ever dreamed that she would do was run for her life, but here she is, running away from a pair of murderers and back toward a home she hadn’t been to in years.
Stone Mayhew is the president of the Silver Devils, a one percenter motorcycle club, so when a brother receives a call from his cousin Ava begging for help, Stone is one of the first ones there to help his friend.
The moment Stone meets Ava he knows that she is it for him, just like his daddy had told him would happen one day. Stone knows that he will do whatever it takes in order to ensure that Ava remains safe, but he doesn’t realize it will have to happen the second that they arrive back at the Club.
Misunderstandings lead to more danger, and that sends them all to chasing down trouble through the bayous of Louisiana. But once he finds Ava, Stone vows never to let her go again.
Excerpt:
Stone Mayhew
When a friend asks you for help the only answer is yes, especially in an MC Club. Of course, I could have told Sarge no. That was one of the perks of being the president of the club, but the fact was that I was curious about this missing family member of Sarge’s, the one that was off limits for discussion.
The one that Sarge had told me about one time when he had been too drunk to realize what he was saying. No one was that good. No one had that little malice in their bodies. I knew. I had thought at one time that I had found someone good in the woman that I had been fucking, but Cheryl had turned out to be a bitch. She thought that because I was a biker and my father had been president of the club that she would ride my dick up the ranks and never have to worry about anything.
Too bad for her that I had found out what a complete bitch she was when one of the old ladies had caught her fucking one of the pledges. Cheryl had gone off on the old lady, telling her that because she was fucking me that had her higher in the pecking order and if she didn’t want to cause trouble for her old man she would keep her mouth shut. Too bad for my ex that I had heard her and then saw her as she hit the woman.
Needless to say, the pledge was never found again, and the whore was put into the place she belonged. She was now a dick rider for anyone that wanted her. Sure, I had to see her and she still tried to get me to fall for her tricks, but I never would again. I was not stupid and wouldn’t fall for any bitch’s shit. No, I was not only Stone in name but also in my heart as well. I wasn’t going to blow Sarge’s viewpoint on his cousin, but I just hoped the woman didn’t turn out to be just as shitty as every other woman that I had met in my life.
Even with all of those thoughts rumbling in my mind I knew I couldn’t let Sarge ride alone. Charles, or Sarge as he was called in the club because he was my Sergeant-at-Arms, was as close to me as a brother. Charles and I had been thick as thieves for years, and I had met all of Charles’s family, even Ava’s mother, who actually had been a decent old lady, but I had never met this woman, Ava. So that was what had me on my bike with a dozen of my men and another half dozen pledges. It was time for us to show force and protect one of our own, even if it was a woman.
We met up with the woman in question along the road, and when I first saw her I had to admit I was taken aback. She didn’t look anything at all like Charles. She was fucking stunning. She had thick, long, midnight black hair that curled around her ass. Her eyes were a deep green, and her skin was lightly tanned. I could tell by looking at her that she had been running her hands through that glorious hair, and it made my dick hard. The thought of wrapping my hands in her hair and fucking her from behind instantly popped into my mind, a thought I shouldn’t have about a brother’s family. And then she spoke. Hell, the woman’s voice was like angels singing, if I believed in such fucking things anymore.
“Charlie!” She called to Sarge and flung herself at him. For the first time in a long time, I felt like punching the man and had no idea why. This reaction was insane, and I didn’t understand it all. I could tell that the woman was surprised by the number of bikers that had surrounded her in the small turnoff that Sarge had told her to take, but she only moved closer to her cousin. “When you said gang, I thought you were kidding,” she whispered to her cousin, words that were caught by every man present.
I had enough and stood. Approaching Sarge and the woman, Ava, I said, “Well, we’re more like a brotherhood.” I offered my tattooed hand to her. “I’m Stone Mayhew, President of the Silver Devils, and you are now officially under our protection.”
I didn’t offer my protection lightly, but I did to her willingly, easily. When she placed her hand in mine the shock was immediate. I had heard my old man talking about this, heard the whispers from some of the older generation of men that were still there and married with old ladies. The ones that were faithful old bastards but still as badass today as they were back when they were taking turns on jobs. Her hand was soft, that was the second thing I noticed, and she looked me in the eyes, not something a lot of people did.
“Nice to meet you, Stone,” she said and then smiled up at me. She hugged me then, taking all of them by surprise. I heard a couple of my men slide their pieces from their holsters and Sarge’s immediate pissed off growl to those men.
“Holster your fucking weapons. She’s just a goddamn hugger, you idiots.” Leave it to Sarge to put a name to what the woman was doing. When she pulled back she looked shocked however.
“You have guns and knives on you.” She had looked up at me as she asked me that question and quickly raced back to her cousin, and the relative safety she thought she had there. If only she knew just how deadly her cousin was.
“Yes, we all have weapons on us, Kitten. We aren’t a damn knitting club. We are an MC club, and we’re a one percenter club at that. That means that we take no fucking shit from anyone, which is why Sarge told you to get your sweet ass down here double time.” I knew I was being a dick, but I had to put distance between myself and the woman because I wanted her, in a big way.
I watched her bristle under the use of the name Kitten and smiled when she volleyed back with her next words, “Well, how was I to know that you didn’t belong to a knitting club? You look like you could do a double stitch with the best of them. After all, I’m assuming that those vests aren’t picked up at Wal-Mart, so someone has to have some kind of talent.”
Well, good for her, she could stand up for herself. Her words had me fighting a smile, but Sarge just snickered, damn him.
“That’s what the pledges are for.” Sarge waved to a couple of the men and then told her, “This is Kenny and Baxter. They’re going to take your SUV, cuz, and I’m taking you.” He wrapped a protective arm around her and hugged her to his side, giving me a hard look. “Unless that’s an issue?”
“Nope, not with me,” I said and held up his hands and went back to my bike. There was an issue, the fact that I wanted to have her riding behind me and not behind Sarge. “Let’s get moving. I’m sending Tuba, Vax, and Bird to her place in New York. Kitten, pass your house keys over to the boys so that they can pack your shit and put it in a moving van to head out when the pledges get there.”
“My name is Ava. Please don’t call me Kitten again? I dislike that from people that don’t even know me, yet.”
Oh, I would use it all right, but when I did I would be balls deep inside of her little pussy. Fuck, I hadn’t meant to go there again. I shouldn’t be thinking about my friend’s family like that.
“Sarge.” I warned my friend to get her in line, hoping he would.
“Okay, cuz, let’s get on my bike and get moving. Thanks, Prez,” Sarge said to me and nodded once as they walked past me to Sarge’s bike. It was comical watching Sarge trying to help her onto the back of his bike, but once she was up there she looked like she was born to ride bitch on the back of a bike. God dammit, the woman was giving me blue balls and killing me with just how good she looked. I kicked my bike’s kickstand. Once I got on it and we all got moving, I was able to watch her as she rode behind her cousin. At first, she was tentative and clung to Sarge’s middle, the lucky fuck, but then she let go and had her hands out with a gleeful laugh that made me ache to be the one to introduce her to riding.
Fuck, this was not going to work. I didn’t know what it was about the woman, but I was drawn to her, far too much.
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Jessica Morris has a secret that could get her killed. Hiding in plain sight, pretending to be normal, is all she’s ever known. And even though she’s been lucky so far, she knows that she can’t hide in Shifter Falls forever. Getting involved with the town sheriff is the last thing she needs, but lately it’s all she can think about.
Novak Porter has watched Jessica since the first day she came into town. He suspects that, like everyone else in Shifter Falls, she’s got a skeleton or two in her closet. She’s nervous around him, and for years he’s forced himself to give her time. But when a chance encounter throws them together for more than five minutes, Novak decides he’s tired of waiting. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep her around. Convincing her to work for him is easy, but getting her to believe in happily ever after might be a little more difficult.
Jessica turned to the voice in the darkness. The sexiest voice on the face of the planet. “Sheriff,” she said, her pulse increasing when she turned to look at him.
He looked as if he had been built of stone, and again she wondered just exactly what sort of shifter he was. No one seemed to know, or be willing to share, which was very strange in a town like Shifter Falls. Then again, she didn’t let anyone know what she was, either, so it could just be a privacy thing.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, but suddenly all the electronics inside the car went completely dead. The lights, dash, everything. I’m afraid it’s the alternator, since it has a brand-new battery.” She might be a lot of things, but she wasn’t completely stupid. “And I think that Jagger’s cub swiped my cell phone, again, so do you think you could maybe call a tow for me?” She shook her head. “That little guy gets me every single time. I swear he’s taken more cell phones off of me than I can count. Phi is never able to find them, so there’s no telling what he does with them.” She was snickering as she said that. She didn’t know why she was talking so much, but she was.
The sheriff was watching her intently and didn’t seem all that bothered by her random rambling. He merely pulled out his cell and put in a call for a truck. “Mick will come get your car. He said to leave the keys on the passenger front tire since he might be a while. They had to pull a couple cars from a slough after some young twits decided that drag racing with their parents’ cars was a good plan. Come on, I’ll give you a ride home.”
She whistled. “Oh boy. I bet there are going to be some kids in serious trouble about right now. Thanks for the offer of the ride.” She grabbed her purse, locked the car, and put the keys on the front passenger tire as she had been instructed. “You’ll probably be going out of your way a bit. I live at twenty-nine Forest Acre Road.” It was a dirt road surrounded by forest and she loved it. Nature called to her, and at least there she didn’t have to worry about nulling any abilities as she typically did when she was near other witches.
“No worries at all. It keeps me out of the station until the parents have finally wound down to a dull roar and the kids have had a few minutes for everything to sink in. Anyhow, I think that an hour’s worth of stewing before I arrive to come up with some interesting charges might help the situation. By then I’ll know if the lawyers have actually been called in or not and can figure out how to play this to keep the kids from doing something worse down the line.” The sheriff held her door for her, then shut it when she settled into her seat. A minute later he was setting out reflective markers behind her car before sliding in behind the wheel to take her toward town and home.
“You are a good man. Too bad you can’t keep a secretary to save your gorgeous ass.” She felt her face turn red from heat when she realized she’d blurted that out. “Crap, ignore me. I don’t know what I’m saying.” She cringed, but then shrugged. Since it was too late to take her candid observation back, she pressed on. “Well, from what I understand, you have gone through thirteen of them inside of three months. That’s outstanding right there.”
He leveled a look on her she couldn’t read. She was only thankful he seemed to ignore her initial comment and it allowed her cheeks to cool. “I have a specific way I expect things to be done. And, I admit, my temper can get the best of me. Everything we do can be called into question inside a courtroom. If even one I isn’t dotted right, or a T was missed being crossed, that is potentially a dangerous offender being allowed out on the street due to clerical error. Unacceptable in my book so, yes, I have some impossibly high standards I expect to be carried out by every man and woman in the department.”
“No, not impossibly high standards. They are perfectly reasonable. The way that everyone made it sound you were seriously a neat freak nut job, but what you’re saying doesn’t sound like that at all.” She understood the importance of perfect record keeping, of ensuring that everything was where it should be at all times. “When the council took me on as their secretary, I had to redo a hell of a lot of stuff because the person before me couldn’t seem to understand that paperwork is filed by number then letter. Idiots.” She smirked and looked over at him. “I guess I have high standards as well. Then again since I’m a witch without abilities, I have to be able to contribute somehow, right? Especially with my mother’s coven proclaiming me to be nothing but a human.” That’s what all of Shifter Falls thought of her, and she was happy to keep it that way. When she’d first started out on her own, she’d wondered if it wouldn’t have been smarter, and safer, to try to hide even the fact that she’d been born into a witch family. Ultimately she’d decided that it was better to stick as close to the truth as possible. So she never tried to hide the fact that she had been born to witch parents. It was unlikely that she would ever run into anyone from her old coven, but on the off chance that she did, she didn’t want to arouse suspicion by being caught in a lie. Besides, being known as a witch without powers—therefore, more or less, human—kept her just as safe as if she’d tried to pass herself off as a normal human.
“I’m glad you understand. Few do,” he muttered. “I think the council foisted their rejects my way for some form of payback. They all loved the idea when the mayor had me run for office and I won by a landslide, but the minute I arrested the first council member and wouldn’t take a bribe, they started to wonder. Told them the same thing I told the mayor when he hired me—I was going to run things my way, and if they found someone that could run against me and get elected that would be the only way they’d get me out of that seat. They haven’t had any luck yet.”
Jess knew it was because the sheriff was respected by every citizen in the Falls as well as the other two cities that made up their exceptionally small county. While not everyone agreed with his methods and strict by-the-book ways, they liked how he’d cleaned up and kept the area protected from a drug problem several years back when he’d first taken the position.
“You cleaned up the area. No one would run against you. You’re too good at your job, so it is what it is.” She shrugged. “You are strict and you can be an ass from what I’ve been told, but then again there are a lot of falsehoods that fly through Shifter Falls, aren’t there?” she asked with a smile.
“True enough. The trick is determining what’s truth and what’s lie in everything that goes around town. It’s amazing what one can discover the moment they find that tiny thread and give it a tug. After all, there’s not a soul in this town that is exactly who they appear to be on the surface once you dig down a little further.”
Book 1 - A Christmas Home - 