Stone Cold By Rory Ni Coileain

 

Title: STONE COLD

 

Series: SoulShares (#8 of 9)

 

Release Date: September 28, 2017 (the good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise)

 

Publisher:  Riverdale Avenue Books

 

Cover Artist:  Insatiable Fantasy Designs, Inc.

 

 

Blurb:

 

Maelduin Guaire is a Fae with a mission. An obsession, really. He’s trained his entire life to become the greatest scian-damhsa, blade-dancer, the Fae have ever known, for the sole purpose of killing the blade-dancer who murdered his father and gave House Guaire its reputation as the Cursed House. Now he’s followed Tiernan Guaire through the Pattern to the human world, to fulfill his oath or die trying… but the passage cost him all his skill with a blade.

 

Terry Miller, Josh LaFontaine’s business partner at Raging Art-On Tattoo and Piercing Parlor, has the worst luck with men since… well, since ever, as far as he’s concerned. Years ago, he walked out on a great thing with Josh, when Bryce Newhouse offered to play sugar daddy for Terry’s ballet company; then Bryce kicked him to the curb, and Terry ended up relying on big-hearted Josh to help him get back on his feet. And now a too-good-to-be-true stranger has turned up in Terry’s half-built dance studio, with a beautiful sword and a bloody nose.

 

In order to regain the grace and skill he needs to keep his vow, a Fae cursed with the inability to love must SoulShare with a human convinced that love runs screaming when it sees him coming. All with the Marfach looking over their shoulders. No pressure…

 

Publisher’s Buy Link:  http://riverdaleavebooks.com/books/5351/stone-cold

 

Amazon Buy Link:  https://www.amazon.com/Stone-Cold-Book-Eight-SoulShares-ebook/dp/B075RX32ZW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1506392525&sr=1-1&keywords=rory+ni+coileain

 

 

 

Excerpt:

He felt the other Fae—his Irish almost-human Fae changeling, his Prince, his beloved—chuckle. Still think we’ve had enough of one another? Rian could communicate mind-to-mind as well as Cuinn himself could, courtesy of their ceangail bond, but usually didn’t do so unless his mouth was otherwise occupied.

Did I say that? I never said that. I would never say that.

“And you call me a horndog. Don’t you two know what time it is?”

Cuinn had been both a voyeur and an exhibitionist since before either word existed in any form currently used by humans. But he preferred to choose the time and the place for both. You’re incredibly fucking lucky I’m feeling mellow, Twinklebritches.

Conall was shaking his head before Rian had half finished translating Cuinn’s thoughts into speech. “I’m trembling, had you noticed?”

The red-haired Fae mage was leaning against the doorjamb, and while he wasn’t exactly staring, he wasn’t averting his eyes, either. And something about the way his lips were twitching in an almost-smile told Cuinn he didn’t mind the ‘Twinklebritches.’ Much. Conall had spent months, after Coinneach’s darag—on behalf of all the daragin, and all the Gille Dubh—had stolen his, Cuinn’s, voice, insisting that he didn’t fucking want to hear Cuinn’s irritating-as-all-fuck nickname for him coming out of any mouth other than Cuinn’s own. But Cuinn had suspected the mage didn’t mean it, and sure enough, he’d finally caved.

Rian cleared his throat. “Not that you’re ever unwelcome here, draoi ríoga—”

Cuinn sent his Prince the mental equivalent of a sprained-eyeball eyeroll. Since when did you become a diplomat? Of course, the word as’Faein for ‘diplomat’ derived from the ancient word for the individual in any room least likely to leave a trail of bodies in his wake.

Rian carefully ignored him. “But it would do my heart good to think you had some reason for interrupting me and my consort in the middle of sweet playtime.”

The responsive smirk Cuinn was expecting from the mage never materialized, which fact alone was enough to make Cuinn sit up and take notice. Or at least prop himself up on his elbows and take notice. A Fae had his limits.

“I do, actually.” Conall raked a hand through his hair, and the streetlights from below—which would have left the little third-floor apartment in near-darkness to human eyes, but were enough and to spare for a Fae—showed Cuinn a decidedly unhappy draoi ríoga, court mage. “Josh and I were having some sweet playtime of our own when I felt a shift in the nexus energy. I think conditions are going to be right for getting a message through to the Realm, for maybe the next half hour. So I need help.”

“There’s a message wants getting through?” To Cuinn’s great disappointment, Rian swung a leg over and sat himself down cross-legged on the California king that took up most of the royal apartment, all business. Or as close to all business as his bondmate ever got.

Conall sighed. “I really think it’s time to let the Loremasters know about the situation with the wellsprings. I don’t know if there’s anything they can do about it from their end, but we could sure as hell use some help.”

No shit. New wellsprings were popping up on an almost daily basis, whether in proximity to channelings or under pressure from the generation of new living magick in the Realm or just out of living magick’s desire to fuck with the Tirr Brai, and they all had to be warded, just in case the motherhumping Marfach was really loose and somehow figured out how to get looser. Which meant trusting the network of daragin to handle transport duties, because the Fae who

 

Author bio :

Rory Ni Coileain majored in creative writing, back when Respectable Colleges didn’t offer such a major, so she designed it herself – being careful to ensure that she never had to take a class before nine in the morning or take a Hemingway survey course. (As a result, she was not introduced to Hemingway kitties until comparatively recently, and is now owned by one, given that nobody warned her.) She graduated Phi Beta Kappa at the age of nineteen, sent off her first short story to an anthology being assembled by an author she idolized, got the kind of rejection letter that puts therapists’ kids through college, and found other things to do, such as nightclub singing and volunteering as a lawyer with Gay Men’s Health Crisis, for the next thirty years or so, until her stories started whispering to her. Now she’s a legal editor, an Associate member of the Order of Julian of Norwich, and amanuensis to a host of fantastic creatures who are all anxious to tell their stories. And who aren’t very good at waiting their turns.

 

 

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/Soulshares and https://www.facebook.com/groups/721651487924752/

 

Twitter: @RoryNi

 

Blog:  www.rorynicoileain.com