The books of May are here—fresh, fierce, and full of feels.
"Just how many double-dealings can take place when some of the participants are near-immortal?"
Reviewed by Vicky Gilpin
Fantasy Urban | Thriller Paranormal - Supernatural | Romance Paranormal
Beck's second book of the Division 6 series deftly uses
exposition to hook the reader quickly into the world where
paranormal creatures work for and against the law beside
usually unsuspecting humans.
Gunnolf, a werewolf, and Tiberius, a vampire, both want to
rule L.A., but both appear to be concerned about a sudden
rash of human deaths that appear to be vampire-created, but
the DNA evidence is inconclusive and strange. Sara
Constantine and Agent Ryan Doyle have been charged by
Tiberius to unearth the mystery behind the deaths in 10
days. Both gifted with various abilities and intellect,
they need help from someone else with a unique gift: Lissa.
Succubi are reborn and retain some of their skills and
memories. Lissa has worked hard to rescue enough other
abused succubi to start her own club for soul-sucking.
Division 6 needs to coerce her to use her ability to gather
information for them. However, Lissa has been having a bad
day: she's lusting after someone, a former employer/master
is trying to blackmail her by turning the tables on her own
blackmail, and the man who wants to represent her legally
has his own axe to grind...one from a previous life.
In a tale filled with intricate character relationships,
WHEN PLEASURE RULES continues to explore the idea of how
many double-dealings could occur when some of the
participants are near-immortal. An excellent read, but
starting from the first book, WHEN BLOOD CALLS, is
recommended.
SUMMARY
Seven innocents have been brutally murdered in Los Angeles,
yet the Shadow Alliance has no suspects and no leads. As
the body count mounts, the age-old feud between vampires
and werewolves threatens to explode.
Lissa Monroe—a strong-willed, ravishing succubus who
entices men to surrender their souls—agrees to go
undercover for the Alliance. Her mission: infiltrate the
mind of werewolf leader Vincent Rand, a ferociously
alluring enemy who exerts a powerful hold over her. As the
City of Angels teeters on the brink of apocalypse, these
two adversaries must join together in order to survive an
even more lethal enemy hidden in plain sight.
Excerpt Chapter One
The shadowed moon hung low in the Parisian sky, thin
fingers of dark clouds obscuring its feeble glow.
Only 72 percent waxing gibbous. Not enough to wrench the
wolf within free, but more than sufficient to wake it.
A dozen years ago, Rand wouldn’t have known a lunar phase
from a lunatic fringe. Now those phases burned in his
blood, his power and strength growing with the moon.
Within, the animal writhed, ready to hunt. Ready to end
this thing.
He made no noise as he followed the Avenue des Peupliers
toward the Avenue Neigre in the Cimetière du Père Lachaise.
On either side of him, the houses of the dead rose in the
moonlight, their smooth stone surfaces gleaming.
He slid into the shadows and closed his eyes, letting the
sounds of the night surround him, the scents find him. He’d
been a soldier before the change, first on the streets of
Los Angeles, later in Saudi, in Bosnia, in the Middle East.
A kid who’d protected his turf. A soldier who’d targeted
enemies of the state.
He remained a hunter now. A wolf stalking its prey.
The change had intensified his senses and augmented his
strength. He could see now regardless of the level of
illum, with his own eyes instead of the night optics he’d
trained with so many years ago. But this enemy could do the
same, so the darkness gave him no advantage. But the moon
remained his ally, and even at only 72 percent, he could
hear the softest whisper, could catch the faintest scent.
The brush of wind over wood. The scurrying of insects. The
scent of rotting corpses.
There.
He opened his eyes, twisting his head as he caught the para-
daemon’s earthen scent, like decaying leaves mixed with
shit. He followed it, the excitement of the hunt burning in
his gut as he stole down the cobbled street and then onto
the narrow gravel lane that was the Champs Bertolie.
His muscles were tight and ready to pound the bastard, but
he’d brought weapons with him, too. The Ka-Bar sheathed at
his thigh. The switchblade in his hand. The length of wire
he’d habitually kept in his pocket since the week before
his ninth birthday. They were as much a part of him as the
wolf that writhed within.
He’d dressed in black, his dark skin smeared with camo
paint and his shaved scalp covered by black knit, rendering
him nothing more than a shadow in the darkness. He heard
the sharp snap of a grate creaking open and realized his
target had entered one of the tombs. Rand sniffed the air—
he’d lost Zor’s scent. In its place, he smelled only fear.
Fear?
A hint of foreboding twisted in his gut. Even if the para-
daemon knew he was being tracked, he was too arrogant to
fear Rand. Yet the scent was unmistakable. He tensed,
realizing with sickening surety the source of the fear.
A female.
The fucker had abducted another female.
He hadn’t heard that any more Parisian therians had gone
missing, but that was the only explanation. Zor had taken
another, and now the female werewolf was trapped and
terrified and possibly dying.
A cold rage sliced through him, so intense it threatened to
overcome reason. He pushed it back, calling up his training
to use the fury rather than be used by it. The scent led
him north, and he moved silently, curving around the
monument until he stood, back pressed to the stone, near a
wrought-iron gate that acted as a door to where the dead
rested within.
Another step, along with a slight tilt of his head as he
peered around the corner, and he could see inside, his
hyped-up vision making it easy to see the kenneled woman.
Her eyes were rimmed in red, her lips pressed tight
together as if she refused to give Zor the satisfaction of
seeing her cry.
Alicia.
He shook his head, pushing away the memories and
concentrating only on the moment. On Zor. And on the woman
cowering in a cage.
The female was naked, and even from a distance, Rand could
see the red welts on her back from where the daemon had
removed long strips of skin. Zor would pull off every inch,
feeding on her pain until the flesh was gone and it was
time to kill the woman and find a new one.
Five females. Six counting this one.
A muscle in his jaw twitched. There would be no more.
He checked his perimeter, finding no sign of Zor, then
approached the cage.
“Non.” The woman scrambled backward, eyes as wide as
quarters.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Rand said in the woman’s
language. He studied her face, but didn’t recognize
her. “Je suis un ami.”
She remained in the corner, as far away as possible.
He crouched down and inspected the cage. Straw littered the
floor, along with a tattered blanket and a dish filled with
kibble next to a bowl of stale water. One lone water bug
moved across the surface, disturbing a thin layer of grime.
After a moment of searching, he found the hidden hinges as
well as the lock that kept the cage sealed. He tugged at
the door, but it didn’t give.
Apparently he should have brought C-4 and a det cord, and
left the Ka-Bar behind. He peered at the woman. “La clef?”
A hint of hope fluttered across her shell-shocked
features. “Je ne sais pas.”
Fuck. Most likely Zor kept the key on his person. Still, he
scanned the small room, just in case.
Nothing.
Two ancient swords hung on the wall, forming a cross above
a stone coffin. As Rand considered the blades’ usefulness
for freeing the woman, a new sound caught his attention.
The rough scrape of stone against stone.
The woman’s cry of “Monsieur!” filled the chamber as Rand
spun toward his attacker, the switchblade extended and
tight in his hand, as comfortable as an extension of his
own body.
He sliced through the para-daemon’s shirt and knocked the
bastard backward, but not before the para-daemon grabbed
the hilt of the Ka-Bar sheathed at Rand’s thigh, taking the
knife with him as he tumbled away. Zor’s reflexes were
sharp, honed from his recent feeding, and the monster
sprang back to action almost immediately. Greasy strands of
pure white hair hid his face as he crouched near the
opening to the tunnel he’d come through.
“Running, Zor? Go ahead. You won’t last long.”
“Against you? I’ll barely have to strain myself.”
“I wouldn’t bet the bank.” He was being arrogant, and he
knew it. Unlike most weren, Rand couldn’t intentionally
summon the change that merged wolf and man, elongating his
features, stretching his muscles, and turning him into a
wolf-man that resembled the creatures from childhood horror
flicks.
He changed only with the full moon, and when he did, he
lost himself entirely, his body shifting into the form of a
preternaturally strong gray wolf, his human mind lost
inside the mind of the animal.
But even though he couldn’t change at will, the wolf lived
within him always, drawing power from the pull of the moon,
and tonight 72 percent would do just fine.
Arrogant or not, Rand knew he wouldn’t lose. The beast
within wouldn’t allow it.
Zor would die tonight, and Rand would savor the killing
blow.
The para-daemon seemed to hesitate, and for a second, Rand
thought that Zor would bolt. He didn’t. Instead, he
attacked, leading with Rand’s own knife.
Rand cut to the side as the beast lunged, the blade slicing
through the back of Rand’s shirt and the flesh of his
shoulder blade. The wound was hot and deep and stung like a
mother, but Rand ignored it. Not the time; not the problem.
Instead, he rolled over, taking his weight on the wound as
he kicked up and out, his heel intersecting Zor’s wrist,
forcing the son of a bitch to drop the knife, which skidded
across the stone floor until it was lost in the shadows.
His own blood stained the blade now, and Rand could smell
it—covering the steel, seeping into the floor, soaking his
shirt.
He breathed in deeply, the scent and the pain rousing him,
thrusting him into the warm, familiar black where nothing
mattered but the kill.
He sprang up, determined to kill the para-daemon right
then. The daemon might be older and stronger, but Rand was
certain Zor underestimated him. In the ancient daemon’s
mind, a werewolf barely twelve years into the change hardly
posed a threat.
Sure enough, the creature leaped forward, wiry muscles
propelling him high into the air. He lashed out on descent,
his kick soundly intersecting Rand’s chin. The blow sent
Rand’s neck snapping back, but he didn’t falter, managing
to snag the beast around the ankle and sending him to the
ground.
Rand pressed the advantage. He lunged forward and slammed
his knife through the para-daemon’s gut, releasing a gush
of snot-yellow liquid through which ran thin strands of
crimson blood, together but separated, like oil and water.
The scent of blood rose, and the wolf within Rand snapped
and growled. But it wasn’t the wolf who would take Zor. It
was the man—and the animal inside him.
Excerpted from When Pleasure Rules by J. K. Beck
Copyright © 2010 by J.K. Beck. Excerpted by permission of
Bantam Dell, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights
reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or
reprinted without permission in writing from the
publisher.
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