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Hard as Stone

SoulShares #1

by Rory Ni Coileain

Tiernan Guaire was exiled from the Fae Realm a century and a half ago for his brother's murder. His soul torn in half, he lives by his vows - never to trust, never to love. And if he can only be whole by finding and loving the human with the other half of his soul? He's content to live broken and half-souled.
Kevin Almstead's future, the career he's worked for as long as he can remember, has been taken away by a vote of the partners at his law firm. Chance brings him to Purgatory, the hottest all-male nightclub in Washington, D.C., to a meeting with a Fae, with long blond hair, ice-blue eyes, and a smile promising pleasures he's never dreamed of. But there's no such thing as chance.
But Tiernan isn't the only one to find Kevin in Purgatory. The most ancient enemy of the Fae race sees in the handsome lawyer a way to destroy the world from which it, too, was exiled. And only the strength of a true SoulShare bond can keep it from what it seeks.

This book is on:
  • 3 To Be Read lists
  • 1 Read list
Published:
Publisher: Riverdale Avenue Books
Genres:
Fantasy, Fantasy - Faery & Fae, Fantasy - Urban & Magical Beings

Tags:
format - novel 40-100K, what - topic - magic

Pairings: M-M
Tropes: Queer Wedding
Excerpt:

 

“Three things you need to know.” There was such a weight of pain in Tiernan’s voice that Kevin nearly cried out with it. He reached out and caught the other man’s hand, and felt him tense, as if he wanted to pull away. But the hand relaxed, and Kevin breathed again.

“First, I can’t love you.”

Kevin shook his head gently, stroking his thumb over Tiernan’s palm. “You don’t have to.” I can manage to be in love enough for both of us.

Tiernan winced. “Second, I need to be with you.” His hand tightened around Kevin’s, used it to draw him closer. “I need back what we made.” The other man groaned softly. His free hand went to the back of Kevin’s neck, gripped him hard, and drew him into a kiss. No, not a kiss, a possession. A devouring. Tiernan’s tongue forced his mouth, searched it, and the faint sounds from the other man made Kevin’s heart pound, because they were pure ecstasy.

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That kiss was followed by others, a hot line of them down Kevin’s throat, and his head fell back again, too heavy for him to hold up properly. He felt Tiernan rise up from the floor, pin him against the back of the loveseat, kneel astride him. He opened his eyes, and his arousal surged as he looked into the mirror overhead and saw the blond’s back, the mouth traveling over his throat. Oh, fuck.

“What’s the third?” he gasped, like an idiot.

The eyes that met his were clear blue crystal, shadowed with pain and glinting with desire. “I’m not human.”

COLLAPSE

About the Author

Rory Ni Coileain has been writing almost as long as she’s been reading, and reading almost as long as she’s been talking. She majored in creative writing in college, 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.

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, received the kind of rejection letter that fuels decades of therapy, and found other things to do for the next thirty years or so, including nightclub singing, working as a volunteer lawyer for Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and studying ballet in New York City, until her stories grabbed her by the shirt collar and announced they were back.

Now she’s a legal editor, a soprano in her church choir and the St. Mark’s Cathedral Choral Society (unless they’re singing Mozart, because she’s decided that Mozart didn’t like sopranos very much), the mother of a teenaged son and budding film-maker, and amanuensis to a host of Fae, Gille Dubh, and shapeshifters who are all anxious to tell their stories, and some of whom aren’t very good at waiting their turns.