Elements of Mischief
C.M. Stunich & Tate James
(Hijinks Harem #1)
Publication date: October 4th 2017
Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Romance
Four hunky, supernatural plumbers.
One reluctant, slightly drunk human.
A match made in heaven…or in the bathroom, rather.
My name is Arizona Smoke, and I’m the proud owner of a house haunted by my dead Gram, best friend to a cocktail dress loving werewolf, and apparent soul mate to four plumbers who also happen to be elemental dragons. Besides rippling pectorals, tattoos, and…uh, nice, long pipes, the guys also have control of the elements.
Supernatural law (whoever heard of such a thing anyway?) dictates that since I stumbled upon the guys in their alternate forms, I have to marry them. All four of them. Oh, and apparently one lousy (okay, awesome) night of sex means that I’m an elemental, too—and no amount of magical penicillin can cure this disease.
All I wanted was hot running water and toilets that flushed, but now I’m dealing with monsters lurking in the sewers, supernatural politics, and four penniless (but totally hot) plumbers living in my crumbling old Victorian.
I’m Ari Smoke, wine aficionado, ex-barista, and a girl who is completely out of her element.
Having four hot husbands is nice…but the death threats, not so much.
Author Bio:
Tate James was born and raised in the Land of the Long White Cloud (New Zealand) but now lives in Australia with her husband, baby and furbaby.
She is a lover of books, red wine, cats and coffee and is not a morning person. She is a bit too sarcastic and swears too much for polite society and definitely tells too many dirty jokes.C.M. Stunich is a self-admitted bibliophile with a love for exotic teas and a whole host of characters who live full time inside the strange, swirling vortex of her thoughts. Some folks might call this crazy, but Caitlin Morgan doesn’t mind – especially considering she has to write biographies in the third person. Oh, and half the host of characters in her head are searing hot bad boys with dirty mouths and skillful hands (among other things). If being crazy means hanging out with them everyday, C.M. has decided to have herself committed.She hates tapioca pudding, loves to binge on cheesy horror movies, and is a slave to many cats. When she’s not vacuuming fur off of her couch, C.M. can be found with her nose buried in a book or her eyes glued to a computer screen. She’s the author of over thirty novels – romance, new adult, fantasy, and young adult included. Please, come and join her inside her crazy. There’s a heck of a lot to do there.Oh, and Caitlin loves to chat (incessantly), so feel free to e-mail her, send her a Facebook message, or put up smoke signals. She’s already looking forward to it.
EXCERPT:
Max Cornwall aka Warden cursed loudly enough that it echoed in the nearly empty streets, and
swung his gaze straight over to me. Crouched low in a white hoodie and jeans, he was almost
invisible in the grimy New York evening. But those eyes? I'd never forget those fucking eyes.
They were this magnificent mosaic of jade green and gold and gray, the most perfect hazel,
like a spring morning when everything's covered in dew … Hey, still a barista, still not a poet.
“Max?!” I squeaked about ten seconds before several sewer manhole covers exploded
upward in bursts of water, the sound of the metal plates clashing to the street a deafening boom
that made my ears ring. “That's not good, is it?” I asked, feeling my heartbeat start to thunder and
my head swim. “That's really fucking bad.”
“It's plum awful, Sug,” Shane said, jerking me close as several pairs of arms dug out of the
various holes in the pavement. And the stench that came with them? It burned the hairs out of my
nostrils. It was a sickly, sweet smell like death and disease and shit all mixed together. Like, well,
a big city sewer might smell.
“You need to get Arizona out of here,” Warden was saying, all of a sudden just standing
next to me like he'd never left. The sight of him so close, those eyes, the curve of his lips, the
spiky tuft of dark hair sticking out from under the white hood of his sweatshirt … it all took me
back to my time at UCSC. That night. Those feelings …
“Let's take her back to her slutty friend's apartment—there were wards everywhere,” Billy
said, clearly speaking with clenched teeth as he glared at Max/Warden and I tried really hard not
to look at the things crawling out of the sewer.
“First off, please don't slut shame … and wards?” I managed to spit out, still desperately
enthralled by Max's presence and the idea of one of my best, good friends casting spells. Siobhan
had … wards? My entire world felt like a lie, like I'd been living in one big dream cloud from
birth until now, a hazy fog that obscured all the things that really mattered.
“Let's go, sweet stuff,” Shane said, pulling me away from Warden as he turned to face the
monsters slipping out from underneath New York's city streets, clawing at the cement with slimy
fingers and pulling their gaping mouths and rotten faces to the surface.
What the fuck was a human going to think when they saw this?!
I resisted Shane's grip for a minute, reaching out a hand and just barely managing to slide
my fingers across the back of Warden's. Our touch … it was electric in more than just a magical
sense. His gaze snapped over to me and I could see so many things taking place in his eyes, so
many emotions warring for supremacy.
“Get the flip out of here, Smokey,” he growled, looking like he was about to shit his pants.
Whether it was me or, you know, the zombies I wasn't sure.
“I …” Words failed me as Shane started to pull me away from him, down the sidewalk
away from the stinking, rotting, loping things that'd just burst forth from the sewer. It didn't take
a genius to put it all together—necromancer spirit elemental, undead things, zombies.
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