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  Though for now I was satisfied for her to be happy, healthy and asleep.

  Soundlessly, I left the bed and wandered to the cot by the wall to stare down at Rowan. My daughter. I was getting used to that now, it felt more real every day.

  The house in which the three of us lived was still undergoing renovations following the fire, but the structure had been sound and we had decided to put the bedroom to rights first so Rowan would have a home as soon as possible. The rest of the Underworld settlement was slowly being rebuilt.

  “Every great civilization moost have its fire,” Odran had said.

  “Somethin’ from which it can rebuild, an’ a story to tell its grandchildren. One day ye will show Rowan an’ Emma the scorch marks an’ say; ye were there.”

  It would be a big job, but Kinloch Kirk would rise again from the ashes of disaster.

  Odran himself had left a few days ago and I was curious to discover that I would miss him. He had become a more bearable presence since his abdication. O r perhaps I was more tolerant, being a father mellows a man, if only because he is too tired to be anything other than mellow.

  The time he had spent in Faery, and particularly back in the Seelie Court, had given Odran a direction he had always lacked in life. Now he had a mission, to knock the Seelie Court back into shape. He would start by making sure the Unseelie Court was finished for good, and by hunting down those of its members he could still find.

  King or not, I suspected Odran would become a Fae legend just as his Daddy had been.

  Elsewhere, life continued, as normal. The reunion between Randall TurdBottom and his wife and child had been a touching one, and Jolie forgave him for drugging her. The Fop and Klassje had started talking about marriage and, if rumor were to be believed, adoption. Damek and Dayna seemed to have done some growing up while I was away, and seemed more like a real couple and less like a constant mass of seething hormones.

  So perhaps life had not continued as normal. We had come so close to losing everything, everyone was keen to grasp every day. Life moved on, and if you did not move with it, then it would pass you by.

  And what about me? Sinjin Sinclair, Master Vampire, the terror of Chester. Well, the terror of many places, really.

  I was a Daddy. And I had little desire to be anything else. The great adventures were still ahead of me, but they looked very different to what I had imagined.

  #

  BRYN

  I woke to find Sinjin at the window, staring out across Kinloch Kirk, a look of quie t satisfaction on his face. I’d always hoped he’d adjust to a more domestic existence, but even I was taken aback by how quickly he’d done so, and how much he seemed to enjoy it.

  “Morning,” I whispered, anxious not to wake Rowan. Sinjin was able to walk around in the daylight owing to the fact that he was regularly supping on my blood.

  He smiled back at me. “Breakfast?”

  “We don’t have a kitchen.”

  “Then I shall venture out and return with pastries and coffee.

  Because that is the kind of man I am.”

  “Are you going to put some clothes on first.”

  “I am,” Sinjin nodded. “I do not wish to be that kind of man.”

  He slipped into his habitual black and left. I rose to go and look at Rowan, who was sleeping. It was going to be a big day for her.

  #

  “Welcome, friends.” Mathilda spread her arms wide to encompass the whole of the Kinloch Kirk community who had assembled for Rowan’s naming ceremony, a sort of Fae baptism that Dureau had suggested. To my surprise, Sinjin had agreed instantly, and I wondered if the two men had found a way to get along.

  It was early evening, and we were standing on the shore, the waters of the bay washing a round Mathilda’s bare feet. A succession of torches on poles lit proceedings as Sinjin and I, Rowan in my arms, walked down the aisle of people to reach Mathilda. To one side of her, Mercedes stood, smiling at us. To the other were Rand and Jolie, little Emma between them, holding a hand of each parent, swinging idly and beaming up at us.

  “It is the custom among my people,” said Mathilda, “to welcome a child into the community in this way. Rowan has already been through much and who knows what more she will go through in her life, but we know she will meet it.”

  She would be well-equipped to do so. A week ago, Mathilda had sat down with Sinjin and I to explain to us that Rowan was ‘an impossible child’. She was born in magic, a child of light and dark, the brilliance of the Elemental and the darkness of the vampire.

  “What will that mean for her?” Sinjin had asked.

  But Mathilda had shook her head. She had no idea, There had never been a child like Rowan before. That she was powerful was beyond doubt, and had already been demonstrated. Those powers would grow as she grew and as she learned to master them. What they might be or how powerful she might become was yet to be seen and Mathilda could not predict.

  “We know she will meet those challenges,” Mathilda continued her address to the audience, “because she will not meet them alone.

  We will meet them with her.” She stooped to scoop water into her cupped hand then rose to drizzle it onto Rowan’s face.

  Rowan giggled.

  “As you join our community, Rowan,” Mathilda went on, “understand that we are a family here. You will never be alone, you will never be without people who love you. This family has been through much of late, but it has held together because we have worked together, and because we stood together. We are the Underworld. We are Kinloch Kirk. And we welcome the newest member of our family, with open hearts.”

  A cheer went up. Mathilda embraced us all. Sinjin and Rand shook hands. Jolie and I hugged. Emma was permitted, very briefly, to hold Rowan. I felt so happy that my heart threatened to burst in my chest.

  In the midst of it all, I caught Sinjin’s eye and he winked at me. To be part of all this was wonderful, but it was also special to be part of our own, smaller family. That seclusion as lovely as the inclusion of Kinloch Kirk.

  Later that night, when the festivities were concluded, the three of us walked back through the dark to our home. I held Rowan, Sinjin had his arm around me.

  My child was special. Powerful. Who knew what the future might hold for that tiny girl sleeping in my arms. But right now, I simply didn’t care. She was our little girl, and all that Sinjin and I wanted was to be the best mom and dad we could be.

  Dreams don’t get much bigger than that.

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  (Written under my reverse harem pen name, Plum Pascal) Fairy Tale Princesses Like You’ve Never Seen Them Before…

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  SNOW:

  Hair black as night, lips red as blood, skin white as snow.

  Beautiful. Ethereal. Enchanting.
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  Bought and sold for male entertainment, Neva Valkoinen, or Snow White , as patrons know her, dances for the wealthy and lecherous at the Wicked Lyre Tavern in the city of Ascor.

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  THE SACRED OATH SERIES

  (Written under my reverse harem pen name, Plum Pascal) I don’t know who I am or where I came from.

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  THE F MY LIFE SERIES

  (Written under my reverse harem pen name, Plum Pascal)

  I’m so excited to be headed to the Academy of Enchantment where I’ll be a transfer student for the next year...

  Except I never make it.

  When a shadow demon boards my train, I’m overcome by his power and I black out.

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  Awaiting my arrival at the train station is Harlow. He’s an incubus—a sex demon. And he’s got instructions to deliver me to my host family.

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  Famous last words.

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  If there’s such a thing as luck, Lily Harper definitely doesn’t have it.

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  Learning that Lily’s death was indirectly their fault, Afterlife Enterprises offers Lily the chance to live again but beware the fine print. Most notably, Lily will become a soul retriever, venturing into the bowels of the Underground City to retrieve souls that were mistakenly sent there during a Y2K glitch.

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  As if risking her second life in the Underground City wasn’t enough, Lily’s guide is none other than her incompetent, alcoholic, womanizing guardian angel, Bill. Lily’s future isn’t looking bright.

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  I’m a Regulator—a law-enforcement agent who monitors the creatures of the Netherworld to keep them from wreaking havoc in the mortal world.

  When a dark-arts warlock is murdered and I was the last person to see him alive, I’ve got two choices. Either figure out whodunnit before I’m deported back to the Netherworld, or before I become the next victim.

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  Yeah, Knight is the sexiest guy I’ve ever seen but he’s also bossy, demanding, and way too convinced of his own self-importance.

  As the body count increases, I find myself having to keep a sadistic demon in check all the while fending off the advances of a super powerful vampire, Bram. And dealing with Knight isn’t exactly a walk in the park.

  Sometimes working law enforcement for the Netherworld is a real...

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  A self-deprecating witch with the unique ability to reanimate the dead.

  A dangerously handsome warlock torn between being her boss and her would-be lover.

  A six hundred year old English
vampire with his own agenda; one that includes an appetite for witches.

  The Underworld in a state of chaos.

  Let the games begin.

  Life isn’t bad for psychic Jolie Wilkins. True, she doesn’t have a love life to speak of, but she has a cute house in the suburbs of Los Angeles, a cat and a quirky best friend.

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  the cause of the ghost’s demise but, in the process, she brings him back to life!

  Word of Jolie’s incredible ability to bring back the dead spreads like wildfire, putting her at the top of the Underworld’s most wanted list. Consequently, she finds herself at the center of a custody battle between a villainous witch, a dangerous but oh-so-sexy vampire, and her warlock boss, Rand.

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  THE BRYN AND SINJIN SERIES

  Abandoned on the battlefield by the people she calls her tribe, Bryn must face the fact that she is now playing prisoner to the Queen of the Underworld, who also happens to be her fraternal twin sister. As the days and months go by with no word from the Supreme Elder of her tribe, Bryn thinks her life couldn’t get much worse.

  While Bryn bemoans her imprisonment, her sister, Jolie, is doing everything in her power to ensure that blood ties are thicker than they appear. Jolie wants nothing more than to befriend Bryn and teach her not to hate the Underworld, but to embrace it.

  But Bryn fights the very idea of becoming one with her enemies, although she can’t help her attraction to a certain master vampire, Sinjin Sinclair. Once Bryn is placed in Sinjin’s care, she’ll find herself battling the undeniable magnetism of the vampire, the one creature she abhors above all others.