A Queen’s PrideFeline Nation
Book One
N.D. Jones
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Kuumba Publishing
Date of Publication: June 26, 2020
ASIN: B07Y7N8VDH
Number of pages: 220
Word Count: 71,524 (appx)
Cover Artist: Ravenborn Covers
Tagline: Revenge Is Best Taken with Claws
Book Description:
Lies. Murder. Vengeance.
For centuries, humans descended on shifters' lands, killing and claiming. They devoured all in their path--gold, God, and glory their battle cries. From the flames of destruction on the Zafeo continent, two nations emerged--the human territory of Vumaris and the feline nation of Shona.
No more wars.
No more bloodshed.
Eight decades of peace.
For eighteen-year-old Asha, traveling to Vumaris with her parents, lion alphas of the Kingdom of Shona, should've been a simple matter. Recommitting to an eighty-year-old peace treaty between their countries should've been easier still. Yet, greed and corruption know no boundaries of time and place. So when a group of mercenaries converges on Sanctum Hotel, hellbent on kidnapping Asha and assassinating her parents, her family trip turns into the bloodiest night of her life.
Will Asha lose those closest to her heart--her parents and Ekon, a young bodyguard she loves. If so, will she forgive her enemies or seek divine retribution?
Only time will tell, and it's running out for Princess Asha of the Kingdom of Shona.
Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/lkSh5kABc2Q
Excerpt:
Asha flipped
from one television station to the next, her mind more on the way Ekon had made
her body feel than on finding a show for them to watch before Mafdet took over
the post and sent Ekon to his suite. While Zarina had raised Asha to speak her
mind, she had also taught her to do so with forethought and care. Zarina may
have a tendency to shock people, but it wasn’t because she hadn’t calculated
the impact of her words before uttering them. But her mother had yet to teach
her how to curb her thoughts when her body wanted to do the talking for her.
Foregoing the
television, she clicked it off and dropped the remote control onto the couch
cushion beside her. She ached in places she wanted Ekon to touch. If she were
alone in the suite and in her bed, she’d close her eyes, slip her hand inside
her panties and—
Knock. Knock.
Knock.
Opening eyes
that had closed of their own volition and dropping the hem of her dress she
hadn’t consciously lifted, Asha sat up—embarrassed and breathless.
The knock came again.
Asha stood.
Waited. A Shieldmane would announce himself, even Mafdet who had a key to the
suite. Her parents would call, if they required something of her, expecting
Asha to come to them, not the other way around.
By the time the
third round of knocking sounded, Asha had moved closer to the door, scenting
more than the human on the other side.
“Miss. Miss. Are
you inside? We have an emergency. We need to evacuate this floor.”
The man knocked
again--hard and urgent.
Peering through
the peephole, she saw a tall man dressed in the same uniform she’d seen the
front desk workers wear. He appeared both anxious and impatient. If there was a
fire or gas leak, the man’s emotions were justified. Asha and Ekon needed to
get out of there.
She unlocked and
opened the door. Mistake. Asha stepped backward, and the human stepped forward,
shutting the door behind him.
A gun she hadn’t
seen through the peephole pointed at her.
“Don’t scream.
Don’t fight. If you follow my directions, you won’t get hurt.”
If he didn’t have
a gun leveled at her stomach, Asha could’ve misinterpreted his smile as a sign
of kindness.
“You’re making a
mistake.”
“No, I’m making
the world better for humans.” Gun hand steady, the man who clearly wasn’t a
hotel employee, scanned the outer room of the suite. “Is someone in here with
you? A guard?” Green eyes tracked up and down her body. “Yeah, as pretty as you
are, there has to be a guard nearby. Where? Bedroom? Bathroom?”
Asha wouldn’t
tell a lie, only to be caught in one, but she also wouldn’t reward the human’s
threat of violence with the truth.
“Fine. I’ll take
your silence as a yes.” He drew closer, blond hair pulled back in a
shoulder-length ponytail Asha would rip from his scalp if given an opportunity
to strike. “We’ll just wait right here for whoever is in that other room to
come out.”
They waited. It
didn’t take long since Ekon had already been in the ensuite for five minutes.
Asha knew why he’d made a quick escape. She hadn’t been toying with him when
she’d asked to see him naked. She’d very much wanted to feast upon his body …
and with more than her eyes.
The door to the
ensuite creaked open.
The human shoved
the barrel of the gun against her ribs, his breath smelling of cigarettes when
he whispered in her ear. “I knew someone was in here with you. You’re too
important to be left alone. But didn’t your parents ever warn you about opening
doors to strangers?” His other hand found one of Asha’s curls and twisted it
around his finger. “I told them I could get you to open the door for me. It was
the uniform, wasn’t it? No need to answer, little girl. Now, let’s see who came
to play.”
Ekon appeared in
the living room, having reached them on soundless feet. If not for the creaking
door, the human would’ve never known he approached. As it was, though, it was
Ekon who was taken by surprise.
Asha saw the
moment her gentle boyfriend morphed into her deadly Shieldmane. His eyes
darkened, eye teeth lengthened, sharpened, and his fingernails transformed into
long, curved claws.
Ekon stalked
toward Asha, his focus on the gunman.
In a swift
upward movement, the human pointed his handgun at Asha’s head. “Calm down,
kitty, or I’ll splatter her brains all over this white carpet.”
Ekon halted.
“That’s good.
Real good. Put those fangs and claws away, friend.”
“I’m not your
friend. If you want to make it out of this room alive, you need to get that gun
away from her and leave.”
“Yeah, no,
that’s not going to happen. She’s why we’re here. Where we go, she goes. You’re
the one I don’t need.”
A lion roared,
and Asha had never heard a more beautiful sound.
“That would be
my father.”
The roar was
followed by gunfire, then what sounded like all-out war in the hall.
“Fuck! Fuck!
What in the hell are those guys doing?”
“They’re
fighting my parents, which means they’re dying. If you give Ekon your gun, you
won’t have to die with them.”
About the Author:
N. D. Jones, Ed.D. is a USA Today bestselling author who lives in Maryland with her husband and two children. In her desire to see more novels with positive, sexy, and three-dimensional African American characters as soul mates, friends, and lovers, she took on that challenge herself. Along with the fantasy romance series Forever Yours, and a contemporary romance trilogy, The Styles of Love, she has authored three paranormal romance series: Winged Warriors, Death and Destiny, and Dragon Shifter Romance.
Thank you very much for sharing A Queen's Pride, and for being an invaluable stop on my new release tour.
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N.D.
thanks for sharing, this sounds great
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