🔥Today is the DAY!!! Release day that is!🥳🔥
Xander and Miranda were originally going to get 3 books but as I wrote I found Claiming to be more intense and more fun to write so instead of going for a third book I squeezed ALL the juice out of this one

Which means today finishes a COMPLETE duet for our heroes!!!!

This may be a relief since I left y’all off on a cliffhanger in book 1 (sorry not sorry)

So if you only start series AFTER they are wrapped up, GO GO GO!!!!

And just a reminder – you WON’T WANT TO MISS THE BONUS EPILOGUE ON THIS ONE

It’s the longest one I’ve written and especially if you’ve been in since Death and the Last Vampire…yeah, you are gonna read that.

“Xander,” Miranda’s voice brought me back to the present, her tone clipped with irritation. “Tell me you can break these.”

We were trapped together, handcuffed to a bed in an empty theater. I wish I could say I’d woken up in a stranger situation, but this kind of took the cake.

I shot her a smug grin and a flirty wink. “Of course I can, sweetheart.”

My hubris got the best of me. I instantly realized I should have lied because I had my mistress of death exactly where I wanted her. Miranda lying next to me, her warm curves pressed into mine where she couldn’t run away.

Also, I got a strange reassurance from being restrained. It likely had something to do with being locked up for most of my days. I’d akin the sensation to how someone else would feel with their grandmother’s home knitted blanket wrapped around them. Downright cozy.

But there was no taking advantage of this situation now, not that I let my mouth run before my brain caught up.

I tugged at the cuffs, expecting them to snap like twigs. Nothing.

My brows knitted in a frown. That can’t be right. I pulled again, but something was holding some of my strength at bay.

“Hold on,” I grunted, rolling over, pressing more firmly into Miranda’s prone body. She turned her head, the only part she could move away from me.

Another jerk of my wrists. Nothing.

“Problem?” Miranda asked, her voice tight with impatience.

“No,” I huffed. “No problem…just…”

I twisted and rolled until I straddled Miranda’s hips, covering her completely with my own body. The heat of her body scalded me even as she inhaled sharply.

Caught between my need to capture that sigh in my mouth and my pride, my pride won out as I refocused on getting us the fuck out of here.

I pulled at the handcuffs again and again. The chains rattled a mocking tune to my attempts to break the weak mortal metal. My agitation ratcheted upward as my efforts to break the chains grew near violent.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Miranda practically yelled over the cacophony of my frustrated grunts and rattling metal. Her hands steadied my elbows even as I panted.

She took a deep breath. “What’s going on? Is it some kind of god-proofed set of handcuffs?”

I searched my muddled thoughts.

Max’s ludicrous incantation echoed in my head, and I realized, with annoyance and disbelief, that it had worked. My godly strength, seemingly nullified by the power of bad acting and worse magic tricks.

“He’s a hypnotist,” I growled.

Miranda’s brow rose in a skeptical arch. “And that works on gods?”

My lips twisted and a low growl vibrated from my throat.

“Oookay then,” she drawled out. “Guess that’s a yes.”

It works when the god in question is weak of mind. I didn’t want to admit that to her though. She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. It’s why I stayed away for so many long weeks until I was strong enough to get back to her. I wanted to be normal, reliable, for her.

“Seems like we’re stuck,” I admitted, trying to ignore how close Miranda was. Her warmth, the scent of her, it was all a bit too much for a god who was supposed to be focusing on escape, not the way her velvet braids brushed against my skin.

Our faces were inches apart, our bodies aligned in a way that was both uncomfortable and electrifying. I could feel every breath she took, each little movement sending a new wave of awareness through me.

“Do you have your phone? Mine isn’t in my pocket,” she asked.

“I believe they are over there,” I said, pointing off to an edge of the stage where keys, phones, and even Miranda’s blade sat on a chair, well out of reach.

“This is ridiculous,” Miranda said. “We’re supposed to be hunting a god, not playing out some magician’s twisted fantasy.”

“I know, I know,” I replied. “But you have to admit, there’s something poetic about us being chained together. Like fate is telling us, we belong together.” I waggled my eyebrows at her.

She scowled. “Don’t get any ideas, Xander. As soon as we’re out of this, it’s back to the mission.”

“Of course, the mission.” Then I repeated the magician’s dopey words, “You can’t break free until the moon kisses the sea. So that means until dawn?”

“Great, just great,” Miranda muttered, shifting slightly. The movement sent a ripple of awareness through me, every sense heightened by our proximity. “It’s a ridiculous thing to say about a landlocked state.”

“I estimate we have a couple more hours trapped here together.”

At that, pure panic flittered across Miranda’s face, widening her eyes and quickening her breath, causing her chest to heave. “That’s unacceptable.”

With that, she rolled us until she was on top. Miranda plucked a hairpin from her braids as if performing a magic trick herself. She directed the makeshift lock pick to the keyhole on the cuffs, but her hand stopped abruptly an inch away. Miranda’s hand shook as she gritted her teeth, trying to push the hairpin into the hole. It was as if some invisible force was keeping her from getting any closer, the same force that held my strength back when I tried to snap the chains.

We were both under that doofus’s spell.

Miranda growled and threw the hairpin aside, resorting to pulling and rattling the chains like I had. Her motions grew jerkier and more desperate, as her panic mounted.

The urge to calm her down was overridden by a more powerful problem of my own.

Though it wasn’t her intention, Miranda was riding and rubbing the part of me that had already grown to attention. The ache to thrust inside her gripped me like a massive fist.

My hands fell to her hips as I stopped breathing all together.

“You’re gonna have to stop that, sweetheart, or we are both going to be in for more than you bargained for,” I choked out.

Miranda’s head tilted down at me, her braids falling to brush over my chest with alluring caresses. Annoyance gleamed brightly in her features, but realization dawned on them as she took in how I gripped her hips and the hardness that pressed into her inner thigh.

“Or,” I licked my lips, daring to press my luck. “We could make the next few hours at least interesting and see how many times I can get you to scream my name.” My voice was hoarse to my own ears.