“I have something to show you.” He pulled out a sheet of paper, and for a moment, I experienced déjà vu. Was it another letter from his mother?

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Keiran

She took the paper from my hand, but I sensed her hesitation. She turned it over and slowly began to read it. I could see the confusion in her eyes and the way her body tensed. I received the letter today and must have read it over a hundred times. The words were burned into my memory:

Youngblood,

Every warrior knows how to fight, but a smart warrior knows when to survive. If you are reading this letter, then I can only assume you are the latter.

I have one question to ask you and that question is simple.

Do you believe in fate?

My daughter came to visit me yesterday. I have you to thank for that. You protected mine without anything in return, so I only felt the need to return the favor. You never know what can come from trusting someone with your secrets…

Two nights ago, I met a powerful man named Arthur. He offered me a great deal in return for protection.

I accepted, but with the price of a secret. A secret much like yours.

He’s no longer a problem.

-Rufus

“I don’t understand. Who is Rufus?”

“He’s an old inmate I met the last time I was in jail. Two years ago, he came looking for his daughter, who was being beaten by her husband, but she couldn’t get out. He confronted her husband, but they got into a bad fight. Unfortunately for him, the husband was a cop and he was an ex-con with a criminal record.”

“The woman… She was Trevor’s mom, wasn’t she? And he’s her father?”

I nodded my head but said nothing.

“Is Arthur really dead?”

I nodded again.

“Did you know Rufus before?”

“No. It was some fucked up coincidence. I don’t even know what made me help her. I just did.”

“Maybe it was your own mother’s past. You said your father abused her.”

“I didn’t know it at the time I helped Trevor’s mom, though.”

“Well, then you know what that means, don’t you?

“What?”

She leaned close to me and wrapped my arms around her. “It means you’re a hero.”

I swallowed hard against the onslaught of emotion, but mostly for the small ounce of insecurity that I couldn’t be what she needed. “Is a hero what you want?”

She shook her head. “You were born out of greed and you were raised out of greed. You lived your entire life being who someone wanted you to be. Who do you want to be?”

“I want to be yours, but are you sure you can live with a broken love like ours?”

“I think it’s been proven I can take whatever you throw at me. Love is much more powerful than fear.”

I couldn’t deny what we had was born out of darkness, but instead of pulling her into my dark world, she led me to a light I wasn’t sure I even deserved.

I may not be a monster, but I am still anything but a hero.

“I love you, Keiran.”

Still… forever was a long time for change.

The End

Dear Reader . . .

I hope I gave you what you were looking for. Keiran, “The Dark Lord,” as Willow spitefully dubbed him, with all his unredeemable qualities managed to find his happily-ever-after with the only person who was brave enough to venture into the dark and pull him out.

Bringing them together was no easy feat, but if they could do it, I know there is hope for Keenan & Sheldon…

Don’t forget to review where you purchased Fear You and on Goodreads, too.

Continue on for TWO Sneak Peeks . . .

Sneak Peek — Fear Us, By B.B. Reid

Fear Us (Broken Love, #3)

Coming Fall 2015

KEENAN

“Keenan! What are you doing? This isn’t you!”

“Yeah?” I stared down at her body splayed out for me like an offering I had just recently finished devouring. “You think you know me?”

“What? Of course I do,” she whispered softly. I didn't like the way she gazed up at me with love in her eyes. Her love was a lie. Love was just that. A lie.

“You don’t fucking know me. You never did.”

She tried to lift up, but the belt wrapped around her neck and tied to the iron rails of her headboard stopped her movements.

“I watched him do this to her one night.”

“What?” I ignored the confusion in her eyes and continued.

“I wanted to see what it was he was doing to her. I wasn’t looking for pleasure. I was curious. Just me trying to be a good guy. I actually thought I might have been willing to protect her if need be because she couldn’t protect herself. But then she fucking took him. She actually decided to be with him—thinking he could and would change. He won’t. And she won’t realize it until it’s too late. She’s already trapped.”

“Keenan, please—”

“I always wondered what kind of desire he could get from someone he claimed to hate. Now I fucking know.”

“You hate me?”

“What I feel for you goes far beyond hate. I needed you, Shellie, and you turned your back on me just like she did.”

“I am not your mother, Keenan!”

“Oh, I know that. The difference between you and her was that I actually believed you loved me.”

“I do!” she cried out and struggled against her bonds.

“Then prove it.” I gritted my teeth in anger. My internal fight was threatening to surface. I needed to stay levelheaded.

“How?”

“Run away with me.”

“What?”

“You’re either going to run with me or run from me. Make your choice.”

“Keenan, I love you.”

Hope. That’s what I felt. I was glad I could still feel at all.

“So you’ll come with me then?”

That was until she took it away.

“No.”

Sneak Peek — Project: Killer, by J.L. Beck

COMING MAY 2015

Prologue

Killer

It all started with a kiss. It wasn’t one of those sappy ass ones where there is affection and sparks flying and you just fucking know they’re the one for you. No, this was a different kind of kiss. It wasn’t a spark, but a simple touch of one’s skin against another. I would like to think somehow that simple gesture had triggered something into motion. That somehow that one kiss had signified our entire being of life—it didn’t.

The kiss meant nothing, and the feelings formed from within because it meant nothing. Every time I thought of Maggie, the way her brown hair billowed in the wind, the way her small hands clasped mine, it reminded me of the illness, the death that plagued me. It reminded me of the clock that slowly ticked inside of me.

I was dying, and there was nothing anyone could do. There was no cure, no miracle for someone like me. After all, millions of people lost their loved ones, so what would one more loss be? What would me not dying do for the world? Nothing.

Eventually, I would be replaced. The school would get a new student, the teachers would forget I ever existed, and Maggie—sweet little Maggie would move on and find someone new. My parents would have another child and life would be normal. Normal for everyone but me.

See, I wouldn’t get to live such a lavish life. No, the life I would live would make me wish that the cancer had killed me. That it had eaten away at everything that made me who I was. Why, you ask? Simply because the person I was being morphed into, the man they were making me be was anything less than death. He was ruthless, angry, and hateful. He thought for no one but himself. He was careless, his needs only being met with sex and violence.