Nalini Singh – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read

Nalini Singh – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.ilovenovels.com Thu, 26 Feb 2026 08:20:32 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 http://www.ilovenovels.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/favicon.png Nalini Singh – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.ilovenovels.com 32 32 Such a Perfect Family Read Online Nalini Singh http://www.ilovenovels.com/such-a-perfect-family-read-online-nalini-singh Thu, 26 Feb 2026 08:20:32 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/such-a-perfect-family-read-online-nalini-singh Genre: Alpha Male, Crime, Suspense, Thriller Authors: Nalini Singh Advertisement

Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 532(@200wpm)___ 426(@250wpm)___ 355(@300wpm)

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A man with a deadly past marries into the perfect, respectable family in this riveting thriller from New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh . . .

A woman buried.
A woman broken.
A woman crashed.
A woman burned.
And the man who knew them all.

Love at first sight, a whirlwind Vegas wedding, a fairy-tale romance.
For seventy-nine days, Tavish Advani has been the happiest man in the world—until his new life turns to ash, his wealthy in-laws’ house going up in a fiery explosion. His badly injured wife lies in a coma, her family all but annihilated.

Tavish thought he left the sins of his Los Angeles life behind, but it’s not so easy to leave behind an investigation into the deaths of several high-profile women—all of whom he professed to love. Tragedy and death follow him no matter where he goes . . . but this time, he knows he’s innocent.

Desperately trying to clear his name as the authorities zero in, he begins his own investigation into the fire—and learns that his wife’s picture-perfect family may have been nothing but a meticulously constructed mirage. The truth is much darker than anything Tavish could’ve imagined . . .

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter 1

I’d buried Susanne on this day in October five years ago.

My hands clenched on the steering wheel, my chest tight at the sudden, crushing memory of the first woman I’d ever loved. Complex, sophisticated Susanne Winthorpe, lover of red dresses and stiletto heels, who never stepped foot out of the home without her signature full face of makeup—and at least one diamond.

As different from Diya as the sun was from the moon.

The tightness in my chest evaporated as I thought of how my wife’s face would light up when I handed her the box of little taster cakes on the front passenger seat. She’d asked me to pick them up from the bakery so we could choose a cake for the reception to take place after our religious wedding ceremony in six months’ time; my in-laws weren’t satisfied with the fact we were legally married, wanted the whole shindig.

So I’d be getting married to Diya all over again…and that was more than fine with me.

My heart doing that thing it did only for her, I made sure to take the corners with smooth grace to ensure the cake box didn’t slide off the seat and onto the floor. Water glinted to my right as I passed Lake Tikitapu, which Diya had told me was also called the Blue Lake, the morning sunlight a bright sparkle that had already lured a couple of kayakers onto the water.

I hoped they were wearing wet suits just in case.

The end of October in New Zealand meant spring—brilliant sunshine, crisp temperatures, cherry blossoms and wisteria blooms—but the lakes still felt as cold as ice to my Los Angeles-born-and-bred body. I couldn’t figure out how my father-in-law jumped into frigid lake water every morning for a vigorous one-hour swim.

“It’s good for the heart, my boy!”

Then Lake Tikitapu was in my rearview mirror, with Lake Rotokākahi, or the Green Lake, coming up ahead. Nestled in the thick green bush in between was a lookout from which you could see both lakes. I continued past, my destination the far larger body of water that was Rajesh Prasad’s daily swimming spot.

It didn’t take long, the road all but empty today.

I’d already turned into the drive that led to the beautifully landscaped and expansive property that was the Prasad family home when I noticed smoke drifting up above the tops of the native trees and ferns that flanked the path’s gentle downward slope.

Smoke in the closest township wasn’t unusual—Rotorua was a geothermal city known for its boiling mud pools, hot springs, and geysers, alongside the distinctive scent of sulfur that came and went with the wind. Friends of the Prasads in the city had recently ended up with a sinkhole in their front yard. Small, it mostly blew up curls of hot white smoke—but go deeper and I had no doubt you’d encounter water or mud capable of giving you third-degree burns.

The authorities had fenced off the sinkhole and evacuated everyone from the home while they investigated, and the family involved had been joking about charging people to come look at their own personal piece of geothermal scenery. Beneath the jokes, however, was the fear that their home was sitting atop a disaster waiting to happen.

But the Prasad home wasn’t in Rotorua proper. It sat on the edge of the clear blue-green waters of Lake Tarawera, a good twenty-five-minute drive out of the main part of the city, longer if roadworks were in progress. Close enough to be doable for two specialists who rarely had patient emergencies, but far enough to have the feel of a peaceful enclave set apart from the city.

It wasn’t that Lake Tarawera didn’t feature any geothermal activity—as I’d discovered to my delight when Diya led me on an overnight hike to a hot-water beach on the shores of the lake. We’d walked out of the bush after our hike under the stars to the surreal sight of steam rising off the water, the small boats anchored on the lake ghostly afterimages.

But this smoke…it was too black, too dark, too high.

My mouth dried up.

I pressed my foot to the accelerator pedal and just glimpsed the Prasads’ nearest neighbors—a family of three—running into the drive behind me; their mouths were open, as if they were yelling. Ignoring them, I turned the corner of the drive—to come to a screeching halt behind a bright yellow Mini Cooper.

The cake box slammed onto the passenger floorboard.

“Diya!” It came out a scream as I tumbled from the car in front of the elegant single-level family home that now boiled with fire.

The lake lapped placidly in the background, below a sweep of green lawn that led to a private jetty and boathouse, with the bush-clad hills on the other side casting shadows across the wide swath of water.

The Prasad home was—had been—a showpiece. Huge panes of glass, polished wood stained a rich black, landscaping heavy with native trees and shrubs, each element thoughtfully put together to create a property that fit the landscape rather than attempting to conquer it. Unlike some of the McMansions I’d seen in lakeside towns, the homes around Lake Tarawera weren’t about a display of excess, but about quiet, luxurious beauty.

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Atonement Sky – Psy-Changeling Trinity Read Online Nalini Singh http://www.ilovenovels.com/atonement-sky-psy-changeling-trinity-read-online-nalini-singh Tue, 05 Aug 2025 19:55:04 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/atonement-sky-psy-changeling-trinity-read-online-nalini-singh Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal Authors: Nalini Singh Advertisement

Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)

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The hunt for a stealthy predator takes a damaged J-Psy to the heart of falcon territory in this new Psy-Changeling Trinity novel from New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh...

Justice-Psy Eleri Dias knows the end is near for her, her mind one step away from fatal psychic exposure. In the short time that remains, she is determined to atone for an act of omission that has haunted her for a long, cruel decade. But that decision not only means facing a powerful changeling wing leader, but also putting herself in the path of a serial killer.

Falcon wing leader Adam Garrett is fiercely protective of his family and his clan. After losing his parents as a teenager in a shocking act of malice, Adam has no forgiveness in him for the J-Psy who betrayed him, betrayed them, at the most painful moment of his life. But the evil that stalks his territory will allow him no respite, forcing him once more into contact with the J he has never been able to forget.

Everything that could've been between Eleri and Adam was lost years ago, a shimmering promise crushed. As they work to uncover a monster, the moment of reckoning looms ever closer. Soon, there may be no more time left for either atonement...or love

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter 1

“Some of us didn’t make it, Sophie. We’ve accepted that. Our final goal is to create a better world for the next generation of the children we once were.”

“No, I won’t let you do this.”

“You have no choice—to be a good leader, you have to implement triage, focus your energy on the ones who are salvageable. Leave the rest of us to do what we do best. We’ve bathed in evil…there’s no washing that off, so we might as well use it to lure monstrous prey.”

—Heated discussion between Eleri Dias (J Corps) and Sophia Russo (director of the J Corps) (5 January 2084)

The road to Raintree, Arizona, was composed of sprawling desert and rippling walls of red-orange rock. Eleri was no geologist, had no idea whether the rock was shale or limestone or something else altogether. All she saw were natural formations that looked as if they’d been created by an expert sculptor, each ripple and gradation of color put delicately in place.

Where the rocks fell away, the desert glinted, the only signs of life in any direction scraggly bushes of a sandy green hue and the majestic forms of saguaro cactus plants, their arms akimbo at ninety-degree angles.

The sky was a searing blue, the landscape as arid and dry as Eleri’s heart and mind. It seemed fitting that it would all end here, in this place devoid of the lush greenery so prevalent in the place where she’d taken her first breath too many shadow memories ago.

LIAR!!

That echo was as vicious today as the day it had been born, his voice having haunted her through all the years in between. And the further she drove into Raintree, the higher the likelihood that she’d come face-to-face with him…with the one person to whom she could never atone. There was no way to bring back the dead, and he’d taken care of the justice at which she’d failed.

Eleri. That’s pretty. My name is Adam.

Her fingers flexed on the steering wheel, the wall of numbness in her mind a gift against the past. How much worse would it be if she could truly experience it, instead of looking at it from beyond a vast gulf of nothingness?

She hadn’t shared her latest PsyMed test results with Sophia. They would have distressed her, and she was already in a physically vulnerable state, her pregnancy now at seven and a half months.

Poor Sophie.

Trying so hard to save all of them when that was an impossibility. And a terrible irony, because it had been Sophia’s refusal to give up on her fellow Js that had led to her forcible elevation to Director of the J Corps.

Sophia was Ruling Coalition member Nikita Duncan’s senior aide, and had no time to head a group of damaged telepaths who had once been overseen by the J Corps Management Board. But when the Ruling Coalition wiped out that board—after Sophia brought its mismanagement of the Corps to the Coalition’s attention—and asked all working Js in the world to get together to nominate their new leadership, they’d come back with a single name: Sophia “Sophie” Russo.

They’d dropped the mess of the J Corps into Sophia’s lap and trusted her to build a better long-term structure for them. She could’ve said no, but of course she hadn’t. Because Sophie wanted not just life for all of them, but a life filled with joy and hope.

“Sophia’s as tough as fucking nails, except when it comes to Js.”

It was Bram who’d said that in the conversation group of four he’d set up almost eighteen years ago: the Quatro Cartel. Bram’s little joke because the biggest case in the news at the time—when the four of them had been between nine and ten—had involved a ruthless drug cartel that liked to remove organs from people who owed them money, for no reason except that it was horrific torture.

“Perhaps we should follow that cartel’s example, Bram,” Saffron had said two months ago in her whisper of a voice, her throat still healing from her altercation with a murderer on a rampage. “Remove organs one by one, make our targets suffer.”

No one had told her that would take her into sociopath territory. Fact was, none of them had the patience for such games of torture, especially not Saffron, with her violent rages and extreme temper. Regardless, they agreed with her in principle—after what they’d seen in the minds they’d wandered, Eleri and the rest of the cartel of four had no doubts about evil and what it deserved.

Quatro had begun as a secret because they’d been children at a strict boarding school who’d wanted a private way to talk. It was Yúzé who’d taken Bram’s initial idea and used his tech skills to move the chat into a secure online room—Eleri didn’t understand how he’d done it, but then tech had always been Yúzé’s specialty. As a J, he’d been pulled near exclusively into cases that involved high-tech elements of murder.

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Archangel’s Ascension – Guild Hunter Read Online Nalini Singh http://www.ilovenovels.com/archangels-ascension-guild-hunter-read-online-nalini-singh Mon, 12 May 2025 18:28:03 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/archangels-ascension-guild-hunter-read-online-nalini-singh Genre: Fantasy/Sci-fi, M-M Romance, Paranormal, Vampires Authors: Nalini Singh Advertisement

Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)

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Aodhan and Illium. Adi and Blue. Sparkle and Bluebell. Friends become lovers, their future a wild unknown.

Finally reunited in New York, they must now learn to navigate the monumental shift in their relationship. But for these two members of Archangel Raphael’s legendary Seven, there is no time to rest. As they investigate a case for the Tower that echoes the darkness from Aodhan’s past, they will be forced to confront not only the scars that mark them both, but the promise of a vast power that flickers in Illium.

The threat of ascension has haunted and troubled Aodhan’s Blue for too long, the forces of change immutable and without mercy...and uncaring of Illium’s fierce wish to remain part of the Seven. Change is a constant in an immortal’s life, and this new horizon will bring with it both terrible heartbreak and a joy extraordinary enough to reverberate through time…

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Today

1

Illium swept past the sleek skyscraper that pierced the white clouds of an early spring day, so close that his wing threatened to brush against black glass tough enough to withstand an angelic strike. It made sense that the innovation had come about in New York—born in the mind of a mortal who had been “sick and tired” of angelic battles leveling his beloved city.

No building, not even the most reinforced, would survive should an archangel turn their ire on it, but archangels had armies for a reason. War was fought on many fronts, and that mortal, his name and history immortalized in the records kept in the Refuge, had given New York a critical advantage: its buildings would not fall easily in any engagement, would instead provide cover for counterstrike after counterstrike.

As it was, in the hundreds of years since the invention of this new material, New York had come under only the mildest of attacks—in all cases as a result of Illium’s asshole of a father being pissy that his son would rather serve another archangel. But even Aegaeon hadn’t had the heart for a true war, so New York hadn’t fallen again since the end of the War of the Death Cascade. But why be stupid and arrogant? Better to build ever tougher.

A tall woman with striking facial bones ran to a window of the skyscraper to wave at him. He dipped his wings in acknowledgment. She’d worked in that corner office for half a decade, was a senior associate as of two years ago, and her face still lit up every single time he flew past. Because she was family. Part of the clan that Catalina and Lorenzo had created when they fell in love countless mortal lifetimes ago.

The most extraordinary thing of it all was that his beloved friends’ little bakery in Harlem had survived the inexorable passage of time. The home of the city’s famous angel-wing alfajores thrived still in that old building where the recipe had first been born—a building that had never lost its warm heart, no matter how often it’d been repaired and renovated. Because every generation of Catalina and Lorenzo’s family birthed a passionate baker who wanted to carry on their legacy.

Illium had purchased the entire block piece by piece to ensure the little bakery would always have a home, that it’d never be forced out by progress or simple change. Harlem might morph and alter around it like a chameleon forever in flux, but even when that part of the city had gone dangerously gray for a period, become the haunt of vampiric excess and mortal pain, no one had dared come for the bakery.

The entire city knew that it sheltered beneath wings of a vivid, unmistakable blue veined with fine filaments of silver.

Using those wings to ride the air currents coming off the ocean, Illium flew through the crisp bite of spring. It whispered of snows not long past, was even more acute in the fine mist that kissed his skin as he rose through the clouds to fly at a higher elevation.

Other skyscrapers speared through the clouds around him, and lush floating habitats appeared to sit atop the puffy white, but none came close to the soaring wonder of Raphael’s Tower. The tallest point in the sky at any given time, built to offer clear lines of sight in every direction, it, too, had undergone many an iteration over the passage of time, but always, always it had been a beacon of power and light. No black glass for the Tower, its body a steel gray that glittered with metallic highlights. The windows were reflective at the top levels, the levels that would be the most important in any battle, and they intensely annoyed Illium the man, who was as curious as his pet cat.

First General Illium, however, well understood their facility and had been part of the team that had designed the Tower when it came time for a new build. He’d also made sure the entire building was technologically connected in ways unlike that of any other archangelic stronghold in the world. The one thing that had never changed, however, was the waterfall of railingless balconies from which angels took flight.

He caught sight of a pair of wings opening up in flight just then. Feathers the shade of dark mahogany, hair a touch lighter, the flight form of a warrior.

Andreja.

Seven and a half millennia of age or so—she’d forgotten her actual birthing day eons ago—she wore the amber of an angel far younger than her. She, who’d vowed never to lock herself to one lover. But even tough and battle-scarred Andreja wasn’t proof against Laric’s patient determination. When she’d told the healer he was too young to tie himself to her, he’d simply waited her out.

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Primal Mirror – Psy-Changeling Trinity Read Online Nalini Singh http://www.ilovenovels.com/primal-mirror-psy-changeling-trinity-read-online-nalini-singh Thu, 22 Aug 2024 20:05:01 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/primal-mirror-psy-changeling-trinity-read-online-nalini-singh Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal, Suspense Authors: Nalini Singh Advertisement

Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)

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The bestselling author Nalini Singh takes us into a family dark with shadowy secrets, as the world of the Psy teeters on the edge of a final catastrophic collapse. . . .

Daughter of two ruthless high-Gradient telepaths, Auden Scott is not the child her Psy parents wanted or expected, even before her brain injury. Her thoughts are scattered, her memories fuzzy—or just terrifyingly blank. The only thing she knows for certain is that she must protect her unborn baby . . . a baby she has no recollection of conceiving and who draws an unnerving depth of interest from her dead mother’s closest associates.
Leopard alpha Remi Denier is a man driven by the primal instinct to protect. Protect his pack, protect his allies . . . and protect the mysterious woman who has become a most unlikely neighbor. With eerie eyes that see too much and a scent that alters in ways disturbing and impossible, Auden Scott is the enemy . . . but nothing about this strange Psy is what it seems, and Remi’s feline heart is as fascinated by her as his human half.
Then Auden asks Remi to help her shatter the wall of secrets that is the Scott bloodline. What they unearth will reveal a nightmare beyond imagination. This time, the battle is to the death.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Bloodlines

GENETIC INTEGRITY.

A cold ideal, but one to which certain Psy families committed during Silence. It was believed that the more intensely curated the genetic line, the more powerful the abilities of the children born into that line. As such, potential partners in the creation of the next generation were investigated for any and all anomalies, only the most tightly controlled of the other genetic lines in the PsyNet allowed to intermingle with theirs.

It worked.

Over the more than one hundred years since the inception of the Silence Protocol and the subsequent elimination of emotion from Psy lives, this subgroup of families have refined their bloodlines to such genetic perfection that all their children are high-Gradients. Their cells carry no “extraneous” material that could initiate an unexpected result. There are no genetic leaps, no extraordinary new gifts, but on the flip side, there are no low-Gradients who will be a drain on the family’s resources.

Unfortunately, these families did not allow for a trifecta of wild cards.

First: the unpredictability of nature.

Second: the continued inability of the Psy race to pinpoint the exact genesis of their mental abilities on a biological level.

And third: the interference of those who believe themselves better than their fellow Psy—their own families included. Because for a super minority within this “flawless” minority, genetic perfection isn’t enough. A high-Gradient child isn’t enough. Even power far beyond that of the vast majority of the population isn’t enough.

Dominion over all sentient beings is what they crave.

Power so unqualified that it is a drug.

FIVE MONTHS AGO

Chapter 1

“Stand down. I have your squadmate in the truck.”

—Remington Denier, alpha of RainFire, to Aden Kai, leader of the Arrow Squad, one storm-lashed night (9 April 2082)

REMI SWORE UNDER his breath.

He’d been hoping that what he’d picked up hadn’t been conscious movement, merely branches breaking in the aftermath of the rainstorm that had passed over this part of the Smoky Mountains an hour earlier.

But what was happening on the land adjacent to his pack’s northernmost border had nothing to do with nature. Remi and his people, as well as their very dangerous friends, the Arrow Squad, had been attempting to trace the ownership of that land since two senior Arrows had woken up badly wounded in the single building that sat on the land: a flat square bunker created of old-fashioned concrete.

Back then, it had been draped in camouflage netting and dead foliage. These days, the walls were covered with moss and lichen, the concrete itself dirty and marked by exposure to the elements. Two or three more decades, and the creeping tendrils of the forest would overpower it until nothing of the bunker showed to the naked eye.

Remi would’ve been fine with that—though he’d much rather have found the owner. The Arrows knew who’d been behind their capture, but they hadn’t been able to tie any member of that group to this land. At first, it appeared the trail ended with the name of a deceased five-year-old child, but that had turned out to be just another misdirection.

Last Remi had heard, the squad’s civilian specialist had landed on another faceless shell corporation. “Whoever did the paperwork to hide ownership,” Tamar had muttered, “they were good, did all the same things I would have. Trail’s circular and eats its own tail.”

As it was, the Arrows had had to shelve the search for the time being. The PsyNet, the psychic network that connected the majority of the Psy on the planet and that the other race needed to survive, was breaking down at a catastrophic rate. The squad had focused their power and attention on that looming threat to millions of lives.

“As it is,” the leader of the squad—and Remi’s friend—Aden Kai had said, “we’ve poisoned that location for the owner, regardless. No way to run black ops out of it anymore, not when they know it’s in our crosshairs.”

Now, eyes narrowed, Remi leaned one shoulder against a mature yellow birch, its spring-green leaves a falling rain around him, and watched the small gathering in the clearing in front of the bunker: two women, three men, all of them in suits a little too lightweight for the temperature at this elevation.

The older woman—maybe in her early fifties—was a tall and very thin brunette with skin of pale brown and eyes that appeared dark from this distance. She looked to be in charge, the three men listening intently to whatever it was that she was saying.

The younger woman stood apart, her possibly curly black hair viciously contained in a knot at the back of her head, her skin an ebony that glowed even in the cloud-heavy light. She was on the taller side for a woman, maybe five eight, and wore a black skirt suit paired with a white shirt, her black heels so unsuitable for this terrain that it was laughable.

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Archangel’s Lineage – Guild Hunter Read Online Nalini Singh http://www.ilovenovels.com/archangels-lineage-guild-hunter-read-online-nalini-singh Sat, 11 May 2024 14:57:05 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/archangels-lineage-guild-hunter-read-online-nalini-singh Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal, Vampires Authors: Nalini Singh Advertisement

Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)

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New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh’s dangerous and beautiful world of archangels, vampires, and mortals has never faced a threat this cataclysmic…

Raphael and Elena are experiencing their first ever year of true peace. No war. No horrors of archangelic power. No nightmares given flesh. Until…the earth beneath the Refuge begins to tremble, endangering not only angelkind’s precious and fragile young, but the very place that has held their most innocent safe for eons.

Amid the chaos, Elena’s father suffers a violent heart attack that threatens to extinguish their last chance to heal the bonds between them and make sense of the ruins of their agonizing shared history.

Even as Elena battles grief, Raphael is torn from her side by the sudden disappearance of an archangel. But worse yet is to come. An Ancestor, an angel unlike any other, stirs from his Sleep to warn the Cadre of a darkness so terrible that it causes empires to fall and civilizations to vanish.

This time, even the Cadre itself may not be able to stop a ticking clock that is counting down at frightening speed…

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

Oh, you must not.

Your tears wound me, but there is no choice. I cannot go on. I have tried until I have no more breath in the shell of my body and no heart in the core of my self.

The river—

—is eternal. What falls will always rise. One civilization or another, what does it matter to me?

My love, you were never this heartless. You ever cared for your people. I saw you cradle newborn mortals in your arms and kiss their soft cheeks.

You see why I must do this, beloved. Do I not, I turn slowly into a monster cold and without sympathy for those who are smaller, weaker, my shell all that remains.

Ah, my heart. Come to me. We will lie inside my fire this day and the next and the next until eternity ends.

And in the heartbeats between lifetimes, I will look into your eyes and I will be whole.

2

Elena kicked out a booted foot to check the give in her opulent ball gown and grinned when the falls of fabric around her legs parted like they weren’t there. “Montgomery strikes again,” she said, then busied herself slipping her throwing knives into the decorative sheaths at her forearms.

At some point during her roughly two decades as Raphael’s consort, she’d said to hell with it and decided to give herself a new trademark: arm sheaths. These days, no one blinked an eye at her preference for weapons as jewelry; it definitely took the edge off, not having to find places to secrete weapons.

Not that she didn’t also always have hidden weapons.

Elena was never not going to have a concealed garrote or a dart that blew drug-laced needles somewhere on her person. The latter had been a joke birthday gift from her hunter friends, but she’d realized the real thing could pass as a decorative pendant in situations where other weapons might be seen as a sign of aggression.

Setting her personal style as including arm sheaths had ameliorated the latter threat. Who cared if the snooty old angels called it a “mortal affectation” with their condescending noses so far up in the air that it was a wonder they didn’t unbalance and fall over backward. The idiots thought they were insulting her. Hah. Having a mortal heart, a mortal soul, was a gift she cherished in this world where so many frittered away entire centuries because they always had one more day.

What had taken her aback was when a cohort of “edgy” young courtiers began to copy her with jewel-encrusted monstrosities they dared call blades. Those insults of weapons couldn’t fly a single foot in a straight line, much less actually hit a target, but per Illium, that’s what she got for being a fashion “icon.”

Their pretty Bluebell was going to get his feathers plucked one of these days.

The unbound near-white of her waist-length hair being brushed aside, a kiss pressed to the back of her neck that made a shiver ripple over her body as wings of white-gold opened in her peripheral vision.

Her stomach tumbled, as if this was the first time Raphael had ever touched her.

Leaning back into his warm and muscled form, his upper body yet bare, she groaned. “Does that mean you’re agreeing to my idea of blowing off this deal and getting naked?”

Oceans ice-blue and windswept crashed into her mind, his laughter filling her world. “Alas, hbeebti, I must do my duty today. As must you.” Another kiss, this one to the curve of her throat, as he placed one hand on her abdomen. “After it is done, however . . . I know a place where we can tangle wings far from the rest of the world.”

Her thighs clenched, the need she had for him a potent addiction; knowing him, growing with him had made her fall ever deeper for the Archangel of New York.

Lifting her hand to slide it over the back of his neck without fully turning, she stroked the heat of his skin. “You have a deal and I’m holding you to it.” Tired of the pageantry and politics, she needed what only he could give her.

“I like this dress,” he murmured, their eyes meeting in the mirror.

His were twin blue flames, the color piercing and impossible in its violent purity, a punch to the heart every single time. The midnight of his hair was tumbled and damp from his quick shower, the planes of his face dangerously striking under skin kissed by the sun.

The Legion mark on his right temple—the shape a stylized dragon—flickered with light that was diamonds tumbling in the ocean. The renewed energy of the mark was a recent development. It had gone flat and lifeless after the Legion gave up their lives, and in time, like a tattoo held too long in the skin, had begun to fade.

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There Should Have Been Eight Read Online Nalini Singh http://www.ilovenovels.com/there-should-have-been-eight-read-online-nalini-singh Thu, 07 Dec 2023 05:54:55 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/there-should-have-been-eight-read-online-nalini-singh Genre: Contemporary, Suspense Authors: Nalini Singh Advertisement

Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >128

In this chilling thriller from New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh, a remote estate in New Zealand’s Southern Alps hosts a reunion no one will ever forget.

Seven friends.

One last weekend.

A mansion half in ruins.

No room for lies.

Someone is going to confess.

Because there should have been eight. . . .

They met when they were teenagers. Now they’re adults, and time has been kind to some and unkind to others—none more so than to Bea, the one they lost nine long years ago.

They’ve gathered to reminisce at Bea’s family’s estate, a once-glorious mansion straight out of a gothic novel. Best friends, old flames, secret enemies, and new lovers are all under one roof. But when the weather turns and they’re snowed in at the edge of eternity, there’s nowhere left to hide from their shared history.

As the walls close in, the pretense of normality gives way to long-buried grief, bitterness, and rage. Underneath it all, there’s the nagging feeling that Bea’s shocking death wasn’t what it was claimed to be. And before the weekend is through, the truth will be unleashed—no matter the cost.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

. . . around the cache of disturbing images found in the personal laptop of Judge Landis Beale. The judge has refused to speak to the media after his initial statement denying all knowledge of the images and declaring that his system had been hacked.

However, sources close to the investigation state that there is no evidence of hacking, and that it appears the judge has been collecting the images for close to a year.

Major media organizations continue to file appeals against the gag order that prohibits any description of the images.

—MORNING NEWS BULLETIN

2

But I’m afraid of the dark.

That was all I could think when the doctor looked at me, kind and gentle, and told me that I was going to go blind. A slow, steady road to relentless darkness. There were other words. Things like “best-case scenario” and “limited vision,” along with “cutting-edge developments” and “chance to optimize your habits,” but it had just been buzz, a swarm of disoriented bees in my head.

It’s been a year since that day. I now knew far too much about the genetic time bomb inside me, and my night vision was gone. But I could still see in the light, so I brought the camera up to my eye as the wind whipped my hair back from the open window, and I snapped a shot of one of the myriad waterfalls that cascaded down the fern-covered rocks of this final stretch of the West Coast.

We’d turn soon, going inland and upward as we made our way to the remote alpine area that housed Darcie’s family estate. I’d never had reason to visit that specific part of the country, but I’d heard that it was breathtaking, a photographer’s paradise. Still, that unknown landscape could never compete with my love for the black sands, rainforests, and jagged cliffs of this coast.

“We’re flying south for three days to walk one of the trails, then road-tripping up to the estate,” my best friend, Vansi, had said. “You should come! Kaea’s already on board and I’m going to ask Aaron and Grace, too.”

My love for this region was part of why I’d tried so hard to fly home early, join the road trip. But only a small part. When Darcie’s invitation had come and I’d realized everyone had said yes to the idea of a reunion, the key had turned, unlocking the bitter box of questions I’d kept stifled for nine long years.

All of us. Together again.

While I could still see, still judge their expressions.

It was time.

No more avoiding the one subject none of us could bear to talk about.

No more false cheer anytime we reminisced about the past.

No more pretending that Bea wasn’t dead.

My chest compressed in on itself, my eyes staring unblinkingly at the landscape beyond the window.

In the end, I’d only made this final stretch of the road trip. I’d needed to see my family, imprint their visages on my brain. Because the disease that had slumbered in my cells all my life was now well and truly awake. It was rare, the doctors had told me, and while they had data from other cases, there were no guarantees when it came to the timeline of progression.

I was a walking case study on its unpredictability: I’d been asymptomatic until I hit twenty-eight years of age. Such late onset was as rare as the disease itself. Most with the same diagnosis only got to keep their sight until their teens, or early twenties at best. I’d made it to almost thirty.

A gift.

More than a quarter century spent in blissful ignorance.

No awareness that there would come a day when my world would go blurry . . . then blink out, leaving me with nothing but ghostly afterimages of the life I’d once lived.

The diagnosis had turned me into a hoarder of memories.

After five days with my parents, brother, and grandparents in the frenetic energy of metropolitan Auckland, I’d made my way to Fox Glacier last night. The cabin I’d booked at the last minute had been low on the amenities front and chilly to boot, but was nestled inside primeval native bushland.

Giant tree ferns had shaded my back door, beyond them a landscape curling with mist. Soft focus provided by nature.

I’d taken more photographs, hoarded more memories—but I’d been ready to go when my friends drove in at ten that morning. The mist had faded by then, the sky ablaze with cool spring sunshine.

Hugs, cries of joy, grins exchanged.

It had all felt so painfully familiar, their voices and faces writ on my very bones. I’d never forget the fine details of any of their expressions, no matter how fast the curtain fell. We’d been part of each other’s lives at a pivotal moment, that breath between childhood and adulthood, when the whole world was full of possibility and our minds fearless.

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Resonance Surge – Psy-Changeling Trinity Read Online Nalini Singh http://www.ilovenovels.com/resonance-surge-psy-changeling-trinity-read-online-nalini-singh Sun, 30 Jul 2023 16:00:59 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/resonance-surge-psy-changeling-trinity-read-online-nalini-singh Genre: Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal, Suspense Authors: Nalini Singh Advertisement

Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >149

Where are the broken? A propulsive question that unleashes a world of secrets in New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh’s Resonance Surge . . .

StoneWater bears Pavel and Yakov Stepyrev have been a unit since birth, but now Pavel’s life is veering in a new direction, his heart held in the hands of Arwen Mercant, a Psy empath—and the only man who has ever brought Pavel to his knees.

This is it. A point of irrevocable change. For Pavel . . . for Arwen . . . for Yakov . . . and for another pair of twins whose bond has a far darker history.

A low-gradient Psy, Theodora Marshall is considered worthless by everyone but her violently powerful twin, Pax. She is the sole person he trusts in their venomous family to investigate a hidden and terrible part of their family history—an unregistered rehabilitation center established by their grandfather.

Places of unimaginable pain designed to psychically wipe minds, leaving the victims shells of their former selves, the Centers are an ugly vestige of the Psy race’s Silent past. But this Center was worse. Far, far worse. And now Theo must uncover the awful truth—in the company of a scowling bear named Yakov who isn’t about to take a Marshall at face value . . . especially a Marshall who has turned his dreams into chilling nightmares.

Because Yakov is the great-grandson of a foreseer . . . and he has seen Theo die in an unstoppable surge of blood. Night after night after night .

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter 1

Theodora, I’m being told by your handler that you’re refusing to follow orders. Do you or do you not realize that the act you’re being asked to perform is the only way in which you can ever be useful to the family?

If you continue to refuse, you become nothing but a drain on our resources, a failure of genetic potential that will need to be addressed—and do not make the mistake of believing that the fact you’re the twin of a Gradient 9 gives you a protective halo.

You are now seventeen years old, far beyond the point where the loss of one twin will in any way impact the other. Pax has long forgotten you and is thriving free from the burden that was his bond to you. You are on your own.

—Private message from Marshall Hyde to Theodora Marshall (12 December 2072)

BLOOD, THERE WAS so much blood on her. It spurted through the hands she’d clasped desperately to her throat, dripped down the bone white of her fingers to stain them a rich scarlet. Her eyes were stark when they met his. And he knew.

She was dying.

Yakov Stepyrev jolted awake, his heart thunder and perspiration hot and damp on the mid-brown of his skin. He whipped his head around, searching for her . . . but of course his room was empty.

Heart yet a bass drum, he dropped his face into his pillow and mumbled, “Govno, Yakov, you’re losing it.”

It was an effort to flip over onto his back, but once there, he couldn’t stay put. He was a bear—usually he liked to linger in the warmth of the bed while hitting the snooze button on his old-school alarm clock. Usually however, he didn’t wake with his adrenaline pumping from a violent dream about a woman who didn’t exist and had never existed.

He flexed his fingers on the sheets . . . and only then realized his bear’s claws, thick and glossy and deadly, had pushed through his skin. Fur brushed against the inside of his body, the animal that was his other half as unsettled and agitated as the human half of Yakov.

Shoving off the sheet, he gritted his teeth and managed to retract his claws, then decided to work off his frenetic fight-ready energy by doing push-ups on the thickly carpeted floor. He did pull on a pair of boxer briefs first, though. He was no blushing violet—he just didn’t want his cock kissing the carpet with every rep.

But even the strenuous physical activity did little to redirect his mind from the track on which it was fixated. Her. The woman he’d been dreaming about since he was sixteen.

Never like this, however.

Never with blood, with fear that was chill sweat on his skin.

It had been fun in the beginning, when he was a teen. He’d bragged to his fellow juveniles that he knew exactly what his mate looked like, that he was a step ahead of them when it came to the mating dance. His great-grandfather had been a foreseer, hadn’t he?

After the odd experiences both he and his twin had had over the years—when they’d just known things even when those things hadn’t yet come to pass—Yakov had been certain his dreams were a glimmer of foresight. It had made sense to him that the dreams were so powerful because they related to the woman who was to be the one for him.

His mate. His heart.

But he wasn’t a teen any longer, and he was beginning to question his sanity. The dreams had stopped for years . . . only to return with a bloody and brutal vengeance this past week. Every freaking night. Always the same dream, too—of Yakov in his bear form, walking through the mist of early morning until he realized that he wasn’t alone, was walking beside a woman with hair of softest gold and eyes of haunted blue.

She knelt beside him at some point, her hand fisted in his fur as she cried into his neck. Her tears were so hot they burned, and all he wanted to do was change form, take her into his arms. But he couldn’t disturb her in her pain, so he just folded his legs to come down to the ground, and he let her cry until all her tears were done, and she could look him in the eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” she always said, her voice husky. “It’s too late, don’t you see?”

Then, without warning came the blood, the terror . . . the dying.

Yakov’s muscles quivered as he held a plank, but he couldn’t hold back the memory of his rage in the dream, the echo of his bear’s growl of repudiation ringing in his ears.

One thing he knew—the dreams hadn’t been like this back when he’d been a kid. His mystery woman had been younger then and he’d been in his human form, and though they’d met in the same misty clearing, she’d smiled at him in delighted surprise before they’d run through the flowers like small cubs playing a game.

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Archangel’s Resurrection – Guild Hunter Read Online Nalini Singh http://www.ilovenovels.com/archangels-resurrection-guild-hunter-read-online-nalini-singh Wed, 02 Nov 2022 21:50:39 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/archangels-resurrection-guild-hunter-read-online-nalini-singh Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal, Romance, Vampires Authors: Nalini Singh Advertisement

Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 118699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 593(@200wpm)___ 475(@250wpm)___ 396(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >129

New York Times Bestselling author Nalini Singh takes us into the dangerous, haunting world of archangels…and a love that is legend.

For thousands of years, the passion between Alexander, Archangel of Persia, and Zanaya, Queen of the Nile, burned furious and bright, seemingly without end. But to be an archangel is to be bound to power violent and demanding. Driven by its primal energy, Alexander and Zanaya fought as fiercely as they loved. Locked in an endless cycle of devotion and heartbreak, it is only Zanaya’s decision to Sleep that ends their love story.

Eons later, it is the Cascade of Death that wakens them both. The passion between them a flame that yet burns, Alexander and Zanaya stand together in one last battle against the ultimate darkness. But even a warrior archangel cannot win every war. Alexander’s scream shatters the world as Zanaya falls, broken and silent…only to rise again in a miracle that may be a devastating curse. For is it truly the Queen of the Nile who has been resurrected?

Only one thing is clear: this is the last beat of their passionate, angry dance. The final song for Alexander and his Zani…

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Immortality is a gift incandescent.

Immortality is a curse obscene.

—Unknown scholar

The First Ending

1

Lijuan, Archangel of Death and Goddess Over All, gloried in the howl of her power as battle raged around her, Raphael’s once-glittering city now broken and scorched. Impudent child. He should’ve listened to Lijuan, listened to his goddess! She’d told him what to do, had attempted to guide him. But no, he would make the wrong choice. He would choose to tie himself forever to a mewling mortal.

It mattered naught that his consort now bore wings and other trappings of immortality. She was nothing, a worm to be crushed under the boot, as Lijuan had once crushed her own worm. Because worms dug inside you, creating runnels and holes. Weaknesses. Fractures. Vulnerabilities.

Raphael had all of those. And today he would pay the price. They would all pay.

She laughed at the temerity of the archangels who’d gathered into an alliance against her. Together, they thought they could defeat her. When all they’d done was made things easier for her by congregating in one place. They might’ve been the apex predators on the planet once, but Lijuan alone held that throne now.

They were nothing but her servants.

Ignoring the chaos all around her, she scanned the area until she pinpointed the archangel she most wanted to remove from the equation. There she was. Small in stature, with skin “like the night, eyes that held the stars, and hair of violet moonlight”—or so she’d been described by the idiotic poet who’d written a scroll devoted to Zanaya, Queen of the Nile.

Lijuan had researched Zanaya as part of her investigation into all possible Sleepers who might prove a problem in the future . . . but she’d paid a little extra attention to the so-called Queen of the Nile. Not because she was more of a power than the others, but because Zanaya had managed to obtain the one thing that Lijuan had never been able to capture: the love of Alexander, Archangel of Persia.

Oh, he’d been kind to Lijuan, had told her that she was too young and that perhaps after another seven thousand years, they could come together. Only later had she realized that he’d simply been letting her down with kindness—by then, she’d seen true passion in a man’s eyes, had understood with bitter clarity that what she’d seen in Alexander’s had been . . . gentle, yes. Twined even with affection. But passion? No. Not even the merest inkling.

Why her and not me?

A gnawing question inside her ever since she’d learned of Zanaya and Alexander’s history. Because that’s how most ancient scrolls were written—with their two names linked. As if they were so much a unit that it was understood that should Zanaya walk the earth, Alexander would belong to her and no one else.

Rage burned through Lijuan.

How dare he choose this mere archangel in place of Lijuan, who was a goddess? How dare he still look at Zanaya in a way he’d never once looked at her! She shouldn’t have noticed how their glances met, shouldn’t have noticed anything beyond what was necessary to win this war, but she had—and the reminder of her pathetic past self enraged her.

Fueled by the lifeforce of those who’d sacrificed themselves to their goddess, she turned noncorporeal . . . and then she flew straight to the archangel who mocked Lijuan with her very existence. Lijuan had no weaknesses. After she killed Zanaya, she’d take care of Alexander. She’d consume them both, and once they were inside her, she would control them.

Zanaya never stood a chance.

Appearing behind her, Lijuan sank her fangs into the archangel’s neck, and drank of her life. Those fangs usually only emerged in angels during the Making of a vampire, but Lijuan could call them up at will. Yet another sign of her difference from these creatures who sought to humble her.

Sudden savage winds whipped at Lijuan’s hair as Zanaya called up her power, the archangel’s body twisting to respond to the attack, but it was a futile effort. Lijuan had swallowed up too much of the potent power that made up a member of the Cadre, and Zanaya was fading, fading.

Lijuan’s rage, however, oh, it continued to scald.

Because it did, she made a critical error. She eased her iron control on the vicious power which made her a goddess—and created a leak. A whisper of her own power flowed into Zanaya, a gift of which she was utterly unworthy. But no matter. Zanaya was dead anyway. At least now, Lijuan knew not to get so entranced by the refueling process that she lost her grip on the screaming endlessness that was her glory.

Sated for the moment, she dropped Zanaya’s shriveled corpse and turned noncorporeal once more. There would never again be a scroll written that paired Zanaya with Alexander.

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Storm Echo – Psy-Changeling Trinity Read Online Nalini Singh http://www.ilovenovels.com/storm-echo-psy-changeling-trinity-read-online-nalini-singh Mon, 03 Oct 2022 08:16:13 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/storm-echo-psy-changeling-trinity-read-online-nalini-singh Genre: Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal, Romance, Shape Shifters, Virgin Authors: Nalini Singh Advertisement

Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >131

NYT bestselling author Nalini Singh takes us into the hearts of two fractured people in a world on the brink of a psychic Armageddon . . .

Silence has fallen. The Psy are free to feel emotion. Free to love. But Silence was never a prison for Ivan Mercant. The biggest threat to his future lies dormant in his brain—a psychic monster that wants only to feed. And now, the brutal leash he’s kept on that monster is slipping. He prepared for this day, for the end of Ivan Mercant . . . but that was before he met Lei.

As primal as she is human, this wild changeling brings color into his life, laughter to his soul. Then the dream shatters in a rain of blood, in silent bodies in the snow. Lei is gone. Vanished without a trace . . . until he meets strangely familiar eyes across a busy San Francisco street.

Soleil Bijoux Garcia is a healer who has lost everything. She exists in a world of desolate aloneness . . . till the day she finds herself face-to-face with a lethal stranger. The animal who is her other half knows this man, but her memories are tattered fragments. Sorrow and a need for vengeance are all that drive her. Her mission? To kill the alpha of the DarkRiver leopard pack.

But fate has other plans. Soon, a deadly soldier who believes himself a monster and a broken healer might be all that stand between life and death for the entire Psy race.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Chapter 1

The child has severe attachment issues. It is not Silence. He is simply psychologically damaged to the extent that he may never be able to form an attachment to another on any level. As such, his loyalty to the family cannot be guaranteed. He is a risk.

—Private PsyMed report on Ivan Mercant, age 8 (20 June 2059)

3 May 2083

IN TERMS OF age, Ivan fell in the older cadre of Ena’s grandchildren. Younger than Canto, older than Silver and Arwen. He’d also always been the one who gave the family the least trouble—no trouble at all really. Canto was as stubborn as a bull and Silver had a steely spine, and neither ever bent for Ena unless they wished to do so.

As for Arwen, gentle, empathic Arwen could be obstinate in his own way. Like water running over stone. Slow and persistent until the edges of the rock were no longer so sharp and the water had carved a new channel without the rock ever being aware of the change.

Ivan, in contrast, was more wont to say yes than no. Ask any of the other three and they’d never use the words “obstinate” or “stubborn” in relation to Ivan. One of the teenage members of the family had used the term “chill” to describe Ivan, and when Ena had looked up what that term meant when used in that context, she’d had to agree.

Ivan flowed through life, willing to bend, never opposing Ena … and still doing exactly what he wanted and nothing else. It had taken a long time for Ena to realize that the least openly stubborn of her grandchildren was also the most relentless in his quiet will. It was Ivan, after all, who’d never studied at the tertiary level, despite Ena’s strong desire that he do so; and it was Ivan who’d chosen to walk a path she’d initially forbidden him from pursuing.

Ivan did as he pleased … but he did have one vulnerability.

“Ivan?” she said now, as she watched him pack the final items for his journey to San Francisco. She rarely intruded in the suite he kept at the family compound, but with him leaving today, it was well past time to have this conversation. “Is all well?”

“Of course, Grandmother.” He unzipped a side pocket of his holdall, then reached for a small and flat black bag that could contain either his toothbrush and soap—or a weapon.

There was no way to know when it came to Ivan.

“Are you certain?” She remained in the doorway, for she would not push into the private area of his bedroom—though she knew Ivan wouldn’t rebuff her. That was the problem, and why she asked so little from him. Because Ivan would give it to her. He went his own way when it came to his life and the choices he made, but should Ena ever request he do a task, he’d do so without hesitation.

Whether it was to put a bullet in someone’s head or to allow her in his space.

That was Ivan’s only vulnerability.

“I’m fine,” he said, zipping up that pocket. “Why do you ask?”

“You’ve been different since you returned from that training course in Texas.” Close to a year and a half ago. She hadn’t been sure at first, and Ivan had somehow slid out of any conversations where she tried to bring it up, and then he’d vanished from her sight for various duties. “Did something happen?”

The most minute pause in his efficient movements. So small that likely not even Canto, Arwen, or Silver would’ve noticed, and they were the closest to Ivan aside from Ena. But Ena had always looked at Ivan with more careful eyes than she had his cousins. They’d all needed her in one way or another, but Ivan … he was the one least likely to verbalize or openly show that need.

He’d learned too young that asking for help was useless. No one would ever come. She’d tried to overwrite that ugly lesson, but it had been too long embedded by the time Ena came into his life. All she’d been able to do was make sure she responded to his unspoken needs—and hope that one day, he’d learn that she would always respond if he asked her for anything.

Now he closed the final tab on his holdall and turned to face her, those eyes of pale blue shot with darker shards striking against his black hair and the cool white of his skin. “Just the cut I received on my calf,” he said, “and that’s long since healed.” Slipping the strap of the holdall over his shoulder, he walked to join her in the doorway.

“Are you certain, Ivan?” Ena didn’t budge; she hadn’t held this family together through the cold reign of Silence by being weak of will, and she wasn’t about to let Ivan obfuscate this. Because the thing was, Ivan never lied to her. He just somehow managed to give her only as much information as he wanted.

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Kiss Hard – Hard Play Read Online Nalini Singh http://www.ilovenovels.com/kiss-hard-hard-play-read-online-nalini-singh Mon, 03 Oct 2022 08:16:13 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/kiss-hard-hard-play-read-online-nalini-singh Genre: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance, Sports Authors: Nalini Singh Advertisement

Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100873 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >107

New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh brings you a sinfully playful contemporary romance between two sworn enemies turned partners in crime...

Daniel Esera is a young god on the rugby field, a sexy and charming man who's got the world at his feet. There's just one problem: his sudden potent attraction to his number one nemesis--Catie River. No. Just no. Not happening.

Catie River is on her way to Paralympic gold, and she's not about to allow Danny "Hotshot" Esera to derail her plans. Too bad her body isn't cooperating. Even worse? Her heart might be coming along for the ride. No. Nope. Never.

The pair are united in their desire to remain enemies... until a stranger's reckless action threatens both their careers. Now, the only way out for Catie and Danny is to pretend to be in a relationship. How bad can it be? They're adults in full control of their hormones and their hearts. There will be no kissing. No PDA. And definitely no falling in love.

Let the games begin.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

PROLOGUE

TEN YEARS AGO…

Catie stared out the rain-washed window.

The deluge was so heavy that it blurred the outside world, turned it into a scene from a Renaissance painting she’d seen in a textbook, all soft and out of focus, but one thing was clear: it was bad out. The increasingly violent winds had half bent the trees in the yard and water was starting to collect on the lower part of the driveway.

Her heart thudded, her muscles all tight. “Dad’s fine,” she muttered, reminding herself that the last time she’d freaked out about her father, Clive, he’d been having a great time gambling it up at a casino in Sydney, Australia. It just hadn’t occurred to him to tell his teenage daughter that he was leaving the country. He’d been too excited to “meet up with an old buddy and hit the blackjack table while his luck was running hot.”

Still, her hand clenched on the phone.

The weather was worse than awful—complete with a dangerous gale-force-wind warning from the national meteorological agency—and Clive had left for his trip yesterday morning. It was now past four in the afternoon, the storm turning the world dark at the edges.

Dad, she messaged, can you message back so I know you’re okay?

No response. Not then, and not for the two hours that followed. Not even to her multiple calls. She knew he wouldn’t mind. Her father never minded anything—mostly because he just ignored stuff he didn’t want to handle.

“Catie, dear.” Martha poked her head into Catie’s room. “Come on, it’s time for dinner.” Her face was warm with love, her brown skin aglow and her black hair in loose curls that held the shine of her favored leave-in conditioner. “I made spaghetti with meatballs.”

One of Catie’s favorites. Poor Martha. Having to pick up the pieces once again—and stuck with a silent Catie. She flushed, immediately ashamed of her stressed preoccupation. “I’m sorry, Martha. I should’ve helped.”

The near-to-fifty-year-old woman deserved all of Catie’s respect. Not only because Martha had been Catie’s caregiver since the day Catie was finally discharged from the rehabilitation center two years ago, but also because she was kind and had done everything in her power to help Catie on her path to independence.

At fourteen, Catie no longer needed Martha as she had back then, but since neither Catie’s big sister nor her mother were about to chance Catie ending up alone when Clive pulled a disappearing act, Martha stayed.

Truth was, Catie would miss her so much if she left.

“You can do the dishes.” Martha walked over to ruffle Catie’s messy hair, her dark eyes heavy with worry she tried to keep from her voice. “Trust me, you’ll definitely earn your dinner scrubbing the pot.”

Catie laughed, more to ease Martha’s mind than because she felt anything beyond the knot in her gut. And though she could barely taste the dish Martha had prepared with love in her heart, she cleaned her plate.

Her phone stayed silent throughout, and the knot… it grew and grew until she had no room in her stomach for anything but fear. Clive had taken off plenty of times, but he usually messaged her back within a few hours. She’d been very clear with him after the Sydney thing.

“I’m your kid,” she’d pointed out in a calm tone she’d practiced in her room—because Clive blanked if anyone got too emotional. “I need to know my dad is safe.”

Catie didn’t expect Clive to be like her friend Laveni’s dad—a jovial and warm presence who came to school meetings and drove her places and scowled at boys who wanted to hang out with her. Catie had Issie for that; her sister was the best and even more protective than Veni’s papa. But Catie did expect Clive not to scare her.

That was normal, wasn’t it? She loved Martha but knew that Martha had her own daughter and a grandchild on whom she doted; Catie tried not to ask for anything from her beyond what was in her duties. When it came to family, Catie only had Clive and Issie. Okay, she had the Dragon, aka Jacqueline, too, but her mother—who’d married and then divorced Clive within a few short years—didn’t really like to spend time with her children.

Ísa was the one to whom Catie went with her problems and questions. Ísa’s husband was pretty neat, and he treated Catie like family too. So yeah, she had him as well. That was four people. Plenty enough. But only one was her dad, and she didn’t know what she’d do if anything happened to him.

The knot was a rock by now, her throat all choked up.

Bedtime came without any reply from Clive, though Veni messaged her a pic of a cute boy she liked from school—he wore glasses, played chess rather than sports, and was almost as smart as Veni.

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