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  Cyrus turned to his wife. “Amara, take my daughters and leave us to discuss this. Doreen, Iris, you will accompany your mother, please.”

  After his wife and daughters departed, Cyrus continued. “You have much to learn about women, Tiro, and you can start with understanding you do not use crass language in front of young ladies.”

  Tiro’s frustration overflowed, his body grew rigid, and his lips formed a thin line. “I know all I need to know of women.”

  “Is that so? Then perhaps you can enlighten your brother and me on what it is you know.”

  Tiro’s eyes flashed with obvious resentment. “I know Vickie is a real woman, which is better than being mated to a damn fish!”

  “She is not a fish, son!” Cyrus roared. “Callista is a Mermaid and you are a Merman. It is not a mating of human to fish—it is a mating of destiny.”

  “To hell with destiny! You and I both know after tonight I have to give up my life as I know it and do my duty for the family. I know I’m required to mate with Callista—to break the curse so we can all return to Caspia.” Tiro’s voice trailed off, his final words barely audible. “And that, Father, is all I need to know.”

  Tired of his son’s refusal to accept the inevitable, Cyrus pointed his finger at Tiro and yelled, “I can do nothing about Vickie. I never lied to you, Tiro. You have known from a very young age you are a Merman. Taking a human wife has always been out of the question. You always knew one day you would be mated to Callista and return with us to Caspia.”

  Tiro paced the floor in front of Cyrus, his steps brisk and impatient. “And every time we discuss this, you, sir, choose to forget I have lived as a human for sixteen years! I have no memories of the Mer world or what it is like to be a Merman,” Tiro hissed. He flexed his hands and took a deep breath. “I was a child when Metri tore our world apart and cast us on the shore. My sisters, Mermaids though they are, have never known life under the waves. Mark was a babe, barely three, and while he may accept his fate, I cannot, will not, believe he has no regrets about leaving our life here.” Running his fingers through his hair, Tiro sighed. “I don’t want to argue with you, Father. I’ll tell Vickie goodbye tonight. Tomorrow Mark and I will head back to the wreck. By this time next week, we’ll have a prison ready to house the Mermaid. I’ll do my duty to our family.”

  Hearing the resignation in Tiro’s voice, Cyrus felt a stab of remorse for his son’s quandary. Unable to offer any comfort or another solution, they had to continue forward to restore Caspia, even if it meant his son’s temporary unhappiness. Cyrus walked around the table toward Tiro, placing his hand on his son’s shoulder, calmly accepting his reluctant acquiescence. “I know you will, son.”

  Note from Michelle

  I do hope you enjoyed this book, I’d so appreciate it if you’d help others enjoy it too.

  Recommend it. Please help other readers find this book by recommending it.

  Review it. Please tell other readers why you liked this book by reviewing it at online retailers or your blog. Reader reviews help my books continue to be valued by distributors/resellers. I adore each and every reader who takes the time to write one!

  If you love the book or leave a review, please email michelle@michellehoppe.com so I can thank you with a personal email. Your support means more than you’ll ever know! Thank you!

  About Michelle

  Author Michelle Hoppe first discovered a love for writing in a high school creative writing class, and has been creating romantic comedy, chic lit, paranormal, and contemporary stories even since. Michelle writes sexy stories with an edge, and humorous stories about life as a mother and grandmother. Michelle lives in a quiet little town in WA State, USA. With beautiful beaches, stately mountains, an active volcano, and an abundance of nature, it is an ideal location to write her novels, poetry, and stories.

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  eBooks by Michelle Hoppe

  Visit Michelle’s website at http://www.michellehoppe.com for more info

  Belle Tori, a Contemporary Erotic Romance series

  1. Club Belle Tori

  2. Return to Belle Tori

  This Author's Life, a comedy series about everyday family life

  1. The jOYs of Life

  2. bOYs, tOYs, and jOYs

  Stand Alone Titles

  Hart's Heart

  Forever Caspia

  The Diner

  Tipping the Scales

  Poetry

  1. Hues of Dark and Light (Illustrated)

  Michelle recommends … Renee George

  “When I want a great romance with heat, I grab a Renee George paranormal, historical, or urban fantasy and settle in for an exciting ride.”

  The Lion Kings

  Lion Kings, Book 1

  Renee George

  Chapter 1

  They touch me and I am found. I spread my thighs allowing Cage to penetrate me with his fingers while Adam laps at my juices, drinking my desire pooling into Cage’s hand. I am feast to their famine. Cage increases his pace, thrusting, adding another finger as his thumb dances over the engorged bundle of my sex.

  He leans his upper body over mine, his eyes the color of a setting sun, an amber-brown, just shy of true orange. As a child, his masters forced him into his other form for long periods of time. Too long. He has short, thick golden blond hair with deep sideburns that end at his jaw where his short beard begins. Those golden lashes, long and curled, frame his unusual eyes as if by design. His powerful body, cut from stone, is only rivaled by Adam’s.

  He rubs his face against my cheek, scenting me. Marking me. I am his.

  Adam’s tongue replaces Cage’s thumb. He sucks and licks as growing heat rushes to my groin. My nipples perk in the night air begging for attention. Cage, as if reading my mind, captures one of the tightly bound buds with his lips, drawing it between his teeth. I gasp as they both pleasure me with their mouths, their hands…

  Adam spreads my legs wider now as he seats himself between my thighs.

  Yes, I plead. Yes. I want him in me so badly. He’s such a large and dominant male, I know that when he pushes inside me, I will feel every thick inch of him.

  His eyes are the color of midnight, but I can see hints of yellow slipping to the edges as his control is tested. He wants to be tender. He doesn’t want my first time to hurt.

  “Clary,” he whispers my chosen name.

  “God, she’s so wet,” I hear Cage say, “So ready for us, brother.”

  They are not blood, but experience has made them brothers. They are not gentle, but suffering has made them kind. They are not possessions, but love has made them mine.

  My beautiful men. My lion kings.

  My breath hitches as Cage removes his fingers from my cleft, and I feel the solid head of Adam‘s length pressed against my opening. When he sheaths himself, so fast and so deep within me, I cry out in pain, in pleasure, in joy.

  *

  Madeline Granger’s own raspy shout startled her awake. The bright sunlight filtered through the trees and blinded her with its glare. She blinked. Sunlight? Trees? She rolled to her side—twigs, rocks, and tree roots bit into her ribs and hip. Not again.

  Maddie had been sleepwalking since she was fourteen. They’d started after she had her first period, and had only gotten worse with time. Her parents had taken her to the family doctor after the second time it happened, and he made the diagnosis.

  Where was she? The last thing Maddie remembered was driving through Topeka without a real plan. Then she’d stopped in some Podunk town and took a room at the El Rancho, which should have been named El Roacho. The place had two things going for it—it was cheap and it was cheap. Unfortuna
tely, Maddie had just about blown through her savings.

  Just six months earlier, she’d been living at home with her parents while attending Sedgwick County Community College. Maddie had been determined to learn a trade. She wouldn’t be the “happy homemaker” of the 1950s. Not like her mother. It had been three years since Kennedy’s assassination, and his death changed the world. Changed Madeline.

  After a strange encounter with a psychic at the county carnival, she’d gotten suddenly, unaccountably restless. The next thing she knew, she’d jumped in the Woody her parents gave her and beat feet out of her hometown, Park City. She knew her parents would worry, so she hadn’t asked permission. Her strange disorder made her feel like an outcast in her town. She’d never even had a date—only the weirdoes wanted anything to do with Mad Maddie. It wasn’t so much the sleepwalking that freaked people out. It was more the whacky, really personal, and really accurate secrets she would share about people during these episodes.

  She’d been accused of being a snoop and a gossip, and some people had even threatened her with physical harm. Sometimes she remembered bits and pieces of what happened while in her nocturnal trances, things she did or saw or said, but they were always dream-like and weirdly…disconnected…like the experience was happening to someone else and she was merely an observer. With the exception of her mother, no one believed she couldn’t control her problem.

  The desire to travel was the excuse Madeline needed to start over—start a new life where people didn’t know about her troubles. Every Midwest town she passed through made her more and more anxious to move, to keep going. It was as if the invisible strings of wanderlust had taken an unforgivable hold with its relentless pull.

  Wanderlust. Lust.

  Her dream had been so vivid and exotic. So real. She’d recollected bits and pieces of those same two gorgeous men in other dreams, but with this one—she shivered, trying to ignore the gathered moisture between her thighs—she vividly recalled everything. Why couldn’t that happen in real life? Her mother always told her there was someone for everyone, but Maddie often felt she was destined to be alone.

  Maddie stood and dusted her blue Capri pants. Thank Heaven, she wasn’t naked. Only once, had she awakened with no clothes on, and she’d given the neighbors on her street a real show that night. She went to bed in a night shirt and shorts, and hadn’t remembered putting on the calf length pants, the dusty green camisole, or the low-heeled sandals. She was thankful to have clothes, but even more thankful she hadn’t gotten herself killed. Her legs and feet weren’t too sore, so she couldn’t have walked further than a couple of miles, but even so, she’d had to have crossed a few streets to get out of town.

  Why me? Maddie dusted herself off. The question always made her feel simpering. She wouldn’t feel sorry for herself. Her sleepwalking disorder was something she’d learned to live with, because it was better than the alternative.

  At the edge of the woods, the tree line broke and opened to a field full of tents, trailers, and small wooden structures. The really large, colorful tent at the center of the activity displayed the familiar words “Pantheros & Co. Carnival.” The same carnival that had worked her hometown’s fair months earlier.

  The moment she saw the tent, the urge to travel disappeared. It was as if the wind at her back, ever pushing her forward, suddenly stilled. “Wow,” she said, exhaling a long held breath. “I’ve ran away to the circus.”

  When Pantheros & Co. Carnival had come to Sedgwick County, Maddie had snuck off, against her parents’ wishes, to meet some kids from her community college. It had been a “be there, or be square” moment. One of the girls talked Maddie into getting her palm read by a psychic who went by the name of Madame Divine. It turned out to be the only part of the carnival she saw that night. A major sense of foreboding took hold of Maddie the moment Madame Divine held her hands and asked her to open her mind. Even the memory of the incident sent a shiver down Maddie’s spine. She’d ignored the sharp taunts from the other students and fled home right after.

  Now, as she wandered toward the small set-up, she felt dazed as if she were still dreaming. A small man who couldn’t have been more than four feet tall held up his hands at her approach. Maddie gawked at his long fingers, such a dichotomy to his short stature. His voice, a deep baritone, and almost boomed when he spoke. “We’re not open yet, kid. Come back tomorrow.”

  A flicker of movement caught Maddie’s eye. She pivoted her gaze in time to see the hind end of a giant animal with fur the color of spun gold lope between the openings of the large tent. Ignoring the insistent shouts of protest from the small man, Maddie strode to the tent, quickening her pace to almost a run. She wasn’t prepared for what she saw on the other side.

  Two men—one with short golden-blond hair and beard, the other with long, pale-blond hair—clasped hands, and in one giant leap, the man with the shorter hair was up in a hand stand, balancing on nothing but his partner’s grip. They were incredibly still as their muscles barely moved with the effort.

  Maddie gaped as the man with the longer hair squatted, lowering himself until he sat on the ground. They mesmerized her with their grace, as the bearded man kept his feet pointed straight up while the other guy flattened his back and legs to the ground until they formed a capital L. Next, the man in the air let go with one hand, raising his arm to his side, all the while keeping his body straight. He angled his legs sideways.

  How could he possibly stay balanced? He took his partner’s hand again, and Maddie marveled at the power in his body—both their bodies. They were not skinny men, but broadly built with wide chests and arms bigger than her thighs, yet the long haired man held his collaborator as if he were light as a cotton ball.

  They began to slowly bend at the elbows until both their forearms were at forty-five degree angles, and the long-haired man’s upper arms were flat against the ground. The other man’s short hair brushed his chest. Maddie caught the slow grin spread on the pale-blond’s lips as his partner lowered his body until they were face to face and completely parallel. The short-haired man parted his legs in a split that had Maddie aching between her thighs.

  He lowered his toes until they touched the ground. The pale-blond raised himself from the ground, and with a feat showing complete mastery of his body, slid out from between his partner’s legs to move into a hand stand over his partners head.

  “Bitchin’,” Maddie said, unable to keep the overwhelming awe out of her voice.

  They both sharply turned their heads toward her, and the long-haired Adonis dismounted. They both sprang to their feet. Seeing their faces, not just in profile, Maddie gasped…and blushed, when she recognized them both.

  The men from her dream. The one with the shorter hair was Cage, the other Adam. How was it possible? They were dream lovers, not flesh and blood. As they headed toward her with graceful strides, Maddie had to stop herself from swooning. “Cage and Adam,” she whispered.

  “Damn it, miss. I told you to come back tomorrow,” a baritone voice boomed from behind her—the dwarf who’d tried to stop her before.

  “It’s alright, Carl,” the pale-blond, Adam, said, waving the bad-tempered man out.

  The dwarf snarled and mumbled a barely audible rant as he stormed out of the tent.

  The bearded man, Cage, approached her first. Maddie quaked at the mere size of him. He had to stand at least six or seven inches over six feet tall, and his broad shoulders and wide chest cast a long shadow that covered Maddie in darkness. His face was a spectacular array of chiseled lines, a strong Roman nose, and a square jaw—just like in her dream. His eyes shined like mirrors when he tilted his head and caught the light from one of the kerosene lanterns. “Do we know you?” He thinned his wide, masculine lips.

  “No,” Maddie squeaked out. She steeled her courage to speak again. “I…Shoot.”

  Adam, just as tall, just as broad, but his face—more heart-shaped than square and his lips were narrow, but full—had an open curiosity. “You cal
led us by our given names.”

  Maddie gulped. “Maybe I read it on a program or something. You all were in my town a while back.”

  “We don’t use our real names, girl,” Cage said. He pointed to a yellow sign near the tent entrance. “The Lion Kings” was spelled out in large, swooping red letters. Maddie could hear the growl reverberating in his every word.

  Gooseflesh raised on her skin and she began to shake. In the dream, she’d thought of them as her lion kings…and they had called her Clary. A pet name? Some kind of endearment maybe?

  She hadn’t seen them when they carnival had come to her town, or at least she didn’t think she’d forget two spectacularly gorgeous men if she saw them. But how else would she know they were called The Lion Kings? It still didn’t explain how she knew their names. She rubbed her arms trying to stop the tremors in her muscles.

  “You’re scaring her, brother,” Adam admonished.

  “It’s not you,” she said. Suddenly, both men were outlined by a halo of light, and Maddie’s tongue, fingers, and feet began to tingle. Her lungs constricted in her chest as if a large fist held her in its grasp. Her skin began to itch and burn and tighten until she thought it would split. Her legs wobbled. She dropped to her knees, still fighting whatever was taking her over. She could hear voices, too many to make out words. An insectile buzzing filled her head.

  “What’s happening?” Cage reached out to steady her.

  She had the sense that if they touched her she would be lost. If the man made contact with her skin, she would lose her battle—she would rip apart. “Don’t touch me!” Maddie shouted “Don’t,” she pleaded as the halo grew in size, engulfing the men in its hazy illumination. Adam put his hand on her shoulder while, simultaneously, Cage grabbed her elbow.