Twisted Beauty
by Maggie Blackbird
Publisher: Extasy Books
Cover Artist: Martine Jardin
Release Date: November 3, 2023
Genre: M/M Dystopian Romance, LGBTQ+, First Nations Romance, Native American Romance
Tropes: Enemies to lovers
Themes: Trust, Learning to love
Heat Rating: 4 flames
Length: 63 360 words/222 pages
It is a standalone story ad does not end on a cliffhanger.
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His community or his enemy. He can’t have both.
Blurb
Deep in the badlands, long after the fall of modern civilization, Hunter patrols the area as the war chief for his Lakota community. His latest mission is to hunt down a marauder who robbed his neighbors of their precious goods. He’ll act as this man’s judge, jury, and executioner.
Having lost everything at his former Ojibway encampment, Chassis is far from home. He wanders the badlands, a grim reaper bringing death to those with what he needs to survive. But there is one man courageous enough to challenge him.
When the duo faces off, neither expects the sizzling chemistry to erupt between them, nor for their duel to touch what both have denied themselves. Now they must choose to either remain together and sacrifice their beliefs, or go their separate ways, losing what they’ve spent their lives searching for—love.
Warning: Dubious consent, violence
Excerpt
Until assistance arrived, Hunter needed to keep his wits about him. For instance, why a knife and not a gun? This told him the marauder didn’t possess firing artillery, which wasn’t easy to come by. Acquiring such weaponry meant stealing guns and ammunition or scavenging them when taking down parasites—as Hunter had done many times—or daring to infiltrate the walls of Minneapolis to pinch the precious resources, something his community also did.
Voodoo Canyon had been built on heavy artillery ever since Hunter’s great-grandfather had started the village.
The knife blade now lay horizontal across his throat. His peripheral vision caught the marauder squatting to retrieve the .38 Special. Hunter wasn’t surprised when the tip of his gun was placed against his temple and the knife sheathed.
“Where is he?”
It was best to play dumb. “Who?”
“You know who I’m talking about.” The marauder ground the gun deeper against Hunter’s temple.
“He’s not here. It’s just me.”
“I know you didn’t take a stroll out here by yourself, so how far away is he?”
As if Hunter would admit the truth. “Not far…at all.”
“I see. He walked here, as well? Or did he drop you off maybe a mile or two back? Is that why I never saw headlights or heard the car engine?”
Great. Hunter’s gut instinct was right all along. The marauder was crafty.
Before he could reply, the whistle of rawhide being released invaded the quiet night that contained only their breathing and conversation. Even worse, the rope was tightened around his right wrist. The marauder yanked, ensuring the tough material was taut enough to cut off Hunter’s circulation. Then the bastard forced Hunter’s arm downward and secured his other wrist.
Under another circumstance, Hunter would admire the marauder’s ability to snap the rawhide like a whip wrapping a man’s legs, but not tonight.
His predicament was…precarious.
Nobody had taken him captive before.
Or would he be a prisoner?
Highly doubtful. If bound, it’d be easier for the son of a bitch to put a bullet into his…
Hunter threw out his leg at an extended angle. His boot clipped the marauder.
A grunt echoed through the night’s chilly air.
The marauder dug his fingers into the knot of Hunter’s bandana, fighting for leverage, but gravity took them down together.
They hit the ground.
The gun…
Hunter attempted to roll. Before he could turn a full 380, strong thighs sank onto his chest. The marauder unsheathed his knife.
The look Hunter faced…tilted eyes crazily wide, slim lips tight, and head cocked so the braid fell over the marauder’s chiseled shoulder. No doubt it was taking every ounce of self-control for the motherf*cker not to kill him.
With eyes colder than the temperature and his mouth curling at the corner, the marauder pressed the point of the blade into the smooth dip beneath Hunter’s Adam’s apple.
About the Author
An Ojibway from Northwestern Ontario, Maggie resides in the country with her husband and their fur babies, two beautiful Alaskan Malamutes. When she’s not writing, she can be found pulling weeds in the flower beds, mowing the huge lawn, walking the Mals deep in the bush, teeing up a ball at the golf course, fishing in the boat for walleye, or sitting on the deck at her sister’s house, making more wonderful memories with the people she loves most.
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