Short, Lethal & Claimed Excerpt

Logan watched the shifter’s mouth work soundlessly as his gaze flickered back to the small woman that should have finished her transition weeks ago. Clearing his throat, James gestured helplessly to Jill and finally admitted, “I have no idea what’s happening.”

“That’s a problem,” Logan drawled as he considered the shifter, wondering if he’d made a mistake trusting the mutt.

For more than five hundred years, James had worked for the Sentinels, happily following the Council’s orders and ensuring that every shifter, vampire, and demon wanted him dead. He’d helped take down dozens of Packs and nests over the years, forcing Masters and Alphas to flee the cities and go into hiding.

When that wasn’t enough, the Council decided to send James to bring the Packs that refused to follow their rules to their knees. He’d hunted them, destroying any Pack that refused to comply without batting an eye until one day, the Council sent him to handle a Pack that refused to follow the rules in a small town outside of Boston and found himself mated. 

After he’d refused to destroy the Pack, the Council sent another shifter to take his place, forcing James to take his mate and run. It took the shifter a year to find them, and when he did, he decided to make an example of James. The shifter tortured James with silver, starved him, and forced him into a small metal cage during the full moon so that when he shifted, every bone in his body broke, and when that didn’t break him, they’d dragged his pregnant mate out in chains and slit her throat while he fucking begged for mercy.

Even after two hundred years, the tales of what James did to the shifter that killed his mate had Masters and Alphas rethinking their plans to make him pay for following the Council’s orders. That, and they needed him. While he’d worked for the Council, he’d worked with their healers and tore through their records, learning everything that he could about Sentinels, demons, shifters, and vampires, their weakness, how to heal them, and everything that would kill them, making him invaluable for moments like this.

“Yes, it is,” James murmured in agreement while Logan took in the long, dark hair that had once been a beautiful red spread out across the pillow that now matched his dark hair before taking in the rest of the changes that had occurred over the last few weeks. Her once pale skin was now a golden tan that matched his and the vibrant blue eyes that had haunted his dreams were gone, replaced by green eyes that were identical to his and-

He’d never seen anything like this before.

He’d turned hundreds of vampires over the past eight hundred years and none of them, not one single fucking one of them, had ever ended like this.

When he turned a human, it always ended the same. He gave them blood, watched as they took their last breath and counted down from ten while he listened as their hearts struggled to beat one last time, leaving them at the mercy of his blood. Within hours, they were no longer human and by the time the moon rose the next night, they were frozen in their immortality and opening their eyes.

None of that happened with Jill.

After he gave her his blood, Logan began the countdown, waiting for her to take her last breath only to lose his fucking mind when she kept breathing. He listened as her breaths became shallow and her heart struggled to beat while he watched her blood continue to slowly saturate her shirt from the wounds that should have started to heal as soon as he gave her his blood.

“How many times was she shot?” James asked, sending him a questioning look before shifting his gaze back to Jill.

“Three times,” Logan said, watching the shifter frown as he ran his gaze over her.

“How long did her wounds take to heal?”

“Her wounds stopped bleeding after the third time I gave her blood and healed completely five days later,” Logan said as he stood there, thinking about the moment when he realized that his blood wasn’t going to save her.

He ran blood-stained fingertips along her jaw, barely aware of the excruciating pain that had taken over his body and found himself wondering why he couldn’t let her go. She was just another human, one that he no longer had any use for, and he…

Realized that he was fucking terrified.

He’d ripped his wrist open and fed her, pleading with her to drink his fucking blood while the minion begged him to leave her and run, warning him that the Sentinels were going to find them. He’d ignored the minion, the pain tearing through his body, and kept his wrist pressed against her mouth only to realize that his blood was too fucking damaged from the sunlight and the bullet lodged in his spine to change her.

“What was different about the third time you fed her?” James asked, sending him a questioning look before he shifted his focus back to the small woman who’d spent the last twenty-four hours screaming anytime something so much as brushed against her skin.

“I tore a minion’s throat out and drained him dry,” Logan said as he watched the woman that was fucking destroying him as she shifted onto her side with a soft whimper.

“Has she opened her eyes?” James asked, leaning over Jill as he closed his eyes and slowly inhaled.

“Not once,” Logan said, watching the shifter frown as he stood up.

“There’s something off about her scent,” James said as he sent him another questioning look. “When was the last time that you tasted her blood?”

“When I marked her two years ago,” Logan said, watching as the shifter seemed to think that over as he glanced back down at Jill.

He’d been tempted to taste her blood, but he knew better than to take that risk. If she’d turned already, all it would take was one drop of her blood to kill him. The shifter, on the other hand…

Logan watched James’s brown eyes turn silver as he reached for Jill’s small hand and carefully pricked her fingertip with his fang. In a matter of seconds, the shifter tasted her blood only to look even more confused than he had a moment ago.

“What’s wrong with her?” Logan asked while James’s eyes shifted back to brown as he said, “She’s still alive.”

Forget everything that you thought you knew about vampires…

From NY Times Bestselling Author R.L. Mathewson comes the eighth installment in the incredibly sexy paranormal romance series that breaks all the rules.

For the past eight hundred years, Logan has been focused on one thing. 

Revenge. 

Nothing else mattered until one night when a small woman with the bluest eyes that he’d ever seen took him by surprise with a well-placed dagger. Now, the only thing he wants is to forget about her, but with every glance, brush of her fingertips, and touch, Logan finds himself wanting the one thing that he couldn’t have.

One. More. Bite.

After spending a year in a Sentinel compound thanks to the devastatingly handsome vampire that destroyed her life, Jill Williams is determined to forget about all of those things that go bump in the night, but one moment changes everything.

Now, she’s facing a future that she never wanted with a cranky vampire that has no idea just how close he was to finally getting his revenge.

It’s time to lose yourself in a paranormal romance filled with revenge, an unwanted mate, and a vampire determined to do whatever it takes to get what he wants.