Hi !

Bound by the Alien King has its beautiful new cover! While I am sentimental about the old cover because I made it myself, the new cover is what I always wanted for this novella.

For the first time, you can read it in Kindle Unlimited! I know pretty much everyone who gets my newsletter has a free copy of this story with the old cover, but if it happens to be sitting unread on your Kindle, may I suggest reading it in Kindle Unlimited instead? Not only do I get paid, it boosts the book’s rank when you borrow it, which helps other people find it, too!

Read It Now!

Did you know that Bound by the Alien King ties into my Salt Planet Giants series? The heroine, Aster, appears in The Ballast’s Bride, and the events of Bound take place right after the events of Ballast. I added an excerpt from Bound at the end of this email, so read on for the moment Aster wakes up in a cave…completely naked.

NEW COOL THING

I have bookplate stickers now! Way too many of them, actually. Eventually I will have a shop where people can purchase them, but for now, if you have one of my paperbacks, I’d love to send you a signed bookplate to put on the title page.

Just shoot me an email to saraivyhill@gmail.com with your mailing address and either a screenshot of your purchase receipt or a quick pic of the book in your hand, and I’ll send one out to you for free! If you have more than one book, I'll send you a sticker for each one. This will increase the value of your paperbacks by zero dollars, but it sure will look cute.

EXCERPT FROM BOUND BY THE ALIEN KING

Her broken rib complained when she tried to sit up. Aster moaned in pain, and someone stroked a hand down her back. Her bare back.

Her eyes flew open but met only darkness. She reached out and touched velvet. Immediately she knew it was not the deep red velvet of the wool skirts she’d been wearing, the ones that had nearly drowned her. It was living, breathing, warm velvet, velvet that rose and fell with someone’s breath.

The breath caught, and an accented growl warned, “Careful, female.” Though it spoke in common tongue, it was no human voice. Not a dockworker who saved her, then. A Nightborn.

She wasn’t in the colony but on the shore, she realized.

In the arms of a predator.

Naked.

She felt for her ribbons, and they were gone, too. Her ears rang with panic. “Where are my clothes?” It came out a squeak.

“Hung to dry. Too dangerous to light a fire. I had to warm you other ways.”

Heat flooded her face as she was suddenly conscious of velvet touching every bit of her front, its soft brushes against her breasts and the swell of her belly both soothing and stimulating. She scooted back as far as the arms that clasped her allowed. “We didn’t—? You didn’t—? My ribbons!” she burst out, unable to voice the question in her heart as her pulse swelled and choked her.

“With your clothes,” the deep voice grunted. “They were a beast to unknot. I nearly cut them with my claws.”

“They’re supposed to be!” Heat spilled down to her knees. She was so unsettled by the thought of male fingers working her ribbons, unpicking their complicated twists and bows and slowly unwinding them from her hips and thighs, that she hardly registered the word claws. “Did you ruin me?”

“Obviously not.”

Nothing was obvious. Aster dipped her fingers between her legs, testing for some telltale sign that she’d been changed by him. A slick wetness coated them, the secret kind that sometimes came from dreams or when she read stories of husbands kissing wives. Had he done this to her? Or was it her own wicked enjoyment at the thought of him seeing her ribbons?

Him.

He caught her wrist and inhaled, a slow, soft sound that made her skin prickle with awareness. Who was he? Her savior…or her captor?

All the stories she knew of Nightborn males were of their appetites. For violence. For females. And for blood. As this one had kept her alive and claimed to have no interest in ruining her, that left only one possibility. He’d saved her to feed from her.

An image flashed before her eyes in the pitch blackness, one of long, silvered canines sinking into the wrist he still gripped. To her shock, it was not one she wholly disliked.

“Who are you?” she asked, ears burning.

“Better if you don’t know.”

Aster knew male condescension when she heard it. On any other day in the colony she might have accepted his tone as the way things were, but this wasn’t the colony. This was a hole in the ground, judging by the scent of damp earth. The rules didn’t apply here.

She pulled her wrist back. “That doesn’t make any sense. How could it be better for me not to know something that is particularly relevant to my current situation?”

“Because it is also relevant to mine, and if, when you return to your island, you tell your council my Night-given name, it’s likely my brothers will have to light my pyre. It is not better for you if you don’t know it. It’s better for me.”

“Oh.” He meant to return her to the colony. Dread seeped through her at the thought of standing before her father and confessing everything: Slipping a powder into her mother’s tea. Tricking her nightmaid. Stealing the boat. Acting so recklessly that her ribbons were untied.

She swallowed. She was ruined no matter what. Not a single face on the council would believe that this Nightborn hadn’t touched her. No man would take such a wife. She would be locked away in the nunnery, become a sad family secret, a cautionary tale told to other girls.

“Please don’t take me back, sir.”

“Sir?” For the first time, the voice held a hint of humor. “I did not know humans held such respect for my kind.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to call you, if you won’t give me your name?”

“More often we are called savage.” He was making fun of her still.

“Shall I call you that, then?” She issued the question like a challenge, and then quailed at her own audacity. Just because she couldn’t see his teeth in the dark didn’t mean they weren’t there. And just because he planned to return her to the colony didn’t mean he wouldn’t bite her first.

She shivered, but it wasn’t entirely out of fear.

“You can call me whatever you like.” His voice was half an octave lower, and she felt his breath rush out against her face. At first it sounded like an invitation, a shocking proposition that heated her core as she imagined closing the gap between them, pressing her mouth to his fanged one.

“Savage, then,” she whispered.

Keep Reading in KU!

Thanks so much for your support!

XO,

Sara

www.linktr.ee/saraivyhill

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