Sharing Paul – by Jade Archer
Blurb :
Book Three in the Portals Series
Three men when the world sees only two. One desire—to be loved and accepted. All they need is a miracle.
Paul and Joshua’s life has never been easy, or even easy to explain, but they’ve always had each other. Two distinct entities sharing the same body—the body of an escaped cat shifter slave rescued and brought to Earth as a child. They’re lifelong friends, lovers and soul mates. But Joshua is slowly dying—unable to sustain the psychic link that binds him to Paul. They desperately need a miracle. Unfortunately, miracles seem to be pretty thin on the ground these days.
Then one night they stumble on Matt as he’s being beaten by a group of thugs in a park. He’s human, he’s a mess and he sets off every protective, possessive instinct the pair have. Could rescuing Matt be the answer to their prayers, or just another complication in an already far too complicated existence?
Meanwhile, there are forces at work trying to sow seeds of confusion and decent. Forces that would eat away at all the cat shifters of the Bayside pride have worked so hard to gain.
Can Paul, Joshua and Matt discover their miracle before it’s too late?
Reader Advisory: This book is best read in sequence as part of a series
Excerpt :
Leaning back against the wall of the club, Paul cast his eyes across the now somewhat subdued club patrons milling around. A few die-hard stalwarts and the occasional lonesome loser were all that were left of the energetic Friday night party crowd this late in the evening. Or early in the morning as the case may be. And in less than an hour even they would be gone.
Rolling his shoulders to try to relieve some tension, Paul barely suppressed the urge to start moving restlessly from foot to foot. Now that he wasn’t occupied with fucked up rich pricks who assumed the world existed to kiss their asses, he found his mind wandering to thoughts of Joshua.
Joshua was resting at the moment, but something was very wrong. It had been for a long time now. Paul could feel Joshua’s fatigue and lethargy battering at him. It was driving him absolutely insane not being able to go and check to see if he was okay. Again. Right now. But he knew he couldn’t risk drawing attention to them by ‘dropping out’ of the real world. They’d worked too long and hard to fit in here as part of the pride. Well, as least to the extent they were ever likely to fit in anywhere. He wouldn’t go back to the bad old days when people stared at them and cubs were taught to avoid them because they acted weird sometimes.
So here he stood, in a dark, smelly bar, watching the drunks and deadbeats and counting the minutes until he could kick their asses out the door. The last sixty minutes of his shift could not go fast enough.
Glancing around, Paul noticed a few of the regulars edging away from him nervously and realised he was frowning. Again. Actually, it was pretty much a permanent feature these days. Joshua’s failing health was a constant worry—like a toothache that throbbed and demanded his attention day and night.
Paul rubbed absently at one of his aching temples before running his hand back through his short, platinum blond hair in frustration. Maintaining their psychic connection had always taken a lot out of Joshua—he was the one who bore the brunt of the psychic drain it required. But he seemed perpetually exhausted at the moment, often listless and lethargic, and needed more and longer rest periods all the time. He was growing steadily weaker by the day.
Damn it all to hell! He knew Joshua was in trouble. What he didn’t know was what to do about it. Worse still, he wasn’t sure how much longer the man he loved could go on like this before he just could not maintain the link between them at all.
A cold shiver of dread crept down Paul’s spine and wrapped its icy fingers around his heart. If that thin thread that bound them together so intimately should ever break…well, without that he wasn’t sure either of them would survive.
Distracted by his concerns, Paul jumped when Luke—another cat shifter assigned to security at the club—slapped him hard on the shoulder.
“Hey, buddy!” Luke smiled broadly, obviously enjoying catching Paul off guard. “Nate asked me to come over and see if you wanted to finish up. Actually, you do kinda look like you could use an early mark. Something wrong?”
“No. Nothing’s wrong,” Paul replied automatically.
He wondered how long he’d been standing in the corner, staring off into space with a scowl on his face. As he looked over at Nate, registering the concern on his friend’s face and no sign of the little twink from earlier anywhere, he got the feeling it had been a while. So much for not drawing attention to himself.
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind knocking off early. I haven’t been sleeping all that well lately.”
That much at least was true—he was too worried about Joshua.
“Yeah, well, you should try keeping up with those littermates of mine. I tell you, David and Trent get stupider by the second. Can you believe I had to go get their dumb asses out of jail last night? I swear Mum’s going to pitch a fit when she finds out. And you know who she’s going to want to blame, don’t you? Just ‘cause I’m the oldest. You don’t know how lucky you are being an only child in your litter, man,” Luke grumbled.
Paul had heard of a species of turtle that could breathe through its ass and wondered if Luke had somehow managed to score some of its DNA in his make-up. It was really quite amazing the way the man never seemed to run out of air once he started his longwinded bitch sessions about his brothers. Perhaps he was just naturally gifted. Either way, Paul didn’t respond to Luke’s comments. He wasn’t sure anything he had to say would be appreciated anyway. Luke didn’t know how incredibly blessed he was to have healthy, rambunctious siblings to mess up his life.
Paul walked away before he could say anything he would undoubtedly regret later on. There really wasn’t any point anyway. No one would ever understand about Joshua. No one ever could.
“Well, see you around,” Luke called after him—a sharp, acidic edge to his voice.
No doubt the other cat shifters in the club would be talking about him before he reached the top of the stairs. Paul found he really didn’t give a shit. He had more important things to worry about. Like whether or not his soulmate was going to survive to the end of the day.
Available from Total-E-Bound May 9th, 2011
Author’s Bio:
Jade was born in 2010 after a prolonged pregnancy and labour of over thirty-four years!
Yes, she is a pseudonym. A work of my fevered imagination, which never seems to grow tired of inventing new characters. And this one's a whopper. One that seems to have taken over my life to the point I'm no longer sure where she ends and I begin! Still, it seems to be working for us.
I’ve decided she’s about twenty-four. Enjoys long walks in the country, because she doesn’t have five kids and a husband to care for. Eats as much chocolate as she wants, because she never has to worry about putting on weight (must be all those long walks!). And can often be found planning her next whirl wind world tour or endlessly typing away (without any interruptions) on another hot and steamy erotic romance. It might be space pirates; it might be shifters or a lonely vampire with a thing for the girl next door, one thing’s for sure, she loves variety and can’t wait to meet the next characters destined to fall in love.
Find Jade At: www.jadearcher.com
This book is so awesome!
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