BOTH FEET IN THE GRAVE is here! Plus, a new snippet, new online appearance, and more.

Today’s the day! BOTH FEET IN THE GRAVE is now available in print, ebook, or audio, so grab yours at #Ad Amazon,* B&N, Apple Books, Libro, Audible, Indiebound, or Kobo.

And, for a limited time, you can get SIGNED copies via book plate from Aesop’s Fable book store here.

Thought you knew Bones? Think again.

Two hundred years of bounty hunting made Bones the best at what he does, yet it’s still taken him four long years to find Cat, the half vampire now known as the “Red Reaper.” There’s a price on Cat’s head, and not even her job as a secret government agent can save her. Only Bones can. But has time hardened Bones too much to love again? Or will his passion for Cat burn through every obstacle–alive, undead, or otherwise–between them? 

This is Bones, in his own words…

“Living everything through Bones’s eyes was amazing!” Tynga’s Reviews.

“I had no idea how much I needed Bones’s point of view. But apparently I did.” Carol’s Random Life 

Haven’t read the first Bones point of view story yet? You’re in luck because it’s an April Kindle Deal for only $2.49 in ebook for US and Canada residents. Grab yours here at #Ad Amazon while the sale lasts.

And, what better way to celebrate a release than with friends? That’s why this Saturday, April 22nd, at 4pm Eastern, I will on a live Zoom event with both halves of #1 New York Times bestselling author, Ilona Andrews. We’ll be talking about writing alternate POVs, male characters insights, returning to a beloved series, sexy (or not) vampires, badass heroines, and more! The chat will be moderated by Meena Jain from Ashland Library, but if you have questions that you’d link to send in advance for us to answer, please email them to: modr@ilona-andrews.com.

Ashland Library asks you to please register for this event, as spaces are limited. You can REGISTER HERE.

Finally, here is the last sneak peek snippet from BOTH FEET IN THE GRAVE. Since I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked “Did you write Chapter 32 from Bones’s point of view?” let me tell you now that the answer is YES. To whet your appetite, here is the chapter before Bones’s perspective on that infamous chapter. You may remember that things started out with Bones interrupting a nasty fight between Cat and Annette that Cat wouldn’t talk about. Well, Cat did eventually talk about it, and then, ah, there wasn’t a lot of talking going on. *wink* Enjoy!

Copyright Jeaniene Frost. All rights reserved.

“Tell me what happened between you and Annette.”

Her mouth tightened. “A catfight, no pun intended. Annette said some nasty things. I did, too, and then I stabbed her to make a point. Okay, that last one was a pun.”

“So, that’s it, then?” Bones’s tone dared her to look at him. “All’s well and no hard feelings?”

She met his gaze, swallowed hard, and nodded.

He pulled her close and bent his head. His mouth had barely brushed hers when she tensed as if she’d been slapped. Fear iced his veins. What the hell had Annette said to her?

“Right,” he said in a carefully controlled tone. “There are two ways I’m going to hear every blasted word that Annette said. The first is from you by request. The second is after I beat the truth out of Annette, which sounds gratifying now, but it would defeat the greater good. I’ve always said that you can tell me anything, Kitten. The question is, will you?”

The polite mask Cat had been wearing cracked. Her brows drew together, her face flushed, and her lips pursed as if she were holding back a torrent of curses. All of it was a relief. This was the real Cat, not the controlled imposter from dinner, as she proved when she drained the last of the gin from a mostly-empty bottle on her nightstand dresser. 

“Fine,” she said curtly. “Annette basically told me that you were a raging pervert who preferred your women in minimums of twos, usually more, humans especially because of their warm bodies, you’ve fucked more women than the population of this state, and because of all that, I’d never hold your interest.”

His gaze went red before he forced that killing rage back. Good thing, too, because she wasn’t done.

“She also said you sounded bored in bed with me earlier, and I’d never be able to handle what you really liked to do, and you’ve told her plus half the women you fuck that you’re in love with them, and you’d have tossed me out years ago if I hadn’t inflamed your interest by leaving you first…oh, and that she was the one you munched on a couple months ago in Chicago.”

“Bugger,” Annette whispered one floor below them.

Bones barely heard that as rage torpedoed his blood through him. In his worst imaginings, he’d never thought Annette would betray him with such vicious lies. For a moment, he actually couldn’t speak from the shock of it.

“I am going to flog Annette fleshless for this,” he ground out when he had enough control to form words again. “And if I were you, I wouldn’t have stopped at wounding her. I would have finished the job and killed her. Bloody hell.”

He snatched the door open, nearly ripping it from its hinges. “Rodney, take them back and leave Annette here!”

“On it,” Rodney said in a very subdued tone.

“Is it true?” Cat’s gray gaze appeared darker from doubt. “You’re pissed at her, sure, but is that because she lied to me? Or because she told me the truth?”

God, that she would even think that! His eyes closed from the weight of it. “I hate having this conversation under these circumstances, but I had no intention of concealing my past from you. The short answer to only the first part of what Annette said is yes, I have been with many women, human and otherwise.”

“Usually in bunches?” she prodded, her tone going hoarse. “For a total of thousands? Tens of thousands?”

Bones opened his eyes. She was now sitting on the edge of the bed as if her legs couldn’t hold her anymore. He went over and knelt in front of her so their eyes were nearly level. Her expression was anguished, and anguish ripped at him, too. How to make her understand that it wasn’t the frolicking flesh fest Annette had made it out to be? How to convey the desolateness that had gnawed at him like an immortal, ravenous beast?  

“After I was changed into a vampire, I spent two decades brooding over the fate that Ian forced on me,” Bones said, starting at the beginning. “But eventually, I decided I may as well have a grand time being undead. Back then, I had a talent for exactly one thing, and that was shagging. If the girl fancied additional feminine company as well, I certainly didn’t object. Then, as the years passed, I began meting out death to those I thought deserved it. Soon, killing became the other thing I excelled at, and I started making an income from it. Between the two, I reckoned I was as happy as I had any right to be.”

And that wasn’t very happy. Oh, he’d enjoyed himself here and there, but happiness went much deeper, and only when he’d found it did he realize how it had eluded him before.

“My life went on like this for centuries, and yes, Annette was frequently one of my lovers, either alone or accompanied. Then one day, a friend asked me to find his daughter’s murderer, and I tracked her killer’s operation to a bar in Ohio. There I met you, and I fell in love. You can’t imagine what that was like after centuries of…emptiness. I hadn’t thought I was capable of loving someone like that, but I did, and more than that, I finally believed I had something to offer apart from a good shag or a deserved killing. For the first time, I felt whole, complete…and now, my oldest, most trusted friend has sought to rip that away by taunting you with my past in the hopes of destroying your feelings for me.”

He couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone at that last part. If Annette had stabbed him in the heart, it would have been less cruel. Out of everyone else, she’d known how much he loved Cat because she’d felt it when his shields had broken, and his pain coursed into her. Yet still, she’d tried to sentence him to a lifetime more of that pain. 

Cat’s eyes briefly closed, and a ragged sigh escaped her. “I can’t relate to all the sex, but for the past four and a half years, I had nothing to offer anyone except my ability to kill, too. So, yeah…I know what a dark, lonely feeling that is.”

 Warmth broke through the chill from his rage. He’d hoped she would understand, but she’d done much more than that because she knew this pain. Yes, her time with it had been brief and his had lasted centuries, but it was still very real.

“Don’t judge Annette too harshly,” she said next, shocking him. “She’s in love with you. That’s why she acted like such an ass with me. Granted, I don’t like hearing about your extensive sexual history, but I can handle it as long as it remains in your past because I will never participate in a threesome, foursome, fivesome, whatever. So, if that’s what you’re hoping I’ll eventually get into…then we have a problem.”

Her gaze was defiant, but a faint tremor went through her. She really did fear that she wouldn’t be enough for him, as if anyone could ever replace her.

Bones let his hands rest on her knees. “Except for that one instance I truly regret with Annette, I didn’t touch another woman while we were apart because I don’t want anyone but you. And as far as telling other women that I loved them, when I was a whore, I used to tell all my clients that. Part of the job, as it were. That’s why I’d said it previously to Annette, but not since I was a human selling my body to survive have I said it to anyone except you.”

Her gaze brightened with tears, and she leaned closer, until their heads were nearly touching. Feeling her breaths land on his skin and seeing that priceless trust fill her gaze again almost razed him from the emotions it unleashed.

“Well, then…okay,” she whispered.

“Okay?” He pulled her into his arms, searching her face, scent, and each movement in her body to see if she meant it.

She touched his cheek, her gaze never flinching. “Okay.”

He lowered his head. She met him halfway, her lips velvet and her body a satiny cage as she held him like she was afraid someone would snatch him away if she loosened her grip. He never wanted to stop kissing her, but someone had tried to snatch her away, and he couldn’t let that go unanswered a moment longer.

“I still have to deal with Annette,” he murmured, breaking their kiss. “You might look leniently on her, but she violated my trust, and I cannot dismiss that. Annette,” he snapped, turning away from Cat to face the door. “Get up here!”

Cat only loosened her grip enough to shrug. “Do it your way, but I suggest another one. You could beat her bloody, or-”

Bones layered on his ice. She’d suggest leading with mercy instead of punishment. Or taking the evening to decide Annette’s sentence, or something else he’d refuse because nothing would stop him from meting out his justice now-

“-you could give me such loud, screaming orgasms that the sound of them blisters her ears-”

-except that. Bloody hell, Annette who?

“So, if you have any former-whore-turned-promiscuous-vampire tricks you’ve been holding back, bring them on,” Cat continued, her gaze slanting with challenge. “But, you’d better outperform any service you gave to Annette or anyone else, because if I don’t wake up tomorrow red in the face from embarrassment over what you did to me, I’ll be disappointed.”

Bones stared, barely able to believe what she’d just said even though her words had set his blood on fire. 

“No you don’t, you clever little bitch,” Annette muttered before snatching the door open.

Bones rose from his crouch in front of Cat. Annette’s golden gaze was nearly frenzied with desperation as she looked at him, and then behind him at Cat.

“We have business to sort out, you and I,” Bones said, letting an arc of his rage slice into Annette through their tie. “Later,” he emphasized, and slammed Annette out of the room and his emotions.

Cat’s breath caught as he turned back to her. She was still seated on the edge of the bed, but her color was higher, and her pulse throbbed at the hollow of her neck. She’d meant her decadent dare, but now that he’d accepted it, she clearly didn’t know what to expect.

Oh, he’d show her, and she would absolutely love it.

***

Once again, you can get BOTH FEET IN THE GRAVE in ebook, print, or audio at #Ad Amazon,* B&N, Apple Books, Libro, Audible, Indiebound, Kobo or your favorite, retailer, AND, for a limited time, you can get SIGNED copies via book plate from Aesop’s Fable book store here.

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.