Unexpected Sting (Stand Alone Tales #18)

Orion and the scorpion is a story everyone knows, but Stinger has no interest in killing the man who helps her manage a wave of lust. He might be just what she’s looking for.


Stinger is back in town for a family wedding and then another. Being in a family that is predominantly female has its challenges, and one of those is the wedding and baby shower season.

After being kidnapped the night before Nessa’s wedding, Stinger finds herself facing a familiar face and a body she wants to know better. Arthur is a charming man who is carrying out the dark elf wedding tradition, separating the bride from her ladies and the ladies from the bride. They get along well during their first interaction, which comes in handy when she needs to ask him for help the next day.

Stinger and her mother control and disperse the lust and magic generated at mage weddings, keeping it from making a hotspot of lust and fertility in random areas. Stinger needs an anchor point, and she chooses Arthur Orion. He agrees to help, and fate locks them together.

When she looks at him, she sees a future, but when she looks at her mother, she sees that men don’t stay, so she has a decision to make—trust everything she has learned about the male of the species while working with women’s shelters, or trust her gut.

If only she had known that he was a real ogre, she might have had a second thought or a first one.

Words: 40,110