New Release Spotlight; One Would Be Enough by Holly Day

Hello everyone! Thank you, Nell, for letting me drop by again. (You’re always welcome, my friend. I’m reserving a spot for you every month this year. No pressure! 😀 )

I hope you’ve had a good start to the year. At the time of writing, we’re awaiting Covid test results for hubby, so not the greatest of starts to the year. By the time this post goes live, we’ll probably know, but there are delays in getting the results since so many are getting tested right now.

But I didn’t come here to talk about the plague. Today, One Would Be Enough is released. It’s a paranormal story I wrote for Make Your Dream Come True Day. And making your dream come true is a much better way to start the year than being sick, so I’m focusing on that.

Teo has finally achieved his dream – owning a house and having enough money so he doesn’t have to have a real day job. Too bad buying the house set off the local werewolf pack. They wanted the property, and when Teo refuses to sell to them, they kidnap him and lock him up in a basement.

Jerico is a werewolf who left the pack sixteen years ago. He refused to mate the female his father had picked for him. The problem is that she comes with a dowry the pack needs to be able to buy Teo’s land. So, when Jerico yet again rejects the female, they throw him in the basement together with Teo.

Normally, a lot is going on in my stories. That’s not the case in this one. Here they spend most of the time locked up in the dark with nothing to do but talk. It was a bit of a challenge to write, but fun too.

Teo has his dreams all figured out, he knows what he wants out of life, and when he sits in the dark with Jerico, he asks about his dreams. Jerico only has one dream – to have a pack. Somewhere to belong. It doesn’t have to be a big pack, just two or three people… even one would be enough, as long as he doesn’t have to go through life alone.

I often pick character names that mean something, and Teo comes from Theodor and means gift from God or divine gift. And to Jerico, he is a divine gift. Jerico doesn’t only feel lost in the endless blackness of the basement; he’s lost in life too. But then there is Teo speaking to him, and he clings to the soft babbling.

And for the fun of it, since Jerico is a werewolf, I named him Jerico, which means city of the moon. We can’t have a werewolf without a moon connection 😄

Blurb:

Teo Solace has worked hard to achieve his dream of owning a house. But he didn’t know he would become next-door neighbor to werewolves or that refusing the pack’s demand to sell the house to them would end with being kidnapped.

Jerico Franklin left his pack sixteen years ago, and he never planned to return. By refusing to mate with the female his father picked for him, he believed he was doomed to live the rest of his life as a lone wolf. He didn’t expect to wake up in a dark cellar with a human by his side. Jerico shouldn’t care about the human, but when he learns his former pack intends to kill Teo to take over his house, he knows he has to find a way to get them out of there before he loses control of his wolf.

Teo never believed he’d care for a wolf, but spending days in the dark with nothing but Jerico’s voice to cling to shifts his perspectives. Humans are a dime on a dozen. One more or less shouldn’t matter, but Jerico would’ve lost himself in the dark if it wasn’t for Teo. For how long will Jerico be able to keep Teo safe from the pack? For how long can he keep him safe from himself?

Gay Paranormal Romance: 17,039 words

Buy links:

JMS Books :: Amazon :: books2read.com/OneWouldBeEnough

Excerpt:

Fear curled in Teo’s gut. This was so much worse than he’d first pictured. They’d either kill him to get to his house or they’d force him to sell. He’d worked so fucking hard to get here. It was his dream. All the hard work should have left him sitting in his house without a care in the world. It was the plan.

“What’s your dream?” He looked straight ahead. He believed Jerico was within reach. He’d moved around the chair when he’d growled, but if he reached out, he’d be able to touch him.

“My dream?” Jerico sounded confused.

“Yeah, what do you dream of? What are you working for?”

“To keep a roof over my head and food on the table.”

“That’s your dream, to have food and shelter?” It wasn’t a dream.

Jerico was quiet for several seconds. “To have a home, I guess.”

“You’re homeless?” That sucked.

“No, I’m renting an apartment in Hulton. It’s far enough from pack land and yet not so far south people haven’t seen shifters before.”

Teo nodded. Not wanting to live in the south made sense, he guessed. “So… they’re okay with shifters in Hulton?” He wasn’t exactly sure where Hulton was, but he’d heard the name before.

“Hell no, but should I slip up, they wouldn’t shoot me on sight. There would be time to get away.”

Teo took a moment to let the words sink in. “So… no one knows what you are there?”

An ache spread in Teo’s chest. He didn’t know what it would do to someone to hide what they were. He didn’t think being silent about his sexual orientation was comparable, and yet it was enough to leave him feeling trapped at times.

“No.” He was silent for a moment. “When Hugo appeared on my doorstep, I let him in despite knowing I shouldn’t. I wanted to believe he’d come there for… companionship. Two lone wolves shacking up together, like a miniature pack.”

“You want a miniature pack?” Couldn’t he get a dog? Maybe he had one already.

“I want a big pack, but I’ll never fit into one. One or two close people would be enough. One would be enough.” He made a frustrated sound and clanked the cuffs against the chair.

Once he stopped, silence spread, and Teo took a small step forward. The heat of Jerico’s bound arms radiated against his body. He wanted to lean against him to soak up the heat, but it was a bad idea. “Doesn’t it depend on the pack? If you’d fit in, I mean.”

Jerico shifted position again, a hiss sounding in the dark. Teo placed his hands on his shoulders. Warmth crept up his arms, and Jerico froze underneath his palms.

“There is no pack who’d take in a man like me.”

The tone told Teo Jerico believed it to be true. He clenched his teeth together to keep them from chattering. “So, you have a dream, but you’ve convinced yourself it’s unattainable?”

“You talk too much, human.”

Teo huffed and squeezed his trapezius, they were so tense he winced. “We should see if we could get you out of these cuffs. Can’t be good to be trussed up like this for too long.”

“They’re not gonna—”

“Hey! Are you out there?” Teo shouted as loudly as he could, and Jerico cursed under his breath which made Teo grin. It didn’t take many seconds before the door opened.

“Yes?” It was the woman. Teo recognized her voice.

“Yeah, my furry friend here needs to go to the bathroom.”

She remained silent for longer than Teo appreciated.

“He’s furry?”

“Of course not. It’s not a full moon tonight.” He had no idea if it was day or night.

“Dumbass.” Jerico spoke in a whispered tone, almost as if he didn’t want the woman to hear.

About Holly

According to Holly Day, no day should go by uncelebrated and all of them deserve a story. If she’ll have the time to write them remains to be seen. She lives in rural Sweden with a husband, four children, more pets than most, and wouldn’t last a day without coffee.

Holly gets up at the crack of dawn most days of the week to write gay romance stories. She believes in equality in fiction and in real life. Diversity matters. Representation matters. Visibility matters. We can change the world one story at the time.

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