Unholy: An Unholy Alliance

By Margo Bond Collins

If she wants to save her sister, there will be hell to pay.

 

Monster-Hunter Grace Falls is willing to make an unholy alliance with not one demon, but three—all to save her sister Eileen from the local mob boss.

But before it's all over, she'll have to give the devils their scorching-hot due. 

 

BONUS: This book also features "O Holy Hell," an Unholy Alliance prequel story.

 

Fans of urban fantasy by Nalini Singh, Ella Summers, and K.F. Breene along with fans of reverse harem romances by B.L. Brunnemer, Eva Chase, and C.M. Stunich will love this blend of urban fantasy, reverse harem, and action adventure romance!

 

Scroll up now and one-click this steamy prequel to the Unholy Alliance series!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bathory Gate Press
• Release date: Jan 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393213727

Book preview

Unholy

The footsteps following me wouldn’t have been an issue at any other time—or anywhere else in the entire city.

After dark in Blood Heights, though, they were a problem.

Not because I couldn’t take down whoever was following me. I almost certainly could.

But I was walking alone at night in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the whole city (second only to the Catacombs, and even I didn’t go down there without some heavy-duty backup).

I didn’t look dangerous—just a medium-sized woman with long dark hair, dressed for comfort rather than style, wearing a white t-shirt, black leather jacket and blue jeans, along with motorcycle boots.

I had no visible weapons, no obvious protective symbols, no clear magical aura.

Anyone with any sense would have taken one look at me and made a wide berth—because a woman out here alone at night without overt protection was probably dangerous as hell. If I saw me out on these streets this close to midnight, I’d turn around and head the other direction.

Whoever this was, though, was trying to match their steps to mine to cover the noise. I picked them up on the echo, just a tiny bit off. My pursuer didn’t have a tag-along charm, or I might have missed the ricochet of the sound off the buildings rising up around us.

Dammit.

I didn’t have time for shit like this.

I never had time for shit like this.

Somehow it always seemed to find me, though.

The problem with being followed at night in Blood Heights was that the sort of person who ignored the obvious signals broadcasting I’m dangerous to the regular Heights denizens was one of three things: desperate, crazy, or really, really scary.

Of course, carrying a death wish was a possible number four on that list, but those types usually went down easily enough, so they didn’t worry me. The others, though? They could do some real damage.

So I skipped a step, hopping over a pile of broken glass to catch the syncopated beat of my would-be hunter’s stumble, then let the footsteps match mine again.

Now I knew how far back he was. I stretched my senses out just a little, catch the flavor of his intent.

He thinks he’s a hunter.

My nostrils flared and I flashed a wicked grin at the thought.

But there was something else there, too—something sharp and acrid.

Brimstone.

Johnny was expecting me that night, as usual half-hoping I wouldn’t show up to pay on the ransom I owed. Some night I wouldn’t—and when that happened, the self-proclaimed King of the Heights would put out a bounty on me.

I’ll be there tonight, dammit.

After I took care of the wannabe hunter who was on my tail.

I didn’t have time for this.

But I’d make time.

I took a quick right into a nearby alley. It had better lighting than a lot of them, stark shadows striking the walls on either side, but like most of the Heights, the character of the passageway changed quickly. I moved from the well-lit portion into a slightly darker section. The shadows here seemed to crawl, lingering against the ground for a while before sliding up the sides of the buildings.

Right where the alleyway narrowed, a single dim bulb flickered in a cage-like light fixture over the back entrance to some shop, casting its weak light in a circle. The light probably meant something—that the owner was in, or out, or available for sex or blood or magic—but I didn’t know this part of the Heights very well, and I couldn’t decipher its message.

What I did know was that when I passed by the door, the light would illuminate me to anyone around.

Although I topped off my reservoirs before I left my one-room apartment, I didn’t want to use what I had stored before I got to Johnny’s court. No telling what he’d ask for tonight.

Best to be prepared.

Something new, then.

I bit down on the inside of my bottom lip, hard enough to pierce the skin with my tooth. Magic always requires a sacrifice, and for this spell, a very little blood would do. Only a tiny thrust of will, fed by blood and powered by magic, served to pop the bulb, creating a pool of black. I slid into that darkness and pulled a see-me-not out of my jacket pocket. The copper taste in my mouth told me I still had enough blood to activate it, so I slipped the metal disk into my mouth.

The charm fizzed against my tongue when it went live, letting me