GUEST POST ~ The Jaguar’s Knife by Holly Day #GuestPost #Excerpt
✨ GUEST POST ✨
Hello everyone! Thank you, lovely Addison, for allowing me to steal a spot on the blog 🥰
I’m Holly Day and I write MM Romance stories for different holidays, not holidays like Christmas and Easter, but stories for all those crazy holidays you read about.
This month, we’re celebrating Cinnamon Roll Day. My initial plan was to write a baker story because I love bakers, and cinnamon rolls belong in bakeries. Early mornings and the scent of cinnamon while the autumn leaves are falling outside the window.
But I messed up my own plan and got sucked into one of my worlds. The Jaguar’s Knife is the third story in the Within the Walls series, and people on the verge of starvation deserve cinnamon rolls too, right??
I strongly suggest reading these stories in order. Every book has a new couple, but they’re all living in a supernatural community surrounded by a wall, so the people within the walls are pretty tight-knit and will visit each other’s books.
The first book is Vampire Food, which is about Rue who is a magic user, and Noah who is a vampire. The day it celebrates is National Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Day.
The second book is Easy, Kitten, which is about Chaton who is an ocelot shifter, and Asher who is a vampire. The day it celebrates is International Can-It-Forward Day. Someone has to take care of all those zucchinis from the first story, right?
And The Jaguar’s Knife is about Ty who is a magic user, and Jagger who is a jaguar shifter. Jagger owns a restaurant outside the walls, but he’ll soon be forced to file for bankruptcy. He does what he can to keep the business afloat, but times are hard, and it doesn’t help that there is a group of humans who try to blackmail him. One day, they bring a magic user to the restaurant, one whose touch feels like being stabbed by knives.
Ty and his sister were on their way to the supernatural community in Myrfolk when they were kidnapped by humans. For months, they’ve been kept in a basement, but now their kidnappers need Ty’s help to intimidate some restaurant owner. Ty doesn’t want to hurt anyone, least of all a member of the community he wishes to be a part of, but maybe getting close to Jagger is his chance to finally get out of the basement.
This is a blackmail, abduction, fated mates story with a HEA and several of the characters from the previous two books make an appearance. Check it out if you’re in the mood for growly shifters and jealous magic users!
The Jaguar’s Knife
by Holly Day
Genre: Gay Paranormal Romance
Series: Within the Walls (Shared Universe, Book 3)
Length: Novel / 54,515 Words / 206 Pages
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A lone jaguar shifter. A magic user in trouble. Evil humans bring them together.
Blurb
A lone jaguar shifter. A magic user in trouble. Evil humans bring them together.
Jagger Casley is part of a supernatural community, but as a solitary animal, he likes to keep his distance from everything and everyone. He puts all his effort into his struggling restaurant, but when a group of humans try to blackmail him, he realizes he has bigger problems than a failing business.
All Ty Hickey wanted was to get to the community in Myrfolk and find a home within the walls, but the moment he steps off the train, he’s captured by a group of men who shouldn’t know where he is or that he’s a magic user, and yet they do.
Ty’s captors use his sister as leverage to get him to do their bidding, but when he meets Jagger, he sees his chance to get rescued. Magic users are rare, and Jagger can’t leave Ty with the humans. He’s better off coming home with Jagger, right?
Excerpt
Jagger locked the front entrance and turned off the lights in the serving area. They’d had thirteen paying customers today. Total. Another day of losing money.
“I’m heading out.” Nadetta poked her head in through the swing door.
“I can drive you.”
“Nah, Nardo is picking me up.”
“Oh, how’s the car running?” Jagger had changed the spark plugs some time back.
“All good.” She smiled at him as she stepped into the kitchen.
“Good. Give me a second, and I’ll walk you out.”
“Jagger.” She huffed. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, not to mention Nardo is right there.”
“I know. So you can walk me out. I don’t have anyone looking out for me.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Okay. Yeah, maybe it’s for the best. You shouldn’t be alone after what happened today.”
He wanted to roll his eyes, but he’d prefer to escort her safely into Nardo’s care than argue about him not needing protection.
The moment they stepped out of The Garage, the hairs on Jagger’s neck stood on end. “Something’s wrong.” He kept his voice to a whisper.
“Yeah, I can smell them.” She hadn’t more than spoken before the leader rounded the corner of the building, a gun in his hand, and walking as if Jagger hadn’t buried his claws in his abdomen a few hours ago.
“No cameras this time.” He grinned and gestured at the surveillance camera that hung limp from its cords. Fuck. His word against a human’s wouldn’t work in his favor.
“What do you want?” Jagger stepped in front of Nadetta. If the idiot shot at them, she’d hopefully be fine.
“I was going to wait until the girl came outside and grab her to force you to listen, but someone was sitting in a car waiting, so we took a chance. Provoked him a little until he made an animal sound. Then we knew he was one of yours and took him.” The idiot grinned, missing the way Nadetta tensed behind him.
Jagger scanned the parking lot. Nardo’s car was there, the door to the driver’s seat open, and he was nowhere to be seen. “Where is he?”
“He’s unharmed. Mostly.”
“It was not what I asked.” Jagger was losing his patience with this idiot. If he killed him, how much trouble would he be in?
The idiot motioned with his gun. At first, Jagger didn’t know why, but then the magic user reluctantly stepped forward. “I suggest you hand the bitch over to my men.” Two more goons stepped forward behind the magic user. “And the three of us will walk back inside to talk some business.”
Jagger scoffed and looked at Nadetta. “How do you want to play this?”
“I told you how we’re gonna play this.” The idiot was hissing and spitting like a toddler. Nadetta rolled her eyes.
“If we kill them, Gertrude will get in trouble.”
“Hey!” The leader stepped forward and waved his gun in Jagger’s face. Jagger grabbed his wrist and twisted it. The bones snapped, the gun fell to the ground, and the man howled. A shot rang out from behind him, and some of the mortar from the wall rained down to the ground next to them.
“Careful, the bullet might ricochet.” Jagger allowed a little growl to seep into his voice. “This is how it’s gonna go.” He pulled the leader closer and grew his claws. “We’re gonna trade this idiot for Nardo.” He sought the one he suspected had fired the shot’s gaze. “Then you’re going to forget about this stupid idea you’ve got going. I’m never going to cut a deal with you, and I don’t care how much you threaten me. Are we clear?” He held onto the man’s gaze and waited.
“Davis?”
“No.” For a moment, the idiot—Davis, he assumed—struggled in his hold, but when the claws prickled his throat, he stilled. Then he turned to the magic user. “Do something.”
Jagger looked at him where he stood frozen a couple of steps away from them.
“You know what will happen if you don’t!” Davis elbowed Jagger in the gut while glaring at the magic user. Jagger allowed a grunt but didn’t look away from the magic user. He wasn’t keen on having his insides sliced, though it didn’t look as if the man was keen on slicing his insides either, so maybe there was a way out of this that wouldn’t involve bodies on his doorstep.
Or not.
About the Author
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.
