Rory & Ink

Rory & Ink (Monster Apocalypse 4) Alexa Piper All rights reserved.Copyright ©2023 Alexa Piper BIN: 010630-03455 Formats Available:Adobe PDF, Epub Publisher:Changeling Press LLC315 N. Centre St.Martinsburg, WV 25404www.ChangelingPress.com Editor: Jean CooperCover Artist: Bryan Keller Adult Sexual Content This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults, only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers. Legal File Usage -- Your Rights Payment of the download fee for this book grants the purchaser the right to download and read this file, and to maintain private backup copies of the file for the purchaser’s personal use only. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this or any copyrighted work is illegal. Authors are paid on a per-purchase basis. Any use of this file beyond the rights stated above constitutes theft of the author’s earnings. File sharing is an international crime, prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice, Division of Cyber Crimes in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, and Interpol. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is punishable by seizure of computers, up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 per reported instance. Table of Contents Rory & Ink (Monster Apocalypse 4) Foreword Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Epilogue Lexicon Alexa Piper Rory & Ink (Monster Apocalypse 4) Alexa Piper Rory has never been the kind of person who enjoys fights or violence, but when a member of his newfound family is kidnapped, he will not just stand by and do nothing. No, Rory will use his still new and not entirely welcome magic to help. And when that is done, Rory will once more put all his efforts into becoming a trophy mate to his handsome blue husband, and he will worship said husband from the tips of his horns to his paw feet. Inkiri has never been happier in his life. His human mate accepts him, and not just that, Rory loves him. And while Rory seemed afraid at first, he will stop at nothing to protect the people near and dear to him. All Inkiri can hope is that he will prove himself worthy of such an extraordinary mate. With his future life as trophy mate almost within reach, Rory might be forgetting something that he has to do, but that’s okay. There are people in his life now who will remind him of all the things that are important and of all the things that aren’t. Foreword Dear Reader, Thank you for sticking with me until… the end? Maybe? Who knows. What I do know is that the time has come… to subscribe to my newsletter or join my Facebook reader group (imaginatively titled the Alexa Piper Reader Group) so you are among the first to find out what else might happen in this story universe. Rory & Ink ends the story of these two… for now. I might come back for them, save them from their future roles as side characters in other people’s stories at some point, but the story that started when Rory hid in a women’s changing room, that story will come to an end in this book. We should get started, I think. If the Apocalypse teaches you anything, it’s never to waste time you could be spending with the people you love, and I don’t know about you, but I love these guys. Onward to the final curtain. Alexa Piper November 2022 Chapter One Before Inkiri There is a saying on Aër: Love lives in the mind as much as it lives in the skin and under your tongue. Two Earth years ago -- almost three years now -- I didn’t understand what that meant, but I remember the day when the seeds of understanding it were planted. It was stormy, and a constant drizzle saturated the air. We were huddled in a shelter we’d erected to keep us hidden from sight since we were on the Kankarraz side of the border, in Koa Esher territory. Vergis was sitting on a rock, the hood of his Earth-made cloak drawn deep over his face. Nokim barely managed not to pace, and Fellisse kept guard opposite me, watching the Lugarra side of the border. We were waiting for Lissir, who was late. “He will be fine, won’t he?” Nokim said. “I could always hop into town,” Vergis said, unconcerned as he so often was. I growled, an automatic reaction, but I pulled myself together. “No. You would stand out too much, Vergis. With your clothes.” Those would give him away as someone from far away, and if anyone knew the fashion, they would know it was human-made stuff. What I didn’t say was that Vergis was likely to turn heads with his looks alone, never mind his clothes. And none of us were willing to risk him getting taken by guards and brought before the Koa Esher, not when he was not a trained Raikenga. Not when he was hangu and a mage. Vergis sighed and gave that odd shoulder jerk. “Whatever. I wasn’t going to parade around town. But suit yourself.” And so we waited, time stretching. The wind changed a few times, but it beat the rain into my face for most of the waiting. It was unpleasant, but I was Raikenga, and my place was here, in the rain, to wait for our spy to return to us. When it happened, I felt it even as the rain picked up, the relentless wind forcing me to squint. It was like vertigo but not, a tingling feeling, an urgent need that came from deep inside me. I didn’t know what the feeling was, could not say