Deadly Karma

A Club Sortilege Tale

By Laura Tolomei

GENRE:

BDSM, Multiple Partners, Paranormal, Contemporary, Time-Travel, Gay Male-Male

WORDS# 49,982

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LOGLINE 

 

He wasn’t looking for love or soul mates. He was looking for that Halloween high. Such was his justification. What comes around goes around was more like it.

 

BLURB 

 

When Eunice Saint Jacques meets Adrien Ascott at the Halloween party of one of New Orleans’s prestigious hotels, she thinks he’s cute.

Nah, she thinks he’s the most gorgeous creature ever. Little does she know he isn’t all that he seems to be, and that this Halloween will seal her destiny forever!

While it’s Presentation Night at Club Sortilege, the renowned New Orleans BDSM club, Yvette Carlisle, the Grand Master’s slave, is worried. What happened to her friend Eunice should never have happened.

Not now.

Hell, not for a long time.

Yet, here she is, talking to Adrien and uncovering an age-old curse that makes his karma as deadly as that of Count Dracula himself. Is it true, or is he spinning just another tale of bondage and sadism in the plush lounge of Club Sortilege?

Excerpt

“What’s that got to do with anything?” He creased his forehead as though in an attempt to understand. “Need I remind you of how alternative our lifestyle is?” He chuckled. “Or are you under the impression that the Grand Master loves you?”

“I wouldn’t care if he does,” she argued on the defensive. “The point isn’t to find love, but to know if it exists at all, regardless of the lifestyle.”

“I don’t believe much in love.” Clutching his glass, he spun it around a few times. “It’s overrated if you ask me, and too many people think it’s the cure for everything wrong in their lives.”

“While everything’s perfect in yours?” Yvette taunted lightly.

“I’m not saying it is,” he shot back. “But for sure, love isn’t the cure.”

“Then, what is?” Feeling close to a revelation, she stretched forward expectantly.

“How should I know?” Adrien huffed. “You seem such an expert in the matter, you tell me.”

It was a dare pure and simple.

“I will.” She nearly jumped in her haste to pick up the gauntlet. “I’ll start by assuming that Julia had cursed you for real.” She emphasized the last words for his benefit. “That she’d put a spell on you—”

“Like a sortilege?” Adrien laughed at his pun.

“Yeah, you could call it that.” She giggled, looking around the place before returning her gaze squarely on him. “A voodoo that has messed up your life and keeps repeating over and over.”

Like killing poor innocent girls on Halloween?

“I’m talking hypothetically, of course,” she threw in to encourage him to spill his guts.

“If it’s to humor you, I presume there’s no harm in a little guesswork.” He took another swig from his drink. “Let’s see…” His brow furrowed as though he were deep in memory lane. “Now that I think of it…” His expression darkened. “My life has been kind of on hold since Julia’s death.” He toyed with his glass, swirling the red liquid in tight circles. “Like everything stopped on that day, and I quit growing or something.”

“Did you now?” Aha, something she could sink her teeth in finally. She knew all about karma and its disastrous upheavals. Like if one hadn’t been good in a previous lifetime, one would face the same experience until somehow the lesson was learned.

No, worse, there’d be no budging from that point until that damn lesson had been hammered in your conscience and become a part of you. In other words, until enlightenment struck. Yvette believed it because she had to grapple with her share of lessons, but that was another story entirely.

“This definitely qualifies as a pattern, and it isn’t a good one.” Not by a long shot if considering Eunice’s premature passing. “To get your life back, you’d have to change something.” She had to drink because her throat was getting drier at every word. “Or come up with a different way of doing things.”

“Are you suggesting I take Julia’s rants seriously?”