Prince of Power (House of Terriot Book 2) Read online

  Praise for PRINCE OF HONOR

  Book 1 in the "House of Terriot" series:

  "5 Stars! A prince. A traitor. A blood feud. Mix them with healthy doses of drama, intrigue, and action, and you have an edge of your seat book I loved beginning to end. Turow is everything you want in a hero and Sylvia's journey from villain to heroine is brilliantly crafted." - Susan, Goodreads

  "A tightly woven plot will have you burning through the pages. The chemistry is lethal and flammable. Fans of the "By Moonlight series will love this spin-off, yet you can easily pick up PRINCE OF HONOR and transition right into the series. A Must Read! 5-Stars!." - Cross My Heart Reviews

  "Gideon tears this series open with a bang . . . Max and Cee Cee ignited your appetite, but these Terriot brothers are so exclusively delicious they're not even on the menu! The fast-paced action and emotional banquet laid out here is a paranormal romance lover's feast! 5-Stars!" - Book Bling

  "A wild rollercoaster ride! I love Gideon's writing style - it captivates and holds me until the last page. Her exploration and development (and redemption, in Sylvia's case) of these characters is masterful and intriguing. I highly recommend! 5★" - Charlene, Goodreads

  Wow, I loved this book. What a splendid start to a series. I loved the By Moonlight series and this continuation was fantabulous. 5-Star" - Llaph, Goodreads

  "Sexy, sexy, sexy! Did I mention it's sexy? Our leading man Turow is all alpha male and honorable gentleman wrapped up in one, a lover and a fighter and man is he freaking hot! I loved everything about his character, the protector hiding the shadows. I wanted more! Syliva is all kinds of crazy-fun, feisty and not taking anything from any haters. She adds to this dark and delicious tale in all the right ways. Believe me, I'm going to get all previous works right now!" - I Smell Sheep

  "Prince of Honor is one of my new favorites from Nancy Gideon. Turow is a complex charater, shy, doesn't talk much, a good man . . . Oh and did I say sexy... this prince is definitely a charmer. A must read for all ... you will love these princes and their lady loves. 5 Star!" - Mystic Soul

  "A great read. It had everything, sibling rivalry, betrayal, a really bad girl with no moral compass and really good guy who loves in spite of the facts. This book shows that sometime our better angels really do get through to us. 5-Star" - Piperine4U

  "Masterful writing. It's so easy to get lost in the world Nancy weaves. There's something about these dark, delicious, and damaged princes that grips your heart and won't let go. I couldn't imagine a more perfectly damaged couple than Sylvia and Turrow. Their chemistry is notable from Chapter 1. Cannot wait to get my hands on Colin's book. 5-Star" - Sara Kate, Goodreads

  Book 2 in the 5-Star "House of Terriot Series"

  PRINCE OF POWER

  He was the only thing she never expected to get between her and what she wanted . . .

  Dull, early-morning light filtered down through a slant of dingy windows overhead, sending swirls of dust motes drifting about the lone figure punishing the heavy bag, lending a grainy, old-film quality of stark relief to fiercely defined muscles, bunching, flexing, gliding in a shadow play of near-poetic movement.

  She’d wanted to make sure he was all right, that’s all, and obviously, he was . . . so, she should leave before he noticed her, but Colin Terriot, gorgeous, cut, the perfect solid, sexy male, held Mia entranced.

  The rhythmic thud of the gloves drew her appreciation to caress glistening flesh stretched taut and tempting over a purposefully honed physique, not that of a sleek, dark Porsche like most Guedry males, but a Land Rover, built to conquer with force, to withstand harsh elements and still provide an enviable ride over the roughest terrain in a journey not about comfort and speed, but rather the dangerous thrill. Drawstring shorts rode his hips, hugging nicely-rounded butt and sturdy thighs. She’d never thought of thighs as particularly erotic, but his had her imaging herself trapped between their compression.

  The handsome Terriot unbalanced her. Today, Mia needed to recover it.

  She hadn’t made a sound but suddenly he tensed, aware of her, turning, gloved fists raised as if expecting a fight that she’d happily provide.

  “What’d that bag ever do to you?”

  He drawled low and gruff, “It got in my way.”

  Hang on . . . the ride’s about to get bumpy!

  “Get ready for fifty shades of tall, dark and deliciously dangerous . . .”

  – Elizabeth Alsobrooks, Book Bling

  Deadly, Damaged, Delicious

  Brothers too H.o.T. to handle!

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Nancy Gideon

  All rights reserved. No part of this book or portions thereof may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Cover Design: Patricia Lazarus

  Interior Design: Florence Price & The Novel Difference

  ASIN: B01N6V5BED

  DEDICATION

  For my awesome virtual assistant, My Girl Friday, Florence Price,

  who can take my ideas and run with them in every direction at once.

  Thanks for going above and beyond to get me out there,

  for putting up with my fussiness when it comes to

  every freaking tiny little detail, and for your

  amazing navigation of the tech world!

  You make a Novel Difference.

  I salute you!

  BY

  Nancy Gideon

  Book 2

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWEINTY-SIX

  A Sneak Peek from

  PRINCE OF FOOLS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  OTHER BOOKS BY NANCY GIDEON

  PROLOGUE

  A ring.

  Colin Terriot studied the scorched circle placed in his palm, brow furrowing. He didn’t understand. The wide band of polished steel never left his step-father’s finger. A gift from their king, it was Abel Conroy’s most prized possession, a symbol of prestige and loyalty.

  Her sudden slap nearly knocked him to his knees, not from the strength of the blow, but because he’d never in his fourteen years felt the brunt of a hand raised in anger by someone he loved. As the son of a king, reared in the shadow their clan’s fiercest warrior, no one would dare. Surprise left him defenseless.

  “Where were you?” Fury throbbed in his mother’s voice. “Where were you when they were dying?”

  They’d died? The shock too huge to absorb all at once, he looked up, eyes tearing, throat too tight for speech. His step-father? His half-brothers? As he put his o
ther palm to the fiery mark on his face, he met his mother’s glare. A crystal-clear understanding settled deep and cold inside him. His protector was dead, and his king indifferent. In that moment, Colin knew everything in his world had changed.

  “W-what happened?” he whispered, struggling not to shrink away from the raging female who’d given him life but little else.

  Patrice Terriot Conroy turned away, the sight of his anguish too repellent to endure. “An ambush by those Guedry monsters. They were outnumbered, slaughtered. My mate, my sons, all of them.” She stilled, breath heaving from her in a crazed mix of grief and wrath. Then slowly she circled back to him, the cause of her pain. “Where were you when they needed you? If you’d been there, they’d still be alive!”

  “Or I’d be dead, too,” he responded quietly from a logical well of truth, knowing with crushing certainty she wouldn’t wail and gnash over him.

  She took another harsh breath and he tensed, prepared this time to accept the backlash of her temper. Instead of striking with blows, she chose words that carved like sharpened blades. “No. Your glorious king would have never allowed one of his precious Twelve to go into such a dangerous situation without the power of his throne to protect him. You he never would have sacrificed if risk was involved.”

  “I asked to go.” Swallowing down the acid of blame, Colin stood firm, trying to justify the unforgivable. “I wanted to go with them. Father wouldn’t let me. He said they could handle it, that it was nothing I should bother our king about.” His guilt poured out in a rare emotional purge. “I shouldn’t have listened. I should have been with my family.”

  Her features froze. “He was not your father! They weren’t your family. Go live with Bram the Beast and his many spawns. They’re your family now. Go! Get out of my sight!”

  She gave him a hard push. Colin stumbled back, blinded by unbearable loss and dismay, blurting, “But Momma, this is my home.”

  Her hatred cut right to his soul. “I was obligated to bear you, to raise you. But now no one can force me to have you under my roof another day. My sons are dead, and you can’t replace them!”

  He fled those brutal facts, leaving behind, without looking back, everything that held meaning. Losing all in that moment except the heritage she despised.

  He was a prince in the House of Terriot.

  As he sat on a crisply made bed within the dormitory for unmated Shifter males, Colin opened his clenched fist. The ring had cut a deep, bloody circle in his palm. A mark that would never completely disappear.

  Like the hole his mother had left in his heart.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Terriots.

  Nothing spread so virulently or was as impossible to grind beneath a heel as Bram the Beast’s brutal clan. Her father and uncle had tried. Mia Guedry was determined not to share their fate. Peace may have been the reason for this meeting, but revenge stirred darkly in her soul.

  Peace. She uttered an oath as she rested her boots on the chair next to her, ankles crossed in pretended ease. Peace required trust, and that ship had sailed between their clans generations ago on a body count too high to recall. Her name was not going to add to that list unless it meant taking a large number of them with her, starting with their arrogant monarchy and working her way down.

  She’d met their new king. Mia wasn’t sure what she thought of Cale Terriot. She’d seen him fight. As a warrior, he had no equal, but as a leader he seemed as unstable as the one who’d fathered him, who’d raised him and his many brothers in violence, treachery and careless greed. She’d as soon hold a viper in her hand as welcome him or one of his to talk truce on this supposed neutral ground in New Orleans.

  Mia had no illusions. She wasn’t cooling her heels here in the sweaty stench of Louisiana to hammer out a lasting treaty. She’d come to make her savage mark over the corpses of those who’d betray her people even as they shook her hand.

  She had no problem killing Terriots or the members of the outcast Shifter clan here in the Crescent City . . . in theory. She’d yet to test that resolve in fact. Her cousin Rueben, who now unfairly held the reins of their empire in Memphis, would never take her seriously until her hands were drenched, not in pints, but in gallons of their enemy’s vital fluids. She couldn’t wait to get them wet.

  But not today. Today she’d create a façade of compliance, a false impression that she was eager for an alliance. And the second their guard lowered and their throats were bared, she’d carve them ear-to-ear.

  That was her plan. In theory. Before she’d gotten intimately acquainted with the Terriot’s negotiator.

  They were late. Her already strained mood chafed with impatience and insult as perspiration dampened the back of her neck beneath her heavy black hair. Would they make Rueben sit outside in clammy discomfort, making him wait? She doubted it.

  “Ms. Guedry, sorry for the delay. I had some unexpected business that needed my attention.”

  Her narrowed gaze studied Silas MacCreedy as he took the seat to her right. “More important than my time, apparently.”

  His cool grey stare remained unblinking. “Of course not. But it was unavoidable and I didn’t want to inconvenience you by rescheduling at the last minute.”

  MacCreedy worked for Max Savoie, leader of the ragtag Shifter band huddled along the bayou in a defensive bristle against intrusion from the stronger clans. She wouldn’t underestimate him. He cleverly straddled the line between their kind and the Uprights as a detective with the New Orleans police department, partnered with Savoie’s mate, Charlotte Caissie. His genealogy maintained another precarious balance, his mother a Geudry, his father a Terriot. He claimed no fidelity to either heritage, and that made him dangerous as well as smart.

  And though he was unaware of it, his sister had been her brother’s lover. Before Savoie killed him. Mia wasn’t sure what that made him, so she remained cautious.

  “Doesn’t this damned place ever have decent weather?”

  Silas rose to extend his hand to the third in their party. Colin Terriot hesitated a beat before he took it then exerted a bit of knuckle-whitening pressure. Obviously, no love lay between them. MacCreedy was tall and lean. The Terriot prince dwarfed him with his powerful mass.

  The newcomer scanned the empty tabletop. “Can we get some coffee? I didn’t have time for any this morning.”

  “Were you getting your chest waxed?”

  Mia’s bored purr brought his attention to her with the force of a head-on collision. The hard veneer of his expression didn’t warm with the one-sided twist of a smile.

  “No, my bikini line. Personal grooming is so important. It’s a bit raw now, but I’d be happy to show it to you later.” He punctuated that bold invitation by scooping up her boots so he could slip into the chair beneath them, repositioning them in his lap with her heels perilously close to the area in question. She pushed them against him, earning a wince as she placed her feet solidly on the bricked terrace.

  “No, thanks. I’ve already seen everything you have. Nothing I need to revisit.” If her cool dismissal warranted another flinch, he kept it to himself.

  Silas looked between them, brows raised. “Is there a conflict of interest here?”

  “No,” Colin declared, waving over the waitress. “No interest at all. So, what business are we here to discuss?” He focused on Silas, blatantly avoiding Mia.

  “No business. I thought if we’re going to work together, we should get to know each other better.”

  “Like ‘I’m a Pisces, enjoy snowboarding, old movies, and women who aren’t afraid to make me cry,’ that kind of thing?”

  Silas regarded the lounging Terriot with a thin smile. “Are you always an ass, or do you just bray like one when your mouth is open?”

  “Are you always a dick, or just act like one when you’re trying to stick it to folks you shouldn’t be poking at if you want to stay breathing?”

  The growly banter made Mia sigh. “Boys, could we back down the testosterone here?”
<
br />   “Why?” Fierce green eyes slashed in her direction. “So you can play, too?”

  “I don’t need to whip anything out to prove I’m bigger or stronger before having a conversation, so would you zip up the macho crap? I’m a Taurus and don’t care for any more bull.”

  For just an instant, his expression thawed leaving Mia breathless. With those fine, almost delicate features set upon a harshly bold landscape, he was hot enough to stop any female’s heart. And that mouth . . . Kissing Colin Terriot ranked as one of the most exciting things in her adult experience.

  Who was she kidding? Nothing else came close. Except having sex with him.

  “Well, I’m an omnivore,” Silas announced, “who likes long walks in the moonlight and a good breakfast, so could we order something to eat before we take bites out of each other?”

  They got to know each other through table manners as Silas finessed an omelet with toast triangles, Colin ripped through steak and potatoes between continuous cups of coffee, and Mia picked at her poached egg and fruit plate while silently sizing up the competition.

  Finally, Colin pushed his empty plate away. “Okay, now that we’re all fast friends, we need to set down some guidelines.”

  “Rules? We don’t need no stinkin’ rules,” Mia quoted in a heavily accented voice, adding, “For the movie buff in you.”

  A genuine grin burst like the sun from behind heavy clouds, blinding her to all their differences until MacCreedy called them back to business.

  “Rules are good. Probably should start with no weapons, no verbal or physical attacks, no uninvited company.”

  Colin huffed. “Where’s the fun in that?”