Hi guys, we have Aleksandr Voinov and L.A. Witt popping in with their newest release Lone Wolf, L.A. chats about Fanfic, we have a great excerpt and there’s a brilliant giveaway. So enjoy the post and leave a comment on this post to enter that giveaway! <3 ~Pixie~ 

 Lone Wolf

L.A. Witt & Aleksandr Voinov

Hunter Easton is screwed. Fans, producers, and his agent are all chomping at the bit for the next book in his wildly popular Wolf’s Landing series, but he’s got epic writer’s block and is way behind deadline. Then he reads The World Tree, a fanfic novel by his online friend “Lone Wolf.” It isn’t just a great story—it’s exactly what the series needs.

Kevin Hussain is thrilled when “Wolf Hunter” wants to meet up after reading The World Tree. When Wolf Hunter turns out to be Hunter Easton himself, Kevin is starstruck. When Hunter tells him he wants to add The World Tree to Wolf’s Landing, Kevin is sure he’s being pranked. And when their online chemistry carries over—big time—into real life, Kevin is convinced it’s all too good to be true.

The problem is . . . it might be. The book deal, the sex, the money—everything is amazing. But fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and Kevin is left wondering if Hunter really loves him, or just loves his book.

L.A. Witt on Fan Fiction

Welcome to the Riptide Publishing/Aleksandr Voinov/L. A. Witt blog tour for the latest installment in the Bluewater Bay series, Lone Wolf!

*****

On Fan Fiction

When Aleks and I were hashing out the particulars of Bluewater Bay with Riptide, we decided that Wolf’s Landing would be wildly popular. To the point that the town had a playful rivalry with Forks, their Olympic Peninsula neighbor. With that in mind, Rachel Haimowitz said right from the start that she really wanted to see fandom represented—and represented positively. And we agreed.

Now, let’s back up a second. I have a confession to make about fandom, specifically fan fiction.

My name is L.A. Witt, and I used to hate fanfic.

The badly written stuff didn’t bother me. The weird and twisted stuff didn’t bother me. It all did. It bugged me to no end that someone would use another person’s world and characters for their own stories. Even if they weren’t making money off them, that was just…wrong.

Mostly, I felt like writers were wasting their time. If you’re going to write, write your own stuff. Why put the time and energy into someone else’s world when you could create your own? Why bother?

But then I started talking to people who wrote fanfic. And eventually, curiosity got the best of me. I read some stories written by Misa Buckley, who now has some published original fiction. And damn it, it was really good. And really interesting. Almost enough to make me want to watch the TV show from which the characters originated.

And then I read some of Misa’s original fiction, and that’s when my opinion of fanfic changed. Through years of writing fanfic (everything from vignettes to longer pieces) using original characters, Misa had developed a keen eye for character development and setting, not to mention honing a good, solid voice. And hey, fanfic writers can be brutal when they critique each other, so by the time Misa reached the world of edits and reviews, she had the kind of thick skin we all need in this business.

So, I changed my tune on fanfic. In fact, I embrace it. It’s illegal and unethical to profit from fanfic, but I’ve come to see the value in it, especially (but not exclusively) for writers who are cutting their teeth. And for heaven’s sake, it’s fun. It can be silly, dark, twisted, hot—whatever.

Fast forward a couple of years, and Aleks and I started writing Lone Wolf not long after that discussion with Rachel. With her comments in mind, we decided we wanted to not only have fandom and fanfic represented positively, but front and center. Essentially, we wanted Lone Wolf to be a hat tip – maybe even a love letter – to the fans out there who connect strongly enough to a story that they want to play with the characters themselves, and to the writers who hone their skills before branching out on their own.

And so, that’s where Kevin—and his fanfic writing group—came from.

Excerpt

Kevin idly stirred his mocha and kept glancing at the coffee shop door. His iPad sat on the table beside his arm, the screen dark, and whenever he wasn’t staring at the door, he was staring at the tablet, trying to convince himself not to read through this or that chapter of The World Tree again. Now that Wolf Hunter had read it, all the errors were jumping out at him. The pacing in chapter seven was a mess. Gabriel would never have let the suspect go in chapter three without roughing him up a bit more. Damn it, what was he thinking? He should have given it one more editing pass before he’d sent it to his friend.

At least he hadn’t posted it on Fandom Landing yet. Shorts were one thing. He wasn’t posting a full-length novel without having it beta read first. And apparently it wasn’t even ready for that step.

Damn it, why did I send it? I should’ve waited. Read it again. Something.

Ah well. The damage was done. He could correct it on his iPad all he wanted, but the only version Wolf Hunter knew about was the jacked-up version Kevin had already sent.

Which must not have been too bad, he supposed. Not if the man was willing to come see him to talk about it. Hopefully he wasn’t just stroking Kevin’s ego. Or desperate for human contact under the guise of “let’s talk about your book, which actually sucks but you don’t need to know that.”

He sipped his coffee. As if he needed the caffeine; he’d been jittery as hell all day. Maybe because he had no idea what to expect. With as little as he knew about this guy, Wolf Hunter could literally be anyone. And he hadn’t given Kevin a description. Kevin had sent him one—I look Middle Eastern, and I’ll be wearing a black leather jacket and black-framed glasses—and Wolf Hunter had just responded with “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The door opened again, and Kevin almost dropped his coffee on the iPad.

He was tempted to take off his glasses, wipe down the lenses, and look again, but no, he wasn’t seeing things. He knew that face anywhere. Fucking anywhere.

Silver foxes weren’t exactly uncommon in Seattle, but Kevin could pick Hunter Easton’s face out of any crowd.

He glanced at the door. Maybe he could grab an autograph from Hunter, and then get back to his table before Wolf Hunter showed up. Or he could stall Hunter long enough for Wolf Hunter to meet him too since he’d be here any second.

And . . . Hunter Easton was coming this way.

Walking right toward him.

Looking right at him.

Holy fucking hell, he wasn’t . . .

Kevin’s gorgeous idol stopped in front of him and extended his hand. “Lone Wolf?”

Holy shit. What?

Autopilot kicked in just in time, and Kevin extended a hand. It was probably shaking. Definitely sweaty. Oh God, he’ll think I’m a total dork. “Kevin.” Which, yeah, total letdown after Lone Wolf. “I mean, Kevyan.” CallMeAnythingOkay.

“Nice to meet you. Another coffee?”

“Any more will probably blow out my heart valves.” Sure. Because the caffeine is the problem right now. He cleared his throat. “Thanks, though.”

“No problem.” Hunter smiled in the exact same way he smiled when somebody asked him something really weird on a panel. “Can I get you anything else?”

Do they serve replacement brains here? This one stopped working. “I . . . I’m good. Feel free to get something. I’ll be here.” Unless I’ve sunk through the floor because holy shit I’m being a dork.

“Okay.” Hunter gave him another smile and a wink, and Kevin needed both hands to keep himself upright on the chair. That was the kind of smile that routinely made fangirls and quite a few fanboys squee. In the flesh, it was even more powerful. And Hunter did it to him rather than to one of the actors at Comic-Con.

Hunter headed for the counter, and Kevin managed to breathe and wipe his palms on his jeans. It was like two realities were playing Titanic and iceberg: a collision that was somewhere between life altering and catastrophic. Women and fandom first!

He brushed at his face in case he had food crumbs stuck to him, and then peered back to where Hunter was patiently waiting for a coffee with a cellophane-wrapped sandwich in his hand. Comfortable-looking sneakers, a pair of really nice black jeans, a graphite-gray T-shirt, and a blue-and-gray windbreaker for those unexpected rainy interludes.

At cons, he sometimes wore a suit, or pieces of a suit with jeans, and compared to most thriller or paranormal writers Kevin knew, Hunter was a sharp dresser. He was also distinctly lacking the wild hair and beard. Not one perfectly trimmed gray hair out of place. It was a bit of a cliché, but Kevin had figured Hunter Easton was gay after his first con appearance—and by how he treated gay characters in his books.

The more he’d read about him, the more certain he’d become, up to the point where Hunter’s famous “I like to keep some parts of my private life just that” comment in a Publishers Weekly interview had confirmed it. And made Kevin a little bit embarrassed that he had cared a great deal whether Hunter was actually gay. It really shouldn’t have mattered, right?

Wolf Hunter was gay. He’d never made any bones about it. And he and Lone Wolf had been known to flirt a bit. Okay, a lot. Kind of in a roundabout way: exchanging slash fic, discussing what they’d do to various Wolf’s Landing characters if they had some lube and half a chance, and holy fuck, it was so weird realizing he’d been getting off on a character with the very guy who’d created that character. That was like gushing online about how much you wanted to fuck someone in every imaginable way, and then finding out you’d been talking to the dude’s father. Who you also happened to have a huge crush on. Fuck.

Right then, that gorgeous silver fox turned around with a large coffee and a sandwich. Kevin drained the last of his long-since-cooled mocha. The caffeine wouldn’t do him any good, but he needed something because his mouth had inexplicably gone dry.

Hunter took a seat at the table and as he stirred cream and sugar into his coffee like a perfectly normal human being—you’re not fooling anyone, Easton—he said, “You mentioned your real name is . . . Kevin?”

“Well, Kevyan. But most people call me Kevin.” He tried his damnedest not to become a stark raving lunatic fanboy over the fact that Hunter Easton’s sandwich wrapper had just touched his iPad.

Dude. Get a grip. Like, now.

“So, Kevin. That’s what you prefer?”

“I can go either way.”

“Okay. Oh, and I guess I should introduce—”

“You’re Hunter Easton.” Kevin said it quietly to avoid drawing any attention—back off, assholes. He’s mine for today.

Hunter’s hands stopped, and the corner of his mouth rose. “You recognized me.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“Well, people have been known to plaster my face all over the forum, so . . .”

“Yeah. And I’ve met you.”

“Have you?” He didn’t sound surprised at that, either.

Kevin nodded. “I . . . yeah. At Comic-Con.” And WolfLandCon. And RainCon.

Color bloomed in Hunter’s cheeks, and he smiled a bit sheepishly. “I, um—”

“You meet thousands of people at these things.” Kevin smiled back. “I don’t expect you to remember me.”

“I do try to remember people’s faces. But, as you said, thousands . . .” Hunter focused on his coffee again. His hands suddenly didn’t seem as sure and steady as Kevin would have expected. He wasn’t nervous too, was he?

“So, all this time . . .” Kevin cleared his throat and tugged at his glasses. “All this time, I’ve been fanboying over Wolf’s Landing with you.”

Hunter chuckled. “Yep. I very carefully didn’t let anyone know I was Wolf Hunter.”

Kevin’s cheeks were on fire now. “You could have warned me before I sent you that one about Gabriel skull-fucking Max.”

Snickering, Hunter winked. “But then you wouldn’t have sent it to me, would you?”

“Uh, no. Definitely not.”

“Which would have been a shame. I rather enjoyed it.”

Kevin had been well aware that Wolf Hunter had enjoyed it. Several times, from what he’d said. Usually with one hand.

“This is . . . My God, this is so surreal.” He covered his face and groaned. “I’ve written slash porn with your characters and sent it right to you and oh my God . . .”

“Kevin. Relax.”

“Relax?” Kevin groaned again and looked across the table at the man who had read some of his kinkiest, most twisted, filthy stories. The ones he couldn’t even show anyone else—not even in the password-restricted NC-17 click-at-your-own-risk subforum—because they were that dirty. As a few of his titles ran through his mind, he wanted to crawl under the table and die.

Or crawl under the table like Gabriel did in that interrogation scene with Max Fuhrman? Where “tell me where she is” had suddenly turned into “tell me where to put my mouth”?

Hunter leaned forward, resting an arm on the table. “Your stories are really good. Some of the other fanfic writers out there come up with really skeevy and bizarre stories, but yours are . . .” He dropped his gaze, and his cheeks colored again. “They’re really good, Kevin.”

“Thanks.” Kevin drummed his fingers beside his coffee cup. “What about the new one? The big one?” He cringed. “The big story, I mean. The long— The novel, damn it.”

Hunter laughed. “That’s the one I wanted to talk to you about. It’s brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant.”

“It . . . I . . .”

“I’m not kidding.” Hunter folded his hands. “I finished my reread at one o’clock this morning and just lay for two hours thinking about it. I haven’t had a book hangover in a long time, but that one?” He whistled. “Nicely done, Kevin. Nicely done.”

Kevin stared at him. It was mortifying to hear Hunter Easton admitting he’d read those stories, but he couldn’t begin to get his head around the man looking him in the eye and telling him The World Tree was brilliant. “It . . . Really?”

“Really.” Hunter’s smile faded a bit, and he glanced into his coffee cup. “To be honest, you figured out everything that’s been driving me insane with the series. I’ve been killing myself trying to write the eighth book, and you . . . God, I don’t know who you sold your soul to in order to come up with that story, but please hook me up with him, because you’ve basically written the next Wolf’s Landing book.”

“Wow. I mean. It just made sense that way.”

“Not in my head. I’ve been struggling with how to get the characters out of the trouble I dropped them in in book seven, and you solved it—and the way you worked in Yggdrasil—so all those visions and interferences aren’t so much hauntings but alternate realities . . . the dreamtime. It’s good. Solves all the problems and opens up the series to tell so many different kinds of stories. Damn, I’d love to write one that’s more historical. Maybe something like that flashback in the first book. That was one of those things that happened during a late night, didn’t really seem to belong, but I didn’t cut it because I loved it, and then you wove it right back in.”

“You didn’t know where it was going?” In interviews, Hunter had referred a few times to how the whole series had taken “unexpected directions,” but surely nobody could just wing their way through a complex seven-plus-book series? Could they?

“Well. The whole thing started as a mystery thriller about a cop who’s having these weird intuitions and suddenly comes up against something out there—a parallel society. I guess there’s quite a bit of Clive Barker in its DNA, but then it kept growing and people loved the paranormal element, and I got into it myself rather than just dabbling. But there was this unexpected stuff lurking in the background. I had no idea I’d get myself into a place where the only thing that saves me is a multiverse-type setup.”

“Seriously? I thought that was all done on purpose.”

Hunter lifted his shoulder. “Nope. Best I can do is fake it and claim I did. But in reality? No fucking idea.”

“Wow.” Kevin shook his head. “And I thought you were being all mysterious because you just try to keep us guessing.”

“Well, I don’t want to ruin the fun for anybody, but I’m making it up as I go. My characters barely obey me, so trying to work with an outline is a lost cause. I had books two and three outlined and then Gabriel ended up leaving Detroit and went clear out to Wolf’s Landing to chase his mystery.”

“Yeah, he wasn’t really cooperative with me either.” Kevin grinned and Hunter laughed. “But Max was the worst.”

Hunter groaned. “Don’t get me started on him. He was supposed to die in book three and went, ‘Nope, not having it.’ I was planning to kill him a lot sooner than I did, but, well, he was too smart and a fan favorite, so killing him off in book seven took some serious work.”

“And then I brought him back.”

“I loved it. Ripping his soul out in the portal and bringing him back as kind of a saner version of himself . . . it really gives him some complexity. I thought he was starting to turn into too much of a one-note character, but in The World Tree, you kept his weirdness but also increased what readers love about him. Levi will be thrilled to read this.”

It was all Kevin could do not to let his jaw hit the table. Did Hunter fucking Easton just fanboy his book? And mention Levi Pritchard at the same time? Holy. Fuck.

Hunter shook his head and lowered his gaze. “I’m sorry. I’m kind of rambling on here, aren’t I?”

“Uh, no. It’s okay. I’m still a little . . . startled, I guess.”

Hunter flashed a toothy grin. “Surprise!”

Kevin chuckled. “Pretty much. Listen, do you mind if I grab another drink?”

“No, of course not.” Hunter smiled and picked up his own coffee. “I was hoping we could talk for a while, so I’m in no rush.”

Oh. My. God.

Kevin fumbled with his wallet as he stood, and tried not to trip over his own feet on the way to the counter. This had to be a joke. The man sitting at his table was undoubtedly Hunter, but he was practically squeeing all over The World Tree, and—

Kevin stopped abruptly.

“Levi will be thrilled to read this.”

The actors didn’t read fan fiction. And even if they did, why would Levi care? He’d only be playing Max Fuhrman as he was written in the actual series. So what difference would it make to him unless—

Kevin’s heart skipped.

He and Hunter had exchanged fanfic for the better part of a year and a half. Some of it mortifyingly dirty, but some were more like spin-offs, continuations—legitimate additions to the story line. And in between talking about those stories, they’d both made the odd comment about eventually meeting, but had never made any serious effort.

Not until Hunter read The World Tree.

And not five minutes after he sat down, he’d mentioned Levi being thrilled to read it.

Oh. Oh shit.

“Can I help you?”

Kevin blinked, suddenly realizing the barista had been watching him. “Um. I’ll . . .” What did I come over here to do? He scanned the menu over the counter. Right. They served food here. And drinks. “Just a bottle of water, please.”

She handed him the bottle, and after he paid, he took a long swallow before he headed back to the table.

In spite of his certainty that Hunter would evaporate into thin air or a camera crew would jump out and yell “Psych!”, the author was still sitting there, sipping his coffee. And he’d pulled out his own iPad and was scrolling through something.

White background. Black lettering.

Oh God, he’s looking at The World Tree right now.

Kevin cleared his throat as he took a seat. “I’ve got a question.”

Hunter turned off the iPad and folded his hands on top of it. “Shoot.”

“I’m just curious, but . . .” He hesitated, taking a quick drink just for something to occupy his hands. “We’ve talked about fic online. You’ve given me tons of feedback. Why did you suddenly want to meet over this one?”

“Well, I would have met you earlier, but I was worried about the disclosure part.”

“Where you’re, like, Hunter Easton?”

“Yep. I didn’t want you to think I’m that creepy type of author who stalks his fans. Except obviously that’s kind of what I did. But I love the characters and the world too, and sometimes it’s nice to talk about it with people who aren’t my agent, publisher, editor, or anybody with a financial stake in the game. I want to talk about the characters, not about how a new minor character would appeal to the Baby Boomer demographic.” Hunter wrapped his hands around his coffee. “It’s nice to just play, you know. No stake, no money involved. Just being crazy and fun and if that means writing slash fiction or writing a noir version of the story or exploring a character who frankly never moves the plot . . . It helps keep the writing fresh. Most of that never makes it on the page, but I get to play and that’s how I keep it all alive. And stay sane when I’ve got people gutting and altering my work.”

“Okay.” Kevin sipped his water. “That has to suck. They really do that to the books?”

“Thank God my agent deals with the worst of that shit. But are they trying? Absolutely.”

“So you were protecting yourself.”

Hunter nodded. “Being able to socialize with people who don’t know who I am and don’t treat me any different to any other fan out there helps keep me grounded and feeling like a normal person.”

“Oh shit, I can imagine. I won’t tell anybody. I don’t want to ruin that.” Nobody would believe him anyway. His fan group would lose their minds. Though whether he could still send him any of the explicit stories . . . He shook his head.

“What’s wrong?”

“Oh, just . . . thought about those other stories I sent you. Did they, I mean, did they weird you out?”

Hunter grinned, and, well, the only word to describe that grin was wolfish. “I found them pretty damn hot.”

Oh God, my favorite author ever has jerked off to my fan fiction.

“Uh. Any, errrr, favorites?”

“I like your take on Max and Gabriel. There’s obviously huge control issues in play, but their chemistry is mind-blowing.”

Kevin gulped. “I . . . Wow.”

Hunter chuckled. “Relax. I’m still Wolf Hunter.”

“Yeah, but Wolf Hunter turned out to be Hunter Easton. I’m sure you can see why that’s a little difficult to wrap my head around.”

“I’m just a guy who writes books.”

“Uh-huh. You’re the guy who writes those books.”

Hunter studied him for a moment. Then he pushed his coffee aside. “I want to let you in on a secret.”

Kevin raised his eyebrows.

“I really am just some guy writing books. And I happen to be a guy who’s stuck like hell on a book that a dozen people—not to mention legions of fans—are expecting me to cough up in very little time. And to be honest . . .” He shook his head, sighing. “Up until the other night, I really wasn’t sure what was going to happen in that book. I’m stuck. I don’t wave a magic wand and produce those stories.” He paused. “And the thing is, what you’ve written is perfect for the direction the series needs to take.”

“It . . . Oh. Uh, thank you.” Kevin tilted his head. “If you want to use the whole World Tree idea, that’s cool.”

“I don’t think you understand. Your story is perfect.”

Kevin blinked.

“You think you’re just a fan who’s writing these stories for fun, but you’ve come up with something amazing. And . . . look, I can’t promise anything. I’ve got my hands tied by so much legalese and contract bullshit, this could get vetoed the second I talk to my agent, but—”

Kevin almost choked. “Your . . .”

“Yes.” Hunter locked eyes with him. “I want the eighth book in the series to be The World Tree.”

Kevin sat back. He glanced around, searching for camera lenses. This was a joke. He was being punk’d.

“I’m serious, Kevin. I want this book in the series.”

Kevin studied him. Then something tightened in his chest, and he gritted his teeth. “Are you . . . are you suggesting taking my book”—he thumped his iPad with a fingertip—“and putting it out there instead of the one you’re writing? With your name on it?”

Hunter’s eyes widened. “What? No!” He waved a hand so sharply he almost knocked his coffee cup off the table, but he caught it, steadied it, and then showed his palms. “Of course not. No, I didn’t mean I wanted to take it from you. I mean I want to incorporate your book—as your book—into Wolf’s Landing.”

The tightness in Kevin’s chest eased. Thank God—that would’ve been an uncomfortable revelation about both his friend and his idol. He absently turned his coffee cup between his fingers. “But . . . it’s your series.”

“And you’ve written the story better than I could have.” Hunter lowered his hands and closed them around his own cup. “I wanted to talk to you before I broached the subject with my agent. In case you had any objections.”

“Objections?” Kevin laughed. “No way. I just . . . Are you sure this isn’t a joke?”

“It’s not a joke. I promise.” Hunter shook his head. “But like I said, it could get sticky from a legal standpoint. Technically, I’m not even supposed to be reading fanfic or unpublished work.”

“In case an element shows up in your work and someone says you ripped it off?”

“Exactly.”

“But . . . you’ve been reading fanfic all this time.”

Hunter lowered his gaze, and there was that pink in his cheeks again. “I’ve been reading your fanfic all this time.”

“Mine?”

Hunter nodded. “I joined the site, but avoided everyone’s stories because of my contract. Occasionally I saw little snippets here and there, and then I caught a glimpse of one of yours and couldn’t stop reading. That was right before we started chatting privately.”

Kevin’s head spun. In all the time he’d been writing and posting stories, he’d never even fantasized that Hunter might be reading them.

He was thankful as fuck he’d never posted that smutty little story about himself and Hunter at a convention. That one would go so deep behind bars on his hard drive it would teach the Mafia something about vanishing inconvenient stuff. “So you don’t do that with anybody else?”

“Check my history. I was hanging out with some of the illustrators, because VixenDreams’s illustrations are absolutely amazing, but I never beta any of the fanfic. I never even click on it.”

“Wow.” Kevin leaned back, still with that distinct World Tree–style sense of realities mixing and converging, like he was a werewolf changing planes. Only difference was, this had been happening for coming on fifteen minutes, whereas in his book it took no time at all. Actually, it took negative time, which he’d thought was a neat touch and . . . Okay, babbling. “You really want to buy the book? I mean, that’s . . . It wasn’t what I was going for. I . . .” He laughed and shook his head. “I didn’t even know I was sending it to, well, you. I just wrote it because I couldn’t wait for the next one and your characters moved into my head and started rearranging the furniture. Gabriel kept on talking, and I couldn’t sleep.”

“He does that.” Hunter didn’t even grin, just had a . . . compassionate look on his face. Were they really discussing fictional people moving from head to head like a family of raccoons switching houses? “But you nailed him. You took those seven books and developed it like you owned it. That takes some confidence, never mind really hard work.”

“I reread them all in one go and it just happened. I had the whole movie in my head.”

“With the same cast?”

“Oh, the casting is perfect. Levi Pritchard? I really didn’t see that happening, because he retired, but getting him to play Max?” Kevin swooned. “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. With werewolves. I can’t wait to see it on screen.”

Hunter laughed. “Good, because we had to fight hard to get him to sign.”

“Really? He’s perfect for the role.”

“Yeah, but he’s not keen on playing games with production companies. Doesn’t help that the producer who approached him is an insufferable cunt I’d like to toss off a bridge into a pit of rabid sharks.”

Kevin blinked. Holy fuck. This really was Wolf Hunter. That wasn’t an insult he used frequently—and this version wasn’t one of Kevin’s favorites—but Kevin had definitely heard a variation of it before. Hunter had incredibly colorful ways of expressing his distaste for people and things. What was it he’d said about that troll who’d infested Fandom Landing a few months ago?

“He needs to be fucked sideways with a flaming cactus.”

Yep. The man sitting across from him—the man who’d fucking written Wolf’s Landing—was definitely Wolf Hunter.

Kevin cleared his throat. “Well, I’m uh . . . I’m glad Levi gave in.”

“Me too.” Hunter shifted a little, playing with the handle on his coffee mug. “So, going back to the book. If you’re really okay with it, I can talk to my agent.”

Kevin released a breath. “That’d be amazing. If it pans out, I mean.”

Hunter held up one hand with his fingers crossed.

“You’re still going to write the ninth book, right? I mean, I left it open for more. I think.”

“Are you kidding? The way you set it up, I could write Wolf’s Landing books until I’m old and, well, grayer.”

Kevin chuckled. “That’s a good thing, right?”

“Now that I’m not ready to staple myself to death just to get out of writing book eight? Yes. It’s a very good thing.”

“Good, good.” Kevin took another drink, and as he capped the water bottle, asked, “So, what happens if your agent says no?”

“Not a clue. The thing is, to be perfectly honest, I can’t even envision the story going a different way. It’s like there were two freeways being built, and now that they’re connected, there’s no changing their direction.”

“Well, if she won’t buy it, you’re welcome to use it. The portal thing, at least.”

Hunter sighed. “Except that would still be plagiarism. Unethical would be an understatement. And I’d never take your story and make it mine. This isn’t about my name. It’s about the Wolf’s Landing series, and The World Tree is the next step. It just . . . is.”

Mind. Blown.

“Wow. This is . . .” Kevin shook his head. “If I don’t seem excited about this, I’m just in shock.”

“It’s okay.” Hunter smiled, obviously unaware of what that did to Kevin’s ability to think. “I’ll talk to her tonight, and then I can email you. Or call you, if you want.”

Kevin almost tumbled out of his chair. “You want my phone number too?”

Hunter smirked. “Well, I could stand on top of Mount Olympus and shout, but you probably wouldn’t hear me.”

“Very funny.” Kevin rolled his eyes. “Yeah, if you want to give me a call or shoot me a text . . .” He pulled out his phone and set it on the table.

And thirty seconds later, he had Hunter Easton’s phone number in his contact list.

About L.A. & Aleksandr

Aleksandr Voinov

EPIC Award winner and Lambda Award finalist Aleksandr Voinov is an emigrant German author living near London, where he works as a financial editor. His genres range from science fiction and fantasy to thriller, historical, contemporary, thriller, and erotica. His books were/are published by Random House Germany, Samhain Publishing, Riptide Publishing and others.

If he isn’t writing, he studies sports massage, explores historical sites, and meets other writers. He single-handedly sustains three London bookstores with his ever-changing research projects. His current interests include special forces operations during World War II, the history of chess, european magical traditions, and how to destroy the world and plunge it into a nuclear winter without having the benefit of nuclear weapons.

Visit Aleksandr’s website at www.aleksandrvoinov.com, his blog at www.aleksandrvoinov.blogspot.com, and follow him on Twitter, where he tweets as @aleksandrvoinov.

 L.A. Witt

L.A. Witt is an abnormal M/M romance writer currently living in the glamorous and ultra-futuristic metropolis of Omaha, Nebraska, with her husband, two cats, and a disembodied penguin brain that communicates with her telepathically. In addition to writing smut and disturbing the locals, L.A. is said to be working with the US government to perfect a genetic modification that will allow humans to survive indefinitely on Corn Pops and beef jerky. This is all a cover, though, as her primary leisure activity is hunting down her arch nemesis, erotica author Lauren Gallagher, who is also said to be lurking somewhere in Omaha.

A.’s backlist is available on her website, and updates (as well as random thoughts and the odd snarky comment) can be found on her blog or on Twitter (@GallagherWitt).

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