Lovesick Titans
By Amanda Meuwissen
Genre: Gay Romance, Urban Fantasy, Superhero
Not even a Titan can always stand up to a God.
Malcom Cho is in over his head, wrapped up in a love affair with his superhero nemesis Zeus, who most people in Olympus City only know as Detective Danny Grant.
Lovesick Titans begins where Lovesick Gods left off, after a heist gone wrong that ended with a museum guard dead and Mal and Danny beaten and exhausted from their fight with the new threat in town, Cassidy Ludgate—Hades.
Unaware that Ludgate’s true motivation is revenge for the death of his father at Zeus’s hands, Mal wants only to keep Danny close, while Danny races to solve the cases surrounding Ludgate to stop him from whatever he has planned for them next.
What Mal doesn’t know is that Danny didn’t pursue him with the purest of intentions but sought to break his heart in retaliation for not being there when he needed him in the fight against Thanatos. Even though Danny no longer seeks that end, the lies between them loom like a shadow about to descend upon them both.
And Hades has only begun to toy with them…
About the Author
Amanda Meuwissen has been writing and posting online for many years, including maintaining the website and blog for the software company Outsell. She is an avid writer and consumer of fiction through film, prose, and video games, and is the author of the paranormal romance trilogy The Incubus Saga and young adult novel Life as a Teenage Vampire. Amanda lives in Minneapolis, MN, with her husband, John, and their two cats.
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorAmandaMeuwissen
Excerpt
His phone buzzing beside him pulled Danny back to the present and the evidence on his desk. The fiber was indeed silver, but he wouldn’t know more until he sent it to Andre and got some results back.
Checking his new text message, he saw that it was another from Cho. He’d texted Danny earlier, right after he left the man’s apartment.
It’s Mal, Sparky. Not Cho. Don’t forget it.
Danny always made that mistake, and he’d done it when he left too—“I’ll see ya around, Cho.”
This time the message said: Gonna have to help me celebrate when this lip heals.
Danny smiled; Cho had also gotten pretty beat up last night. But no. He couldn’t. He couldn’t. He had to end this.
Cho didn’t even know the truth, that Danny had been lying to him, using him. He’d confessed that he killed Thanatos but not the real reason why, that after killing Danny’s partner and friend, Thanatos had targeted and killed Danny’s mother the night of the power station explosion. Cho had no idea that Danny once blamed him for all of it because he hadn’t been there to help. The last thing Danny wanted now was to hurt Mal by telling him those terrible truths, even though, in the beginning, hurting him was what he’d wanted.
All he could think to text back was: Sorry. Stay safe.
Be easier to do that if we had a plan.
I know. Just give me some time to think.
Don’t keep me waiting too long.
“Another piece of evidence from the museum heist last night, Detective Grant,” a uniformed officer said as he entered Danny’s office.
“Hey, Boyd.” Danny set his phone aside. “Thanks. Just set it in the inbox. I should be able to get to it right away and pass everything to CSI.”
“Anything to please the captain, right?” Boyd said with a friendly smile, which fell when his eyes darted to the dusty remains of Rick’s desk. He made scarce after that to escape The Tomb. Danny couldn’t blame him. His deceased partner’s old desk might as well have been a headstone and Danny was the crypt keeper.
It was afternoon now, and while the pills had helped him get through the morning and the initial files and evidence he had, reaching a stalemate with the fiber, reading Cho’s texts, feeling like every turn led him down another dead end with every corner of his life closing in around him like his prison of an office and Rick’s empty desk across from him, had Danny wishing he could take one more. He knew he shouldn’t depend on the pills just because his mood took another dive, but would one really make that much of a difference?
When he set the fiber aside and reached for the new bag of evidence, he nearly dropped it as it caught in the light. It was Cho’s earpiece. The comms Danny had ripped from his ear when he attacked him, thinking he was working with Ludgate.
Danny didn’t know where the comms had come from originally, but he’d never seen anything like them. They had to be custom made. Cho probably had a tech guy somewhere with access to good quality equipment. Or Hephaestus, one of Cho’s faithful Titans. Some parts might be untraceable, but Andre was very good at his job as a CSI. He’d likely be able to connect some of the components to the manufacturer and figure out what businesses in Olympus City sold them, which would lead the police right to Cho’s neighborhood.
This was exactly the type of thing Danny hoped for from a case. But not today. Not when the evidence was Cho’s, and Danny doing his job could put the thief in the line of fire. He was already wanted by the police after breaking out of jail. Things could only get worse if the OCPD started lurking around his neighborhood and found out where he lived.
Danny fought the urge to throw the earpiece in the trash. Which of course he couldn’t actually do.
Could he?