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Category: Erotica/Erotic Science Fiction/Science Fiction
Description: Starla, a Paralyzer Mage of the Vastus, has been assigned to be bodyguard to, of all people, a rock star. After an attempt on Tygor Gold's life, she finds herself on Spaceport Adana as, in her mind, a glorified babysitter. What she doesn't realize is she is but a pawn in the greater scheme of things. Tygor has his own magic and reasons for not joining the Vastus as a Mage. When his magic and Starla's collide, the results are more than even the Vastus could have predicted. Driven by something more than magic, more than chemistry, the two must find a way to exist together? And to survive.
eBook Publisher: Changeling Press LLC, 2008 2008
eBookwise Release Date: February 2009

28 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [96 KB]
Words: 19775
Reading time: 56-79 min.

Praise for Paralyzer "Paralyzer follows the serious-minded good girl meets hot-rebellious bad boy in a perilous and glamorous setting. Polar opposites that come together and compliment one another, along with a plot of scheming villains, and a touch of emotional angst mesh to form an enjoyable narrative."--Patrice F., Joyfully Reviewed

Fucking loud-assed music.

Starla McIntyre couldn't hear herself think, let alone concentrate on the subtle changes that might signal an attack on her charge. Tygor Gold didn't sing so much as scream his lyrics. And everything about him and the band, Darkest Knight, was just fucking loud.

He wore bright red leather pants and nothing else. His feet bare. His chest bare. Shoulder-length, shaggy hair hung around his face in wild, untamed, raven-colored curls, giving him an animalistic appearance. The other--all male--members of the band were equally flamboyant in appearance. Not one of them was anything less than perfectly sculpted muscle.

Tygor, though...

He was large, with the musculature of a man who had worked very hard for a very long time. He wasn't sculpted, like his band mates, but rugged. Hard. Deadly. Just looking at him sent shivers down her spine, not all of them bad. Sometimes he'd gaze at her with fierce, possessive, lust-filled eyes. At least, that's how Starla took it. Then she'd look in the mirror.

She was too skinny to be attractive. Her frame was filled with wiry muscle. Discipline the body, discipline the mind, was the Vastus's teaching, and she'd been a good pupil. The few lovers she'd taken had never been particularly impressed with the discipline of her body. Every single one of them ended up with wonderfully curvy vixens after they left her. The women Tygor had been holographed with in the past had all been that way.

Still, the man on stage seemed out of place compared with his hologram images. He played the part well, but Starla was certain he didn't really want to be up there. His songs were dynamic and charismatic, but he didn't interact with the audience as she'd seen in the holo images. Something was ... off.

Men and women fawned over him, yet he shunned all of them since she'd joined the troupe. Other members of Darkest Knight took their pleasures often and exuberantly, but in the two weeks Starla had been with them, she had yet to see Tygor Gold take a lover. Man or woman. Even the band members commented on it. She supposed his sudden celibacy made her job that much easier, but it was disconcerting and raised her hackles. People did not suddenly deviate from their normal habits without a reason. Perhaps Tygor had decided to act responsibly as a result of the attempt on his life three months prior.

Starla had been sent here by Darkest Knight's manager to be Tygor's bodyguard. The singer had come very close to death when he was attacked, and her job was to prevent it from happening again. She'd spent two weeks in surveillance, planning her defensive stance before joining them, then another two weeks living near them and getting to know them. This was a new situation for her. Normally, she took the offensive, but her instructions were to protect only. Under no circumstances was she to go after the assailant. It made absolutely no sense to her.

She ground her teeth in frustration, not for the first time. Babysitting. She was a glorified babysitter. A glorious waste of time for a Vastus mage. The Continuum only sent their highest-level mages on the most important--or highest paying--missions. Starla couldn't fathom why they had sent her to babysit a rock star.

As she rounded the perimeter of The Haze, the bar on Spaceport Adana the band had played for the last three days, she had to push her way through the undulating, screaming crowd. The noise beat into her brain, and bodies pressed against her. For a moment, she lost sight of both Tygor and her next checkpoint.

Making her way through the crowd as she set watchful spells proved more difficult than she'd originally thought, but she made steady progress forward. Once she reached the bar, she ignored the bartender and hopped up to sit on the end of the bar, craning her neck to see around the crowd, looking for possible threats. Why in the damned universe this man chose to put himself out in the open if he was so worried about his own safety was beyond her.

Hiring a woman to protect him? It was an image Starla found hard to buy. He was a man who always seemed to be in control. She shrugged. Oh, well. Who was she to complain? Tygor was the hottest man she'd ever seen. Sometimes she had to shake herself to keep from staring. Sometimes, she almost reached out and touched him.