Ilona Andrews

Ilona Andrews – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com Thu, 23 Apr 2026 23:01:49 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 http://www.books2020.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/favicon.png Ilona Andrews – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com 32 32 This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me (Maggie the Undying #1) Read Online Ilona Andrews http://www.books2020.com/this-kingdom-will-not-kill-me-maggie-the-undying-1-read-online-ilona-andrews Thu, 23 Apr 2026 23:01:49 +0000 https://www.books2020.com/this-kingdom-will-not-kill-me-maggie-the-undying-1-read-online-ilona-andrews Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal Authors: Ilona Andrews Series: Maggie the Undying Series by Ilona Andrews
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Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 210715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1054(@200wpm)___ 843(@250wpm)___ 702(@300wpm)

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Outlander meets Game of Thrones in this blockbuster new epic fantasy series from the #1 New York Times bestselling author duo Ilona Andrews.

When Maggie wakes up cold, filthy, and naked in a gutter, it doesn't take her long to recognize Kair Toren, a city she knows intimately from the pages of the famously unfinished dark fantasy series she's been obsessively reading and re-reading while waiting years for the final novel.

Her only tools for navigating this gritty world of rival warlords, magic, and mayhem? Her encyclopedic knowledge of the plot, the setting, and the characters' ambitions and fates. But while she quickly discovers she cannot be killed (though many will try!), the same cannot be said for the living, breathing characters she's coming to love—a motley band that includes a former lady’s maid, a deadly assassin, various outrageous magical creatures, and a dangerously appealing soldier. Soon, instead of trying to get home, she finds herself enmeshed in the schemes—and attentions—of dueling princes, dukes, and villains, all while trying to save them and the kingdom of Rellas from the way she knows their stories will end: in a cataclysmic war

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

PART 1

BAG OF MONEY

CHAPTER 1

MONTH OF PLANTER, DAY 6

Rain drenched the city, cold and relentless. It leached all color from the medieval-looking buildings, turning the world gray and soaking through the filthy rag in which I had swaddled myself. The sour stench rising from the grimy folds was truly epic. I couldn’t feel my toes, and my fingers were going numb.

The three-story buildings towered over the alley like the walls of a stone canyon, boxing me in. Sometime between yesterday evening and this morning, my stomach had turned into a painful bottomless pit. I hadn’t eaten in three days. I wasn’t even shivering anymore. My body didn’t have the energy.

I checked on my rock again. It lay in a puddle by my feet, a cream-colored chunk of building stone about the size of a large grapefruit. Any bigger, and it would be too hard to grip with one hand. I had found it this morning and carried it through the rain for two hours until I found the right bridge.

The rock was still there. I touched it with my foot to make sure. It felt solid and real.

I peeled myself from the wall and leaned a little to glance out of the alley. In front of me a narrow stone bridge spanned the width of a rain-swollen river. Another wall of medieval buildings loomed on the other side. Behind them, a tower soared, a spire rising at least six hundred feet, silhouetted against the storm-choked sky and topped by a huge flower of translucent, milky glass. The flower’s petals were shut into a bud, guarding the observation deck in its center from the storm. Every few seconds, bright gold sparks dashed through the enchanted glass.

A dozen dark shapes circled the flower, surfing the wild air currents. My brain expected them to be birds, but birds had only one pair of wings, not two. The feeling of wrongness was overwhelming.

Yep, the Mage Tower and the strange bird-things were still there, too.

I huddled against the wall.

I couldn’t touch the Mage Tower, but I knew it was real. For one, I had pictured it differently. In my head it was a flawless pale needle, elegant and almost dainty. If this had been a hallucination, what I saw would’ve matched the vision in my head, but the reality was nothing like that. This tower jutted up, defiant, its walls worn but strong, as if it had grown from bedrock. And it felt old. Like it had stood there for thousands of years and would stand just like that for another millennium, timeless and indifferent, while the city around it crumbled into dust, rebuilt, and crumbled again.

No, it was real, like this endless rain, like the pain in my freezing bare feet, and like the gnawing ache in my stomach.

In the distance, a bell tolled four times. Four pm.

It wouldn’t be too long now.

To say that this was not the way I envisioned spending my Sunday would be a criminal understatement. Today would’ve been my one day off. I should’ve spent it watching Netflix, nibbling on a pizza, and reading while lounging on my couch in my tiny apartment, in my soft sweatpants, warm and dry. Not wrapped in a dirty rag, shivering in a grimy alley, while the sky dumped gallons of cold rain on my head.

I wasn’t a big reader through most of my childhood, but when I was sixteen, my first serious boyfriend broke up with me, and it was hell. My brain kept rehashing every moment of the relationship in excruciating detail. One afternoon, as I lay on my bed, wallowing in self-pity, my mom handed me a thick fantasy book, and when I turned my nose up at it, she told me, “Maggie, you need to live in someone else’s head for a bit.”

I’d thought I would read a few pages. When I came up for air, five hours later, my breakup was an afterthought. Some seriously messed-up stuff happened on the first page, and I had to find out how it turned out. Somehow by the end of those five hours, the book had wrung me dry. I could deal with life again.

I’d tried every genre under the sun since, but fantasy was my vice of choice. There was something about blades and magic that did it for me. Deadly sword-masters, thieves prowling through moonlit streets, dark magicians, warrior princesses, ruthless nobles, majestic dragons, hideous monsters, I loved it all. Put a hot dude in armor with a sword on the cover, and my eyes glazed over while my hand crept to the buy button, budget be damned.

I had read enough fantasy books to fill a library, but that very first series was my special treasure. Set in the city of Kair Toren, capital of the kingdom of Rellas, the story revolved around the power struggles of eight noble families, and it was so full of fantasy tropes, it would be clichéd except that the superb writing moved it right past stereotypical into classic. The characters felt so real, they practically jumped off the page.

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Advertisement Beast Business – Hidden Legacy Read Online Ilona Andrews http://www.books2020.com/beast-business-hidden-legacy-read-online-ilona-andrews Thu, 26 Feb 2026 08:20:54 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/beast-business-hidden-legacy-read-online-ilona-andrews Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Magic, Novella, Paranormal Authors: Ilona Andrews Advertisement

Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)

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Augustine Montgomery is an Illusion Prime who owns a premier PI corporation and alters his appearance with magic. The people who have seen Augustine’s real face can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The people who witnessed the full extent of his power are dead. The illusion isn’t just the brand of his magic. It’s become his lifestyle.

Show as little as possible. Make them think that illusion is all you have. Your life depends on it.

Augustine lives by this creed. He’s cold, rational, and calculating. He doesn’t get emotionally involved. Then one day Diana Harrison walks into his office and asks for his help. Diana is a Prime, an animal mage who bonds with animals through her magic and prefers their company to humans. Something precious has been stolen from House Harrison. Something Diana must recover at all costs.

The two Houses are allied through a friendship pact. Assisting Diana is simply good business. And yet, there is something about her that disturbs the careful balance of Augustine’s inner world.

Neither of them is who they appear to be. Both would die to keep their secrets. But the enemy they face is more powerful than either had imagined, and saving the life that hangs in the balance will demand the ultimate price neither Augustine nor Diana ever anticipated to pay – complete honesty

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

The Lore

In 1863, in a world much like our own, European scientists tried to cure the flu and discovered the Osiris serum instead, a concoction which brought out one’s magic talents. These talents were many and varied. Some people gained the ability to command animals, some learned to sense water from miles away, and others suddenly realized they could kill their enemies by throwing lightning from their fingertips.

The serum spread through the planet. It was given to soldiers in hopes of making military forces more deadly. It was obtained by members of the fading aristocracy, desperate to hold on to power. It was bought by the rich, who desired to get richer. The magic users were evaluated and sorted into ranks starting with Minors, who had bare whispers of magic at their disposal, all the way to Primes, mages of incredible power.

Eventually the world realized the consequences of awakening godlike powers in ordinary people. The serum was locked away, but it was too late. The magic talents passed on from parents to their children had changed the course of human history forever. The future of entire nations shifted in the span of a few short decades. Those who previously married for status, money, and power now married for magic, because strong magic would give them everything.

Now, a century and a half later, families with strong hereditary magic have evolved into dynasties. These families—Houses, as they call themselves—own corporations, control their own territories within the cities, and influence politics. They employ private armies, they feud with each other, and their disputes are deadly. It is a world where the more magic you have, the more prominent and successful you are. Some magic talents are destructive. Some are subtle. Some Houses are powerful and wealthy. Others are much less so. But no magic user should be taken lightly.

Magic Ranks and Types

There are five magic ranks, from weakest to strongest: Minor – Average – Notable – Significant – Prime.

There are three main categories of magic: elemental, mental, and arcane.

Elemental mages control air, water, fire, and earth. They part seas, extract minerals, and alter the weather.

Mental mages possess the powers of the mind. They are deadly telekinetics, crafters of incredible weapons, and human lie detectors.

Arcane mages include those who do not fit into either of these categories. They are metamorphosis mages (shifters), summoners who pluck strange creatures from a magical dimension, and those who can enhance their bodies.

Houses

A House is a magic family that produces at least three Primes (highest rated magic users) in two generations. They are the elite of magical society.

This story is about three Houses bound together by a friendship pact:

House Montgomery, led by Augustine Montgomery, a Prime famous for his illusion magic, who controls Montgomery International Investigations (MII), the largest and most powerful PI firm in the Southwest;

House Baylor, a family whose talents are strange and varied and who runs Baylor Investigations, a much smaller and more boutique PI firm that specializes in complex cases requiring unusual care. One of their members is Arabella Baylor, the youngest of the Baylor siblings;

And House Harrison, led by Diana Harrison, a family whose power lies in bonding with animals, giving them unique perspectives and distancing them from other humans. Despite that distance, Diana Harrison views the Baylors as family and House Montgomery as steadfast allies.

Cast of Characters

People marked by * are mentioned but they do not appear in the story.

The Montgomerys:

Augustine Montgomery – Prime, head of House Montgomery and the CEO of Montgomery International Investigations (MII,) one of the larger PI firms in the country. Illusion mage.

*Verena Montgomery – Augustine’s younger sister, friends with Arabella Baylor. Illusion mage.

The Baylors:

Arabella Baylor – Prime, Magic sealed, the youngest member of House Baylor. Despite her age, Arabella has a lot of investigative experience, having worked for her family business since she was a teenager.

*Bern Baylor – Arabella’s older cousin, who was adopted into the family.

*Catalina Baylor – Arabella’s older sister and the Head of House Baylor

*Nevada Rogan (Baylor) – Arabella’s oldest sister who married Connor Rogan, Augustine’s best friend, and joined his House.

The Harrisons:

Diana Harrison – Prime, head of House Harrison. Animal mage.

*Cornelius Harrison – Diana’s youngest brother and a private investigator who works for Baylor Investigations. His wife, Nari, was murdered, and the Baylors helped him find the culprit and exact his revenge, after which he joined their firm.

Matilda Harrison – Cornelius’ nine-year-old daughter.

*Blake Harrison – Diana’s younger brother.

BEAST BUSINESS

[ 1 ]

“As you know, Maria, the current state of the economy requires our company to develop agility in an effort to meet the rapidly changing realities of the marketplace.”

The HR manager smiled, her hand resting on a black folder with FINERGY etched in gold on it. She was in her forties. Her makeup had been applied with technical precision. Her acrylic nails, translucent pink and of a professionally acceptable length, bore small white Easter eggs as a nod to the holiday season. A rose quartz necklace dripped from her neck, each bead polished, matching the nails and the nearly transparent pink frames of her eyeglasses.

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Advertisement The Inheritance (Breach Wars #1) Read Online Ilona Andrews http://www.books2020.com/the-inheritance-breach-wars-1-read-online-ilona-andrews Sat, 16 Aug 2025 22:27:14 +0000 http://www.books2020.com/the-inheritance-breach-wars-1-read-online-ilona-andrews Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Magic, Paranormal Authors: Ilona Andrews Series: Breach Wars Series by Ilona Andrews
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Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)

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We are at war. The interdimensional invasion brought us unimaginable suffering, but it also awoke talents slumbering deep within us, a means to repel and destroy our enemy. Every day new gates open, leading to breaches filled with monsters and valuable resources. If you are a Talent, your country needs you. The world needs you. Be the hero you were born to be.

Adaline is a Talent. Ten years ago, she had a happy marriage and a job she loved. The invasion shattered both. Now she works for the government, searching the breaches for magic metals and medicine to help Earth repel an interdimensional enemy. Two kids, one cat, bills, benefits, mortgage and school tuition...Risking her life became routine.

She had gone into the dimensional gates hundreds of times. She was always well protected. This time everything goes wrong. Now Ada is trapped in the labyrinth of alien caves unlike any other. Her only companion is a scared German Shepherd named Bear. Together they must uncover the breach's secrets and escape, because Ada promised her children that she will come home.

The future of humanity depends on it

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

Health insurance with a thousand-dollar maximum family deductible.

Prescription drug coverage with an eighty percent discount off list prices.

The first time I heard about gates, I imagined them to be these portals glowing with a magical blue light. Too many video games, I guess. They were nothing like it. This one was a hole. A deep, black, vertical hole that punched through reality, swirling with pale mist. The tendrils of white smoke curled and slithered within it, but none escaped into our world.

The gate appeared in front of the Elmwood Park Rec Center eight days ago. To the left was Elmwood Public Library, all red brick and tinted windows. To the right was a funeral home followed by perfectly ordinary, three-story boxes of apartment buildings covered in tan stucco. Behind us, to the east, lay Chicago. And straight ahead was an interdimensional tear. Just another Monday.

If someone told me ten years ago that I would be standing in front of a hole leading into a dimensional breach filled with monsters and preparing to risk my life and go inside, I would’ve politely nodded, walked away, and later told Roger I’d met an unhinged person. Of course, a decade ago I was thirty, happily married, with a daughter in elementary school, a son just out of diapers, and a low-risk private sector job I loved. A different life that belonged to a different Adaline.

The future looked bright back then. Until the invasion shattered it.

Free emergency medical care when injured in the line of duty.

I took this job for the benefits, and when it got to me, like now, I recited them in my head like a prayer.

Dental, a one hundred fifty-dollar deductible, fifty percent off braces.

Things that came with age and children: appreciation of the dental plan with orthodontics. Braces were hellishly expensive.

Vision plan, fifteen percent discount off glasses and contacts.

The gate gaped like a dark maw.

At least thirty-five yards tall. Maybe taller. The threat scale ran from blue to red, and the prep packet put this gate at the low-orange risk level. On a dying scale of one to ten, it was about seven.

This was my one hundred and sixty-eighth gate. I’d gone into orange gates many times before. I didn’t want to go into this one. It made my hair stand on end. And the presence of the funeral home wasn’t helping.

“Ominous sonovabitch, isn’t he?” Melissa murmured next to me.

“Mhm.”

The mining foreman crossed her arms on her chest. She was a tall woman, two years older than me, with auburn hair she religiously dyed every four weeks and the kind of face that said she had everything under control. We met years ago, on one of my earlier gate dives, bonded over kids, and stayed friendly ever since.

After the first gates burst, some people gained strange abilities that couldn’t be explained by science. To be fair, science tried its hardest, but if it walked like magic and talked like magic, most people decided it was magic. These abilities were called talents, and to make things extra confusing, people who had them were also called Talents.

Talents fell into two broad categories: combat and noncombat. Combat Talents got a boost to physical prowess and developed abilities like forcefields, summoning energy weapons, or shooting fire from their fingertips. Noncombat Talents got a random skill that was useful only in specific circumstances.

Melissa was a noncombat Talent. She could sense ores. She had to be right on top of them and actively concentrate, but that talent, combined with her previous experience in iron mining, let her rise to the position of the Mining Team Foreman.

Melissa ran her mining crew like a well-oiled machine. She didn’t get rattled, but she was staring at this gate like it was about to reach out and bite her. Something about this hole set both of us on edge.

Melissa narrowed her eyes. “Anja, tie your damn shoelaces.”

One of the younger miners rolled her eyes and crouched. “Always on my case…”

“Exactly. I am always on your case. I’m on everyone’s case. If we have to run for our lives out of that gate, I don’t need any of you tripping over your feet, because I’ll have to double back and get you. You have two toddlers to come home to.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Melissa heaved a sigh. “Everybody is full of sass today.”

Around us the mining crew checked their gear, twelve people in indigo Magnaprene coveralls and matching hard hats. Nobody seemed unusually worried. Toolbelts were adjusted, rock drills and shears tested, the generator and floodlights on four industrial carts inspected. The usual.

The escort, five combat Talents in tactical armor, had done their precheck ages ago and were now waiting. Aaron, a bastion class fighter, sat on a crate, leaning against another crate, his eyes closed. His massive adamant-reinforced shield rested on the ground next to him. Three recon strikers mulled about, armed with SIG Spear rifles. They specialized in ranged combat and rapid disengagement, which was tactical speak for shoot the shit out of everything and then run for the exit.

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Advertisement Sanctuary (Roman’s Chronicles #1) Read Online Ilona Andrews http://www.books2020.com/sanctuary-romans-chronicles-1-read-online-ilona-andrews Sat, 31 Aug 2024 08:14:09 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/sanctuary-romans-chronicles-1-read-online-ilona-andrews Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Magic, Myth/Mythology, Paranormal Authors: Ilona Andrews Series: Roman's Chronicles Series by Ilona Andrews
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Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 38711 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)

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It’s not easy serving Chernobog, the God of Destruction, Darkness and Death…especially during the holidays; and especially when you’re out of eggnog and one of your pesky, freeloading mythic creatures has eaten your last cookie.
Roman would like nothing more than to be left alone, but when a wounded boy stumbles into his yard and begs for sanctuary, Roman takes him in. Now elite mercenaries are camped out on his property, combat mages are dousing the house with fire, and strange priests are unleashing arcane magic. They thought Roman was easy pickings, just a hermit in the woods, but they chose the wrong dark priest to annoy. For while Roman might be patient, he is the Black Volhv, filled with the love of his terrible god. For his adversaries, it’s a fight to the death, but for him, it’s just another day in the neighborhood.

Includes a bonus short story and more!

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

Snow crunched under his feet. It spread in front of him like a glittering blanket, a foot deep, sheathing the vast plain he was crossing, and he sank a little with every step. Above, a night sky gaped like a hole in existence, a spray of stars floating in its black depths.

He didn’t know how long he had been walking. It felt like forever. He didn’t know his destination either. He only felt it, pulling him like a magnet toward the dark wall of colossal pines at the edge of the plain.

Step. Another step.

Bitter cold bit at his face. His nose had gone numb, and he could barely feel his fingers in his thick red mittens as he clutched the rope that was pulled tight over his shoulder.

He was holding a rope. Why?

It felt strange somehow.

He stopped and looked over his shoulder. An enormous fir tree lay on the snow behind him. The rope was wrapped around its trunk. Behind it, a long trail of rough snow marked his wake and rolled off into the horizon. He had dragged the tree for miles.

The field around him tore like a paper screen.

Roman opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of his bedroom. His back ached. Things snapped into focus. The tree, the harness, the destination, everything made sense.

Fucking hell.

He sat up slowly, fighting soreness. His whole body protested, whining against the movement. Tomorrow was December twenty-fourth. The thought turned his stomach.

Being the priest of a dark god came with certain obligations. Obligations he honored with dedication and discipline. But a man had his limits. This was his. His god knew it. Roman was available any other time of the year, but from December twenty-third to December twenty-fifth he was to be left alone. Such was their unspoken agreement for the last seven years.

Roman didn’t expect kindness. Chernobog was the God of Destruction, Darkness, and Death, the Black Flame, the Final Cold, the End of Everything. Hoping for kindness would be foolish, and he wasn’t a foolish man. No, he had expected fairness. Chernobog, for all his many faults and temper tantrums, was unfailingly fair.

Roman stared at the rumpled covers. He had this vague but disturbing anxiety, as if he’d either forgotten to do something important or something vital had gone missing and he couldn’t figure out what. It irritated him to no end.

The foul mood was nothing new. He detested the end of December. Koliada, Christmas, Saturnalia, he hated every iteration of the Winter Rites, with all of their corresponding rituals. The entire season was a wash. He didn’t decorate, he tried his damnedest not to celebrate, and the only thing he did like about it was the food.

Roman threw the covers aside, wincing against the cold air. Naked as a newborn. Ugh. His crumpled pajama pants lay on the floor. He must’ve stripped in his sleep, because why the hell not? It’s not like it was the middle of winter and his house felt like an icebox.

He growled under his breath, got up, picked up his clothes—predictably soaked in sweat—and headed to the bathroom. He tossed them into the hamper, relieved himself, and went to brush his teeth. A big red welt crossed his chest, a souvenir from the rope. Great. Just great.

His reflection was looking leaner, too. Years ago, as he’d trudged through the wilderness half-starved, with a hundred extra pounds of gear on his back, next to other young fools in the same pixelated Army camo, he promised himself that when he got out, he would eat more and move less. Old, fat, and happy. That was the goal.

He was thirty-four years old now, and if he skipped a few meals, the flesh melted off him, leaving behind muscle and gristle, as if being in service to Chernobog burned him from the inside out. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up like his father, a gaunt old man with a perpetual frown stuck on his face.

He put on sweatpants, a T-shirt, and an old sweatshirt so soft and worn, it was threadbare. It felt familiar, and right now familiar was good.

It was a bad idea for him to be alone around this time. He’d planned on spending the holiday with Ashley, a lawyer with long legs and a fondness for light spanking, but Ashley was no longer around. He couldn’t really blame her. Sooner or later, they all ran.

His only other option was family. The thought made Roman shudder. They would be celebrating Koliada, the Winter Festival. The entire clan would be at his uncle’s house right now, getting ready for the monster parade and putting the finishing touches on the tree. The tree had been borrowed from the Christians, who in turn stole it from other pagans, but nobody cared anymore where it came from. Tomorrow night a noisy, happy crowd of Slavic neopagans would pummel each other in the ritual brawl, sing songs, then eat, get roaring drunk, and exchange gifts, while he sat there like a dark icicle, alone, wrapped in a swirl of human warmth but untouched by it.

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Advertisement Magic Claims (Kate Daniels – Wilmington Years #2) Read Online Ilona Andrews http://www.books2020.com/magic-claims-kate-daniels-wilmington-years-2-read-online-ilona-andrews Tue, 20 Jun 2023 02:21:26 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/magic-claims-kate-daniels-wilmington-years-2-read-online-ilona-andrews Genre: Fantasy/Sci-fi, Magic, Paranormal, Vampires Authors: Ilona Andrews Series: Kate Daniels - Wilmington Years Series by Ilona Andrews
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Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74292 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)

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A new town, new friends, new challenges…. And a new heart-stopping adventure from #1 New York Times bestselling author, Ilona Andrews. Kate, Curran, and Conlan may have left Atlanta for Wilmington, but the usual magic mayhem has also hitched a ride!

Kate and Curran have just settled into their new home and their 'low prolife,' when a local businessman approaches them with an offer they can’t refuse. A mysterious evil has spawned in the nearby forest and is holding a defenseless town hostage. The ‘due date’ is rapidly approaching.

It’s exactly the kind of fight the Lennarts can’t resist, not for the prize the town offers, but for the people who will surely die if they ignore it. If they succeed, they’ll be rescuing an entire community and can build a strong new base for their family and the Wilmington Pack. If they fail...well, fail is a four-letter word.

Nothing comes without a price. Now Kate must decide if she has what it takes to pay it.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

“Well, of course it blew up, Kate.”

It was a beautiful September morning. I sat on a big log cut from a beached tree. A fire blazed in front of me, laid out in the firepit on the beach. Beyond it, the Atlantic Ocean lapped at the sandy shore. The water was an opaque aquamarine, the sky was a beautiful blue, and the flames in front of me were ruby red, fed by the mix of herbs and magic. About two feet off the ground, the fire faded into an image of my aunt.

The Rose of Tigris reclined on a carved wooden chaise decorated with lifelike Catalina mariposa lilies. Her white gown cascaded over her large body in artful drapes, setting off the warm golden tones of her bronze skin. I resembled her, but everything about her was…more. I was five foot seven, muscular, and strong, and she was over six feet, more muscular, and stronger. Our faces were very similar, but her eyes were darker, her lips were fuller, and her features were bolder. Her glossy brown hair spilled over one shoulder in a luxurious mane, clasped by a golden cord. She looked like a living painting that had blossomed from the ruby flames of the fire call, an ancient empress in repose.

We hadn’t spoken for two months. She had been occupied with something she couldn’t or wouldn’t share. It wasn’t the first time she’d vanished from my radar. Once she was gone for nine months, while her subordinates made flimsy excuses, and when we finally reconnected, she told me that I was an excellent mother. Not that I didn’t appreciate the compliment, but it came out of nowhere.

Since we finally got to talk, I decided it would be a great opportunity to clear up the exploding cephalopod issue. I had accidentally blown up a kraken. It had been… unexpected.

“Karsaran targets the highest concentration of magic within a living organism,” Erra said.

“Yes, which for vertebrates would be bone. In the absence of bone, it will target blood, which has the next highest concentration of magic. I understand all that.”

“Then what’s your question?”

“Why did the kraken explode? I expected it to split, maybe to burst, but it detonated like it had swallowed a land mine, and then it rained kraken for about ten seconds.”

She laughed softly.

In the distance, about five hundred yards out, a swimmer cut through the waves, moving fast, parallel to the shore.

“Oh great and powerful aunt, please enlighten this stupid one…”

“It exploded because you don’t practice. You’ve been playing house for what, six years now? Seven?”

“I do practice. I practice every day.” I had incorporated working on my bloodline powers into my exercise routine.

“Not in combat, you don’t. You have no idea how much power you need to feed into a command to gracefully split a kraken along its blood vessels, and therefore it ends up exploding and landing on your face.”

“So what do you suggest? Hunting down some krakens to calibrate?”

“Yes!”

“Seems cruel.”

Erra gave me one of her patented ancient power stares, reached over, and slapped an invisible ball in front of her.

“Is that you smacking my head?”

“You are playing a very dangerous game. You’ve been trying to hide from who you are. First, you tried to do it in Atlanta, and now you’re trying to do it here.”

“You know why we left Atlanta,” I said quietly. The city had slowly smothered me. I felt like I couldn’t even breathe there, much less raise Conlan. “I wanted to give your grandson a chance at a normal life.”

Erra waved her hand. “I do. I agreed with your decision then and I still agree with it now. Atlanta was too complicated. Too messy. Too many eyes and too many powers screaming bloody murder every time you sneezed. You needed to start fresh, away from all that. But you haven’t exactly hit the ground running.”

I counted off on my fingers. “Property cleared and warded, house repaired, Conlan enrolled in school…”

My aunt leaned closer. “You’re puttering around on this beach, fixing this ruin, and trying to lull yourself into a false sense of security. Do you honestly think that you’ve solved your problems, child? That if you just stay in this little fortress on the edge of the continent, the world will forget about you, and you can have a quiet life? Even if you ran away to the most remote peak in the Himalayas, it wouldn’t matter. Sooner or later, they will come for you, and you won’t be ready.”

A familiar discomfort rolled over me. “Why would anyone come for me?”

“For your power, for your blood, and for your son. If they take the boy, they can control both you and your husband. If they kill even one of you, they can make a name for themselves. And it won’t be a run-of-the-mill enemy. It will be the kind of power who thinks they can take you.”

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Advertisement Magic Tides (Kate Daniels – Wilmington Years #1) Read Online Ilona Andrews http://www.books2020.com/magic-tides-kate-daniels-wilmington-years-1-read-online-ilona-andrews Fri, 20 Jan 2023 22:15:29 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/magic-tides-kate-daniels-wilmington-years-1-read-online-ilona-andrews Genre: Fantasy/Sci-fi, Novella, Paranormal, Romance, Vampires Authors: Ilona Andrews Series: Kate Daniels - Wilmington Years Series by Ilona Andrews
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Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 48407 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 242(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)

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Ilona Andrews invites you back to the #1 New York Times bestselling Kate Daniels series in this exciting new long novella featuring Kate, Curran and Conlan, some familiar faces, some new friends, and all the special brand of chaos they create!

Kate, Curran and their son, Conlan have left Atlanta, vowing to keep a low profile, and are settling into a new city and new house…but some things never change! Magical mayhem is about to erupt when Kate undertakes the rescue of a kidnapped youth, while Curran guards the homefront.

It should be a simple retrieval, but with monsters on land and sea, Kate’s got her work cut out for her. Still, she's never let her blade dull or her purpose falter. And that low profile? It’s about to wash away with the raging tides!

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

Kate

Ms. Vigue adjusted her bright red glasses and peered at me from her perch on the sofa in our second living room. We were in the middle of renovations, and the second living room was one of the four functional rooms in the entire place.

Ms. Vigue was in her early fifties, with lightly tanned skin and ash-blond hair cropped short and brushed back from her face. Her eyes behind the lenses were either gray or pale blue. She wore a silky green blouse with a light gray skirt and looked put together enough to attend a business brunch.

I wore a pair of old shorts and a paint-stained tank top over a sports bra, because I had been painting one of the spare bedrooms when Ms. Vigue arrived unannounced. I’d pulled my brown hair into a bun and pinned it in place with an old bandana to minimize the paint exposure, and since that side of the house had neither fans nor any other way of cooling, I smelled like a lumberjack after a long day at work. Making a great first impression on a school administrator—check.

We smiled at each other. Ms. Vigue was doing her best to appear approachable, while I did my best to appear harmless. We were both lying as hard as we could.

Making small talk was not among my few virtues. “I was under the impression that we were already done with admissions. You sent us the acceptance letter.”

Which was part of the reason we moved here and got stuck in renovation hell.

“You are correct.” Ms. Vigue offered me a quick, humorless smile. “Our school is unique.”

You could say that again. It was so unique, it cost an arm and a leg. We jumped through two months’ worth of hoops and paperwork just for the privilege of an interview, and then spent another month waiting for their decision. They came highly recommended, but I was done with their nonsense.

“We like to think of our student body as being truly representative of the diverse world we live in.”

Ms. Vigue slid into her speech mode. It probably worked wonders on trustees and alumni during their fundraising.

“It’s a special place where students of different backgrounds come together. This interview will help us to better understand your child’s needs and enable us to ensure their safety and help them thrive in our vibrant community.”

Aha. This wasn’t a get-to-know-you visit. This was a threat assessment. We already went through that during admissions. Why was she yanking our chain again?

I smiled. Curran and I had agreed to maintain a low profile after moving. Think normal suburban thoughts. How hard could this be, right? We were just a small family renovating our new home.

“Of course, my husband and I will answer any reasonable questions. Please feel free to ask.”

She took out a leather folder, unzipped it, and checked the contents. “You’ve been recommended by one of our patrons. How do you know Dr. Cole?”

Telling her that Doolittle had patched me up far too many times to count would just derail the conversation. “He was our family doctor. He delivered Conlan and treated him frequently over the years. We consider him a family friend.”

Ms. Vigue nodded and made a note in her folder. “Your son’s assessment scores are quite remarkable.”

Was this a compliment? If I took it as a compliment, she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. “Thank you.”

“Our school’s reputation ensures that we get the most outstanding applicants. Your son will be among his intellectual peers.”

That would be a tall order, but I didn’t need him to find his intellectual equals. I just needed him to learn to act like a person and interact with other children without the weight of his identity dragging him down.

“It’s my understanding that your child is a shapeshifter.”

Here we go. “Yes.”

“What is the nature of his beast?”

I smiled even sweeter. “That’s a highly illegal question, Ms. Vigue. The nature of one’s beast is confidential and cannot be used as basis for discrimination by any educational institution in this country.”

I knew this because my husband had dumped massive amounts of money and effort into lobbying for those laws to be passed before we had met.

Ms. Vigue pushed her glasses up her nose with her middle finger.

Aha. Screw you too. “Would you like me to cite the relevant federal and state statutes protecting shapeshifter rights, or can we skip the formalities?”

“Of course, we cannot compel you to release that information. However…”

“Your next words will determine what I tell Dr. Cole tonight when he calls to check how we are settling in. And he will call. He is very thoughtful and thorough. I’m sure he and his seven thousand associates will take a dim view of your school attempting to discriminate against a shapeshifter child.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re going to be difficult, aren’t you?”

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Advertisement Sweep of the Heart – Innkeeper Chronicles Read Online Ilona Andrews http://www.books2020.com/sweep-of-the-heart-innkeeper-chronicles-read-online-ilona-andrews Fri, 16 Dec 2022 07:34:58 +0000 http://www.teennovels.net/sweep-of-the-heart-innkeeper-chronicles-read-online-ilona-andrews Genre: Fantasy/Sci-fi, Magic, Paranormal, Romance Authors: Ilona Andrews Advertisement

Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 437(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >139

Welcome to Gertrude Hunt!

We are so happy to see you once again. Your innkeepers, Dina Demille and Sean Evans, will see to your every need. No matter what accommodations you require, the inn will oblige. Physics are not an issue for us. Our Red Cleaver Chef is delighted to impress you with his culinary mastery. Rest assured that your safety is our first priority.

Enjoy yourselves, relax, and above all, remember the one rule all visitors must abide by: the humans must never know.

Sweep of the Heart is a serial novella set in the Innkeeper Chronicles featuring Sean Evans and Dina Demille.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

1

A new adventure begins. But first, cake.

There was great wisdom in striking the iron while it was hot.

I took a sip of my iced tea and brushed a little bug off the skirt of my yellow sundress. I was sitting on the back porch of Gertrude Hunt Bed and Breakfast in a comfortable wooden recliner. In front of me our backyard spread, flooded with golden sunshine. The lawn was still green – we’d had a lot of rain this year – but the heat of Texas summer poured from the sky, bringing everything to a standstill. The squirrels napped in their nests deep within the oaks. The mice and bunnies hid in their burrows. Even the bugs fell quiet, too hot to trill. Beast, my tiny black-and-white Shih Tzu, lay on her back by my feet and snored softly. The fan in the porch roof above me was going full force, but my forehead was still sweating.

Such a lovely hot day. Perfect day to take a nap.

I drank another swallow of my tea and closed my eyes. Behind me, Gertrude Hunt unfolded, a complex collection of rooms and passageways many times larger than its physical footprint visible from the street and the subdivision on the other side of it. I focused on the kitchen. A seven-foot-tall shape moved within it, big, with foot-long quills thrusting from its back. The shape wiped down the counter, holding the rag with large, clawed hands.

Nap. Nap, nap, nap, you want to nap… If only I had powers of suggestion, my life would be so much easier.

I opened my eyes.

Next to me Caldenia fanned herself with a glittering fan and took a sip of her Mello Yello. “Still no luck?”

I shook my head.

“Then I will have to help you, my dear.”

She rose, put her straw hat on, and strolled into the kitchen. At first glance, our permanent guest looked just like an older Southern woman with a gentle tan, long platinum-gray hair pulled into an elegant updo, and a beautiful face with what people called “good bones.” She chatted with neighbors, grew tomatoes with resounding success – I made sure that the inn watered them and added fertilizer at appropriate times – and mastered the art of smiling without showing her teeth. They were pointed and sharp, like those of a shark.

I concentrated on the kitchen.

“This heat is stifling,” Caldenia announced. “I’m going to retire for the afternoon. You could use some rest as well, Orro. If I were you, I’d take this opportunity to nap before dinner begins.”

Orro rumbled something.

I felt Caldenia move through the kitchen and up the stairs toward her suite.

In the kitchen, Orro stopped, stared out the window…

Come on…

He carefully folded the towel, hung it on the towel rack by the sink, and ambled out of the kitchen, heading toward the narrow winding stairs leading down.

I held my breath, tracking him with my magic. Down the stairs, down, down, and to the cozy den where he made his lair. He stepped inside and shut the door.

Now!

I jumped out of my recliner. Beast leaped three feet into the air, landed on her feet, and barked once, looking from side to side.

“Shh!”

I swung the back door open and dashed inside the kitchen. Beast chased me.

I sprinted to the oven, turned it on to bake at 350°, and spun around. The door of the pantry flew open, displaying 3,000 square feet of space filled with shelves and refrigerators. Tendrils of striated wood burst from the ceiling, shot into the pantry, and dragged ingredients onto the island: sugar, flour, baking powder… I grabbed eggs, butter, and a bag of Granny Smith apples from the only refrigerator visible in the kitchen. The inn hauled a heavy KitchenAid mixer out.

“Not that one, the small one,” I hissed. “That one is too loud.”

The KitchenAid vanished back into the pantry and another tendril delivered the handheld mixer into my hands. I put two large bowls onto the island and reached out with my magic.

The creature who ruled our kitchen with an iron claw was settling into his nest bed. Operation Apple Cake was a go.

I creamed the butter in the bowl and added a ¾ cup of sugar to it. Baking a cake for the man you love was stressful enough. Baking a cake in a kitchen run by a Red Cleaver chef was an impossible feat. Orro viewed both the kitchen and the pantry as his sole domain. Trying to cook anything meant being observed over your shoulder, treated to a detailed critique, followed by multiple offers to help, followed by hurt feelings when said offers were politely and repeatedly declined, culminating in pouting and declarations of woe. If he was really in the moment, he would throw an existential crisis into it.

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Advertisement Ruby Fever – Hidden Legacy Read Online Ilona Andrews http://www.books2020.com/ruread-online-fever-hidden-legacy-read-online-ilona-andrews Fri, 26 Aug 2022 19:46:21 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/ruread-online-fever-hidden-legacy-read-online-ilona-andrews Genre: Contemporary, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Magic, Paranormal, Romance Authors: Ilona Andrews Advertisement

Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 108517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)

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Read Online Books/Novels:	Ruby Fever - Hidden Legacy
Author/Writer of Book/Novel:	Ilona Andrews
Language:	English
Book Information:
#1 bestselling author Ilona Andrews is back with the newest book in the exciting Hidden Legacy series—the thrilling conclusion to her trilogy featuring fierce and beautiful Prime magic user Catalina Baylor. An escaped spider, the unexpected arrival of an Imperial Russian Prince, the senseless assassination of a powerful figure, a shocking attack on the supposedly invincible Warden of Texas, Catalina’s boss… And it’s only Monday. Within hours, the fate of Houston—not to mention the House of Baylor—now rests on Catalina, who will have to harness her powers as never before. But even with her fellow Prime and fiancé Alessandro Sagredo by her side, she may not be able to expose who’s responsible before all hell really breaks loose.
Books by Author:	Ilona Andrews

Prologue

“Is it haunted?”

Oh, for the love of . . . “No, Arabella.”

My sister squinted at the monstrosity of an estate growing closer as the SUV sped up the gently climbing driveway. “Look at all the towers. It looks haunted.”

“It’s not,” Bern said.

“How do you know it’s not haunted?” Leon asked from the back.

Because ghosts didn’t exist. “Because Trudy is a nice person, I like her, and she wouldn’t let us buy a haunted house.”

“Yes,” Arabella said, “but did you ask if it was?”

“I did, and Trudy said no.” Our poor, long-suffering Realtor had answered more bizarre questions in the last couple of months than she had during her whole career.

My little sister whipped out her phone and bent her blond head over it.

The entire Baylor family was in the car with the exception of Grandma Frida and my older sister and brother-in-law. We were going to buy a house.

When I was very young, we lived in a typical suburban home. It was just the five of us: my dad, my mom, my older sister Nevada, me, and my younger sister Arabella. Then our two cousins, Bern and Leon, came to live with us because their mother wasn’t worth two cents and nobody knew who their fathers were. Then Dad got sick. We sold the house to pay for his treatment and moved into a warehouse with Grandma Frida, my mother’s mom. Dad died. Nevada, who was seventeen at the time, took over Baylor Investigative Agency, our family business, and she and Grandma Frida, who worked on tanks and mobile artillery for the Texas magical elite, put food on our table and clothes on our backs.

Eventually Nevada came into her magic, and we became House Baylor, one of the prominent families that boasted more than two living Primes, the highest ranked mages. Nevada fell in love and moved out, I ended up as the Head of the House, and one of my first achievements was to blow up the warehouse all of us called home. The fact that said blowing up was completely accidental did nothing to put a roof back over our heads or to decrease my guilt.

For a while we made do with an old industrial building we sort of converted into a habitable home, but all of us hated it. And our needs had changed. All of us, including my little sister, were now adults. We wanted to stay together, both because we loved each other and because House Baylor was a new House and every time we left our building, we sported lovely targets on our backs. Safety in numbers was very much true in our case. But we also desperately needed privacy.

We wanted to live together. Just not together-together.

Finding the right house in our price range had taken forever, but I had my hopes pinned on this one. I really liked it.

“I heard Realtors have to disclose if the house is haunted,” Leon said.

I looked at Mom in the driver’s seat. She gave me an amused smile. No help there.

“Apparently only four states require you to disclose paranormal activity,” Arabella reported. “Nine states require you to notify the buyer if a death occurred on the premises. And Texas does neither.”

“There were no deaths on the premises. Nobody died in the house, so it can’t possibly be haunted,” I told them.

“How do you know nobody died?” Leon asked.

“Because I checked the records,” Bern rumbled.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Arabella said.

Clearly, there were two teams in this vehicle: Team Facts and Team Facts Be Damned.

“What if they hid it?” Leon asked.

Bern gave his younger brother a look. When it came to uncovering facts, Bern had no equal. If there was a record of something and that record was at any point entered into a computer connected to the Internet, he would find it.

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Read Online Books/Novels:

Ruby Fever - Hidden Legacy

Author/Writer of Book/Novel:

English

Ilona Andrews