Tales of the Citadel 21 Control over the elements is dull until a man walks onto her world and makes her senses burn.     Vexaniali has spent her life in solitude, finding ways to entertain herself on an empty world that has become her prison. She was ordered to keep anyone from landing, but it was just a make-work job to keep her out of the way. Burn arrives and offers her a chance to use her skills on a variety of worlds under the aegis of the Citadel Arcani. Moving a cure around a world using her mastery of air is time consuming and tiring but not difficult. It is a good start, and when Burn offers himself to top up her flagging energies, how could she refuse?  

Hearing the future isn’t as useless as Dot thinks, but she finds herself in the arms of a Guardian who wants her here and now. Dot has spent nearly half her life in a private home for those who have trouble with reality. Finding out that her talent for hearing the future is actually useful, she agrees to leave her residence to find a place that she has dreamed of. A world where her talent can be put to use. Loxin has dreamed of the woman his matchmaker told him about but finding her applying to be an Oracle on his base surprises him. No one told him the woman he was destined for could sense the future, but then, no one outside his family and the destiny painter on Yacaro had known about her. Together, they will fulfill each other’s needs and protect a world constantly under siege…with a little help from the other Guardians.

An open mind is a terrible thing to waste, so armour it up and send it to the Citadel with a fanged shape-shifter watching her every move.     Veera’s mind broke wide open during a tragedy. A telepathic call for help sent her into a coma where every mind around her was open to hers. A stint on an island where no one spoke or thought a harsh word was just what she needed, but when she was offered a chance to live a life out in the open, she agreed to everything that the shape-shifter asked. Life was something that she needed to find. Stanik trained to be Veera’s link for eighteen months. When he finally met her, her physical presence sent his senses reeling. The reality was much better than the images her family had sent him to entice him into agreeing to share his mind with hers. He gives her stability, and she gives him attitude, a challenge and someone to protect. It is a fairly even swap.

A brutal attack changed her life and turned her into a monster with the power to defend those who cannot or will not defend themselves. Priina lived on a farm, and one night, she broke the laws of Cial and ventured through the wall to find some lost herd animals. She finds the remains of her beasts and is attacked by a creature that is far beyond her experience. She survives the encounter but is changed forever more by the exposure to the alien beast. Her people ship her off world so that her contamination will not spread into a susceptible population. Six years at Citadel Thoola gives her an education, self-control and an appreciation for the variety of species in the Alliance with their differences embedded in their very genes. She is summoned to active duty at Citadel Lowel and the man sent to collect her is the one who saved her six years earlier. Can Rhanos induce her into a partnership when she refuses to let her instincts rule her, even a little bit?

Warders A Warder, a leprechaun and a bargain for exchange of services, any services, is just what is needed to unite two souls parted by magic. When Asha’s cousin Elhara is struck with a memory-eating spell, Asha knows just who can help. She travels to the leprechaun city, deep in the woods, and faces the man she has been dreaming of for over a decade. Tuartha has undergone a few changes since he first kissed her in the forest and now, she has to negotiate with a male who blames her for her desertion and agrees to help her cousin under one condition. She is to give herself to him, body and soul. Asha isn’t sure which part of her will give in first, but she hopes they are in private when it does.

After years of avoiding her dragon, the phoenix potential finds that there is nowhere to run. Let the courtship begin. Elly has known she was going to become the phoenix for twelve years. She just didn’t want it to happen quite yet. When she meets Terric in person for the first time, there is no going back. Her transformation is underway. Her body is becoming fire and there is nothing she can do to stop it. Terric has been looking for the phoenix since he felt the first stirrings of her power in the world around him. When he meets Elly and they dance, he knows that she is the one he has been waiting for, but his patience is running out. She demands a proper courtship, and he complies. After all, how long had he already waited?

Size doesn’t matter until it is all that you have. Saving the smallest city in the universe is right up Lena’s alley. Lena was created for one purpose, to rescue a race that is commonly thought of as extinct. Her body has been shaped to carry out her task, but when she has completed her assignment it is up to her creators to determine her fate. Life as a full sized being, or a minute woman in the tiniest city in the Coalition. (Thumbelina could never have imagined this.)

A family curse turned occupation, a merman in her tub and a mage in her phone. Soph’s life just gets weirder. Being raised as the Cursed One does things to a person. It changes your relationships and makes you a very paranoid young woman. This is how Sophy ends up in her fourth decade, looking eighteen and having no love life. The Mage Guild provides her with a liaison so that she can stop calling to rummage through their archives, and the voice in the machines around her becomes an admirable partner, such as he is. He files a request with her to assist him in his own personal journey, and it takes her into the Guild Hall to face a mage who wants her as a trophy. She isn’t impressed, but gets what she needs and gets out of there. A cursed object that calls to her is part of her plans for the next few days, but the arrival of the body that belongs to the voice throws things into chaos. Magnus has spent years in amber, waiting to be released by a request from a woman he hasn’t slept with. He was born a warrior centuries earlier and is a legendary mage in his own right. He has one major concern, and it involves figuring out the strange pull and repulsion he feels when the Cursed One is around. Demons, mages, old scores, and cursed objects swirl around the DeMonstre family, and Sophia is first and foremost the Monster Baiter.

An imperium judge is assigned her new executioner, and she finds that though she can read his mind, he can still surprise her. Jayd has been a judge since the moment she entered the imperium. After her training, she was assigned to travel from world to world, hearing capital cases and watching over the sentences from fines to executions. Her companions include a sentient ship named Harry and whatever executioner is assigned to her. The executioners never last long. Truanic is her newest executioner and not only is he the man for the job, he is also the man for her. She just has to make the first move.

Bex trains the best fighters in the arena, but when she is handed over to a champion, she has to fix a man who isn’t broken. Bex has been training female fighters for years. She can craft any woman into a champion, but then, they are taken from her. Her techniques catch the attention of the male side of the arena, and she is pressed into service training a man who is a champion that no longer has enthusiasm for the fight. Ajaru has fought for years and enjoys his status as champion, but he wants more. He wants a life, a wife, a child, a home and normality. His lack of ambition to climb the champion ranks has gotten the attention of the fight master and he is assigned to a new trainer. Bex.

Skeeter needed sex and she would do whatever it took to get it. Seven Regen warriors are just what her hormones ordered. Blanca ‘Skeeter’ Snow has always known that this day would come. Her body’s pheromones cause disruptions on her ship and her captain banishes her until her cycle is over. She selects a moon as her haven of choice and a meteor field removes her options for landing. On the moon, seven Regens (the brothers of the new Consort of Priznik) rush to her crash and are swept into her situation and her arms as quickly as she can manage it. Her leave takes on a new urgency as she takes her lovers on one by one and several together.

Roane hates being backed into a corner, but when she’s forced to dress as a game character and her friends introduce her to the male she’s adapted for, she really wants to start biting. Roane lived a slightly traumatic but normal life until six months ago. A simple touch of the hand from one of the investors started a cellular cascade that culminated in her wearing scales where there had been skin. At a conference, she is introduced to him again, and the contact is electric. After a few short conversations, they get to know each other, and two and a half days later, she answers her phone to a horrible message. She disappears from his circle for two weeks; by then, she’s certain of a few things. The first was that he was a nice guy, and the second was that that jerk hadn’t used a condom. She doesn’t even have his number to let him know of the result. When they reconnect, he starts to make plans, but there is just one problem—his father has put a hit out on her so that his son will not suffer a broken heart. She calls her friends for help, and they get in touch with him. This is where things get weird. Will Roane’s life ever settle down, or will the extra two mates who want her for her brain be the final straw?