Ambrosia (Nectar Trilogy, Book 2) (28 page)

To be continued…

Part three of this trilogy, Essence, is being written and is expected to be released in early 2016.

I hope you enjoyed Ambrosia.

Essence, the conclusion to this story, is being written as of the release date of Ambrosia and I’m hoping to release it very soon. The best way to ensure you don’t miss out on news about new releases is to subscribe to my newsletter, The Scoop, at
http://bit.ly/ddprincescoop
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Thanks
so
much for supporting indie authors! If you enjoy this book, please consider leaving a review on Goodreads and Amazon to help me get found by readers like yourself who like these sorts of stories.

Want to connect with me on social media?  Links are below!

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Ambrosia Playlist:

Love Bites, Def Leppard

Lips of an Angel, Hinder

Closer, Kings of Leon

Bring me to Life, Evanescence

Note & Acknowledgements

Thank you to my Facebook & Goodreads & Twitter friends. I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Big thanks to the members of my Nectar Spoiler group on Facebook who cheered me on through writer’s block!

Thanks so much to those who volunteered as beta readers for this book. I didn’t have beta readers for The Dominator but did for Nectar and Truth or Dare and it really helped so I reached out to people on my newsletter and Nectar spoilers FB group and got some great feedback and some encouraging support, too. Thanks to:

Melissa: Thanks for staying up all night reading this and for all your support thus far!

Pauline: You’ve helped me with 3 books so far. Thanks so much for being an extra set of helpful eyes.

Kass: Your help was invaluable to me. Not only did you help me HUGE with the grammar but your comments throughout the document had me cracking up. Awesome of you to put all that effort in for me. I hope you’re available for book #3 (Oops, I mean three. Hahaha!).

BIG thanks, also, to Joy, Kirstie, Molly, and Susan.

Special thanks to Kat for beta reading and for her curiosity about the lore behind this story that led to her sharing a lot of her findings on research around vampire lore. I think she dug deeper than I ever did. Most of the lore in this series came from my warped brain, although I’ve dug around to find information about menstrual blood used in religious rituals and witchcraft. I might dig back into that research later in this series or in possible spin-off books ;) And thanks to Kat for sending me about 28ish Facebook messages the day I sent her the ARC. (She certainly kept me entertained with her shock and awe while she read it.)

Thank
you
, dear reader, for helping me live my dream!
I write not for fans or for praise nearly as much as writing because I need to.

My fans make living this dream even better than I ever dreamed it could be!

What else can you read from DD Prince?

The Dominator, by DD Prince was her first release and is a dark romance involving a family with ties to organized crime. This book has a flesh payment plot, an arranged marriage, and a dominating / damaged alpha male who falls in love with a naïve girl who believes in love and family.

The Dominator has also become a series, without cliffhangers, but should be read in order. After reading The Dominator, Tommy & Tia’s story consider reading Truth or Dare; The Dominator II, for Dario Ferrano’s story.  The Dominator III; Fete is expected to be released in early to mid 2016.

About DD Prince

DD Prince is an indie author who has been writing ever since she learned she could put pen to paper and create with words. She has a passion for faith, family, friends, food, and words. She lives in Niagara Falls, Canada with her own alpha, who she fell in love with at 17 years old and they’re still going strong. She has two wonderful messy boys, 2 cats, and a talking Pacific Parrotlet (who probably thinks of her as his girlfriend).  She’s a Smut Muffin who loves to read and write dark, contemporary, and paranormal love stories, especially when love --- whether dark, sweet, or co-dependent is the anecdote.

DD’s favorite author, 1-click, no questions asked, is Kristen Ashley. If you haven’t read a KA book you are missing out!

Other favourites include:  Judy Blume, Rohinton Mistry, Stephen King, Anne Rice, CJ Roberts, Pepper Winters, SC Stephens, JA Huss, Tiffany Reisz, and so many others! Some of her favourite books were written by indie authors and some of the listed indie authors above gave her the courage to put her work out there.

She has many characters to introduce, stories to tell, and looks forward to sharing them.

Buy a copy of this dark romance:
http://bit.ly/tommyandtia
(Free on Kindle Unlimited) and then check out The Dominator II; Truth or Dare at
http://bit.ly/dareandangel
(also available on KU).

Sample of The Dominator
:

A
dark
romance with dubious and non-consensual sex.

This is a story about Tia and Tommy, a couple thrown together through an arranged marriage. She’s young, naïve, and wants to believe in love and family despite growing up in foster care. He’s a broody and controlling alpha male who stands to inherit a business with extensive ties to organized crime. He doesn’t have any use for women beyond having them sate his depraved carnal desires until the two are matched by their fathers, two men with secrets.

The Dominator does not have a cliff-hanger. There is a second book out and a third book planned for release in 2016.

The Dominator, by DD Prince

Tia

In a few weeks it’ll be my nineteenth birthday.  Some say it should be my ninetieth as I’m what they call an old soul. A few weeks after my birthday I’ll be striking out on my own. Well, sort of. I’ll be transitioning out of the foster care system and into my first apartment.

My foster parents, Rose and Cal, who have been wonderful to me for the past 5 and a half years have arranged for me to rent the apartment above the garage at Rose’s parents’ home. So it’ll be my place but I’ll still be close to people who are like family; the only family I’ve had for a very long time.

Because I’ve been a ward of the court for the past few years, the “system” will supplement my income through college and pay for tuition, too. The foster grandparents’ home would be the perfect blend of being on my own and having someone around in case I need help.

Nona and Nonno Caruso have been like I’d expect real grandparents would be to me and the half a dozen girls that live with Rose and Cal Crenshaw at the moment.  I’ll be the 5
th
girl to move into the garage apartment; the family has been fostering for years and they’ve helped over 100 teen girls have a home and a stable family for at least a little while.

I could’ve opted to move out and finish my victory lap of high school from my own place on my 18
th
birthday but they invited me to stay and being an only child who embraced this busy, hectic, and crazy house full of laughter and love and great food, I was happy they invited me to stay the extra year.

I’ve been in care since I was 9 and was moved around quite a bit before finding home here with the Crenshaws.  My Mom committed suicide and that led to my already troubled father falling completely off the rails, landing me into the foster care system.

His partying and gambling got progressively worse and he’d always had trouble holding a job which was amplified without my Mom around. My Dad tried to move me in with his sister, my Aunt Carol, one night after he got beat up pretty bad right in front of me by loan sharks, but she’d said
Not a chance
. She actually said that right in front of me.  Shame on her. And shame on Dad for asking her in front of me.

Not only did she refuse but she then called social services after coming to the apartment to argue with him because of seeing the way Dad and I were living. They took custody of me so that he could get his life together but he never actually did manage to do that for long enough to get me back. I was better off in care anyway. I thrived in it, especially once I got to the Crenshaw home.

Dad seemed like he
wanted
to try a few times --- he’d go long periods of time without seeing me and then he’d turn up for a visit, tell me he was doing better, then he’d sometimes even do a monthly visit two months in a row but inevitably over the past 9+ years, the more common pattern was for him to get my hopes up and then let me down and disappear for many months at a time. I stopped having expectations of him a long time ago. Becoming a ward of the court made it simpler. They stopped trying to make him try.

I’ve been through a few different foster homes but Rose and Cal’s has been, by far, the most nurturing of all. I moved here when I was 13 and not only do they go out of their way to make their home a real home but whatever isn’t provided that me or the other girls need through the “system” they take out of their own pockets.  Three years ago they bought all us girls bicycles out of their own pockets for Christmas. The year after we got to go to Disney World together, on their dime. They’re amazing people and they’ve helped so many girls get their lives together. I hope to repay them someday.

Rose, a sweet round woman with a heart of gold, tells me all the payment she wants is my happiness and success. And for me to continue to be a part of their family. Come for Christmas, come for special dinners on my birthday whenever I don’t have other plans, have them at my wedding someday, think of them as my family. I’ve been so lucky with them.

Cal is an architect and Rose is a homemaker. They have one son and one daughter. Their son is autistic and one of my favorite people in the world. Their daughter Ruby is amazing too, with all the foster girls and with her little brother.  Ruby has become my closest friend, like a sister, really. She’s a year younger than me otherwise we’d just get a place together.

I’m lucky to be moving to the Carusos’. It’s a cute bachelorette apartment above the garage in a great neighborhood and the grandparents go to Florida for the winter so a few months after I arrive, I’ll have the place totally to myself.  Ruby says she’ll stay over on the weekends.

I’m starting in school in the fall for social work so I can make a difference in the lives of other kids who might otherwise fall between the cracks. So many kids do and many blame the system. I’ve had a great social worker all along who has always cared about my safety and happiness. I aim to follow in her footsteps and strive to do the same for other kids. 

I wouldn’t say I’m a model student or model foster child. I’ve gotten caught sneaking out to go to parties. I’ve skipped school a few times. I’ve gotten drunk and high and I’m not a virgin. But I’m not a slut and I’m not a bad person. I know what I want from life and I’m grateful for the blessings I have.

I miss my Mom. I still don’t know why she killed herself. I wouldn’t say she was a happy person, and maybe her unhappiness ran deeper than I knew. I also don’t know why my Dad couldn’t seem to pull his life together. Even though he was never together before she died, he was really really messed up afterwards.

I don’t know how often he checks it but I’ve sent him a Facebook message to tell him about high school grad. I’m not counting on him making it. He’s never made it to any school plays, birthday parties, or anything else that I’ve asked him to come to. When Dad shows up it’s generally very random. I don’t know why I sent him an invite but I guess I’ve never totally given up on him. I’ve always tried to believe that people are redeemable.

Tommy             

“Her name is Athena. They call her Tia. She’s yours if you want her.”

“Mine?”

“Yeah, yours.” Pop waved his hand dismissively, “For whatever.”

I was sitting in my father’s office absorbing this news, news that a nineteen year old girl was coming to me as a gift from my father, that she comes to him as payment for unpaid gambling debts. Pop said he was about to have the news of the payment arrangement conveyed to her father and then I could do what I wanted with her.  “Whatever” meant I could put her on the streets under one of the pimps on my down line. I could also sell her off overseas into the slave trade and pocket the profits myself. Yeah, we had contacts in a variety of industries, including those of the seedy underworld. Looking at her photo, she’d fetch way more on the black market than the debt her Daddy owed.  Way more.

Or, I could keep her for myself. My cock twitched, looking at her. Silky straight long chestnut brown hair, big jade green eyes, beautiful skin, full lips, fit yet curvy, soft-looking. She sure didn’t look like she was just about to graduate high school.

Re the down line, our family business has somewhat of an MLM set up. We receive commissions based on a variety of pursuits. Some call us mafia. I don’t really use that word. You might say I say tomato, you say tom-atto and while it’s all the same fruit, of course, there are many varieties of tomatoes. We’re businessmen. Yeah, not all of what we do is legal but it’s not all shady business deals and gambling debts, either.  The way it’s set up creates multiple layers and plenty of income streams and the money flows up to the family coffers from a variety of areas, like security, construction, and a variety of retail and wholesale businesses. There’s also a grayer type of security, loan sharking, prostitution, and drugs. We deal in herb, not in chemicals, and it’s a very small part of our business.

Yeah, organized crime exists in the 21
st
century. No, it’s not always as glamorous as it’s portrayed on screens and it’s not always seedy, either.  It’s a living. Some days are fairly ordinary. Some days are awesome. Some days we have to make tough decisions. I’d had to make many tough decisions so far and I was sure there would be many more.

My father was a working guy who was connected around town and he wanted to start his own business. So he and his best friend, a guy also connected, started a construction company. The company did well; they were smart businessmen. Over time, they saw the need for a number of other services and they had the capital to begin expansions so they could better provide for their family without paying 50% of their earnings in tax.  The company has grown by leaps and bounds in the past 30 years. After the construction company, he opened a coffee shop. He now has six of those coffee shops and it’s moving to a franchising model in the next 5-7 months. He’s silent partner in some restaurants, in some hotels, a few nightclubs, too. Some of those night clubs have back room card games; some that deal in big money.

Drugs and druggies, alcohol and alcoholics, hookers, nymphos, bookies, gamblers, loan sharks… they’re always gonna be out there. Why shouldn’t we profit from it? We have the brains and the brawn and the green. And because of that we’ve got the cars, the houses, the fat bank accounts and the high tax brackets so we look above board to the tax man and have the fat rainy day funds in our mattresses, attics, basements, whatever.  And this isn’t all we do; it’s just a way of supplementing things.

Why bust our chops for a bit better than minimum wage and work like a dog our whole life to put money into a retirement plan we may never get to spend? Successful men get between what men want and the source.  That’s what we do. You want to bet on the races? We can help. You want to get your rocks off, find someone to cater to your fetishes?  We’ll hook you up. You need money to pay off your gambling debts or start up a new venture? Guess, what? We can help there, too. It all fits like a puzzle together nicely. People need protection. People need money. People need help from builders to build those businesses they want us investing in so we do the investing and we do the building. And people need vices so that the end of a hard day they’ve had a little fun.  People need to pay up, too, though.

And because men can have too much of a good thing and get caught up in the sins of the flesh and the thrill of the bet it can get dirty. Some people don’t pay their debts. Some people need to be dealt with. Sometimes people get greedy and try to take from us. We have to make hard decisions sometimes. People come to play; they must be prepared to pay.

I’m 29, Pop’s namesake, I’m inches away from taking over the family business and we feed ourselves and look after our family this way so we take it seriously. If people borrow money, they have to pay their debts. We prefer cash as our currency of choice, of course, but sometimes creative financing comes into play when someone can’t pay.

My family may be wealthy but I’ve earned my stripes, too. Pop didn’t believe in sticking a silver spoon in my mouth. He clawed his way up and believe me, he made sure I had to do the same. He called it character-building. I called him a hard ass.

I started at the bottom and worked my way up. I bought my first place, a downtown condo, with cash, no mortgage, cash I earned from age 14 to 19. No one could ever say that I didn’t deserve to sit in my father’s chair when that day came.

Sitting in my father’s office and getting told he was handing over a flesh payment on a debt to me was intriguing, to say the least.  I’d never seen him take this kind of payment before.

“Why are you letting the guy pay like this? This isn’t our style. There’s more to it. Spill.”

Pop shrugged, “This was my choice, not his. Too many questions, Tommy. Just think of it as a gift. A bonus for all your hard work. Look at her.”

He pushed the picture closer. I’d already seen it. My Pop didn’t like questions, that was for damn sure. I guess I sort of inherited that quality from him. But I needed to know the whole story, particularly because he was probably only a few key decisions away from retiring.  He didn’t look ready to retire, he’s only in his 50’s and looks like he’s in his 40’s. But my Pop has worked hard to build his empire and he says he wants to enjoy the fruits of that labor before he’s too old to really enjoy it.

“What kind of guy gives his daughter up for debts? The debt is measly,” I said. He looked reflective and a long moment passed. “Pop…”

“I bought his debt. There’s history. Long family history. This guy! He…” he waved his hand, “He was like one of those, what do you call… fan girls. He tried to crawl up all our asses and worm his way into the business. But he was always a liability so he didn’t get the time of day.  He disrespected me many years ago. Took something from me. He paid a price.  But I don’t know that his price was enough,” he tapped on his temple with his index finger, “and some nights I still lay awake thinking about what he took from me. This daughter; she’s all he’s got of any value.  And look at her. I’m thinking she’s young, she’s beautiful, you could make her yours. Marry her, maybe. Your call, I know, but that’s what I think. It’d be a shame to put her to work or sell her off. I saw opportunity. I acted. Two birds with one stone. Pay this guy back by taking his last thing of value. Take her to pay his paltry debt and help our family move forward.” He shrugged like it was no biggie but was looking at me studiously. I could see that it
was
a biggie.