Heâll grant her one wishâ¦. What if she wishes for him?
When Moira Connor stumbles across a jewel-encrusted silver trinket in the desert, she plans to trade it for food. Then the brush of her fingers unleashes a surpriseâ¦.
Freed from the lamp, Boone is bound to the woman who called him with her touch. She has one day to make a wish before he disappears forever. But Moira lives in the ruins of a world destroyed by witches. She hates magicâeven when it comes in the shape of a dazzlingly gorgeous djinn. Will the exquisite pleasure of Booneâs caresses be enough to earn Moiraâs trust? And will Moira be able to save Boone from the malevolent creature who would possess him?
Dear Reader,
Thank you for picking up Awaken to Pleasure! This story is a bit of a departure from the books that I normally write, in which the creatures that go bump in the night are a secret from all of humanity. For this story, I tried to create a world in which the existence of supernaturals isnât hidden. The result was a place where humans were no longer the dominant speciesâand where even in a world where witches are commonplace, there can still be surprises for the heroine.
I hope you will enjoy Boone and Moiraâs story! I love to hear from my readers, and can be contacted through my website, www.laurenhawkeye.com
Best,
Lauren
Prologue
Fifteen Years Ago
Moira Connor remembered the fire.
The dark sky, the ash that rained down, soft and hot, choking her with every breath until she wanted to rip open her own throat, just to get some blessed relief.
The fire had been all consumingâthe unnatural emerald and amethyst flames devouring everything in its path. Its light had all but blinded her as she cowered in the corner of what had once been an alley between buildings.
The entire city of Jackson was being annihilated by the fire.
But she hadnât been blind enough to miss seeing what had been done to her parents. The witches had burned them alive, right before her eyes, and Moira hadnât been able to save them. Hadnât even tried, because she been so paralyzed by fear that sheâd run.
Not that she could have done anything. She knew that now, and yet it haunted her every waking momentâand sometimes the sleeping ones as well.
It was guilt of the survivor. But she should have died with them. And the only reason she hadnât was because of a manâa man with a pair of bright blue eyes.
If she ever found that man, she would kill him. Moira would rather be dead, after all.
Instead, she was still alive when, numb with grief, she and the other survivors of what the world had come to call the Great Witch War struggled to pick up the pieces of their existence, to save the last of their race. She scavenged on the streets, seeking out bits of treasure to barter for food while those who were able tried to protect their kind from the witches who would leach the energy from every last one of them.
And now she was a prisoner in one of these shelters. Those who lived in the enclosed villages called them havens, but she knew better.
They were prisons. Incarceration for those who had done nothing more than act on the basic human instinct to survive.
And so Moira existed, helping those who couldnât help themselves as a way of making amends to the parents she hadnât helped. And all the time, she dreamed of the man who had saved her life. Over the years, her hatred for the witches slowly bled over until it focused entirely on him. Why had he let her live but not saved her parents?
It was because of him that she was still here, trapped in the numbness of her grief.
Because of him she could commit the most cardinal sin of the survivorsâshe could kill. Kill him.
The kicker of it all?
She wouldnât even know him if she saw him. For all she remembered was the color of his eyes.
Chapter One
Present Day
The late-afternoon sun glinted off the sand surrounding the haven village of Mavi, causing temporary blindness even as it mercilessly made sweat flow. Moira squinted against the glare, wishing that she had brought her goggles, but months of living in the cool comfort of Mavi had softened her once keen instincts for survival. While she had remembered to wear a hood to protect her tender scalp, her goggles had remained, likely buried at the bottom of the box that held all reminders of her former career as a treasure hunter.
Well, it was her own damn fault. Her destination wasnât far, after all, and if she hurt herself on the way, she had no pressing matters to attend to that would intrude upon her healing. Not anymore, not since she and all other humans had been forced to close themselves in the dome-covered villages that were their only protection against the dark magic that had taken over the world.