Blood Sugar Read online

  Blood Sugar

  Kat Turner

  BLOOD SUGAR

  By

  Kat Turner

  Copyright © 2021 Kat Turner

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  Edited by Tee Tate.

  Cover Design by MiblArt.

  All stock photos licensed appropriately.

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  Published in the United States by City Owl Press.

  www.cityowlpress.com

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  For information on subsidiary rights, please contact the publisher at [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior consent and permission of the publisher.

  Praise for Kat Turner

  “A fledgling witch finds love with a mature rock star in the midst of occult danger in Turner’s magic-heavy debut and series launch. Turner sets up a promising world that readers will be pleased to return to in subsequent installments. Paranormal fans should check this out.”

  – Publisher’s Weekly

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  “Hex, Love, and Rock & Roll is clever, witty, and captivating from chapter one. Helen and Brian pull you into their world and refuse to let you go. It is utterly a bewitching love story that has it all: chemistry, mystery, love, but most of all–rock and roll.”

  – Jaqueline Snowe, Contemporary Romance Author

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  “Fantastic, vivid writing and great characters make for a fun, sexy, emotional paranormal riff! Get Hex, Love, and Rock & Roll as soon as you can!”

  – Celia Juliano, Sexy, Heartfelt Romance Author

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  “One of Turner's hallmarks is powerful heroes who are tempered with rich emotional intelligence. In Blood Sugar Readers can expect Turner's trademark snark mixed with magical and metaphysical mysteries, a well paced plot full of unexpected twists, and two layered and complex characters winning their happily ever after.”

  – Janet Walden-West, Award-Winning Author

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  “A spellbinding debut, Hex is a witchy love story that you won't want to miss. There's a paranormal plot with villains, hexes, and demons, but the real centerstage act is the magical happily ever after.”

  – Luna Joya, Author of the Legacy Series

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  “In her debut novel, Kat Turner's descriptions are exceptional and the spit-fire voice in this work is vibrant and fresh. The character's are so real, you step into the page.”

  – Poppy Minnix, RomCom and Paranormal Romance Author

  To my guardian angel (you know who you are!).

  Contents

  Want More City Owl Press Books?

  Keep Reading Paranormal Romance

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Sneak Peek of Edge of the Woods

  Keep Reading Paranormal Romance

  Want More City Owl Press Books?

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Additional Titles

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  Click here to sign up for the City Owl Press newsletter and be the first to find out about special offers, including FREE book days, contents, giveaways, cover reveals, and more!

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  Sign up now and become a City Owl Reader today! And join our City Owl Reader-Author group here for even more deals and a whole lot of community and fun!

  Don’t miss more of the Coven Daughters series coming soon, and find more from Kat Turner at katturnerauthor.com

  * * *

  Until then, find more paranormal romance with EDGE OF THE WOODS by City Owl Author, Jules Kelley.

  There’s something lurking in Pine Grove, Montana, and its bite is vicious.

  Haley Fern has been the alpha of her local werewolf pack for less than a year, when their law enforcement liaison retires, and Leland Sommers, a man who knows nothing about werewolves or their world, is hired in his place.

  What could be an awkward situation turns complicated when the man shows up his first day on the job with an injured teenage boy he found on the road–a boy Haley knows has just been bitten.

  But discovering who bit the kid isn’t as easy as it seems, especially with Leland asking questions and looking at Haley the way he does.

  Can the alpha figure out who is attacking innocent people on her wildlife preserve and protect her pack? Or will the new sheriff and her growing attraction to him put her entire world in danger?

  GET IT NOW!

  One

  Before Eve knew of her clairsentience, mortuary science seemed like the perfect career choice. She’d gravitated to the profession for the quiet and lack of drama, only to find out that dead people never shut up. Irony was one evil clown.

  She locked the front door of the funeral home and extended her umbrella, stepping into the night after a draining day of consoling the panicky deceased. Fat raindrops drummed a litany of heartbeats. Reflections of red and green streetlights turned puddles into glimmering pools.

  A breeze batted a few loose curls into her face and made her shiver, but the air’s aroma of autumn leaves lifted her mood.

  One backwards glance at the bronze plaque above the doorbell sneaked a smile onto her lips. Evelyn Conley-Adyemi, Funeral Home Director. She was a damn good mortician and adept shepherd to those who departed with unresolved issues and needed her help to pass on to the afterlife. Reminding herself of the contributions she made helped to ease the stress of difficult days.

  Tucked in the back pocket of her pants, Travis Williams’s spirit warmed her butt cheek. He’d stay put for a little while, attracted to her life force. Time to hurry home and process him before he faded away. Or worse.

  Eve hustled through her Old Louisville neighborhood, rubber boots splashing against the sidewalk. Rain struck its rhythm against her umbrella. Vintage gas-lamp porch lights lit her path. From someone’s stoop, the yellow glow of jack-o’-lantern mouths and eyes warded off sinister spirits.

  She tipped a nod at a grinning pumpkin. Malevolent forces were not to be trifled with. A chill shot up her back, but she pushed aside memories of her past blunder and focused on the voice of Travis inside her head.

  “And that’s when I decided to take a more aggressive approach to my stock market portfolio. Stupid me, never listening to that financial adviser.” Travis droned on about his life story for several blocks. The tale of Travis was remarkably average and semi-charming at best, but she didn’t mind being a sounding board for the dead. They provided decent company in her three-thousand-square-foot house, lounging in the containers she’d blessed for them until she got the signal that they were ready to pass, like Travis was. Every spirit followed a distinct process as unique as their individual personalities.

  The Victorian mansion she’d inherited from Grandpa Barney wo
uld soon welcome the elements of Travis’s spirit still clinging to the earthly plane. After she did her ritual, the noblest parts of him would cross over with grace. His body, well, that was worm food.

  Death was a complex process with a lot of moving parts, but most people didn’t want the details. Eve told the dead man’s young widow and their daughter that God had transported Daddy to heaven. A simple, safe, half truth.

  The intersection stoplight turned red. Eve paused at the end of the sidewalk and peeked inside the popular neighborhood Italian restaurant to her right. Happy couples enjoying each other’s company over wine and pasta packed the quaint place at the end of the block. The sight pricked her heart.

  Her unsmiling reflection, a faint apparition in water-splattered glass, stared back at her. Eve looked younger than her thirty-five years—the tawny skin on her freckled face lacked one single crack—but nonetheless it was time to give up on dating. Men couldn’t get past the mortician thing. Besides, if her shit-ass ex taught her anything, it was that love stinks worse than a lifelong alcoholic dead on the slab.

  An emotion born of equal parts envy and self-righteousness curdled near her navel as she people-watched from the outside. She didn’t need romance. She had a calling in life. A spiritual purpose, one she could not afford to stray from again. Not since she’d made an unforgivable mistake last year.

  “Walk,” the crossing sign instructed in its electronic voice, interrupting her thoughts before they took a dark turn. A white stick figure, pixelated legs swinging, flashed on the signal box. While Travis reminisced about his favorite beach vacation, Eve resumed movement.

  Soon she came to her wrought iron front gate and fumbled with the slick latch until it opened. Keys jingled as she fished them from her purse while taking careful steps down the slippery cobblestone pathway to her door. Her own Halloween pumpkin, carved in the pattern of an arched cat, bathed the front steps in festive tones. The flame of the candle inside of it flickered as if amused. The neighborhood decorations committee did an amazing job keeping up with the details, lighting her jack-o’-lantern while she was at work.

  Under the brick canopy shielding her concrete stoop from the downpour, she closed her umbrella.

  “Excuse me. I need your help.” A man spoke in a posh English voice quickened with distress. The worry in his tone prevented an onset of terror, but she clutched the pepper spray canister on her keychain all the same.

  She reluctantly turned to face him. A sense of uncanniness froze her mind at the first sight of the angular, familiar face looking down at her. Though he stood in the shadows, she recognized the distinctive cut of his aquiline nose.

  Could he have some connection to her past? Might he be a cousin or friend of the dead woman she’d wronged? “Help with what? Who are you?”

  Eve scanned him, searching her memory. He was white, or perhaps multiracial like her, with ear-length dark hair secured in a blue bandana and a few days of stubble crawling over a jawline as defined as the rest of his elven facial features. Large hands disappeared into the pockets of black jeans painted onto stilt-like legs. Lean arms went on for days. Palpable sadness offset his striking looks, all of it adding up to a compelling impression prompting her to forgo telling him to get lost.

  “I need to talk to you. Please. I mean you no harm whatsoever. I realize I should have rung first, but I wanted to explain my outlandish predicament in person. I was afraid if I phoned you and launched into the entire story, you’d figure me for a prankster and hang up straight away.”

  He pressed his lips into a line. The pleading manner of his speech left her no lingering doubt of his honesty, and the way his head hung and his broad shoulders drooped triggered an ache beneath her breastbone. What remained of her initial spark of fear died. Nothing about this man was threatening or sketchy. Rivulets of rain sluiced down his sleek leather jacket, enhancing the tragic energy around him. Poor guy walked over without an umbrella. Eve relaxed her grip on the pepper spray.

  “Okay, I’m listening. But I’m sorry, you look so familiar and I can’t help but be distracted by this sense that we’ve met before. Have we?” Who was this person? Someone from mortuary school, a long-forgotten high school acquaintance? No, she’d never known any Brits.

  A half-smile curved his mouth as he stepped out of the shadows. Though darkness obscured the color of his irises, night couldn’t hide the playful glimmer in his gaze. “Bet you’ve seen me on the telly.”

  “You’re on television?” A screeching gust of wet wind blew his scent in her direction, and she caught whiffs of wet leather, cigarette smoke, and spicy aftershave mixed with male pheromones. A tingle chased through her, an effect of the intrigue. And maybe Mr. Mystery’s sexy aroma. Eve’s ex smelled like beer and lazy hygiene, a contrast heightening her sensory enjoyment of the man in front of her.

  Mr. Mystery withdrew his hands from his pockets and rotated a ring around the longest, shapeliest finger she had ever seen. He wore a couple of additional rings, none of them wedding bands. Ridiculous that she noticed that in the first place, worse that she got a minor head rush when she did.

  Still playing with his hands, Mr. Mystery looked Eve in the eye. Maybe what interested her most about this man was how large he loomed despite his nameless, anonymous status. Like some old-world deity walking amongst mere mortals. “All over it. Music videos, interviews, documentaries and whatnot.”

  “Are you famous?” If so, what the hell was a famous person doing at her place, soaked to the bone and in trouble?

  “Yeah.” The smug yet shy way he spoke the word, and the hint of a cocky smirk that accompanied it, sent warmth spreading through her core. Dude had a presence. One of those people whose personality expanded to fit the room, who strutted through life like sidewalks were catwalks. Even drenched and under duress, he projected panache down to his toes. Wild ankle boots, fuzzy and printed to look like a spotted cow’s foot, adorned the toes in question.

  But she would not become a star-struck mess. Protecting Travis came first, and the window of time to do so closed by the minute.

  “I need that explanation now, the whole part where you tell me who you are and why you walked through the rain after dark to come to my house. Because I’m in a hurry.” She propped the umbrella against a wall and folded her arms over her chest, forcing herself to stop thinking about his gorgeous face and trim body, his killer style. It didn’t matter.

  Besides, she looked like crap. Damp conditions made a frizzy disaster of her ponytail of black curls. The acrid odor of embalming fluid hung around her like always, and Travis’s bereaved widow had snuffled tears and snot all over the shoulder of Eve’s cute new blazer.

  “You know the name Jonnie Tollens?” He spoke his name with crisp pride as he squared his shoulders and straightened his spine, gestures indicating she should know of him. With his posture corrected, Jonnie towered above her five-six frame.

  “I don’t.” She’d have to stand on her tiptoes to kiss his lush mouth, not that she was entertaining such a notion. Nope. She was not.

  He waved a hand in the air. “Look, it doesn’t matter who I am. I need your help. I’ve heard what you can do with spirits.”

  Her stomach dropped, taking the stirrings of attraction with it. Word about her ability had gotten around. Since last year’s incident involving a dead cult member, she had no desire to be famous or infamous. She should tell him to take a hike. But the broody Brit appealed to her empathy, so she afforded him another opportunity to explain himself. “Heard how? From whom?”

  “Overheard someone backstage talking about your work. They had a business card.”

  Travis talked about the final chapters of his story, his chemo treatments, meaning she needed to get inside and deal with him. “If you know who I am, you know I have a very specific ability. Ensuring the souls of the troubled dead pass safely into the afterlife.” Except the one you failed.

  Eve swallowed. She stuck the front door key in the lock. One time, one person, one failure.
One person whose tortured screams still haunted her nightmares on those nights she managed to steal sleep from the sadistic claws of insomnia. One person whose family’s letters threatening to kidnap her and burn her at the stake made checking the mail a dreadful task.

  “I know.” His tone came out curt and more than a little droll.

  At this point, Jonnie was wasting her time and thereby putting Travis at risk. Hadn’t he registered the whole part about who she could and could not help? What did he want from her?

  Eve turned around to face him, pulling out her key ring as she did. “Do you see the problem here? I help dead people.”

  And speaking of dead people, she had about five minutes to send Travis on his way. Another fuckup would not happen on her watch, and Mr. Mystery amounted to a big roadblock standing in the way of her goal.

  “I realize that.”

  She indulged an exasperated sigh. “You keep repeating that concept, but allow me to restate the chief issue. I help dead people. You, by contrast, are alive.”