Iron Veve's Kiss

***“Drakon—” “Say it again,” I growled, biting the lobe of her ear. Her real name for me, the one she’d whispered the night we'd spent together in New Orleans—not “Dragon,” but the Creole curse that meant storm-bringer. She gasped, her hips grinding against me. “Asshole—” I groaned, capturing her mouth once more. The kiss was a match to kerosene, igniting a fire that threatened to consume us both. Her hands fisted in my hair, lips parting with a gasp I swallowed whole, a taste of lemongrass and rebellion. She tasted like rage and every bad decision I’d ever craved—and Dios mío (My God), I was drowning in her. *** --- In the swamp-rotted heart of Alabama, Drucilla Drakes survives by two rules: stay silent, stay scarred, and never let Louise—her Bible-thumping, belt-wielding captor—catch her hoping for more. But when a schoolyard ambush leaves her bleeding under a stranger’s leather jacket, invisibility becomes a death sentence. Enter Dragon Morales, New Orleans’ most notorious runaway—a cartel prince turned outlaw mechanic with gasoline-stained knuckles and a bounty on his head. He doesn’t do heroics; he does survival. But when he finds Dru in a ditch, her back lashed raw and eyes blazing hellfire, he sees a mirror of his own damned soul. And he can’t look away. Their bond is a lit fuse. Dragon’s father—Colombia’s cartel kingpin—wants Dru dead. Louise, armed with voodoo rituals and the wrath of Marinette, the loa who feasts on chaos, wants her broken. The only allies? The Lou Nwa, a bayou biker gang trading in bullets and black magic, and Papa Legba, the crossroads spirit who offers Dru a deal: “Her soul or yours.” But the bayou’s traps are relentless: - Dragon’s father hunts his son with a price on his head. - Big Danni, Dru’s estranged uncle and Lou Nwa leader, demands loyalty as his gang fractures. - Marinette’s magic twists allies into puppets, their strings slick with swamp rot. And then there’s Dragon—hands that mend engines and break bones, lips that taste like whiskey and run. He swears he’s too ruined to love her. Dru knows she’s too shattered to let him. But in the swamp’s choking heat, where bullets sing and loas whisper, desire is a grenade neither one can dodge. As they blaze through the Deep South’s underbelly—cursed bayous, cartel blood feuds, and safehouses reeking of betrayal—they’ll face more than bullets. Dark magic seeps into old wounds. Family secrets unravel like nooses. And the line between protector and predator shatters. Dru doesn’t need saving. She needs fire. And Dragon? He’s got a lighter, a death wish, and a heart that won’t quit beating for her. **Warning:** This is not a fairytale. It’s bayou smoke and switchblade kisses, saints and sinners colliding where the road meets the ruin. Contains graphic violence, explosive passion, and a love story that burns hotter than a Molotov in a meth lab. Will they raze the South to ashes? Or become the sacrifice the crossroads demands?