Blog Tour & Giveaway ~ Return of the Assassin by Donya Lynne

All the King's Men - Book 5

3rd place winner - RWA Heart of the West contest

"If you've been waiting for the next Black Dagger Brotherhood, this is it…" -GraveTells Review

Assassin Gina Carano doesn't have time for love. In fact, the last thing she wants is a mate. But Gina can't stop thinking about Malek, the handsome AKM enforcer she met in Chicago. And now she's beginning to fear Malek's memory is the reason for her crippling panic attacks, which have assaulted her relentlessly since she left him.

Malek has never dealt with the centuries-old death of his first mate, but now that he's formed a new mating link to Gina, he has no choice. Stuck between the agony of mourning and the despair of being without Gina, his mind fractures as he attempts to reconcile the two halves of himself.

When Gina botches a hit on two vicious vampires in Miami, she reluctantly flees back to Chicago, where Malek must choose between the past and the future before he loses Gina forever.

Warning: This book contains explicit sexual content, sensitive subject matter, references to non-traditional/alternative lifestyles, and profanity.

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I will admit that I am a paranormal snob. I’m very picky about who I read. Donya Lynne won me over with Rise of the Fallen the moment I read it I knew I had to have them all and I would be a lifelong fan of hers. She goes right up there with my fave paranormal authors. The thing that drew me into Donya’s writing is that it is so real. She hits on real life issues and addresses them absolutely beautifully. Even though we are in a vampire world, her vampires are completely different than any one else’s. Her books are original and exceptional. Return of the Assassin is no different. The issue here is grieving, acceptance, and panic attacks as well as other things. Donya did a fantastic job of describing these things.

Malek is centuries old and has grieved his first mate since the day he lost her. He vowed to never replace Carmen and taint the memory of her with a new mate, therefore he never touched a woman, until fate stepped in and threw a new mate right in front of him. He was determined to fight it. He was convinced Carmen was still alive. His needs got the best of it and after centuries of celibacy he knew he had to do something. But he dare not touch Gina.


Gina refused to ever take another mate after the brutal abuse she suffered from her first one. Gina also held a lot of guilt for something she had done in the recent past, almost killing an innocent man. She was so grief stricken and looking only for revenge that she couldn’t see the truth. This event is what lead her to meet Malek. She thought he was like every other male and dared not to mate with him out of fear of how things would turn out.

But when she realizes that her panic attacks are really mating sickness she’s determined to give Malek a chance. Well, that is until he pissed her off and that whole event made me want to smack him, but it opened his eyes to what was really right there in front of him.

Of course we all know it can never be sunshine and rainbows and yes Donya brought me to tears more than once. But in the end will all the heartache and turmoil be worth it. Can Malek and Gina find their forever or will their enemies rip it away from them.

5 HUMONGOUS FANTASTIC STARS!!!

Without knocking, he twisted the doorknob to Tristan's—ugh, Micah's—office.

"Okay, you can get the meeting started, asshole. I'm here now, no thanks to—" He cut off  as his gaze lifted.

The scent of tension throttled him, as well as the smell of some new guy he had never seen before standing beside Lakota. Huh? What was Lakota doing here? Oh yeah, he was on the team now. How lovely. But who was the new guy with the short, dark hair? And—

His balls locked up as his gaze swept to the left and landed on Gina. She stood behind Severin, partially blocked by his large body and wide shoulders. As if in a tunnel, he honed in on her. His senses catapulted into the stratosphere, and his breath hitched so violently that he had to take a step back to keep his balance.

Micah backed up and took Lakota and the new guy with him as if he was clearing a path. Severin even seemed to feel the coming storm, because he stepped away and left Gina exposed. 

Her gaze met his, and she took a heavy, shaky breath. In an instant, he flew up on her with the speed of a bullet, so fast he hadn't even felt the floor beneath his feet. One moment, he was across the room, and the next his body was pressed against hers. He pulled to her as if she were the center of the universe and had a gravitational pull more powerful than the sun's.

Her breath caught as he pushed her back against the wall and dragged his nose up the side of her throat to her ear and inhaled. Pure Gina. Perfect and provocatively fragrant. She smelled faintly of vanilla and cloves. He pinned her between his arms and planted his palms against the wall on either side of her shoulders.

She trembled, and her shaky hands rose and pressed against his chest as she took several rapid breaths, as if she was terrified of him.

"Ssshh." He circled her ear with his nose and wrapped one arm loosely around her 

back. "Sssshhh."

She calmed and relaxed against him.

Everyone fell away but the two of them. Her palms on his chest felt like the touch of an angel, and the warmth of her body enveloped him like a cloud.

Gina, Gina, Gina. God, her beauty captivated him, and the sound of her breathy sigh was a siren's song.

"You're here. God, you're really here," he whispered against her ear. His lips played over her smooth, scintillating skin as he spoke.

He was drugged, intoxicated by her, hungry to feel her beneath him, holding him. She was his, now and forever. She had returned to make him whole. He couldn't get enough of her scent and dragged his nose across the front of her neck to the other side as he inhaled deeply so he could capture her aroma and hold it. Perfect…she was so perfect…her scent was unbelievable and—

Wait!

Malek's eyes burst open as his back straightened. What was that smell? Another male? 

Another male's venom tainted Gina's blood. When had another male fed from her? Who—? 

Malek growled low in his chest, and his hold on Gina tightened.

His dark, narrowed eyes turned on the unknown male who stood next to Micah and Lakota.

It was his scent inside Gina. His venom. He had taken blood from his female.

With another low growl, he pressed more firmly against Gina as if shielding her. Then he bared his fangs and hissed at that fucker as he pulled her farther back along the wall, into the corner of the room. He wanted distance between her and that incubus who had sampled her. He hissed again, making it clear whom Gina belonged to. How dare that asshole partake of what belonged to him.

"Malek…" Gina's voice brought his gaze back around, and he instantly softened, under her command. Whatever she had been about to say caught in her throat, and her brown eyes locked to his, full of surprise.

Still, the simple passing of his name through her lips soothed him, and he gazed drunkenly at her delicate mouth before leaning in and rubbing the side of his face against hers with a sigh.

"Gina…"

She was here. She was his. And whoever that other male was, he held no claim on her. 

Malek's gaze steered back around, and he bared his fangs again in a silent snarl as he hid Gina from the other male's view. How dare he defile what belonged to him. Gina was his to feed from…his to hold…his to savor against his tongue and body. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist—the wrist that still bore the faint mark of a bite—and this time when he bared his fangs, it was to issue a lethal, low snarl of warning. No one was permitted to take from his mate, or they would answer to him. To make that point clear to her other suitor, he lifted her wrist to his mouth, and, while fixing the male in his gaze once more, sank his fangs in where the other had obviously bitten her. The message was clear: This one is mine.

Donya Lynne is the author of the award winning All the King's Men Series. Making her home in a wooded suburb north of Indianapolis with her husband, Donya has lived in Indiana most of her life and knew at a young age that she was destined to be a writer. She started writing poetry in grade school and won her first short story contest in fourth grade. In junior high, she began writing romantic stories for her friends, and by her sophomore year, they had dubbed her Most Likely to Become a Romance Novelist. In 2012, she made that dream come true by publishing her first two novels and two novellas. She has several more stories planned for the AKM Series, as well as two sister series that are in development.

Donya Lynne Fan Page

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Thank you for having me on your blog today so that I could introduce my latest novel. Return of the Assassin is the fifth book in my All the King's Men Series, which has been picking up a lot of awards and accolades for the last year-and-a-half. Return of the Assassin looks poised to continue the trend, having already placed third in the Romance Writers of America Heart of the West contest, which is quite an honor.

In Return of the Assassin, we meet Malek, a male vampire and AKM enforcer who has never dealt with the centuries-old death of his first mate. The book's heroine is Gina, a female vampire and an assassin who has struggled to put her abusive past behind her. Gina's first mate was a violent male who liked to hit her more than love her, and after his death, she had no interest in ever being mated again. Until she met Malek. Now she's torn. As much as Gina doesn't want to think about him, she can't stop. But returning to Malek to explore her feelings proves harder than she thought, because Malek is in the middle of an internal crisis as he tries to reconcile the part of him mourning his first mate's death to the part of him that wants Gina as a mate. If he and Gina have any hope of being together, Malek must find a way to put his past behind him so he can embrace his future.

In addition to Malek and Gina's story, we see the return of beloved characters like Micah, Maddox, Severin, and Lakota, and we meet new characters fans will love to hate as well as a few that fans will fall in love with as they get to know them better. New enemies include Searcy and Vaydon, two ancient vampires who thrive on pain and suffering and have an axe to grind with those who usurped them from the throne. Some of the new characters fans will come to love as more books are written in the series are:

Trevor Knight - Gina's best friend. Trevor used to date Gina's brother, Gabe, and he desperately wants to find a mate of his own.

Brak Benyon - Trace's long lost brother enters the series with a resounding BANG! Fans will love him.

Kieran Teague - A victim of enemy lab experiments that have left him in heavy cobalt (drug) withdrawal, Kieran, a "marked" half-blood, will be pivotal to the development of the sister series, Knights of Justice.

Savill Hawke (aka Achilles) - Like Trace, fans will LOVE Savill, who will change his name to Achilles by the time AKM transitions into the Progeny Series. Savill will be a very special character.

Cynthia - Brak's attendant. She is a strong female who I think will have a special place in one male's heart, but her story hasn't fully unfolded in my mind, yet.

Eva - Quiet, shy, and fashion-backward, I think Eva has a big place in the future of AKM. 

Before I head off, my fans in my All the King's Men Reader Group came up with a bunch of  questions they wanted to ask my characters, and as a fun part of my blog tour, I'd like to incorporate questions into a few of the blogs. Today, my question is for Samantha, who is Micah's mate:

Question: Does Micah sext you? If so, do you have any funny sexting stories you'd like to share?

Samantha: *Laughs* Micah is forever sexting me. He works such long hours now that I think it's his way of keeping the fire lit for when we're together. But honestly, my fire's always lit for that man…male…whatever. I'm still not used to the way vampires refer to each other as male and female instead of man and woman. *she laughs again* Anyway, I'm not going to tell Micah that my fire's always lit and that he doesn't need to sext me to keep it that way. I enjoy his sexts too much. As for funny stories? *she grins and winks* I'll keep that between Micah and me…at least 

until our next novella. And then Donya will share all our secrets.

Thank you for having me on your blog today. I hope you enjoy the latest addition to the All the King's Men Series, and thank you for having me.