The Protectors (Kennedy)

After four years abroad, artist Jonas Davenport has come home to start building his dream of owning his own art studio and gallery. But just as he's ready to put the darkness of his past behind him forever, it comes roaring back with a vengeance.

Trauma surgeon Ronan Grisham lost everything the day the man he loved was stolen from him in a brutal attack. Driven by a thirst for vengeance, he turns his hatred into building an underground group that can do what he couldn't that fateful day...take the lives of the guilty to save the lives of the innocent. But years later, he's forced to confront the one link to his past that he can't sever.

Ex-Special Forces soldier Michael "Hawke" Hawkins has spent every day of the last 10 years waiting for the moment he would get to watch the life fade from the eyes of the men who brutally murdered his wife, but when he finally gets the break he's been waiting for, the trail leads him to someone he wasn't expecting.

Guys like Eli just aren't Mav's type, period. Yet he can't deny his intense attraction to the younger man who only looks at him with fear in his eyes. Until the day there's something else in those eyes, too. Something that draws Mav in and refuses to let go. Something that makes him want to forget his rules. But Mav's learned the hard way what happens when you get too close to something. And while he vows to protect Eli after a violent attack leaves the younger man shaken, protection is all he'll offer. Because anything else would just cost too much.

At 34 years old, ex-DEA agent Memphis Wheland has lived, loved, and lost...everything. The ultimate betrayal by the man he gave everything to has left Memphis with no family, no career, and a bone-deep bitterness that refuses to release him from its icy grip. His work with an underground vigilante organization is the only light in his otherwise bleak existence. That and the occasional no-strings hookup with men whose only focus in that moment, and for as long as Memphis wants them, is him and only him. No clingy exes, no unrequited love, no relationship drama. Period.  

It's the holidays for a group of very special men who've managed to become a family in the last year and while all the guys are coming together to celebrate Hawke and Tate's upcoming wedding, a few of them have big plans of their own.... A change of plans.... Newlyweds Ronan and Seth are settling into married life as Ronan considers his return to medicine and Seth starts dreaming of a future that may include the pitter patter of little feet a lot sooner rather than later. Building a future.

At nearly 40 years old, Cash Malloy has accepted that the lifestyle he and Sage, his partner both in life and on the job, live isn't normal but is what both men need to escape the darkness of their pasts. But he also knows that Sage's wounds run much deeper than his own and that there will come a day where what Cash can give Sage isn't enough anymore. And after meeting the young woman Sage has become enamored with, Cash knows that day is closer than ever.

At 41, and with a distinguished career as a Texas Ranger under his belt, Magnus DuCane should have been in the prime of his life. Instead, he’s mourning the loss of the daughter he couldn’t save and contemplating a future that looks nothing like the one he had planned. The only bright spot in his life is the young grandson who has suddenly been returned to him after going missing two years earlier and the new family of men that he’s been welcomed into with open arms.

An ugly childhood and devastating betrayal have left 25-year-old Cain Jensen scarred inside and out. Protecting himself means keeping everyone at arm's length and protecting others means never getting emotionally involved. But nothing he's ever experienced has prepared the cold-hearted and very straight Cain for who he finds on that mountain...or the intense need to suddenly offer more than just protection. Will two men who've vowed never to let someone close again let down their guard long enough to find each other, or will they let their pasts determine their future?

My job is to save lives. But what if the one that needs saving is the one I was sent to take? At 33 years old, Phoenix Jones once had a stellar military career ahead of him. But when tragedy struck his family, he walked away from the path he’d chosen to be there for the one who needed him most. Except fate is a bitch and when she once again takes Phoenix’s future in the cruelest of ways, he must find a new path. 

At 49, Vincent St. James has learned to live with the choices he's made, even if he isn't always proud of them. After the military he was practically born into decided his sexuality was more important than his impeccable service record, Vincent lost everything, including the man he'd planned to spend the rest of his life with.

Protecting him was just to supposed to be another job. Until it wasn’t. Two years after surviving a brutal attack from members of his own unit, former Special Forces soldier Cruz de la Vega has found new purpose working for an underground vigilante group that offers justice when the law can’t. When he’s assigned to figure out who attacked a local gay rights activist, Cruz expects it to be just another job. But when it comes to protecting Elliot Wittier, he soon learns that the last thing he wants is for the intriguing young man to be just another job.

Former president Everett Shaw had his whole life laid out for him from the time he was a child, and he lived out every expectation to complete and utter perfection...until he met the one man who changed everything. Everett was looking forward to a quiet life with the man of his dreams at his side. But one brutal act of violence stole that bright future away. A decade later finds Everett nearing the age of 60 and living a shell of a life. But when his estranged son is horribly injured while saving the life of another, Everett leaves everything behind.

Ten years of war and the loss of nearly his entire family have left Jace Christenson with nothing to come home to. Life consists of his work in an underground vigilante group, the near-constant search for the last remaining link to who he used to be, and a string of meaningless sexual encounters that serve only one purpose...to make it easier to not feel anything anymore. But when Jace gets the call that the young man he saved two years earlier has gone missing, he’s forced to deal with the truth he’s been trying to deny from the moment he laid eyes on Caleb Cortano. 

When Aleks is suddenly abducted after leaving work one quiet spring evening, he’s certain he’ll never see his brother and family again. But terror quickly turns to relief when a familiar face once again comes to his rescue, along with all the feelings he’s always had but never quite understood around the dangerous, older Vaughn. Certain that Vaughn will make everything okay again like he did once before, Aleks knows he doesn’t even need to ask Vaughn to take him home. 

Landscape architect Devon Rhodes doesn't know what to think when he overhears a heated conversation in his new next-door neighbor's back yard, but when he decides to intervene, he definitely isn't expecting the encounter to change his life forever. Forced to retire from his career as a professional ballet dancer, Sebastian DeVille has moved to the quiet suburbs of San Francisco to figure things out. An ugly argument leads to an unlikely meeting with his sexy new neighbor and an unexpected Valentine's date that neither Sebastian nor Devon will ever forget.

I wanted him from the moment I laid eyes on him and from that point on, the question wasn't if I'd have him but when...Thirty-five-year-old Matias de la Vega is good at one thing and one thing only. Though he doesn't officially carry the title of killer when it comes to his role in an underground vigilante group, he's got no problem getting his hands dirty if it means getting justice for those who can't get it on their own. Such is the case when single dad Sam Wittier is confronted by a stalker bent on murder....

What happens when a group of tough vigilantes meets up with a big-hearted family with boundary issues? Reese: It’s supposed to be an easy job. You know, the kind you get after you’ve been gone a while and the boss is unsure of how capable you still are? But then there’s a mugging, an abduction, two thugs, and a blackmail scheme. And smack-dab in the middle of it is a beautiful lost soul who needs me. The scared, young gamer-geek pushes all my protective buttons and awakens something inside me that’s ready to dive right in and inhale the man.