Welcome to the Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, and Dystopian Reader Appreciation Giveaway!
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There will ALSO be other prizes and giveaways happening at that event between now and our Grand Prize announcement! So make sure you mark yourself as attending so you don’t miss those great opportunities to win more prizes and snag more freebies!
There will ALSO be other prizes and giveaways happening at that event between now and our Grand Prize announcement! So make sure you mark yourself as attending so you don’t miss those great opportunities to win more prizes and snag more freebies!
VIEW BOOKS FROM THE SPONSORS HERE
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Here are a few sneak peeks!
(cover links to Goodreads)
*Excerpt*
*Excerpt*
Ashra’s hand trailed across Jaden’s muscled torso. He made it easy for her to be gentle. His body trembled as if he longed for her. His mouth was hungry for her kiss. He arched up against her, as if craving more. His need was like a living creature, wild and aching for her touch.
Eyes closed, Ashra shivered. Only one other person had desired her as much.
And he was dead.
She forced her way through the memories of pale bodies tangled upon cool silk sheets. When her soul-sucking power leeched out, it found no opposition. Images of the human’s life rewound in a blaze of vivid sights, sounds, and sensations.
Ashra looked up at Tera, her smile little more than a barely perceptible curve of her lips. “He fancies himself the protector of the child of prophecy. Was she among those taken tonight?”
Tera nodded.
Ashra chuckled, the sound without humor. “It’s a pity her genetic heritage wasn’t sufficiently superior to prevent her from being culled.”
“There’s more. Go deep.”
She pushed past the blackness at the start of his memories, expecting deeper darkness. Instead, the colors shifted into shades of ochre and gray. Memories, older than his body, resided in his soul; memories of an Earth long since lost to them—a planet surrounded and nourished by water; images of tall buildings glistening beneath a benevolent sun, and of thriving cities filled with the bustle of humans; memories of quiet and intimate conversations beneath a silver moon, the same silver moon that now graced Malum Turris with its light, though a thousand years older and viewed only from beneath the protection of the dome.
She saw herself as he must have seen her, a much-younger icrathari, still hopeful for the future, never realizing that the Earth they had all known and loved was irretrievably lost. Had she ever looked that vulnerable? Had her smile ever been so beautiful, so filled with love as she looked upon—
“Rohkeus?” Oh, blessed Creator, was that stricken whisper her voice?
Ashra pulled back and stared at the human. Her mouth dropped open. Her heart pounded in her chest, its beat erratic. It couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t be—
She looked up at Tera. The other icrathari nodded.
Rohkeus’s soul reborn…in a human.
Ashra threw her head back and laughed, a despairing sound. Her prince, her love, reduced to a human? Her slender fingers coiled into fists. Her golden eyes glittering, she pushed away from him, though her body trembled from the loss of his warmth. No, the human was not Rohkeus; he could never be Rohkeus.
Steeling herself against the gasp of pain that escaped from his lips as the anesthetizing effect of her kiss faded, Ashra rose to her feet with sinuous grace. “He is not one of us. Not anymore.” Nothing had been more devastating than losing Rohkeus to a human assassin. To see his soul reborn in that contemptible and weak race was an insult to the person Rohkeus had been.
“Should we turn him into a vampire?” Tera asked.
“Kill him. Set Rohkeus’s soul free.”
Author:
Jade Kerrion
~~~
*Excerpt*
All around her, the sounds of baying wolves echoed in the night. Trees slapped her face as she ran, and she tripped more than once. She was crying now and mumbling to herself, terrified. She dared not look back, knowing that the wolves were pursuing her. She came out of the woods into a clearing leading to a tall hill. The howls came from all directions. Shadows flew through the woods in her peripheral vision, and Gabby cried out. She fell again, skinning her knee badly on a jagged rock. In her terrified state, she felt no pain, but continued as fast as she could and ran up the hill.
A snarl came from directly behind her, and she instinctively turned and cried out. A wolf was bearing down on her fast. She turned and raised a hand as the beast leapt at her with gleaming claws leading the way.
“NO!” Gabby cried.
To her amazement, the wolf changed form in mid-flight and turned into a naked man. He landed at her feet on all fours and snarled at her.
“Get away from me!” she screamed.
The naked man backed away from her warily, glancing down at his human hands with a look of confusion and shock. More wolves were coming out of the woods. They stopped when they saw the one who had turned into a human in the light of the full moon.
Gabby wasted no time considering her luck and ran as fast as she could up the hill.
“Gabriella Cross, stop!” Michael’s voice rose up over the howls.
Gabby could hardly see through her tears. She didn’t dare look back, knowing that she would find death closing in on her. She reached the top of the hill and ran across the flat expanse of rocky earth.
“Gabriella!” came the voice again.
The wolves were gaining on her.
She darted between two pines blocking her way, receiving many scrapes on her face and arms. Half blinded by tears and slapping branches, she stumbled out from between the trees and suddenly came to a steep cliff. She tried to stop, but her momentum was too great. With a terrified cry she fell forward over the cliff.
She frantically thrashed her arms as she fell to her death. Above, on the ledge, a mournful wolf cried out. The ground was coming up fast to crush her, and Gabby closed her eyes, not wanting to see her death.
Then. Suddenly. Gabriella was weightless.
Strong arms held her firmly. She opened her eyes to find a winged beast staring back at her.
Gabby passed out.
Author:
M.J. Lovestone
~~~
*Excerpt*
…He hadn’t let go of her hand. Energy flowed into her, and she lapped it like nectar.
“Ye must be Angus.” She swallowed back an inane desire to giggle like a maid. “Since we’re the only two with human form here, ye’d almost have to be.”
“Good guess.” His smile warmed his eyes. “Eletea and I have been here for a short time, and I was sent to guide you to the dragons’ council chamber.
Self-conscious, she tugged her hand from his grip. It would never do to skip blithely into the Dragon Council holding hands like a couple of schoolkids. What if Keene was there?
So what if he is?
It’s not as if he’s made even the slightest effort to find me these past hundred years.
Color splotched Angus’s face, and he glanced at his hand. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Didn’t realize—”
She didn’t bother telling him how difficult it was for her to sever their connection. Angus was stunning, but he’d been sent here by Ceridwen too. Which meant he lived much too close to home for her to consider smoothing her hands down that magnificent body and tangling them in all that wild, glorious hair.
“Which way?” She tossed a sunny smile his direction.
He smiled back shyly, and years fell away, making him look like a bashful boy, albeit a very hot one. “The way I came from.” He rolled his eyes. “Nothing like stating the obvious, huh? Anyway, we should get going, the dragons are waiting for us—and keeping Danne and Eletea from scratching each other’s eyes out.”
“The dragon who brought me here said something about that. Apparently, Eletea has a mate who’s cheering from the sidelines.”
Angus frowned. “He doesn’t want her dead, just—”
“Shuttling on a ball and chain between the bedroom and the kitchen,” Arianrhod cut in.
Angus tossed his head back and laughed. The sound was velvety, masculine, and it sparked a reaction deep inside her. She wanted him to be joyful, yet she sensed resignation within him and wondered about its source.
“What you said about Cavet—that’s Eletea’s mate—about nailed it.” Angus half bowed, a courtly, old-world gesture that made her smile. “This way. We probably shouldn’t—”
A cacophony of dragon shrieks and screams blew through his words, obliterating the last of them.
Arianrhod had begun walking in the indicated direction, but she stopped dead. “Holy godhead. What the fuck do you suppose that’s all about?”
“No idea, but it can’t be good.” He took off running, with her at his heels.
She readied magic, sensing she might need to kill something, and power was quicker than her bow. Besides, it’d be a neat trick to take down a dragon—even with a crossbow. Possible, but very difficult. Smoke billowed through the tunnel, making her eyes tear. Her lungs smarted from inhaling smoke, and she pitched into Angus’s back because she couldn’t see a thing in front of her…
Author:
Ann Gimpel
~~~
*Excerpt*
Beads of sweat broke out along my hairline. I wiped them away, tightened my ponytail, and ran faster along the dirt trail, jumping over exposed roots and ducking under low-hanging branches. Pine trees, firs, and alders turned my path into more of an obstacle course than a trail.
A twig snapped behind me.
I glanced back, but didn’t see anything. Probably just a raccoon.
My sneaker hit a root and my arms flew in front of me. I landed on my hands and knees, and slid down an incline. Rocks and branches dug into my skin until I crashed into a huckleberry bush.
I stood and dusted myself off. Blood dripped from my legs. I pulled twigs, dirt, and small rocks from the cuts.
“Nice work, Victoria,” I muttered to myself.
Sasha had said I shouldn’t have gone into the forest for my first jog. But having just moved to the beautiful Olympic Peninsula, I wasn’t about to join a club when I had the great outdoors. Birds chirped all around and a stream bubbled nearby. It was like the woods were telling me I’d made the right choice.
Another snap.
“Who’s there?” I sounded a lot braver than I felt. My heart thundered against my ribcage and I whipped my head around. My roommates had said the woods were safe, but I was also trusting people who had been strangers only a couple days earlier.
Why had I gone into the woods alone? Wasn’t that how half of all horror movies started? I thought of Sasha running on a treadmill, flirting with cute college guys. Maybe she was the smart one.
Footsteps.
“Hello?” I called.
Nothing. The birds had even stopped singing.
“Is anyone there?”
The footsteps came closer.
My pulse drummed in my ears. I fought to breathe normally.
A small gray and black wolf stepped out from behind the tree. He made eye contact with me.
I didn’t move a muscle, holding its gaze.
Author:
*Excerpt*
It’s time.
His father’s voice always sent a wave a panic through Harold. It carried a rich, stern power that could crush his confidence with a single word or a grunt. This time it was coupled with the cryptic message.
It’s time for what?
“I think I broke my arm,” Harold said.
That, he reasoned, might sway his father to ease up on the punishment for nearly smashing the basement door off its hinges. He was already hurt, wasn’t that enough? Besides, it wasn’t his fault. John chased him into the house. What choice did he have after shooting the kid in the eye?
It took a long minute for his father to stand up, and another minute to let go of the bed. He walked with the shuffle of the undead, teetering when he stopped at the bottom of the steps. In the eerie light, greasy gel reflected from the middle of his forehead.
“You hurt your arm, mmm? Your mother has endured so much more and you hurt your arm. Don’t make me come for you, Harold. You must come out on your own.”
He swayed a bit longer. When Harold didn’t move, he went to a work space near the foot of the beds and sat down. From Harold’s vantage point, he could barely see his mom. But the walls were in plain view. They were lined with shelves that contained glass boxes and wire cages, the kind that would contain pet snakes or parrots.
But nothing moved inside them.
“Take it in, son. This is your inheritance.”
Harold still feared his dad, but it was that moment he sensed something warm in his voice. It was as close to fatherly as it had ever been.
Your inheritance.
“What are you doing?” Harold asked.
“All of this, son, will change the world. It will change our concept of reality. It will unlock the doors behind which God hides. And it will all be yours.”
He paused for effect, letting the words sink their teeth into Harold. A smile appeared to soften his face. He popped open a tube and massaged his forehead with a new layer of gel.
“What… what did you do to Mom?”
“Don’t cry, son.”
“I’m not crying. What’s wrong with her?”
“This is all her vision. She discovered the true human potential. Now come here.”
The words dragged him from the corner. Harold’s arm was numb. He stood in front of his father like a specimen. Mom lay so still that he couldn’t be sure she was alive. He didn’t notice if her chest was rising and falling because there was something attached to her forehead. The cable seemed to be glued to it.
Her hand lay on the empty bed next to hers where his dad had risen, as if they were holding hands in their sleep. On a wrinkled sheet lay another cable, the one his father had removed from his head. It wasn’t magnetic or glued. The end of it was long and wet and pointed.
A needle.
Author:
~~~
*Excerpt*
“Thanks for understanding.” Dexx opened the door to Paige’s room, supper in a bag in his teeth, his left arm full of folders.
Brian followed him into the room carrying an over-filled case box. “To be honest, the fewer people who know how many rules I’m breaking right now, the better.”
“Right.” Dexx dumped the folders on the small table and stashed supper in a chair. He pulled the round table closer to the center of the room, then wiggled the crocheted Brian doily out from under the paperwork, setting it on the bureau. He took the bottle of sedatives out of his jacket pocket before draping it over the back of a floral canvased chair.
“How’s she doing?”
Dexx sat on the edge of the bed and checked her pulse. Not that he counted her heartbeats like someone who actually knew what the hell he was doing. Half of him checked to make sure it was still beating in the first place. The other saw to the sigil on her arm. Black ink, just the way he’d left her. Good. He popped the top off the orange drug bottle and poured two little blue diazepam pills into his palm.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Sure.” Dexx shoved the two pills down her throat, feeling her tongue work as she fought to swallow and throw up at the same time. “Hand me that water bottle?”
Brian touched the bottle to Dexx’s shoulder. “Tell me again why she’s not at the clinic.”
“You really want a demon-possessed person running rampage in the clinic? Trust me.” Dexx dribbled some of the water down her throat, watching her swallow. “Also, I’m fairly certain the good doctor would try to tell you that the dosage we’re giving her would kill her.”
“Will it?”
“Doubt it.”
“Doubt it?”
“Demon.”
“Right.”
Dexx stood, screwing the cap back on the water bottle. “Okay. Where do we start on the case?”
“Shouldn’t we wait for her?” Brian’s gaze stayed on Paige’s form.
“I need to see if she’s really in danger or if we have someone out there mucking with stuff they don’t understand.” God, he hoped it was just some moron.
“Okay.” The chief turned to the table. “What do you need to see?”
After an hour of studying the pictures, notes, and interviews, Dexx pushed away from the table with a headache.
Brian crossed his thick arms over his chest. “So what’s the verdict? Are we in danger?”
“Yes.”
“Is she in danger?”
He wished she wasn’t. “Yes.” Dexx sighed and let his hands fall. “I don’t know how they found out about her gift, but someone did. The murders, the inane symbols? They were the bait. I’ve seen these symbols before on a past case. I doubt the sacrifices did much of anything. Whoever is behind this killed those three people to lure her out. The mandala was a test.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t like it.
Author:
~~~~~
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