.png)
Teaser Tuesday & A #Free Book!
Teaser Tuesday!
It’s Tuesday! I feel like sharing a teaser from Dark Spirits. It’s the second book in my Beyond the Eyes trilogy. Btw, the first book (Beyond the Eyes) is FREE! The links to where to grab your free copy are at the end of this teaser.
Happy Reading!
Dark Spirits
Genre: YA Paranormal Romance Fantasy
Excerpt:
A tall pale-haired man who looked of Nordic descent seemed to materialize between the trees. The backdrop of the pitch black forest behind him gave the illusion of him being an imposing force not to be reckoned with, like a Viking god straight from Valhalla.
He stood there and fixed his ice blue eyes on mine. For a second they glowed like flames peering out of a bone-white skull. There was no doubt in my mind. It was Volac. Brayden stepped away. I bowed my head and slowly shook it, the corner of my mouth pulled down in disgust. What a yellow-bellied, worthless piece-of-shit. If Tree were here, he wouldn’t have tucked tailed and left my side. Then something sparked my intuition, some kind of connection between Brayden and Anwar. But I lost it when Volac’s feet shifted. I drew myself up, my survival instincts kicking in. My brain automatically assessed Volac’s vulnerable areas: his windpipe. I could grab it around his visible Adam’s apple and squeeze the larynx, and then strike a blow across it with the edge of my hand. His knees and chest were another vulnerable areas. Hell, his whole damned body was an open season.
“You didn’t think I’d come here without reinforcements?” he said, his thin lips twisting into a smirk. He stuck his index fingers in his mouth and blew a high-pitched whistle.
I knew my mind was the primary weapon in a combat situation. So I stood there in a perfectly balanced stance, prepared to utilize all my strength.
I listened.
In the far distance were heavy footfalls, behind and in front of me, deep in the forest. Ameerah was calling my name, fear and desperation strangling her voice. As they gained on us, the ringing in my ears elevated to a squeal.
I looked around, assessing the situation.
Like a ghostly apparition, Anwar disappeared, and I found myself questioning whether I had actually seen him or not. Brayden stood on the other side of the truck in a fighting position, like a boxer in a ring, minus the raised fists, his head jerking about.
Then they emerged, shadows growing pulses beneath the pale moonlight. All six of them were males, and the seventh was Ameerah. Three of them surfaced from the forest in front of me with Ameerah. The other three stepped out on Brayden’s side.
Volac made an abrupt whistling sound and raised his palm, halting them. He motioned to the ones behind him to join his side. They moved at his command and stopped when they reached him. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they formed a line in front of me. The brown-haired man at the end with the wind tunneled hairdo and Polo shirt had Ameerah’s hands behind her back in his tight grip. When my eyes connected with hers, she mouthed, “I’m sorry.” At this point, I didn’t know what to think.
Did she set us up? I wondered.
I could feel Volac’s eyes pressing on my face and met them with a defiance a caged tiger would have toward his captor.
“Thanks to Ameerah,” he said as if he were presenting her the medal of valor, “we were able to follow her and observe your little rendezvous from afar. Of cour–”
“I didn’t know, Nathan. I swear.” Ameerah shook her head, her voice pleading.
Although Volac’s stone face twisted in agitation from her interruption, he nodded in agreement. “She didn’t know,” he confirmed, then rubbed his chin, contemplating something. I shot a glance at Ameerah. She was looking at the man behind her. She jerked her arms back, trying to break free from his grasp, cursing at him in Latin in a high whisper. “But I had a feeling she was up to no good when she’d sought me out, only to pluck answers from me about Paige.” He laid a hand on his heart and feigned devastation. “I was quite crushed when her arrival on my doorstep was for purely selfish reasons. I thought I meant more to her than an immortal girl who has the ability to imprison our kind.
“And then riding on my suspicion regarding the nature of Ameerah’s visit, I sent my bloodhounds and myself out tonight to follow her trail.” He paused and leaned over to frown at Ameerah. “I’m disappointed in you, consorting with the enemy.”
“You’re wrong about them,” Ameerah said. “They’re more against what the ‘old one’ plans to do than you are.”
“I doubt it. Stupid girl.” He turned to me, his eyes boring into mine. I could have easily ripped his throat out right then, but something in me told me to wait. However, if he came any closer, I knew I would because nobody was going to get near Paige. “We didn’t hear what was said between you three. However, we did observe some sort of ritual you performed.” He placed his palms together and slowly rotated his hands. “And interestingly enough, it snatched consciousness away from Paige. So you might have done me a favor because she may never return.”
“What?!” Brayden said, appalled. “Is that what happened to her?” He had an accusing pissed off tone to his voice aimed directly at me, wordlessly saying this would have never happened if she’d been with him.
A blaze of anger roared through me. He didn’t realize what Volac was doing, yet he implied Paige would be safer with him! I could feel the heat in my ears and hear the uncomfortable shifting of the group in front of me. I looked at each one individually, and I don’t know what they saw in my eyes, but they all flinched, and their hearts were racing.
“He didn’t know that would happen to her,” Ameerah spat at Brayden, coming to my defense. “And Paige wanted to.”
“Bullshit!” Brayden hollered. “If he wasn’t so obsessed with getting revenge on Aosoth, he would have paid more attention to Paige and figured out what she can and can’t do”–I whipped my head around, just in time to see him jerk a finger at me– “this would have never happened!”
Chaos erupted.
Brayden was now in my face, and Volac was laughing. I shoved Brayden aside and right when I lunged for Volac’s throat, Anwar appeared behind him and dragged him away from me. I didn’t have time to wonder what Anwar was doing because the dark spirits on the other side of the truck were trying to get inside it. One of them had hold of the door handle, trying to force it open. He looked like a vampire wannabe with jet black hair and a white painted face. Another one was standing on the hood, aiming his biker boot at the windshield directly in front of Paige. An image of it breaking, spraying shards of glass on her, infuriated me. I snatched his raised foot and twisted it. He howled when the bones snapped and fell on his back, his head smacking the hood with a loud thunk.
Agonizing wails echoed around me. At the edge of my vision, I saw Brayden casting the spirit out of the preppy-looking male who had Ameerah. The man on the hood kept gasping for air. I elbowed him in the gut. He raised his shoulders off the hood in response, half-sitting. His arm flung across his stomach and he curled to his side. I flipped him on his back and placed my palm on his forehead and said a quick incantation. He didn’t have enough air in his lungs to scream, and I could hear his heart sputtering. This soulless human was dying, and all I could think about in those few seconds was good, one less vessel to occupy. I felt the dark spirit leave, and the human died. I leaped on the hood, picked him up, and dropped him on the male still trying to get inside the truck.
“Brayden, behind you!” Anwar yelled.
I didn’t bother looking because I was on a mission to send those dark spirits to an agonizing hell similar to Aosoth’s. I flipped into the air and landed beside the man struggling to push the human off him. I lifted the body by the head and torso and tossed it into the forest. It smashed against a tree and fell to the ground in a heap.
“No. Please,” he begged, scrambling to his knees.
I felt movement behind me. My arm flicked out, my hand encircling a scrawny neck. I swung my arm back around with a handful of throat. I came face to face with a lanky teenager with dark helmet hair. His brown eyes were wide with panic. He grasped at my fingers in a desperate attempt to release my death grip. Slowly, I squeezed his larynx, and then he made the foolhardy mistake of trying to kick me in the groin. I blocked his kick with my knee and crushed his windpipe with a quick pinch of my fingers. Without thought, I tossed him in the forest as well.
Flick.
A sharp, searing pain ripped up my shin. I looked down at the idiot still on his knees, but now he held a switchblade. In one swift move, I kicked it out of his hand, grabbed him by his black T-shirt and slammed him on the ground.
“Please. Please. No . . . I’m sorry.”
I smacked my palm on his forehead, feeling the blood sticking to my jeans. Someone was screaming. Ameerah?
“I’ll tell you about the ‘old one.’ Just don’t cast me out.” He started to weep.
I paused. “What about the ‘old one’?”
“He’s in town, but he’s waiting.”
I leaned closer to him, my face inches from his. I could smell the fear and marijuana leaking out of his pores–a salty-sweet, pungent skunk smell. “Waiting for what?”
He sucked in a wet sob. “I . . . I. . . . don’t know.”
On that note, I began chanting. He writhed under my grip, screeching until his spirit vacated the body. In the same manner as the other two, I tossed him near their bodies. I noticed Brayden had Ameerah pinned to a tree with his hand clamped around her neck. He raised his other hand. I could hear Ameerah whimpering. In a flash, I hurled Brayden from her. He flew across the road into a ditch.
“Get out of here,” I said to Ameerah.
Her hand fluttered to her throat, her violet eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry. I don’t know when I’ll see you two again.”
“I understand,” I said, watching Brayden roll onto his side and rise to his feet. “But you need to get out of here.” Without another word, she turned and disappeared into the trees.
“You mother–” Brayden took off, heading straight for me, a tracer streaking across the street.
“Stop, Brayden!” Anwar commanded. Out of nowhere, he appeared in front of me, right when I was about to get some sweet justice. To my surprise, Brayden stopped. “Go home.”
The red in Brayden’s face deepened, and his hands balled into fists. He glanced at the truck. “What about Paige?”
Anwar laid his hands on Brayden’s shoulders. “Nathaniel will take care of Paige.”
“What?” Brayden seethed through gritted teeth, the muscles in his jaw flexing.
I couldn’t see Anwar’s face, but his fingers were pinching Brayden’s shoulders. Brayden closed his eyes, his chest heaving.
“Go home,” Anwar told him again. Brayden opened his eyes and stared at Anwar for a long moment. Something silent was spoken between them because Brayden’s green eyes yielded to whatever it was. And then he took off down the road, vanishing.
Get the first book (Beyond the Eyes) FREE hereÃ
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/178oQFt
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/168857
Grab your Dark Spirits copy hereÃ
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1zETWLi
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/286383
Cheers!
