From Rift (Wolven Tales/draft):

The vehicles parked in the drive and at the curb in front of my home made it clear who was waiting for us inside: Tee’s parents, mine, Billy and our pack leader.

“It be all right,” Tee said while parking the borrowed car. The words weren’t enough as the enormity of what I’d done – we’d done – finally struck home in my mind.
I’d disobeyed my parents for the first time. Had ignored their decision and the agreement they’d made with Billy on my behalf.

We were in so much trouble.

No one came out, though they all had to have heard the car pulling in. Tee opened the front door to lead the way inside. Fear seemed to grab hold of my throat, making it difficult to breathe as we paused in the living room and all six stared at us.

Our pack leader gave no one else the chance to speak first. “Explain.”

From Hunter’s Edge (After the Fall/draft):

“I’m a pretty, pretty unicorn prancing on my way. A pretty, pretty unicorn enjoying a new daaay!”

Trissk scrubbed both hands over his face as Mary finally ended the song she’d created for herself. He wished he’d chosen another name for the ship, instead of selecting one from Linzi’s fantasy creatures she’d described to him when they were both kits. “Very nice. Status report?”

“All’s quiet on the western front, general. Sir!” she reported. “So, Fuzzy, you excited? We’re almost there.”

“We’re still two and a half hours out, Mary. I’m going to take a short rest.” They’d made the trip in record time for a Carrier class ship; Trissk had gone without sleep for two days, too busy anticipating seeing Linzi again. In the flesh; not on recorded messages. That had been a mistake because he was now so tired, he was afraid of falling asleep the moment he set foot on the station.

“Yeah, you do that. I’ll wake you in two hours, and you can take a shower. Hate to tell you this, Boss, but that ‘fuzzy’ crack? Your fur’s in some saaaad shape,” Mary told him. Rolling his eyes, Trissk made a mental note to ask Linzi to check the AI’s code. She was beginning to rub his fur the wrong way.

“I’ll do that,” he replied.

“Good. You want to look your best for her, right? Right. Because you’re in looove with the girl. Hey, are you going to kiss her the second you can get a grip on her? Because if you’re going to, can I watch?”

“No!” Trissk called over a shoulder while leaving the command cabin. He grinned as the AI’s voice followed him.

“No? No, I can’t watch, or no, you’re not going to kiss her? Boss? Hey!”

Chuffing, the young Katarr entered his onboard quarters and fell face down on the bunk. His tail waved briefly before falling limp.

Dark Dawn (Moon Children/draft):

The truck was twenty yards away when the awareness of a Moon Child filled my senses. Turning, I wondered why Rance would be riding with a stranger while it began slowing to a halt. The sunlight sparked off the front windshield, preventing a view of the interior. Once it halted, all four doors opened and my world shattered.

“Hello, Chelsea. It’s time to come home,” Malachi told me with a nasty smile.

Shocked, it was only the sudden surge of terror that prodded me into motion. Spinning, I began running for town. If I could reach town, Rance would be there. He’d sworn he wouldn’t let them take me; not from him, nor from Will. I had to reach him.

The snow and panic worked in tandem against me. I went sprawling face down as a heavy body slammed into me; Caleb’s scent filled my lungs as he flung me over. Panting, he mashed his mouth to mine, counting on the craving to subdue me.

I wasn’t sure who was more surprised when it didn’t work; him or me. The craving, which I felt constantly around Rance, and had once felt constantly around them, failed to surface at Caleb’s taste or touch. I continued fighting, snapping my teeth closed on his tongue as he forced it into my mouth, tasting blood as he yelped in pain.
He was flung aside and I scrambled, trying to regain my feet so that I could run again. A fist struck the side of my head and I fell before I was half way up, dazed and blinking. Malachi bent, grabbing hold of me, then heaved me to his shoulder.

“She bit me!” Caleb cuffed my ear. “You bit me, you little bitch.”

“Enough. We need to get her into the truck before someone comes along,” Malachi ordered. Hearing the words, I went wild; striking out with both hands at Caleb as talons erupted from my fingers. I kicked out at the same time, back arching, hoping to force Malachi into dropping me.

Once in the truck, I’d be at their mercy – and they had none.

“Chelsea, don’t make me hurt you,” Malachi growled, pinning my legs to his chest by throwing an arm around them just above my knees.

“She needs to be punished,” Caleb snarled as I levered myself up, talons shredding the parka covering Malachi’s back. The last thing I saw was his fist speeding towards my face.

Feral Intensity v2: Prologue -

A yelp of pain escaped when his fist smashed into my face. Knees hitting the ground, I caught a heavy blow to the temple and collapsed face down.

My arms were yanked back and wrists cuffed.

Man, Maureen’s going to be pissed in the morning. Fortunately, my hair hid the spreading grin.

Maureen’s my Girl Friday and best friend. She thinks I work too much and has made it a personal mission to regularly drag me out to clubs for fun. Her order is always the same: Leave work at the office and relax, Shady.

Tonight, I’d failed more spectacularly than usual, but the consolation prize was the shocked expression she’d worn, watching me leave with him. Maureen, or Reen as I call her, has an unhealthy interest in my sex life.

Okay, my lack of one.

My attacker began dragging me up the steps of an old farmhouse. His name was Charles Watson; Number Five on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, due to his hobby of rape and murder. The last count I’d seen put the number of victims at twenty-seven. He had stuck to his M.O., which was a club pick up and a drive out to a secluded location.

Too bad I was his choice for tonight’s menu.

Read more »

Let’s start with my personal definitions of each, be they wrong or right:

• Paranormal – Ghosts, spirits and psychic phenomena.
• Supernatural – Demons, angels, miracles, unexplainable by science religiously related stuff.
• Preternatural – Vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters and other not human sort of critters.

Because those have been my personal definitions of the above, I was a little surprised when I noticed that some readers who’d purchased Dark Cravings from Amazon had tagged it as a paranormal romance.

My reaction was pretty much ‘Huh?’

I mean, there are werewolves and vampires in it, not haunted houses or psychics.

So I sort of checked around and discovered that pretty much any book with any non-human type characters that have a romance as part of the story are categorized as paranormal romance.

I thought ‘okay, I guess’ and went about my merry way.

But there are weird things that strike me as stuff to muse upon, and so I’ve mused over that for a few months now.

I would personally term Dark Cravings as more of a dark urban fantasy. The existence of vampires and werewolves isn’t common knowledge, hence the urban bit. The main character has had some pretty awful events occur in her life due to certain werewolfish circumstances, and the vampires aren’t your average suavely debonair types, which is where the ‘dark’ bit comes in.

There is a romance in there, yeah. But it’s not what I would personally describe as a paranormal romance.

Read more »

The word count for Arcane Solutions has risen to 48, 090. It’ll reach the 50k goal today! Yay!

Hopefully, it’ll be finished before the end of the month. Bad news is that once that 50k goal is passed, I have to do some re-writes in order to finish it. So NaNo will end for me today, and I won’t be updating the word count on it on my profile there.

Plan is to have it as polished as I can get it and send it for editing. After that’s finished, I plan to format it, design the cover and publish it.

It’ll be my first NaNo novel to go through those steps! Woohoo!

The publishing part probably won’t happen until after the first of the year, so if you’ve been checking the excerpts out and like what you’ve seen, stay tuned for information about when, where and how much the cover price will be.

Progress has been good! Arcane Solutions has a word count of 41, 060 right now.

Excerpt:

 

“Look, just because the boss thinks…” I was interrupted.

“You really had both legs broken three weeks ago?” The shifter grinned when I began sputtering in reaction. “What was it? Oh, I remember: you were pushed off a roof.”

My face grew hot. “Shut up.”

“I’m curious. Why didn’t you use your telekinesis to…”

My turn to interrupt while whipping the car out into traffic. “It’s kind of hard to concentrate when you’re falling, okay?”

“How many stories was it?” Nick winced as I hit the brakes to keep from rear ending the car in front of us. Yanking the wheel, I passed it. “Can I drive?”

“Fifteen and no.” I’d been lucky my legs were all that had been broken, panicked as I’d been. “I wasn’t trying to use my telekinesis.”

“Watch it! Oh god.” I glanced at him, upper lip curling a bit at the sight of a shifter cowering in my passenger seat. Nick scowled. “Would you watch the damn road?”

“Wuss. I could drive blind-folded. Want to see?” A grin spread as panic bloomed over his face.

“No! There’s…shit! Can I please drive?”

“I already answered that question. It was a ‘no’. Your turn: any vampire enemies?”

“I’m a shifter, what do you think?” Nick grabbed the dash, still scowling.

“Names?” I persisted, making a sharp left that jerked him into the door. We were nearing an entry point for the underground city section known as the Barrows, so I began searching for a parking spot on the car-lined street.

“No one you need to worry about. Are we stopping? Because I think I need to throw up. Has anyone ever told you that your driving skills suck?”

“Yeah, and I’ll tell you what I told them: kiss my ass.” Spotting an open spot, I slowed down.

The shifter recovered quickly. “Ooh, can I?”