Hey, My name’s Carmella Hunter, Malina’s bestie? Remember me? The witch blood with barely any power? Yeah, that’s the one. Anyway, Debbie was kind enough to give me my own series. I guess if you sulk enough you can get anything. Okay, kidding. I didn’t sulk, I bribed her with sugary snacks and compliments, authors love compliments. Anyhoo, I’m super excited because the first book in my story is up for preorder, seriously I did not sleep a wink last night…well, okay I did sleep, but I was totally doing jumping jacks in my dream. I twisted Debbie’s arm and convinced her to post a longish excerpt here for you guys to enjoy. So…here you go, and you’re welcome 😉
Super cool excerpt…
Nights out sucked. When had that happened? When had I become the comfy pants and slippers woman? Nah, clubbing just didn’t do it for me anymore. The loud music, the flirting, the excessive drinking … no longer fun. Love the getting dressed up bit, but an hour into the night and my slippers would be calling. Heel clicks echoing down the deserted street, I picked up the pace. The last aerial tram would be leaving in fifteen minutes.
A scream ripped through the air, cut short too soon. I froze, the hairs on the back of my neck standing at attention despite the warm humid night. There it was again, desperate and raw from across the street—a pocket of shadow ideal for nefarious activity. Not my problem, so why was I running toward the scream rather than away from it?
A scuffle, a moan, and a whimper.
Hell no. I burst into the alley, heels scraping against stone. “Let her go.”
A woman turned to stare at me, her eyes flashing green in the gloom. Not a vamp, then. Not surprising in the July heat. Those entities possessed the dead, wearing them as meat suits. Heat and dead flesh was not a good combination. Nah, the vamps were probably all tucked up in their air conditioned homes. This beauty was a yaksha. And I should be backing the heck out of here … the beast-people were fast, strong, and flesh hungry, and way too many just didn’t give a shit about the Inter-Entity Pact, which prohibited their feeding on humans.
Pressed between her and the wall was a slender young man, glasses knocked askew on his frightened face.
“Help me …” He pleaded.
Okay, so not a damsel in distress but still. The woman slammed him against the wall, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
“Walk away.” Her voice deepened and her face rippled as the beast within pushed to be free.
Walking away sounded mighty good, but what kind of citizen would I be if I left the weedy man to get eaten? Injecting bravado into my voice I stood taller—using my four inch heels to advantage. “Look. Just drop him and go. We’ll say no more about it.”
She eyed me up and down. Closing her eyes she inhaled. Her lip curled. “Or what … human?”
Shit. She could smell my lack of magick. Great. I couldn’t even use my useless witch-blood status as a deterrent, because what good was a witch without magick?
“Look. You do this, you’ll get caught, and it’ll be The Pit for you.”
She released the guy, who slumped to the ground, unconscious. “The Pit?”
She sauntered toward me. Were those tears glistening on her cheeks?
“You know what,” she said, “ I’d gladly do time for beating the shit outta this lying piece of … shit.”
Ookay … maybe I’d gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick here. “Is he … your boyfriend?”
“Not anymore. Found out he was poking my friend. The furry bitch has it coming too.” She sniffed. “I thought he loved me.”
That weedy, scrawny looking guy slumped on the ground?
She studied my expression and pouted. “He was sweet to me. Didn’t mind the furry, or the fang. He was … nice.”
I’d never been good at keeping my thoughts off my face. Yaksha dating a human was just weird … like dating a hamburger, or a steak … or maybe a triple chocolate cake—way too tempting. But we all had some human in us … or at least our blood lines did. Hard to believe at one time there’d been no supernaturals, and our world only existed because a bunch of Shaitan had escaped from the underworld and procreated with humans. Those demons had been locked back up, but the evidence of their little foray into our world was now everywhere. One was standing before me, crying over a human who’d fucked her friend. Man, he had to be dense to cheat on a beast. Shouldn’t have been cheating full stop, but cheating on a yaksha … damn.
“I’m sorry. I really am. Being cheated on sucks, but you can’t beat him up, you know that, right? I mean you could kill him. Do you really want that?” Please don’t say yes.
The man on the ground groaned, his eyes fluttering, but it was the big bad yaksha who whimpered. Her hand going up to cover her mouth as silent tears streamed down her cheeks. Right now she wasn’t a monster, she wasn’t part wolf. She was just a woman who’d had her heart broken.
“Hey, look. How about we get him somewhere safe and then you and I can grab a cup of coffee.”
She blinked across at me. “Yeah?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
That had been me a few months ago, sobbing into my open palm, my heart in pieces.
“I’m Honey,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Carmella.”
We approached the semi-conscious guy and lifted him off the ground. His head lolled to the side.
“Danika,” he muttered.
Honey froze.
“Who’s Danika?”
Her lips tightened. “My ex-friend.”
Well sod this. I dropped the guy. “You like pie?”
Eeeeep! Hope you enjoyed that. I’ll see if I can get her to post another in a few days. Don’t forget to preorder. Just clickity click the image below…
