Dear Reader –
I wanted to share an excerpt from my new self-published book, Arcane
Kiss, the first in a paranormal romance series called TALENTS.
When his father is murdered, a military veteran becomes a target for terrorist sorcerers. Kurt Briggs
has a spirit link to a tiger Familiar that gives him superhuman abilities, but
he’s no match for the witch and her shape-shifting polar bear. He turns to
Arcanist witch Genevieve Reyes for help in fighting the killers’ spells.
As Genevieve and Kurt hunt the terrorists, shared
danger leads to shared desire. But they soon realize Kurt’s passion for Gen
weakens his control over his cat. The consequences could be deadly for them
both. Adding to the risk is Kurt’s memory of the way his mother turned her
magic against him. Will Gen, too, betray him?
Genevieve is attracted to Kurt’s animal
sensuality, but she knows she may be in as much danger from his tiger as the
terrorists.
Then they learn the terrorists plan to sacrifice
Kurt to power a horrific spell designed to decimate the U.S. government. Even
if the couple manages to stop them, the killers’ plot may trigger a witch hunt
that could mean the destruction of everyone with magical Talent – including Kurt and Genevieve.
The book is available for preorder from Amazon.com, with a release date of Jan.
29, 2017. It’s a full-length novel with a price of $4.99.The book will also be available at iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and ARe. I'm not currently planning a print version, though plans may change if it does well.
In this excerpt, Genevieve tries help Kurt regain control of his tiger after
the murder of his father. The other characters are friends of Kurt’s, Deputy
Jake Nolan and a Arcane Corps veteran named Dave Frost, who is trapped in the
body of a tiger.
Excerpt from Arcane Kiss
The
roar rolled out over the park, a shattered cry of fury and grief. It seemed to
stab right past Genevieve's twenty-first century intelligence to her inner
small mammal. She jolted to a stop -- and found herself staring at a sign
reading "BFS Educational Arena."
Spotting
an open gate through the octagonal fence, Gen ran through it. And stopped dead,
staring in sick horror.
Kurt
knelt beside a body lying crumpled in a pool of blood. Dave stood beside him,
his ears flat, his golden eyes too wide.
Oh, crap.
"You
bastards!" Kurt leaped to his feet, head thrown back, screaming into the
night, voice vibrating, sounding more animal than human, his magic
reverberating through the air around him. "I'm going to fuckin' kill
you!" His tiger manifested in a golden explosion, forming a glowing shell
of magic.
Ice
slid through Genevieve's blood. Arcane Corps brat that she was, she knew what
happened when they lost control.
Oh, God, he's going to kill somebody.
Gen
wasn't the only one who was freaked out. Dave tensed, though whether he was
going to run or do something to stop his friend, she had no idea. A blond man
in a Deadpool t-shirt stood on the other side of the cat, watching Kurt as
though he expected to be attacked.
There
was a gun in his hand.
Kurt
roared again, his tiger's rearing shell surrounding him, balanced weightlessly
on its hind legs in a way that would have been impossible for a flesh and blood
animal.
She
had to do something or that blond guy was going to have to kill him.
"Kurt!"
Even as she started toward him, Gen realized what a monumentally bad idea this
was. She kept going anyway. It was too easy to imagine how she'd feel if Dad
had been sacrificed in an Arcanist spell. "Kurt... I’m so sorry about your
dad."
"Lady,
what are you doing? Get back." The blond man's gaze flicked to her, and he
brought the gun up, aiming it at Kurt. He spoke in the dead flat tone of a man
whose world had exploded as he desperately tried to contain the fallout.
"Get out of here."
Dave
slunk toward her, his gaze on Kurt's. "Genevieve, get away. He's out of
control. He could hurt you."
"No,
he won't." Her gaze locked on Kurt, silhouetted against the blaze of his
manifestation. She reached out to him, using her own power to brush his aura.
His grief slammed into her consciousness in a battering wave. The impact of it
rocked her back on her heels. Pain. He's
in so much pain....
"Kurt's
tiger is dead," the blond man said in a carefully controlled voice.
"I think he's trapped in a feedback loop."
He was
talking about what happened during a major psychic trauma, when the Familiar's
emotions amplified the human's, which strengthened the Familiar's, which
strengthened the human's...On and on until the Feral lost all control. Ferals
caught in feedback loops had been known to kill their own teammates, even their
own families.
Oh, hell. We're screwed.
And
yet...Sometimes she could touch another's aura, reduce the pain, as she'd done
for Parvati. She might be able to help him too. There wasn't time to draw the
kind of intricate spell that would force him to calm down, but if she could
reduce his pain enough, he could regain control.
Of course, if it doesn't work, he may kill me.
Licking
dry lips, Genevieve moved slowly forward, sketching sigils in the air to focus
her magic on what she wanted to do. Extending her hands, she sent her aura
sliding over his in a gentle brush. "Kurt? I can help you if you’ll let
me. I can help you control it."
The
big man's eyes glowed from the burning mask of his tiger. The manifestation's
mouth opened, displaying mystical teeth that could rip into her skin every bit
as efficiently as the physical version. "Genevieve?" The voice
sounded inhuman, reverberating as it did with his power. "He's dead,
Genevieve. Dad's dead."
"I
know, Kurt."
"Lady,
back off!" Deadpool Shirt started toward her. Judging from the glow of his
eyes, he was a Feral too.
Kurt's
gaze whipped to him, hot and direct with aggression. He growled, the sound so
deep it was almost subsonic.
The
man swallowed, but kept coming, broad shoulders tensed to fight. "This is
that girl, Genevieve? The witch you like, right?"
"Mine!"
Kurt sprang, covering ten feet in an impossible leap as his magic drove his
human body forward. Genevieve yelped, startled. His arms snapped around her
like a trap clamping shut, and he jerked her against his side.
Gen
found herself looking out at the world through the glowing tiger mask. Crap!
In a
blur, Deadpool Shirt shifted his aim to follow his friend. "Kurt, stop.
Don't hurt her. Don't make me shoot you."
"No!"
Dave snapped, a rumbling growl rolling beneath the words. "Holster that
thing before you really set him off."
"I'm
not... Going to hurt her..." Kurt ground.
"Step
away!"
"No."
He bared his teeth, and the huge fangs of his manifestation echoed the
expression. "She's mine, Jake!"
"Kurt,
you don't even know her! That's your cat talking. Let her go!"
"It's
all right," Genevieve said, touching the powerful arm around her waist to
draw his attention. He felt like Michelangelo's David cast in heated steel.
Kurt
met her gaze, his face limned in the glow of his manifestation. She'd have
thought him handsome ordinarily, with those glowing tiger eyes and angular
warrior's face. But the mouth that should have looked sensual twisted in pain
and despair, and her heart ached for him. "No, it's not." He sounded
so inhuman, she felt a fresh spurt of fear. "It can't get any more not
'all right.'"
"It
can if you hurt her." The muzzle of Jake's pistol tracked him steadily,
but there was anguish in the Feral's eyes.
"Don't
threaten me. This is my place. She's mine." Kurt tensed, focusing on his
friend with the alien gaze of a cat on the edge of exploding into violence.
I've got to talk him down, or we're all screwed. "Look at me, Kurt." She looked up at him, curling her aura
against his, using it as a brake against the furious churn of his power.
"They're not going to hurt me, and neither are you."
He
stared at her, nothing at all human in those golden Feral eyes.
Thanks for reading this. I hope you'll enjoy it1
Best,
Angela Knight
