An excerpt from my new book, Arcane Kiss

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

Paladin's Out!

 My first self-published ebook, Paladin, Book 1 of the Graven Gods series, is in stores.

Barnes and Noble Amazon Kobo ARe

The only constant in Summer St. Clare's life is Paladin, the fictional hero who's becoming more real with every kiss.

Struggling novelist Summer St. Clare can't remember her murdered mother's face, or most of her childhood before the age of twelve. The only constant in her life is Paladin, once her imaginary childhood friend, now the handsome detective of her urban fantasy series.

There's nothing imaginary about Paladin now. Hot, seductive and dangerous, Paladin blurs the line between fantasy and reality. The passion Summer experiences in his arms makes her question what's real -- or whether she cares.

Someone else believes in Paladin, and he wants Summer dead. Her confusion mounts when she fights off five attackers with a display of dazzling martial arts skills she doesn't remember acquiring. As she searches for answers and runs for her life, her dream lover becomes more real with every kiss.

Excerpt:

It was dark when I stepped out of the shop, purse flung over my shoulder, Calliope ghosting along at my heels like a fluffy shadow. “All things considered, it wasn’t that bad a day,” I told her as I led the way toward the Kia I’d left parked out in the middle of the lot, leaving nearer spots for the customers. Some of the older ladies find it painful to walk very far. “I got twenty pages written, and nobody cleaned out the shop while I was catatonic.”

Calliope opened her mouth to meow, then froze, her blue eyes going round in alarm. Hissing, she crouched, ears flattening as her tail bushed. I frowned down at her, which is why I didn’t immediately notice the shitstorm about to break on my hapless head.

“All right bitch, hand over the purse and maybe we won’t beat you to death.”

I jerked my head up, my heart diving for my sneakers as I realized I should’ve listened to Mary and bought a gun.

Make that an AK-47.

Five men ringed me in the darkness, eyes hard over nasty smiles, looking like the chorus line of America’s Most Wanted.

Oh fuck, oh fuckfuckfuckfuck!

Panicked, I looked around at them. Should I run? They were all tall, muscular, and fit enough to do some damage. Shit, they’ll be on me before I make it five feet.

“Valak, you bastard,” Paladin raged in the back of my skull. “I’m going to feed you your own forked dick for this.” I don’t know what the fuck my back brain thought he could do -- or why he needed to do it to another figment of my imagination.

“I… I…” I stuttered.

A hiss of feline rage sounded. Calliope planted herself in front of me, every black hair standing out, her tail bushed and back arched. My imagination served up an image of somebody’s foot sending her flying like a soccer ball. Frantic, I pounced on her, scooped her up, and spun to run. “Help! Help me! I’m being robbed!”

I might as well have saved my breath.

“Oh no, you don’t, bitch!” A hard hand clamped onto my shoulder and spun me around. I dropped the cat as my captor drew back a fist, cruelty in his cold eyes.

“Summer, listen,” Paladin said, his mental voice urgent. “You’re going to have to fight, baby. I can’t help you. The spell won’t let me take over when you’re conscious.”

“What spell? What the fuck do I do?” My frenzied mind raced back and forth like a squirrel in the headlights of an eighteen-wheeler. “I don’t know what to do!”

“Your body knows, Summer. Just let go. We’ve spent your whole life building muscle memory. It can save you if…”

“Give us what we want.” The thug’s vicious stare gleamed with nasty anticipation. “Maybe we won’t…”

I whipped around and kicked his feet out from under him, then slammed my fist into his mouth before he even hit the ground.

For a heartbeat, I stared down at the dazed and bleeding dickhead. “What the fuck just happened? Did I do that?”

“You sure did!” Paladin crowed. “That’s my girl! Told you it would work!”

“Bitch, the hell?” Dickhead snarled up at me through bloody teeth and started to roll to his feet.

Instinct drove me to stomp on his groin. He shrieked and curled around himself like a cooked shrimp.

“Cunt!” The second guy swung a fist decorated with prison tatts.

I pivoted aside, grabbed the back of Tattboy’s head, and slammed his face down into my lifted knee in the same move Paladin had used the night before. Blood flew.

I dropped him on the sidewalk. For such a big guy, he didn’t seem to weigh much.

“You don’t know your own strength. Don’t hold back. Let the bastards have it.”

Swearing, a muscular redhead charged. The world reeled as my spinning kick plowed into his gut. He gagged, doubling over. I nailed Red with an uppercut that laid him out on his back. It felt weird, as if I was watching the fight from a distance.

Three attackers lay bleeding on the ground now, barely conscious from blows I didn’t even know how to deliver. Yet my body kept right on kicking every ass that came in view.

Someone was screaming. Out of the corner of one eye, I saw a fourth man on the ground, howling, Calliope shredding his face with her claws.

“What the fuck? Cats don’t do that!”

“Calliope does!” Paladin cheered. “Get ‘em, Cal!”

The fifth guy grabbed my arm, jerking me around and swinging at my face. My left arm shot up, blocking the punch as my right plowed into his jaw, which crunched like a piñata. “Eeeeewwww!” I stared down at him as he sprawled at my feet. “Oh, Jesus, did I just kill that guy?”

“Just a fractured jaw,” Paladin assured me.

“How would you know, Dr. Fictional?”

“Okay, whore, you’re going to pay for that.” Dickhead was up again. Something metallic flashed as he dove at me.

I pivoted, grabbed his knife hand, and swung him face first into the shop wall. Dickhead hit the bricks hard enough to bounce.

Behind me, I heard the creak of a car door opening. A voice snarled, “Oh no you don’t, you little whore.”

I whirled. Out in the parking lot, a man emerged from a black SUV, a rifle in his hands. From twenty feet away he raised the weapon and took aim with the cool skill of a marksman.

My blood turned to sleet in my veins. Dead. I’m so dead!

I hope you'll take a look!

Best, 

Angela Knight