Blood is on the Horizon!

A few updates, as well as a sneak peek at the upcoming title BLOOD QUEEN, book three. Haven’t read the previous books see their sneak peeks in previous posts. Blood Crescent and Blood Rebirth.

Voted 2019 Best Indie Book top 20. Blood Crescent made it to number 18, and Blood Rebirth was number 9! How exciting! Click the picture to go check out Amy’s website! Thank you Amy and to all those who voted for the Divine Series.

Blood Queen is on the horizon!

I’d like to apologize to everyone who has been waiting impatiently patiently for the next book. Previously, I had planned on it being released already. However, being a new mom has delayed things more than I had anticipated. You go into it thinking, babies sleep a lot so I should have plenty of time to get things all together. Then you have a baby and realize that it’s not one lump sum of sleep, you’re on constant duty because their sleep patterns are all over the place, and they need to feed constantly. Who knew? Every parent ever, but they don’t warn you… oh no, they don’t warn you about this, because then the human race would go extinct, and there is a sick twisted part in every person that wishes the same fate on others because they too had to go through that fate.

Fast forward a few months and mom life is actually pretty great, even with the lack of sleep, but now I’m getting a rhythm down, and can squeeze in my writing time, editing time, and of course UPDATE time to chat with you all. Want to get exclusive sneak peeks, and monthly updates from me? Please sign up for my newsletter, and all the goodies are yours.

My goodies bring all the readers to the emails, and I’m like it’s got to be good. Damn right, it’s going to be good. I can show you, but you have to join! Yes, I brought back 2004 Milkshake and I swear I will have my child dancing to this song in the future too, it’s that entertaining.

Now, on to the sneak peek of BLOOD QUEEN.

CHAPTER ONE

Eat Your Heart Out

Brandy saw a vision of my death, I know she did. It’s why she pushed me away and treated me like an insect, didn’t want me to get close to her. Didn’t want to see me die. Or didn’t want to care when it happened. We were separated now, I knew that much, but if her diviner magic was right then I would be seeing her again soon enough. Though now I debated whether I wanted to face what horrors she saw in her visions.

“Part of the light… Part of the dark… balance… the moon… love…” I heard the words fade from my mind, and I tried to hang on to the memory of my mother as best I could. She was in more of a messed-up situation than I was. My mom was waiting for me to free her soul from being the Oracle, and find a talisman that would transfer her powers to the next oracle in succession. No pressure or anything. But that same talisman had the power to make me human again, so it’s not like there wasn’t something in it for me too.

It was only a few months ago that I was more worried about whether Victor was going to kiss me or not, changing our friendship forever. Now, Victor, at least who he used to be, was a distant memory along with the girl I once was.

I now knew my mom was alive, on the edge between life and death, trapped for her magic, and my dad wasn’t even human. From what I could gather, he purposefully had his memories removed so he could raise me away from the dangers of the supernatural world, but he was demon royalty and the shadows had been watching me whether he wanted them to or not.

Everyone had a plan for me, but this was my life, what was left of it anyway, and I was determined to figure out my own path.

***

Waves of popping white lava cascaded over my body, transporting me to an unknown world, deep within the Underrealm, layman’s terms… hell. I raced towards hell like a kitten to milk, jumping straight into a portal where I was supposed to find that talisman. I probably wouldn’t have done it, if I were alone, at least I didn’t think I would have.

The bubbles of clear gel liquid surrounding me distorted my vision, where I could barely see the tip of my own nose. I reached out to ground myself, but nothing was there. Doubling over, my stomach lurched in rolls through the confused state. I swallowed praying to keep what insides I had right where they were, inside.

I closed my eyes waiting for the feeling to pass, and I held myself because I was the only thing that was solid. The air was heavy and I knew I wasn’t alone anymore, if I was alone at all to begin with.

“Ughhh.” I felt my stomach squeeze and release before seeing a large dagger jutting mere centimeters from my eye.

Its sharp point blurred my vision.

It looked red, already colored by its last victim.

I wanted to back away, but the solid cocoon I found myself in prevented me. My arms, and legs immobilized.

It looked like no other weapon I had ever seen before. Moving from my eye down the solid mass in front of me it, cutting at the membrane that surrounded my vision. As it descended the tension around my body eased until it fell from me in chunks. I froze in place realizing it wasn’t a dagger that released me from the hardened rock I broke from.

A scorpion’s stinger unfurled from the slim waist of an attractive woman. She had dark eyes and her black hair shadowed them before she ran her fingers through the silken trundles. Her torso was bare and only molten lava rock shaped around her, a breast plate of armor that shined like black glass. A metallic taste filled my mouth at the realization that I found her in all regards alluring, but I knew something was terribly wrong with that thought process. She wasn’t normal, but neither was I anymore.

“I will not stay here longer than necessary. Finish the mission princess,” she scolded me as if we knew each other.

My mouth hung open and continued to stare at her. Who was she calling princess anyway?

A wry smile crossed her lips and she turned towards me. Her finger traced from my ear down my chin and lightly pushed my jaw shut.

Those dark eyes narrowed seductively before she spoke again, my chest tightened, “You surprise me.” Her smile broadened and she turned away from me with swaying hips that rocked from side to side and I remembered myself again as her stinger curled back around her. I shook my head and looked around expecting to see someone, anyone I knew, and sighed knowing I felt nobody around besides the heavy feeling of the woman in front of me and myself. I knew, before I even looked, that it was just us, but I looked around anyway.

What was wrong with a little bit of hope that Aislin would be right behind me, waiting to grab my hand and tell me this was all a dream. It’s time to wake up now Chrys, she would say, the space around me would fade to black like we were in the astral plane the whole time. I would sit up on the couch and see her smiling at me from the other cushion, her eyes would be contact free, her hair messy without a care in the world. We’d both be in sweats lounging around, without the fear of death around the corner. We’d both be home… and safe.

What I wouldn’t give to wake up and go to the Ballroom Arts Studio, dance, earn a paycheck, and drink a cup of coffee with Aislin grinning back at me while she interrogated me about boys. Boys… men really, older than the town I lived in. But so was my soul… technically.

The tall scorpion woman stood at the edge of a cliff looking out beyond the canyon. She was at least six-foot high, and she didn’t hunch over at all, she embraced her height, relishing the feeling of superiority at towering over her subjects. Because that’s what it felt like to be looked down upon by those eyes, a subject to be ruled over.

I took a quick look around once more finally realizing the predicament we were in. Aislin was nowhere to be seen, I knew she wasn’t there, I would have felt her. That’s all that mattered to me was finding her, I only just found her again. On the small ledge of rock on a mountainside looking out at a ravine so deep below us and so far above us that we seemed to be stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no means of going anywhere, we stood there unmoving. Scorpion Lord and the pauper against what, I didn’t know.

“I’d say we were lucky to have made it so close to the city, but luck had nothing to do with it,” she cooed, an arrogant smirk on her face.

Beyond the canyon was another cliff, far on the other side that looked to have a hidden town buried within the mountain. Only noticeable by the reflecting sun off the glass or metal buildings shinning in the distance.

Finally remembering what she said before, I found my voice, “What mission?”

She glared back at me obviously annoyed by my lack of understanding before she reluctantly answered, “Find the talisman moon princess. These are the trial grounds. They have a mind of their own, even I do not control their will. It thought to bring me here with you, so here I am…” She trailed off and rubbed her hands over her sides and along her hips, over top the lump of the scorpion segments, as if she caressed a lost lover. Closing her eyes, she savored the feel of her own body, and I didn’t know whether she was relishing her survival of the journey or if there was more to this display that I had to avert my gaze from seeing something too personal that made my cheeks flush.

“The trial grounds are as old as the astral plane herself, each realm has existed before even myself.” I didn’t know if she was talking to me or self-reflecting out into the vast distance between us and the nearest town on the other side of the mountain.

“Does this place follow the same rules as the astral plane?” I peered over the edge and felt my skin prickle at the idea of walking off it like I did the building top in Astral Society not that long ago. Traveling through astral space was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.

Arching a brow at me in a form of amusement she answered, “It’s been known to change the rules to its liking, but no, it resists being controlled. You will have to rely on your own gifts here.” She looked me up and down like I was some kind of meat she was deciding if I was worth eating or leaving.

“I’m not tasty, if you’re thinking of eating me.”

She laughed. “You would certainly be unsatisfying in your current state. I have no intention of eating you.” Her eyes lowered at me. “I have no need for you outside the prophesy of finding the talisman. It says nothing of me having to keep you after that.”

I gasped feeling mortality ripple away from my greedy hands. I had to find the talisman, but what of when I actually found it? I didn’t think that far, and what use was I once it was found? How much time would I have with it before someone else took it? What was the prophesy people kept talking about anyway? I pressed my lips together not wanting to find the talisman while she was with me, after all, she had no use for me once it was found.

She noticed the stiffness in my spine and smiled. “It doesn’t say I should keep you, but it didn’t say you weren’t needed either. I’ll wait until my queen is found before I decide what to do with you.”

Her words struck a chord with me, resonating the same way the demon Marcus said the same words to me, release my queen, he had said, restore the balance.

“Marcus…” I let his name slip from my lips. Her eyes narrowed menacingly at me.

“You will not address me so informally.” Her button nose wrinkled in disgust that I would even dare say his name. I repeated her words in my mind, address me, and my eyes widened in response.

“But you’re…” My tongue caught in my cheek unable to complete my thought out loud. She couldn’t be, could she? But she was… a she? Most definitely a female.

“I am all forms,” she scoffed at me like I was an insect disparaging her current ‘form’.

I was beyond shocked, but not because of her female form, but because her eyes looked so much softer now than they were the first time I saw her as male. His eyes were terrifying, and the intensity in them bore deep into my soul like I was a mission to be conquered, and what he would do with me was mysterious, unknown, and dark. Stepping back, I noticed that same look creep into her eyes. I believed her, she was the Marquis of the Underrealm. I rolled my shoulders trying to control the shiver of fear that look inspired in me. She couldn’t know how much she frightened me, but somehow the smirk on her face relayed she already knew.

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