Hailey Edwards's Blog, page 72
November 2, 2011
Enter to WIN an iPad2 to Celebrate Samhain Publishing's 6th Anniversary!
Celebrate Six Years of of Samhain!
At Samhain Publshing, we're proud of the readers and authors who have helped us offer the best in original ebook fiction year after year. Join our celebration by entering our drawing to WIN an iPad2!
If you're not already a newsletter subscriber, sign up for our newsletterhttp://eepurl.com/euszI for automatic entry.
If you're already receiving our newsletter, then relax! You've been automatically entered once in our drawing. Want to double your chances? Then just email us contest@samhainpublishing.com with the word "iPad2 Anniversary Giveaway" in the subject line!
Winners will be announced on November 15, so enter now to win!
November 1, 2011
Evermine – Review ARCs! Want One?
I'll be sending review ARCs for Evermine out sometime in December. If you have a review blog, and/or you post reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, etc, and would be interested in being added to the list for Evermine, then use my contact form here.
Here is the blurb:
He can be a slave to his past…or allow her love to free him.
There's such a thing as too much change. Emma's sister is mated. Revolution is brewing in her home realm. The last straw: her would-be mate is back from the dead and back under her skin—yet when it comes to the last five years, he's not talking.
Desperate for a chance to start her own life, she answers the queen's call to ensure equality for all of Askara's newly freed slaves. It's the perfect opportunity to escape a heartbreak in the making named Harper.
Harper loses a piece of his fractured soul when Emma walks away. His lies were meant to protect her from torturous years that drove him to the point of madness. Instead, when he comes to her a year later to help avert a crisis in a freed-slave community, the wedge those lies drove between them is firmly in place.
As their new lives collide with old wounds, they race to stop a threat that could not only destroy the queen, but send Harper back to the hell he escaped. Emma must decide if the man she still loves deserves equal rights to her heart.
Warning: This title contains torn pants, ripped gowns, and sand in uncomfortable places. It also includes one overcompensating villain, one gnarly priest, and two battered hearts willing to give this thing called love one last chance.
And here is an excerpt:
Earthen Realm, Dempsey Colony
Country music warbled through a battered radio on the shelf behind me. I glanced through the cutout between my kitchen and the dining area, but none of my customers seemed to mind hearing about heartaches and hound dogs, so I let it lie.
"Maddie," I yelled. "Order up."
My sister finished marking her notepad, then made a beeline for me.
"You're still coming over tonight, right?" She plucked napkins from a leaning stack and took the plates from my hands. "I've got popcorn, movies galore and China King on speed dial."
"Sounds like heaven." And I meant every word. Our girls' nights came less often these days. Maddie wouldn't be free if her mate, Clayton Delaney, hadn't gone off realm, to Askara.
Clayton worked with the freeborn legion, the demon equivalent to the Red Cross. Before Maddie, he'd traveled between this realm and the next often, bringing supplies and medical care to those in need. Now he was content to let others go in his stead, which suited her just fine.
I wasn't sure what had tempted him off realm this time, and Maddie's lips were sealed. Huffing bangs from my eyes, I ignored the envious twinge in my chest. Even Clayton's brother, Harper, wouldn't spill any of the details. I frowned. Actually, I couldn't find him to ask.
"Good deal," she said. "I was hoping we could—"
A metallic screech sliced open my ears as the diner trembled.
I braced on the counter. "What the hell was that?"
"Madelyn," a masculine voice, raw with pain, roared down the short hall.
"Oh God." Maddie's eyes rounded at whatever she saw. The plates she held wobbled, sliding down her arm to shatter as they hit the floor. She ran for all she was worth, past me.
"Marci," I called for my managing waitress. My apron tangled. I gave up, ripping the neck strap while tugging it over my head. I tossed it to her and made eye contact. "Cover for me."
"Is something wrong?" She touched my shoulder, but I shrugged her off.
"Don't know yet." I sprinted down the hall and out the rear exit, skittering through gravel. Sunlight cost me my vision long enough I heard my sister's pained cry before I saw her.
Maddie knelt beside Clayton, who sagged against the brick wall opposite the door he'd torn from its hinges to reach my sister. Her pale hands were stained red, and his right wing hung from his shoulder in tatters. Blood pooled at his hip. His black eyes shone with feral intensity, but each stroke of her hand down his cheek lulled his heaving chest into a more even rhythm.
The glamour he wore to appear human had failed. He was operating in full demon mode.
Lucky for us, the gateway between realms stood nearby, and our small colony touched its border. Otherwise, we'd be in for trouble. Evanti demons weren't what I'd call inconspicuous. They were black-skinned, with matching hair and eyes. The only touches of color on them were their massive carmine-colored wings. Unless aroused, then their dark eyes rimmed with silver.
The way Clayton's eyes shined for Maddie left few of his intentions to my imagination.
I turned before I saw the stuff of nightmares—my sister and demon-in-law making out.
"He needs Doc River," a harsh voice grated to my right. "Not sexual healing."
Dillon, another Evanti demon, stood at my elbow. A wide gash split open his face, made the cheek beneath his bicolored eyes swell. His glamour was intact, as always. I sometimes wondered if even he knew how his natural form looked. Sometimes I forgot he wasn't human.
That was the point. All Evanti used glamour here. They had to.
Earth might be our salvation, but none of us were fool enough to think humans, en masse, would welcome the knowledge that escaped slaves, winged demons from another realm, had set up colony in this sleepy town at the base of theBlue Ridge Mountains. Not that all of us had wings. Askaran demons, even half breeds like Maddie and me, looked human for the most part.
"What happened?" I squinted up at Dillon, into the sun.
"Fucking ambush." He rolled his shoulders as if limbering up for a second round. "Talk about your piss-poor party planning." He snarled. "Nesvia needs to get her shit together."
"What are you talking about?" I frowned. "Nesvia had a party?" And he'd been invited?
"Something like that." He sounded thoughtful. "We have news." He cracked a smile, something so rare from him, I stared. "Didn't think I'd live to see it, but Harper will fill you in."
"Harper?" I asked. "Is he here?" I glanced around. "Or did you stop by his place first?"
Dillon glanced away, and suddenly I knew the reason I hadn't been able to find Harper.
He hadn't been here, on Earth, to find. He must have sneaked off realm with Clayton.
Tremors worked from my knees, through my chest, and rattled my heart in its cage. "Where is he?" I spun on Clayton, who would have known, and Maddie, who hadn't told me.
"Emma." The way Clayton spoke my name, trying to soothe me, raised my hackles.
I couldn't breathe. From one second to the next, my brain scrambled. My pulse skittered.
I tried again to be rational, but every pair of eyes in the alley had locked on me. I swallowed hard and locked my knees, but they still shook hard enough to make my teeth rattle. I'd seen those sympathetic glances once before, the last time he went to Askara…the time he didn't come back. I couldn't lose him, not again. Spots danced in my vision. "Where is Harper?"
"I'm here, Emma-mine." His voice caressed my ears with the sweetest relief.
I sagged with it, almost too limp to turn. When I did, I got an eyeful of what no one wanted to tell me. I swallowed again as my gorge rose. He was sliced from black shoulder to hip. One of his carmine wings dragged the ground, and so help me God, there was an arrow lodged in his flank. His lips hitched to one side in his trademark, lazy-days smile as if nothing were wrong.
"Come here." He opened his arms to me. Well, one arm. The other hung limp at his side.
I was glued to his chest before my mind caught up with my feet. "What's wrong with you two? You should have gone to the clinic. You should have gone to Doc River, not come here."
Granted, Doc's clinic was still brand new, but she'd been the resident doctor for decades.
A low growl worked through his chest, sounding wet and making me shudder with fear. I kissed his collarbone. I couldn't help myself. I wanted to strangle him for doing this to me, again. For lying by omission, because he knew I'd crack under the strain of him leaving. There was nothing I could imagine so important he would risk himself by returning to Askara.
It had stolen five years of his life.
I didn't have it in me to forgive him if he let it steal even one more day.
"You're bleeding out." My voice went hoarse. "You're going to the doctor."
Instinct must have overridden his common sense. Both he and Clayton had been drawn to their mates, or in my case, would-be mate, as an imperative above seeking medical attention. Now his primal self was sated, and his adrenaline crash would be a doozy. "Come on. Let's get you to the clinic." I called over my shoulder, "Dillon, get Clayton on his feet while you can."
I led Harper across the street, past gawking humans, fellow colonists with ties to the Evanti, and into Doc River's clinic. Doc's lips set in a grim line as she herded him to an exam room. I collapsed into a chair in the waiting room and told myself every little thing was fine.
I started when someone jabbed my shoulder, then I rubbed the sore spot. Doc River stood over me with a pen in her hand, looking like she might want to poke me again. I scowled and she shrugged. After sinking into the chair beside me, she crossed her feet at the ankles on the coffee table.
"Hey, perk up. He's fine." Toying with the wild ends of her white braid, she added, "Or he will be. He's looking at a good twenty-four-hour healing window, and I want him walking everywhere for the next week. He can't risk those wings. Keep his feet on the ground."
My head bobbled along as I soaked up the important part—that he would recover. Even though Evanti healed fast compared to the sloth of human mending, I worried.
"How's Clayton?" Shame heated my cheeks. "And Dillon?" I hadn't thought of him until this minute.
"Dillon refused treatment." She clicked her tongue. "Like he's got something under that glamour I haven't seen before. As for Clayton, that boy hasn't been this messed up since Maddie ran over him." She made a rapid sign of the cross. "Speaking of lead-footed demonesses, I need to give this speech to her." Pointing over her shoulder, she said, "You can go in now."
I nodded, the only thing my head seemed capable of doing, then followed bloody footprints to a room in the back. Beeps and whirs from machines put me on edge, but when I stepped across the threshold, I heaved a grateful sigh. He was dozing, and his color looked good.
I went to his bedside and sat on the edge, staring until I had to reach out and touch some part of him. Pushing dark curls from his forehead, I stroked his temples, then his hollow cheeks.
"What were you thinking?" I murmured, more to myself than to him.
Askara was our home realm, a brutal realm where slavery thrived.
For all that I claimed Maddie as my sister, we weren't blood relatives. Her mother, Eliya, was the fallen queen of Askara, which made her the princess ascendant. My father, Archer, had been Eliya's longtime consort, but my mother was a human courtesan, which made me his half-breed, bastard daughter. Since Mother had died giving birth, her indenture passed on to me, and I became a slave in Father's house. Eventually, I'd been given to Maddie as her handmaiden.
I'd had no future, no dreams and no hope there. I'd been nothing.
Except in Harper's eyes, where I was more than the station of my birth, more than an accident of genetics, I was a female of worth. In all the years Harper had served as Maddie's guardian, his closeness to her had made my father assume Harper was in love with her. Never had it occurred to Father that he could love someone like me.
He'd been dead wrong.
Tick. Tick. Tick. A machine at Harper's shoulder spat out a curlicue of paper with his vitals. As I stared at the peaked sketches, I was transported back to the mountainous city of Rihos, to the night of Maddie's ascendancy ceremony, the night that changed all our lives.
I squeezed my eyes shut and matched my frantic breaths to his measured ones.
The heat of his palm cradling my cheek snapped my eyes open.
"Don't cry." His words slurred. Doc must have given him something for the pain.
I leaned into his touch. "I'm not." Sniffling, I added, "You scared me."
"Didn't mean to." His thumb swiped beneath my eye.
"You went back there." I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from raising my voice.
"Had to." His forehead puckered. "No choice."
"There's always a choice," I said on a near-hysterical laugh. "You just make poor ones."
His voice turned gruff. "Not true."
I wanted to drive home my point, but the old argument wasn't worth rehashing.
He knew about choices. He had made several on the night he crashed Maddie's ceremony, and we both had to live with the repercussions of my father's death and Harper's choice to bring Maddie and me to Earth. He'd spared us a most intimate violation, rape at the hands of aFirst Court priest, then he'd returned to Askara, to warn his father and brother of what he'd done, and flown into an ambush.
His father, Marcus, had died. Clayton had been good as dead. Harper…he didn't return.
All because of his choice to spare me and my sister from the lives we would have led.
For five years, I mourned his death. I made him a grave. I erected a marker, for God's sake. Then last month, Clayton had found him. He'd been imprisoned, by Eliya, all this time.
Learning Harper was alive tilted my world's axis. I'd been running backwards ever since.
"Have news," he said. "About Nesvia."
I swept my arm down his side to indicate his wounds. "Nesvia was there for this?"
He made a sound of agreement as his eyes fluttered closed.
Nesvia was the closest blood tie Maddie and I had. She was our half-sister, the only child born to her mother and my father. She was a reformist who craved change and Eliya's crown.
Harper's arm went limp, and his fingers slid down my face. I caught his hand and held it.
A knock at the door drew my head around. Maddie stood there, her face drawn and pale. Blood streaked her cheeks, vivid scores marring her alabaster complexion. "I'm sorry."
"You knew he was going." Of course she knew. Mates shared everything, and Harper couldn't have gone without clearing the trip through Clayton first. "And you didn't tell me."
The worst part was, as much as her betrayal stung, I'd done the same or worse to her where Clayton was concerned. Forgiven and forgotten. We always hurt those we loved the most.
"He knew you'd be upset. He made me promise I wouldn't say anything." She ran a hand through her hair. "He had no choice—Nesvia summoned him and Clayton. They both had to go."
My chest tightened as fear snuffed out my anger. "Why summon them specifically?"
Maddie bit her lip, as if deciding how much to tell me.
I stood and stalked toward her. "Why, Maddie? What's happening?"
Her gaze slid over my shoulder. When she saw Harper sleeping, she shut the door behind her and guided me into a chair at the foot of his bed. "Nesvia has been confirmed. She is now the Queen Ascendant of Askara." Maddie took my hands in hers, and they trembled. "She's done it." Her eyes gleamed. "She's freed the slaves."
My mouth fell open.
Our sister was now queen. Our kingdom was now free. Our lives were truly our own.
"But why ask for Clayton and Harper?" It made no sense. "Why not you, or even me?"
Her smile lost some of its brilliance. "She knew Clayton wouldn't allow me off realm until he was certain her peace offering wasn't a ruse. And I think…" her cheeks pinked, "…Nesvia assumed you wouldn't go without me."
"Oh." In other words, she still viewed me as a slave who dared not leave her master.
"Besides, her proposition was meant for them." Maddie shifted in her seat when my hands tightened. I loosened my grip so I wouldn't hurt her. "Clayton and I have been exchanging letters with Nesvia for the past several weeks." I nodded along. She'd mentioned it to me before. "And during that time, we outlined how the earthen colony operates. How it's funded. That sort of thing." She leaned closer. "Since Marcus Delaney founded this colony, and Nesvia has ties to him through me, and you, she's asked that one of his sons found a new colony…in Askara."
"No." The chair I'd sat in toppled onto its side when I got to my feet.
"Clayton can't accept her offer. This colony depends on him. They trust him to care for them and head up the legion." Her gaze lowered. "He's also afraid of what might happen if I returned. Like it or not, I'm still a princess, and Nesvia's coup has swirled a lot of controversy."
My back hit the wall, and I slid to the floor. "What did Harper say when she asked him?"
Maddie rubbed her arms as if she were cold. "He said he would consider her offer."
"Of course he did." I hid my face in my hands and braced my elbows on my knees.
Harper. He had locked the horrors of his imprisonment in some mental vault and buried the key so deep, his confusion was genuine if you asked him about what had been done to him.
Sadly, his loss remained razor sharp in my mind. Our separation burdened me, pressed on my shoulders, miring me in dreck from where we'd come from, where he'd have us go yet again.
Copyright © 2012 Hailey Edwards
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication
Evermine – Review ARCs!
I'll be sending review ARCs for Evermine out sometime in December. If you have a review blog, and/or you post reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, etc, and would be interested in being added to the list for Evermine, then use my contact form here.
Here is the blurb:
He can be a slave to his past…or allow her love to free him.
There's such a thing as too much change. Emma's sister is mated. Revolution is brewing in her home realm. The last straw: her would-be mate is back from the dead and back under her skin—yet when it comes to the last five years, he's not talking.
Desperate for a chance to start her own life, she answers the queen's call to ensure equality for all of Askara's newly freed slaves. It's the perfect opportunity to escape a heartbreak in the making named Harper.
Harper loses a piece of his fractured soul when Emma walks away. His lies were meant to protect her from torturous years that drove him to the point of madness. Instead, when he comes to her a year later to help avert a crisis in a freed-slave community, the wedge those lies drove between them is firmly in place.
As their new lives collide with old wounds, they race to stop a threat that could not only destroy the queen, but send Harper back to the hell he escaped. Emma must decide if the man she still loves deserves equal rights to her heart.
Warning: This title contains torn pants, ripped gowns, and sand in uncomfortable places. It also includes one overcompensating villain, one gnarly priest, and two battered hearts willing to give this thing called love one last chance.
And here is an excerpt:
Earthen Realm, Dempsey Colony
Country music warbled through a battered radio on the shelf behind me. I glanced through the cutout between my kitchen and the dining area, but none of my customers seemed to mind hearing about heartaches and hound dogs, so I let it lie.
"Maddie," I yelled. "Order up."
My sister finished marking her notepad, then made a beeline for me.
"You're still coming over tonight, right?" She plucked napkins from a leaning stack and took the plates from my hands. "I've got popcorn, movies galore and China King on speed dial."
"Sounds like heaven." And I meant every word. Our girls' nights came less often these days. Maddie wouldn't be free if her mate, Clayton Delaney, hadn't gone off realm, to Askara.
Clayton worked with the freeborn legion, the demon equivalent to the Red Cross. Before Maddie, he'd traveled between this realm and the next often, bringing supplies and medical care to those in need. Now he was content to let others go in his stead, which suited her just fine.
I wasn't sure what had tempted him off realm this time, and Maddie's lips were sealed. Huffing bangs from my eyes, I ignored the envious twinge in my chest. Even Clayton's brother, Harper, wouldn't spill any of the details. I frowned. Actually, I couldn't find him to ask.
"Good deal," she said. "I was hoping we could—"
A metallic screech sliced open my ears as the diner trembled.
I braced on the counter. "What the hell was that?"
"Madelyn," a masculine voice, raw with pain, roared down the short hall.
"Oh God." Maddie's eyes rounded at whatever she saw. The plates she held wobbled, sliding down her arm to shatter as they hit the floor. She ran for all she was worth, past me.
"Marci," I called for my managing waitress. My apron tangled. I gave up, ripping the neck strap while tugging it over my head. I tossed it to her and made eye contact. "Cover for me."
"Is something wrong?" She touched my shoulder, but I shrugged her off.
"Don't know yet." I sprinted down the hall and out the rear exit, skittering through gravel. Sunlight cost me my vision long enough I heard my sister's pained cry before I saw her.
Maddie knelt beside Clayton, who sagged against the brick wall opposite the door he'd torn from its hinges to reach my sister. Her pale hands were stained red, and his right wing hung from his shoulder in tatters. Blood pooled at his hip. His black eyes shone with feral intensity, but each stroke of her hand down his cheek lulled his heaving chest into a more even rhythm.
The glamour he wore to appear human had failed. He was operating in full demon mode.
Lucky for us, the gateway between realms stood nearby, and our small colony touched its border. Otherwise, we'd be in for trouble. Evanti demons weren't what I'd call inconspicuous. They were black-skinned, with matching hair and eyes. The only touches of color on them were their massive carmine-colored wings. Unless aroused, then their dark eyes rimmed with silver.
The way Clayton's eyes shined for Maddie left few of his intentions to my imagination.
I turned before I saw the stuff of nightmares—my sister and demon-in-law making out.
"He needs Doc River," a harsh voice grated to my right. "Not sexual healing."
Dillon, another Evanti demon, stood at my elbow. A wide gash split open his face, made the cheek beneath his bicolored eyes swell. His glamour was intact, as always. I sometimes wondered if even he knew how his natural form looked. Sometimes I forgot he wasn't human.
That was the point. All Evanti used glamour here. They had to.
Earth might be our salvation, but none of us were fool enough to think humans, en masse, would welcome the knowledge that escaped slaves, winged demons from another realm, had set up colony in this sleepy town at the base of theBlue Ridge Mountains. Not that all of us had wings. Askaran demons, even half breeds like Maddie and me, looked human for the most part.
"What happened?" I squinted up at Dillon, into the sun.
"Fucking ambush." He rolled his shoulders as if limbering up for a second round. "Talk about your piss-poor party planning." He snarled. "Nesvia needs to get her shit together."
"What are you talking about?" I frowned. "Nesvia had a party?" And he'd been invited?
"Something like that." He sounded thoughtful. "We have news." He cracked a smile, something so rare from him, I stared. "Didn't think I'd live to see it, but Harper will fill you in."
"Harper?" I asked. "Is he here?" I glanced around. "Or did you stop by his place first?"
Dillon glanced away, and suddenly I knew the reason I hadn't been able to find Harper.
He hadn't been here, on Earth, to find. He must have sneaked off realm with Clayton.
Tremors worked from my knees, through my chest, and rattled my heart in its cage. "Where is he?" I spun on Clayton, who would have known, and Maddie, who hadn't told me.
"Emma." The way Clayton spoke my name, trying to soothe me, raised my hackles.
I couldn't breathe. From one second to the next, my brain scrambled. My pulse skittered.
I tried again to be rational, but every pair of eyes in the alley had locked on me. I swallowed hard and locked my knees, but they still shook hard enough to make my teeth rattle. I'd seen those sympathetic glances once before, the last time he went to Askara…the time he didn't come back. I couldn't lose him, not again. Spots danced in my vision. "Where is Harper?"
"I'm here, Emma-mine." His voice caressed my ears with the sweetest relief.
I sagged with it, almost too limp to turn. When I did, I got an eyeful of what no one wanted to tell me. I swallowed again as my gorge rose. He was sliced from black shoulder to hip. One of his carmine wings dragged the ground, and so help me God, there was an arrow lodged in his flank. His lips hitched to one side in his trademark, lazy-days smile as if nothing were wrong.
"Come here." He opened his arms to me. Well, one arm. The other hung limp at his side.
I was glued to his chest before my mind caught up with my feet. "What's wrong with you two? You should have gone to the clinic. You should have gone to Doc River, not come here."
Granted, Doc's clinic was still brand new, but she'd been the resident doctor for decades.
A low growl worked through his chest, sounding wet and making me shudder with fear. I kissed his collarbone. I couldn't help myself. I wanted to strangle him for doing this to me, again. For lying by omission, because he knew I'd crack under the strain of him leaving. There was nothing I could imagine so important he would risk himself by returning to Askara.
It had stolen five years of his life.
I didn't have it in me to forgive him if he let it steal even one more day.
"You're bleeding out." My voice went hoarse. "You're going to the doctor."
Instinct must have overridden his common sense. Both he and Clayton had been drawn to their mates, or in my case, would-be mate, as an imperative above seeking medical attention. Now his primal self was sated, and his adrenaline crash would be a doozy. "Come on. Let's get you to the clinic." I called over my shoulder, "Dillon, get Clayton on his feet while you can."
I led Harper across the street, past gawking humans, fellow colonists with ties to the Evanti, and into Doc River's clinic. Doc's lips set in a grim line as she herded him to an exam room. I collapsed into a chair in the waiting room and told myself every little thing was fine.
I started when someone jabbed my shoulder, then I rubbed the sore spot. Doc River stood over me with a pen in her hand, looking like she might want to poke me again. I scowled and she shrugged. After sinking into the chair beside me, she crossed her feet at the ankles on the coffee table.
"Hey, perk up. He's fine." Toying with the wild ends of her white braid, she added, "Or he will be. He's looking at a good twenty-four-hour healing window, and I want him walking everywhere for the next week. He can't risk those wings. Keep his feet on the ground."
My head bobbled along as I soaked up the important part—that he would recover. Even though Evanti healed fast compared to the sloth of human mending, I worried.
"How's Clayton?" Shame heated my cheeks. "And Dillon?" I hadn't thought of him until this minute.
"Dillon refused treatment." She clicked her tongue. "Like he's got something under that glamour I haven't seen before. As for Clayton, that boy hasn't been this messed up since Maddie ran over him." She made a rapid sign of the cross. "Speaking of lead-footed demonesses, I need to give this speech to her." Pointing over her shoulder, she said, "You can go in now."
I nodded, the only thing my head seemed capable of doing, then followed bloody footprints to a room in the back. Beeps and whirs from machines put me on edge, but when I stepped across the threshold, I heaved a grateful sigh. He was dozing, and his color looked good.
I went to his bedside and sat on the edge, staring until I had to reach out and touch some part of him. Pushing dark curls from his forehead, I stroked his temples, then his hollow cheeks.
"What were you thinking?" I murmured, more to myself than to him.
Askara was our home realm, a brutal realm where slavery thrived.
For all that I claimed Maddie as my sister, we weren't blood relatives. Her mother, Eliya, was the fallen queen of Askara, which made her the princess ascendant. My father, Archer, had been Eliya's longtime consort, but my mother was a human courtesan, which made me his half-breed, bastard daughter. Since Mother had died giving birth, her indenture passed on to me, and I became a slave in Father's house. Eventually, I'd been given to Maddie as her handmaiden.
I'd had no future, no dreams and no hope there. I'd been nothing.
Except in Harper's eyes, where I was more than the station of my birth, more than an accident of genetics, I was a female of worth. In all the years Harper had served as Maddie's guardian, his closeness to her had made my father assume Harper was in love with her. Never had it occurred to Father that he could love someone like me.
He'd been dead wrong.
Tick. Tick. Tick. A machine at Harper's shoulder spat out a curlicue of paper with his vitals. As I stared at the peaked sketches, I was transported back to the mountainous city of Rihos, to the night of Maddie's ascendancy ceremony, the night that changed all our lives.
I squeezed my eyes shut and matched my frantic breaths to his measured ones.
The heat of his palm cradling my cheek snapped my eyes open.
"Don't cry." His words slurred. Doc must have given him something for the pain.
I leaned into his touch. "I'm not." Sniffling, I added, "You scared me."
"Didn't mean to." His thumb swiped beneath my eye.
"You went back there." I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from raising my voice.
"Had to." His forehead puckered. "No choice."
"There's always a choice," I said on a near-hysterical laugh. "You just make poor ones."
His voice turned gruff. "Not true."
I wanted to drive home my point, but the old argument wasn't worth rehashing.
He knew about choices. He had made several on the night he crashed Maddie's ceremony, and we both had to live with the repercussions of my father's death and Harper's choice to bring Maddie and me to Earth. He'd spared us a most intimate violation, rape at the hands of aFirst Court priest, then he'd returned to Askara, to warn his father and brother of what he'd done, and flown into an ambush.
His father, Marcus, had died. Clayton had been good as dead. Harper…he didn't return.
All because of his choice to spare me and my sister from the lives we would have led.
For five years, I mourned his death. I made him a grave. I erected a marker, for God's sake. Then last month, Clayton had found him. He'd been imprisoned, by Eliya, all this time.
Learning Harper was alive tilted my world's axis. I'd been running backwards ever since.
"Have news," he said. "About Nesvia."
I swept my arm down his side to indicate his wounds. "Nesvia was there for this?"
He made a sound of agreement as his eyes fluttered closed.
Nesvia was the closest blood tie Maddie and I had. She was our half-sister, the only child born to her mother and my father. She was a reformist who craved change and Eliya's crown.
Harper's arm went limp, and his fingers slid down my face. I caught his hand and held it.
A knock at the door drew my head around. Maddie stood there, her face drawn and pale. Blood streaked her cheeks, vivid scores marring her alabaster complexion. "I'm sorry."
"You knew he was going." Of course she knew. Mates shared everything, and Harper couldn't have gone without clearing the trip through Clayton first. "And you didn't tell me."
The worst part was, as much as her betrayal stung, I'd done the same or worse to her where Clayton was concerned. Forgiven and forgotten. We always hurt those we loved the most.
"He knew you'd be upset. He made me promise I wouldn't say anything." She ran a hand through her hair. "He had no choice—Nesvia summoned him and Clayton. They both had to go."
My chest tightened as fear snuffed out my anger. "Why summon them specifically?"
Maddie bit her lip, as if deciding how much to tell me.
I stood and stalked toward her. "Why, Maddie? What's happening?"
Her gaze slid over my shoulder. When she saw Harper sleeping, she shut the door behind her and guided me into a chair at the foot of his bed. "Nesvia has been confirmed. She is now the Queen Ascendant of Askara." Maddie took my hands in hers, and they trembled. "She's done it." Her eyes gleamed. "She's freed the slaves."
My mouth fell open.
Our sister was now queen. Our kingdom was now free. Our lives were truly our own.
"But why ask for Clayton and Harper?" It made no sense. "Why not you, or even me?"
Her smile lost some of its brilliance. "She knew Clayton wouldn't allow me off realm until he was certain her peace offering wasn't a ruse. And I think…" her cheeks pinked, "…Nesvia assumed you wouldn't go without me."
"Oh." In other words, she still viewed me as a slave who dared not leave her master.
"Besides, her proposition was meant for them." Maddie shifted in her seat when my hands tightened. I loosened my grip so I wouldn't hurt her. "Clayton and I have been exchanging letters with Nesvia for the past several weeks." I nodded along. She'd mentioned it to me before. "And during that time, we outlined how the earthen colony operates. How it's funded. That sort of thing." She leaned closer. "Since Marcus Delaney founded this colony, and Nesvia has ties to him through me, and you, she's asked that one of his sons found a new colony…in Askara."
"No." The chair I'd sat in toppled onto its side when I got to my feet.
"Clayton can't accept her offer. This colony depends on him. They trust him to care for them and head up the legion." Her gaze lowered. "He's also afraid of what might happen if I returned. Like it or not, I'm still a princess, and Nesvia's coup has swirled a lot of controversy."
My back hit the wall, and I slid to the floor. "What did Harper say when she asked him?"
Maddie rubbed her arms as if she were cold. "He said he would consider her offer."
"Of course he did." I hid my face in my hands and braced my elbows on my knees.
Harper. He had locked the horrors of his imprisonment in some mental vault and buried the key so deep, his confusion was genuine if you asked him about what had been done to him.
Sadly, his loss remained razor sharp in my mind. Our separation burdened me, pressed on my shoulders, miring me in dreck from where we'd come from, where he'd have us go yet again.
Copyright © 2012 Hailey Edwards
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication
October 31, 2011
It's Getting Frosty In Here!
Frost has a cover and I LOVE it. It was designed by the freaking fantastic Kanaxa. It's everything I wanted for this book, for this series, and it's just perfect. I can't stop looking at it. 
Hope dangles by a silken thread.
When the head of the Araneidae clan is found poisoned in her nest, her eldest daughter,Lourdes, becomes their clan's new maven. If her clan is to survive, she has but one choice: she must marry before her nest is seized. All she needs is a warrior fierce enough to protect her city and safeguard her clansmen. Such a male is Rhys the Cold.
Born the youngest son of an impoverished maven, the only things Rhys has to his name are his sword and his mercenary reputation. His clan is starving, but their fondness for the flesh of fellow Araneaeans makes them unwelcome dinner guests. Torn between loyalty to his clan and fascination with his future bride, Rhys's first taste ofLourdesthreatens to melt the cold encasing his heart.
Amid the chaos of battle,Lourdes's sister disappears and is feared captured.Lourdesand Rhys pursue their enemies into the southlands, where they discover an odd plague ravaging southern clans as it travels north, to Erania. Determined to survive,Lourdes will discover whether she's worth her silk or if she's spun the thread by which her clan will hang.
Warning: This book contains one mercenary hero with a biting fetish, one determined heroine who gets nibbled, and an answer to the age-old question, "What does dragon taste like?" Matricide and sibling rivalry are available upon request. The house special is revenge, best served cold.
October 30, 2011
Six Sentence Sunday
[image error]
This book is done, done, and done! It's also the longest Ever book by about 10k.
I guess Dillon had more to say than I'd thought. LOL
I hid my face against Dillon to keep from turning and seeing how close we were to losing this race.
Thunderous beats filled my ears. The horse's hooves, the flap of leather wings, the pounding of my crazed heart and the echo of Dillon's where I burrowed as close to him as I could manage. I let his presence calm me. Everything was fine as long as he was here. He would keep me safe.
For more Six Sunday goodness, check out the official website.
October 29, 2011
Character Arc, Plot Points and Story: structured brainstorming for character-driven stories
Use organic pre-thinking and your own personal structures to create the story that is right for both your characters and you. Covers core events, emotional understructures, the transformational arc and how to find missing pieces.
There are no templates, and nothing here is one-size fits all. Everything is written in plain-English and designed to be both practical and hands-on. Because of the structure of this multi-layered approach, please come prepared to work, you'll be glad you did.
Because of the nature of this workshop, the participants are strongly encouraged to have a work in progress or a very strong idea of their people and the "shape" of their story. I look forward to seeing you.
WHEN: Dec 11, 2011 - Dec 17, 2011
COST: $15 for Premium Members
$20 for Basic Members
Cancellation policy: Registrations are non-refundable except when the workshop is cancelled by Savvy Authors.
REGISTRATION: Click Here to Register (Members will not receive member rate unless logged in.)
INSTRUCTOR:
Jodi Henley is a long-time member of the popular on-line writer's forum "Romance Divas" where her craft of writing articles have been archived as downloads in The Place for Answers, Romance Diva's on-line library. Highly sought after for her plain-English approach to problem solving, Jodi spends her time dissecting the craft of writing. Her obsessive Myer-Briggs INTJ personality drives her to explain her findings, and she considers herself lucky to have a receptive audience. A long-time blogger, her blog, " Will Work for Noodles", is a popular writer's reference for people in fields from play-writing to Christian magazines and newspaper journalism.
Praise for Jodi Henley:
"I'm so glad this story is FINALLY going somewhere! I've been working on this thing for like 4-5 years and then Jodi came along with her organic structure and BOOM! I always felt like this story could be something special but I just never felt I was ready to work on it. Jodi is a wealth of information"--Lauren Murphy, author of Cara's Christmas Fantasy
How do you decide who to marry
I got this in an email tonight and had to share. A few made me laugh.
1. HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY? (written by kids)
1. You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she
should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming.
– Alan, age 10
No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry.
God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with.
– Kristen, age 10
2. WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?
Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then.
– Camille, age 10
3. HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?
You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids.
– Derrick, age 8
4. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?
Both don't want any more kids.
– Lori, age 8
5. WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?
-Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other.
Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough.
– Lynnette, age 8 (isn't she a treasure)
-On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually
gets them interested enough to go for a second date.
– Martin, age 10
6. WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?
-When they're rich.
– Pam, age 7
-The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that.
- – Curt, age 7
-The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should
marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do.
- – Howard, age 8
7. IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?
It's better for girls to be single but not for boys.
Boys need someone to clean up after them.
– Anita, age 9 (bless you child)
8. HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?
There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there?
– Kelvin, age 8
And the #1 Favorite is …….
9. HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?
Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a dump truck.
October 18, 2011
New Everlong Review
How cool. A new Everlong review showed up today. Thank you Google Alerts, even if you do run a couple of months behind sometimes…
The cover got me. The story kept me. This book is in my keeper collection.
Madelyn Degray has a rescuer and friend always there for her. Harper is her protector, but when she meets his brother Clayton, sparks fly. What is a girl to do?
The friendship between Madelyn, Emma, and Harper is unbreakable. But the heat between Clayton and Madelyn is undeniable. I can't wait for the next installment of Evermine (Harper and Emma's Story) to see more of Clayton and Madelyn. I'm not ready to give them up at the end of this book I want more.
I want a Clayton of my own.
This review came from Kelly at The Book Rack.
October 16, 2011
Six Sentence Sunday
[image error]
One more week and I can call this draft done. *phew*
I prefer revising/editing to getting a story on paper in the first place.
"I want to help you, but you've got to help yourself."
I wanted to trust him. I did trust him, but not with this. Not with her. Not yet.
I was too used to hiding her in my heart to crack open the door wide enough for him to slip inside.
For more Six Sunday goodness, check out the official website here.
October 12, 2011
A Hint of Frost Has A Blurb!
Much to my surprise, it's the one I submitted!
(Polished, of course, but 90% mine! Take that blurbs! I will master you yet! ;D )
Hope dangles by a silken thread.
When the head of the Araneidae clan is found poisoned in her nest, her eldest daughter,Lourdes, becomes their clan's new maven. If her clan is to survive, she has but one choice: she must marry before her nest is seized. All she needs is a warrior fierce enough to protect her city and safeguard her clansmen. Such a male is Rhys the Cold.
Born the youngest son of an impoverished maven, the only things Rhys has to his name are his sword and his mercenary reputation. His clan is starving, but their fondness for the flesh of fellow Araneaeans makes them unwelcome dinner guests. Torn between loyalty to his clan and fascination with his future bride, Rhys's first taste ofLourdesthreatens to melt the cold encasing his heart.
Amid the chaos of battle,Lourdes's sister disappears and is feared captured.Lourdesand Rhys pursue their enemies into the southlands, where they discover an odd plague ravaging southern clans as it travels north, to Arania. Determined to survive,Lourdeswill discover whether she's worth her silk or if she's spun the thread by which her clan will hang.
Warning: This book contains one mercenary hero with a biting fetish, one determined heroine who gets nibbled, and an answer to the age-old question, "What does dragon taste like?" Matricide and sibling rivalry are available upon request. The house special is revenge, best served cold.
Join me in a happy dance, won't you? Blurb writing is a necessary skill for writers, and it's one I've struggled to master. I know it's silly, but I get such a kick out of seeing my practice pay off in a way that makes me proud to say, "I did that."
