K. Alex Walker's Blog, page 14

BWSL Book Chat – Tonight

Hi loves!

I have a video book chat tonight with BWSL, 7p EST, via Google. We’re going to be talking about The Shadow, and I’d love to hear your questions, feedback, and more. I’m one of those forever very introverted, quiet, & shy folk, so I’m nervous, excited, and looking forward to meeting you all!

+1 260-557-1953 PIN: 472588391#

xoxo, Alex

[image error]

Feelings Check In:

If you're a person who struggles with anxiety/depression/etc, how have you been handling things lately? 

I've found social media to be a major trigger for my anxiety, primarily because what comes down your TL is not easily filtered. I'm not able to watch police brutality videos, and Vanessa Guillen's story, I can only keep up with from external sources. Even then, it gets very overwhelming, very quickly, and I have to check myself before going into full-blown panic mode.

To cope, I've been limiting my exposure to social media to within a certain time frame, I see a therapist regularly (telehealth), and I try to spend time on self care (exercise, good food, books, movies, and/or people, to name a few). 

However, I can see how my mood feeds my work.

The last really raw character I wrote was probably Bailey from The Woman He Wanted because of her triggering past. Giorgio is up there too, but I think he handled his adult life much better than Bailey did.

Elias is turning out this way.

But…that hasn't been a bad thing. He's hard, dark, soft, emotional, funny, and very rough-edged. Exactly the type of character I'd expect to create in 2020.

I hope you're all doing well, despite all the sh*ttiness.

xoxo,

Alex

[image error]feelingswheel.com

I’m on Patreon!

I finally joined Patreon!

I didn't realize it was such a great space for struggling artists creatives.

I like producing content, as you all know, but it can get a little difficult at times.  Also, I have stories I'd like to share that won't quite become full books, and I'd like to do that on Patreon.

After speaking with some other content creators, I'm giving the site a try as a way to essentially ordain a space for those of you who are interested in more writing, exclusive and original stories, and for fans/readers who want to show general support. 

But, please know I appreciate all of your support here on the blog, my email list, social media, Amazon reviews and more, regardless.

I've said this time and time again; I get more support from you guys than some of my own flesh and blood. 

That means a lot. Everything, really.

xoxo,

Alex

Consider Becoming A Patron Here!



[image error]

The Shadow

I’ve been getting a lot of requests for this online series! At this point, I’m working out juicy plots.

So, tell me, what do you guys want to see from Mike and Xara?

[image error]

In the meantime, here’s a snippet from my #wip, Elias the Wicked, part of the Myths, Legends, and Monsters Paranormal Anthology Series.

To Love and Protect

Larke

When I left my job as a federal prosecutor to start my own organization where I worked with private investigators, local police departments, and The Justice Department in order to find missing girls of color, I’d had buckets of fears but no regrets. I’d modeled my mission off that of The Innocence Project, using my skills in law, research, and policy to bring national attention to an unjustly silent cause.

The problem was, I loved my job. So much so that bed rest for the last four months had damn near killed me.

Hyperemesis gravidarium.

It was my official diagnosis after my obstetrician realized I was losing weight at a time in my pregnancy when it should have been the opposite. I couldn’t keep anything down but water and crackers that were basically cardboard, olive oil, and salt. Doctor-recommended treatments had provided little to no relief so I’d gone the natural route, sucking on ginger candies and swabbing scented oils behind my ear.

Eventually, everyone in my office banded together to stage a pseudo-intervention, gently forcing me to stay home. My doctor then prescribed bed rest, and I had the kind of husband who wouldn’t let me go against it.

That husband was currently on the other side of the country.

Our daughter would be making her appearance soon. Very soon.

And I couldn’t reach him.

“Larke, put that phone down,” my sister said, trying to grab it from my hand.

Wren recently moved from Wisconsin to the DMV area, where I was, for law school at George Washington. I’d gotten my law degree a little further north at Howard. She’d kicked the LSAT’s ass after being so worried about it, she’d broken out in stress hives. Now, the only thing I had left to do was convince our younger brother, Jay, to move out this way for college.

“He can’t miss this,” I whined, clutching the phone to my chest. “You don’t understand, Wren. If Dez misses this, he’ll never forgive himself.”

She leaned against the wall next to my head. “But he wouldn’t want you worrying either.”

“I know.” I sighed. “It’s just . . .  it took a lot for us to get here, and he’s been with me throughout nearly the entire pregnancy. To have to be called out on assignment, again, right when his daughter’s being born after nearly missing Christmas? It’s unfair.”

She stared at me, made a noise in her throat, jabbed at her phone screen, and lifted her phone to her ear. After waiting a few beats, she made the noise again, and lowered the device.

“I’ll keep trying him too,” she said.

I took her hand and squeezed. My family loved Dez, and he loved them. They knew his story and the convoluted mess he’d come from, which was why these close connections were so much more important to him. I tried to be the doting, supportive wife because he was the same with me in my work, but I fucking hated his job.

My doctor and her team came walking through the door. She had a smile on her face, but it was more of placating smile. A “let me smile to give you bad news” type of deal. We’d attended Howard together as undergraduates, and she’d been using that smile since then, usually toward the male friends we had who’d shoot their shot with her only to be left deflated.

She lay her hand on my shin. “Larke.”

“I already don’t like where this is going, Anisa.”

“We’re going to have to take you, right now, to prep for a C-section.”

Wren and I exchanged glances.

“Is it the baby?” I asked. “Is it Monroe?”

“Yes.” Anisa’s eyes went soft, her smile fading. “Her heartbeat’s dropping and your labor isn’t progressing the way it should. We have to get you to the operating room for delivery for both her health and yours.”

My entire face went hot. My tears didn’t even build; they sprung forth from my tear ducts down the hills of my cheeks and the sides of my face. This was the decision I’d hoped not to be forced to make. I’d known things were taking a long time, but as long as my little girl was okay, I’d convinced myself I could ride it out.

That was no longer an option.

I swallowed, my head bobbing. “Okay.”

Everything moved quickly after that—I was wheeled to the operating room where my Cesarean would be handled. Blaring lights above caused me to squint and cover my tear-soaked face. Wren let me know she would keep trying Dez, but she passed out watching finger pricks so couldn’t be in the room with me. My parents pushed up their flight out of Wisconsin to be there for me once Monroe arrived. No one else with a stronger constitution was close enough to stand in for Dez.

Anisa’s hand cradled the side of my face. I closed my eyes and leaned into it.

“Ready?” she asked.

I nodded, eyes opening, and realized Anisa was down near my feet.

“Hi, Tapley.”

I looked up into eyes like the waters in Belize, where we’d gotten married.

“Dez? Oh my god, baby? You made it?”

He smelled like weird soap, and his hair was matted to his forehead, peeking from underneath a blue cap. One of the surgical techs had to fight to get a mask over my face because I wouldn’t turn my head. I wanted to keep looking at my husband. My love. My man.

“I literally had Huang spray me with car wash foam so I wouldn’t have to drive all the way out to the house to get cleaned up.” His mouth stretched into a grin. “And I had to get a quick change of clothes from Georgetown Park because there was no way I’d be let on the premises the way I’d looked before.”

He leaned forward so I could stroke his jaw.

“Baby, Georgetown Park is closed this late,” I said.

“I was with Huang,” he emphasized. “The Shadow.”

Anisa announced that they were starting and when and where I would feel pressure. The pressure caused nausea to roam around my stomach, but I’d had tons of practice fighting off nausea at this point.

I’d always assumed I’d be one of the wives who hated their spouse during labor, but Dez’s thumb stroking my face was like a drug. Every so often, he touched our foreheads, saying something his voice was too low for me to hear.

I felt intense pressure that caused me to bear down on my jaw, an almost “pop” like sensation, and then the pressure was gone.

A few moments later, she cried. Our baby. Our daughter.

Dez’s head lifted from mine. The column of his throat bobbed.

“You okay, babe?” I asked.

When he looked down at me, his eyes were misted over. “Yeah. I’m . . . I’m good. I have a kid. A wife and a kid. A baby girl. Larke, I have a family. We have a family.”

He kissed my forehead and then walked to where I couldn’t see him. When he returned, he was holding our daughter’s pale and wrinkly little body. She already had a full head of hair and her eyes were open, staring up at her father. He stared at her like she was one of the Wonders of the World.

In a way, birth was.

She’d come about because power had gone to her Mama’s head. Daddy had been recovering from injury but still horny. I’d taken full control, becoming somewhat addicted to that flash of pure, perfect pleasure on Dez’s face right before he came. And then boom, just like that, we’d made a whole human.

“Say hi to Mommy,” Dez cooed, lowering her to my face.

“Hi, my sweet princess,” I greeted. “After everything you put Mommy through, I knew you’d be a beautiful little diva.”

It was too soon to tell which one of us she would take after, but she definitely had my mouth. What I could tell was that our little one already had her father wrapped around her finger.

Dez handed her off so she could finish getting cleaned up, and he stayed by my side until it was safe for me to go to the postnatal ward.

“Get some rest.” He bent over the bed and dropped a light kiss on my mouth. “I’m going to get everyone prepped for seeing the baby. You don’t have to be awake for that.”

I nodded. “Okay. That, I can do . . . Daddy Dez.”

“Has a nice ring to it.” He grinned. “I’ll go get Wren and your mother first. Sleep. I love you.”

I mumbled a sleepy response I hope sounded something like “I love you too” and, as he walked out the door, I heard him humming the “Happy Birthday” song.

The Gatekeeper – Cover Update

[image error]

A Question

Let’s talk.

But first, let’s breathe.

It’s been a . . . week. A month. A life.

On the outside, it’s the exhaustion from having to relive and reexperience the desecration of black bodies in America. The United States has spent nearly her entire existence with a full face, only exposing herself to the rest of the globe once her blemishes have been safely tucked under concealer and highlight. However, more and more, the cameras have been infiltrating her bedroom before she has had a chance to get dolled up.

nj.com/opinion

As you guys are probably aware, I’m not big on social media activism. It is, however, a good avenue to facilitate solidarity as the first face of change. I prefer to have intimate conversations about gender, sexuality, and race. Our computer firewalls can be somewhat representative of people’s need to wall themselves off, stew in the filth of their own ignorance. Face to face, people are more inclined to challenge their convictions and perceptions. I also prefer to hold spaces in different communities, especially with children, because it’s a chance to help them love themselves in a world that won’t always love them back.

[image error]

However, there is an unknown variable I’m curious about—how do you feel reading books about interracial/mixed race couples in this increasingly aggressive social climate?

I stumbled into IR by writing The Game of Love without knowing it was a genre. I was simply watching a football game and, based on the social response to a character in one of the Hunger Games films, started wondering how the general populace would feel if a beloved sports player was dating a black woman. Like if Tom Brady and Giselle suddenly divorced, and he rolled up with a brown girl and had the nerve to look happy.

My next book will be the second installment of the Myths, Legends, and Monsters anthology series—Elias The Wicked. It’s 60% done, and our main male character is Latino. I plan to have stories centering on an African king, a female detective in a bwwm paranormal, and for Sommer’s brother to be the main character in the last Game of Love series novel.

In The Shadow, Mike’s Chinese.

So, tell me . . . can you still find escapism in multicultural literature?







[image error]

Mike and Xara are here!

Shoutout to Cristene Mankasingh, one of my A1s from Day 1 who helped me find it!

[image error]Purchase Now on Amazon.com

The Shadow

Hi everyone,

It appears The Shadow is supposed to be released by the publisher today. As far as I know, it hasn't yet and I'm waiting to hear back about any delays or what's going on. I'll make sure to update you as soon as I hear something.

xoxo,

Alex

Mike Huang was the son of one of the most powerful men in China until the empire his family built for centuries suddenly crumbles. The betrayal of a family friend sends him into hiding at the age of ten, and the only life he’s ever known has been on the run. There’s no normalcy for a man like him. No settling down. Everything he’s ever had has come by way of fighting for it or fighting against it. So when Xara Merritt enters his life, he tries to fight feelings he’s never experienced. He fights to remember why he can’t have her, no matter how much he wants her. And he fights until he loses because, from the very beginning, he knew he would have her. Claim her. Consume her. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t know who he really is, or that she’s fallen for the son of a killer.

When Xara first meets the mysterious newcomer in her hometown in Henry, KY, it’s while he’s wrapped up in the middle of a fight that, at first, she assumes he’s losing. As she races to help him, she realizes he doesn't need her help and he’s nothing like anyone she’s ever met—he’s silent, he’s lethal, and he’s hiding a lot more than he’s willing to admit. Still, she can’t help but be drawn to him, no matter how many walls he puts up, and it’s only a matter of time before she strips him bare, exposing the secrets of the man she gives her heart to . . . a heart she prays isn't broken by what he finally chooses to reveal.

[image error]

The Darkest Knight #15

THE END

Online Only. Contains bad words and sex-y scenarios. Mature (18+) audiences.

Read Episode 14 here. New? Start with Episode 01 here.

Sometimes, she broke her husband. It was what Mo called the times Giorgio went so silent, days would pass before she heard his voice again. It was happening now. After she gave him her opinion—which she was pretty sure was correct—of who she believed his mother was, he shut down. They left Italy and went home, everyone branching out and returning to their lives, and Giorgio didn’t say a word for any of it. It had been days now and he’d yet to say a word.

It only happened during major revelations. They’d lost a baby together, and he’d felt like it was his fault. He was a beast, and beasts weren’t supposed to procreate, so he didn’t believe that anything he brought into this world would have a chance at a prosperous life if half his blood coursed through its veins. She’d assumed she’d convinced him of the opposite, showing him that there was something sweet and inherently good hidden within him, until she found out she was pregnant with Aleksi.

Right after the announcement, he’d blessed the news with a week of silence.

The first words he’d said to her to break the quietude was, “You will be perfect mother.” She’d reassured him that he would be a great “papa” and this time, things would go well.

The night Aleksi was born, more silence. That had only lasted a couple days since he’d been in more of a silent awe because of “how small” Aleksi was, “how beautiful,” and, “Bez, look at how he holds finger. He will be strong.”

This silence—she glanced down at the clock on the bottom of her computer screen—had gone on about ten days now. It wasn’t necessarily a silent treatment in that he didn’t ignore her when she spoke to him. And he still spoke. He just only spoke when necessary and answered questions. There was no casual conversation, no playing around. No late-night chats.

In Italy, when she told him she believed Godmother Irina had been his mother, it was the first time since they’d met that she’d seen the boy underneath the beast. The first time his features had ever softened. It was as if every moment he’d ever spent with the woman had gone through his mind, all at the same time, searching for confirmation.

His large frame appeared in the doorway to their home office.

Well, her home office.

She’d continued to give private classes targeted toward self-defense for women from beginner to advanced. A shooting range had been set up in the back where Tayler came down to teach weapons handling and first aid. She’d asked Giorgio to teach a class but he’d told her, in his own words, that it was her space. He and Gage sometimes came to help demonstrate common holds the women could get out of, but he wanted her to know that it was her place to develop, design, and manage. He saw no need to do anything close to answering emails or questions that came in through her website.

Mo looked up over the top of the computer monitor. “Oh, hey baby. Aleksi’s still asleep?”

He stepped into the room. When he didn’t say a word, she sighed. She missed their one-sided conversations that were mostly her talking and him listening intently, but he needed more time.

“Did he eat the carrots?” she prodded. “When I noticed him looking at our food, I realized that maybe he might be ready for solids, but I should have just bought some instead of making it. I put ginger in those carrots, Gio. Should I have saved that for like dessert or—”

She stopped when she saw him smile. It made her stomach flutter, just like it did the first time she saw it. It wasn’t huge or wide or overly welcoming. Still, there was a beauty about the slight lift of his lip, the tug on the side of his mouth, and the softening of his jaw.

Mo closed the applications on the computer. “You look happy. Are you ready to talk about . . .?”

He jerked his head toward the hallway. “Come.”

She followed him, the baby monitor receiver in his back pocket, downstairs and out to the backyard. A pergola that hadn’t been there before stood in the middle of the grass. Beneath it, on a slab of concrete, a trio of patio chairs had been set up around a gas fire pit. After renovating and updating their house, he’d started doing a lot more woodwork. She’d assumed he was a natural but learned it was something he’d done during his massive quantities of alone time before they met.

“You like it.”

She nodded. “I love it. How did I not know you were doing this?”

“I am quiet.”

He took her hand. When he lowered to sit in one of the chairs, instead of sitting next to him, she waited until he was situated before straddling him. She loved how close she could get while in his lap and there would be fewer and fewer days as Aleksi got older, as well as the two of them, where she’d have the luxury.

He squeezed her waist. “You like this.”

“I do.” She nodded and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love being close to you.” She stared at him. “Now, what’s been going on?”

“You are right,” he said. Godmother Irina, she is my mother.”

She wanted to squeal with joy but swallowed her elation, saving it for the rest of the conversation. In her mind, however, a song still played. He’d been loved all along. His mother had been there all along. Even when Otto had told her it was forbidden, she’d risked her own life to give her baby boy a chance. It was what she would have done for Aleksi, and it was what she now understood that she was a mother herself.

“How do you know this?” he asked. “I did not tell you much about her.”

“Your stories. She was kind to all the boys, but I remember you telling me that Otto killed her because he saw her sing to you. She cared and cried for you. She cleaned your wounds and came to search you out. She told you, straight up, that you weren’t what he thought you were. Gio, Irina was a direct threat to the version of you he was trying to create. Also,” she moved his hair behind his ear, “I think I figured it out because of Aleksi. The way she was with you, it made me think a lot about him. Like how I’d be with him.”

He stared up into her face, eyes dark and shining. “I see her face,” he said, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “I see it now, my face in hers. Not before, but now. My hair is hers.”

Mo wrapped a strand around her index finger. “She gave you all this luxurious hair? Damn, son. She was gorgeous. I can tell.”

“You know little thing Aleksi will do with his face?” He wrinkled the space between his brows. “Godmother Irina, she has done that.”

“The thing he does when he’s mad, happy, or pooping?” Mo tossed her head back, laughing. “I was wondering where he got that from. I just assumed that was what you did as a baby.”

His expression changed from animated to dim as his gaze moved away from hers. “I bury her, Bez.”

It was what she’d feared. Otto was a sick son of a bitch. She’d already guessed he would get some sort of twisted pleasure out of making Giorgio bury his mother’s body.

She lowered her hand to his chest to feel what his face wouldn’t show.

“Vater, he make me bury her. After he kill her.” His grip on her waist tightened. “So much pain, Bez, but is not worse than before. Is same pain. You think is possible, even if my mind did not know . . .”

“Yes. I think it’s very possible that you still felt a special bond with her, a mother’s bond, even before you knew,” she told him, brushing a kiss against his forehead. “How old was she when she . . . died?”

“Young.” His gaze returned to hers. “You did not ask how I know she is my mother.”

“Because I’m waiting for you to tell me.”

His grip relaxed, and he used his thumbs to stroke the little exposed flesh between her tank top and her leggings. “I bury her, so I know how to find her. I call police in Russia to, how you say, dig up . . . trup?”

She wouldn’t think too much about why she knew the Russian word for corpse.

“You had them exhume her corpse from where Vater had you bury her out in the woods near the school.”

“Da. Yes.”

“Did they question how you knew this information?”

He shrugged. “No. Is Russia.”

She assumed Julien also had something to do with it, but she didn’t push.

“I switch to Maori,” he said. “English is son of a bitch.”

She laughed. “But you’ve gotten so much better at it. Go ahead.”

“Julien said that, when a person is buried, their DNA can last for a long time,” he explained. “When they found her, I told them she might be my mother. Because of everything that happened with Vater, I told them that I was one of his boys.”

A gasp snuck out before she could reel it in. “You did? I thought you didn’t want anybody to know?”

“It was the only way, Bez.”

“I’m proud of you, Gio.” She touched another kiss to his forehead. “So freakin’ proud, and I love you so much. Go ahead.”

He continued, “She was my mother, and he was my father. It is all I know. I don’t know why he kept her with the boys and with me, and I don’t think I ever will. But now, I understand the story. The night I was born, Godmother Irina,” he paused, “my mater carried three babies back to Vater’s through the tunnels in Russia. I did not know before that she had given birth to one of the babies.”

Mo’s heart broke for the woman, possibly girl, if Giulia’s age was any indication of how young Otto abducted them. Hours, maybe even less than hours after giving birth, she’d had to escape discovery by the Russian police with not only her newborn but two others, the twins Malachi and Melnik. She’d likely only had a few moments alone with her precious boy, her Giorgio, away from Otto’s watchful evil eye.

She didn’t believe Irina had been captured by Otto. She believed Irina had gone to work for him under the impression that the position was to help out in an orphanage. Otto had then seen the girl, young and beautiful, naïve and isolated, and took advantage. Irina had then somehow managed to keep on going for the sake of the boys she was tasked to raise as well as the one she’d created in her womb.

Giorgio was strong because of his mother. That kind of strength made a home in people’s genes, their DNA.

Aleksi was going to grow up to be a formidable creature, walking around with both her and Giorgio’s badassery.

“I would like to give her a proper burial, if that is okay with you,” he informed her. “Maybe you are tired of traveling.”

Mo shook her head. “Not for this. I’d love for Aleksi to meet his other grandmother and the country where you were born.”

He swiped a tear she hadn’t felt from her cheek.

“Gio, you were loved.” Finally, she let out the joyous squeal. “Oh my gosh! This is the best news. I know it’s not the happiest of endings but she loved you, baby. She loved you, just like I do, and I thank God for her.”

He switched back to English. “I love her, Bez. She is special woman. I forget none of the stories, none of the songs. I see her face like she is still alive and sitting next to me. She is reason I love you. You are strong and kind and when rest of world turn away from my voice and my knife, you did not.”

He pressed his lips to her neck in a quick, delicate kiss—a kiss much too delicate for a man delicate didn’t suit. At least, it didn’t used to.

“She is reason I am able to love you. Is like practice. She is reason I am not, truly, das Biest. I am lucky to know her and hear her stories and her singing. I regret you did not know her, but she is in you.” He searched her face. “I see her in you and our little fish.”

These tears she felt, a wet tickle rolling down over her cheekbone to the corners of her mouth. Her nose warmed as emotion took over her whole body. She was so happy for him, her husband. Her love. The father of her child and maybe even future children.

“Thank you, Bez,” he said.

She barely got the words, “For what?” out between her quivering lips.

“Because with you, always, I will be happy.”

He tugged gently on the back of her head until their mouths came together. She thrust her tongue into his mouth, the moisture from her face wetting his skin. She would do it all over again. If she’d had the choice, she would have taken all the heartache and disappointment and the pain that came over her body just to end up here again. With him. Forever with him.

The monitor sounded. Now, when Aleksi woke up, he didn’t cry. He simply screamed at the top of his lungs like he was calling out to them, pissed they’d had the nerve to leave him alone.

Mo broke away from Giorgio’s kiss, eased off his lap, and helped him up. “Fine,” she said as she walked with him, hand in hand, to where Aleksi was tucked safe inside. “I’ll let you tell him the story of Baba Yaga.”

When they stepped inside, she found Gage in the entryway with his back turned. Tayler was walking down the stairs holding both Grey and Aleksi. When Gage turned around, something wriggled in his arms, small and brown.

“A puppy?” Mo squealed.

“Da.” Giorgio took Aleksi from Tayler’s arms. “I have promised you one.”

Mo picked up the puppy’s warm body and cradled it to her chest.

“But Bez—”

“Still a no to the piranhas, Gio.”

Gage flashed him a look.

“Okay,” Giorgio said. “I will cancel order.”

She stood watching them, the Auserwahlte and his baby boy, and knew that her life could only get better from here on out.

And it would.

[image error]

Precious, Stacey, and JAB1971, y’all hit the nail on the head. Email me where you’d like me to send your gift card. (Your preferred email address)

I’ve been playing with this idea for a while now because I’d previously written Irina as Gio’s mother, but I decided not to include it in the book. However, it’s a sweet outcome for one of my favorite characters ever.

I would also like to say a special thank you for everyone who’s been here every week, reading up on Giorgio and Mo. I hope you are all doing well and will stay that way until this “storm” has passed.

I love you all!

Alex

Keep following for The Shadow, which is coming soon (I’m thinking May but it depends on the publisher) and Book 2 of The Myths, Legends, and Monsters Series. 

 

Mo and Giorgio are from the book, “Angels and Assassins: The Dark Knight.”

Available on Amazon.com