Shiloh Walker's Blog, page 86

Blade Song is $2.99

Until next Monday.  Then it goes back up to its regular price.  The pricing is at Amazon, BN & iTunes…I also marked it down at ARe & there’s a Smashwords coupon for those who are outside of the country.  Sometimes it takes longer for the international markets to do the price changes and this was a last minute thing so Amazon UK, etc may not get the pricing changes in effect. But you can still get the book at the discount price…both ARe and Smashwords have epub, mobi format, etc and they have no territory restrictions.

 

Amazon | BN | iBookstore | ARe/OmniLit | Smashwords 

 

If you haven’t read Blade Song, now is a great time…since…well, Book 2, Night Blade, comes out next week.

Kit Colbana—half breed, assassin, thief, jack of all trades—has a new job: track down the missing ward of one of the local alpha shapeshifters. It should be a piece of cake.

So why is she so nervous? It probably has something to do with the insanity that happens when you deal with shifters—especially  sexy ones who come bearing promises of easy jobs and easier money.

Or maybe it’s all the other missing kids that Kit discovers while working the case, or the way her gut keeps screaming she’s gotten in over her head. Or maybe it’s because if she fails—she’s dead.

If she can stay just one step ahead, she should be okay. Maybe she’ll even live long to collect her fee…

Damon hit the button to shut the doors and then he just held it. “Are you trying to push yourself into a panic attack?” he asked, dipping his head and growling right into my ear.

I drove my elbow into his stomach.

I might as well have been hitting steel for all the good it did.

I did it again anyway.

He swore and spun around, shoving my back against the elevator doors.

My hand itched—bad, bad, bad.

“Listen, little girl,” he snarled.

He reached for me.

I darted aside.

When he reached for me again, the blade was just there.

He stilled. The only sign of surprise was the slight widening of his eyes.

“Stop it,” I whispered, pointing the blade at him, leveled at his throat. “I’m tired of this, do you hear me?”

“You should put that thing away before you hurt yourself.”

I leaned in enough that it was pressed against his throat, watched as the tip pierced his skin. As smoke drifted from his wound to curl in the air, I glared at him.

“How did you get it past me this time?”

“And you keep calling me the idiot.” Blood stained the tip of my sword red now. The blade liked it. She wanted more. A lot more. “You saw me lock the damn thing up in the lockers upstairs, cat. Or are you blind?”

His nostrils flared, a growl rumbling through his throat.

“The two of us need to come to an understanding,” I said flatly. I twisted the blade, watched as it pushed a little deeper into his throat. “I’m dead if I don’t find this kid. If he’s down there on a slab, I’m dead, all because your crazed queen needs to blame somebody and it doesn’t matter if he’s been dead for ten minutes or ten days.”

His lashes flickered.

“Now I’m not going to whine about how unfair that is. Nor am I going to bitch about the fact that if you all had been doing your job by that boy, maybe he wouldn’t have run,” I added. “The bottom line is…he did run. And I’ve got a soft spot for kids. This is a well-known fact, a card your Alpha knew and worked to her advantage. Now…if that’s not him, we’ve still got a job to do. If it is him…well, I’ll deal some other way. But nevertheless, there’s a job to do and it’s not going to get any easier with us at each other’s throats.”

He snarled and pushed himself closer, driving the blade a quarter of an inch into his throat. “You think I want to be working with some crazy little bitch who can’t control her emotions?”

“Well, you worked with your Alpha,” I pointed out with a polite smile. “Face the facts. I’m not were. I respond to fear, anger, grief and all the other emotions. Those are my shortcomings, having human blood. You should have been prepared for that. If you’re not equipped to deal with it? That’s your shortcoming as one of the more alpha cats in the damned clan.” I smirked at him. “I keep hearing about your vaunted control. All the shifters are supposed to be in control. It’s what guides them through the spiking, adolescence. If you can get through that and not lose your marbles, it’s supposed to be smooth sailing.”

Damon glared at me.

“It seems to be a myth, if you ask me.” I twisted the blade and watched as blood trickled down. Flesh continued to burn and he just stood there. Oh, he had control, all right. He had it in spades.

“Is there a point to this or are you just really into having me wring your neck?” His voice was a growl too deep. The storm clouds in his eyes had changed, too—shifting to that eerie luminescence singular to felines. The pupils were changing.

Pushing too far, damn it. Oh, well.

“The point is…if you want this job done, you have got to get off my ass. I can’t do it with you growling at me. I can’t do it with thunderclouds over my head and I can’t do it if I’m worrying about an ax falling on my head at the first wrong move, if I’m worried about anything other than doing this damn job.”

Those eyes flashed again, and then, to my surprise, that eerie, flickering glow melted away and he stared at me with a human gaze. “Are you done?”

“Possibly.” I twisted the blade once more. Maybe I really was crazy. “Are we going to keep doing this or are you going to let me work?”

He reached up and closed a hand around the blade.

Shifter flesh met the enchanted silver and started to smoke. As he pushed it away, he leaned in and said, “You can work, little girl. But sooner or later, you and I are going to have a reckoning.”

“I can’t wait.”

read more…

**Be warned.  This isn’t a romance.  There isn’t a nice, neat HEA at the end.  Kit is mouthy. Damon can be an ass. But I had so much fun with this book.  Some people hated it.  But a lot of people loved it.  Including Patricia Briggs…

“Do yourself a favor and read this book.  This story is original and hard-hitting with terrific world building and some of the best characters I’ve read.  Yum.” Patricia Briggs, author of the #1 NYTimes Mercy Thompson series

Celebrate yourself being awesome…

I’m kinda in love with this little girl.

 

This just makes me smile.

I don’t think girls celebrate themselves enough.  It seems to me that males can, and do.  But when girls or women do it…there’s flack for it.

No.  That’s not how it should be.

This girl is delighted and she’s awesome and she’s adorable.  She’s celebrating herself and that’s wonderful. We need to encourage that.

Rock on, Miss Quvenzhane Wallis.

Nominated for Best Actress Award, I believe… (I don’t watch awards shows…but that’s what I’m seeing.  And she’s all of 9.)

Image from The Urban Daily

Counting down to Kit…

I’m getting hits on the blog… what happens in NIGHT BLADE…ummmm…well, you need to read it.  I’m told it’s worth the ride.  But chocolate and/or wine makes it a little easier.

Here’s a snippet.

 

The dense, heavy ink had always mesmerized me and tonight, I focused on it like a drowning man needed a preserver. “What’s all of this mean?” I asked him, splaying my hand out over it.

He covered his hand with mine. “What makes you think it means anything?”

“Tattoos hurt,” I said pointedly. “And this took a while.” All that heavy inking would have taken hours, I suspected. “Somehow, I don’t think you did it just to impress the ladies or to look tough.”

He snorted. “If you’d seen me when I had it done, you might change your mind. I needed all the help I could get when it comes to looking tough. Not that a tattoo would have done it.”

“You didn’t look tough, huh?”

“Scrawniest, most pathetic runt around.” He lifted my hand and kissed it, before lowering it back to his chest. “Remember how Doyle looked in the pictures I showed you?”

“Yeah.” Skinny. Rail-thin skinny, too. Like he wouldn’t have stood up had a stiff wind come along.

“I made him look tough.” He skimmed a thumb along one area of the tattoo and said, “I had her use charm-infused ink. Wanted to make sure it would hold, although she still couldn’t promise it would.”

“So it means something.”

“Yeah.” He rolled his head over and stared at me from under his lashes. “It’s the story of me…what put me on the road that made me what I am. I wanted it written someplace so I’d never forget. I knew it was going to be a long, long walk…I had a goal, things I had to do, and I still have to get them done. I can’t let myself forget. But I can’t talk about it yet.”

Studying his face, I stroked my thumb over the hard line of his mouth. “I don’t think I’m the only one with nightmares.”

iBookstore | Amazon | BN | Kobo

 

Author’s choice…

Saturday snippets…

 

Lying there on the bed, curled around her, Joss was almost convinced that this was everything he’d ever need.

But when he leaned in to press his lips to her shoulder, those shields were still there. Still solid and cool and impenetrable. Sighing, he buried his face against her hair. “Why are you still shutting me out?”

She stroked a hand down his arm. “It’s easier that way, lover,” she murmured.

“Easier. Easier how?”

One silent moment stretched out into another, and then finally, she rose.

Joss sat up, staring at her.

He’d wanted to make love to her again, but somehow, he didn’t think that would be happening just yet. And soon, he had to figure out where Jones was, get his ass back on the job. But this first.

“You don’t really want me to stop shutting you out, Joss.” Dru said rose from the bed.

As she started to get dressed, he studied her. “And why is that?”

A bitter smirk twisted her lips. “Because once you’ve heard the entirety of what I’ve had to do since I started working this job, you . . .” Her voice hitched. She paused in the middle of putting her bra on, pressing her lips together. She lowered her head, her shining dark hair falling to shield her expression.

When she looked back at him, her expression was as remote, distant as the sun. “You won’t want me anymore. I can tell you that.”

“Nothing could make that happen…”

From The Reunited…read more

Lauren Dane

Mari Carr

Delilah Devlin

Jody Wallace

Shelli Stevens

TJ Michaels

Leah Braemel

McKenna Jeffries

Taige Crenshaw

Felicity Heaton

Caris Roane

Myla Jackson

HelenKay Dimon

A bunch of random-ness, reviews, contests, Night Blade snippet

We had to put bratlet’s poodle to sleep today…she started losing weight and when we took her in, it turned out to be chronic renal failure.  She was only eight years old so it’s hitting us all pretty hard…thus the blog has kind of gone neglected this week.

So random stuff.

Awesome review of WRECKED over at Publisher’s Weekly…

BLADE SONG kicked BUTT when it did its  $.99 cent on Amazon… it kicked butt so well, it hit #1 on fantasy for a while and cracked the top 100 for Kindle, a first for me.  It’s still sitting pretty on some of the lists.

 

 

Don’t forget, there are some contests going on…

~*~

Night Blade finally showed up for pre-order on Barnes and Noble.

Here’s a snippet… it’s out soon.

 

“Maybe I should make you fight me for it.”

He gave me a pained look.

I laughed. Sparring with Damon was fun. He had to keep the brakes on, something we both knew but when he was keeping the brakes on, he couldn’t keep up with me. Meaning I kicked his ass.

Damon was a decent sparring partner but he’d never be a swordsman.

“I’ll tell you what…I’ll answer the question, if you’ll agree to do me a favor.” I finished the attack pattern and then turned to him, smiling a little.

He wasn’t looking at my face.

Clearing my throat, I waited until his gaze shifted from my breasts upward. “You are such a man,” I muttered.

A faint grin tugged at his lips and he shrugged. Then he crossed his arms over his chest. “You know, I could just make Doyle tell me.”

“But you asked me. And I can tell you. Right now…exactly what you want to know, for a favor. All you have to do is something that’s completely within your power to give,” I said. I banished my blade. Her sheath was on one of the weapons tables and she settled there, quiet and quiescent as I strolled over to stand a few feet in front of Damon.

“What?”

“Stop.” I studied his face, wondering if he’d understand what I was asking when I didn’t fully grasp all of it myself. “Just…stop, Damon.”

A muscle pulsed in his cheek.

“You’re standing there worrying because you’re thinking Doyle could hurt me,” I said softly. “He’s still young and new enough in his skin that I can handle him…and you know it.”

Lashes drooped over his eyes.

“It would take blood and pain on both our parts, but I could do it. Plus…” I shrugged restlessly. “The kid hates me, but he trusts and loves you, so you need to trust him and stop worrying he’s going to hurt me. Trust both of us.”

“Fine,” he bit off.

“That’s not all.”

Gray eyes narrowed.

“It’s a bulk sort of favor.”

“I only asked one fucking question.”

I grinned at him. “Maybe I’ll work out naked next time.”

You can pre-order if ya want.

iBookstore | Amazon | BN | Kobo

I had a guest blog over at Smexy Books the other day.  We had just found out the news about our pup so I flaked out and forgot.  But you can still go read…Approach with Caution.

 

Blade Song… on sale for 99 cents at Amazon. TODAY ONLY

It’s the UF/SF daily deal on Amazon (US only)

Blade Song (Colbana Files) 

If you’ve wanted to read it, now is the best chance.

Colbana.

The message popped up on my phone sometime past eleven that night.

Sprawled on my bed, going bleary eyed as I combed through yet another batch of runaways, I grabbed the phone with one hand and flipped the sheet over me with my other. I was just barely fast enough.

The door to my room opened a micro-second later.

I was dressed. Workout shorts, a tank top, decent enough, but still. Studiously ignoring him, I read the message and tapped back a reply.

The one and only.

That’s a relief. Can’t handle two of you, Linc texted back. So, exactly why did you make a point of giving me your cell number when I’ve had it for three years now? I mean, I called you to ask you out about once a week for a year.

I smiled a little as I deleted the message before replying. Linc had picked up on that, all right.

The shadow fell across my bed, although I didn’t hear him.

Rolling around, I casually settled with my back against the headboard and glanced up. “Any reason you’re in my room?”

Damon leaned a shoulder against the bedpost, stared at me. “Who is the message from?”

“A guy.”

Black brows ratcheted up. “You really think you got time to mess with that shit right now?”

“Hey, when you got an itch…” I shrugged and sent Linc back a reply. Just need a favor. When the results come back on the kid, can you email me them to my old email? Not the current—somebody reads them over my shoulder right now. He’s also trying to read my texts, BTW.

I deleted that message as the asshole in residence pushed away from the bedpost and prowled closer.

Sure thing, gorgeous.

I rolled my eyes.

Two seconds later, the phone was out of my hand.

“You asshole, give me my phone back.”

Damon read the message, then went to scroll back through the other messages. “Why are you deleting the messages?”

“None of your damned business!” I snapped. Rolling to my knees, I went to snatch the phone way.

I stopped as he lifted a hand and rolled out of his reach in a backwards shoulder roll before he could so much as touch me. Coming off the bed, I kept it between us as I stared at him.

He’d warned me there was a reckoning coming and while I figured it would happen sooner or later, I’d rather not have it happen just yet. My palm itched. Absently, I twisted it as the bones popped.

Damon wasn’t messing with my phone anymore. He threw it down on the bed and glared at me. “Would you quit acting like every time I move, I’m going to attack you?”

Call me…I’m here, I’m here—

The sword was on my bed and she burned unnaturally bright.

He glanced at her and said, “If you even move toward that thing, I’m going to bend it into knots.”

I curled my lip at him. “Like you could.”

He leaned forward. “Is that a dare, little girl?”

“No. It’s a plainly stated fact. Now…why don’t you do us both a favor and get the fuck out of my bedroom?” I jutted my chin out, rotated my wrist again as the itching and heat flared. The sword flashed brighter. I usually wasn’t this close to her without having her in my hand.

I couldn’t help it, though. Ever since he’d spouted off that little piece about a reckoning, I’d been on eggshells, just waiting for whatever the hell he had in mind. If he thought he could leave another mark on me, damn it, I’d bloody him.

He leaped over the bed. I backpedaled and faded into nothingness, going invisible as he came for me.

This was one time where his sense of smell might not help.

The entire room smelled of me.

“Damn it, considering how mouthy you are, you’re a damned coward.” A smirk was on his lips as I brushed by him, just barely missing his outstretched hand. He moved back over by the bed and settled on the foot of it, that sly, Cheshire cat grin curling his lips as he reached behind him, closing his hand over the grip of my sword.

My breath hitched in my chest.

Mine—

His eyes flickered my way. No, he couldn’t see me and tracking me by scent was harder. But he heard that, damn it. I couldn’t stop the way my heart reacted when he touched my blade. Couldn’t stop it.

“Don’t like seeing me play with your toy, huh?” He lifted her and caught the tip in his other hand. Muscles flexed. “How about if I twist it up a little?”

He couldn’t. Others had tried.

But she was mine—

She flared, bright as the sun, and disappeared. I dropped the invisibility as she settled into my hand. “Keep your damned paws off my blade, cat.”

He was staring rather dumbly into his hands.

A rather queer look settled over his face as he lifted his head to study me. “So that’s how you do it.”

Was there really any point in responding to that? I twirled my wrist, satisfaction settling inside me. Having somebody else touch this blade was like having somebody combing through my underwear drawer or something. Maybe even worse.

“That’s why you’re always popping your wrist or wiggling it when you’re worked up, isn’t it?”

Staring at him, I held her at ready. “Are you going to leave me alone or not? I’ve still got reports to go through and I’m tired.”

“What’s your range on calling it?” He stood up, still eying the sword. “Are there other weapons or is it just that one?”

As he took a step closer, I lifted her. “Please stay away.”

“I thought we had a truce,” he murmured. A smile tugged at his lips.

If I didn’t know what a bastard he was, I might have almost believed the smile. “Doesn’t mean I want you getting close to me.”

He eyed the sword, then me. “You can’t really hold it like that forever. I can just stand here until you lower it. All I want to do is talk, Kit.”

“I can hold it a lot longer than you might think.” Memories of drills danced through my mind. Fanis had broken the bones in my forearm when I was twelve because my guard got shaky. When the same thing happened at fourteen with a heavier weapon—a battle-axe—she’d broken my right humerus and my collarbone. I knew how to hold my guard, and despite what he thought, I was stronger than humans.

“So you’re going to stand there and have a pissing contest over nothing rather than an answer to a question?” His smile widened and his gaze dropped, staring at my tits as though the close-fitting tank top wasn’t even there. “Okay. I’ll just enjoy the view.”

Hissing, I lowered the blade and spun away.

Spying a T-shirt thrown over a nearby chair, I grabbed it and stalked over to my bed. Once more, I kept it between us as I put the blade down. “Take it again, and I’ll just call it back,” I said flatly, jerking the T-shirt on over my head.

I didn’t even have time to gasp for a breath.

He was right there.

A hand on my neck held me in place. Swearing, I flexed my wrist. “Go ahead,” he said, his voice gruff. “I’m not…”

I tensed as I felt his hand catch the hem of the shirt I’d pulled on.

“What in the holy hell happened to your back?”

 

Contests…Countdown to Kit

It’s like the bad job to end all bad jobs…see you how can win a giving key and book money!

UTA: The J.C. Blog is being problematic about comments… please enter via this page

Also, don’t forget, you can win an ARC of WRECKED. But the clock is ticking!

Sweethearts…. Snippet time!

From Night Blade…(written by my other me) due out soon.

“Close?” He pressed his hand to my collarbone, splaying it across my skin so that I felt the very heat of it rushing through me. “He had to fucking be touching you?”

“Close quarter detail sadly means just that—cloaking doesn’t work otherwise.” I plucked at the hem of my shirt. I really should have had that shower—and burned the damn clothes. “Once the job was over, I kicked the asshole in the head. It wasn’t enough.”

Damon’s eyes flashed. Light reflected back at me. Cat’s eyes—

I held his gaze. “This wasn’t a job I picked. I had to take it—lives are at stake—and once it’s done, I’m going to bloody somebody over it. But for now, I have to finish it.”

“And this?” he asked, fisting his hand in the front of my shirt, tugging me close. “Does this have to happen again? You stand there smelling of another man again? Kit…I—shit, Kit, this is gutting me.”

I curled my hand around his wrist. “If I could tell you what it was doing to me, I would.”

His eyes searched mine. “Why can’t you?”

“If I tell anybody, Banner is going to know. And people die. I can’t do that, Damon. I can’t.” I can’t let you die—

He groaned and pressed his forehead to mine.

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WRECKED… Book trailer… and a chance to win an ARC

It’s Valentine’s Day.  I’ll do a giveaway. Wanna win an ARC of WRECKED? This one is easy. Kept one on hand just for my blog readers.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Night Blade news..

Cover Flat!

Yes… I plan on having it out in print… hopefully around the time it’s released in ebook, by April at the latest.  Working it thru the process now.  Wish there was a simpler option for it, but sadly, there’s not.

Read more here…