Read an Excerpt from Born of Æther
How do you play a game where you’re both predator and prey?
Mysterious Akiko Susumu is not what anyone thinks she is; a simple high-school kid with a simple teenage life in the east coast city of Saltford. Only she and the man who insists she calls him grandfather knows what she is and how much power is at her disposal. Akiko is forbidden to share the realities of her life with a single soul. Not even her best friends Targa, Georjie, and Saxony know the real truth…yet.
When Akiko is sent back to Japan for the summer on a mission she doesn’t understand, her past collides with her present. Just when she thinks she’s in the clear she gets caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the most dangerous crime syndicate in Japan.
Akiko’s story promises to keep you on the edge of your seat in a way no other story has before: intrigue, mystery, romance, history (yes, samurai!) and an elemental power you didn’t know existed will keep you turning pages until the wee hours of the morning.
Enjoy this excerpt, and may it whet your appetite for Born of Æther, coming soon to a reading device near you! To be notified by email as soon as its released either hit the follow button on my Amazon author page, or sign up for my VIP Reader List.
EXCERPT
When I was young, the neighbour’s son Toshi used to play tricks on me. He would snatch the sticks from my hair on a windy day, making the long black strands whip around and become hopelessly tangled. He’d drop a toad in my lap and run away laughing as I gagged with revulsion. He’d wait behind our outhouse until I needed to use it and then throw caterpillars in through the moon shaped window. The path I took into the woods to gather plants and mushrooms for my mother wound by his house and he waited in the bushes to jump out at me and set my heart to pounding.
I came to abhor my daily trek which passed by his house so I took great pains to make a new and secret path to avoid falling into his traps. A game of cat and mouse ensued, where Toshi would wait until he knew I was leaving the house and follow me, trying to discover my secret path. I would lead him through the woods, meandering through the swamp, up over the rock slabs, and through the brambles until his father would call for him and he’d have to abandon the chase.
I had begun to feel that I had won when he began to stalk me less and less. Soon weeks would pass without him hounding me and I began to relax. Then I began to miss his attentions, and eventually, thoughts of him faded away completely. Life went on and my duties changed from those of a little girl to those of a young woman. As I began to have just an inkling of the understanding that there was something different about myself and my sister Aimi, I became wrapped up in the secret world inside our own house.
I gathered my herb basket and decided impulsively to take the old path, the one that wandered by Toshi’s house.
The rhythmic sharp sound of chopping wood echoed off the trees and rock slabs. Expecting to find his father, I rounded the bend and their yard came into view. My body became still as my eyes fell on the man wielding the axe, but my mind was a tempest. Broad square hands gripped the wooden handle, thick black hair tied half-back to keep out of his eyes. The high forehead and widows peak reminded me of drawings I had seen of ancient samurai. I could not have stopped myself from staring even if I had been in a crowd. Sweat-slick skin pulled taut over the figure of a grown man. He moved with the grace of someone at home inside himself, not the gangly clumsiness of the boy I remembered. How could this creature be Toshi? Could he have changed this much? What had happened to the boy who used to torture me?
A twig snapped under my foot and he looked up. His eyes fell on me and we gazed at one another. There he was. Toshi. He squinted toward me, the sun in his eyes. It took a moment, but recognition melted the line between his brows and an enormous surprised grin split across his face. He lifted a sweat-drenched arm, seemingly unembarrassed to be caught naked to the waist. “Akiko!” he called, a little out of breath.
I gasped as he dropped his axe and crossed the back yard with an easy stride, his footsteps silent in his fabric boots. He made his way through the trees and into the shade, stopping not far from me.
“I can see you more easily now,” he said. “I almost didn’t recognize you. When did you become a woman?”
“When did you become a man?” I countered, unable to stop the spread of my own grin.
His teak-coloured eyes took me in, the only part of this man who reminded me of the boy I once knew. “But you’re beautiful!” he said.
I could only laugh with delight. Men did not speak to women like this. I was already surprised he’d approached me, as it was custom for young men and women to have a chaperone in order to be together. Apparently, Toshi didn’t care. “And you are bold,” was all I could think to say, as heat flushed my cheeks.
He laughed and it too reminded me of the boy. “We are old friends.”
“Friends? You tortured me to no end when we were young. That was friendship?” I raised my eyebrows and crossed my arms, my basket dangling over my forearm. “I hope we never become enemies.”
He dropped his gaze and chuckled, a black strand of hair falling over his face. “Don’t you know,” his eyes flicked back up to mine, “that’s what boys do when they have a crush?”
I gasped. His boldness took my breath away, flushed my whole body with an unexpected heat. Where had little Toshi gotten his confidence from? My heart swelled, and just like that, he had me. His good-natured lop-sided grin swept my feet out from under me and I knew what I wanted then, more than any Hanta life, I wanted Toshi. “And men?” I asked, breathless. “What do men do when they have a crush?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “I see I am not the only one who has found courage.” He took a step forward and I took a step back, both of us smiling.
My heart pounded like a hammer and everything in me had come alive in a way that it never had before. I never knew these feelings were possible.
“Men go after what they want,” he said, taking a lunge toward me.
I squealed and ran, lifting my skirts as I bolted away from him. My basket discarded and forgotten, I tore through the woods, fueling my legs with Hanta fire. Laughing, we pelted, Toshi hot on my heels. His fingertips would graze my shoulder, my waist, but always I would dodge away. His surprise at my speed delighted me even further. What amazed me even more, I realized, as the trees whizzed by and I scrambled up over the rock slabs and boulders – was that I trusted him completely. The only other man in whose company I felt safe up to that point was my father. Why that was, I could not explain, but it was something I could settle into. I was safe with him.
My heart in my throat and Toshi’s footfalls behind me, I ascended the boulders leading to the rock slab overlooking the coast and Tai Island. It was my favourite place in the world. It might have been more popular only it was so difficult to get to. By the time I crested the last boulder my legs were shaking, my body was as hot as a coal, and my chest was heaving. Toshi finally caught me and swung me around in the sunlight as it beamed down on the huge rock slab. Moss cushioned our footfalls and tiny stones scattered as we kicked them rolling with our slippered feet. The wind picked up tendrils of our hair and cooled my face and neck.
His face was so close to mine and his grin was all for me. I thought I would burst with the pleasure of the moment. Toshi’s chest and shoulders heaved under my hands as he caught his breath, his slick skin sliding under my palms. I had never touched any man this way before, and somehow, it felt so natural. His hot hands closed around my waist and he looked down at me.
“Why did you stay away for so long?” he asked.
“Well,” I brushed strands of hair back from my face, “you were a thorn in my side.” I swallowed and panted, my heart still pounding in the cage of my ribs.
“Akiko,” he said and put his forehead to mine. The sun reflected in one of his eyes and lit it from within, as golden as honey. His hands squeezed my waist. “Tell me you knew.”
“Knew?” I pulled back and gazed at him, palms on his arms.
“Tell me you knew that I loved you. From the moment I first stood near you and was intoxicated by your scent, by your being. I loved you. I love you still.”
My nerves made me laugh, in spite of the seriousness that had take over his face. “My scent?”
His leaned down and put his face next to mine with a soft inhale. Shivers coursed up my spine as he breathed me in. “Like the air after a thunderstorm. No one else smells this way.”
I closed my eyes, letting him hover there. If my mother had seen me she would have been horrified, maybe even ashamed of how wanton Toshi had made me. But I didn’t care. I felt alive, and no one would ever see us here. This was my clifftop, mine and Aimi’s. Now it was Toshi’s, too.
“I had no other way to get close to you, other than to harass you,” he said quietly, his breath grazing my neck. “It was the only way I could have your smell, your smile.”
I laughed and stepped back. “I don’t remember smiling at you, cursing you was more like it.”
“You did smile,” he said, taking my hand as we walked to the edge of the rock slab to overlook the ocean. “You always had a smile for me, even when I was horrible. Tell me I can have that smile for the rest of my life?”
I thought my heart would leap from my chest and into his hands. He was completely irresistible. I could not remember loving him when I was a little girl, but my heart was brimming over with it for him now. It would have been easier to hold back the tide than to say no. So I didn’t. And there, on the rock slab, under the hot summer sun and overlooking the ocean, Toshi held my face and kissed me.
