Whether you’re a reader or a writer, we all meet under the covers in one way or another for our fictional rush. Striving to escape from the daily routines and meet under the book covers. And we all remember what book changed you or made a difference compared to so many others. The golden rush.
We all remember the moment when we went from being a curious person to a true reader or fan of an author. For me, I was in my late teens and it was Lynsay Sands with the Argeneau series. My first introduction into the paranormal romance. Before this I was used to reading Stephen King and Anne Rice, the books on my parents bookshelves. After reading the Argeneau series, it didn’t matter what the book cover looked like. I knew what to expect when I picked it up, and I couldn’t get enough of it. It was everything I wanted to escape to, the vacation I dreamed of, the romantic world of vampires and their mates! The golden rush happened. I’ve since became a fan of the genre all together. I didn’t chose paranormal romance, it chose me.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Cameryne Kayne, an indie paranormal romance author of the Crestemere series. I’ve recently debuted the first edition to my series, Becklan’s Doll. Now available at barnesandnoble.com. As a writer, I try to incorporate some of my best experiences over the years from many great stories. The stories we need a week to let the ending settle in our minds because they were just that good! I’ll be honest, some of the best stories I’ve read in the past, I don’t remember what the title was or the book cover. But the stories stick with us. Then there are book covers we can never forget. I still can’t look at an apple the same without being instantly reminded of Edward Cullen from the Twilight series.
Tell me what book or author was your golden rush! I’d love to hear about it!
“Animal parenting is an unconditional commitment to an imperfect being.” Ane Ryan Walker
Before the quarantine began, my DH and I decided our RV adventures were over. We had traveled, volunteered, saw all the sights on our “bucket list” save one, and opted to retire permanently to the country.
If you followed my blog, you know I’m a dog person. I believe there is an inordinate amount of love and gratitude to be had from a rescue dog.
It was time to search for my new canine companion, a furry friend who would keep me company on lonely days and fill my retirement years with cute anecdotes with which I could amuse my friends. Despite the quarantine, dogs were still available for adoption. There is never a shortage of pups looking for their forever home.
Anyone who has ever rescued an animal will be the first to say there is no greater love than that of the animal on their way to the pound when you take ’em home forever.
I searched for months, pouring over the available canines within 100 miles of my house. Finally, after years of travel, I found myself with a generous piece of property, with a huge fenced in yard where a new puppy could play and still be safe.
Haunting the rescue sites, I determined the dog for me was older than 6 months but less than 2 years, who might still be trainable and who had a real shot at bonding with me and my DH. I set the criteria for my search based on Jake, my all-time favorite rescue.
Jake was just, well…unique. He’d been abandoned in a very cruel fashion by his original owner who’d had a locator chip implanted, because he thought the dog was valuable. But when Jake showed he had a mind of his own, the guy dropped the dog off in the sticks. When the rescue people took him in, Jake was in sad shape. Bony, hostile, and aggressive, he fought with everyone about everything. Showing each and every handler he still had a mind of his own.
Handsome and charming, Jake was adopted on five separate occasions, only to be brought back to the temporary family each time. Jake was touted to all potential rescuers as a lab and shepherd mix. But, in reality, he was the dog nobody wanted.
Except for me.
I did everything I could think of (and afford) to help Jake acclimate to our home, We bought him the top-of-the-line dog bed cushion, specifically designed for large breed dogs to ease arthritic pains.
He ate two of them.
“He just won’t listen to me,” my DH complained. “I like to take him for a walk, and he tries to eat people.”
“Who does he try to eat?” I was, of course, concerned since there were a lot of young children in our neighborhood,
“Everybody.”
“Everybody?” I was a little bit skeptical since I also walked Jake once a day, and what he lacked in obedience he made up for in enthusiasm.
“Well, not everybody, but he’d eat the pizza delivery guy if I let him.” My DH was attempting to leave the room, a clear sign he didn’t want to discuss the matter.
“Honey…” He never let me finish.
“He doesn’t want to eat the guy from the Chinese food place, but have you noticed we aren’t getting much mail.”
I was happy with less mail… Fewer bills was my thought.
These behaviors are most likely the reason we got four serious calls from the rescue agency, asking if we were keeping Jake. I found these phone calls more than a little disturbing, but I assumed it was because Jake had a mind of his own.
So, I sent Jake to board for six weeks with a world-renowned dog trainer. And, no I cannot tell you who it is. I promised never to share his name or shame with anyone.
You can see his picture on my blog page and trust me, the pic doesn’t do him justice. He is, in short, a very handsome devil. Also, he’s a Devil Dog. With a mind of his own.
I thought once he’d been with us for over two years that we’d established a truce of sorts. Or that at least there were some ground rules I could count on. He sat when I told him, stayed when given the command, and didn’t try to get in my lap anymore; I mean, who wants an 85 lb. dog in their lap?
But he would occasionally show me how he’d endured on the streets and kept his dignity by drinking whatever I liked to drink when I got home from work. Usually, it’s ice water.
Typically, I don’t drink alcohol, but sometimes, you just need one stiff drink to bring you down from a super stressful day. What’s better than adult beverages?
Nothing.
I had to believe Jake would second that opinion. Once, I’d walked away from the drink, and minutes later, I heard a strange noise coming from the other room. A mysterious slurping sound. I ran back to the living room, and there Jake is, drinking my bourbon and diet coke. Now, I am a seriously unhappy camper.
“Get down!” I yelled, while he raised his head and smiled a little doggy smile.
He did not get down.
“Bad dog!” I yelled. He looked behind him to see who I was yelling at, and then he finished the drink, poised the glass on his nose, and jumped on the ottoman.
Now about two months before, we’d installed laminate floors in the main living areas of our house. Do you know what happens when an 85 Lb. dog jumps on an ottoman on a slick surface? Oh yes, they both slid thirty feet into the next room.
Sadly, the next room was a dining room with a glass on glass pedestal table capable of seating twelve.
And then, Jake decided he liked the new game. So, he jumped down and slid—just the dog, wearing a tallboy cut crystal glass on his snout this time—nails scratching the floor, around the all-glass dining room table. Then he let me chase him back into the living room where he mounted an assault on the ottoman once more.
I’d foolishly pushed it back into place while chasing the dog. When he finished sliding into the next room, he jumped up on the couch and began attacking the cushions. He dropped the glass and grabbed a cushion and started shaking his head back and forth. When he finally released it, it sailed over the couch, hitting me in the head.
Then he crouched down, challenging me to play.
Needless to say, I wasn’t in the mood.
I’d still had a tough day at work, and now, I was one cocktail short.
But he was a great dog, and I’m a soft touch, so I’d almost forgiven him when he started…well, there’s no way to say it politely…farting. Which smelled like bourbon. Now, before you get your shorts in a wad and scream animal cruelty, let me ask you something.
How would you have gotten a cocktail from an 85 lb. street savvy hound? (With very big teeth) Jake liked the drink, and the little romp in the parlor wore him out, so wanting to add insult to injury, he laid down, feet up, right there on the seat where I’d planned to relax, and promptly started snoring.
I think I finally understand why a world-renowned dog trainer asked me to take him home, three weeks before his training sessions were complete. Jake has a mind of his own.
And the truth of the matter is, no other dog will ever replace him.
The only mistake today’s rescue people make is not offering me a solid black dog with a big toothy smile, and a mind of his own. So needless to say, the search continues for a canine companion.
Born and raised in the great northeast, she writes a fictional series Survivors of Salem, about the descendants of witches who survived the Salem Witch Trials. She is also currently working on books about fulltime RVing.
In addition to Return to Angels Cove, look for the second book in the Survivors of Salem, The Covenant.
Yes, I love getting to know the characters that slip out of the shadows at the back of mind where they’ve been living, sometimes for decades without my being aware of them. I enjoy the plotting process which consists of waking up in the middle of the night to mull over possibilities, running down roads both promising and dead-end, and throwing possibilities into a Word program called “Notes”, but I have to have a strong picture in my mind of where everything happens before I can write the first word.
I love going for solitary drives accompanied by Neil Diamond going full blast while the world around me becomes part of me. I’m a mountain gal born and bred. I don’t understand cities. They don’t speak to me. But give me the wilderness and I come alive.
That’s true even when I’m writing erotica.
Case in point, I’m in the process of releasing two self-published books. Cry of the Wolves will hit the virtual shelves on the 29th. I haven’t set on a release date for the companion novella Call of the Wolves, sometime in July.
The two connected stories came to me unbidden. I had no idea that’s what would happen when I went for a hike near Crater Lake at a place known as The Gorge. The Rogue River of southern Oregon flows through The Gorge, or rather it fights to. As I explain in the forward for the two Wolves stories, an ancient volcanic eruption sent molten lava to the Rogue. At one spot, the river was squeezed into a narrow channel. Every spring during snow runoff, the river screams and boils as it struggles through the lava.
That’s where I found my characters. Each in their own way, they listened to and watched the ageless battle between rock and water. That wild place impacted them as deeply as it did me and gave rise to the ghost wolves. I’m including a couple of pictures I took. I just wish readers could feel the spray and sense the ground shivering.
A big part of the writing business consists of getting the word out, which is what I’m doing right now via a couple of projects designed to try to garner reviews.
The illustrator Norman Rockwell has been lauded and lambasted for projecting an image of America that was too mom and apple pie and White. If that’s your image of Rockwell, I’d like to give you a different one. One that confronted and encouraged through his works The Golden Rule (1961), The Problem We All Live With (1964), Murder in Mississippi (1965) and New Kids in the Neighborhood (1967). These works were created by a conscience rooted in the aspiration that “all men are created equal.”
Though never fully realized by the founding fathers, Rockwell imbued their aspirations in his Saturday Evening Postcovers, especially in his illustrations of FDR’s Four Freedoms. I can’t look at that series and not hear the words to songs of equality like “The House I Live In” or “You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught.” Innocent as those covers seem, Rockwell was saying here’s how the world should be for everybody. Ironically, the Post’s policy wouldn’t extend that equality and respect to black people. Blacks on their covers had to be depicted in subservient positions. Rockwell left the Post in 1963 and accepted commissions from Look magazine where he could portray the flipside of the Post’s America. But sometimes Look found his work too controversial to publish, too. Fortunately, that didn’t happen often.
Criticized for his choice of subject and called a hypocrite and a lying propagandist, Rockwell painted the truth being shown nightly on TV news and revealed daily in newspaper stories about the Civil Rights struggle. I was a kid in the 60’s watching Americans of all races and creeds and religions marching in the streets, being doused by fire hoses and having police dogs turned on them because they believed all people are created equal and deserved to be treated that way.
The Norman Rockwell Museum has a virtual exhibit of Rockwell’s 1960’s works. Check it out here: https://bit.ly/37H3TCr where you can also hear from Ruby Bridges, the little girl in The Problem We All Live With.
Rockwell’s 1960s work asked Americans, “Which side are you on?” in the same way Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley and Gil Noble did in their network broadcasts. Sixty years later, these works are asking us the same question. Sixty years later, I hear us answering it in peaceful demonstrations being held all over the world, in paintings on the plywood of boarded-up Manhattan storefronts, in legislation passed to combat police brutality, in court decisions upholding LGBTQ rights. People are answering, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you must become the law of the land.” Despite authorities and administrations trying to divide us, people are answering and choosing to be on the right side of history because “the time is always right to do what is right.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In the 1960s, Rockwell used his work to confront and encourage. May we use our resources to do the same today.
Haunted Serenade
All the women in Anora Madison’s family have lived as “Poor Butterflies”: women still longing for but deserted by the men they loved. Determined to be the first to escape a life of abandonment, Anora fled Harlem for Brooklyn, severing her ties with her mother Angela and with the man who broke her heart, Winston Emerson, the father of her child.
Six years later, she comes back to Harlem to make peace, but a malignant spirit manifests itself during the homecoming, targeting her mother, her aunt, Winston and their little girl. Determined to stop the evil now trying to destroy all she loves, Anora must finally turn to Winston for help. But will their efforts be too little too late?
He nodded thoughtfully. “Why not? Self-hate has bedeviled people of color all over the world for hundreds of years. Being looked down upon because you’re not White, accepting you’re incapable of self-determination because you’re dark and not light is being confronted everywhere. The independence movements in Africa. The Civil Rights movement here. Why wouldn’t it be challenged in your mother’s house?”
I’d listened to sermons about the devil, sung hymns and praise songs to put him in his place. But I’d intellectualized all that. Those were metaphors for the evil humans did. But what if that metaphor represented real energy, energy that had agency, agency that needed to be combatted?
“Come on.” Winston picked up a tray. “Let’s put the pumpkins in the windows. I need some physical activity to balance all this intellectual speculating.”
I took the other tray and followed him into the parlor. We placed a pumpkin on each sill of the bay window then lit the candle inside.
Cammie was right. They weren’t at all scary. Their grins glowed with welcome.
We ascended to the second floor and repeated our pumpkin placement and lighting ritual in each window.
“Winston, if Diana’s spirit is trying to help us, why did she attack you, Elizabeth and my mother?”
“When were they attacked?”
I shared with him my mother’s lame excuses for her broken wrist and the bandage on Elizabeth’s forehead.
He pursed his lips then firmed them. “I don’t think Diana’s spirit attacked them or me.”
“But you said the cold—”
“Is Diana shielding us from another presence, a presence that made the shutters close in her bedroom, that made the cabinet door hit me.” He tucked his empty tray beneath his arm. “What if the cold is Diana’s love, but the energy that attacks has its source in someone else?”
It’s been a stressful year and many of us will be staying closer to home this summer. If you expect to be spending more time in the backyard this season, here’s a cool and refreshing adult beverage you can make ahead of time and enjoy whenever you like.
Summer Slush
Ingredients:
1 – 12 oz can of frozen orange juice
1 – 12 oz can of frozen lemonade
¾ cup of sugar
5 cups of water
2 cups of vodka
In large freezer proof container, mix in order given and freeze.
Serve ½ glass of slush with 7 up or ginger ale.
Things you can do at home!
Now that you have your drink, here’s some things you can do at home this summer.
1. Throw an indoor picnic. On a rainy day, spread a blanket on the living room floor, thrown down some pillows and enjoy picnic foods—fruit, cheese, crackers, fried chicken, pasta salad, or whatever you desire. If it’s an adult picnic, you can throw in a bottle of wine, light a candle and make it romantic.
2. Have one night a week where you try a new recipe. Get your family involved and all of you take turns choosing. They don’t have to be complex recipes—unless you’re so inclined. Keep it simple and fun. Fire up the grill if you have one.
3. Dessert night! I’m sure you’re seeing a theme here. Spend a day baking some tasty treats and enjoy. Or recreate a traditional English tea, complete with scones and cream.
4. Have a movie marathon day. Pick a movie series, load up on snacks, and watch them back to back. Lord of the Rings, Die Hard, Bourne Identity, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Mummy. There are plenty to choose from. Or have a theme movie day—Disney, horror, comedy.
5. Take a walk or a drive somewhere different. Doesn’t have to be far. We all tend to be creatures of habit and take the same routes or go to the same places.
6. Read a book. Take yourself out to the backyard, the balcony, or walk to a park (maintaining social distancing) and enjoy a few hours.
And if you’re looking for something to read, you might want to check out ARCTIC BITE, the second book in my Forgotten Brotherhood series, out now.
Arctic Bite
Forgotten Brotherhood, Book Two
Being immortal doesn’t mean you can’t die. It just means you’re damn hard to kill.
When Alexei Medvedev joined the Forgotten Brotherhood—paranormals hired to assassinate other paranormals—he knew it wouldn’t be a cake walk. But his next target is one of Death’s own Reapers gone rogue. For the first time since he started this gig, “damn hard to kill” feels more like “damn near impossible.”
Tracking Cassie Dobbs brings him to a remote bar in small-town Alaska, where this hot-as-hell Reaper is casually serving drinks, as if she doesn’t have a bounty on her head from Death himself. Alexei is dangerously intrigued. Everyone in the Brotherhood knows the first rule: don’t fall for your target.
But Alexei soon has bigger problems to face than an unexpected attraction. They only send assassins after those who deserve to die…or so he’s been made to believe. Now that he’s met Cassie, though, he’s not so sure.
What if everything he’s been told is a lie, and the person he’s been sent to kill is the only one who knows the truth?
N.J. Walters is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author who has always been a voracious reader, and now she spends her days writing novels of her own. Vampires, werewolves, dragons, time-travelers, seductive handymen, and next-door neighbors with smoldering good looks—all vie for her attention. It’s a tough life, but someone’s got to live it.
Project Runway. Face Off. Skin Wars. Top Chef. Hell’s Kitchen (only while I’m editing). Bar Rescue.
Okay, I could go on, but I won’t. Because this episode of Binge Watch Confessions is about Bar Rescue.
It started at first because, apparently, my muse likes the soothing background music of men screaming. I’m sure there’s a lot for a therapist to unpack there, but that’s for another day.
But I was flipping channels, and there was Jon Taffer yelling at a beleaguered bar owner who is too stuck in his own way to get out of his own way.
That part wasn’t all that interesting, but then he brought in his bar experts. A mixologist for the drinks and a chef for the kitchen. Now, I get my fill of foodie stuff in other places, but the drinks.
Oh, that was interesting. Drink programs tailored to the bar, either by theme or location. Or both. It was fascinating and I ate it up. I watched as they explained why stirring a drink or shaking it made a difference. As they used fresh ingredients and explained the reason it made drinks better. For a person who got a degree in the background tech of theater, it spoke to me.
I like to craft. To make. I guess it’s not all that off base that I became an author. Crafting stories.
Well, in XAVIER, the heroine is True Sinclair, and she is a mixologist hired to craft a drink program for “The Majestic” a bar at a resort that caters to shapeshifters. It’s a resort that is being brought back to its heyday after years of being dormant.
The idea is to create a place where shapeshifters can just “be” and not worry that they have to protect themselves from humans or people who are curious. The entire town is a place where shifters have been open about their lives since its foundation.
So, when I was researching drinks to “transform” into shifter-themed drinks, I was shocked to find out that somehow I’d tied a plot point into a neat little bow. Without realizing it.
My hero, Xavier, is a panther shifter. He crafts his own moonshine for himself and his friends. During my research, I discovered that a slang name for moonshine is PANTHER’S BREATH.
Well, goodness…wasn’t that…odd.
Xavier releases next Tuesday and is on a preorder sale that will continue for a short time after release.
Xavier
He thought he wanted his freedom and his solitude more than anything else in the world… until he met her.
Xavier Salazar lives the life that he wants. He has his friends and his home carved into Mystic Mountain. It’s his retreat, his refuge. When a gorgeous woman shows up in town to help make the resort’s bar a brilliant success, he’s torn. Xavier is determined to drive her away, but his panther wants to touch her all over, hide her away in their den, and add to the family that he was slowly creating around himself.
Oh, he was going to fight… hard. And yet, even he knew he was probably fighting a losing battle.
True Sinclair is at the top of her profession. Being a world-class mixologist means she knows how to blend all kinds of things together. She just can’t fathom why Xavier treats her like he’s oil and she’s water. There was no doubt that he was combustible around her.
At first, he can’t seem to force himself to be civil or even make an effort to share the same town, but she finds herself drawn to the dichotomy warring inside of him.
True knows what he is and she knows what she wants, but she won’t wait around forever if the man who makes her blind with love and drunk with passion won’t even meet her halfway.
Here’s a story you might not be aware that I wrote. It first appeared with Montlake as a serialized story, issued in eight increments, and then offered as full-length novel. I loved writing this story. I did an enormous amount of research for it, studying Egyptian mythological figures, the Land of the Dead, the history of The God’s Wife… A real thing, by the way. And of course, I had fun setting the bulk of the story in present-day New Orleans. There’s no more perfect setting for the story of a mummy being brought back to life.
Crescent Moon
From ancient Egypt to present-day New Orleans, a woman of exceptional strength is called to protect against an unspeakable evil…and to experience an unforgettable seduction.
Khepri still isn’t used to being The God’s Wife. The daughter of a common farmer, she’s more comfortable being friends with servants than employing a whole team of them. Being the wife of Amun affords her luxuries she only dreamed of, but her dreams are not always a haven…they are also filled with demons. Lately she’s had doubts about the role she’s been thrust into. She’s had yearnings for another sort of life, one where she’s loved intimately, rather than only adored from afar.
When a powerful man lures her away from her temple, she’s thrilled at the chance for an adventure. Her adventure quickly becomes a nightmare when the handsome vizier mummifies her alive. Pure of heart and body, she’s the warrior he foresees will battle a demonic pharaoh if ever he awakens. Khepri’s sure he’s insane, until she awakens in a distant future. Alone and needing a guide in this strange and garish new world, she turns to the troubled man who set her free…
When New Orleans police detective Justin Henry Boucher is called to the Garden Museum to investigate stolen Egyptian artifacts, it’s not exactly the adrenaline rush he used to get working a homicide. But with a reprimand on his record and a sorrow he can’t shake, he will take what he can get — as long as he can keep his badge. What he doesn’t count on is having to keep his cool when he finds one of the priceless artifacts — a golden-skinned goddess wrapped in fabric like a mummy, left to die and needing his help. She’s a mystery he’s determined to unravel. She might also be the cure for his lonely heart.
Comment for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card! Do you love stories based on history and myths?
An Excerpt from Crescent Moon
One last time, her mind drifted, peacefully content…no shadows or disquiet to disturb her…allowing her to separate the parts of herself, first body from spirit…and then the mournful, dying part of her soul to dwell forever in the pit, while what remained, the part that would be born again, floated upward on golden wings.
Her sprit ba left her mortal shell and spread its wings, flying through the small bright hole in the ceiling, leaving behind her swaddled human form, which lay on a bare wooden bench. One, two, three strong surges of her fluttering wings and she flew toward the sun, free at last and feeling grateful to her husband for his generous gift. Her wings caught an updraft and she held them still, floating on the wind, the glorious waning sun warming her back.
Her spirit flew above white limestone cliffs and past a deep quarry littered with enormous blocks of carved stone. A sudden gust riffled through her feathers, forcing her to fly west, high above a barren valley.
But at last, her ba tired, circling downward, searching for the great river to lead her home. But no familiar white-washed city dwellings, no temple walls lay below. No fields of cotton and wheat.
Confused, she made her way back to the dismal pit. Not wanting to enter, she flitted around the opening, feeling weary and afraid.
Something dark awaited her. Some horror in the shadows.
And then she spotted the man with the dark, watchful gaze standing beneath the opening, his arms outspread to catch her…
Her heart pounded against her chest, the sound intruding on the vision. Khepri’s eyes slammed open.
Freedom was only a dream, a memory. How long had she been sleeping?
Slowly, Khepri grew more aware of her surroundings. Pressure enveloped her from head to toes. Frayed edges of linen strips surrounded her eyes. An ache centered in her head made her want to gasp, but when she tried to draw a deep breath, the constriction around her chest made the movement impossible. She couldn’t feel her fingers or toes. Her body, other than her head and chest, was numb. Something was terribly wrong. Short, panicked breaths huffed in the silence.
She blinked, bright sunlight streaming through a hole in the rock ceiling above, blinding her, making her eyes tear. Unable to turn her head, she peered beneath the fringe of her dark lashes, through the openings left in the fabric, gazing upward. Her sight cleared slowly, but was filtered as though looking through the gauzy curtains that surrounded her bed in her tiny house inside the temple walls. But the haze obstructing her sight wasn’t merely physical. It was a thin curtain pulled over her mind. One placed there, purposely, to confuse.
Her head reeled, not understanding, not recognizing where she lay. The sickly sweet scent of frankincense tickled her nose.
“Precious little warrior, you are awake.”
If she could have drawn a deep breath, she would have spit. Sudden fury trembled through her body. She didn’t understand what was happening, but knew he was the one to blame. She wanted to rage against him, ask how he dared abduct her. She was Amun’s wife, his mortal consort. But the only sound that scratched from her throat was a tiny whimper.
“You have questions,” he crooned from beside her. “We have little time. Pharaoh’s army marches. They will find us soon. We must bury the nameless one, hide him before they can entomb him. No one must ever find his body. He will not sleep in a sarcophagus. No texts will be written to reawaken him, no mask placed over his head so that he may recognize himself in the afterlife. He must not rise.”
Her lashes drifted downward. She remembered the moment the handsome, lying vizier stepped off the plank lowered from the side of the barge.
“Pharaoh is dead,” he’d said, his voice uninflected.
Her heart had grown still. The news was devastating to be sure, but why had he traveled so far from Luxor to tell her?
And then snippets of memories bombarded her mind.
Khepri moaned, spreading her lips and baring her teeth to catch the edges of the strips surrounding her mouth, but they were stiffened and wouldn’t give. Her eyes rounded in fear as she realized how dire was her predicament.
He bent closer, his dark eyes alight with sympathy. But then he moved away. Taking with him his masculine scent, musk she’d once found attractive. The odor mocked her now.
Although she feared him, she wanted to cling to the sight of him, didn’t want to feel so alone, so trapped and helpless. Perhaps she could reason with him. But he was insane. Would no one stop him?
Deep in her throat, she gurgled, nearly choking on the tears that leaked from her eyes and burned the back of her throat. “Please,” she whispered.
From a distance, she heard his footsteps. He drew nearer, holding in one hand a slender reed with one end frayed and trimmed to form a brush and dripping red paint, and in the other a palette, red pigment swirled. He leaned over her and made strokes on the coverings enclosing her chest, down her belly, splitting over her thighs and moving down to her toes.
“What are you doing?” she rasped, as some of the cool liquid seeped through to touch her skin.
“Painting spells, Khepri, Amun’s wife. Introducing you to Anubis, the protector of souls, entreating him to keep you close until you are needed. To hide you from Osiris so your soul will not be judged. Not yet.”
“Until I am needed? I am needed at the temple.”
He tsked and continued to paint, accompanied by the soft chuffing sounds of bristles rasping on resin-hardened fabric.
Her tears quickened, soaking her skin beneath the wrappings and leaking into her hair. “I am The God’s Wife. You have no right.”
He sighed and strode back into view. When he leaned over her, sympathy no longer shone in his eyes. A deep furrow dug between his sharp dark brows. “I need quiet to think,” he said, his words peppering her like hard pellets.
He placed a hand over her nose and mouth, cutting off her air.
Panic made her gurgle, but she was unable to fight. She stared upward at his gleaming eyes until darkness closed over her vision.
I love going for solitary drives accompanied by Neil Diamond going full blast while the world around me becomes part of me. I’m a mountain gal born and bred. I don’t understand cities. They don’t speak to me. But give me the wilderness and I come alive.
