Authors: J.C. Daniels
I felt those words in the very heart of me. I wasn’t sure if anything had ever hit me more deeply than that.
“Done.” He blew out a breath and shook his head. “The clan is a fucking mess and I have to go back by the end of the day to start cleaning out.”
He reached over and caught my wrist, stroked his thumb over it. “
Everything
is a mess and I’ve got a lot of unfinished business, baby girl.” Then he looked up at me through the fringe of his lashes. “But remember…this is permanent. You got me?”
I tugged on my wrist. As I expected, he didn’t let go. He came closer and I leaned in, pressing my lips to his. “Yeah. I got you.”
“Good.” He lingered there a minute and I wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pressing my face against his neck. “I have to go back. It’s going to be…rough for a while. You know that?”
“Didn’t you hear what I told Es? I wouldn’t know easy if it bit me on the ass.”
He laughed quietly. “You should try easier, at least.”
“Mmm. Might be nice.”
His hand smoothed over my hair and I snuggled closer. “I’m not done here yet. I’ll find the guys involved before I leave.”
“I figured you’d say that. Es is backing you up. She already agreed.”
I nodded. “Kori…” I swallowed. “Kori is dead. Somebody shot her through the heart.”
“I heard.” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “The humans will be running scared now. They’re easy to track like that. It won’t take you long. Still…you better stay safe.”
“Yeah, yeah. You do the same while you’re setting up housekeeping…Alpha.” I smirked at him.
He pressed a kiss to my smiling lips and then he pulled away. The storm clouds in his eyes were heavy and dark as he stood up.
It didn’t bother me too much.
“I mean it…you stay safe,” he said quietly. “Nothing hurts you. You stay safe.”
“I will.” His words echoed inside me as I held his gaze. I still had a job here to do and the protection of the Green Road while I did it.
As he walked away, I drew my knees to my chest and rubbed my thumb over the scars he’d given me.
It was odd, I decided. I had plenty of scars. Most of them unseen, though; scars on my heart that I’d carried for half my life or longer.
But these I didn’t mind having. Not one bit.
About J.C. Daniels
J.C. Daniels exploded in being in May of 2012. She’s the pen name of author Shiloh Walker and was created basically because Shiloh writes like a hyperactive bunny and an intervention was necessary.
J.C. is the intervention.
Shiloh/J.C has been writing since she was a kid. She fell in love with vampires with the book Bunnicula and has worked her way up to the more…ah…serious works of fiction. She loves reading and writing just about every kind of romance. Once upon a time she worked as a nurse, but now she writes full time and lives with her family in the Midwest. She writes romantic suspense and paranormal romance, among other things.
Read more about Shiloh’s work
here
…
Read more about J.C.’s work
here
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Enjoy an excerpt from Night Blade, Book Two in the Colbana Files below
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Night Blade
"Since when does a shifter bar serve meat…you’re supposed to be on the menu," the skinny one said. “Not having food served to you.”
"Oh, trust me. Nobody here wants to take a bite out of me." I tapped my nails on the table, keeping my hand away from my blade. "I’m too stringy."
"You’ll do." He bent down and peered at me. "Get up. Get out. You’re in shifter territory which means if you get fucked over, it’s your own damned fault."
When I didn’t move, he did. I don’t know if he was going to grab me or hit me nor did I really care.
Shoving the booth back from the table, I jumped into a crouch, hand gripping my sword. Three men had eased forward, surrounding him. The man seemed to think they wanted to play. "There’s not enough for everybody, boys," he said, laughing.
"Chang?" one of them said.
"She can have him if she wants him."
One gaped at him.
Another just shoved him at me.
Others took the big bastard with him down.
I wasn’t paying too much attention, though, because the fucker coming at me had decided to change his skin and there was nothing less attractive than a wererat in the nude.
Muscles bulged in places they shouldn’t and his legs were all out of proportion. He shouldn’t be able to move well, if life and science were fair, but he could. As he came at me with a screaming sort of hiss, I held steady until the very last second and then moved, burying my sword deep, deep in the cavity of his chest.
I shoved forward with all the strength I had in me as I did so, riding him down.
He wasn’t strong and his body had frozen as he took the silver of my blade. Now I was crouched on top of that misshapen body, smelling the way the silver burnt him, the stink of it in my nostrils while his body trembled and writhed under mine.
"Now. Who were you calling meat?"
The other one was roaring pitifully. From the corner of my eye, I saw him, struggling under the weight of four bodies and staring at us.
"Give the fuck off of me!" he shrieked.
I was pondering just how to answer that when the door opened and I felt the blast of heat rolling over me.
"You know, here’s the problem," I said, leaning on my blade and staring down into his eyes. "One…you’re on neutral ground. Drake’s is very, very neutral and you attacked me for no reason. Two…I’m not human."
I smiled at him. "My dad was…but my mother wasn’t."
I could feel that heat spreading over me now and despite the insanity of the situation, my body was ready to jump up and down, all but giddy with pleasure. Damon was just a few feet away. I couldn’t hear him, I hadn’t seen him, but I could feel him.
"Since my mom wasn’t human, that means under the ANH charter, I’m not recognized as such." I continued to watch the nerves bleeding into the man’s eyes. "Never mind the fact that if you hunt humans on neutral ground in East Orlando, you’re fucked. We hunt your kind down and eat you for breakfast here."
"I want the fucking alpha," he snarled. "Where’s the Lady?"
I laughed. "Oh, that’s funny. You’re a fucking rat and you want to throw yourself on the mercy of the cat’s alpha?"
"There’s no pack here! We have to align with somebody and you can’t deny me that right. That’s in the fucking charter," he said and then he whimpered as I twisted my blade.
"Well, that brings us to the third problem…and really, it’s your biggest. If you’re smart, you’ll just move around until the silver in my sword shreds your heart," I said quietly.
Damon took a step closer.
"I want the fucking alpha!"
"Kit. Introduce him to the third problem," Damon said, crouching down by me.
"Sure." I twisted the blade again. "You sure you don’t want to just kill yourself, rat?"
Night Blade
…coming soon
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