SYNOPSIS:
Dain has lost everything. His mom and Tara are both gone. The face that he once used as a solace, he can no longer bear to see. He’s unraveling; Akila may not be enough to hold the strands together.
For Akila watching Dain become a shadow of the guy she once knew is torture. She knows she is losing him but how can she stop it while holding on to secrets of her own? All she has to do is keep everything together long enough to stop the evil scientists that are out to sabotage their destiny.
They are both fighting their own demons but whose will destroy them first?
EXCERPT #1:
I dug around his bag for the pants then started for the trash.
“You can’t throw them out!” The frantic voice on the brink of insanity froze me in my tracks.
“Why not?” I tried to keep my tone soothing, not wanting to push him over the edge.
No answer. I inched toward the trash. I barely had anytime from when I heard him move to when
I felt him, to respond. The wall pressed against me. My hands with the pants and shirt holding me
from totally being face planted against the wallpaper. Dain pressed against my back. My breath
came out in fast, deep puffs. The fear that I probably should have felt did not come.
“Dain, please relax. You have to let me get rid of them. I can’t let you keep thinking about this
more than I have to.”
“That’s all I have left of my mother.” His voice was raw, broken that it nearly shattered my heart
along with my soul.
“I’m sorry, but you have more left of her than that. Let me go okay?”
I felt him still. “God! I am sorry. Are you—” He stepped back as I interrupted.
“I’m fine.” I turned to face him. He had only taken a step back maybe just half of one. Enough
that I could turn away from the floral printed wall and face him.
“I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. I am really—”
“Stop. Don’t you dare apologize to me! I did this. Don’t you see? I watch you falling apart,
knowing full well that I am the reason. You can blame anyone you want more than me, but know
that nobody can hate me more than I hate myself for the part I played.”
His eyes bore into mine. Intense and never wavering. “I blame myself more than I blame anyone.
I tried to put this on you, Marco and Bonnie, but all I was doing was trying not to blame the one
person whose fault it really is. My own. She was protecting me from a situation I caused. My
mother died because of me. I’d rather her betray me a hundred times than save me once and die
for it.”
My heart shattered there in my chest, the shards piercing everything it could and the pain was
millions of silvery splinters of ice. Dain, poor Dain. I dropped the clothes and pulled him to me
once again in an embrace.
“This is not your fault. Your mom was an amazing woman. She made the choice. She did what
any mother of worth would have done. Don’t ever blame yourself for someone else’s actions.
Ever. Don’t question or take fault in her heroic choice; a choice she made for the love of her son.
Don’t you dare tarnish her memory or her legacy. That legacy is what is left of her. It is what she
left for you not bloody clothing.”
I held him tighter, burying my hand into his hair at his neck and pulled his head to me. “It is an
honor to love you. Your mother knew that. Even I realized it the first time I saw you.”
There was a strong pull for me to kiss him, to draw him the rest of the way to me and press our
lips together. To fall into him as our tongues met. I am not sure where the pull was coming from.
The feeling was all too familiar. Too familiar.
Fear seized my body. No. No no no. Not again. Oh God don’t let this happen. Don’t let me do this.
Not this time, please.
“Akila, what the hell is going on?” Dain’s voice shook with uncertainty.
“I-I’m not sure. I am not hundred percent certain but if you don’t move, I think I might kiss you.
No actually, I am sure I’m going to kiss you. So please move.”
Death Knows My Name
Excerpt # 1
I heard a knock at the door. Assuming it would be Devon, I was ready to bitch
about how shitty my day was.
I flung open the door, surprised to see Eric. “You used the door.”
“It’s called manners. Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“Didn’t know you needed an invitation.”
“I don’t. I’m not a vampire. It’s that manners thing again,” he said curtly,
stepping around me.
I stood there with the door open.
“Aren’t you going to close the door?”
When I made no move to, he reached past me and shut it.
“I had hoped I’d never be seeing you again.” I lied.“Besides, I figured you’d be
mad at me.”
“I am beyond mad. Try pissed off.”
“Okay, pissed off or not, I really had no choice. I’m—”
“Do you even know what you did today? I asked one thing from you and you
wouldn’t do it. You had a choice. There is always a choice and you made it.”
I sighed. “The point is, I’m sorry!”
“I deal in bottom lines. And the bottom line is—”
“The bottom line is I screwed you. Don’t you understand that I cannot just let
you kill people in front of me? Don’t you understand how much that hurts? This
guy today was a stranger but those people before—Eric, I believed it was my
fault because of you. Every guy I slept with—”
“You weren’t supposed to sleep with every guy you met in a bar! That is on you.”
“Fuck you!”
He lifted his brow. “Isn’t that your problem?”
“Woah! Woah, woah, woah. Don’t you come in here and judge me. You don’t
have the right. How I deal with my pain is my business. Is that what this is
about? The creepy stalker Angel of Death got jealous?”
“Who I call is never my pick. It is your lot in life to keep memories and mine to
call souls.”
“I cannot believe you called me a slut?” It was off subject but I was still pissed off
about it.
“Did not!”
“Bullshit. You did a damn good job of implying it.”
“You are right.” He rubbed his hand through his hair, and I saw remorse in his
eyes. “I’m sorry.”
EXCERPT #2:
“So, I hope you don’t mind but I invited my new maaan.” I said with a roll of my
neck.
He laughed. “Your new man, huh? Which one is it, the cold son of a bitch from
the bar or the tattooed freak who stopped by the lounge?”
“Devon, please, please be nice to the new man in my life. No matter how much I
love him it will never take away from the love and devotion I have for you,” I
ended with a tease.
He threw his napkin across the table at me, and I tried to dodge it while
laughing. I failed, and it hit me squarely in the forehead.
“What’s wrong, State, does all that sexing got your reflexes slow?”
“Hell no, just the opposite. All that sex has me as fast and nimble as a kitten. I
purr, too.”
“Ewl. That was way too much information for me to know about anything you
do.”
“It’s not like I told you what makes me purr.”
“That would be a lot of things, I have discovered.”
Devon’s eyes looked over my head to see who those words belonged to. Even
though I knew, I still turned in my seat. I hadn’t heard him walk up, but a smile
broke out on my face all the same.
“Hey, no sneaking up on us when I am divulging secrets of our sex life!” I
exclaimed as I tilted my face up to meet his quick kiss on my lips.
“We are talking about you here. You are always talking about your sex life, so
there are really no secrets left to tell,” Eric said with a smirk.
“This is true,” I conceded. “Devon, this is Ectain Edeck.”
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