 Metatron: The Angel Has Risen "A wild wish fulfillment juvenile romp that should be great fun for 12 year olds of any age." --Piers Anthony, New York Times bestsellingfantasy author CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE Twelve-year-old Tyler Thompson has a secret: he's not a "normal" boy. After his father's tragic death, Tyler finds himself in one predicament after another, until one day he and his faithful dog Maxx fall into a cesspool of mysterious green goop. When his grandfather bestows him with an object not from this earth, Tyler soon discovers he has strange powers. Unfortunately, so does the sinister Dr. Payne. Together with his best friend Lukas, who also has a special ability, and Maxx, Tyler embarks on a journey to put an end to Dr. Payne's evil scheme to control the world's children. To do so, Tyler must make a life-altering choice-one that could change the world.  Metatron: The Mystical Blade
"St. John has done it again with The Mystical Blade; another novel 13 year olds of any age will really enjoy!" --Piers Anthony, New York Timesbestselling fantasy author of the Xanth series CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE Thirteen-year-old Tyler Thompson is on the verge of becoming a superhero, but he must prove himself so he can earn the remainder of his superpowers and fulfill his destiny. When his grandfather, Benjamin, is held prisoner at AREA 51, where the eternal powers are presumed to be hidden, Tyler attempts to penetrate the base's heavy security. However, Dr. Mason Payne, the evil scientist who killed Tyler's father, has insidious plans of his own. Hunted by an unknown entity, Tyler races against the clock to retrieve the superpowers, rescue his family and help the others who are depending on him. And when all hope seems lost, help comes in a power he didn't know he possessed--a mysterious weapon known as The Mystical Blade.
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 THE ABDUCTION CHRONICLES is an abridged version of two books, An Abduction Revelation and its sequel, Abduction Revelation II. Based on some true mysterious and compelling life events of the author who experienced some unusual phenomenon in his life. His ex-wife claimed they were abducted, on several occasions, by beings who were not of this world. He was unaware of them until he melted their instilled memory blocks. Who are the abductors? Where are they from? What do they want? The answers will torment his reality. An intriguing adventure packed with action, drama, mystery, romance, comedy, and a few exhilarating plot twists that will surely knock your socks off. The dialog is written in a memoir conversational style. So pull up a chair and join ‘The Comeback Kid’ on his incredible life’s journey as he unravels the secrets behind his abductions and comes face to face with his abductors. CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE EXCERPT
“Tom. It’s CJ. (My ex-wife was calling herself CJ these days). I really must tell you this. No, wait. Listen. Don’t hang up. Please. You remember how I talked about the night we drove to Carmel, and they took you. Well, actually they took us both. I’ve been fasting and abstaining from sex. That helped me to melt their mind block. Yes, their mind block. I thought then they were aliens, but they’re not. Now I have discovered the whole truth. I’m not me. You’re not you either. No, wait. Let me explain. We’re someone else. We are...(spoiler). No, I’m not insane. No, no, I’m not delusional. You need to become a vegetarian and abstain from sex, and then you can melt your mind block and discover the truth. No, don’t hang up.” But I had heard enough. Her babbling made no sense. If you remember, right after our divorce, she said we had been abducted by aliens. Now she claims that we are...(spoiler) and the abductors aren’t aliens. Needless to say, I figured she had to of had a few loose marbles. Keep in mind, that at this time in my life, I hadn’t yet melted my mind blocks, so I had no idea what the heck she was ranting about.  Set 80 years into the future, Nelson Jones, a young military cadet full of optimism and hope is enlisted into the New Era - a fascist regime that arises to rule the world after a horrifying attack from an alien species known as the Great Tribe.
Under the leadership of Earth's dictator, President Jacob Freeman with his ruthless enforcer, Major Ira Bilis, Nelson witnesses horrible abuses of power and is forced to confront his values and his world view to make difficult choices. When he happens across a small fraction of resistance against this tyranny, Nelson must consider whether to risk his life to do what he feels is right. CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE  Love in the Cretaceous akes place in a dinosaur park in Oregon a hundred years in the future. Ted Beebe has lost the love of his life and must suddenly find his way alone in old age. He finds young people to take the place of his wife and himself in assuring the survival of Cretaceous World, the park his wife and he created. Global warming has proceeded as predicted, and the fate of Homo sapiens has become obviously uncertain. People come to see the genetically engineered recreations of dinosaurs and are made more aware of humanity’s own vulnerability to extinction. Ted succeeds in creating a new family structure whose three generations will guide the park through the immediate future. He also keeps alive his wife’s memory while coping with the challenges of the uncertain future. CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE EXCERPT
Love in the Cretaceous: [chapter 3] Tumtum by Howard W. Robertson It takes your breath away to see a Brontosaur run. Bud sees the two of them thundering towards us though and has plenty of breath left to holler, “And down the stretch they come!” We know from fossil thigh-bones that Brontosaurs were capable of a slow run, so we designed our pair to do about a dozen miles per hour. To see an animal 70 feet long and weighing 50,000 pounds move that fast seems nothing less than miraculous. Lana has used the giant crane to drop a couple tons of mixed ferns, horsetails, and gingko and araucarian leaves into the Brontosaur area. The crane is 50 feet high with a long arm so the two sauropods won’t bang their heads on it, since they can only reach up to about 25 feet with their long necks. It’s May 2117, and the angiosperms are in bloom all around these two colossal creatures from the end of the Jurassic. We called it close enough and just sort of rolled them into Cretaceous World, our magnificent dinosaur park. Brontosaurs flourished around 150 million years ago, well before the rise of the flowering plants about 30 million years later in the Cretaceous period. When our genetic engineers designed the genome for our pair, they tried to make them as authentic as possible, so the two of them really prefer the kind of food they would have eaten way back when. That’s why they come running at feeding time when we give them the ancient gymnosperms that they like best. There’s actually a large nursery in the neighboring town of Dewberry that’s dedicated to supplying our herbivores with food from the time of the dinosaurs. Lana gets down out of the crane and walks over to me. She says, “I’d sure like to see a whole herd of these moving together.” Lana has a Ph.D. in paleontology from SUNG and knows full well why we couldn’t handle that. Our pen of seven miles by four miles is barely big enough for the two Brontosaurs we do have. By the way, I’m so glad the alternate name has died away over the past hundred years: “thunder lizard” is so much more appropriate for these giants than “deceptive lizard.” I say, “Wouldn’t that be grand?” She smiles and tosses her long blonde ponytail. Then she goes over to Bud and gives him an assignment to do. Tumtum – p. 2 Howard W. Robertson, P.O. Box 50204, Eugene OR 97405, 541-344-6206, robertsons2@earthlink.net  Ian Prattis transports you to a faraway planet. Earth is dying due to Humankind’s damage to the environment. The clash of cultures, late in the twenty first century, opens this epic novel of pioneers establishing community in a nearby galaxy.
This futuristic finale of a trilogy stands on award winning books Redemption and Trailing Sky Six Feathers. Buy a print copy and receive the two prior books for free. Order through: http://ianprattis.com/NewPlanet.html Amazon, Indigo, Barnes & Noble. CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE  When the unearthing of the Ark of the Covenant results in the discovery of the bones of an angel, a government program seeks out descendants of the divine being. Scientists confirm the existence of Nephilim, descendants of the Divine Bloodline who exhibit unique supernatural abilities. These individuals soon find themselves at odds with society.
Sisters Piper and Wren knew they were different, but after the discovery, the two have evidence to explain their maturing abilities. But the government has the power to condemn and crucify Nephilim, locking them into ADAM compounds across the globe. The sisters are next, and Piper and Wren will need to act quickly to avoid being captured. In order to survive the two must embrace the stigma and master the very gifts that God has bestowed (or cursed) upon them. Mysterious forces who have been plotting these events for decades shift the balance of power, and soon all parties involved will need to pick a side. CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THE SERIES Animal Graph by M. Black This novel came to her in a dream. SUMMARY: Set in the Amazonian jungles of South America, M.Black weaves an action-packed tale in this original YA Amazonian Eco-Fic Dystopia set forty-two years after a nuclear war. Jin—a prisoner of King Borran—and Adan—another Graphed—have to fight for their survival in a utopia gone wrong. In a world where animal cells and neural tissue have been grafted into humans, and humans are connected by brain waves to chosen animals from the Amazon, will Jin and Adan survive? Will they ever find their Animal Graph counterparts? Can the Earth find harmony with humanity and the animals or will those wanting to destroy it all win? Socially relevant, dark and sexy, with themes that hang on environmental concerns and animal welfare…ENTER TOMORROW with ANIMAL GRAPH. A novel along the lines of Hunger Games meets X-Men. If you’re a fan of The Treemakers, The Sowing, Simulation, Age of Order, A Brave New World or A Canticle for Leibowitz, you may also enjoy this novel. EXCERPT My feminine bottom slides down the wet, slippery cliff at the end of the path of foliage, dropping me forty meters into the abyss below where I thrash, arms flailing about me in a sure drown, water gulping down my tight throat in a struggle for air. My long, auburn hair is drenched to my side like a second skin. I barely know how to swim, but I have no other choice but to sink down where I won’t be seen. They’re on my trail and the choking gas has almost reached me. Glancing skyward, under a thin layer of water, I see a cake of the pinkish fog choke the plants and moss above, that grows off the dark stones there—the only elegance out here. Water cascades into a beautiful waterfall toward me in a steady stream, and I hear the loud fog horn-like sound from my pursuers alerting everyone in the vicinity that I’m nearby. They’ll need to find me before sundown or risk encountering the savage wildlife of the Amazon rainforest, like Radguars, a mutated form of the Jaguar which began to appear after the radiation hit. No one ever lives after facing one. They’ll tear a man to shreds. I hear them coming, five of them—they always come in fives—their thick boots hitting the forest floor in a scratch-scratch as they approach the end of my path. I’m not even sure how I do this—hear them. The distance is more than thirty meters away and the rush of water interferes with my ears. I never would have been able to do this before they took me. Taken in the middle of the night by Borran's soldiers while asleep in my cell, a two-by-three-meter room in which I’d been locked for a year, since I was sixteen, after I’d stolen a loaf of bread from a village vendor. Too many of us end up behind bars for petty crimes, to ensure as a whole we comply with the laws. When they registered me for prison, they scanned the bar code on my upper arm, denoting my full name, region of residency, and any prior arrests. I didn’t have priors before, but now my bar code will always show I was in prison. Block D, Cell 47; D47 was my designation. Hadn’t heard my real name—Jin Maharaj—in a year. Even my cellmate referred to me as D47. By cellmate, I mean he shared the concrete cell next to me and we could speak only through a barred opening between us, the size of my hand. We all got used to calling each other numbers. When they first took me, I’d sit in my cell for hours daydreaming about my family, about Lila—our good family friend. She was married to a medicine man and tried to help Papa and my sister May when they got sick. I’d remember her words of encouragement, ‘Nature has all the answers. Stick to nature.’ But I’d always be interrupted by our mandated chores: washing clothes, floors, toilets, gardening, or working in the shops to make rubber. Slop three times a day was pushed under the cell door to keep us alive for all the work. Prisoners were the first to undergo the Graph procedure to enhance human abilities by grafting animal cells and neural tissue into humans. As a side effect, electrical pulses from animal brain waves would fuse—or Graph—into the human’s brain waves and form an intuitive bond with the animal. I struggled, kicked, and maybe even screamed before a team from Borran’s Animal Graph facility injected me with a sedative, their faces growing fuzzy, my hands grappling for something—anything—to hold on to, before I fell asleep in the arms of my enemy. From under the thin layer of water, I watch the edge of the cliff, forty meters away, where two soldiers turn their heads left and right in a frantic search for me. I can see so much detail I shouldn’t, like the lines over their left chest pocket designating rank, and the mud splattered on the sides of their boots. Even the freckles splayed across the nose of one of them. They’ve been ordered to hunt me—to find me and then kill me, as part of their training. I feel weak, as if I could drown at any minute, because I can’t hold my breath any longer; surely I can’t. My brain tells me I need to breathe, and breathe now! Yet I’ll have to ignore the incessant thought creeping into my mind. Maybe the water can take me, take my breath and end me, make it all come to a close. I’m exhausted, tired of running, and it’s been a year since I’ve seen my mother—Ariana, and my younger brother—Carlos. They were forbidden to visit me in the cell, as all visitors are nowadays. My padre and older sister, May, both died from illness six months before I was thrown into prison. It’s easy to die in this world where medicines are kept only for the Prestige—the upper class that makes up 3% of the nation’s population. The rest of us poor live in sporadic villages or face the nights alone, and food is hard to come by. Meat, including fish that survived all the radiation from the Atlantic or rivers, is supposed to be given to the village guards when they come in for their monthly visits. Villages only get to keep 5% of their catch. That’s why I stole that loaf of bread for my brother. He’d gone two days without eating. Some villages grow flax or chia seeds, and others wheat or barly, still some lucky ones have chickens and eggs—but it’s never enough. If we try hiding our fish or eggs, if caught—we’re killed on the spot. I’ve seen a family murdered when I was just ten in Guiana for storing forbidden meats. Because of the radiation, good meat is hard to come by.  Graph Secrets by M. Black "I READ IT IN A FEW HOURS!" -Von "ALL FIVE STARS, NO SURPRISE THERE. IT IS A GREAT STORY." -Marina "I HAVE NEVER READ THIS CONCEPT BEFORE!" -Amazon Reader Check out a new Survival-Fiction! Animal Graph is an original, NEVER BEFORE SEEN CONCEPT, a YA Amazonian Eco-Fic Dystopia with themes on wildlife and nature conservation, which asks questions about what happens when a greedy dictatorship rules the nation, and the harsh consequences to the Earth of a nuclear war. Animal Graph series is the third ebook release from author M.Black (Simulation, Exotiqa, Animal Graph) whose brand is ENTER TOMORROW, if you dare. Enter http://MBlackDystopianThrillers.blogspot.com for more dystopian thrillers that will take you into our future. In Graph Secrets, Jin finds out her Madre, Marina, is kidnapped by King Borran Khan and she learns the truth about her origins, and she is propelled back into the Amazon...this time to hunt Borran down. Will she rescue her madre in time? Will she get her capture? Find out in this breath-taking, fast-paced unique thriller about survival and fighting for freedom---book 2 of Animal Graph. EXCERPT Inking our backs with Borran’s mark feels like a betrayal to everything I believe in, a permanent stain to remind us that we belong to Borran—whether we like it or not. And if we’re caught, Borran has one more reason to kill us. Inking is illegal in the villages, to prevent any false Borran marks on Graphs. I close my eyes, and focus on Mama’s photos as the needle pierces my back, leaving trails of blood to sink to the crevice of my bottom and splashing on the cave floor beside me. Memories of blood flood my mind. …Blood slides down my inner leg and my palms clasp my round belly. Six months in this hell hole and I’m showing. I’ve kept my pregnancy a secret for months, afraid of being transfered to the white building. No one returns from the white building. No one ever sees their baby again. As the inking needle pricks my back, I’m jolted back to the present. Juan inks me—performs yet another illegal thing—I begin to suspect that he was the one who leaked the Graph technology to the world. Who else? He’s obviously brilliant, and had mixed feelings about what he was doing. Ostir already confessed that he and she were both at a PAPE meeting. As I wash up in the waterfall basin, Juan needles Klen and Ostir. By the time I return to the cave, the siblings are heading to the basin to bathe and Adan is biting on another branch. Seems all Adan does around me lately is get torn up somehow. “Stay still,” Juan implores while leaning into Adan’s back. “I was stung by bullet ants once. Hurt like hell. Not going through that again.” “I’ll stay still,” Adan says firmly, the bite over the branch harder as the needle goes into his back in a precise poke, poke, poke. Juan keeps both hands on the needle, instead of one on the back as he did with me. Afterward, Adan’s back is soaked with blood and he exits for the falls fast. Juan turns to Lila and she shakes her head vigorously. “No way I’m getting one of those on my back. I won’t be flaunting my nudity anyhow.” Juan half grins. We can all imagine what that image is. I lean into Adan’s chest at the falls after he’s washed off the blood and shirted himself. I hang there like I could stay all day, letting my forehead and cheeks rub his stubbled chin. Adan looks down at me, half-grinning, satisfied, but with a brow arched as if to ask ‘what the hell?’ I’m not sure what else to say. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” “I do.” Adan explains. I’m almost hopeful. “But you’ve got to learn to control your urge to mark.” He laughs, and then I laugh with him. “Sorry.” “Don’t be. It’s cute.” He clears his throat. “And makes me feel guilty about being so curt with you when we first met in the Amazon.” “Yea, what was up with that?” I glance up, my eyes meeting his. “Impatience at needing you to keep up, and pressure. Lot’s of killing of people I knew, led me to save you that day. I guess a part of me was angry at you for being saved.” “But you helped save me.” I feel my brows twist as I gaze up at him. “Still, too many mixed emotions. You got to live. Friends I knew died. I couldn’t kill another illegal Graph, and yet looking at you reminded me of everything my dead friends would never have. I guess I expected you to learn quick—to be worthy enough.” “And did I?” “Yep, you did.” He grins, and leans his lips over mine, close enough to almost feel him, but not close enough to touch—to contract my blue dart poison. We’re all exhausted and haven’t slept for over twenty-four hours, but we have to do this. Spider and Borran’s soldiers won't give up and we don’t have time to rest. We should wait until we’ve gained more distance. At least we all ate soup at Lila’s. Before we head out, I grab Juan’s wrist. “Wait. You need to take a sample of my blood.” Adan nods. “Smart. Keep evidence here of your birthright.” Ostir keeps her hand over my shoulder. “When you challenge him, you’ll definitely need proof.” “And a fight to the death,” Klen adds. “We all know that’s how things are done nowadays. Borran won’t just give up his kingdom to his half-sister.” “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” I stretch my arm to Juan. “For now, I need a vial of my blood.” After Juan shambles for a tube and needle in his supplies, he sticks my vein and withdraws enough blood to run several tests on my DNA to prove I’m a Khan. He adds some kind of fluid to the vial of blood, and then hands it to me to hide. I keep the blood in the basket with Mama’s things. Then, we head out to make new friends. If we’re going to ambush Borran and his BAG facility, Juan is right we’ll need more than just us. Juan takes us to the outskirts of Annai, further southeast, to where several illegal Graphs that he’s performed operations on live. They keep quiet and off the grid. Living outside the cities and villages allows the illegal Graphs to avoid being discovered by Borran’s guards and killed. Getting to where we need to be to meet them is almost a diagonal path downward from the waterfall and takes about three hours. We arrive at just about two p.m. After Jade sniffs the air, I hear a man shout “Over here!” He’s a robust man with no shirt on, shouting to another man of almost equal stature, girth and attire; except that the first man has black, matted hair and the other’s is blond. Both have dark complexions and are too muscular to go unnoticed. The blond man throws a small pinecone into the air and yells “Incoming!” When the pinecone comes dangerously close to hitting the matted-haired man in the face, he whips out a long stick and bats the pinecone away, sending it across the field and hitting a palm tree trunk, the cone shattering. “You are going to have to throw better than that!” the matted-haired man grunts in a chuckle. “Right you are, Cai, right you are.” Juan waves his hand, drawing attention to himself, causing both men to turn in our direction and jump into an attack stance. I then notice the matted-haired man’s set of teeth. His jaw crunches open and shut with an awkward smile on his face, as normal human teeth become sharp and long. Juan leads us ahead, toward them, gesturing with his hands in a downward motion for the two men to calm themselves.  Graph Lies by M. Black
A Never-Before-Seen-Concept! A YA Amazonian Eco-Fic Dystopia! HUNGER GAMES meets X-MEN! JUNGLE BOOK meets DR. MOREAU! Safe in San Felipe, the team will have to scrounge for food to survive which leads them to the lost girl who draws them into Guambi mountains with the Prestige. After Jin, Adan, and the misfit band of Graphs head to the Experiment Facility in the jungles on the Amazon to rescue friends, they'll have to face Borran head-on and their greatest nemesis, spider. An action-packed series that leaves readers guessing. "Unputdownable!" "This Series Rocks!" and "I can't wait for the next book!" are just some of what reviewers are saying! Pick up your copy and find out why! EXCERPT “Dammit! They’re still coming!” Adan yells, entwined in a few vines. I toss up my head and glance back, my bottom still on the ground and my knees scraped with wet grass stains. My auburn hair whips around and slaps my cheeks. Sum frantically pulls vines off Adan to untangle him, but my eyes can only zero in on the oncoming madness. Behind the thicket of swamp titi, I hear the booming screams of howler monkeys warning us to stay off their territory. I scramble to my feet, gripping on to a low-rotting branch. My neck is tilted back to keep my eyes on them. So many of them with spear-like teeth aiming for us, and their eyes—their eyes are crazy! Sum grabs Adan’s arm and yanks him forward. “Come on!” I race in front of Sum shouting, Adan close to his side. “Get moving!” I don’t hesitate. The monkeys look ravenous. My feet dart across the wet grass beside the Orinoco River in an anxious padding as we race toward Puerto Carreno. “Just leave the raft?!” I ask worriedly. It took a long time to reinforce after our trip from Manaus. We lost about half the raft by the time we reached San Felipe. “We’ll pick it up on the way back!” Sum shouts from behind, his voice gravelly, while I turn my head forward. My eyes catch the warm afternoon sun in the sky. It took just half a day to get here, but getting what we need and getting out will take longer. I listen to Sum; next to Carlos, he is the closest thing I have to a brother, and I’m not sure when I’ll ever see Carlos again. Though Mama and I want to send for him, we know he’s safer where he is. The large, embracing hand of Adan plops against my back when he and Sum catch up to me. “We’ve got our work cut out for us.” Glancing to Adan, half teasing, I respond, “And you said we’d be in and out before the day ended.” “How could I have known?” His cheeks glisten in the sun and rise with his trademark half-smile. “What the hell is going on? Monkeys don’t act like this.” I see the worry line between his brows, the furrowing, like they did when we landed in San Felipe and found Cai’s village nearly empty. An illness spread through the villages there, killing three-quarters of their inhabitants. Vendors had been cleaned out by surviving village folk, leaving no food to spare. We ran out of our Amazonian supply in a day. Adan shakes his head. “It’s like they’re drugged.” “Crazed,” Sum adds. I must stay focused on the goal ahead, and forget that we’ve become prey to a savage pack of hungry, wild beasts. They don’t look Burned, but they act like they are. We keep up our pace, but the loud screeches of howlers aren’t far behind, and the warning call reverberates throughout the shaking trees as they jump from limb to limb. There are large mountains in the distance, some within the Puerto Carreno boundaries and most to the east where the Guiana Highlands sit, where the Prestige live high and mighty. We just need to make it to Puerto Carreno, and then we can steal a crate of food meant for the Prestige and return to San Felipe. Our friends haven’t eaten all day. We at least had some Brazil nuts and dwarf bananas on our journey. We even managed to illegally catch two fish from the river. Most of the area near San Felipe is barren, fruits and nuts picked daily and packaged weekly for delivery into Puerto Carreno, and there is no one left in the villages to make bread. If we can’t get this crate of food, we’ll risk starvation. There are just too many of us to rely on the sparse resources in this area. That’s why it’s so barren of people. Suddenly, Adan pushes into me, knocking me over into more red and black titi. Two howler monkeys leap out of the trees, and all I can see are their sharp, pointy teeth as they pound on top of Adan and Sum. Sum’s apricot hues stain with dirty howler pawprints and I hear a thunderous scream before the monkeys open their mouths to bite, but Adan quickly expels his leathery bat wings, and the heavy flapping pushes one monkey off him. When the other monkey is about to bite Sum, Sum instead bites the monkey in the neck, and the small primate howls in agony before leaping off Sum and scurrying away in a panic. Adan pulls me to my feet as Sum yells, “Keep going!” The three of us traverse across the wet terrain, interspersed with shrubs and river plants. All I can think about is how pissed I am that the Prestige get all the goods. Even in Colombia, it’s no different than in Guyana—worse, even. At least in Guyana there are still sporadic trees with fruits. Of course, all the tasty food like guavas we have to give up to Borran. Exhausted, sweating, and hungry, I just want to get to our destination so we can head back to San Felipe. The sooner we return to our new home, the sooner we can devise a plan to free our friends, and the sooner I get to face Borran again. This time, it’ll be to kill him. When we meet another thicket of trees, another howler lunges towards us, but this time at me, and lands on the back of my neck. It screeches like it’s caught a coveted meal, and bounces up and down on my back. I react instinctively, lost in the moment. I grab its neck with one hand twisting behind me, and grab its leg with my other hand. I yank the monkey forward, pulling it off me and tossing it with a jerk to the ground. Adan just stares at me, as dumbfounded as I am. The monkey writhes on the ground as if I’ve twisted something in him—and maybe I have without realizing how hard I’d thrown him. When the monkey’s mouth falls agape, tongue sticking out and body lifeless, I can’t believe what’s just happened. “How did I do that without feeling anything?” “No pain?” Adan confirms. “None. It’s like I have no Connection to it whatsoever.” “I didn’t feel anything either when I hit the monkey with my wings.” “That doesn’t make any sense.” I turn to Adan, while Sum just watches us a few meters away, unsure of how to relate to all this mysterious disconnection. He never had the Connection anyway. “Maybe it’s us? Maybe something happened to our Connections?” Adan says fearfully, his almond-shaped eyes bending to mine. I shake my head. “No, I can still feel my harpy, my Bengal. I’m still Connected.” Adan’s contorted expression leaves me with no answers until Sum suggests something. “It’s not you two, it’s the animals. Look at ‘em. They ain’t normal. Something’s wrong with ‘em.” “But what?” The three of us poke our heads closer to the monkey, now dead on the ground, a white foam sticking to its crooked mouth’s corners. “I think we should hide him, take him back with us for Juan to examine,” I suggest, as I tuck the dead monkey under a bush, and Adan nods. “Sure.” We trek further up along the side of the river, keeping to the trees, and almost to the gates of Puerto Carreno. Howlers scream in the distance farther behind us, and I can even hear a few of them biting at each other and maybe even killing each other. At least they seem to have lost interest in us. We had to vacate our raft because of the monkeys, the moment we passed Puerto Ayacucho. Riding the raft on the mini river from San Felipe for a few hours worked, and then we had to walk till reaching the second mini river that took us into San Fernando, blending into the Orinoco. We followed the Orinoco all this way, only vacating once when we spotted a BAG patrol heading downstream. Probably sent to pick up a crate of goods from Puerto Carreno. But things got bad after Puerto Ayacucho. More BAG patrols and crazed howler monkeys. Still, we had to leave our raft eventually anyway, because there is no way the Puerto Carreno port patrol will allow Adan and me through this time. Both of our arm barcodes surely now read wanted: dead or alive. When we reach the gates of Puerto Carreno, I look to Adan. “What are we going to do?” “The gate is made of wood,” Sum answers, “maybe silk floss. Can’t be too tough.” “You suggesting we break it down?” Adan shakes his head. “No, no, we need to climb it.” He points left. “If you look at the western wall, there aren’t many guards. Just one there, and one towards the end.” Sum looks at Adan’s stump of an arm and his forehead twists in disbelief. Even with a wooden peg sewn into his sleeve, he can’t climb with that. I squint, using my eagle vision. “We can scale the wall,” Adan repeats. “How?” I ask, perplexed, with Sum still eyeing his stump. “You can stand on my shoulders and I’ll lift you up. You can reach the ledge if you stretch. I’ll stand on Sum’s shoulders. He can’t get in anyway. They’ll identify him as a Burned in no time.” Sum looks at Adan, his brows all ruffled, like he must still be joking. “This can work,” Adan insists. Sum argues, “And how do we avoid being seen? There’s a guard right there.” Adan’s face lights up. “I’ve got an idea.” “An idea?” After Adan turns from us and races back into the thick trees, I shout, “What are you doing?!” “Just follow me,” Adan insists. If he were any other man, I wouldn’t. But we’ve been through so much together and he’s always come through for me. So, I follow him, with Sum beside me, both of us unsure of where this will lead and what Adan’s getting us into. After all, he told us that this excursion would be quick. He should know, being from Truezuela and having ridden the Orinoco many times. A quick trip to Puerto Carreno to steal a crate of food so that we could have food for the next few days while we rest, heal our wounds, and devise a plan to rescue our friends. Sounded easy enough. “What are we doing?!” I demand in a huff as I catch up to Adan. He looks up and I see the howler monkeys just staring at us, salivating. Drool spills from their mouths and onto my sleeve. “Howlers?” “They’ll be our distraction.” Adan throws a fallen twig at two of them, which immediately stirs a reaction—the reaction he wants, I guess. After the two monkeys drop from the trees to chase us, another four monkeys come racing behind them, their movements erratic, eyes bloodshot, and mouths covered with white foam. “Our distraction, or our death?” I ask as Adan, Sum, and I all sprint back toward the wall. When we push through a cluster of bushes, where the wall sits, Adan pulls me aside with his good hand and we duck with Sum behind a large Brazil nut tree. The monkeys dart forward in reckless abandonment, leaving the safety net of the forest, and hurdle at full force into the wall, scaling crazily upward like ravenous beasts and toward the unsuspecting guard sitting in a chair, smoking a cigarette. The event takes less than thirty seconds. Before I blink, four howlers are toppling the guard while the other two are screaming in a frenzied dance on top of the wall. The two dancing monkeys snarl before lunging at each other, and the guard at the far end finally hears the commotion. When a crazed howler savagely bites his neck, the first guard screams and falls backward off the wall. Adan looks to me. “Now’s our chance.”  Rivals, enemies, lovers, Jenna and Drex are soon all three. She wants him, nearly as much as she resents him, so how can they ever hope to build a future together? Jenna has good reason to despise all Rodytes, but that doesn't keep her from longing for Drex, thinking of him night and day, and finding incredible pleasure every time they touch. Still, happily ever after is built on trust, and Jenna will never trust a Rodyte. Drex is determined to prove to Jenna that he is different. He never expected to find a mate, so he refuses to let her slip away. He will court her with ruthless patience, wear down her emotional defenses until she understands that she is the most important person in the universe to him. But hostilities between humans and the battle born are rapidly escalating and the couple keeps getting caught in the middle. Can they overcome their pasts and focus on the future or will the conflict consume their love? CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE Battle Born 13:
Defiant ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Copyright © 2017 Cyndi Friberg Her easy dismissal of something so vital, unleashed his predatory instincts. She only shrugged away his interest because the pull hadn’t yet engaged in her. Once his taste spread through her mouth, her body would ache with need and her blood would sizzle through her veins, “pulling” her toward him. In ages past, any Rodyte male would have tossed her over his shoulder and escaped to some private location where they could fight this out in bed. “This is about so much more than children.” Stalking toward her with obvious intent, he spoke in a low, almost menacing tone. “Once a Rodyte male has found his mate, she becomes the most important person in the universe. Protecting her, providing for her, and pleasuring her are all he can think about. Why should I ignore what every cell in my body is demanding?” She backed up, fear flickering through her gaze. “If you touch me, I’ll scream.” “You have nothing to fear from me.” But he kept right on coming, only stopping when her back pressed against the wall. He placed his hands on either side of her head, caging her with his big body. “Breathe in my scent, let it wash over and sink into you.” “This is pointless.” She sounded a bit more assertive now, but her lips trembled. “I don’t feel what you’re feeling.” “Not yet,” he whispered as he lowered his head. She jerked her face aside, so he kissed her cheek and jawline. “Kiss me, Jenna. See if my taste excites you.” “No,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to be excited by anyone right now. I—” He turned her head and cut off her words with his mouth. Her lips pressed together, unmoving and unresponsive. His instincts demanded that he open her mouth and stake his claim with the thrust of his tongue, but she’d likely bite him if he forced this on her. Besides, he wanted her wild and willing, not resentful and resigned. “What are you so afraid of?” he whispered the words against her stubbornly closed mouth. “Nothing is more natural, more fulfilling, than touching and being touched by your mate.” Her hands came up and shoved against his chest. “Back off. Now!” “Kiss me once, and I’ll let you go.” He brushed his lips over hers, coaxing, teasing. “No means no, asshole.” She brought her knee up hard, barely missing his crotch as he quickly turned away. With an exasperated sigh, he pushed off the wall and motioned toward the door through which they’d escaped. “Enjoy the party.”  Every attempt to contain the deadly AM13 virus has failed, leaving humanity on the brink of extinction…
The plague is spreading out of control with no cure in sight. Then the government announces its new plan—a sanctuary in an area completely untouched by the infected—as long as you can get there alive and unscathed. Ethan Watton has managed to survive this long, even with OCD making every day more hellish than it already is… Ethan’s obsessive-compulsive disorder dramatically affected his life before the infection began. Now he’s desperate to get as far away from the zombie virus as humanly possible. Isolated and afraid, Ethan thinks there is no way in hell he will survive the epidemic. Alyssa Turner has spent her teenage years prepping for the undead to challenge her zombie killing skills… Alyssa knows with absolute certainty that she will survive the AM13 virus. She’s read all the books, watched all the films, and done all the research. She’s strong, tough, and a self-proclaimed badass. Any group would be lucky to fight alongside her…until the unthinkable makes her doubt every skill she’s acquired. Dr. Jones is a scientist who doesn’t understand why he was selected to produce a cure… Surely there are survivors more experienced in virology than he is. And what will happen to him—and the rest of the species—if he fails? Is the fate of the human race really resting on his shoulders? Or are there others working toward the same goal? With the zombies multiplying and survivors struggling to make it to the sanctuary, Ethan, Alyssa, and Dr. Jones fight to fulfill their destinies. If they fail, their fate is sealed, and they will join the millions of others who have been… Forgotten. CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE  Hannah McCauley doesn’t look at herself in the mirror anymore. After a rebellious past, she now attends a strict private school in a new town, where her recently divorced mother has put her on social lockdown. No driving. No bad grades. No skipping classes. No unapproved friends. No makeup. No boys. And the subject of her best friend from her old school is definitely forbidden. Hannah is being punished for something that happened a year earlier, something that she would like to put behind her. But strange occurrences frighten her, and she’s accused of breaking rules and doing other terrible things without any recollection of them. No one believes her, so she starts distrusting everything, even her own reflection. Is she being haunted by her past? Stalked by someone with a grudge? Or is it all in her head? If she doesn’t figure out what’s happening fast, her existence could end up irreparably shattered. CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE EXCERPT
> Chapter One < I don’t like the way the reflection in my bedroom mirror judges me. I try not to look at her too closely, but I know I have to now and then or I won’t be able to brush the tangles out of the mousy brown hair hanging past my shoulders. To avoid direct eye contact, I give her only a sideways glance. The eyes are the windows to the soul, they say, and it’s not that I refuse to look at hers, but I don’t want her looking into mine. She knows me too well, and I know that when she glares right back at me, she’s at her most judgmental. So when I finish with my hair—it’s the straightest it’s going to get, but I know there are strands out of alignment anyway—I stay frozen for a moment and simply breathe in and out. My palms are planted flatly on the dresser, and I keep my focus away from the glass and on the mahogany surface instead. It’s a family heirloom that belonged to my grandmother and her mother before it. The nicks and scratches show its age, and when we moved to the townhouse, my mother insisted it be placed in my room. Either she wants its history to persuade me I come from a caring family, or she wants the large mirror, with finely carved leaves around the frame, to taunt me. “Hannah,” my mother calls from outside my door before she knocks twice. “I can’t be late this morning.” I imagine her standing there, sighing in contempt and checking her sparkling silver wristwatch. It’s all about keeping up proper appearances with her, although I really shouldn’t complain. The townhouse is in much better shape than our old house, which had been in disrepair from years of my father’s neglect before he left us. I’m still surprised at how my mother managed to sell it, and I credit that to her impressive skills as a real estate agent. Our new neighborhood is somewhat secluded—as closed off as several rows of adjoining townhouses can be. And I guess I’m in a better school now. Glancing at the mirror to avoid any glimpse of my face, I see the trade-off for the supposedly improved education. A uniform: a black pleated skirt with its hem just above my knees, a stark white button-down blouse, and a silly black and gold plaid girly short necktie thing. Fashion choice has also been taken away from me, but I can impose some individuality with shoes and tights or socks. I’m opting for black combat boots and leggings today, only because there’s still a chill in the late-April morning air. “I’m serious, Hannah.” She knocks again, three times, each one louder than the one before. I can hear her tapping her black patent-leather pumps on the hardwood floor in the hallway. “I’ve got an early closing.” “Coming, Mom!” I groan and reach to the right to grab my phone. Even though it’s a couple of years old and the screen is cracked, it’s the one luxury I’ve been allowed to keep. But my hand comes up empty, and my knuckles rap the dark wood. Shaking the sting away, I stare at the spot where I’ve left my phone every single night since moving here, but it’s not there. Ready to storm out and confront my mother about confiscating my phone, I turn toward the door, but I see it face down on the left corner of my dresser. Snatching it up, I enter the passcode to check for any messages. Nothing since Grace rescued me from my late-night AP U.S. History homework meltdown. Maybe in my exhaustion, I dropped it in the wrong place. I’m not as well put together as my mother, and I probably never will be, no matter how she thinks she’s trying to fix me. I sling my school bag over my shoulder, its weight pulling me down a little, and I trudge through the door. My mother stands in the center of the hallway, focused on the oval wall mirror above the small table where a vase of fresh flowers sits. She preens herself, doing one final check that her hair bun is secure. Her dark brown hair has a slight auburn sheen to it, and as some of my hair drifts in front of my eyes, I’m convinced her hair looks younger and healthier than mine. All for appearances. “You were up late last night,” she says, never looking away from her reflection. “Senior year,” I mumble. “Tough courses.” “No excuses. It’ll all be for the best.” She finally turns to me and cups my chin and cheeks in her palms. I fake a smile because that’s what she wants to see, and I tell her she’s right because that’s what she wants to hear. We’re about the same height, but I can’t look her in the eyes. They’re the same green as mine. She turns to the mirror to finish putting on a pair of pearl earrings to match the string around her neck that plunges into her meticulously calculated amount of cleavage. In her blue business suit and skirt, she’s the model of professionalism, a woman who threw herself head first into her career and left me to fend for myself for the first three years of high school. Our ultimate upgrade to the townhouse included moving almost halfway across the state and transferring me to a private school for senior year. Does she think that giving me a different life and different friends will create a different me? In one fluid motion, she starts down the stairs and opens her purse to remove her keys. She holds the front door open for me while I slouch past her and out to the car. It’s a white two-door coupe with a sunroof, and if the tall townhouses weren’t in the way, the reflected sunlight off the car would blind people. I swear she gets it washed at least once a week. I slump into the passenger seat—the closest she’ll let me get to driving—and buckle myself up. The car’s almost a year old, but it still has that nauseating new smell as if she uses an air freshener with that scent. I plug in my earphones and am about to put them on, when my mother enters the car, spots me, and slightly shakes her head. “You know the rules, Hannah.” Dropping the earphones into my lap, I stifle an audible groan by taking a deep breath. Mom and her car rules. She has no problem with an occasional informational text sent, like if I have to ask Grace for a ride home from school because she can’t pick me up, but otherwise, devices are off-limits while she’s driving. She especially forbids me to tune her out with music, explaining that we should use the drive time for mother-daughter bonding rather than spend it in two different worlds. I release the breath and turn toward my window. I’d rest my head against it, but she doesn’t want me dozing off on the way to school either. She backs the car out of the driveway carefully and then drives slowly to the entrance of the townhouse community with only the occasional speed bump to provide any variety. “What homework was keeping you up last night?” she asks once she turns right onto the main road. “History.” I squirm at the small talk. “I don’t get why we even have to learn it.” “History’s where we’ve been, Hannah. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” I roll my eyes. My history teacher has said the same thing several times in class, but when my mother says it, there’s a lilt of condescension in her voice. I can’t shake the feeling that she’s talking about me—about my own history that I might be doomed to repeat. Whether I’ve learned my lesson or not, she’s doing everything to make sure it couldn’t possibly happen again. She stops at a traffic light, and there’s a large yellow house at the corner of the street. A white picket fence runs the perimeter of the property. Hanging from a post in the front yard is a For Sale sign with my mother’s photo on it. She’s in a red framed area in the corner, her arms folded across her chest and her smiling face tilted ever so slightly to the side. With the agency name and telephone number, the sign’s like an oversized business card combined with the glamor shot of an actress. She’s attractive and successful—I can’t deny that, nor am I bothered by it—but my heart sinks when I’m reminded of the name she goes by. Kathryn Reed, not Kathryn McCauley. She reverted to her maiden name, under the guise of it sounding more professional. I know it was to distance herself from my father, but it also distanced herself from me. “But you are passing the class, correct?” she asks when the light turns green. “With Grace’s help, barely.” “I like Grace. It’s a good thing that the two of you met and became friends.” She pauses while she turns the car right, and I know exactly what she’s thinking. She wants to remind me that Grace has been a positive influence on me, but she surprises me with her actual words. “I know how difficult moving before your senior year has been, but it really is all for the best. For both of us.” Her statement is more declarative than sympathetic. This isn’t the first time she’s acknowledged it’s been hard, but it’s been months since the last time. I wonder if she really understands what I’ve been going through. I don’t really miss that much from my previous school; I actually have better teachers now, and I care even less about some of the immature popularity games of school, but I miss Nikki more than I let on. “You know she’s doing fine, right?” asks my mother, as if she’s reading my mind. She sure knows me too well. “Yeah.” I shrug. “The two of you were headed down different paths. Anyway, you’d go off to college, where you’d be exposed to new ideas and people, and you’d eventually outgrow her. It happened a year earlier. Look at it that way.” Gritting my teeth, I hold back a swear-filled outburst. Nikki was my best friend, and she doesn’t deserve to be marginalized by my mother or anyone else. People get to choose their own friends, right? Although my mother never approved of Nikki, she doesn’t understand how badly I needed someone of my own to help me deal with the split. My father was gone, and my mother was coping by working more, but at least I had a friend who could relate. Unlike here and now, where I wouldn’t be surprised if somehow behind the scenes, my mother had handpicked my friends. I shouldn’t complain about Grace because she’s a genuinely kind person, and she’s done nothing but support me. I don’t know if I would have made it this far through the year without her, even if she seems more tailor-made for my mother’s personality instead of my own. But she doesn’t know my real personality any more than I think I do. My mother pulls up in front of the school, and we exchange saccharine goodbyes as I climb out of the car. I blend into the sea of black and white clothes and drift toward the entrance under the gilded letters that spell out Eastfield Academy. Without looking back, I know my mother is still parked at the curb and watching me, making sure that I pass through the front door. I haven’t skipped school since I came to Eastfield, and with just over a month left, I’m not going to start; the punishment for it is much more strict than at my old school, and I won’t do anything to ruin either of our reputations. That was the promise I made her. |
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