The Tour Stop
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The Sheikh’s Captive American
-- EXCERPT:
PROLOGUE Tarek Rahim watched as his cousins and friends, Nasim and Arif, leaped with a whoop down the curved steps of the Sheldonian Theatre, their academic gowns flapping behind them. He followed at a more dignified pace. “We’re free, lads!” Nasim shouted. Tarek shook his head. Happy as he was to have completed his Oxford education, he couldn’t quite bring himself to crow. Other graduates laughed and jostled around them, greeting their families, and Tarek pressed his lips together. For a moment, he could only think of his parents. Five years ago, an automobile accident had taken their lives. He wished they could see him now. Blinking, he pulled himself back to the moment. He could already hear the rattle of shackles coming to bind him to the throne of Zahkim, inherited from his father. His grandmother, Amal, had been acting as regent until he finished his education. Tomorrow he must become Sheikh Tarek of Zahkim, and the thought wasn’t appealing. Nasim jabbed an elbow into his ribs. “We are going to party right up until we have to pour you onto the plane home. Let’s get rid of these robes and head to the Sunset Lounge.” Arif chuckled. “You only want to go there because of that bartender who gives you doubles. It’s amazing you got your degree, given how much attention you paid to women and drink instead of your studies.” “I had to make up for you,” Nasim said, slapping Arif on the back. Tarek smiled. They did tend to give Arif a hard time about his resistance to hedonistic delights. Tarek thumped his cousin’s back as well. “Don’t worry, Arif. I’m sure we can find a woman to interest you tonight. It’s our last chance in England to live like the English.” An hour later, they crossed the street and headed to the upscale bar they’d made their own over the last four years. Arif had his eyes on his mobile, as usual. “No phones tonight.” Tarek plucked the device from Arif’s hand and stuffed it into his own pocket. “Only friends. Who knows when we’ll have another chance to do this.” “And no being maudlin,” Nasim said. Tarek straightened into a mock-formal pose. “I am a serious man, Nasim.” Nasim snorted, and Arif said, “Tell that to the first year whose shampoo you replaced with mayonnaise.” They laughed and turned toward the entrance, where chatter and laughter spilled out. The evening was descending, and streetlights flickered on up and down the sidewalk. The peculiar smell of Oxford—something not quite like sour milk—hung in the air. Tarek shivered in a cool gust of wind. He’d never become accustomed to the cold of England. He’d just reached the corner of the building when an old woman stepped from the shadows of an alley and grasped Tarek’s wrist. The woman looked older even than Tarek’s grandmother. In the dim light, he couldn’t see much but bright blue eyes and wisps of gray hair escaping from the black scarves swathed around her head and shoulders. A baggy dress draped her figure, and she smelled faintly of beer. “I’ll tell your fortune. Such handsome men, such tangled paths…” “Not tonight, mother.” Shaking her off, Tarek reached for his wallet. “No futures. We want only this moment.” But Nasim stepped between Tarek and the old woman. “It’s the perfect night—we have only the future ahead of us. Let’s hear her out.” Arif frowned and stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. “Do you really want to know? There’s more to it than you realize.” Tarek pulled two fifty-pound notes from his wallet and pushed them into the woman’s gnarled fist. “Find yourself some food and a place to sleep, mother. I’m not thinking about the future until I must.” She grasped his arm and pulled at him until he had to bend closer. She spoke clearly, but so softly only he could hear. “An angel will fall from the sky and land at your feet, sheikh. She will save your country, but only if you fall at her feet in turn. Trust your instincts, my son.” Tarek stared at her, but she only gave a smile and faded into the gathering night. Nasim broke the silence with a nervous laugh. “I’m not sure what you just bought.” Tarek hunched a shoulder. How had she known he was a sheikh? Was it a guess because he looked Middle Eastern? What had she meant about saving his country? From what? He shrugged off her words. If his country was on the line, he’d trust his intellect, not his instincts.
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Can Dreams Come True?
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-- EXCERPT: I started to feel anxious after lunch. After all, I had been an Andrew fan for a long time, and even though I had seen him in person, this was a huge deal to get to meet him. What if he wasn’t what I had imagined? I didn’t expect him to fawn over me or anything, but what if he was rude or ignored me? It would kill my fantasy of him as being this sweet, quiet, sensitive songwriter who wore his heart on his sleeve while also being kind of a loner/rebel with just a touch of bad boy in him. Oh man, I would be crushed if he didn’t notice me or worse—if he ended up flirting with Harlow. In all his magazine interviews Andrew always said looks weren’t important to him, and what he noticed in a girl was if she was true to herself. He said he went for “bright girls who were sweet and easy to be with.” Now that I thought about it, that was the kind of fake crap magazines put out about all the teen celebrities. It was like when I saw Lawrence Claibourne, my favorite actor who claimed to be Mr. I’m-just-looking-for-a-sweetgirl-to-read-poetry-to on a red carpet with a model whose boobs were falling out of her dress and had overdone the lip fillers—I mean, you just knew he wasn’t into her for her personality. But Andrew wasn’t like Lawrence. Andrew seemed so sincere and deep. Lawrence had a smirk and you could tell he was a player, but Andrew seemed like he had been hurt and needed to find the right girl who he could open up to and learn to trust again. . .or at least that’s what he said in his last interview. The final bell rang and my heart shot up to my throat. This was it. I was on my way to meet my crush. From now on, any dreams of him would be marred by the reality I was about to face. Was it better to keep wondering what if and keep the fantasy alive or to go and actually meet him?
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Servant of Rage
-- EXCERPT:
The other hunters shied from the task, mumbled excuses and accepted easier assignments. Fool’s errands, more like. If ten years of training and two more as a hunter had proved anything, it was that Subei was not one to let an opportunity pass him by. “Let me get this straight,” Kashi said, shaking his head. “The khan marks murderers, horse thieves, and petty smugglers, but we’re assigned to hunt down the longest serving commander in the entire damned khanate?” “Assigned?” Subei said with a laugh. “Ancestors above, brother. We weren’t assigned. We volunteered.” Silence followed. Kashi’s expression, previously one of surprise, descended into a suspicious scowl. “You volunteered, you mean?” “Well, as the foremost, I speak for all of us,” Subei said, clapping Kashi and their older brother, Bataar, on the back. “So in the eyes of the khan, we volunteered.” Subei smiled. There was a significant difference between being ordered to do a thing and volunteering for it. It was the difference between mindless servitude and burning ambition. The difference between being no one and being the khan’s finest hunter. He held tight to his smile even as anger built in his younger brother’s eyes. Looked a river in the summer rains, swelling until it burst its banks. “You’re a damned madman.” “Probably.” “You’re going to get us killed!” “Probably that, too.” “Ancestors damn it, Subei! Can we not just have an easy assignment for once?” “Kashi, little brother.” Subei shook his head. Had he learned nothing after all this time? “Opportunity—” “Opportunity is missed by most because it comes soaked in blood and looks to be suicide. You’ve said it a hundred damned times.” “So what’s the problem?” “The problem is the part where we hunt one of the fiercest men the steppe has ever known, and probably end up dead as a result.” He cursed under his breath and began to pace back and forth. Always had been a bit lacking on the courage side of things, had Kashi. A trait from his parents, perhaps. Subei called him and Bataar brother, though they were not brothers by birth but rather by trade. Hunters, trained together from childhood. Subei didn’t share blood with either of them, but after twelve years and countless hunts together, that counted for very little. Kashi continued to fume for a minute before he finally turned to Bataar. “Oh, so you’re smiling too?” The big man shrugged. “It’d be a fine thing to bring down Commander Jian. Horse thieves and smugglers have gotten a bit, well, boring.” “Boring? Oh, boring is fine. Boring doesn’t end with a spear in my chest.” Bataar hefted his wicker-and-iron shield and patted the horseman’s saber at his hip. “You’re the tracker. You find the bastard, we’ll take care of the rest.” “And after you take care of ‘the rest’ — or it takes care of you — it’ll be my job to drag what’s left of your bodies back to the khan.” “Well, you won’t have to drag us far,” Subei said, savoring the best part of the news for just a moment longer. “The commander just left camp yesterday. Hardly has any lead on us at all.” He nodded to the west, through the great tent city that always followed the khan’s camp and out to the wide, windy steppe beyond. “Oh, wonderful. We can catch up to our deaths that much quicker, then,” Kashi said, shaking his head. “You worry too much, little brother.” Subei smirked and patted him on the shoulder, but Kashi shrugged the gesture away. “Someone has to, seeing as neither of you care to bother.”
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Owl Eyes: A Fairy Tale
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo -- EXCERPT:
“Hi.” I shot up from the bed, screaming, and scrambling backwards before falling off the mattress onto the planked wood floor. A boy crouched next to me with his elbows balanced on his knees and his chin resting against his palms. He wore an old, light blue shirt that was much too large for his small frame. A piece of hay stuck up from the mop of brown hair on his head. “Jack!” Liana called from the kitchen. “Don’t wake Nora.” “Too late,” the boy called back. “Who are you?” I pressed my hand to my chest to keep my heart in place. “Why were you watching me sleep?” “I wasn’t watching you sleep,” the boy said. “Peter and me just got back from the Market, and I got up here and found you on my mattress.” “Your—” I sputtered. I took a deep breath and tried to inhale the motherwort from the candle. “This is my bed.” “Well, no one said it was yours, did they? I claimed this bed when I got here, and no one made a peep.” He crossed his arms and looked at the floor. “They were probably too worried if you were okay to care about where I was sleeping. You looked pretty rotten.” “I was sick,” I said, staking my spot on the mattress again. “No, I mean you actually looked like you’d rotted. Your skin was all black. Are you sure you’re not a spirit who’s talking to me now?” I grabbed his arm and pressed my palm to his. “No spirit,” I said. “I’m here.” He grinned. I shoved him on the floor. “I’m Jack,” he said as he picked himself up. “Nora.” “Are you Greta and Peter’s daughter?” “No.” I regretted the words as soon as they came out of my mouth. They were true, but I chewed them like a lie. “I mean yes. Sort of.” “How are you only ‘sort of’ their daughter?” “I mean, yes, I’m their daughter. They’re just not my real parents. My real parents are dead. Or gone. Or something. My mother is dead.” I was rambling. I pulled the candle closer to the mattress, hearing Greta’s voice in my ear warning me that the flame could catch the straw on fire. I didn’t care. I lowered my face and breathed in. “Does your ma’s spirit ever talk to you?” Jack asked. “What?” I stared at him. “That’s stupid. How old are you that you still think that can happen?” “I’m thirteen.” Defensiveness crept into his voice. “And I only asked because I can talk to my pa anytime I want to. Or at least I could when we lived in the Vale. His spirit lives in the river there.” Sir Alcander had hired a crazy person to work in the kitchen house. “No, he doesn’t.” “He does so! I’ll show you sometime, and you’ll see.” I flopped back down on the mattress and rolled over so I was facing away from him, pulling the candle to the other side with me. I could feel Jack watching me. “Your ma is nice,” I said, still not facing him. “Thanks. I think so too.” There, finally, was something we agreed on. “I’m going to bed now. You can keep your spot. I didn’t want it anyway.” I peeked over my shoulder. Jack lay down on a new mattress I hadn’t noticed next to the wall. “Thanks,” I said. In the dim light of the candle, his eyes looked almost gold. I smiled. “It’s all right,” he said. “I can sleep almost anywhere as long as I’ve got enough space. I don’t like feeling closed up in small places.” The dark room pulsed behind me. “Me neither.” Now we had two things in common.
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Craving: Loyalty
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