Wow! Welcome to day 5 of my Authorversary Prize-A-Palooza! Like the past five years since I signed my first book contract, this week has flown by. Thank you everyone who partied with me (read my ramblings). I loved reading all your comments.
Yesterday’s winner of the $25 Amazon gift card is Melissa Weeks. Today’s prize is a $30 Amazon gift certificate AND a “surprise prize.” Want to know what it is?
Are you sure?
How about a copy of Breeder 3: Warrior? Yep, that’s it. In addition to the $30 Amazon gift certificate, today’s winner will receive a copy of Warrior when it is published.
And remember, everyone who posts a comment this week is entered into a drawing for a bottle of Spanking Bottom Red Wine. (Shipping to US only. A winner outside the US will receive a commensurate gift certificate instead). The winner of today’s drawing and the winner of Spanking Bottom Red Wine will be announced on Monday. All gift certificates will be sent out on Monday, and the wine will be shipped next week. Warrior will be emailed when it published–this fall. I will also have a few final comments on Monday. I hope you’ll join me one more day!
If you’ve enjoyed my blog this week, I hope you’ll consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts. It’s the best way to receive info about new releases and future contests. The signup is located in the sidebar top right. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on a link in an email.
Speaking of future contests…since I started my blog, I’ve posted more than 900 blogs and had almost than 9,900 comments! When I post blog No. 1,000, somebody who has commented that month will receive a prize. And, the 10,000th commenter also will receive a prize. I expect the 10,000th comment to occur no later than September. The 100th blog might occur before the end of the year.
I promised a sneak peek at Warrior—I’ll get to that in moment. First some info on what to expect from me in the future.
World domination.
Just kidding.
Currently, I am prepping Warrior for an August submission to Loose Id, after which I anticipate a fall 2014 release (based on past experience, I’m thinking October-ish). Once I put Warrior to bed, I am going to finish writing Rod and Cane 5. In September, the rights to Unexpected Consequences will revert back to me. There will be a gap when it will not be available for sale, but I intend to re-release it as a self-published book. The rights to my vampire romance, A Scent of Longing revert to me in December. I will have to do a little rewriting on that one (it contains some proprietary character info owned by Decadent Publishing), so there will be a gap of a couple of months before I can get that one out. But I am going rogue! I anticipate more self-pubbing in my future.
After these projects, I have several potentials demanding to be written, including a new sci-fi romance set on Parseon but with brand new characters, a totally new sci-romance, possibly another domestic discipline series, AND more Rod and Cane books. I plan to use the Magic Eight Ball to help me decide which ones to write first.
Just kidding. But I have not decided just yet what I’ll do next. I’ll have to see which one yells the loudest after I finish Rod and Cane 5. One thing I have learned in five years is that I am a pantser–both in my writing style and my career planning.
But now a *drum roll*….
An excerpt from Breeder 3:Warrior
“Hold steady. Grip the stock of the crossbow from below with your left hand. Do not get in the way of the bolt.” Grogan stepped so close, his hardened manhood prodded her left flank. Anika gritted her teeth, and considered dropping her trigger finger to reach into her boot for Tara’s knitting needle.
Yes, hold steady now, Grogan.
“Line your target between the crosshairs.”
Target in sight. Anika closed her left eye and peered through the scope with her right at the life-size outline of a male sketched in soot on an unrolled parchment scroll tacked to a tree fifty meters away. Focused on the round smudge center torso.
Grogan pressed his erection in the crease of her buttocks. “Squeeze…the trigger.”
Anika superimposed her instructor’s likeness onto the faceless target and discharged the bolt. The bow recoiled with a pop and released the arrow. With satisfying thunk it embedded in the tree. Lowering her weapon, Anika and stepped out of range of the alpha’s erection and strode to examine the result.
Right through the heart.
“Fair. For a female,” Grogan judged.
She compared her results—dead center—with Grogan’s. He’d missed the target completely, hitting it outside the outline. Perhaps the weight of his erection had unbalanced his shot.
She marched to the starting line with Grogan dogging her heels, flinging advice as wild as his aim. She shot better than every male of the Resistance, but walked a precarious path, awakening each morn to wonder if this would be the day she would fall prey to her compatriots. To Grogan who had singled her out for special training.
But joining the Guerilla Resistance against Qalin and Artom was preferable to what lay outside the camp. Anika shuddered.
After leaving Marlix’s abode, she’d roamed the countryside for a week before she straggled into the militia group attempting to defeat Qalin and Artom using guerilla tactics. Their secret weapon?
Breeders. No one would suspect a female of being an armed fighter.
But her instructor saw no reason to abandon the old use for females. Thus far she’d dodged him, but her luck and his patience could not last much longer.
“Many females can hit the target, but few have the strength as you do to cock the bowstring. You are the best female shooter by far,” Grogan conceded, his praise falling short of recognizing her true ability.
No good would come from stating fact—that she was their best shooter period.
“You have trained enough for one day. Let us retire to the camp,” Grogan said. “You may bring me the midday meal.” He peered at the sky. The star of Parseon hung overhead, its heat barely reaching the atmosphere to edge the temperature over freezing. But the chill provided an excuse to layer on multiple articles of clothing. The inconvenience of removing them had saved her on more than one occasion. Still, a clothing barrier offered scant protection. Some males—Grogan—saw impediments as a challenge.
“I feel as though I need more practice.” She peered at him from beneath downcast lashes and slumped her shoulders in a pretense of self-effacement. “May I please try one more time?”
Usually the number of people milling around afforded opportunity to avoid or divert him.
But today, the alphas had formed two teams and split up, one group hunting for small game, another on reconnaissance. The females had been sent to forage for whatever they could find to replenish the dwindling food stores. Only she—by Grogan’s orders—remained in camp.
She jabbed the crossbow nose down onto the ground and stepped on the metal cocking stirrup.
“You have practiced enough for one day.” Temper edged his voice.
Anika pulled back the bowstring until it locked, extracted a bolt from the quiver and slipped it into the flight groove. Cocked and loaded, the crossbow had to be fired for it was too dangerous to leave a loaded weapon lying about. A bump or a jolt could discharge the projectile. She raised the crossbow to shoulder height, slipped her finger off the metal guard, and caressed the trigger.
“Did you hear what I said?” Grogan’s tone sharpened. “Look at me when I speak to you!”
She snapped a sharp pivot. Through the scope, the crosshairs formed a perfect X on his chest.
His eyes bulged in alarm, and he stumbled over his feet.
Even Grogan could not fail to hit a target at such close range.
“I heard what you said,” Anika replied before turning back to the paper target and pulling the trigger. Th-th-thunk! Her bolt landed next to the previous one. Dead center. Again. She lowered the weapon.
Grogan seized her arm in a bruising grip, and yanked her around to face him. “Never point a loaded weapon at me! Do you understand?” He shook her.
Anika took stock of her instructor’s reddening complexion, the slight tremor of his body, the decreased bulge in his uniform pants. Satisfaction swelled, but she bowed her head. “I apologize, alpha. When you ordered me to look at you, I had no thought but to obey.”
Stars exploded under the impact of his fist. She would have fallen, except he caught her, and struck her again. That one did knock her off her feet. She hit the frozen ground hard, and air whooshed from her lungs. Sharp pain radiated from her left cheek, as if the zygoma of her cheekbone had been shattered. Grogan struck out with his foot, but she saw the kick coming, and rolled so that his boot only kissed her ribs. Her crossbow lay several meters away where it had flown out of her grip.
Grogan followed her gaze, jerking slightly as if to lunge for the weapon. A blur of gray flashed in her periphery. Grogan hit the ground face up, his arms pinned by a large male in a dirty uniform. One of Qalin’s guards?
Anika could not see the attacker, only his back and Grogan’s face as the larger male rained a barrage of merciless blows upon it. Bones crunched. His nose shattered in a spray of blood.
Had the camp been occupied, Grogan’s screams would have brought defenders, but only she remained. Would she be the next victim?
Anika scrambled for her crossbow. The limb on the front had been dented. The scope misaligned. How would she sight it? Fire it? Would her bolt veer off? In a panic, she required three tries to cock it. She fumbled an arrow into the groove.
Grogan had fallen silent, unmoving. He’d never had a chance. The attack had been too sudden, too vicious to defend.
The assailant rose to his feet.
With trembling hands, Anika lifted the crossbow as the attacker turned.
Unofficial Warrior Blurb
A female fighting for freedom. A male armed with determination.
Can they save their people?
As a despotic Qalin marches through Parseon intent on conquering every province, Commander Marlix pledges his sister to another Alpha to protect her. Desperate to decide her own fate, Anika flees and finds refuge with the guerilla resistance movement against Qalin. Marlix’s beta Urazi, a male of lesser status, tracks her down intending to bring her home to fulfill her duty. But when love blossoms between them, and provinces fall to Qalin, Anika and Urazi realize the home they knew has ceased to exist, and they alone are all that stand between the people of Parseon and a fate worse than death.
