Twin
Flames
Katoom
Series, Book
One
Cassandra
L Shaw
Genre: Paranormal Romance / Suspense * Publisher: Black Opal Books
Date of Publication: 25th July,
2015 * ASIN: B011CN2YM0
Number of pages: 316 * Word Count: 100 000
About the Book:
She’s in grave danger, but she doesn’t
want his protection…
After a long and bitter world-war
for pure human supremacy, humans and two sub-species the Eli and Crea reside on
Earth in an uneasy harmony. One morning on a jog, Bliss Jacobs finds a murdered
fellow Eli. She scents the killer on the body, but other evidence is washed
away by a savage storm, leaving Bliss as the sole witness and the target of an
assassin—and forcing her back into the world of the man who shattered her
heart.
He believes she is his destined mate, but
he knows there are no second chances…
Kaid Sinclair is chasing more than
his best friend’s murderer. He wants Bliss in his bed and in his life, but
after their relationship went south several years ago, he knows he has to tread
carefully. So how can he keep her safe, while still proving to her that they
are destined to be mates, and he doesn’t just want to control her? All he wants
is for her to be safe—but with a killer who sees her as Kaid bait, Kaid may
have to choose…his life or hers?
Excerpt:
Chapter
1
Train
Tracks
The assassin
grunted, dropped the body, and then watched it roll and sprawl on its back.
Empty eyes stared at the dark and cold Montana spring night sky. The assassin
laughed.
He’d killed him.
He scratched at
the chemical reactive burning inside his robotic chest. Hissed at the scald of
the toxins pulsing in his neck and right arm veins. Silver and the metals that
only resided in Eli—a race of humans who, along with the Crea, had taken refuge
on Earth five hundred years ago when their own planet Ecreal died—merged with
the contaminants in his body with caustic results.
At his veins, the
silver he should see as a fine bright line, pulsed dull bronze—aged, corroded,
diseased. The toxins tasted of rusted steel and burned his mucus membranes.
He kicked the
body. “Fucker.”
Retribution was
sweet, even if it had taken him fourteen years. He’d removed the male’s clothes
so the trains and wildlife could more easily eliminate his father’s killer. No
remains, no ritual burial. Sinclair deserved no such honor.
Here the body
would be hacked into easy to eat pieces for the animals to feast on and, since
nobody ever came near these tracks, Sinclair’s remains would never be found.
Bliss skidded to a
halt on the clearing’s spring grass, tipped her face to the sky, and gulped
air. Clouds, in an oppressive charcoal blanket, smothered most of dawn’s light.
She grimaced. Ah damn, a storm. No wonder it’d been so gloomy in the forest. Time
to cut her run short and take the train tracks home.
To add speed,
Bliss edged out her Eli genetics. Many times the speed of an Earth human, she
dashed through a wind whipped meadow. At the train embankment, she lunged up
the steep gravel siding to the top then adjusted her stride so each step fell
on a recycled cement and plastic cemeplas sleeper. A flash of blue light, a
clash of thunder’s deepest bass exploded, vibrating the surrounding air. Eek,
come on legs, go faster. She rounded Death Bend. What the hey?
Bliss stumbled
over the dismembered body of a dead man. A scream ripping free, she spun and
fell to her knees. Eli metal thundered in her veins, silver bloomed on her skin
and swirled in her eyes.
Gene—oh my fates,
Gene cut into slices as if laid out in macabre banquet portions.
At three hundred
miles an hour, freight trains with six carbide wheels per axle tore along this
trio of tracks. Crusted blood and the starkness of bones exposed by the
severing suggested multiple trains travelling on differing tracks had sliced
through his corpse in gruesome precision.
Bile seared the
back of her throat as her metals formed a light exoskeleton over her human
skin. Bliss flung herself sideways and vomited down the embankment.
She forced down
her remaining stomach contents, calmed her Eli, and did what she didn’t want to
do—turned back.
A neon blue flash
highlighted the gore. She jumped as the clap of thunder thickened into a rue of
pine and ions. With their blood ten percent liquid metal, lightening liked to strike
Eli and Crea dumb enough to remain exposed. Being fried wasn’t high on her list
of ways to die. She had to get home, out of the storm, and phone the sheriff.
She looked at
Gene’s body. God, this was…dang—she couldn’t think of a word bad enough. Death
Bend was so sharp, animals didn’t always have time to jump to safety. But an
Eli with his enhanced senses—it made no sense.
Near the
decapitated head she noted a sweet scent. Great now she’d have to see what that
scent was. Feeling as if someone had wedged a shoe in her throat, she peeled
her lips back, braced herself for what she was about to do to, leaned forward,
and sniffed near the decapitated head.
Bourbon fumes
wrinkled her nose. She turned into the cold wind to cleanse her nostrils of
booze and death. Crap cakes. Had he come for a run, fallen, and been too drunk
to get up? Fallen and knocked himself out then the train came? Drunk or not,
why was he out here? His lodge on Eli Clan reserve was on the other side of
Katoom, an easy twenty miles from this bend.
She blinked back
more tears. “What happened?”
Yeah, she didn’t
expect an answer.
She went to close
the dead eyes, so unlike the laughing ones she remembered, and stopped an inch
from contact. Oops, she better not contaminate him with her scent. Peter, the
sheriff, would give birth to a bear if she touched the body before he’d
processed the scene and gone through all the correct procedures.
Katoom’s small
population was a mix of Earth humans and the alien Eli and Crea. This
Subspecies cohabitation was rare. Even in large cities, the species tended to
live in separate suburbs but, usually, the Eli and Crea preferred to live on
large tracts of land.
All regions of
coexistence were constantly scrutinized by the ever vigilant feds, the
sensation hungry media, and the alien haters who wanted the return to old world
wars and Subspecies genocide. They prayed for infractions and spied on all
alien clans.
To keep focus on
Katoom minimal, Peter crossed his T’s with precision to all laws. She hadn’t
taken her personal link on her run so she had to wait till she was home to
contact him.
She ran her palms
along her cooling thighs and stared at the body. She went to stand to head
home. Hang on. She half crouched and peered closer at Gene’s neck. Two inches
above where his head had been severed from the rest of him, a jagged cut gaped
and a large portion of flesh hung, joined to the whole by a thread of pale
bloodless skin. She glanced at the other body pieces, and her chest ratcheted
from tense to tenser.
The torso slices
had been cut with almost laser precision. No torn flesh. No ragged edges. No
chunks cleaved from the whole.
But the throat had
been hacked and didn’t come near to separating that section of neck in two.
She gusted out a
horrified gasp and dry heaved, flung her hand to her mouth and kept it there.
She would not vomit on Gene. She peered closer and saw a windpipe and carotid
artery. She flicked her gaze to the gravel to calm herself. That was odd. Gene
was big, six-feet-seven tall, and two-eighty pounds of muscle. Yet, she
couldn’t see much blood and barely any metal dust. Not much blood at all. Even
little rabbits bled more than these few trickles.
Where the hell
could all his blood have gone?
She rocked back
onto her heels. A squall whipped her hip length hair around her body. Heart
ricocheting around her chest like a well hit racquetball, she shot to her feet.
Shit, shit, shit.
Gene hadn’t died here.
She swallowed hard
and surveyed the surrounding tree line, flinched when a dark shadow moved, when
the light shifted with the clouds.
Someone sliced his
throat, bled him out, then moved and dumped his body.
Her metal rose so
high, she tasted its metallic sourness on her tongue. She had to scent the
murderer, to know who did this. She dropped to her knees again. Head close to
the ragged wound, she inhaled deeply. From deep within Gene’s massacred throat,
the faintest waft of a foreign scent bit at the back of her throat.
The killer? Of
course, it’s the killer, stupid. What other scent would be inside Gene’s flesh?
But why was it so weak? It hadn’t rained to wash it away. She shook her head,
took another draw of air, rolled the aromatic molecules of the alien scent over
her tongue and scent receptors, and sifted through the data of stored scents in
her brain.
Please don’t be
someone I know, please. No buzzing and no internal recognition. No one she
knew, thank the gods. But now she’d be able to identify the scent’s owner if
they came near. Forensics would use a scent collector to gather the killer’s
scent then load it into the national database and seek a match.
She turned, ran
for home, and prayed a killer didn’t watch or know she’d scented him.
Talking with author Cassandra L Shaw!
What is your writing environment?
I work at home but since our house is small my office
is just a nook I’ve stolen from the main living and dining area. I usually have
a dog or cat nearby or a bird on my shoulder, or all three. Most things on my
work desk have fur on them, or chew marks from the bird.
Our house is on acreage so even if I move from my
office nook to the couch or the dining table or even outside to our veranda I
see grass, trees, birds, chickens, ducks, dogs, horses, cats, and last but not
least my two goats.
This sort of country environment makes me pretty happy
even if I dream about huge rooms added to the house as a real office.
Who is your perfect hero/heroine and why?
Strong ones. No wimps or door mats for me. I like
women with strength and men who like their women that way. I don’t’ mind my
heroes being a bit alpha but not over the top.
If I think this man is a jerk too often I’m not going to finish the
story.
What authors have caught your interest lately and why?
I read the first in a series by Linda Castillo I
enjoyed and will read the second. I also recently discovered Jill Shalvis and
quite like her contemporary romances. I will drop whatever I’m reading for the
latest Nalini Singh, Darynda Jones, or Karen Marie Moning book and am forever
on the lookout for a really good paranormal writer, or suspense writer, or
romance writer.
Top 3 things on your bucket list?
-Travel – lots of it to various place (the list is like
my TBR pile - forever growing).
-To own a large farm and to run it organically with my
husband (and run a small animal rescue)-which may conflict with the travel so
we’ll also have to have someone to look after the place for us.
-To make the New York Times best seller list and then
hit it again and again and again.
How did you get the idea for this particular novel?
All my ideas just come to me as a single scene or
picture of the main character doing something.
In Twin Flames I half dreamed Bliss (heroine) standing over a mutilated
dead body on a set of train tracks. A dark forbidding storm was brewing behind
her and I saw her as being nervous of both the storm and the body.
Originally I saw Bliss as something other than human
but I humanized her race as I wrote the story. Though their race elements of
the creature I saw and can turn into it when needed.
What is your favorite scene in your new release?
Oo, that’s hard, there’s some scenes I really enjoyed
working on. I think it might be one of the earlier scenes in the story where
Bliss is singing in a bar and Kaid loses his cool and she has to take him
outside. The scene outside is short but
I like Kaid’s obvious desire for Bliss and his plans to protect her no matter
what she wants. I also enjoyed when he
appears in her bathroom while she’s showering and she attacks him thinking he’s
the killer.
What are you working on now and when can we expect it to be available?
I’m currently working on four books. I’m revising the
rough draft of the 2nd of my Grave Robber series, which I’m
desperate to finish and have edited and released. I’m also writing the rough
draft of the second in the Katoom series (book after Twin Flames), writing the
rough draft of a Sci-fi Romantic suspense and revising a single title
contemporary romance (the first story I’ve written without speculative
elements).
I’m hoping to have them all out by about March 2016 –
but one at a time. The Grave Robber first, the Katoom series next. However the
contemporary will depend on if a publisher goes for it, and the Sci-fi will
come out when time allows. We are renovating a house then moving house over the
next few months so time will be precious.
What do you like to do when you are not writing?
Read. But that’s obvious. I like to garden, hang with
my animals, go to the beach or markets with my family and when the time is
there (rare) draw and paint or sculpt.
What is one interesting fact about you that readers don’t know?
I suppose you want something interesting?? Well this is probably not going to wow your
readers as it has nothing to do with writing but I have a true fascination for
all things nature. To the point where I can watch a cricket going about his
life for ages (my mother found this very odd) but it extends to all creatures –
great and small. If it’s a living
creature then its life and environment is interesting to me. I’d kill to be the
next David Attenborough!!!
******************
About
the Author:
Cassandra L Shaw writes Urban
Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Romantic Suspense, & Contemporary Romance. She
lives in a small farm on the Sunshine Coast of Australia. Her eclectic past
includes fashion design, environmental science and years of drudgery as an
office worker where she dreamed of NOT being an office worker. She discovered writing a few years ago and
has decided that with its mix of art, writing craft, and study she’s at last
found the career that suits her arty and academic mind.
Tour
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thanks for having me here today.
ReplyDeleteI have a small cat rescue for elderly cats, and I haven;t been on a vacation in 20 years. It is a full time job, and I could hire someone to take care of them, so I could travel. It's just that I just don't trust anyone else.
ReplyDeleteHappy book release, it sounds exciting and I'd love to read it! And thanks for the great giveaway!
ReplyDeleteHappy book release, it sounds exciting and I'd love to read it! And thanks for the great giveaway!
ReplyDeleteReally great post, sounds like it is going to be an awesome beginning to this series :)
ReplyDelete