Skin Deep Reveal by TG Ayer

TITLE: Skin Deep

SERIES: The Darkworld Series, Volume: 1
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
PUBLICATION DATE: 30th APRIL 2013
FORMAT: Paperback, E-Book & Hardback
PUBLISHER: Infinite Ink
PAGES: 390


EXCERPT:
"The cold cocking of guns set my body on fire.
It also did something worse. With mortal fear gripping me, my imminent Change wasn't taking second place anymore. My body churned the fear and my Panther grasped at the visceral power of the adrenalin in my veins.
I ran.
A gunshot echoed around the garden, the sound ping-ponging off the aging brick walls of the surrounding apartment buildings.
I gasped as a blast of searing pain slammed into me.
As a bullet buried itself deep within my shoulder."

DESCRIPTION:
Panther Shape-shifter Kailin Odel just wants to be normal. Leaving her clan, and her Alpha responsibilities, to live with her grandmother in Chicago had been the best thing for her. Only then did she discover her ability to track and kill the soul sucking undead creatures called Wraiths. Now she protected the humans, and had something to be proud of.
But, when she discovers the body of a murdered shape shifter, Kailin has to come to terms with the reality that her own kind are just as vulnerable as the humans.
The closer Kailin gets to the killer the more she has to face the intricacies of her people. When the time comes can she accept who and what her real purpose is?

CHAPTER ONE:

Icy pain sliced through my bones, the muscles of my arms, and the flesh of my back. My spine and thighs rippled, shifted. Changing.

Damn. Too fast.

I spared a rueful glance at my new leather pants. And ran faster.

Had to make it to the Rehab Center a few blocks away. I ran, my speed super-human, my need super-charged, covering ground fast enough to make it to safety before my Panther took over.

I took the corner of the street behind the Center at breakneck speed, and headed for the nearest of the gaping holes pockmarking the rusted fence.

The wind changed before I stepped off the curb. My ears peaked and I skidded to a halt, panting slightly, my backpack thumping against my side. The scream of tires on blacktop echoed on the night air, shattering the silence as it grew ever louder.

Closer.

Followed in tandem by the whining wail of sirens. A battered sedan scorched down the street, suspended on the turn on only two wheels. The angry whip of charred rubber spiked the air. Horizontal again, the car jumped the curb and skidded sideways, avoiding a collision with the fence by mere inches.

I shrank into the shadows at my back, expelling a long, stale breath. My Panther, still confined within my body, bucked and jerked, craving release.

I let her surface.

A little.

For now, super-sight would be welcome. Unlike the ability to run like the wind while still in my Human skin, tapping into my Panther's sight required a partial transformation—a risk I needed to take as my gut screamed danger.

Adrenalin surged, different again from the calm fervor of my wraith hunts. I blinked. Heat nipped at my corneas as I released my Panther sight—enough to give my eyes feline vision.

Sight, which sliced deep into the black nothing hugging the sidewalk, transformed my eyes into a solid Panther emerald. For the moment, plain old Kailin Odel was back to being Kailin of the Clan Panthera.

My cat sight adjusted, focused. The blackness surrounding the darkened vehicle changed depth and color, became lighter, clearer.

Someone shoved the rear door open, and I cringed as it creaked and complained. The occupants remained shrouded in the shadows of the vehicle's interior. Something large, long and heavy hit the ground with a dull thunk. Then the sedan revved as unseen sirens drew closer, louder, and it spun around and skidded off the curb.

The battered car roared off, a police cruiser close on its tail with sirens screaming blue murder. It didn't take a genius to figure out the parcel had to be awfully incriminating, for them to chuck it into the garden in such a flaming hurry.

My nostrils twitched at the stench of exhaust smoke, and my heart thumped as I waited to cross the street. I flicked a furtive glance at the dull red glow of taillights disappearing into the darkness. A breeze skimmed the sidewalk, ruffling my hair, and I hurried across the street as the sounds of sirens faded in the distance. I paused a few meters from the bundle, released my Panther's nose and sniffed. Whatever I'd expected to scent on the air, it wasn't the tang of copper drifting toward me—strong, rich and intoxicating.

Blood. Fresh blood. A luscious odor, laced with tendrils of the familiar.

I moved closer, my mind warring with my emotions. This was no bundle of rags, or some stolen junk those thugs had thrown away, but a living being. The blood surely meant the person now lying on the sidewalk needed medical attention.

I stood over the bundle, the cloying odor of the blood filling my nostrils, and hesitated in a moment of doubt and fear.

Now or never.

I took a deep breath and crouched beside the silent form. My hand quivered as I reached out and touched the scratchy, ragged fabric covering the shoulder of the silent figure. At first it resisted my tug, stiff against my touch, but one more gentle urging turned him toward me.

I gasped, my throat closing on the sound. My heel caught as I pulled away, and I staggered backward as hot horror burned through my veins. The face glistened, bloody and mangled. Raw muscles and ligaments lay exposed, bare. A low moan of horror echoed around me. Chills streaked up my spine when I realized the stricken sound had originated from my own throat. The familiar richness of him clouded my mind, clogging my throat and drugging my senses.

A Skinwalker.

My throat spasmed, silencing a shriek as he stared at me. His breath whispered—shallow, irregular, the sound ragged as he labored in his final moments. He gripped with desperation to the disappearing threads which held him to this mortal earth.

His face held my gaze, and somewhere behind ribs of ice my heart clenched, threatening to implode. My own face stared back at me, reflected from within eyes as blue as oceans. Eyes filled with excruciating pain and desperate fear. He didn't speak, just studied me for a few moments with those glorious eyes.

Recognition. Gratitude. Relief.

Then... release.

Life flickered and sputtered out of his beautiful eyes—eyes unable to close even after his soul departed his mortal body. Eyes stark and ghastly within a face flayed of every inch of its skin.

Mere seconds had passed, although I would have sworn it had been hours. Screeching tires again interrupted my horror, and the sedan skidded beside me before I could do much more than scramble away from the body. The killers had managed to lose the cops, and now they'd returned to retrieve the body.

They hadn't bargained on having a witness.

The cold-cocking of guns set my body on fire.

It also did something worse. With mortal fear gripping me, my imminent Change refused to take second place anymore. My body churned the fear and my Panther grasped at the visceral power of the adrenalin in my veins.

I ran.

A gunshot echoed around the garden, the sound ping-ponging off the aging brick walls of the surrounding apartment buildings.

I gasped as a blast of searing pain slammed into me, as a bullet buried itself deep within my shoulder.

ADDITIONAL EXCERPTS

"These last few minutes had felt like days of agony and fear. My breath still came in little hysterical hiccups. Where had the cool, calm wraith hunter gone?
Things changed when hunter became prey."

***

"What have you gotten yourself into this time?" (asked Anjelo)
"Wasn't my fault...." Hard to bristle with indignation while I lay sprawled and bleeding at the feet of my scolder. I'd be wasting my breath. We'd argue again later, as I was way too tired to make the effort now.
"When is it ever? Always said one day you'll get yourself hurt. And wasn't I right?" He waved his hands at both my torn body and shredded clothes, sighing as if he were the one shot and bleeding out pints.
Oh, the drama.

***

"Clutching the phone, I whispered Anjelo's name into the device. The darned thing promptly advised me to speak more clearly, its tone annoyingly authoritative, seeming to laugh at me.
Damned machine.
Clearing my throat, I spoke his name again, this time restraining the urge to shout at the piece-of-crap phone.
Dial tone. Thank Ailuros.
"Kailin? What time is it?" Anjelo grumbled, his voice thick with sleep, grumpy and perplexed. He loved sleep, even more than his widely known love affair with Italian pasta. Nothing the school cafeteria supplied would ever tempt his taste buds. Anjelo had gourmet taste.
All he would've heard was my grunt of pain as I slid further to the floor, the phone suddenly too heavy to hold to my ear.
"Kailin, you okay?" His voice gurgled as if I were underwater—hollow, strange.
I took a deep breath and gripped the phone, pulling on every last dreg of energy, and said, "Sure. Shot. Bleeding. But okay."
My voice cracked on each syllable, and I barely heard his urgent request for my location. I scowled at the phone, again so heavy it began to pull my hand to the floor, inch by inch.
Why was he shouting at me? I could hear him perfectly.
I spoke with a false calm. "I'm at the center." Then I let the phone fall, unable to bear its incredible weight.
Scrambling. The knocking sounds of someone bumping into things in the dark. Muffled oaths, and then a slamming door.
Good. Anjelo's coming."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

I have been a writer from the time I was old enough to recognise that reading was a doorway into my imagination. Poetry was my first foray into the art of the written word. Books were my best friends, my escape, my haven. I am essentially a recluse but this part of my personality is impossible to practise given I have two teenage daughters, who are actually my friends, my tea-makers, my confidantes… I am blessed with a husband who has left me for golf. It’s a fair trade as I have left him for writing. We are both passionate supporters of each other's loves – it works wonderfully…

My heart is currently broken in two. One half resides in South Africa where my old roots still remain, and my heart still longs for the endless beaches and the smell of moist soil after a summer downpour. My love for Ma Afrika will never fade. The other half of me has been transplanted to the Land of the Long White Cloud. The land of the Taniwha, beautiful Maraes, and volcanoes. The land of green, pure beauty that truly inspires. And because I am so torn between these two lands – I shall forever remain cross-eyed.

Book Review: A Chance for Charity by SL Baum

Being a senior at a new school isn't easy, especially if it's the sixth time you've capitulated to too long days of calculus, social studies and the endless barrage of mindless, teenage gossip.
Charity, AKA Emily Johnston doesn't seem to mind. It sort of comes with the territory of being immortal. Blending in and moving from one small town to the next is all part of the process of keeping her unusual longevity and that of her two closest friends/family a secret.
Hunted for centuries, Charity is forced to constantly hide who she really is, lie to everyone she meets and avoid emotional connections. It isn't until she moves to the snow capped town of Telluride, Colorado and meets the handsome and strangely familiar Lincoln that she begins to question his existence, her past, and uncover a rather uncertain future.
A Chance for Charity spends most of the novel exploring Charity's cautious nature and inability to trust as well as the slowly evolving romance with Lincoln that tends to illicit much yawning. Quickly in love and physically sedate, there isn't a whole lot of excitement on the romantic front.
Well written and teamed with some angst ridden moments, I wanted to fall in love with the clearly defined characters and allotted roles. I wanted to immerse myself in Charity's conflict and be compelled to scream at her to take risk and live in the moment, but sadly, I was left wanting.
Perhaps the purpose of this novel was to warm the heart with an old fashioned romance and add just a touch of supernatural action as set up for future novels. 
The intrigue developed via additional characters seated in the last half of the novel, and did ramp up the plot to a suitable conclusion, but again, it was not entirely unexpected - a show down between immortal and hunter always on the cards.
Imagery was sufficient but not efficient in enticement. I wanted action, I wanted detail - I wanted ... more. A chance for Charity is an easy read, suitably pleasant and recommended for those that like to keep the darkness locked in their closets rather than head on in with a flashlight and baseball bat.
I rate this novel two and half fangs out of five.

Synopsis:

A new family has just arrived in the isolated mountain town of Telluride, Colorado. Welcome the Johnstons - Jason (a doctor), Rachel (a designer), and their niece Emily (a current High School Senior).
Emily has lived the life of a quiet loner in the past, trying to go unnoticed. But with Telluride being such a small and welcoming town, she finds a group of friends at school almost immediately. When Emily meets Link (another new transplant in town) her world turns upside down. She doesn't understand why she feels a magnetic pull toward him, or why she unknowingly lets her guard down around him. Link is just as confused by his own need to be with her.
Emily knows she is playing with fire. She should be doing whatever she can to keep herself isolated, to keep Link from getting too close. Danger has a way of finding Emily's family - that is what keeps them on the move. They arrive in a new town every few years - it is safer that way.
Because... Emily isn't really Emily... her real name is Charity - and Charity has an even bigger secret. Charity and her family are not like other people, they have "skills" that mere mortals cannot begin to comprehend.
Before long, Charity is struggling with the reality that her two lives are coming closer to each other with each passing day. Soon Link will find himself wrapped in a supernatural world that he never knew existed - and discover that mortals are not the only beings that walk this earth.

The Damned (volume 2 The Hunted) It's coming ...

Great news peoples. The Damned - the long overdue, much anticipated second installment in The Hunted series is almost here. The books are in print and should be shipped and in my hot little hands within a fortnight.
And have no fear! For those of you super keen on e-books, they're being organised as you read this, including new formats for The Hunted. So in light of this fact, I've decided to post the preface for you to have a read through - whet your appetite so to speak.
Enjoy, my friends. The real deal will be here lickety split. Thanks for your patience.

PREFACE

The stranger lifted the warm mug of AB negative to his lips. He took a few swift gulps, felt the sweetness of the warmed fluid caressing his tongue and setting his tastebuds aflame. Like liquid velvet it slid down his throat, strengthening and replenishing his body from within, and filling him with the rich satisfaction that could only come from the taste of blood.
He could feel his arteries dilate, his senses sharpening as life-force began to satiate his awakened thirst. His pulse throbbed under the influx, eventually slowing to a stop again once the blood had dissipated into his system.
It was good to be a vampire.
Body still burning for more, the stranger gestured to the barman for another. This packaged stuff known as Synth Blood could sustain him but was nowhere near as gratifying as fresh blood from a warm human body. He longed to bury his fangs in the neck of an unsuspecting victim, rend at flesh until the warmth of their essence spilled across his tongue, making him whole again. For now he had to suppress his instincts, though, to prevent his detection from the ones still hunting him.
Only one month had passed since the stranger had last killed but his skin already itched with the need to taste a human’s fear. As he revelled in his memories of the hunt, an image of his wife came to mind, and with it a sadness that was all consuming. His wife had shared in his bloodlust, his uncontrollable desire to feed. She had hunted beside him, night after night, and eventually murdered because she had rightfully lived as the predator she was created to be. The stranger’s blood still boiled thinking about her unrighteous death and the creature that had caused it. But the time for retribution was coming.
He would make sure of it.
The stranger glanced around the bar. It was mostly empty; no real surprise considering it was high noon. The turned vampires would all spend their daylight hours hiding in darkened spaces, waiting for nightfall. Born vampires were able to move around in the daylight but were still forced to avoid direct sunlight. At this point, as the thirst still rode him, the stranger cared little for shelter.
‘You travelled far this evening?’ the barman asked, setting down a fresh mug of heated blood and jogging the stranger from his reverie.
He accepted it gratefully and took a sip. ‘Not especially,’ the stranger said, eyeing the barman from head to toe.
The barman was a turned vampire, probably no more than thirty years of age. He had short, sandy blonde hair and unassuming blue eyes. Despite being slightly rotund in the mid-section he was still as beautiful as the rest of his race.
‘Are you from Spain or Italy?’ the barman asked, an eyebrow rising. ‘I’m trying to pick your accent.’
The stranger took another sip. ‘I’m Italian.’
‘No kidding?’ He wiped at a spill on the counter top. ‘You must be part of Lucius Valerius’s coven.’
The stranger contained his desire to sneer. ‘No. I belong to no coven and I especially do not answer to Lucius Valerius. At least, not anymore.’
‘Here, here. The last sixteen years under Lucius’s rule have been difficult. I really used to enjoy hunting humans before it was outlawed.’ The barman absently wiped at another spill. ‘Granted, I make money from the sale of Synth Blood and the shelter my neutral bar provides, but it’s not the same as the thrill of hunting for fresh blood. The only way I can function now, without being hunted down by Lucius or his thralls, is to stay here where I have all the blood I need. Confrontations with humans are too ... tempting.’
‘That’s pathetic,’ the stranger said.
The barman frowned. ‘We all do what we can to survive. Sometimes that means swallowing your pride and advocating for the Devil.’
The stranger smiled. The barman didn’t realise how on the money he was. Lucius was demon spawn.
Taking the stranger’s smile as an invitation to talk further, the barman leant forward on his elbows, smiling warmly. ‘So what brings you to Paris, anyway?’
The stranger wasn’t in the mood for idle chit-chat, but doubted that the barman would leave him alone. ‘I’m looking for someone.’
‘Perhaps I can help?’
The stranger shook his head, taking a few more gulps of blood. It wasn’t his favourite brew, but the liquid was undeniably starting to satisfy his primal cravings. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘If you’re looking for a vampire in Paris, I know everyone by name.’
The stranger gritted his teeth. ‘I thank you for the drink,’ he said, holding up the mug, ‘but I wish to finish it in peace.’
The barman scowled. ‘I was just making conversation.’
‘Unwanted conversation. Go find another patron to annoy.’
‘There are no other patrons.’
The stranger looked around, noting that the few other patrons had left. He’d always had that effect on people.
He glanced at the barman.
Pity.
The stranger drained the remaining contents of his mug and pushed it back towards the barman.
Frowning, the barman turned his back on him.
‘Barman, I require another drink.’
‘In a minute. I gotta clean,’ he said, busying himself with the relatively unimportant task of filling a small sink behind the bar with hot, soapy water.
The stranger drummed his fingers on the counter impatiently. The barman started to wash and stack glasses, now ignoring him completely.
‘Barman, I bid you pour me another drink before you make me angry. And before I do something that you will regret.’
The barman glanced around and smirked insolently. ‘I’ll pour you another drink when I’m ready.’ He went back to stacking glasses. ‘And do not threaten me. I am Vampire, just as you are.’
The stranger sighed. He could have left the bar. He could have sought nourishment from some other venue or even hunted down his own humans. But, now, that wasn’t enough.
The stranger, moving with inhuman grace, was behind the bartender moments later, his hands gripping the creature’s sides so tightly it could barely move.
His rage could no longer be contained.
‘What the―let go of me!’
‘Are you ready now?’ the stranger whispered, spinning the barman around to face him. In one swift motion, he sank his fangs deep into the barman’s throat, ripping out his jugular in a vicious shower of crimson-slicked gore. As his victim thrashed in his embrace, warm blood poured down the stranger’s chin and sprayed the front of his shirt. As the stranger felt the last of the barman’s life leaving his body, he tossed what remained onto the floor with a resounding thud.
He wiped the excess blood from his lips, spitting onto the floor. 
‘Much better,’ the stranger murmured, stepping over the body and moving towards the front door without so much as a backward glance. ‘Turned vampires―as easy a prey as humans.’ 
He pushed open the front door and cringed. Where the rays from the midday sun struck him, blistering lines burned across his features. Searching quickly for a shady area through which to walk, he soon spied a darkened alleyway and hurried out towards it. 
He considered the next step in his plan carefully. He needed leverage, something that would turn an enemy into a friend, or at the very least, an enemy into an ally. 
The Vânătors, a fierce race of fanatical werewolves, were not exactly known for their negotiating skills. They were hungry predators, born from the blood of the Vampire and completely uncaring of anyone’s needs but their own. They were wild, the very worst variation of a vampire’s genetic nature, and were the perfect tool for his vengeance. 
The Vânătors penchant for vampiric blood would definitely work to the stranger’s advantage. Their mating habits produced large packs, enough to cause any vampire trouble. Also, their ability to shapeshift into the form of any human they had previously fed from meant they could move around mostly undetected—a useful trick. 
He just needed to figure out what it was the Vânătors desired. 
The stranger smiled. He saw the future in his mind, laid out in the front of him. It was a future he hoped to share with other, likeminded vampires, with any other supernaturals tired of suppressing their natural instincts. The stranger’s future would mean no more hiding in the shadows, where vampires reigned supreme and blood was the word on everyone’s lips. 
A future he could really sink his teeth into.

Kristy :)

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Book Review: Fury's Kiss by Karen Chance

What can I say? This author is a paranormal wordsmith and I am addicted!
Fury's Kiss is the third book in Karen Chance's 'Midnight's Daughter' novels. It continues with effortless transition from previous novels into the well known characters and carefully unfolding plot that I love. I was thrown right back in the thick of the action, my imagination immersed in this intriguing world of sexy vampires and sadistic fey.
Fury's Kiss once again follows the endearing antics of Dhampir, Dorina Basarab. Half human and half vampire, Dorina is capable of just about anything - bursts of aggression, acts of compassion, and enough dry wit to leave grit between your teeth.
Dorina, usually so capable and a convenient weapon for the vampire senate, is suddenly thrown off guard when she wakes up in the center of a smuggling/murder investigation. With memories seemingly stolen under her very nose, she begins to suspect that the vampiric half of her nature may be responsible - month long blackouts ending in carnage a usual result. But as the layers of deception are peeled back and more players are drafted via nefarious intent, Dorina is compelled to put the assorted tensions with her all-powerful father, Mircea in the past and allow him to metaphysically riffle through her brain.
Digging up the present can be tricky. But what happens when the the past is made present? What happens when memories of a childhood long forgotten could be the very reason Dorina is so unwilling to trust now?
Fury's Kiss had me on the edge of my seat. Like with all Karen Chance novels, the characterization is eerily consistent and dialogue so witty and emotionally driven that I feel almost compelled to yell direction. With such beautifully crafted imagery and an over-packed stadium worth of action and gorily detailed violence, I was never left wanting - except perhaps for the next installment.
A novel as good as this struggled to unearth criticism and since I enjoyed it enough to debate about putting it down, I can safely rate Fury's Kiss five out of five fangs - simply gripping!

Synopsis:

Dorina Basarab is a dhampir—half-human, half-vampire. Subject to uncontrollable rages, most dhampirs live very short, very violent lives. But so far, Dory has managed to maintain her sanity by unleashing her anger on those demons and vampires who deserve killing... 
Dory is used to fighting hard and nasty. So when she wakes up in a strange scientific lab with a strange man standing over her, her first instinct is to take his head off. Luckily, the man is actually the master vampire Louis-Cesare, so he’s not an easy kill.
It turns out that Dory had been working with a Vampire Senate task force on the smuggling of magical items and weaponry out of Faerie when she was captured and brought to the lab. But when Louis-Cesare rescues her, she has no memory of what happened to her.
To find out what was done to her—and who is behind it—Dory will have to face off with fallen angels, the maddest of mad scientists, and a new breed of vampires that are far worse than undead.

Diary of a Teenage Zombie - Synopsis

Hi Guys,

So you all know by now that I'm trying to crowd fund for this latest novel I've penned - Diary of a Teenage Zombie. I've gotta say, I'm really proud of this one, I even crack myself up. I've managed to jam action, gore, romance and witty banter into a 60,000 word novel that I can honestly say will put a smile on your dial.
The release is set for August this year, and there will be no delays because I'm producing the venture myself, albeit hopefully with the help of my lovely fans, family and friends who are currently pledging a couple of bucks here and there to try and make this happen (Click POZIBLE widget on the left side of the page, and donate for good karma)
Anyway, I've decided to leak little snippets of information along the way to light your excitement fires since I'm still a long way off my goal of raising $8000. Today I have the completed synopsis. Next week? Maybe an excerpt, so stay tuned because this novel is happening!

Dear Diary. Today I ate the mailman. My bad.

Being seventeen is hard―Katie Palmer has to deal with school, pimples, hormonal boys, and malicious cheerleaders. After the Zombie Apocalypse, though, she no longer sweats the usual teenage drama.

Athletics star by day and flesh-eater by night, Katie’s done well to hide her transformation from friends and Zone-sanctioned security, but now someone or something’s onto her secret and if she doesn’t feed soon she’ll start falling apart.

Dead bodies are piling up and all the evidence points to Katie’s blood-stained hands. Will she end up killing the competition before security discovers she’s rotten underneath?

Again, thank you all for taking the time to check out my Pozible crowd funding venture - a great way to support poor authors like me and promote opportunity for the arts.

Have a great weekend,

Kristy :)