Best of intentions on last month's check-in, I swear lol. I really hope everyone had a nice spring break, though❣️As well as a Happy Mother's Day🌸 Our second round of Askara candles shipped out to paying patrons earlier this month, and I've just been catching up while beginning to prep for FanGrrrl's signing event, which feels like it's going to be here before I can blink!
Hubby and I were also able to start up our garden again this year, so I've been busy prepping and planting (big shoutout to any fellow gardeners). I'll be sure to include a link to last week's vlog if you're curious, along with our next Roz & Xaphan excerpt.
Have a wonderful rest of your week, everybody, and happy reading!🍵📚
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Before the Dawn (Roz & Xaphan) Excerpt
“Get off me—GET OFF!!”
There was a hiss and a grating growl, but in an instant, he released
her. Roz spun on him.
“What the hell was that?!”
She slammed her eyes closed and promptly jerked her head to one
side, all the while scrambling to put as much space between them as possible.
“Nope! Ya know what? I don’t even want to know,” she told him, breathing hard.
The tang of blood teased her tongue. And it was then that she
realized: the finger he’d shoved in her mouth was the exact one he’d coated
with his own blood from the broken lip she’d given him. Renewed indignation
poured through her veins. A blood exchange.
“You got what you wanted. We are done here.” She jabbed
a finger at him.
Xaphan lifted his chin to sniff the air, all the while still
holding her gaze. Roz glared at him, struggling to control her breath. To his
credit, he didn’t move. She shook her head one last time, backing away.
“And don’t you dare come at me like that again.”
As soon as she was far enough down the corridor, she was
turning and running, Roz thought, desperate for some distance. To hell with
this. To hell with him. To hell with this assignment…
Though, she knew as soon as she thought it, that that was her
temper talking. She'd never quit anything in her life and wasn't about to start
now. It wasn't in her blood.
Just the same, she'd
had enough of psychotic aliens for one day. More than enough.
Her gaze was still trained on Xaphan—on the rise and fall of
his chest inside his havat. Roz blinked when a ripple of light moved across
the material like water, then she swallowed and darted down the connecting
corridor.
Her muscles immediately sagged at the reprieve, and she
nearly stumbled. Her entire body hummed. She wanted to say it was because of
the fight, but Roz knew that'd been no ordinary spar. Xaphan was Askari,
formidable as fuck, but she still should have been able to keep her cool. It
was like all her training had flown out the damn window.
There was also the fact she wasn't used to losing... Maybe
she’d never realized how much, she thought, with an uneasy feeling, until now.
Until she was faced with someone damn near unbeatable. Hell, there weren’t many
men who'd been able to take her on. Sure, they might land a few
hits or manage to pin her a couple of times, but at the end of the day, she’d
always felt they were evenly matched.
That wasn’t the experience she’d just had with Xaphan. He
totally dominated her. Also, just what the hell was up with that thing she’d
felt against her backside? Being ignorant of certain Askari biology, she could
still take an educated guess. Roz stewed, a weird tingle running down her
spine. She prepared herself to feel disgusted, but was instead forced to slow
her steps.
Her head suddenly felt light, dizzy, and then she tripped.
"Wh—oh..."
Immediately, she noticed her breath
had grown shallow, and the surrounding corridor started to sway. Roz dropped to
one knee, bracing a hand against the wall for support. She narrowed her eyes,
the lids feeling heavy. A pulse of light appeared to move in slow motion across
the black floor beneath her fingers...until two giant feet stepped into view.
Not human feet, but definitely familiar.
She swore, the phrase coming out
garbled because she understood now what was happening—she knew it had to be the
blood exchange, the bond, and fought hard to keep herself conscious...
Roz gathered every bit of strength she had and lifted her head. She blinked heavily up into Xaphan’s burning yellow gaze, hearing his faint clicks. And then she blacked out.
