Category Archives: Excerpt

Galadon- Chapter 1

For those of you who have finished Cast by Flames and you’re ready for Galadon, I’m posting the first chapter for you. The draft for this novel is finished, and I’m working my way through revisions now. I did have beta readers go over this chapter already, so only my editor hasn’t seen it yet. The estimated release date is April 24th. Sometime soon, I’ll post the cover and summary, along with pre-order links. Hope you enjoy this peek at the book!

Chapter 1

Galadon

For the first time in months, my mood wasn’t foul and agitated. I flew over southwest Oklahoma, enjoying the warm weather and sun on my burnt-orange scales. The fields below were a vibrant green, and flowers bloomed everywhere. Most of the winter had been irritatingly harsh and cold. Dragons such as I spent much of the frigid season nesting within our dens in a haze of grogginess and hunger, only waking when the temperature rose enough for us to hunt and eat.

That didn’t happen for some time once the heavy snow in January began falling upon us. It blanketed the region and failed to melt for six weeks, only becoming deeper with successive blizzards. Though I had some control over storms, those had been too strong to mitigate.

I’d heard the land here hadn’t always received so much snow and ice, but many things changed since my kind’s former dimension, Kederrawien, melded with this one. Weather patterns had altered. It was only at the start of April, a week ago, that it had warmed enough during the day for me to venture far beyond my small territory in southeast Texas. I had left home to resume my hunt for stray Kandoran enemies who weren’t vanquished during our big war with them last fall. Some estimated thousands remained scattered throughout the land west of us.

A rift in the ground appeared ahead—a wide gaping maw that ripped the earth apart for hundreds of miles when the dimensions collided nearly seven years ago. It spanned from the Texas panhandle across southern Oklahoma and partway into Arkansas north of the Red River. Though state titles meant little anymore after dragons arrived, the humans insisted on continuing to use them, so I’d learned the names to avoid confusion during the rare times I had to endure their company. The words had been annoyingly challenging to pronounce at first, but I’d always been a quick learner.

The bottom of the chasm was nearly a thousand feet deep in most places, and it was a couple of hundred feet at its narrowest to fly past. They’d finally built a bridge last year, reconnecting Interstate 35 so that the human populations to the north and south would no longer be cut off from each other. Dragons had assisted them since that helped facilitate trade and reduced the risk of people plummeting to their deaths during construction, which I supposed was a bad thing.

I continued my flight over rolling green terrain broken occasionally by brush and copses of trees. After a while, I spotted a gruesome scene of three large green dragon carcasses in the distance, surrounded by scorch marks and disturbed earth in what must have been an intense battle. I landed and moved to sniff at them, taking in the putrid scent of evil and decay from their unmoving bodies. A sneeze escaped me as the smell filled my nostrils. The only time I had ever gotten used to that horrific odor was during the war.

The bodies were dead Kandoran.

Since they hadn’t turned to dust, they must have died within the last day. Their clean and precise wounds told me they’d been killed by someone in human form who was quite skilled with a blade. Upon further examination, I decided they must have been slaughtered within the last hour. The blood-soaked earth was too fresh.

I moved away from them to clear my nose and began searching for the assailant. After a few minutes of circling the area, I picked up a familiar female’s fresh and alluring scent. It had been nearly five months since I’d last seen her. My sensible side urged me to fly away and avoid her at all costs. The other, controlled by the beast within me, desperately wanted to check on the woman and ensure she hadn’t been injured during the battle. It was no easy thing taking down three Kandoran dragons at once, and she was known to be quite reckless. I’d also be lying if I said I hadn’t flown this far north just for a glimpse of her because, deep down, it was true.

A few spots of her blood on the trail made the decision for me. No matter how much I tried to harden myself against her allure, I couldn’t stand the idea of her being injured. I followed the path she’d taken for more than a mile, studying her tracks. Due to recent rain, it wasn’t difficult. Her steps had been steady, indicating she didn’t have significant injuries, and certainly not on her feet or legs.

Despite that, I couldn’t stop myself from continuing my hunt.

I spotted a strange tower ahead at the top of a hill. It was constructed of large brownish-red stones with a railed lookout at the top. A couple of hundred feet away, I spied a small body of water. I circled it until I came to a low-lying area with a cluster of trees and brush for cover. While I blended well enough with the reddish-tinted dirt in this area, I doubted the lush green vegetation fully hid my large dragon form from view, but it would have to do.

The sounds of splashing drew my attention. I crouched low, spotting a nude female figure in the lake. In that moment, she appeared more like a siren calling to me than a ruthless slayer. She was entrancing.

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Cast by Flames sneak peek and pre-order

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I have good news that Cast by Flames (ebook version) is now available for pre-order on all major retailers. Links are below.

For those who’d like to get a peek at the novel, I’m posting the first chapter as well. Keep in mind that it’s with the editor, so some minor changes may be made to the final version. I hope everyone’s week is going great!

Chapter 1

Bailey

The massive green dragon lay on its side with its tongue lolling from its mouth, having expelled its final breath moments before. A puddle of blood pooled under its chest. I’d hardly had to try when I killed it despite the fact it likely weighed twenty times as much as me.

The beast and two of its buddies had been chasing down a group of kids, hoping to snack on them. Their prey looked like preteen orphans who’d formed a gang—not all that uncommon after more than six years of living with dragons in our world.

So many people had died in that time.

According to very rough estimates, the Earth had lost at least half its population. Of course, an official census was impossible, but many of us suspected the percentage was far greater than that. Lack of modern medicine, clean water, law and order, changed landscapes, and numerous other factors steadily eroded mankind.

My friends and I had intervened in this latest attack, using magically enhanced bullets and arrows we’d acquired from sorcerers to shoot at our targets and bring them to the ground, but my part in the fight had ended too soon for my liking. The dragon I’d attacked hadn’t even recovered from its fall before I stuck a sword in its heart. Any true slayer wanted a bit of a challenge before the battle ended.

At least the kids we’d saved had the sense to run away the moment we intervened.

I glanced over at one of my hunting partners, Rayna. “Any trouble with yours?”

“Nope.” She blew a lock of her long, coppery brown hair from her face. She’d put it in a tight braid, but her wavy strands often came loose while fighting. “It’s annoyingly disappointing.”

“It seems like only the weakest and dumbest members of the Shadowan hang around here anymore.”

She nodded with resignation in her hazel eyes.

We were currently on a hunt in south Oklahoma City. As slayers, Rayna and I had to fight at least once a week to quell our dragon-killing urges, but even that pushed our limits if we spent a lot of time around our innate enemies. Considering I was mated to the pendragon of the Taugud—a shifter clan—and lived in his castle with him and our son, I tried not to wait that long.

Rayna lived away from the fortress but still ran into enough dragon shifters while residing in their territory that she needed to play it safe, too. No matter how hard we fought it, our hard-wired instincts would win if we weren’t careful despite the fact the Taugud could take on human form. We had to stay on our allies’ good side with a much larger war looming against a powerful force to the West.

She wiped her sword clean and slid it into the scabbard strapped to her belt. “It is getting annoying. We haven’t had a decent fight in over a month, and our prey used to be tougher when we first started hunting here. These days, they don’t even hurt me before I finish them.”

“Yeah,” I said, humor and sarcasm lacing my voice. “It’s terribly frustrating when you walk away from a battle without a scratch.”

She grinned. “Right?”

Grunting and cursing came from about a hundred feet away, where Conrad still fought to finish his dragon. He wanted to be a slayer like me and Rayna. He’d been gifted with immunity to flames almost six years ago and used that advantage to fight our fiery-mouthed foes. I suspected he’d eaten a couple of hundred dragon hearts over that period, hoping to make the transition as we did. It was part of the initiation process for those of us born with the gene who accepted our duty. Conrad’s distasteful diet had made him stronger and faster, so I supposed he was on to something, but I was glad I only had to eat the heart once to become a full slayer. He was attempting it the hard way as a regular human.

Also, unlike us, he took his time with his prey and killed them slowly with sword strikes and verbal mockery. I’d begun to feel sorry for whichever dragon he targeted since it would die a slow and ignoble death. Conrad really enjoyed the job for someone not born into it.

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Note on the Dragon’s Breath Series and an excerpt

First two chapters of Captured in Flames

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Thanks to everyone for your patience and understanding as I’ve worked a very long time to get this novel ready. As promised, I’m posting the first two chapters of Captured in Flames so you can get a taste of what’s to come. Expect a pre-order link in the next few days with the novel set to release on August 18th!

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Chapter 1

Bailey

People thought slaying dragons was a glamorous job full of danger and excitement. Sure, I could take a beating far better than the average person, fire couldn’t burn me, and I had super strength, but all that good stuff came with some significant downsides. Today was a prime example of the horrors I faced in my line of work.

Snot covered me—icky, gooey snot—and lots of it.

The green dragon in front of me huffed, puffed, and blew out a monstrous sneeze that had to have stirred a hurricane down in the gulf, never mind that we were in Oklahoma. The shock wave ran over me, stumbling me back and leaving my hair and clothes dripping in green goo. My stomach twisted, bile rising into my throat. I fought it down and blinked a few times to clear my vision. The first time that happened, I nearly died. I’d been inside a building when a dragon released a torrent of snot, soaking everything in sight from the ceiling to the floor. The beast recovered faster than me. I kept losing my balance on the wet floor and hurling every time my face planted in the goo. At least today, I stood in the middle of a large parking lot with open air so I could maneuver out of the mess.

The past week had been more than a little rough. A nasty cold had spread through the dragon community, making my job more difficult than usual. It was supposed to be rare for the beasts to get sick, but I’d since learned that they were more vulnerable to illness during late winter and early spring.

They were still adjusting to their return to Earth almost a year ago and were more susceptible to changes in their environment. Our planet was far different from Kederrawien—a barren landscape with little vegetation where all dragons had lived for a thousand years after a group of sorcerers banished them from our dimension. To make matters worse, the spring weather in Oklahoma couldn’t decide if it wanted to be chilly or warm. The dragons would venture out on a nice day only to get smacked by a cold front later that evening. Their bodies couldn’t handle anything close to freezing temperatures, and we had a much higher pollen count than they’d encountered before. Seeing them suffer would have been funny if it didn’t have such hazardous consequences for me.

I took a washcloth from the pouch on my leg harness—the third I’d used that day—and wiped the worst of the snot off my face. It was in my hair as well, but I’d found keeping it in a French braid helped minimize the amount that stuck. The greenish goo smelled sort of like Play-Doh, though the consistency was much stickier. I grew up on a ranch as the only girl with three brothers and didn’t shy away from yucky stuff, but I didn’t think anything could have prepared me for dragon snot. It took gross to a whole new level.

The beast before me snorted and a small flame puffed from its nose. One advantage to my prey being ill was that it severely stunted its fire-breathing capabilities. Sick dragons couldn’t roar out flames the way they usually did, which made things easier for me. I might not burn, but a wall of fire could blind me so I wouldn’t see an attack coming. My current adversary had an annoyed look in its red eyes when it failed to produce a decent flame.

“Performance problems?” I asked, not knowing if it understood me. Some of them had picked up English, but not many.

I gripped my sword, prepared for what would come next, and didn’t move when the dragon leaped forward, claws outstretched. Waiting until the last moment, I ducked and then rammed the tip of my blade straight under its chin to the roof of its mouth. I didn’t have the strength to get any farther—dragon bone was rock-hard—but I had another weapon. While my enemy swiped and clawed at its neck, trying to get free, I rolled underneath its body and stabbed a shorter blade between its ribs and into its heart. The beast groaned and shuddered.

That was my cue to scramble away as fast as I could.

As I rose to a crouch several feet away, it let out one last huff and slumped to the ground, wings unfurling almost to my feet. If I’d been underneath the body, it would have crushed me. This particular green dragon was about the size of a small elephant and weighed at least as much. The neck was several feet long, and the tail was the length of a truck. All in all, it must have been at least ten times my size. Since completing the slayer rite of passage last year, I’d evolved physically into something much stronger and more durable than the average human, but I still had vulnerabilities. My bones could still break with enough pressure, and I needed to breathe like everyone else.

Loud clapping sounded behind me. I turned and found Conrad standing about a hundred feet away near a large store front with blown-out windows. My friend and sidekick wore a big grin as he walked toward me, boots crunching on broken glass.

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Update on the Dragon’s Breath Series and a snippet