The Amazing, Unfolding World of Machine Civilization Series VBT

Blurbs:

A history beginning in our near future, these stories are set in a world where the US dollar has been displaced as the world’s reserve currency, prompting its economic and political collapse, with a few areas able to hold onto civilization.

At the same time, across the Pacific, under a resurgent economy brought about by the implementation of new technology and deregulation, three Japanese companies produce breakthroughs in both artificial intelligence and robotics.  These newly made people exhibit an odd interest in the goings-on of the former United States.

To-date, my chronicling of this interest of theirs has led to stories that populate five novels, which I would like to share with everyone now!

The Fourth Law - In the near future, 23-year-old apprentice nurse Lily Barrett lives in a shattered time.  Following its economic collapse, the US has devolved into a group of a few barely functional smaller states and vast swathes of barbarian badlands.  His sister has been missing for years, and her father, after earning the opprobrium of most of the world for running a state terror organization, presumed dead.

Two things keep her going: her live-in job at a small, Catholic orphanage in the city of Waxahachie, Republic of Texas, and Ai, her odd but dear friend, whom she met online; a young woman who only shows herself to Lily as a rendered CG image.

Troubled by her past, haunted by her name, and facing an uncertain future, Lily seems only a quiet, simple life.  But, that past and her present conspire against her.

Echoes of Family Lost - Alive!  After four years believing her older sister lost and presumed dead in the horrible Breakup of the United States, Lily Barrett gets word from her dear friend, Ai – and Ai’s family of Machine Civilization – that Callie Barrett is very likely alive… but over 900 miles away in Knoxville.

Using the resources of her and Ai’s family, Lily puts together a search party to go find Callie:  old, broken, and burnt Orloff – an expert in surviving in the Badlands, Ai’s little sister, Fausta – her machine mind controlling a Combat Android to protect her friend, all together in a cart pulled by their sturdy pony, Clyde.

It’s almost a thousand miles to go, with something very odd trying to limit their ability to communicate over distance and even to cross bridges.  A chance meeting along the way in Huntsville, former Alabama, wrecks their plans, and puts all of their lives in danger.

Cursed Hearts - Even with San Diego occupied by the Mexican Army, Katarina Sosabowski pursues her MBA at UCSD, and is happy to welcome and put up her visiting step-cousin from Japan, Christopher Dennou, for a night so he can complete his enrollment the following day.

But a minor earthquake brings a major surprise:  Chris’s younger sister, Maya, murders their mother and escapes Neuroi Institute, the research facility that created them.

While Chris and ‘Cat’ grow closer to one another, Maya inexorably crosses an ocean and half a continent to take back her brother, killing anyone who gets in her way.

Friend and Ally - Model 5 is a prototype designed to fit seemlessly into human society.  A meeting in Tokyo derails Nichole’s planned training as she is dispatched to Portland, former Oregon; the last working deep water port on the West Coast of the imploding US.

There, under her cover as a Graduate Engineering Student, she is to do her utmost to nurture the people and politics of the City-State into a Friend and Ally of the Japanese Empire.  But from the first day in her new home, all of Nichole’s plans go awry.

Beset by those who want this small lamp of Western Civilization snuffed out, Nichole must find within herself the courage and ability to protect her new friends, at whatever consequence to herself.

Foes and Rivals - After residing nearly a year in Portland, Nichole’s life seems to finally settle down: with her classes, friends, and lover.  But troubling rumors about secret deals between the City’s master and the savage horsemen to the east reach her ears.

With her own skills augmented by her friends and allies, she sets plans into motion she hopes will thwart those in opposition to her dream of a peaceful future.

Once again denied a quiet, normal life, Nichole is faced to make hard, dangerous choices that will jeopardize her, her friends, and the survival of the City itself.

NOTE: Echoes of Family Lost and The Fourth Law are only $0.99

Excerpt from The Fourth Law:

~oooOOOOoooo~

“hooo.....hoowwlll!....”

~oooooOOOOOOooooOOOOOoooooo~

“hah...haaawooooollLL!”

“Lily!”

“LILY!  You’re not a wolf!  Wake up!”

She groggily sat up from her bed.  Huh?

“It’s three in the morning... you need to help your kids!”  Ai shouted at her from her phone.

The kids!

She flung the cover aside and pushed her glasses onto her face.  Now she could hear the siren.  What was it this time?  Tornado, airstrike, barbarians... the last was almost a year ago when they lost Texarkana.  Wait.  She shook her head to try to wake up.  This time, she’d an unimpeachable information source.

“Ai.  Status.” She said into the darkness.

“A fission weapon was detonated outside San Francisco about ten minutes ago; the weather pattern indicates fallout will travel north of you, into parts of former Kansas and Oklahoma.  But, winds do change...”

“Right.” She started pulling her clothes on.  “Wake up the Fitzhughs; I’ll be there in a minute.”

She walked from her bedroom through her main room, glancing at the monitors.  She suddenly bit hard on her lower lip.  On the monitors, Ai stood at attention in a Texas Field Forces uniform.  For some unknown reason, she forgot to render her pants.  Striped green and white panties?  Lily worried about her friend sometimes.

Clayton, thanks so much for stopping by. How did you get started writing?

I’ve beaten this into the ground on other stops, so please allow me to take the question at a tangent:  my early to mid-teen years as a Dungeon Master for AD&D laid the foundation of keeping a complex plot in my head while reacting to outside actions that would later bear a rich harvest when I finally began to write stories.

What was the inspiration for your books?

Tangent, again:  when the idiots of the MSM prattle on about “AI,” they don’t know what the hell they are talking about.  We’ve not achieved AI yet; what we have are a few robust expert systems with solid heuristics.  My novels aside, I think that the creation of a true AI will, like most great discoveries, be an accident.  I also think we will not know it, nor be able to understand them even if we did.

I touch on this toward the end of my first novel, “The Fourth Law.”  A human, chemical-based brain moves information around at, basically, the speed of sound.  A machine will think just below lightspeed; before you reach for your calculators, that’s about a ratio of one million to one.  Do you really, think we will understand a life that thinks one million times faster than we do?  I don’t.

What’s a genre you haven’t written in yet that you’d like to?

I tried, years ago, to write a politics/crime/espionage novel… it became both confusing and hard work very quickly.  It concerns a part of Machine Civilization I’ve only mentioned:  the Breakup of the US and the formation of the Republic of Texas, so I would like to return to it someday.

Are there any genres you won’t read or write in? Why?

From my one foray into Wattpad, there is an astonishing amount of degenerate filth out there.  I’m not being some Gen X prude – read the sex scenes in “Cursed Hearts” after all – but sometimes it seems pop culture is nothing more than a race as to who can not just get into Hell, but make it into the lowest level possible.

Do two of my books have people who are having sex outside of marriage?  Yepper.  Am I going to Confession for that and taking those parts out?  Nope.

But, neither am I indulging in what I shall politely refer to as contributing to the death of Western Civilization.  WestCiv, the best thing ever, rests upon pedestals such as the family, rule of law, and Christianity.  Start knocking those out and you end up with what Robert Heinlein charitably referred to as “bad luck”:  barbarism.

That’s not a future I want for my two daughters.  Politics is downstream of culture and I am doing what I can to improve the health of our culture.

What are you up to now? Do you have any releases planned, or are you still writing?

“Worlds Without End”… in which, pace the previous rant, finally has a couple get married before banging.  There’s a short story I wrote that I adore, set in a kind of Purgatory, with a character from “Cursed Hearts” and another from Nichole 5’s saga, but as it’s set in another’s sandbox, so to speak, I don’t know enough about international copyrights to proceed with it or not.

Alright, now for some random, fun questions. Favorite color?

“Blue!  No!... wai…”

Favorite movie?

Far and away, that would be “The Lion in Winter.”  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched all or part of it!  Some of the lines even ended up in my books!

“What family doesn’t have its ups and downs…?”

Book that inspired you to become an author?

There were not any.  It was instead a ten-year diet of anime and manga that inspired me to be a story teller!

You have one superpower. What is it?

“Unlimited Liver Repair Works!”  From the Hemmingway maxim of “write drunk; edit sober,” it seems I’m killing myself.  Really.

 

You can have dinner with any 3 people, dead, alive, fictitious, etc. Who are they?

Jesus, obviously… at least we know we won’t run out of wine!  Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Rome’s first real dictator and long a role model of mine.  For the third… hmmm… no one immediately comes to mind.

Last question: Which of your characters are you most like and how/why?

I’ve directly addressed this one another tour stop, so allow me to modify the question:  “which of my main or secondary characters…”

If that’s the criterion, then I’d say Leslie Hartmann of “Echoes of Family Lost.”  A dedicated family man who had his life twice yanked out from under him, changes careers several times and ends up with a non-White wife while trying to better the world as best he can.  I can check all of those boxes.

That’s all from me, thanks for taking the time to stop by!

My pleasure… thank you for putting up with me!

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Author Bio and Links:

One time engineer, some time pharmacy technician, full time husband and father, Clayton Barnett stumbled into writing a traditional novel November 2014 during National Novel Writing Month.  Liking the results, he edited what would become “The Fourth Law” and set about teaching himself self-publishing.  In the following four years he has produced four more novels as well as a children’s early reader, all in what is now called Machine Civilization. 

Clayton Barnett lives in central Ohio with his wife, two daughters, and two dogs.

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The Billionaire in Her Bed Book Blast

Blurb:

Real estate mogul Eli Ward needs to keep a low profile on his new project. He’s expecting a fight from the somewhat eclectic folks currently living there. What he doesn’t expect is for that fight to be led by Brooke Worthington, the woman who rocked his world one unforgettable night. The one woman who doesn’t know who he is, which is a good thing. She just sees him as a regular guy. It’s refreshing.

Graphic designer and part-time bartender Brooke Worthington refuses to follow her family’s plan for her. She’s too busy building her artistic career. She doesn’t have time for relationships, either, especially with the super hot Eli, because she has to save the building she lives in with people she thinks of as her real family from some greedy real estate billionaire.

These two have secrets and chemistry that is nothing short of explosive.

Excerpt:

Brooke cleared her throat for attention. “Okay, people. As exciting as our new addition is, we’re still in the middle of a meeting here.”

“We can deal with the garden later. I want to hear more about Eli.”

An older woman eyed him appraisingly from the sofa. The gray-haired man next to her blew a loud raspberry, but she continued, undeterred.

“I don’t see a ring on your finger. Tell me, young man, do you have a girlfriend?”

“Or a boyfriend?” asked David, the arm around Chris tightening.

“I’m straight,” Eli assured him, then directed his gaze at Brooke. “And single.”

She ignored him and started in on the bean dip.

“Oh, what a pity.” The older woman tsked her disapproval. “A handsome young man like you should have someone to come home to.”

“Get a dog,” the man next to her suggested. “Less expensive than a woman, and they never talk back.”

“Or cook dinner,” said the woman next to him, who Eli had figured out must be his wife. “Or do your laundry. Or…”

“See what I mean about talking back?” Her husband pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“Dog’s definitely the way to go.”

“About the garden…” Brooke tried again.

“Is it true, what Chris said?” Charise piped up. “Do you and Eli really know each other?”

“Were you two an item?” David asked, jumping on the way-too-personal bandwagon.

“Despite what you all seem to think, this is not Melrose Place.”

Brooke adopted a Wonder Woman power pose, hands balled into fists on her hips and feet planted firmly apart. “And I am not sharing the details of my private life at a tenants’ meeting.”

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Author Bio and Links:

Regina Kyle knew she was destined to be an author when she won a writing contest at age ten with a touching tale about a squirrel and a nut pie. By day, she writes dry legal briefs, representing the state in criminal appeals. At night, she writes steamy romance with heart and humor.

A lover of all things theatrical, Regina lives on the Connecticut coast with her husband, teenage daughter and two melodramatic cats. When she’s not writing, she’s most likely singing, reading, cooking or watching bad reality television. She’s a member of Romance Writers of America and of her local RWA chapter. Her book Triple Dare was a 2016 Booksellers’ Best Award winner.

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Eye Candy Book Blast

Blurb:

Gavin Rossi is one sexy piece of Eye Candy wrapped in a tight body and sweet smile. The hot breath on his neck, the mesmerizing rhythm as he rolls his hips, the strong chest rising and falling beneath his hands make for a distraction he’s terrified to see play out.

When Dutch Williamson feels a set of perfectly sculpted thighs slipping over his lap, the last thing his liquor-hazed brain registers is this is my future. The tempting piece of Eye Candy grinding on his lap is going to cut him at the knees, and he knows it.

This is a dance. This is a tease. God, this is so much more.

Excerpt:

Gavin stood by the marble-top island. “We need to discuss rent.” He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his faded jeans. “Between the two jobs, I can pay you something. I don’t expect a handout. I need to do my part.”

Everything had turned upside down. Being alone and content no longer counted for anything good in his life. Once again, the privileges of his birth were humbling. He shut the door. The guy had pride. Fighting the urge to pull those sexy hips into his hands, he passed the island and looked over his shoulder. “You coming? You can pick which room you want and…we’ll discuss the logistics in the morning when you come to the restaurant for your interview.”

He stopped, giving Gavin time to catch up at the staircase.

“You were serious, weren’t you? I um, I really didn’t expect you to offer me a job. I figured I could get a good night’s sleep, you’d wake up and regret asking me to be a tenant, and I’d have to take off, but now it feels different.”

Dutch stopped when they reached the top of the stairs. “I told you, you’re safe with me. If you stay around, you’ll see I’m telling the truth. Every bedroom has a lock. Use it if you feel you need to, but know it’s your space, and I’ll respect that.”

Gavin took the bag to sling it over his shoulder. “What if I don’t want to lock the door?”

Well hell. “Then I’ll need to lock mine.”

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Author Bio and Links:

Pauline lives in the Midwest with her hero husband, two handsome boys, one ornery cat, and a lovely Pitbull. She enjoys writing erotic romance for all readers. From MM contemporary romance series to LGBT fairytales, Pauline shares stories that she holds close to her heart. By day Pauline is a special care baby registered nurse and by night a hopeless romantic. She loves to travel to New Orleans twice a year to recharge her creative battery and enjoy a bag full of powdered sugar covered beignets. Sit down, relax and Laissez les bons temps rouler!

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Book is $0.99 at Amazon

51 Love VBT

Blurb:

This story is about Abram, a hopeless romantic who enrolls into college and begins leaving love notes for the girl, Jec, who works at the front desk of his student apartments. About why they know each other when neither have even met. That's right, she had seen his face only two weeks earlier, when he tossed his book bag in the middle of the street, holding up traffic like a mad homeless man. But what she doesn't know is that just before he came to grab his keys to move in, the handsome albeit strange eyes and the person they belong to had just been released from the county jail.

The jail cell talk without any cameras around to record make his last 51 minutes in the pen with a sketchy bunkmate a do or die conversation that may explain why he became homeless, why he wrote the love letters in the first place, and if both were random at all.

Excerpt:

The same day in August, 2015

I think, for the price of a pizza, the experience of the novel is priceless.

A literary ecstasy, this was not a book I wanted to lend. I had to have it.

My co-worker interjects my thoughts, “Is that lighter fluid? What is he burning out there in our fire pit? I’m telling you Jec, that dude killed somebody. You haven’t seen him around as long as I have. The way he’s always scrunching his face, looking like a stone cold killer with all that stinking thinking. Some people struggle with who they really are. And when it goes foul, you know they don’t always catch these people.”

He picks up and holds out the book I am reading titled Wait For You, and says, “Some novels you have to read twice to really see all the beauty in the nuances, but these plots don’t always end beautifully Jec. You should start reading more of them.”

I take a bite out of an apple and stop scratching my thumb across a squiggled smear on my permanent marker to look out the window as I reply to my front desk co-receptionist, “Bobby, you’re being ridiculous. It just looked like he pulled some papers from a box and threw them into the pit. Hey, where’d he go?”

Bobby answers quickly, “No really, have you seen him using his hands on the street? He’s probably practicing some lethal judo that nobody knows right now. Hi-yah!—”

Ding-Ding.

At the sound of the front door bell I tried to smother my giggle in professionalism, but I no longer found it necessary to suppress as the blurry silhouette of the person entering the front door became clear and my laughter came to a sudden halt.

Do you have any tattoos?  Where? When did you get it/them? Where are they on your body?

LOL. Yes. I love body art! I had all of my tattoos done while I was completing my bachelor’s. I have a rose on my right chest, a cross on my left chest, and my twin sister’s nickname (since we were little kids) on the inside of my right bicep.

Is your life anything like it was two years ago?

That’s a humongous no. I was homeless two years ago, living in a tent.

How long have you been writing?

Since I was in that tent a couple years ago. It started as a journal in the tent. And I eventually couldn’t stop writing, but I wasn’t writing this story. After revisiting the journals one day in February 2016, the scenes of this story came to mind and I decided to write this novel.

What advice would you give a new writer just starting out?

 Write what you want to write, and live in it.

Tell us something about your newest release that is NOT in the blurb.

I’ll give you something that’s between the lines in this one, and on the pages of the next:

Trouble.

You are on your way to work, trying to balance the brown liquid in your coffee cup by avoiding the pot holes, when suddenly, a young man throws his book bag down in the middle of the four-way intersection just as you take your foot off the break. He is irate, and besides the book bag, he possesses all the symptoms of homelessness typical of your city, leading you to believe this is no extraordinary event. Somebody down on their luck, and unable to control their own impulse to blame the rest of us who get up and drag ourselves to a nine to five.

It is not until you come home one evening, turn on your television, and see a familiar face on the five o’clock news that you realize you had seen this face before. “Breaking news. A bomb detonated in South Georgia kills one, and it is believed that the victim, a young female working at a local apartment complex, was specifically targeted.” Oddly, you had seen the face on the screen somewhere else earlier that day, riding in the passenger seat of a car driven by a young female who everybody knows in town as Jec, short for Jack Ellie Christianson. A hardworking and unassuming receptionist for a local apartment complex, Jec is a quiet feminist with plenty of promise.

The news anchor reports that the perpetrator had recently been released from the city jail, and was known to be in close contact with the victim for months. A relationship? With all the publicity around gender equality, the push for women’s rights, and the prominence of women in major politics, it makes you wonder, was this a case of domestic violence, or domestic terrorism, and what is the difference? Who is this mysterious guy who showed up out of nowhere and what part of this is love? There is no love without trouble. And it makes you want to support what you have seen on the internet about the HeforShe movement that much more. The seventeen minutes before he, Abram, was released from jail, may just prove to be the most important seventeen minutes of his story, and Jec’s. The reporter continues, “The suspect is a Georgia native who people say went under the radar, until recently.”

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Author Bio and Links:

Jeremy lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He grew up in the south Atlanta area, where he eventually earned a football scholarship to Duke University. After experiencing enough life to form his own opinions, he enjoys sharing some with friends, reading, watching fantasy thriller and romance films, listening to music, and jogging when he is not writing. He writes new adult fiction.

Jeremy would love to hear from you. Follow him on Twitter @JTRingfield, friend him on Facebook, or visit his webpage at www.jeremytringfield.com

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Review: Pendulum by L.C. Davis

Remus Black is still reeling from an abusive relationship that stripped him of everything -- including his desire for love. Now all he wants is a fresh start halfway across the country, but his new roommate is determined to draw him into his strange world of chains, half-naked men and the infamous Lodge, a BDSM club as lavish as it is secretive.

When Remus is entered into the Lodge's annual Alpha's Pet contest against his will, he finds himself thrown to the Wolf Pack, the very type of men he needs to avoid. What's worse is that the wolves immediately label him a submissive, something he swore he would never be again. Things get even stranger when "wolf" turns out to be far more literal than Remus ever imagined. When both the next-in-line for Alpha and his outcast brother claim Remus as their own, the entire pack is thrown into chaos.

Can Remus learn to embrace the power of submission and choose between the brothers before their rivalry tears the pack apart, or will the tension between them unravel his own sordid past? 

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My Review:

3.5 stars

I feel conflicted about this story because while I loved it, I also had some serious issues with it. First, I enjoyed the characters a lot in this story. Remus was my favorite, and it was so much fun getting to see his evolution as a character, which is still changing and shows a lot of promise. I’m still warming up to Sebastain. The ending didn’t help his image in my mind, and I’m pretty irritated with him. I understand his reservations and why he’s acting the way he is, but he supposedly loved Remus so much and yet when that love is challenged, he sinks. So yeah, not too happy with Sebastian right now.

Victor though…Victor just broke my heart. He went from being a character I didn’t really connect with to one of my favorites. He is loyal to a fault and I can’t wait to see what happens in book 2 now that he’s got his shot (though with all the angst going on at the end of the book, he’s going to have to work for it).

Several of the secondary characters are interesting as well, particularly Foster. I loved his cryptic messages ‘cause I’m just a sucker for slow reveals like that, and I can’t wait to see what comes of them. I’m also really interested in what’s going to happen with Arthur as I can see it going one of two ways, both of which would be extremely interesting and have huge consequences.

The plot was also really interesting. I have to admit, I did not see where this story was going, and I can’t wait to see where it’ll go from here. However, I wasn’t a big fan of the ending. I don’t really know how to describe it. It doesn’t really end on even an HFN, but it’s not a total cliffhanger either. In fact, it doesn’t feel like there was really any resolution at all. I’m not a big fan of these types of endings as it feels like a tease, and not a good one. The last line is literally “Remus Black was dead, and I was the thing that killed him.” At least warn me that the book is going to end without an HFN or without much of a resolution at all. I mean, I kind of saw an ending like this coming once I got near the end of the book and it does fit where the story is at that point, but I was not expecting it at all going in to the book, which again, both good and bad. The epilogue is then basically a big plot twist at the very end of the book. I actually liked this, as it helps set up the conflict in book 2 and was a real “oh snap” moment. I enjoy books that tease little hooks at the end. However, I don’t like that we don’t really have a satisfying resolution whatsoever before the epilogue.

My biggest issue was that the book could have used some major edits. Not only were there quite a few spelling and grammar errors, which kept pulling me out of the story, there was a lot of extraneous information and scenes that could have been cut down to improve the flow and the plot. Some of these scenes actually hampered the overall story and there were some continuity errors.

Even with its flaws, I absolutely loved this book. I really enjoyed the characters and the plot, and am very interested in finding out what happens next in Liminality. So if you can put aside the lack of editing, I highly recommend giving Pendulum a read as it is a great adventure and the start of a promising series.

*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.*

Soulless VBT

Blurb:

Welcome to Soulless.

We are the generation that laughs at death.

Reincarnation; what was once considered a gift of immortality has become an eternity of nightmares.

Nadia Richards lives in a world plagued by reincarnation, a system of recycling souls where all past memories, personalities and traumatic events are relived daily in disjointed sequences. Trapped within their own warped realities, not even the richest and most powerful are saved from their own minds unraveling. Madness is the new human nature, and civilizations are crumpling beneath themselves trying to outrun it. 

Within a society that ignores death, Nadia appears to be the one exception to the reincarnation trap. Born without any reincarnated memories and with printless eyes, the hot tempered 19 year old quickly becomes the ultimate prize to all those wishing to end the vicious cycle, or for some, to ensure they could evade death forever.

Reader discretion: Adult language, violence and some adult scenes. For mature audiences only.

Excerpt:

His top lip curled, as it always did in his half smile. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“About what?”

In his hands, he fiddled with the hunting knife. “You.” He twisted the blade and flicked out, clearing the dirt under his nails. “You were going to leave me. You said it was better this way, for the both of us.” The rasp of his accusing voice felt like a guillotine above my neck.

I uncomfortably shuffled back but didn’t speak.

“You were right. Your life without me would be better. Easier. Safer.” Every word strained from his lips as though he was pushing air from the pit of his stomach. My eyes widened and my heart picked up speed. Diesel lightly shook his head. “But this isn’t about making things easier. You’re with me now and you won’t leave no matter how hard it gets.”

“That’s not for you to decide,” I said with a cringe.

“Because if you leave me—”

With an anguished sign, I turned my head away. “Let me guess, you’ll always find me? And if I try to run you will break my legs and chop off my fingers and remove my eyes-”

“No. If you leave me, I will vanish… and I don’t want to vanish, Nadia.”

Surprised, my jaw went slack. Without even blinking, Diesel stilled his fumbling and tightened his stare, looking at me in a way I felt penetrated to my very core.

“You don’t know what it’s like living in this hell. I’m drowning under black water and I can never surface. You remember what it feels like to have your body shut down only to wake up not knowing which reality is real. It would’ve been easier to fade into a drifter, to stop the fight all together and just crumple into the purest of insanities. In my darkest moments I almost allowed it to happen, but then I met you. The girl with no reincarnated memories. The one without a soul imprint. It’s you, and only you, who can save me. But then you came into my room with that story about how everything would be better if we were separated. You left me tied to a bed, and for hours I thought I had lost you. Do you know how that feels? To have everything you’ve ever wanted just walk out? I came to realise just how dangerous you are to me. Just how easily you can break me in half. That’s why I can’t let you leave.”

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Author Bio and Links:

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Jacinta Maree considers herself a chocoholic with an obsession with dragons, video gaming and Japan. She writes a variety of genres including YA paranormal, steampunk, horror, new adult, dystopian and fantasy. Winner of 2014 Horror of the year and bestselling author, Jacinta writes to bring enjoyment to others while fulfilling her own need to explore the weird and the impossible.

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