Degrees of Wrong (40 page)

Anna lives in Florida with her husband, daughter and the fictional characters in her head. Feel free to drop her a line at
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, or chat her up on Twitter:
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When life is a struggle, love is the ultimate luxury.

Reawakening Eden

© 2011 Vivi Andrews

Librarian Eden Fairfax knows exactly where to find books about survival. None of them mentioned how to manage in the aftermath of a worldwide epidemic—with two young orphans in tow.

On a journey south to warmer climes, she finds sanctuary for all three of them among a community of survivors in Seattle. Until she realizes the children are the centerpiece of their bizarre new religion. There’s no choice but to run as far and as fast as her stolen car will go.

Former Army Ranger Connor Reed had planned to live out the end of the world in peace. Yet he can’t stand by and do nothing while a lone woman defends two children from an armed thug. Even if doing
something
means taking the trio in.

Eden’s not sure if the armed hermit is her salvation or an even more dangerous threat. A blizzard forces her to trust him with their lives, and in Connor’s arms she remembers what it’s like to live
.

Just beyond the edge of the storm, though, the cult leader awaits his chance to get his hands on the children—and make Eden his next sexual sacrifice.

Warning: This book contains a strong, silent action-hero, a tough, tenacious heroine, a pair of steal-your-heart kids, and a pony-sized dog named Precious.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Reawakening Eden:

Rambo turned his attention to her, catching her staring. She didn’t look away and neither did he—not so much in a battle of wills as a waiting game, a strategic feint to see who would reveal their true intentions first.

His gun was held at the ready, but she wasn’t exactly pointing a lollipop at him, so she couldn’t really blame him. She didn’t precisely aim the rifle at Rambo’s head, but she didn’t put it down either.

No one moved until the sound of Ben’s engine had faded to a distant whine, and then it was Hannah Rose who broke the silence.

“Mama?”

Eden shushed her. Rambo’s eyes flicked down to the kids huddled half beneath her, and her hands tightened on the rifle. Then he dismissed them—faster than she’d ever seen anyone look away from the miracle children before—and met her eyes again. “You okay?”

That remained to be seen. Eden wet her lips. “How long have you been following us?”

His expression, so hard to read beneath the camo paint, didn’t change, but she had the impression she’d managed to surprise him. “What makes you think—?”

“I’ve seen your dog.” Only the one time, but he didn’t need to know that.

As if on cue, the wolfhound reappeared in the narrow clearing where she and the kids had taken cover. Its jaws hung loosely in a canine grin as it loped over to Rambo’s side. Its butt thumped down and it listed heavily against his thigh. They fit together, the oversized dog and its oversized master. He reached down to absently scratch the enormous animal’s head, and something in Eden’s chest unknotted. He couldn’t be evil if he was good to animals, right? And he hadn’t shot them yet. Maybe he wasn’t so terrifying, though he had been following them…

“Been keeping an eye on you since you started running circles on my land.”

His concept of possession startled her a bit. It had been a while since
my land
meant anything to most people. Then she caught up to the
circles
part, and her heart thudded against her ribs. Just how lost were they?

“Who are you? What do you want from us?”

His face twisted with what might have been exasperation without the camo paint to make it look foreign and terrifying. “Look, lady, I don’t want anything from you. You just looked like you could use a hand.”

God, how amazing would it be if she could believe him?

She reminded herself he’d come out, made a target of himself and stepped in to help them. He hadn’t had to do that. He could have just walked on by. Or if he’d wanted to hurt them, he could easily have killed them all without stepping a single foot out of cover.

His eyes flicked down to her white-knuckled grip on the rifle. “You ever fired that thing?”

“Yes,” she replied too fast, defensively.

His mouth moved in what could have been a half-smile, but with the face paint she couldn’t really tell. “Ever hit anything?”

“
Yes
.” A moose. Her dad had loved to hunt and taken her when she was a teen. She’d shot the poor thing dead. Then puked all over the place for the next hour.

“Uh-huh.” Rambo pointed his machine gun toward the sky, propping it back against his shoulder.

Eden’s barrel didn’t waver, though she did let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She wasn’t going to shoot him and they both knew it, but she still felt stronger, more prepared, with the muzzle aimed in his general direction. He didn’t seem to mind.

But she didn’t know how she would be able to tell if he did. The man made robots look emotive.

“Where’re you headed?”

“We’re just passing through,” Eden said, trying to keep her own voice as even and emotionless as his.

Rambo jerked his chin toward the dirt track they’d been walking down all morning. “Nothing down this road to pass to.”

Which meant she’d gotten them just as lost as she’d feared. “We’re going south.”

She couldn’t read his expression past the camo paint, but his voice was dry. “You need a new compass. You’re going west.”

West. Back toward Spokane. Back toward Seattle.
Shit
. She’d tried to stay on small roads because they were easier for the kids to manage, but the country lanes didn’t always run straight, and she hadn’t been very good about watching the angle of the sun and all that shit to make sure they were staying headed in the right direction.

Suddenly she felt weary to her soul. It was too much for one person to do everything, to be wholly responsible for three lives when the world was spinning upside down. How had she thought she could do this?

Eden swallowed back the self-flagellation and defeat. She needed to focus on moving forward. Getting the kids to safety. Building a life for them somewhere that didn’t involve guns or cults or fear.

Hannah Rose made a small sound of complaint, and Eden shifted so she wasn’t smushing the little girl quite so much. Lucas sat up at her side as Eden crouched in front of them, still defensive.

She jutted her chin up the road back the way they’d come. “So that’s east, huh?”

“East-north-east.”

So south was right in front of her, through the dense forest where this man had appeared. He didn’t look like he was in the mood to play tour guide, and she wasn’t sure she wanted him to. He was too imposing, too obviously deadly for comfort. This didn’t look like the kind of man who had picked up a gun and some hunting gear out of desperation and self-defense the way she had. He was too calm. He’d probably been living the curmudgeonly mountain-man existence for the last two decades, reading the Unabomber’s unauthorized biography and taking shots at anyone who trespassed on
his
land. No doubt he was delighted that only one person was living today for every three thousand who’d been alive a year ago.

But he was plainly capable. He knew the area. He’d tracked them easily, so it wasn’t like she’d be able to escape him without a car anyway.

“Could you give us directions to Boise?”

He snorted. “On foot? Honey, you’ve lost your mind if you think you can walk to Boise this time of year.”

“What about someplace we can get a car? Is there a town near here?” She’d pretty much exhausted her knowledge of Idaho towns with Coeur d’Alene and Boise.

The sense of hopeless defeat rushed back in. How was she supposed to get the kids south for the winter if she couldn’t even figure out which way south was?

A tiny hand plucked at Eden’s jeans, Hannah Rose trying to get her attention. She shifted her leg away.
Not now, babygirl. Mama’s holding a gun on the nice man.

“Look, I’m sorry, lady…”

“Mama?” The little plucking fingers were back. Hannah Rose poked her head around Eden’s shoulder.

“Not now, Hannah Rose.”
Don’t call attention to yourself, babygirl.

But it was already too late. The mountain man was staring at Hannah Rose’s rosy cheeks, his fierce frown evident even through the camouflage paint. “What does she want?” His voice was gruff, choked.

And a note in it set off warning bells in Eden—a note that made him simultaneously a dozen times more likely to help them and a thousand times more dangerous. Not a loner mountain man after all.
This man was a daddy once.

Two hearts, many worlds, one mission.

Water Mark

© 2011 Kathleen Scott

As Wynn St. Jyles searches for the fabled Amulet of Skia among the dangerous market stalls of the Alterrian Islands, memories of her last disastrous mission to the beta dimension haunt her steps. She’s determined not to repeat the mistakes that left her with a broken heart and permanent ear damage, but this trip doesn’t look much more promising.

Particularly when she’s dragged into a dark room, robbed of her aural implant—and the face swimming in her vertigo-stricken vision is the lover who, five years ago, left her in a pool of her own blood.

Kade, an exiled prince of the realm, still carries the pain of the devastating choice that forced him to leave Wynn for dead. Now she’s in his arms again, but the last thing she wants is him. She wants only what he’s trying to protect—the amulet.

Forced to become cautious allies in a violent, inter-dimensional arms race, Wynn finds herself fighting just as hard against a rekindled desire for Kade—leaving her wondering how she can hope to control the key to the multi-dimensions when she can’t even control her own heart.

Warning: Contains pulse-pounding action, vertigo-inducing plot twists, and a love that crosses dimensions.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Water Mark:

Footsteps echoed off the close walls and low-hanging rooftops of Thieves’ Square. Wynn St. Jyles stopped in an alcove and listened as the footfalls came closer to her hiding place. She held her breath, afraid her pursuer would hear her labored respirations in the darkness.

Full night had fallen while she’d searched Maseco Calura’s shop for the amulet rumored to be the key to unlocking the Gamma, Delta and Epsilon dimensions. It was her mission to ensure the artifact did not fall into the hands of the bloodthirsty Muloons. That was if she lived long enough to liberate the damn thing from the tiny island of Cordona, located in the Beta dimension off the coast of the Alterrian Royal Islands.

So far, paradise had shown nothing but its dark underbelly. It was a fact Wynn St. Jyles was very intimately acquainted with.

Her heart rate accelerated as the steps neared. She pushed back to the dark recesses of the alcove. It wasn’t like her to hide, but she had no idea who followed her or what they were willing to do to get information. She didn’t dare even hit the communicator she wore as a direct link to her auditory implant in her partially deaf ear, for fear her voice would carry and give away her location.

Surely Cash and the others already knew where she was and had dispatched the troops. If not, she was one dead Jumper.

She lifted the hem of her lightweight tunic, easing the stunner off her hip. The footsteps stopped in front of her hiding place. A dark silhouette stood in relief against the low lighting from the cross street at the mouth of the alley.

Wynn watched as the man—there was no doubt it was a man—moved away from her. Relief was short-lived as he returned only moments later to stand in front of the alcove.

Real fear for her life spread throughout her body like a charge from a snapped power line. She’d been so careful when she broke into the shop. No one had seen her. She’d disconnected both the overt and silent alarms. Her surveillance equipment hadn’t revealed any other means of security. Had someone else been watching the shop besides the Jumpers?

Most likely. If the Muloons already had a bead on the amulet, it was likely they’d had an agent in the area to do the exact same thing Wynn had been sent to do.

Move along will you?

He didn’t hear her silent plea.

Shit, what was she supposed to do—wait in the corner until someone else came along and her skulking pursuer decided to give up, or wait until morning when there were too many people around to make it worth his while to kill her?

Oh God. Who was she kidding? In this part of Cordona, no one would even blink an eye at some man dragging a woman off to only the sea knew where. Human trafficking was as much a part of the trade on the islands as tacky tourist trinkets. Only the former was illegal and the latter should have been.