Synnergy, Chaos Time Book 3 (14 page)

She ran her finger along the stubble of his jaw,
tracing the lines that she knew if she closed her eyes, she’d be
able to recall from memory.

“Come here,” she whispered.

His eyes were twin pools of hurt and her heart
clenched at the pain she caused him. But he lowered his head and
she blocked out the sounds of the night, the crickets gentle chirp,
the breeze laden with pine, the hoot of hunting owls. She only saw
him.

“I can’t do it without you, Slayde. You ground me,
you keep me safe. But I have to fight. Hunter’s right. I can’t walk
away.”

He closed his eyes and she kissed him. Kissed all her
fears, all her pain, all her desire for him into his body. He
trembled. They didn’t stop until he came up for breath. He rubbed
his nose with hers, his hands so gentle as they gripped the sides
of her face.

“Then we stay and fight.” He sighed. “Because I won’t
leave you, Nix. I can’t.” The softness fled his face. “You,” he
said to Hunter, “you’d better tell us what is going on right now.
Starting with who are you really?”

Hunter’s jaw clicked. “You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand all right. I understand your lies
almost killed her.” He pointed to the mound of dirt. “Almost killed
Ari.”

He shook his head. “No, that wasn’t me. That was
Dragden’s beast. I came to save her. I...the blood. I...”

Sable stood. “Hunter, look at me.”

He looked, the pain written within was unending
torment. Deep pits of hurt and fear. She walked to him, grabbed his
hand and did not flinch, even though touching him made her tremble.
He’d almost killed her. She couldn’t forget who he’d been. What he
was. Which Hunter was real?

“You asked me once to trust you. Now I’m asking you
to do the same.”

He hung his head. “You don’t understand. The last
time you found out it very nearly killed Errol. It destroyed Synn’s
faith in me.”

Her heart clenched at the utter hopelessness in his
voice. “But I’m not Errol, I’m Sable. These are not the same times.
We killed a Lord tonight. We can do it again. But this...this
cannot happen again.”

“You want the truth?” he asked, voice challenging her
to accept the dare.

“Yes.”

He threw her hand away from him and turned his back.
“The truth is I’m the monster you should fear.”

He slept on.

But he was aware.

He was waking.

A new dawn was coming.

They might think him weak.

Asleep.

Unable to fight.

But they were wrong.

He would win.

He always won.

The End…

For now…

Wanna know when my next installment comes
out? Make sure to sign up for my
newsletter
! I promise to never
spam, only give you news of my latest releases and contest promos
that I occasionally run. Keep reading for a sneak peek of
Hunter!

Kingdom Series (Fairytale Romance)

Her Mad
Hatter
(
Free
everywhere! Book 1 based on Alice
and the Mad Hatter)

Gerard’s
Beauty
(Book 2 based on Beauty and the Beast)

Red and Her
Wolf
(Book 3 based on Little Red Riding Hood)

The Kingdom
Collection
(Books 1-3 with bonus deleted scenes)

Jinni’s
Wish
(Book 4, based on Arabian Nights)

Hook’s Pan
(Book 5, Based on Peter Pan)

Danika’s
Surprise
(Book 5.5, novelette and first introduction to
the upcoming Dark Princess Series)

Moon’s
Flower
(Book 6, a fractured fairy tale based on the
story of The Man in the Moon)

The Huntsman’s Prey
(Book 7, COMING in
Feb, 2014)

Moments Series (NA Contemporary Romance)

A Moment
,
Book 1 (Ryan and Liliana’s Story)

Right Now
,
Book 2 (Alex and Zoe’s Story)

Book 3 (Jaime and Tor’s Story) Coming
2014

Night Series

Crimson
Night
- Urban Fantasy (Book 1)

All Hallows Night
- Urban Fantasy (Book
2): Coming Soon

Eternal Lover’s Series

Death’s Lover
(Book 1) From Grand
Central—Forever Yours—Publishing

Previously published under the title
The
Witching Hour

Eve Philips thought she could never love again. After
her husband died in a hit-and-run accident, Eve poured her heart
into her potions shop, Witch's Brew, and hasn't given any man a
second glance until Cian. As soon as she locks eyes with him, Eve
knows she'll never be the same. Gorgeous and mysterious, he incites
a passion in her that she's never felt before. And it's almost
otherworldly...

Cian knows Eve is special the minute they lay eyes on
each other. He's a supernatural being with a dangerous duty, and
being seen is not part of the job description. But when he meets
the kind, beautiful Eve, all the rules go out the window. Now that
his superiors have gotten wind of it, he has a wicked enemy on his
tail. Yet all he cares about is Eve: loving her, protecting her and
finding the right time to tell her his dark and terrible secret, a
secret that threatens both of their lives...

Death’s Redemption
(Book 2) Coming
June, 2014 from Grand Central!

Mila is a human with a secret: she can see the
future. Working alongside an elite San Francisco task force her
identity was supposed to remain a secret and in return she'd use
her powers to bring about justice on the supernatural baddies gone
rogue. Problem is, someone's found her out and leaked the
information to a sect of vampires that want her for more than just
her blood.

Frenzy, is a grim reaper of legend and part of The
Morrigan's personal retinue. He wasn't supposed to be working the
streets of San Francisco but thanks to a sudden shortage of reapers
to do the job, he finds himself staring into the eyes of a woman
who reminds him fiercely of a lover he'd once known in the
seventeenth century. He'll do anything to make her his, even if
that means becoming the monster the world had once feared.

Chaos Time Saga

Sable
,
Epidsode 1

Slayde
,
Episode 2

Synnergy
, Episode 3

Hunter
, Episode 4 (Coming Soon!)

Make sure to continue reading for a sneak
peak of Hunter!

To those of you who’ve found these books, you
guys are seriously awesome.

Marie loves books that make you think, or feel
something. Preferably both. And while she’s a total girly girl and
loves glitter and rainbows, she’s just as happy when she’s writing
about the dark underbelly of society. Well, if things like zombies,
and vampires, and werewolves, and mermaids existed. (Although she
has it on good authority that mermaids do in fact exist, because
the internet told her so.)

She’s married to the love of her life, a sexy beast
of a caveman who likes to refer to himself as Big Hunk. She has two
awesome kids, lives in Hawaii, loves cooking and occasionally has
been known to crochet. She also really loves talking about herself
in the third person.

If you’d like to know more about Marie then you can
contact her at
[email protected]
Or, if you’d like to check out her latest offerings go to
mariehallwrites.com
or
mariehallwrites.blogspot.com
If you just want to stop by and say hi, she has a
Facebook
page
and a twitter handle
@mariehallwrites
,
also if you’re interested in really getting to know her and maybe
winning some cool prizes from the contests she runs throughout the
year, sign up for her
newsletter
and if you still
can’t find ways to contact her then I don’t know what else to do.
She does have a pinterest page, but hey… that stuff is kinda
boring, just Marie being goofy and posting sexy pics of her couples
and nails and food stuff… totally boring.

Also, she reads any and all emails and you’ll get a
response from her, so if you don’t want to go public, she’s cool
with that. Slip her a note on the low low and she promises not to
blast your thang all around the net. And if you liked the book,
leave a review. Please, those things are like gold in her world.
Helps other readers to know this book might actually be worth
reading.

Somewhere in the past

The wind howled, echoing with the dying strands of a
haunting whistle. There were words in the song, in the air, in
their heads...

Come out and play.

I will not harm you.

I am friend.

Hear my cry.

Join me, so I can devour your soul...

Humans huddled within the safety of their mud brick
homes. Fires raged in the hearths.

Within one home a pair of eyes darted from the
dancing flame to the pitch black of night outside.

The child hugged her mother’s leg.

“
Ibu
,” she sucked her thumb, “I’m scared.”

“Ssh,” the mother patted her tiny head, her fingers
curling through the shiny black strands. “Would you like to hear a
story?”

The little girl nodded, brown eyes liquid with
fear.

“Once a long time ago...”

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

The door shuddered, groaning at its center, a razor’s
edge from exploding in a shower of wooden slivers.

The child screamed.

“A little boy,” the mother continued, feigning a
bravery she did not feel. “Walked down by the rice patty fields. He
sat, staring at an image of a boy with umber eyes reflected within
the water.”

It whistled again. The sound poured in through the
cracks of the thatched roof.

“
Ibu
,” the child’s voice trembled, she wrapped
tiny hands around her neck. Terror, black and bottomless, ripped
through her soul.

Just a little longer. A little longer. He could not
enter. They were safe. But where was her husband? Oh God, where was
he?

She grabbed her daughter, pulled her onto her lap and
rocked.

Play with me.

Heed my call.

I am lonely.

She closed her eyes. Her foot twitched. The call
demanded she obey. She gripped her child tighter. A lifeline. Her
safety net.

“The
Semangat
asked the child to make a wish.
The boy thought long. For he did not wish to be fooled by the water
spirit.”

Wind rose, shaking the house. Like fingers gripping
into the sides and straining to rip it apart.

Her child’s heartbeat fluttered against her chest.
She continued to stroke the soft hair.

“What did the boy wish for,
Ibu
?”

Scuffling noises clacked in the alley outside. The
house stopped shaking. The eerie melody ceased. Silence, deafening
and quick encased them like a tomb.

She licked her lips.

“The boy wished...”

“
Setan, get back!”
The scream reverberated to
the marrow of her soul.

Her heart sank.

“
Ibu
,” the child turned a round-cheeked face
up to her. “I heard
Ayah
.”

She grabbed her daughter’s head and tucked it to her
breast, covering her ear with her hand.

“The boy wished to become someone else,” she pressed
on, keeping her daughter occupied while outside the night raged
with the scream of a massacre.

Rip.

Tear.

Crunch.

A hot tear gathered at the corner of her eye.

“
Ibu
, what did he become?”

“
Pemakan daripada manusia.” Eater of man.

The child shivered, the last cry echoed into
nothing.

“
Ibu
?”

Cold, dead inside, the mother nodded. “Hmm?”

“
Ayah
is not coming home, is he?”

“No, Malaikat, he is not.”

The tear trekked a ghostly trail down her face.

The earth was silent once more.

In the morning there’d be nothing left but ashes in
the snow.