ABOUT THE
BOOK
This novella
serves as a stepping stone into the Soul Savers series as it enters a whole new
era. You don’t need to have read the previous books to understand and enjoy
this one.
As matriarch
of Earth’s Angels, Alexis Knight is charged with leading the world to recover
and rebuild after being ravaged by human and supernatural wars. So far, the
challenge hasn’t been too difficult as most of Earth’s inhabitants remain in
underground bunkers. Alexis’s own community, The Loft, is in trouble. Their water
source is drying up, so she and her elite team go to the surface to find a new
one. But in a surprise attack by a new kind of legendary creature, Alexis loses
her memory of who and what she is.
While her
team scrambles to find the antidote to the black magic affecting her mind,
Alexis makes new plans of her own. Until her memory returns, though, her
abilities as a leader are questioned, especially when an outside group arrives
to initiate a coup against her and her team.
BUY THE
BOOK
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A SNEAK
PEAK
CHAPTER
1
Whispered
voices filter through the watery realm of semiconsciousness and grow louder the
closer I rise to the surface. Anxiety fills their muffled tones, both male and
female. My body shakes, and sharp points dig into my back. The side of my face
suddenly lights up with a sting.
“Tell me you
did not just slap her,” a male voice accuses.
“She needs
to wake the hell up.” The female reply sounds like music, even in its
harshness.
“Vanessa,
you can’t go around slapping our matriarch,” another woman’s voice reprimands.
The first
one huffs. “She’ll get over it and then probably slap me back.”
As my
fingers brush over my cheek, I try to open my eyes. My lids feel heavy and
scratchy, but I manage a slit. Sunlight glares, and they shut again on their
own. With a few flutters against the light, I finally focus on the scene before
me. Or rather, above me. I’m lying on the ground with three faces hovering over
me—two females and a male—and behind them gleams the sun through an
entanglement of bare tree branches.
Where am I? What
happened?
“See? It
worked,” says the musical voice. My gaze finds her stunning face with skin
nearly as white as her hair that’s pulled back into a tight ponytail. Her light
blue eyes, however, are like ice daggers as they glower at me. But they fail to
pierce through the fog in my mind. “Come on, your highness. Enough of the
dramatics. Get up. We need to get out of here.”
A pale hand
wraps around my upper arm before I can move, and I flinch.
“Vanessa,”
the other female admonishes again, her brown hair hanging around her face as
she looks down at me. Her breath plumes in a thin fog as she speaks. She places
a long, thin hand over the first and pulls it away. “Give her a minute. She
passed out.”
“We don’t
have a minute,” Vanessa growls. “And she’s fine now.”
“Sheree’s
right,” the guy says. Worry etches three lines between his sapphire eyes as he
studies me. He rubs his chin covered with thick scruff, which is a slightly
darker hue than the straw-colored hair sticking out from under his knit cap.
“She looks out of it. Alexis, are you okay? It’s me, Owen. Can you see
me?”
I blink,
frown, and try to sit up. My vision wavers, and I close my eyes for a moment,
pressing my fingers to my lids. What the hell has happened to me? I
slowly open them again. Everyone’s stepped back to give me space, but their gazes
remain heavily on me. I swallow, or try to. My throat feels like sandpaper. I
lick my lips, tasting the slightly bitter odor hanging in the air, but the
effort is pointless, my tongue as dry as my throat.
“Thirsty,” I
manage to croak out.
“Aren’t we
all,” someone else mutters.
My
perspective shifts outward to find two other men beyond the circle around me,
both dressed in thick parkas, knit hats, and gloves. They’re armed with a
crossbow and a gun that they keep in ready position as they each make a slow
circle, watching the woods surrounding the clearing where we’re gathered. The
trees are half brown and half gray, with a few withered leaves fluttering from
some of the branches as though hanging on even in death. Most branches,
however, are bare. Something about them seems odd, as though the limbs aren’t
naked only because of the time of year, but for another reason. I can’t
pinpoint what I feel like I should know through my hazy mind. Off to my left,
the surface of a large lake glitters in the sun, the far shore barely visible
in the distance. I gnaw on my lip. I have no idea where I am.
“What
happened?” I ask as I rise to my feet.
Vanessa’s
hand darts out to help me, her touch cold as ice. I withdraw my arm from her
hold as soon as I’m standing and take a step back. Her eyes narrow as they visually
assess my condition, the look in them causing a shiver down my
spine.
“Are you
sure you’re okay?” Sheree’s upper body leans toward me, and her head tilts. Her
brown-eyed gaze never leaves my face, looking down at me from her much taller
height. She has to be nearly six feet tall, her body rail thin and all legs in
her cutoff denim shorts. A thick belt cinches the waist, a long knife hanging
from it. She probably has another in one of her combat boots. Weapons hang from
all kinds of places on everyone in the group, including me.
I press my
fingers to my aching temples and rub circles into them. “No, not really.”
“Awesome,”
Owen mutters as his long leg kicks a small rock across the clearing. “It’s
gotta be dark magic messing with your head, too deep for me to
reach.”
“This is
your fault,” Vanessa snaps at him. “I can’t believe you let her drink the
water.”
He rolls his
eyes as his hands drop to his hips. “It’s not like I didn’t try to stop her.
Besides, you know how she is. She does what she wants. If she wants to test the
water herself before anyone else does, she’s gonna do it.”
“God forbid
anyone else take a risk.” Vanessa’s voice changes to a higher pitch, mocking.
“They might die, so I better do it instead.”
Owen snorts,
and the other guys in the group chuckle.
Sheree
frowns. “Hey, be nice. That’s who she is. She wouldn’t ask anyone to do what
she won’t do herself. That’s why she’s here. Right, Alexis?”
My brow
furrows as they all stare at me again, and I rub the back of my neck. “I have
no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Of course
you don’t,” Vanessa quips. “Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here before more
of those little needle things start flying again. Whatever the hell they
are.”
“We need to
get these water samples back ASAP,” Owen agrees.
Sheree
glances at me sideways. “Looking at Alexis, I’m not so sure about that
water.”
Owen lifts a
brow and holds his hands up, wiggling his fingers. “Do you doubt my magical
abilities, woman? It’ll be as pristine as newly fallen snow by the time I’m
done with it.”
The guy with
the crossbow chuffs. “I don’t think newly fallen snow is so clean anymore. It
was blue last time.”
“And purple
the time before that,” the other guy adds.
Vanessa
gives an impatient flick of her hand as she settles her gaze on Owen. “Are you
going to make a portal or what?”
“What about
our search for the others?” Sheree asks. “Are we giving up on
them?”
Everyone
turns and looks at me expectantly. I stare back at them, not understanding what
they want. My thoughts bounce all over the place from trying to follow their
conversation.
Vanessa
sighs and shakes her head. “Let’s get the hell going.”
She strides
out of the clearing and into the woods as though everyone would automatically
follow, and pretty much everyone does. All but Owen and me. Sheree looks over
her shoulder at me and stops.
“Aren’t you
coming?”
I shake my
head. Is she crazy?
“Do you want
to portal back then?” she asks.
When I don’t
answer, Sheree and Owen exchange a look. The others stop their movement into
the woods.
“Damn
water.” Owen gestures toward the lake. “What the heck did it do to
you?”
“What do you
mean?” I ask.
“I thought I
hit the bottle out of your hand, but you dropped to the ground like a stone,
lights out for a good two minutes. And now look at you. You’re all whacked
out.”
“Whacked
out?” I echo.
“Disoriented.”
Sheree joins us back in the clearing. “Right? That’s how you feel?”
I squeeze
the back of my neck again as I glance around. “That’s one word for
it.”
“Hopefully,
that’s all it’s done to you, and there’s no other damage,” Sheree says. “Does
everything else feel okay?”
I look down
at my black boots, leather-clad legs, and torso barely covered in a
tight-fitting tank top. A dagger hangs from a belt on my right hip, and a knife
is strapped to my left leg. Everything seems to be in order. No pains or aches
anywhere but in my brain. “Yeah, I think so. It’s just my head.”
Owen shifts
his weight. “I tried to pull the black magic out of you when you went down, but
there’s apparently something I can’t reach alone. Let’s get you home, and
Blossom can help figure this out.”
“Home . . .”
I can’t picture home. My mind comes up completely blank.
“You know,
The Loft?” Sheree says. “Where Tristan and the babies are, and the rest of our
people?”
“The place
we’ve called home for over a year now.” Vanessa returns to the clearing, too. Annoyance
crosses her face when I show no recognition. “You know, since that day Lucas
and the Demons pretty much destroyed the world with their nuclear and magic
bombs?”
My gaze
swings to the trees. That’s what I’d noticed to be wrong with them—many of them
lack any color at all, even what remains of the leaves. Barely a trace of
orange or even brown. I squint my eyes as I look out at the lake and the
surrounding land. Lots of gray out there, too. Not all of it, however, as
though color has slowly seeped into the landscape. Winter colors, though,
except for some scattered specks of pink and yellow on the ground and tree
trunks. Is that some kind of pollen? In the middle of winter?
Owen moves
his hand closer to my back, a familiar yet hands-off gesture to move along.
“Come on. We’ll get you all fixed up, and the whole hellish story will come
back to you.”
My muscles
stiffen, though, as a small stick, like a miniature arrow or a long needle,
whizzes by my nose. A poof of colored dust trails behind it, although none of
it lands on us, as if we’re each encased in an invisible bubble. Several more
needles sail through the air around us.
“There they
are again! What the fuck are they?” Vanessa takes off, running in
the direction the sticks had come from.
Owen,
however, somehow swoops me into his thickly muscled arms before I know what’s
happening and sprints the opposite way.
“What the
hell are you doing?” I yell and kick and squirm, the rough wool of his sweater
scraping against my bare skin.
“I need to
get you home.”
“The hell
you are. Put me down!”
“I’m not
fighting you on this. Tristan will—”
“I said to
put me down!” With a burst of energy, I spring free from his arms.
At the same
time, a ripping sound comes from behind me, large, dark shapes explode from my
back, and I sail into the air, high out of Owen’s reach. I look over my
shoulder and gasp. Purple and black wings spread out to span nearly five feet
from each side of me. Although somewhere in the back of my mind I must have
known they were there—that they’re a part of me—their unexpected appearance
takes me by surprise.
“Come on,
Alexis,” Owen growls as I hang in the air above him. “That’s not
fair.”
He lifts his
palm up toward me as though it’s some kind of threat. With a mere thought, the
wings bat against the air, and I rise higher until I hit the tree branches and
careen back to the ground. I barely adjust my legs in time to land in a
crouch.
Owen steps
toward me.
“Stay back,”
I warn.
“Then pull
yourself together and let’s go,” he counters.
“I’m not
going anywhere with you!”
Owen takes
another step closer. I draw the dagger from the sheath on my hip. I bend my
knees, coiling my muscles, and hold the blade between us.
“Leave me
alone!”
He moves to
take another step, and I twitch the blade. His deep-blue eyes
narrow.
“Alexis . .
.”
I rock
forward on the balls of my feet.
“Seriously?”
He lifts a blond brow. “I’m not going to fight you.”
I glare at
him, dagger still out, and then my gaze bounces to the others who’ve come up
behind him. They all look at me like I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have. But they
also carefully watch me as though I’m a wild animal. And that’s okay. If I
scare them enough, they’ll leave me alone and go back to their so-called home.
As if anyone has a home anymore.
“I lost
them, whatever they are.” Vanessa runs back over, so fast her body’s nearly a blur.
“They must have flashed because they disappeared. Come on. Let’s get the hell
out of here.”
When she
stops, she glances at everyone, her eyes landing on me while I brandish a
weapon at her companions. She blows out an annoyed huff.
“Enough of
this. We’re taking you home.”
I don’t see
her move, but she instantly has an arm braced around me like a steel bar
locking me against her body. She carries me through the woods at an unnatural
speed, the trees blurring by us. I thrash against her and dig the tip of the
dagger across her forearm. She doesn’t even flinch, and the wound closes up
right away. I kick her shins and throw an elbow into her ribs. Her hold
loosens. I seize the opportunity and twist free, landing on my feet, dagger
pointed at her. She stops in her tracks, and everyone else does, too, as they
approach from behind her.
“I’m not
going anywhere with you,” I snarl once again. “Who the hell do you think you
are to expect me to? I don’t know where I am or who I am, and I certainly don’t
know any of you!”
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Kristie Cook
is a lifelong, award-winning writer in various genres, from marketing
communications to fantasy fiction. She continues to write the Soul Savers
Series, a New Adult paranormal romance/contemporary fantasy, with the first
five books, Promise, Purpose, Devotion, Power, and Wrath available now. She’s
also written a companion novella, Genesis: A Soul Savers Novella, currently
available. Over 300,000 Soul Savers books have been sold, with Promise peaking
at #54 on the Amazon Top 100 Paid list and at #1 in the Amazon Fantasy
category.
She has also
written The Book of Phoenix trilogy, a New Adult paranormal romance series that
includes The Space Between, The Space Beyond, and The Space Within. The full
trilogy is available now.
Besides
writing, Kristie enjoys reading, cooking, traveling, and riding on the back of
a motorcycle. She has lived in ten states, but currently calls Southwest
Florida home with her husband, three sons, a beagle and a puggle. She is
represented by Italia Gandolfo at Gandolfo Helin Literary
Management.
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