It’s #bookqw and Daeryn’s enemies might be as ‘tight’ as friends.
I’m celebrating the 5th anniversary of publishing The Unraveling, Volume 1 of The Luminated Threads. Yesterday’s post included several insider details of my writer’s journey in this story. Read it here.
I also posted an excerpt from my heroine’s viewpoint, that of a proper Victorian artist. Today, I’m giving you a very different view of the rough-and-tumble nights of the shapeshifters who guard the farm.
European Polecat, Daeryn Darkcoat’s view:
By the time he caught up to them, the wolves were rolling in an outright fight, the beta Maraquin for once taking on her headstrong alpha. Leaves, dirt, fur and snarls flew in confusion. He couldn’t tell which was faring better, but he’d take a piece of that action. With a burst of energy, he raced forward and leaped. His nose verified the landing pad was some part of Jac’s anatomy, so he sank his claws and let loose a series of spitting cries and growls, a pissed-off message in any language.
She froze beneath him, then tried to shake him off like water from a puddle. Daeryn clung, the muscles of his smaller European polecat form tight with the effort.
I’ll show you—
The heavy body, and whiff, of a lynx slammed them sideways—their teammate Zar. Daeryn landed with a jolt several feet away.
Just as well. He rolled over and crouched up against a log, gasping.
Apparently, Zar was even angrier than he’d been. The lynx danced a mean streak, pouncing, snarling and biting at the thick fur of Jac’s ruff and hindquarters. She twisted and snapped her heavy jaws at him, but between his agile moves and Maraquin’s worked-up anger, the fight raged on, bloodless, but just barely.
Any longer and the integrity of the team might be damaged. Daeryn shifted and swatted at the nearest furry rump. “Break it up.”
Maraquin rounded on him and growled, but sank on her haunches and shifted. Her thick, black hair fell across her face and shoulders, with the rest of her front hidden behind crossed muscular arms and the shadows of her bent knees.
Zar shifted, too, but didn’t bother to cover his heaving chest or the rest of his body. He threw his broad, muscular physique aggressively back and forth, yelling between gasps, “What the hell? What the hell were you doing…taking off alone? Trying to get yourself…maimed? No one knows what that beast is capable of!”
Jac’s upper lip curled, but no snarl emerged.
Smart Jac, because any hint of her usual uppityness and Daeryn wouldn’t be able to stop himself from taking her on, big carnivore or not. But she didn’t give him an excuse.
“We don’t—” Daeryn sucked a breath to steady his tone, to make his point sound reasonable. “We don’t run down every animal that crosses onto Wellspring.”
“That’s right.” Zar jabbed a finger at her, nearly hitting the fur between her eyes.
Jac flinched back, changed to human form nearly identical to her cousin Maraquin’s, and fell to a sit. “Fine. I get it.”
“Do you?” Zar barreled on. “All a guard needs to do is run a beast off the farm property, same as every other beast who threatens the crops. Nothing more. If Owen were here, he’d have your hide for this foolish lark.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Jac said. “This beast is different. It must be foreign, from Outside the Basin.”
“You don’t know that,” Zar spat out. “By the Path, no one of us can properly identify the variety of life—animacambire, planta or just plain creatures—lurking in the back bowels of Blighted Basin.”
Jac jumped to her feet and snapped, “Would you let me finish?”
Daeryn stepped between them. “Let her talk. This team isn’t pack. With Owen gone, we’re equal members and have to hear each other out.”
Between his mustache and beard, Zar’s lips twisted like he’d scented carrion.
But Jac dipped her chin to him in a rare show of appreciation. “You didn’t see what I saw, so you can’t fault me for running down the one I finally found. It’s bad. Tonight those pests didn’t just bite up some vegetables. They’ve gnawed the stalks at the base and destroyed an entire row of acorn squash.” Jac waved her arm this way and that, her excitement from the chase still evident. “The teeth on those things must be as sharp as axes.”
The four of them remained silent. This was bad. A few of these beasts, over a few nights of cutting through plant stalks, and Wellspring Collective wouldn’t have a viable crop left. Or sales…or cash…or workers.
~~~
You can pick up The Unraveling for free on all retailers. Take note this is a serialized novel; the story continues in The Twisting and The Binding. The entire fantasy is bundled as a complete novel with character lists called The Luminated Threads on Amazon & Kobo.
Here I am back in 2015, opening my first paperback copy of The Unraveling at the post office and trying not to cry!
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