PHOENIX: THE RISING by Bette Maybee

PHOENIX: THE RISING by Bette Maybee

Every 300 years, the immortal Phoenix returns to Mono Lake to be reborn—but this time it didn't return alone.  The Nephilim are back in force, trying to keep it from being reborn so one of them can claim its immortality. But first they have to figure out who the Phoenix is—and any red-haired, green-eyed, seventeen-year-old in the area is fair game. And so, the killing begins...

Julie Mason doesn't believe all this legend crap until she falls for Eli Sullivan, whose hallucination-inducing kiss not only saves her, but makes her the Nephilim’s prime target. But, it's worth the risk. Her death is inevitable...not even Eli can prevent it.  All she has to do is keep the Nephilim off Eli’s trail until The Rising. Once Eli is reborn and forgets his past life, Julie’s life is over, whether she’s dead or not. At least that's what she thinks...

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Excerpt:

 

“That asshole flipped you the bird.”

Julie jerked her head up from the drinking fountain to find Kas Penemue towering over her.

“Wha-what?” She backed against the wall. The pounding of her heart amplified against the hard surface, shaking her body with each beat.

“Fredricks. He flipped you the bird. Want me to break his finger?”

“No!” The word gushed from her mouth, causing the heads of those nearby to swivel her way.

Kas chuckled and leaned his arm against the wall over her head.

“I’m just kidding, Julie. Chill.”

Julie inhaled slowly. The scent of peppermint wafted from his mouth, a pleasant smell that had a strange, calming effect on her.

“How did you know? That he did that, I mean.” Julie hadn’t noticed Kas in the classroom, and with his size, she would have had to be blind not to see him.

“I have my ways.”

Across and down the hall, Julie saw Eli Sullivan open his locker and grab a book. He turned his head in her direction and locked his eyes on hers. Why does he keep staring at me?

“Well, do you?”

Julie blinked and then looked up into Kas’s dark chocolate eyes.

“Do I what?”

Kas’s voice softened. “I asked if you wanted to go to a party with me tomorrow night after the game.”

Julie’s eyes shifted back to Eli. He had been joined at his locker by Charsey who was busy giggling and flipping her silky strawberry blonde locks over her shoulder. Charsey was a flirt, and she had the looks to get the job done. Eli Sullivan didn’t stand a chance. He would soon join Charsey’s long list of male conquests.

“Umm. Sure. I guess that would be okay.” Julie bit her tongue the moment the words came out of her mouth.

 Kas took a step back and smiled.

“Great. Meet me by the gate after the game.” He jogged down the hallway.

Yeah, great. Julie could have kicked herself. How am I gonna get myself out of this one? Julie turned. Eli and Charsey were gone. In fact, the whole hallway was practically deserted. Julie glanced at the clock. She had less than a minute to get to her next class. She might make it if she ran.

 The moment she turned the corner, she collided with someone, rebounding off a hard male chest and landing on her butt.

“Oh, man! I am so sorry!” A tanned, muscular hand was offered to her, the same hand that returned a discarded cigarette to her the day before. Julie looked up into the apologetic face of Eli Sullivan. At that moment, the second period tardy bell rang.

“Crap!” She slapped his hand away and hauled herself up. “Thanks a lot!” 

Eli raised his hands in surrender. “I really am sorry, Julie. I—I just need to talk to you.”

Julie hesitated for a moment as his eyes met hers. They seemed to burn right into her, throwing her off-kilter, making her forget why she was so upset. She shook her head to realign her thoughts then pushed her way past him. “I’m late.”

Eli grabbed her arm, halting her retreat. “Please. This is important.”

Julie tensed her arm, ready to pull away, until she looked into his face. His sapphire eyes darkened with concern. Her heart thrummed as he pulled her closer, brushing his lips across her temple.

“What did he want?” Eli spoke barely above a whisper, his breath warm on her ear.

 Julie tried to blink away the spots that suddenly clouded her vision. She could feel her heart beating in her throat and a red flag went up. This was not happening. She wouldn’t let it. This time she did pull away.

“What did who want?” Julie lifted her chin and exhaled, trying to calm her heart.

 Eli’s eyes hardened. “Penemue. What did he want?”

Julie was totally confused. “What business is it of yours?” She backed away, and he grabbed her arm again. Gently, this time. Once again, his touch sent her heart into overdrive.

“I just think you should steer clear of him.”

Julie jerked her arm out of his hand. “Who do you think you are? My father?” She spun around and headed in the opposite direction.

“Julie!”

Julie stopped in her tracks.

“What?” she snapped.

“You’re gonna need a tardy pass.”

Crap!

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RIDDLE OF THE DECEIVER by Gilbert M. Stack

RIDDLE OF THE DECEIVER by Gilbert M. Stack

Pembroke Steel: Book 5

When Mitch Pembroke and his bodyguard, Kit Moran, agree to help their housekeeper find her daughter, they get more than they bargained for. Miss Egan is not the only resident of her Maine logging town to have gone missing in recent weeks and her terrified neighbors are desperate for answers.

Are the disappearances really tied up in an old Native American legend or is there a more sinister solution? Time is running out.

Can Mitch and Kit find Miss Egan before they too end up victims of the Deceiver?

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~Excerpt~

It was 11:00 p.m. and Sheriff McCauley was waiting for them behind his desk. The lines in his face and the shadows beneath his eyes spoke of exhaustion and of a deep and abiding concern. A pallet in the corner suggested that the sheriff would be sleeping in the jail house tonight, and possibly had already done so the night before. He stood up and offered each man his hand. “Did Mrs. Egan get settled in all right?”

“She’s talking with Mrs. Baxter now,” Mitch answered.      

The sheriff sighed, returning to his seat. “I guess that’s what I expected. Still it’s a shame to burden that poor woman with more concerns when we still really don’t know what happened.”

Mitch placed a chair in front of the sheriff’s desk and sat in it. Kit came over to stand behind him. He was purposeful, not nonchalant; protective in his movements. The sheriff noticed all of this, then clearly considered how to begin saying what he wanted them to know.

“As I already said, I still don’t know what happened, but there are a few facts in the case. Not cold facts, not hard, but they’re most of what I have to work with.”

Mitch waited expectantly. Kit offered no expression at all. The dichotomy of attitude was already beginning to work on the sheriff—the one man clearly desiring information, the other just as clearly intending to see that he received it. A lesser man might have grown nervous or angry. Sheriff McCauley merely began to share that which he had already intended to give.

“Last Sunday, that’s April 11, Miss Egan fixed a picnic lunch and went off by herself into Shadow Valley. She had done this a couple of times before, despite suggestions that it wasn’t a good idea. Miss Egan said she liked to get away to work on her lesson plan for the coming week. My deputy went looking and couldn’t find her, but no one was really concerned until she failed to show up at the boarding house for dinner. Mrs. Baxter alerted me, and I organized a search. We scoured Shadow Valley for three days with no sign of Miss Egan.”

Mitch continued to wait expectantly, politely refraining from asking if the sheriff had questioned Deputy Howland. You didn’t have to be a local to see that Howland was infatuated with Emily Egan. And it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to wonder if infatuation—especially if it was unrequited—could have led to something less innocent.

The sheriff changed course. “Well that’s the crux of it as far as Miss Egan is concerned, but it’s only a small part of the larger picture. You see, we’ve had a number of other disappearances in Shadow Valley which look much the same. Well,” he amended, “a number of recent disappearances. People have been disappearing in the valley for the better part of two centuries. It just hasn’t happened quite so regularly before.”

The sheriff swallowed a sort of half laugh, as if what he was about to say embarrassed him, but he was going to say it anyway. “The Abernackie, the local Indian tribe, have known about the place for centuries. They won’t go there. The whole valley is taboo. But white folk have always been too smart to listen to Indians. So we hunt there, and now we log there, or at least we do in the half of the valley that doesn’t belong to the reservation. And the Indians they just turn around and shake their heads, especially when someone disappears.”

“Just how many disappearances are we talking about, Sheriff?” Mitch asked. He had the uneasy feeling that he knew where this conversation was going. Not specifically, of course, but there was an aura of strangeness settling about the office, and Mitch didn’t like the way it felt.

“Six really,” the sheriff answered. “Miss Egan, and five others, all in the past seven months.
 

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