The sequel to
Mind Behind the Mind is finally out in the wild!
Yes, Thorns Entwine the Blade (Trinity Torn, 2) is available to purchase in ebook format. The paperback will be available in either December or January.
Per usual, I have an excerpt below that will hopefully draw you in, as well as the blurb.
If you'd like to purchase a copy, either pop over to Books2Read which has a list of all available retailers, or you can use these direct links to the major online retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Google Play, and Smashwords.
And if you do read Thorns, please consider leaving a review on your retailer of choice. Thanks, and happy reading!
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He grabbed a luminorb from the sitting room, but when he returned to the bedroom, he still couldn’t enter.
Face your demons, Bastian. The thought was his own, but he heard Tessa’s voice speak it. If she had forgiven him his dalliance, he should have been able to forgive himself.
One step forward, and his scabbard tapped his leg. Yes, he had his sword this time. So, he threw the door open and barged in.
Bastian half expected to find Arian stretched out on the bed, naked and beckoning. But the sheets weren’t rumpled, as they had been when he’d stormed out after he’d realized she’d duped him. After she’d searched his clothes scattered on the floor for the book of prophecies...
No, everything was neat and orderly, the bed made, as if Arian had situated her home in preparation for her return. Such arrogance. A person who took the time to tidy her home before she fled it didn’t fear pursuit. Well, this time he’d turn her into the fool.
He inched closer to the bed and the scent of bellberries struck him. Memories rushed back so suddenly that he stumbled, grabbing the bed to catch himself. Arian’s touch, the soft feel of her skin, and the haze floating through his mind. The need. The want.
Then the anger.
He growled, and the monster inside him bared its teeth, ready to rip a throat out. Arian’s throat.
Just as the spell had shattered with his fury on the night Arian had tricked him into her bed, the current one disintegrated. Arian had left a trap, but only Bastian could have triggered it. She’d known that he’d come here.
The lust and shame clung to his spirit, but he wouldn’t allow it to conquer him. His hunter backed down and waited.
Arian should have known this little spell wouldn’t get its hooks into him, not even as powerful as her compulsion. Then why had she set it?
To distract him. She hadn’t wanted him to find something in here. Too bad.
He spun in his current spot, brushing his vision across every object in the tiny room – it only held her bed in one corner, a small nightstand next to it, and a large wardrobe.
The wardrobe would have made the most sense. There could have been any number of hidden compartments in one so large. But no, when he looked at it, he felt emptiness.
Knowledge, a surety that beat through him like a second heart. His innate talent guided him, striking down the possibilities, rendering his need to physically search for what he sought unnecessary. Under the floorboards? In the mattress? No, looking there would only waste his time.
Bastian grabbed hold of his power and pushed it, forcing it to stretch out as he examined the room again.
And then his eyes snagged on the luminorb on a shelf above Arian’s bed. Yes.
Bastian scrambled on the bed, destroying the neat folds of the blanket, dirt smearing onto the off-white. He’d rather have trampled on Arian herself. He grunted and snatched the luminorb, then jumped down.
It didn’t look any different than the one in his other hand, aside from being dark. He rotated it, but found nothing out of the ordinary. But he knew it wasn’t ordinary. His head throbbed with insistence.
He tried to turn it on, but it wouldn’t light up.
Well, he’d have to take it with him and figure out its secrets later. He tucked it into a pocket and proceeded back to the sitting room.
And his head pounded more fiercely. Perhaps he’d pushed himself too far. Or he needed sleep. He still hadn’t rested after they’d returned from their journey.
Bastian stepped into the sitting room, and the three lit luminorbs, including the one in his hand, flashed to a brilliant, blinding light. The hilt of a blade struck his mind, or at least that was what it felt like. He covered his eyes and staggered into the bookshelf.
Arian. Another trap.
No. The throbbing in his head plummeted to his gut, and he realized this wasn’t her doing, but his own. He’d wished all the lights brighter earlier, and he’d pushed his innate talent to find what Arian had hidden. It must have drawn out the magick inside of him.
Tessa had warned him.
Bastian growled and threw the luminorb he held to the floor. It shattered, and the other two lights grew brighter. He pressed the palm of his hand to his temple. “No!”
Inside, the hunter snarled and snapped and thirsted for blood – Arian’s, Jermaine’s, it didn’t matter whose.
The remaining lights burst, and then the pounding and pressure within vanished, the monster crouching down in submission.
His body wrung out; he was almost as exhausted as he’d felt after healing Tessa. Bed, he needed to head to bed. He staggered out of Arian’s house.
And he had to be more careful in the future. His innate talent might have been a boon in the past, but now it was looking more like a curse. He couldn’t allow himself to let the magick in again.
Never.
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A witch hunter refuses to embrace his magick, threatening to consume him from the inside out...
Bastian shuns his witchblood – he’s a witch hunter, after all, and to prove it he hunts down the treacherous witch who betrayed her own kind. But denying his powers is a grave mistake, one which awakens a monster inside him. And when he finally loses control, he commits an act that he dreads Tessa will never forgive him for.
Tessa battles with the memories and emotions her ex-lover Thane funneled into her, to the point where she’s unsure if all of her thoughts are truly her own. Her sudden rise to High Priestess, a new witch on the Council, and two conspiratorial Council members only add to her burden. She fears her mind will snap. And when events force her hand, unhinging her sanity even more, she risks losing herself completely.
But a new menace on the horizon promises to strain both Bastian’s and Tessa’s fights with their internal and external demons – a prophecy from a tattooed apparition threatens to destroy all of Leera...
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