I have been working on the third book in the series. It will be titled: Lycan Legagy – Pack.
This story will cover how Luna gets captured (again), thrown into a prison for werewolves, finds the inner strength to overcome her adversities, and ends up with a much larger Pack. As if that scruffy Logan guy wasn't enough trouble!
Of course, she has to go through hell to get to her happy ending, that's what makes a story great.
I've written the first chapter, which sets up the premise of the book. I might change it depending on feedback from my trusted readers and my editor, but I think it draws the reader in from the first page. Here's my excerpt:
We were walking down Roppongi Dori Avenue, enjoying the press of the crowds, the psychic thrum that all large cities possess, as well as the scents of the humans mixed with the occasional supernatural.
Mason walked beside me, his strong hand holding mine, the tingle of magic in his touch.
I was wearing a red silk dress, matching high-heeled shoes and purse, and one of my favorite hats. The magical nail polish on my finger and toenails exactly matched my outfit. One of the advantages of having a magician boyfriend.
Maybe more than a boyfriend. I had a feeling that we were soon going to have “the talk.”
Logan and Kuga-san walked about five feet behind us, each enjoying the warm spring night. Both had dates set up for later, but for now, they had accepted our invitation to eat at the Barbacoa Brazilian restaurant. A very nice place, one of the few in Japan that offered a fixed price unlimited meat meal.
We had amazed the waiters with the amounts we had consumed. Slice after slice of grilled steaks, chicken, and cheeses. All topped off with excellent red wine. If the waiters had known they were feeding a magician, two werewolves, and a wolf-pack ally, they might have had some idea of our capacity.
Mason was on my left, walking facing traffic on the sidewalk. He turned to look at my eyes, and I knew he was going to ask me to come back to his apartment.
It was so nice to relax. Our lives were finally getting back to normal. Mason had returned from his quest to the Fae realms; I had liberated my dad from the insane asylum so he could help my mom regain her memories. Even Logan was preparing to visit his estranged daughters. Life was finally looking up.
As if an omen of good fortune, a Japanese couple coming towards us was pushing a baby carriage that held the cutest little boy. He had bright shining eyes and an infectious smile. I felt that twinge inside all women feel when looking at babies. Maybe I could delicately bring up the subject of babies with Mason?
Then it happened. A car jumped the curb, speeding up at a phenomenal rate, then hitting Mason. His hand was ripped from mine, and he flew through the air. The flash of magic showed his personal shield had activated. I hoped it had been enough to save him from injury.
But the damn car continued and hit Kuga-san who had been strolling right behind Mason. She had no magical protections. She was barely stronger and faster than a standard human. I felt the sickening crunch of bones through the psychic link we shared.
I took a quick scan of the crowd and noted several young men who were watching us. They were different in many ways, but all shared a muscular physique and similar stares.
Then I felt the burning spots on my body that told me someone, hell several someones, were targeting me. I prepared to leap away and get out of the line of fire but hesitated to avoid innocent bystanders from getting hit.
I saw out of the corner of my eye that the parents were swiftly backing up to get away from the accident. Good, the baby would be safe.
Still, I knew I was fast enough to take down my attackers. My inner wolf rose, bringing my already enhanced strength and speed to superhuman levels. I would take down those assailants before they knew what hit them.
Then one of the men grabbed the infant out of the baby carriage and threw the baby at me. Reflex took over, and I curled over the tiny infant, protecting it with my body. I had just enough time to scent the addictive smell of the baby; talcum powder, Johnson baby shampoo, and innocence. The poor kid’s heartbeat was speeding up, and he opened his mouth to wail.
That’s when I heard the explosion to my right. A metal net had been embedded in the wall, set to spring out and wrap whoever was in front of it. A clever trap. The bastards must have known that my wolf could sense intent, so they had set a mechanical trap.
The net wrapped around my body, then an electric charge zapped me. Usually, Tasers and such can’t hurt me, but this happened so fast, I couldn’t prepare. Instead of shunting the electricity away, the power poured through my body. I used the last of my magic to protect the baby.
I could vaguely feel the impact of the tranquilizer darts as they hit my back.
My last thought was; What kind of monster would use a baby to trap a werewolf?
***
I woke to the loud thrumming sounds of a multi-engine aircraft. My head was slumped down on my chest, and my long black hair hid my face from view. I made no motion to let my captors know I was awake. Through slitted eyes, I could only look down to examine my surroundings.
My purse and clothes were gone, and I had been dressed in an orange jumpsuit. Manacles, one set on my hands and one set on my feet, bound my arms and legs together. They were much larger than those used on humans. Each set of manacles had a one-quarter-inch-thick steel cable running down to the floor of the aircraft, where there were metal hooks to which my cables were affixed. The floor clamps were built so that they could fold down out of the way when not needed.
The aircraft was cold and drafty. I missed my fur but held off on making any changes until I knew more. All I could see of the floor (deck?) between my feet was a steel plate, once coated with a black paint mixed with sand, now scuffed away to leave only shiny metal behind. The metal was cold, drawing heat from my body through my bare feet. I willed the calluses on the soles of my feet to appear like I would do for a barefoot mountain run.
My seat was a long bench along the aircraft’s outer wall. The bench was made of aluminum tubes over which was stretched orange nylon canvas, sort of like lawn chairs. I shifted my eyes up, careful not to move my head, and saw large wooden crates that must have taken most of the space in the large aircraft. Was this some kind of cargo plane?
My head was fuzzy and my vision dim, with all colors muted. An after effect of the tranquilizer? I maintained my breathing pattern, resisting the overwhelming urge to leap up and start killing.
The noise from the engines was deafening, so I concentrated on that. Mason had mentioned a spell, one that duplicated the effect of those expensive sound-dampening headphones people wore during flights. Repeating noises, like the constant thrum of the engines was muted by the spell; while non-repeating noises were allowed through. Something about sampling the vibrations and forcing the air around the ears to vibrate in counterpoint. He had explained it with equations, I thought of it as musical harmonies.
It shouldn’t take much energy at all, only the tiniest trickle of magic to create the counter vibrating sounds. I thought the spell through and through, sub-vocalizing the words so that no one could hear. Every time, I lost the thread of the spell. But I’m a stubborn wolf; I repeated the sequence a dozen times before getting it right.
The spell finally worked, and the throbbing of the engines dropped down to a low background hum. I could now hear almost as well as if the engines had been silent.
Closing my eyes completely, I concentrated on the sounds. I could hear distorted voices, a male, and a female.
“Did she just move?” asked the male.
“No,” replied the female, “that’s just the jostling caused by the movement of the aircraft. With her O2 saturation so low, she’ll be out for hours.”
There was also some chatter from the rest of the crew, but they were far off to my left, at the front of the aircraft and I couldn’t concentrate hard enough to make out what they were saying.
O2 saturation? What was that? O2 was oxygen, right? And saturation was something to do with the level of…
I brought my brain back to heel. O2 saturation low meant I wasn’t breathing normal air. Were these bastards keeping the oxygen level in the air low to keep me knocked out?
Mason had once told me about a spell that pulled all the oxygen out of a sphere around an opponent’s head, forcing them into unconsciousness.
An Air witch had later tried a similar spell on me. Only she hadn’t been as good as Mason. Her spell pulled all the air out from a space around my head. The sudden vacuum hadn’t hurt me but had alerted me of the effect in time to end her threat.
I tried and tried to get the oxygen in the cabin to flow to me, but was unable to force what little oxygen there was to come to me. The gas I wanted was very slippery and kept getting away.
Not enough magical energy or skill to do this. Or at least, not enough to run the noise-canceling spell and the oxygen spell at the same time.
I dropped the noise-canceling spell, hoping that the tiny extra bit of magical energy would be enough to effect the new spell. What should I call it? Luna’s Life-Saving O2 Spell? I could see Mason and how proud he would be that his werewolf had worked out a new spell on her own. Then we would go out to dinner, and then…
I stopped those thoughts abruptly. For all I knew, Mason was dead. My inner wolf growled at that thought, and I sent a mental hug to calm her. Dead or not, he wasn’t here to help me. So, what did I need to do…
That was silly. I realized the lack of oxygen was like being drunk, making it very hard to string thoughts together. I deepened my breaths slightly, determined to get as much air as possible. I hoped the change wouldn’t be noticeable to my captors.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I coaxed the molecules of oxygen to float toward me, building up around my head. The spell was as difficult as pushing a truck up a hill; then as I got more oxygen, it became like pushing a truck on a level road, then it was like riding a bike.
As soon as my head cleared, I re-started the noise-canceling spell. Now I could think and hear clearly.
The female said, “Watch it! Her O2 level is rising.” A click, then she said, “Pilot, did you increase the oxygen in the cargo area?”
Faintly, I heard the reply, “Negative; our instruments show the levels the same as before.”
“She’s waking up,” said the male voice.
I felt the pinch of something clipped to my right earlobe. Was this what they were using to track my O2 levels? I mentally clamped off the veins in my earlobe to stop blood flow. I might lose part of my ear, but it would be worth it. Anyway, werewolves can’t wear jewelery.
Except for the magical necklace and amulet that Mason had crafted for me last year. It had a moonstone that contained centuries of lunar energy, enough energy to make me the strongest werewolf in the world. It also had an invisibility spell that prevented anyone from seeing it unless I willed it.
At my thought, the weight of the heavy platinum and white gold links tugged at my neck, reassuring me that the moonstone was still there. So, the bastards had not managed to take everything from me.
The female was smacking a small handheld device in her palm. “Damn O2 Sensor must be busted,” she said. “It spiked up to normal, then dropped way below normal. If this were right, she’d be dead.”
I felt the burning dots that indicated someone was aiming at me and looked up. There were two military types in front of me; a short, broad-shouldered man in military camouflage, flak jacket, and a helmet was aiming a rifle at me. I recognized him instantly as the bastard who had thrown the baby at me.
On his shoulder was a strange patch. It had a little red devil, what was he called? Yes, Hot Stuff, the little devil. Above the patch were the letters WHM.
His companion was a taller woman in matching uniform. Only she was holding a pistol aimed at me.
Each was wearing a black plastic oxygen mask, with a tube trailing out behind that attached to a bulkhead outlet.
I maintained my eyelid’s half-closed position and peered at them as if still affected by the low oxygen.
I was planning on how to kill them when the woman said, “None of the other werewolves could stay awake at this altitude.”
I bet none of the other werewolves could do magic, either. Let’s just keep that a secret, I thought. I sniffed again to be sure, but my first survey had been correct, there were no other werewolves on this aircraft. Had this military organization been capturing werewolves?
They both stared at me, suspicion flaring. I slurred out, “Bitch, I run marathons in Denver. This is nothing.” Then I allowed my head to roll forward as if I had collapsed again.
Speaking loudly to be heard over the roaring engines, the man said, “Prisoner, you will obey all orders. Any attempt to escape or cause trouble will result in your execution. You will keep your mouth shut and obey all orders. Am I clear?” The last was delivered as a shout. OK, he wasn’t going to let me play dead anymore.
I took a deep whiff, and my wolf sized him up. A mixture of sweat, synthetic testosterone, and tobacco. His eyes had the glazed look of a fanatic as he stared inyo my eyes, expecting me to avert my gaze. No problem for us. I held his gaze long enough for him to feel uncomfortable, then I snorted and turned my attention to the female.
She was a standard human female, in good shape, but with no chemical enhancements. Still, the hand that held the pistol, a .45 automatic, had no trace of tremor. She was prepared to shoot.
“I’M TALKING TO YOU, PRISONER,” shouted GI Joe. I raised my hands, still bound together by the manacles and held one finger up in a shushing motion. His eyes bulged, and his face got red.
As the idiot took a deep breath to shout again, I asked the woman, “Is the baby OK?”
Let's see; the cover's ready, the book is in progress, I'm having fun writing. What else is there to do? Set a release date, of course. I'm looking at a June 10th release date. That will be right after books one and two are released.
I will be dong a cover reveal of the third book next month. I might also throw in another sample chapter to keep everyone interested. I love writing this series, and I hope to keep writing it for a very long time.
I hope you enjoyed the excerpt from the third book, please sign up for my newsletter to keep informed as to any changes or further updates to the series.
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