Poor Cassie. She’s surrounded by epically talented immortal
superheroes, and she’s a healer who flunked out of her medical residency. Mortal,
weak, and with high-profile celebrities in the family, she’s stuck with a
bodyguard 24/7.
The good news? It’s Jack MacGunn, the dazzling
Atlas-lookalike berserker warrior she’s had a crush on since a girl. The bad
news? He won’t breathe a word about what’s going on, even when Cassie finds
herself in the middle of a private war with an enemy who’s oh-so out of her
league.
Being someone who learns almost everything “the hard way,” I
sympathize with the feeling that everyone else has a Logical Humanity 101
manual, and I’m reading a comic book instead. In this excerpt, Jack and Cassie are
preparing to leave on a dangerous mission. Cassie has no choice but to keep up
with Jack and his squad of Navy SEALs.
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“I can’t believe I’m
getting you into this.” His combat
vest already fastened, he strapped on small-handled throwing knives, serrated
combat knives and one nasty-looking machete between his shoulders. “I’ll
brief you in a sec. Here, put this on.” Kevlar, in size huge.
She put it down. If Jack
expected to need a grenade launcher, then a bullet-proof vest would do her no
good.
He huffed irritably and
strapped it on her with rough movements. He flared his nostrils and
complained in a growl, “You smell like heaven, Cass. It’s torturing me.”
She had no idea what to say
to that. She’d been in a medical clinic all night and needed a shower.
Behind rows of climbing
gear she saw him unlocking fireproof cabinets piled with C-4 and other
components for plastic explosives.
When Jack smeared camo
paint on his face, Cassie couldn’t stand not knowing. “So, which third-world
army are you taking on single-handedly?”
“We.
Idiotic, but I am taking you. Because I can’t leave you here. That’s what he
wants, it’s a trap. I can feel it in my gut.” He tossed her a holster. It looked like bad lingerie, with black straps hanging at odd angles—
“Thigh holster—biggest
strap around your waist. You okay with a forty-caliber, honey?” He racked the
slide of a Springfield XD, grabbed its magazines and swore again, in Gaelic.
“I wish I’d taken you out shooting more. Just point and click, okay?”
She loaded the clips with
menacing hollow-point bullets, thinking about the purpose of the weapon, an
abstract concept until now. She’d always imagined hay bales and milk jugs,
not a human body. Her throat closed and her blood chilled, washing her with a
shocking paralysis before she wrestled it under control. No time to freak
out.
Jack glanced and must have
noticed her stricken expression. He kissed her once, short and rough but hot.
“Five minutes.” He nodded at the ammo in her hands. “In combat there’s no
time to sight. You aim with the barrel, okay? Three rounds into center mass.”
He pantomimed shooting a triangle in the air.
Center mass, the opponent’s
heart. He really thought she was going to have to kill people with this gun.
In five minutes.
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We all say we’d do anything for the ones we love; it was
interesting to write a character in a position of having to prove it. I’ve
never had to fight in combat, but I’ll take veterans at their word when they
explain how holding on to what you care about makes you braver. I won’t spoil
the surprise, but Cassie does find her inspiration.
The Valkyrie’s Guardian
Moriah Densley
Moriah Densley
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Publisher: Crimson Romance / F+W Media
ISBN: 1440551375
ISBN13: 9781440551376
Number of pages: 300
Word Count: 91K
Book Description:
Cassiopeia Noyon is descended from the most powerful known extra-sentient, but she’s a dud – no impressive talents except a healing ability which lands her in trouble. She’s all wrong for Jack MacGunn, her dazzling immortal berserker bodyguard.
Cassiopeia Noyon has a medical degree at age twenty-one, which makes her a total loser … for an extra-sentient with merely superhuman strength and healing powers but not much else. Cassie may not even be immortal, which is a downer since the man she’s adored since age six, is.
Jack MacGunn is King of the Bad Pick-Up Line. A true blue kilt-wearing, pipe-playing Scot descended from a long line of berserker warriors; if he’s awake, he’s either hungry or itching for a fight. Lately Jack feels lost. His career as a Navy SEAL detachment agent is on a slow train to nowhere. He suspects it has something to do with his out-of-control superhuman rages.
The one task Jack has never failed at is guarding Cassie from their enemies, but now he fears he can’t protect her from himself. Even if they could go a single day without fighting, Jack knows he’ll never be good enough for her. The boss’ granddaughter is off-limits anyway.
A chance encounter with a villain long assumed dead sends Jack and Cassie on a race to save the children secreted away at Network One, the academy for genius extra-sentients. Jack discovers a new side of Cassie when in the heat of combat she invokes unheard-of powers. Has Jack finally met his match?
Read Chapter 1 free: http://moriahdensley.com/chapter-1-the-valkries-guardian/
Author Bio:
2012 RWA Golden Heart finalist Moriah Densley sees nothing odd at all about keeping both a violin case and a range bag stuffed with pistols in the back seat of her car. They hold up the stack of books in the middle, of course. She enjoys writing about Victorians, assassins, and geeks. Her muses are summoned by the smell of chocolate, usually at odd hours of the night. By day her alter ego is your friendly neighborhood music teacher. Moriah lives in Las Vegas with her husband
Website + blog: http://moriahdensley.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MoriahDensley
Twitter: http://twitter.com/moriahdensley
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/moriahdensley/
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