After many long weeks, I am finally posting an excerpt. I know I made an excerpt post a couple of weeks ago, but that, doesn’t count. Still, it must have good. A few of you liked it enough to hit the like button. =^.^=
This week’s excerpt is coming out of my next novel, Society of Night and Lies. This comes from the end of chapter eight when Jason finds out why Sabrina has him trapped in the bedroom of the apartment she and her associate Mindy areusing as a safe house.
“Who would guess that I would love growing things and seeing what they could do together or on their own. My studies showed me how to mix teas and powders to make people well or sick. I learned which plants could harm, and which could kill. He encouraged me to learn everything I could and experiment. He went so far as to make a rooftop garden for me and set aside one of the unused rooms so I could experiment with the different plants.” A long sigh escaped her as she slowly turned to face him, her eyes sad and filled with unshed tears. “Little did I know that he would use what I learned to get rid of a few people.”
Jason’s ears stood straight up, straining toward the feline while she spoke. He could hear the excitement still in her voice when she first started her tail. He could hear how much she loved studying plants and their properties. But, he wasn’t prepared for the sense of betrayal he saw in her eyes and the tears resonating in her voice. His heart went out to her in that moment when she looked at him. “Who is this man you’re talking about, Ree? What did he do to you?” Other than give her an easy life where she could spend time doing what she loved.
Blinking several times, Sabrina stared at him. Though it never showed, she hated the very person she mentioned. However much she regretted her decision to follow him into the lap of luxury and learning, she couldn’t deny that she did have a few moments when the silver lining could be seen clearly through the training. Still, the tight control in her voice could not be hidden when she spoke. “The man who ordered me to kill you, Gerin van Houne.”
To say he was stunned would have been an understatement. His jaw hung open and his eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets as he leaned forward in his chair. The grip he had on the arms of the chair had his knuckles as white as his teeth. Little more than stuttered gibberish was uttered in his astoundment. “No fucking way! THE Gerin van Houne took you in and taught you all you know?” He just managed to speak around the sputtering and spit.
She watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he worked his jaw and went into a tizzy over what she just told him. In fact, she was strangely calm while she watched him pace the few steps between the bed and the window. All she did was watch him, waiting for him to make a wrong move toward her and wondering if she could hurt a friend.
“That would be him.” She narrowed her eyes slightly when he came a little too close with his wildly flailing hands. “The philanthropist everyone fawns over when he decides to step out of the shadows. The public doesn’t see the darker side his students get to see. He’s… to put it simply, not what he makes himself out to be.”
He stopped the moment she spoke and stared at her. All he knew about Gerin van Houne he heard in the news and from the few dealings his parents had with him before they died. “I can’t believe that. There’s no way.” He looked at her, seeing the grim determination written in the tilt of her ears and the slow swish of her tail, even the creases of her expression held same seriousness. “And yet, you were taught by him?”
With a slow shake of her head, she relaxed and motioned for him to sit again. “He didn’t teach me, per sé. He paid to have me taught. Gerin has in his employment several high ranking teachers to show his ‘children’ how to fight, kill, and dig up any kind of information on anyone. If there was anything we needed, we had the contacts to get it and as quickly as we wanted it all because of him.”
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