Hi! I've decided to post a few older books that seem to be doing quite well at Fictionwise for me. And I'll admit, I'm in LOVE with the dude on this cover. I love all the covers I've had for my books, but Winner Takes All is my favorite.This is one of my futuristic books about a race of beings called the Thesha and takes place in the Vrail System, where several of my futuristics for New Concepts Publishing have been set.
Funny backstory, and it's short, I promise. I first wrote Blackthorne's Light for NCP in 2004. I followed it with my first futuristic, a genre I just LOVE, entitled Lurin's Surrender, which I initially wrote as a short story. But the characters wanted more, so I fleshed it out into a 35K word book. Long story short, one of the characters who popped in out of nowhere was Gren, a mysterious captain who helps Lurin out of a tight spot. What intially started out as a small role took on a much larger one, until that dratted Gren had to have his own story. Thus he takes center stage in Winner Takes All. I really liked Gren, but he rubbed off on some of my other characters, unbeknownst to me. Two minor characters in his book demand their own story in Seriana Found, which I'll post at a later time. Those darned Thesha...
In trying to rescue a group of women from the slaver’s block, a female peacemaker with something to prove discovers the woman within herself after being assigned to work with a mysterious mercenary she is unable to deny.
***
“Where am I?” Temis asked aloud.
“You’ve come to fight, have you not?” a familiar voice called from the darkness in the forest.
She waited curiously, knowing yet not aware how she knew, that Gren approached.
He appeared uninjured, as if his fight earlier with the peacemakers had not occurred. Wearing only the swimming trousers she’d first seen him in, he walked lazily, like a cat stalking its prey, toward her.
He stopped in front of her, smiling, his eyes lingering over her breasts and thighs before returning to meet her confused gaze.
“You like to fight.”
She nodded. “But where am I?”
“In a dream.”
“But I command my dreams, and this is not Zephyr.”
Gren’s left eyebrow rose, an arrogant gesture that irritated her. “We stand in a fighting ring.” He crossed his arms, his biceps bulging. “What now, sura?”
She wasn’t sure what sura meant, but on Gren’s lips it sounded suspiciously like an endearment. Did he dare dismiss her as some piece of fluff on fighting grounds?
“Now we fight.”
He grinned, and the curl of his lips caused her heart to flutter. A curious heat pooled in her loins and to her horror she found herself fixated on the fullness of his mouth.
“If it’s a fight you want, sura, I’ll be happy to oblige,” he murmured sensuously. “Hand to hand?”
Imagining Gren’s hands all over her made her flush, and she shook her head. “Blunt weaponry.”
She didn’t understand why Gren had appeared in her dream at all, but decided to accept his presence. Since meeting him she’d been unable to strike the imposing man from her thoughts and unruly imagination. Perhaps her subconscious sensed this and chose to confront the source of her recent confusion head-on.
He flexed his arms and she stared at his muscular perfection. “I like risks, but if it’s practice you want, I accept. The winner chooses the prize.”
She frowned. “But you could demand anything.”
“And I will when I win,” he said with a wink.
***
Smiles :)
Marie
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