Homecoming (Cloaked Devices) teaser

Hello friends! Thank you to everyone who took part in helping me with the cover reveal. I couldn't have done without you. *hugs* <3

So I would like to share with you an excerpt from "Homecoming". This is unedited version, please bear with me. :)

Words died on her lips as her head jerked up. Familiar green eyes glared down at her. And those lips carved into a hard line on an equally hard face! The bottom one was fuller than the upper lip, his jaw covered in a day-old stubble. The body was completely different from the one she remembered. The gangly, somewhat awkward boy she’d left back home was gone and in his place, a six foot five well muscled, broad shouldered male. His hair was cropped close to the scalp. His upper body was draped in a black knee—length coat, parted to reveal a white shirt, and a lime green buttoned up double-breasted vest that enhanced his eye colour.  Strong thighs wrapped in brown tight, buckskin trousers and black knee-length boots. And that face, sweet mother of all Saints! It resembled one carved out of marble the colour of honey. All hard planes and angles, right now edge with fury.

The floor of her stomach gave way and her heart plunged to her toes.

Those damn hinges squealed as the door clicked shut, jerking her from her perusal. The adrenaline that had acted as fuel before, drained as she stared into furious green eyes, more panther than human.

“Going somewhere, my runaway mate?”  

Oh dear saint of love! His voice had changed and was more deeper, rougher, and this moment,  reminding her of the troubled sea with a storm brewing on the horizon.

 

“Levian.”

At least her voice sounded confident. Not her heart though. The poor organ was beating wildly in her chest threatening to kill her before her seething mate got his large hands around her neck.

“Please come in.” Her mind grappled, searching for another escape route. None came to mind.

“Excellent,” he said, tilting his head gracefully to the side, and stepped inside the shop, his shoulders blocking anything beyond her line of sight. “I see you are in good health.”

He took a step forward, she took one back. He took another and she followed suit, it became a dance of sorts until she felt something dig into her tailbone. She’d hit the furthest shelf in the deepest part of the book shop.

Panic became a living thing.

During  the first year after she arrived in Varselles, she’d nearly driven herself to destruction, glancing over her shoulder every time. One year later, she’d stopped, knowing she’d succeeded in hiding well. She never bothered with a contingency plan. Staring into those glowing green eyes, she wondered at her stupidity.

She watched as he halted, slowly slid the leather gloves from his hands as if he had all the time in the world, then shoved them in his coat pocket. He flexed his fingers, his gaze roving her face, then settled for staring into her eyes. A series of emotions played across his face. What was he thinking? Other than probably strangling the daylights out of her?

His eyes dropped to her mouth, his nostrils flared, eyes dilating. Well, now she knew what he was thinking about.  Her tongue snuck out to wet her lips, grappling for words—any words— to keep the tension which was now a living, breathing thing, from swallowing her whole.

The past few years she’d dreamed of the day he’d look at her like this again—minus the fury simmering in his eyes.

 But now, with everything just hanging in the air—

He swallowed the inch of space between them and she tensed, at the same time swimming in his scent: like leather and that special soap he was fond of with its citrusy smell. His scent was rooted inside every little crevice in her body.

“You are not about to run off again, are you, Sera?”  Hearing her name spoken in that voice and those lips had her stomach clench and heat up at the same time.

Damn it! Why was her tongue stuck on the roof of her mouth? She was The Storm. She wasn’t famous for being scared easily. Now she was treading the  “unknown territory” and it made her want to flee at the same time, fling herself onto the hard body of her mate and just let nature take its course.

Calloused hands gripped her upper arms.

She tensed, but let the warmth seep into her skin. “We have to talk.”

He cocked a brow at her. “You don’t say.”

He brushed her cheeks with his knuckles, tracing her throat with his fingertips, and when he they skated the spot  on her nose that was dented, a souvenir from her first fight four years ago in her first fight in The Rings, she wasn’t sure she was breathing anymore. His hands slid lower to unhook her bag from her shoulder and tossed it on the closest table where it landed with a loud thud.

Without warning, his hand moved up to cup her neck firm, leaned down and buried his face into her neck, sniffing long and hard until she felt as if he’d breathed in every trace of her scent into his body.

“You still have my scent. Deep in your veins.” He sounded smug, satisfied.