WIP Wednesday Bryn Donovan #paranormal romance #supernatural

This post contains spoilers for my novel The Phoenix Codex. Just thought you should know!

Hey, everyone! Happy 4th of July to my U.S. readers!

I am so sorry that this is going up in the middle of the afternoon instead of first thing in the morning, like usual. The holiday threw me off, since I usually work during the week. All day, I was thinking it was Saturday!

I’ll go ahead and share an excerpt of a work in progress, and you can share one of your own in the comments section. 500 words or less, please, with no explicit sexual content. We don’t critique each other’s work here, even with the best of intentions, because we’re often sharing work that’s not ready for beta readers yet. However, encouraging words are always welcome!

Today, I’m going to share an excerpt from chapter one of The Equinox Stone, the sequel to The Phoenix Codex.

In chapter one, Michael West was walking naked in a freezing high desert, with no clue about who he was or how he got there. He got rescued by two men and a woman who were initially hostile toward him until they verified his identity.

 

 

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He said to the driver, “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Your name’s Michael West. I’m Jonathan West, I’m your brother.”

“You’re…” This didn’t seem right. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

The woman in the backseat said, “Look in the mirror.”

He flipped down the visor over the seat and then turned on the light over the dashboard to see better. He was white, with blue eyes and light brown hair, the same age as Jonathan—or younger, maybe? In the cast of his features he could see a resemblance, but that wasn’t the reason his stomach did a sick roll.

This was his face? He’d never seen it before in his life. After being lost and freezing, threatened with guns, and having his brain messed with somehow, for the first time he felt as though he were in a nightmare.

My memory will come back. Then everything will feel better. He took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“You all right?” his brother asked.

“Michael West,” he repeated, and glanced in the backseat again. “And he’s Nic.”

“Yeah, Dominic Joe,” Jonathan said. “He’s uh, we work together.”

“I’m Cassie,” the woman told Michael. “I work with them, too. Well, this was my first time. Jonathan’s told me so much about you!”

“We don’t know each other?” Michael asked.

“No! You were… He should explain.”

Michael took another long drink of the ginger tea. It seemed to be settling his stomach. Jonathan took a deep breath and exhaled. “You and I were up here on the mesa to fight a demon.”

Michael stared at him. “Why were we doing that?”

“Because we’re Knights.” When Michael didn’t respond, he clarified. “It’s our job.”

“So…” He couldn’t figure out which of the dozen questions swirling in his mind to ask first. “Go on.”

Jonathan kept his eyes fixed the road ahead. “I have some shielding ability. But the demon hit me hard, and my control slipped. It took over your body and then—blew you up.”

Michael waited for this to make sense in his mind, or for Jonathan to explain further. Neither of these things happened. “What do you mean, blew me up?”

Jonathan’s jaw twitched. “I mean you exploded in a cloud of dust in front of my eyes.”

This was the craziest thing he’d ever heard. “A demon can’t do that.” Throw you off a balcony, make you shoot yourself or your best friend, sure, but turn you into a tolvanera? Impossible.

“This one could.” Jonathan looked over at him. “You don’t remember at all?”

Anger flashed through him. “This is all some kind of mindfuck.” It would be easy to grab his gun right now, while he was driving and distracted. “No, I don’t remember. It didn’t happen!”

“I wish.” The sincerity behind his words stopped Michael’s temper short. Jonathan had apologized earlier, and he hadn’t understood why.

“How long ago?”

“Forty-three days.”

Michael’s suspicion couldn’t rest. “Why would you know exactly how many days?”

“Because you’re my brother.”

 

WIP Wednesday Bryn Donovan #paranormal romance #supernatural

 

Please share some of your work below, if you like–we’d love to see it! If you just want to chat about how your writing is going this summer, or if you’d rather not comment, that’s fine, too. Thank you for stopping by, and happy writing!

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