Except from Saving Grace

Title: Saving Grace

Genre: paranormal romance

Release date: 2014

Blurb:

Grace is a woman running from her past to save her daughter, and Sebastian is a man willing to do anything to keep her safe. All she has to do is let him, but with the kidnapping of her daughter can she really trust this stranger to do the impossible? Can he bring back her daughter and then keep them safe? And what exactly does he mean by she’s his beloved?

-----------Teaser Excerpt----------

Sebastian sighed lowering his face against mine. Our head pressed together, lips barely grazing one another. I closed my eyes with heightened senses as his lips moved to speak running hot breath against me and awakening a tightening deep within me causing me to squirm under the grip of his other arm.

“Give me a name? Give me a location? Give me something to point me in your direction. Let me prove to you I am real,” he begged against me. I couldn’t move. My voice was locked away in a box within the base of my throat. He pressed harder against me. “I am Vampirium and have found my beloved, but this is almost too much to bear, seeing you so close and knowing not where you really are.”

“Let me find you,” he whispered. “Let me help fight off all of these fears and pain I feel boiling within your mind tearing at me as well.”

I cracked open my eyes. Again I wondered if it could be real. If any of it was real. “If only you could take it all away. Even for a moment,” I whispered back against his lips.

“I can. If you will let me,” he breathed in pulling my lips against his. I wrapped my arms around his neck lifting my body higher up against as he arched me back. Our bodies danced against one another.

I moaned into his mouth increasing the passion between us.

I had forgotten what it felt like to be kissed tenderly and with such force. To feel safe and alive all rolled up into one. For a moment it made me forget that none of this was real, but why should I care? Why take away from this perfect moment and ruin it with reality.

Let me have my fantasy. I deserve it.

I pulled away burring head into his neck where I kissed him softly. He stretched back in pleasure releasing a deep agonizing sigh before pulling my head back and holding me captivate by his glowing grey eyes.

“How was that?” Sebastian voice was rough. It sent a tingle into my ankles and up my thighs like walking on cold smooth rocks.

“That was nice,” I reached a finger up and touched his lips wanting another taste.

“Please find me,” he spoke in desperation. “If you will not give me your name or where to find you please come to me.”

“I’m right here.”

“No,” he replied softly and sadly. “You’re not my beloved. You are miles away from me.”

“Vampirium, beloved, confusion with reality, my mind sure has a way of sorting itself out.”

“There is a place, just like this, in Evens, Louisiana,” he started ignoring my comment. “You travel down highway 28 until you get to an intersection, turn left. Down there you will find yourself heading straight into Evans where there is a small school on your left and a gas station on your right. Turn there. Take that right and follow that road all the way to the end. It isn’t the most well-kept road, but it’s still a road. It will go from paved to gravel, to dirt, and when you think there’s nowhere else to go keep going. Follow a path just wide enough for a small car with brush on either side. It will lead you here. And to me.”

His voice lowered and my head spun.

“Will you just kiss me again?” I asked against my vampire guy when suddenly his face went skewed, his hands were no longer on me, and the world shifted. My eyes weighed heavy and my body leaned back. I fell into the darkness and the unknown, gasping for breath.

My eyes shot open to the panicked sound of my eight year old daughter’s voice. I turned fast in the bed, pulled free from the sheets, sat up, and pulled my little Penelope into my arms.

She was sobbing.

“What’s wrong? Penny?” I reached over, flicking a switch next to the bed, bringing dim light into the old hotel room. If the peeling paint outside our door wasn’t a sign of how cheep the hotel was that we were staying in than defiantly the disgusting décor, off color walls, and odd smelling pillows -which we used clothes under our heads instead- would do it.

But a mom’s got to do what a mom’s got to do to keep her girl safe, even if that meat waking up every night to comfort Penny’s sobs or look for the boogie man.

I searched for an answer to my daughter’s panic instantly looking around the room at the shut blinds, locked door, and then towards the bathroom, which was ajar. I couldn’t remember leaving it open and instantly my chest tightened.

I rubbed Penny’s head calming her down as I slid my hand across my thigh to the small nightstand where my gun was placed, and to my relief, still was on further discovery. I had never been fond of guns. Robert, my ex-boyfriend, always carried one or had one in the house, but I hated them. It wasn’t until I really considered the idea of running that I thought, no, I knew I would need one. Now I was carefully wrapping my fingers around the small bersa thunder which Robert called mine, but it wasn’t a gift, it was a death sentence. It was my little Grim Reaper he would sometimes joke and if I would ever leave him he would use this gun to hunt me down with.

Now it belonged to me. The Irony.

“I had a bad dream,” Penny buried her head deeper against me, but my attention was locked onto the bathroom door. Holding Penny with one arm and the gun with the other I slid out of bed.

“It’ll be okay baby,” I hushed her as I moved her into the chair in front of the small table.

“There was a man, and he was trying to hurt you,” Penny continue to sob.

“It’s okay, it was only a dream,” I comforted her as I made my way towards the bathroom. I lifted the gun quietly out in front of me cupping my other hand below the butt like I remembered them do in the early morning crimes shows I watched while Robert was out. Never did I think I would actually be trying to recall anything I saw on TV in real life, but boy was I feeling thankful right about now.

My heart slammed against my chest making every sound distorted and confusing. My breathing all but gone in the far reaching of my throat while I tried to remember not to keep my eyes open, don’t squeeze the trigger too hard, and yes, the safety is off.

I reached out and in one swift motion I pulled open the heavy door and flipped on the light.

Nothing.

I let out a ragged breath of air, lowered my gun, and looked back at my darling baby girl. Her feet were tucked against her chest, arms tightly around her knees, as she rambled on about what had happened in her dream. But as she continued I could see it all playing out before me.

It wasn’t a dream. Penny was remembering what had actually happened to me. I still had the scar were a bullet grazed me as I was attacked by one of Robert goons, friends, employees-whatever you want to call them.

I had never felt so terrified and enraged in all my life. Penny was asleep on the couch when they came barging in. Just two men was all he sent, if there had been more I would have been killed. Adrenaline flooded my system. I never heard him pull the trigger, but I did hear the impact in the wall behind me as I had fled into a bedroom, where I had two things.

I had a bottle of pepper spray and my gun I took when Rob ended up in prison. Needless to say I reached the pepper spray first as both men entered the room and the most terrifying part was I knew them. I had met both of the men before. It was then that I knew they were from Robert. It was then that I truly knew I was a goner as Robert’s soon-to-be Parlor officer entered the room.

But I was lucky.

I hesitate to remember every detail and it pained me more that Penny was aware of the whole thing and that it was haunting her each night.

The partially healed bullet graze against my side and under my arm ached. The wound, now four days old, had finally stopped bleeding. It had been easy to open the wound and I knew I should have sought out medical attention, but I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk who else knew about me, about us. I wasn’t going to stay in that dreaded state another day.

So we ran and here we were, in a cheap motel outside of Louisiana. Four days later. I call that an accomplishment.

But it’s not over with.

We have to get away. We have to get even farther away. I have to find a way to free my daughter.

That’s what they wanted. Robert wanted what was his, my little Penelope. God, how I wished I hadn’t ever gotten involved with a drug dealer. There was just no escaping him. If it wasn’t him, it was one of his friends who had been keeping tabs on us.

I thought we were safe. I thought I knew who I could trust. But this whole time he had been calling the shots. He had been the one in control just waiting as I tried to gather my things to leave him behind and just when I think we have a chance all hell breaks loose.

Not this time. He won’t get us this time. I’ll run until I find someone I can trust. Until I can find an officer who won’t just send me back to Florida for an outstanding Warrant pace out on me shortly after I left. We can’t go back.

I scooped Penny up into my arms again and moved her back to the bed we shared.

“He hurt you and I was so scared,” Penny rubbed deeply into her eyes. I gently took her small hands and pulled them away from her face with a smile.

“I’m okay,” I kissed her hands. “And you’re okay. No one is going to hurt us.”

“You promise?” her eyes were puffy and red. Her lips pushed out. I didn’t hesitate. I couldn’t afford to hesitate as I pulled her into my arms.

“Of course I promise.”

After another quiet minute I pulled back and made a funny face bringing a smile across her red face. And then I proceeded to turn into the tickle monster and wrestle her to the bed until she could barely breathe from laughter.

After a little rough housing it was back to bed, but this time with the light on and Penny tucked into my armpit like a kitten with cute little snores.

What were we going to do? That was a very good question.

I needed more time to think. I couldn’t go to the police, not just yet. I just need a little more time to work things out. We just need to get a little further out of his reach.

“Just a little further,” I breathed running my hand along Penny’s hair.

Even with such troubling thoughts exhaustion took over forcing me to leave my post and get some much needed rest, but first back to a certain dream…

~Brenda Franklin, author of The Pulse Trilogy and Guardian, A Fated Pairing.