Snippet Saturday – Setting
Nov
5
2011

How about a scene from CHAOS BURNING, the follow up to HEART OF DARKNESS?

From the “always fabulous Lauren Dane”* comes her new novel of a treacherous family legacy, a temptation just as dangerous, and an evil so depraved it can only be spoken of in whispers…

The life of Lark Jaansen, hunter in Clan Gennessee, has been shaped by violence and unrest—and it defines her future. Well-trained and resilient, she’s met her militaristic match in Simon Leviathan, a warrior not of this world. Locked in mutual admiration, and a desire so hot it burns, Lark and Simon have something else in common: they love the dark, and as a shadow is cast over their world, they’re each coming into their own.

A mysterious war has been waged among the Others. As witches and humans turn against each other, as fae retreat in fear, and as vampires rise, Lark and Simon discover that an unseen force is behind it. A single, hungry entity older than recorded history has returned to gorge on the magick of his victims. He is the Magister, nothing less than the end of time. Finding him is Lark and Simon’s first hope. Surviving him is their last

BOUND BY MAGICK: CHAOS BURNING by LAUREN DANE
Copyright 2012, Lauren Dane
All Rights Reserved, The Berkley Publishing Group
Releasing June 2012!

“I’m all right, Simon. I just need to go to the gardens on the roof. I need to recharge a little.”

“I’ll come with you. You can take energy from me. I know you can.” He stabbed the elevator button.

“I don’t need to.”

He indicated she proceed him into the elevator. “It seems to me that you’re refusing me unnecessarily.”

She was silent for the rest of the trip up.

“It seems to me you don’t like being refused.” She sauntered through the doors and out onto the large deck surrounded by lush gardens. She put her bag down and then right in front of him she bent and took off her boots and then her tights.

“You’re going to get cold.” He brushed his fingertips against her cheek as she blinked up at him.

“I need to have my feet in the earth.” She took a step back and sucked in a deep breath.

He watched as she stepped from the deck and into the garden. Her fingertips trailed over the leaves, over the velvety softness of the petals of the flowers. The moon hung low and the promise of dawn was just ahead and the light of it seemed to glisten over her skin.

He’d never seen a witch draw energy before. Not outside battle like the one they’d had in a warehouse just months before. That had been frenzied and violent.

This witch pulled power from the earth and the air all around her. Teasing, sensual, it was if she charmed the ambient magick all around into filling her reserves.

He could see it, the magick, as she absorbed it. Her normally bright blue energy deepened as she took the magick in.

Right then, she was more pixie than witch, he thought as she smiled, crushing something between her fingers. “Meriel’s father has such a gift.” She inhaled and gestured toward him.

Mint? “It’s December.”

“Take a look around here. He’s got roses blooming. In December. The earth up here is so happy.”

He paused to think, paused to listen to everything around him. Much like she did, he realized. Yes, it felt—he took a deep breath and took his shoes and socks off, following her. “Yes, it does. But so far up here, who’d have thought?”

“It’s a well loved spot.” She spun and looked up at the sky. “That means something.”

A contradiction. So many to this woman. An hour ago she’d been in a fight in a parking lot and had taken down two men. Besting them not only physically, but with her magick. And yet she skipped, barefoot through the grass, laughing as she paused to touch or smell.

“We come out here to center ourselves and to focus. The gardens are supercharged and we’re the batteries. So far up here and she’s still living and breathing and taking care of us.”

She turned, her smile sending a bolt of heat through him. “Can you feel it?”

He sucked in a breath and all he got was her. That warm, spicy magick that was only Lark.

He felt it all right. And he was in big trouble.

“When I was a little girl, my mother would take me and my sister out into the backyard and we’d leave honey water out for the fairies.” She bent to press her face to an explosion of blooms and breathed in deep. “Imagine my delight to find out there were actual Fae, though I was very sad to hear they weren’t tiny. I think this garden needs some fairy doors and honey water.”

“You’re a very random woman.”

Surprised, she laughed, taking his hands and squeezing. “I’m not. You just don’t hear the context change because I’m having a conversation in my head.” She kept one of his hands and drew him to a nearby tree and then knelt.

He followed.

“I saw this tree and I thought of the little doors my mother made for the trees. Placed here like so.” She pointed at the base. “Like a door into the tree.”

“You get the whimsy from her. Your mother.”

“Yes. I got my right hook from my father.”

Be Sure to Visit Today’s Other Snippeters:

Lauren Dane
Anne Rainey
Mari Carr
McKenna Jeffries
Myla Jackson
Selena Blake
Taige Crenshaw
Vivian Arend
Delilah Devlin
HelenKay Dimon

4 comments to “Snippet Saturday – Setting”

  1. Christine
    November 5th, 2011 at 6:15 am · Link

    That was great. Can’t wait to read more about Simon & Lark. Loved the excerpt at the end of Heart of Darkness.



  2. Louise
    November 5th, 2011 at 9:14 am · Link

    Awesome. Thank you! This book looks so cool.

    And, um, snort! “I got my right hook from my father.”



  3. Cecile
    November 5th, 2011 at 4:50 pm · Link

    You are such a tease!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love it!!!!



  4. Grace S
    November 5th, 2011 at 8:38 pm · Link

    Heart of Darkness was awesome…..you are such an effortless word builder!

    Please tell us Gage is getting a book…..please? 🙂



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