Fantasy

She Made her choice

Hi Readers,

We’re in edit mode this week as we work on the corrections from our editor for His Angelic Keeper Tempted. It publishes on December 31!

It’s so exciting! The end of His Angelic Keeper Tempted will overlap with the beginning of Curse Breaker Trapped and include some some scenes from Trapped, and that is so exciting because those scenes can’t change in Trapped.

Trapped might be getting a little long, and the Scribe might be looking for ways to curb our enthusiasm, but we’re fighting that as usual. We want all the page time we can get for your enjoyment.

But we did get the Scribe to agree to write and publish two Curse Breaker books in 2022! I don’t know if they’ll publish back to back, but we’ll see!

And now it’s my pleasure to return you to our preview of His Angelic Keeper Fallen, so I can go back to drawing red lines through its sequel. *evil laugh*

Okay maybe not… My aunt, the star of the book, is giving me the hairy eyeball. Maybe I’ll just cross out the typos and right the correct word above it.

This is Ran, Sovvan’s nephew, and I might need to hide under the table while you read the next installment of:

His Angelic Keeper Fallen

by Melinda Kucsera

She hadn’t given him a choice, and there was no point regretting that now. Mom had made her choice.

And I’ve made mine. I’ll find you, Mom. You’d do the same for me. But she’d probably do it with more violence. His mother wasn’t a patient woman. Fedre gazed into the fire, dancing on his palm. It didn’t burn him because Mom was a fire goddess, so her children had some immunity to fire. He thought of his mother, but her image didn’t appear in the flame. Instead, the fire winked out before he could see anything at all.

Either the energies here were still too disturbed to view the future, or it hadn’t settled on an outcome yet. Either way, Fedre couldn’t see anything until the future settled on a course. There was one other scenario, but he refused to consider it. His mother had lived many, many centuries. She couldn’t be dead. His heart rejected the mere suggestion of that. “Mom is still alive.” He fisted his empty hands.

“You know that for a fact?” Faylon studied his face, but her own remained impassive, betraying no hint of her thoughts.

“No, but I feel it here.” Fedre tapped his chest. “She must be alive. We’d know if she wasn’t. She gave up a lot of her powers, but someone would still have to take over as the Final Fate, right?” Fedre waited while his sister considered that. This wasn’t something Mom had ever discussed, but it made sense. Damn it. He wanted that to be true.

Fedre thought of his littlest half-brother. Phare desperately needed his mother. “We have to find her. We need to know what happened to her.” He owed her that much for bringing him into the world and giving him the best life a son could have. Fedre swallowed all the emotions those thoughts brought up. He didn’t have time to deal with them. He could grieve later if grieving was warranted.

“What about Sovvan?” Four asked, reminding them that their mother wasn’t the only woman in trouble. The elephantine Memory-Eater shifted from foot to foot. “Who will help her?”

Fedre caught his sister’s eye and knew she was thinking the same thing. “We can help her, but our family must come first.” Fedre pounded his fist into his thigh.

Sovvan would understand. He had a feeling she would do the same if their roles were reversed. And if they saved their mom from certain doom, she might be in a good enough mood to forget all about their ill-fated trip to Hell. Fedre didn’t want to be grounded for the rest of his life.

“What will you do?” Fedre asked Rachielle. He didn’t know whether to hope the angel would stick around, or hope she’d volunteer to help Sovvan.

Rachielle touched the sword sheathed at her hip. “I guess I need to go report this. Somebody needs to know what happened here, and what could have happened if we hadn’t prevented it.”

“So, you’re not going to help Sovvan?” Who knew what her ex-guardian angel had planned for her. Fedre hoped they could reach her in time to make a difference. He had a feeling she needed help right now, but she was on her own for now. I’m sorry, Sovvan.

“I’d like to help her, but I can’t leave my post except to deliver that report unless someone orders me to leave, and no one has. That’s why I need to go tell someone and let them decide what to do now.” Rachielle shifted her weight, and her white wings appeared behind her.

“What about you?” Fedre asked Four.

The elephant shook her head. “I can’t help you. My duty only encompasses the Gray Between and this place, and I also need to report what happened here to my people.”

“What then? Will you help Sovvan?” Faylon rested her chin on her fist and blinked to stay awake. She must have used up a ton of energy when she’d shifted into a dragon to take down the gateway. But she had no way to recharge while she was here.

“I can’t help her, not unless she’s in the Gray Between, and I doubt she’s there.” Four’s liquid eyes were pensive, but her trunk and tail had stopped swinging.

“The Gray Between sounds like a good place to start our search. What do you think, bro?” Faylon stifled a yawn.

“Why there?” That seemed to Fedre like an odd place to look for their mother.

“Because it’s a crossroads between worlds, and every realm connects to it. Mom could have ended up there when the gateway unraveled.” Faylon leaned forward and stretched her back like a cat.

“I didn’t think of that.” But now that Fedre was, it sounded like the perfect place to start their search. Better than a trip back to Hell, which was the only other alternative.

“Exactly. We need to go there anyway if we want to go anywhere else.” Faylon rose. She was still petite, like their mother. It still boggled his mind that there was a dragon stuffed somewhere inside her small frame.

“So how do we get there?” Fedre stretched his back. Four’s people were the guardians of the Gray Between. Would they let them search their realm? Or would she and the other overzealous protectors of that place try to throw them out again?

Four didn’t volunteer to transport them. The Memory-Eater glanced away and wouldn’t meet his gaze. Well, that just left his sister. She transported them from their home to the Gray Between in the first place. Hopefully, she could get them back there, even drained as she was. Otherwise, this rescue would be over before it had begun.

***

Get His Angelic Keeper Fallen today to continue this fun adventure. We’ll be back with more on Monday.  Until then, stay safe.

–Sincerely, Ran, son of Sarn, and the Scribe, Melinda K.


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