A week away... - SHILOH WALKER

Excerpt

“In my line of work, how often do you think I tell people my name, Tia?” he snapped, irritation coming through loud and clear.

It amused me, satisfied something in me I hadn’t even known existed and I found myself giving him a look of wide-eyed confusion and the sort of puzzled smile Bianca liked to give people when she was about to teach them a lesson in what she called Smart-Ass 101. “I really couldn’t say because I’m not familiar with your line of work, Mr.…?”

He snarled, then abruptly started to laugh. “You hid that sarcastic bitch very well. Call me Spectre.”

“Is that a first or last name?”

“Neither.” He shot me a level look. “And I expect you know it.”

Instead of answering, I looked back out the window. I did it in time to see a sign, green and white, marked with the upcoming cities. “Where are we going?”

“I’d rather not tell you that,” he said softly.

A headache started to pulse behind my eyes and I pinched the bridge of my nose.

“When are you going to let me call my brother?”

“I have a secure sat phone at our target destination. I’ll call him from there and you can speak to him briefly.” He shot me a narrow look before returning his attention back to the road. “You’re not allowed to give him any information about where we are. I’ll end the call the second you try.”

“Perhaps you should try couching that in some other terms, Casper,” I said sharply. “I don’t respond to not allowed very well.”

He was quiet for a long, long moment, so long that I shifted in my seat to give him a wary look. He had a puzzled frown on his face and after a few seconds, he asked, “Why did you call me Casper?”

“Spectre…ghost.” I waved at him.

“I’m not following.”

I blinked. “Are you serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? What does Spectre, or ghost, have to do with the name Casper?”

“Were you dropped onto this planet by aliens?” I asked. “Or have you never seen cartoons before?”

My first comment had teased the start of a smile from him, but by the time I finished talking, the smile had faded. And unless I was mistaken, there was a faint but unmistakable tension now, in the strong line of his lean shoulders, in the forearms, left bare by the rolled-up sleeves of a plain denim workshirt.

“My childhood didn’t allow much time to indulge in cartoons, I’m afraid,” he said.

There were entire untold stories there, delivered in those simple words, in his bland, emotionless voice.

But for some reason, they left a strange ache in my chest. No, I told myself. He can’t make things in your chest ache, damn it.

“That’s kind of sad. Explains a lot, though.”

I directed my attention back to the front window and stared at the filthy back doors of a semitruck. Somebody had scrawled a giant smiley face through the dirt. Casually, I looked at the license plate and committed it to memory, then noted the time on the clock. It wasn’t much of a reference point but if I could get enough licenses stored in my memory, and a rough idea of the time, I’d have something to give my brother. I didn’t know how I’d pass the information on, but I’d worry about that later. Right now, I needed to focus on creating a moving path of breadcrumbs across the middle of America.

“What does it explain?”

His voice distracted me. Irritated, I looked away from the green Hyundai I’d picked out even as I’d tried to more carefully form a plan. Still in its abstract, the idea fell apart and I scowled at him. “What?”

“The cartoons I’ve never watched. What does it explain?”

This time there was something in his voice, an odd, almost wistful sort of curiosity and damn if that didn’t make that ache in my chest expand. Irritated even more, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at the filthy semi with enough intensity that my will alone should have melted through the steel.

“That’s easy. It explains why you have more in common with a droid than a person. What kind of kid doesn’t have time to indulge in cartoons? Was your daddy too busy trying to build you into the ultimate assassin or something?”

Spectre’s mouth tightened. “No, Tia. His intentions were to make me into the ultimate monster. That’s even worse than an assassin.”

The ache in my chest was gone now, replaced by an awful cold.

I wished I hadn’t flung that last bit out at him. But it was too late to take it back.

Night Blade- shows a young woman with a sword against a dark nightscape.

Night Blade # 2

Kit Colbana is always biting off more than she can chew. She has a knack for finding trouble. This time, though, trouble finds her. Someone from her past drops a case into her lap that she just can’t refuse…literally.

People on the Council are dying left and right and she’s been requested to investigate the deaths. The number one suspect? Her lover, Damon. If she doesn’t clear his name, he gets a death sentence. Even if she succeeds? They still might try to execute him. Oh, and she’s not allowed to tell him about the case, either.

The stakes are high this time around, higher than they’ve ever been. Kit may be forced to pay the ultimate price to save her lover’s life…a price that could destroy her and everything she loves.

Broken Blade #3

Broken Blade- shows a young woman with a sword, looking despondent

Kit Colbana: assassin, thief, investigator extraordinaire. Now broken.

She always expected her past to catch up with her but never like this. Haunted by nightmares and stripped of her identity, she’s retreated to Wolf Haven, the no-man’s land where she found refuge years before. But while she might want to hide away from the rest of the world, the rest of the world isn’t taking the hint.

Dragged kicking and screaming back into life, Kit is thrust head-first into an investigation surrounding the theft of an ancient relic…one that she wants nothing to do with. Her instincts tell her it’s a bad idea to just leave the relic lying about, but finding it might be just as bad.

Forced to face her nightmares, she uncovers hidden strength and comes face to face with one of the world’s original monsters.

If she survives the job, she won’t be the same…and neither will those closest to her.

A dd on Goodreads

Edged Blade #4

Edged Blade - shows a young woman with a sword against a magical background

In the year since her life was torn apart, Kit Colbana has slowly rebuilt herself. There’s a promise of hope in the relationship with the alpha of the local shapeshifters and she no longer comes screaming into wakefulness. Life’s not perfect but then again, when was it ever?

When her best friend Justin comes to her for help, there’s little question as to what her answer will be. Witches are disappearing and Justin won’t rest until he has answers. Soon, they learn that it’s not just witches who’ve gone missing, but vampires and shifters, too.

Unlikely alliances are forged as Kit and Justin found themselves drawn into a twisted web of lies and betrayal. As the clock counts down and the culprit behind recent disappearances is revealed, those Kit loves the most become the target of somebody who will kill to protect an ugly secret.

Shadowed Blade #5

Something wicked this way comes…

J.C. Daniels Books Shows a young blonde woman on railroad tracks leading into the sunset holding a sword in her hands. Kit Colbana Shadowed Blade

The arrival of a very important person in her office seemed to be the start of a lot of problems for Kit Colbana, investigator extraordinaire. Claiming that he needed somebody with her special skillset, he sends her on a series of jobs that made little to no sense until one culminated with both her and her partner, Justin barely escaping with their lives.

Back in Orlando, they go their separate ways to recover, Justin heading to the house of a local witch, while Kit returns to the Lair, where she’s recently been living with her lover Damon, the Alpha of the Southern Cat Clans.

There’s barely a chance for Kit to catch her breath before trouble of the highest order comes knocking on her door. This time, it’s the form of a psychic by the name of Nova. Nova has bad, bad news…Justin has gone missing and so has the witch who was going to put him up while he healed. Colleen, one of Kit’s closest, dearest friends.

With all sorts of non-humans disappearing, fury doesn’t even touch what Kit is feeling as she heads out to hunt down the people responsible.

But Kit isn’t the only one out on a hunt…somebody is hunting for her…somebody Kit would rather never, ever see again.

Haunted Blade #6

J.C. Daniels Books A young woman kneeling on train tracks in a spectral looking forest. has a blade in her hand.
Text reads: Haunted Blade

Haunted, Hunted…and harassed

Never let it be said that Kit Colbana had ever been given the easy road. Or even the semi-paved road. Only weeks after dealing with the mysterious—and murderous—being called Puck, she’s got another killer on her hands. Perhaps even two. Some of the bodies turning up bring up haunting memories of a past she longs to forget, but as always, that past is chasing her at her heels, like a hated shadow.

As the body count racks up, there’s an imbalance of power, particularly among the vampire population, and Kit must yet again deal with ugly memories as one of the monsters who tried to break her is set free to deal with the imbalance of power.

Yet while a power struggle rages in East Orlando, there’s another, more subtle battle taking place and Kit feels like the center of it all.

Arrogant? Maybe. But the dead bodies don’t bear the mark of her grandmother’s pet killer by sheer coincidence…and she doubts her nemesis being released is either.

Blooded Blade #7

J.C. Daniels Books Blonde woman with tattoos holding a sword, against a bloody red sky

Kit Colbana—half breed, assassin, thief, jack of all trades. Master
of none.

Or so she’d always been led to believe.

Over the past few years, Kit Colbana has dispatched some of the worst
threats the non-human races could have imagined. Pandora—a mother of
monsters. Puck, a father of nightmares. Jude, a vampire who nearly drove
Kit to the brink of insanity.

Then there was the Lemera, an ages-old creature of myth, born from Kit’s
own people, an unseen, undead assassin that hunts without rest, kills
without remorse. Yet Kit walked away.

Her grandmother’s pet assassin failed to kill her so Kit wasn’t surprised
when yet another unwanted memory from her past shows up, looking to take
her down. But her blood-hungry, homicidal aunt disappeared without a trace
only hours after arrival.

Is it a reprieve? Or something far worse?

Kit’s lover Damon is keeping secrets. Her grandmother’s pet assassin, the
Lemera, seems to have taken a liking to Kit. And her grandmother, Kit’s own
worst nightmare, is haunting her dreams.

They’re all on a collision course with fate and it can only end one way…bloody.