Darkness Becomes Her
By Jaime Rush
Book Six of the Offspring Series
Avon Books, June 2012 (ISBN 978-0062018922)
A man beyond redemption. A woman beyond hope. And a battle that will either kill them…or bring them back from the edge.
Lachlan McLeod has a mission: find the beast who put his brother into a coma. He’ll start with Jessie Bellandre, his brother’s girlfriend, who’s harboring a dark, dangerous secret that could get them all killed. But as they plumb the depths of Darkness, and the light he didn’t know existed in the shadows of his heart, not falling in love with her will be as hard as staying alive.
SURPRISE CHARACTERS
One of the fun things about writing a series is when a character you envision being in the background jumps to the foreground. Or in the case of Cheveyo, jumps into the story unexpectedly. Lachlan McLeod was one of those characters, too. Poor chap’s been through a lot. But I’ll let him explain that in an excerpt from the book:
“My father was fascinated by slime molds, unclassified blobs of biological material. He especially loved when he found powdre ser where a meteor had landed. One day, he tracked what he thought was a meteor, collected the powdre ser, and brought it back to his lab, where he accidentally ingested a bit of it.
“My dad wasn’t only strange because of his affection for slime. He could astral project—send his soul to other places. The slime mold amplified his powers. Eventually, it fell into the wrong hands and was given to a group of people in a top secret government project. The offspring of those people inherited their parents’ enhanced psychic abilities. We all have psychic powers beyond the norm. The man behind the project, he was the one hunting my father. He hunted the Offspring down, too, but now he’s dead.”
“The reason your father kept you in hiding through your growing up years,” Jessie said. “The thing he thought was a meteor, I’m guessing that has something to do with this parallel dimension you mentioned.”
“Aye. One of those dimensions is called Surfacia. Sometimes a being from there slips through a crack between the dimensions. What my father saw wasn’t a meteor; it was an aircraft that crashed here. What he found that day wasn’t powdre ser; it was the pilot’s Essence. His life force. That is in us. And maybe you.”
While Lachlan had to grow up on the run, he made the best of his abilities … until he overused them and accidently caused the death of someone he loved. And now he lives a life of seclusion and self-punishment, a man without hope of redemption.
We writers do love to torture our characters; they have to earn their happy ending, after all. So he gets a chance to redeem himself: he sees a vision of his brother Magnus lying dead on the ground, a woman standing over him. When Lachlan discovers that the woman he saw is Magnus’s love interest, Jessie, he’s intent on saving Magnus from his own lust. Alas, he comes on scene seconds too late to prevent the attack. Jessie, however, is not his attacker, who turns out to be the man with supernatural powers who’s hunting her. Jessie uses her own ability, called Darkness, to save Magnus, putting him in a healing coma.
Foiled again, Lachlan vows to kill the man who can turn to Darkness before he can hurt Magnus or Jessie again. For the first time, he has a chance to regain his honor. Kill the bad guy, save the girl … and not fall in love with her. Because, as the two work together, they are drawn together in a way neither has ever felt.
Yes, the one woman who touches his soul and fires his body is forbidden to him, even though she has never even kissed his brother. Lachlan will have to make a tough choice. Will he risk honor to find love?
All of that from a character I thought would be a second-fiddle to Magnus’s story down the road. And his Scottish accent didn’t hurt!
I’m celebrating the release of DARKNESS BECOMES HER with my Kick Butt First Line contest. Shocking, suspenseful…make us want more! Cash prizes! Contest runs until July 1, 2012. For aspiring authors, it’s a chance to get your name out there and add a “win” to your bio. For readers, it’s a chance to play at being a writer. Even if you’re not inclined to write a line, check out the entries—they’re a lot of fun! For details, go to www.JaimeRush.com and click on the Contest link.
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GIVEAWAY TIME:
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