Through the Dark Teaser Scene Four: Phone Call

This is a super rough draft version of this scene. I really don't suck this much at writing, I promise. At least I hope I don't because that would be depressing.
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Kyla stumbled up to the entrance of the Blake Estate in the rain. She was robotic in her movements and numb as hell, and she couldn’t force away the feeling of the knife in her chest. She knew that she’d had to do what she had just done, that Donovan had left her no choice, but even still she felt like she was dying inside.

Rapping on the massive double doors with their oversized brass knocker, Kyla’s face was drained of all emotion. She couldn’t remember another time she’d felt like this, not that she felt much of anything right now.

The doors flew open before the third knock. Nathaniel had been waiting for her. He was anxious to see her, and alarmed when he saw her eyes. The fact that she was standing there soaking wet and making no attempts to get out of the rain tipped him off instantly that something was wrong. He had to see the despair in her eyes because he pulled her inside quickly and asked her, “Are you okay?”

Kyla wasn’t in the mood to talk about it. Even if she was, she wouldn’t know how to tell him what had just happened without giving away the fact that she’d just made a deal with the devil.

Luckily, Nathaniel didn’t press her when she didn’t respond. He brought her into the living room instead and sat down with her on his uncle’s oversized leather couch, pulling her into his impossibly strong arms and rubbing her own with his hands in an effort to get them dry.

Kyla had a passing thought that she shouldn’t be sitting on a ten thousand dollar leather couch when she was soaking wet, but she couldn’t will herself to move or care.

“What happened?” Nathaniel asked her.

Kyla shuddered at the memory of her encounter in the cemetery, of where she had just come from. “I’m sorry,” she apologized in a hollow voice. I was busy ripping out Caden’s heart.

She didn’t articulate that last thought to him. True or not, that would have been saying too much.

Nathaniel looked concerned. “Are you okay?” he tried asking her again. It was a question posed out of politeness since he obviously knew she wasn’t.

Kyla felt sick. “No, not really.”

Nathaniel’s eyes softened in the way they did when he wanted to help her, but when he knew full well that she wasn’t going to let him. At least not in the way he wanted to.

“Come here,” he said, pulling her gently over onto him and leaning back on the couch so she could rest her head on his chest. He took her hand in his and she pressed her fingers slightly against his own; the strongest sign of responsiveness she was able to give him.

With her ear to Nathaniel’s chest, Kyla closed her eyes at the sound of his heartbeat, letting its peace wash over her and draw her back to the place of safety. Its rhythm calmed her, reassured her somehow like it had always been able to; and as she let it overtake her, her memory of the cemetery began to fade to the back of her mind.

“Nathaniel?” she asked him in a small voice.

“Yeah?” he whispered.

Kyla hesitated on the question that pulled at her mind; then she managed to find the strength to voice it. “Is everything going to be okay?” she asked him.

Holding her tighter, he kissed the top of her head. “I’m right here, Kyla,” he promised her. “You don’t have to be afraid. I’m right here and I have you.”

She paused for a moment before she told him, “That isn’t what I asked.”

Nathaniel fell quiet.

It disturbed her…worried her, but when Kyla sat up to look at his face, she was interrupted from the question she was going to ask.

Her phone rang from where she’d set it on the coffee table and she flinched at the sound. Hesitantly, she looked at it, and her chest tightened when she saw the name “Howell” on the caller ID. Nathaniel saw it too and he watched her reaction. That had to be enough to tell him what she was so upset over tonight.

Kyla answered the phone carefully, not even sure what to expect. But there was nothing that could have prepared her for what she actually heard.

Everything got slower then. Time and space and thought and feeling. It didn’t quite freeze, but it came dangerously close. And when Nathaniel saw the blood rush out of her face, he immediately knew something was wrong.

“What is it?” he asked her, sitting up and grabbing her hand.

It was the first time he had ever touched her that Kyla didn’t feel it. She tried to speak, but her voice got stuck in her throat, and when she was finally able to respond to the person on the other end of the phone, her words came out in a confused, indistinguishable mumble. She wasn’t sure what she had even tried to say, much less what she actually did.

Kyla shut her phone slowly and stared forward with vacant eyes, watching as everything around her went white.

“What is it?” Nathaniel asked her again. He sounded more worried now and he squeezed her hand tighter to knock her from her daze. She still felt nothing.

Finally, Kyla found her voice. “There’s been an accident,” she said

Through the Dark Teaser Scene Three: Scars

Sorry it’s so short. I'll post a longer one next time.
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As the warm water from the shower ran over Kyla’s scarred and scathed body, she wondered if this feeling would ever go away. She tried to fight it, the images that appeared in her mind when she closed her eyes, but she couldn’t really fight what she didn’t want to lose. Those memories were all of Nathaniel Blake she had left, and even if they cut her, she couldn’t bear the thought of letting them go.

Kyla wrapped a towel around herself when she stepped out of the shower. She tried not to let her eyes pass over her reflection, but they caught the edge of the mirror anyway and made her want to wretch. The water had washed away the makeup she’d been using to cover up her scars, and when it wasn’t in place she looked particularly atrocious. Putting it into perspective, Kyla knew she shouldn’t be worrying with anything so vain when the alternative would have meant her death, but she still found herself wondering if they would ever fully heal.

Glancing down both ends of the hallway when she peeked around the corner, she saw that the coast was clear and ran for her bedroom. Slipping inside and attempting to shut the door closed behind her, Kyla screamed and missed when she saw the boy standing over her desk.

Caden jerked his head up, his face flushing a guilty shade of red when she backed up self-consciously and held her towel securely in place.

“I’m sorry,” he rambled quickly. “I didn’t know where you were so I was just leaving you a…” He stopped mid-sentence when his eyes fell on her shoulders.

Kyla could feel his gaze as it burned into her skin, and when she realized what he could see, she felt her face go white.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped at him.

“I…” Caden tried to explain, but as he stared at the scars over her chest, he seemed to have lost the rest of his words.

“Get out!” Kyla demanded. She tried to cover herself up even though she knew the effort was wasted.

Caden didn’t argue. In fact, she’d never seen him so eager to get out of her room.

Sitting down at her desk shakily once he left, she rested her forehead in her hand, telling herself she could find a way to explain this to him. Then she thought of the night of the attack when he found her on the mountain, of how adamant he had been to find out the truth and how reluctantly he had agreed to let it go.

Looking down to see what Caden had left on her desk, Kyla found a note scribbled in his chicken scratch that read:

Just stopped by to see how you were. If you need me, you know where I am. -Cade

Kyla frowned and looked out the window, watching him leave quickly. She did not know how to make this okay.

About Abigail

Everything you ever wanted to know (or didn’t really care to) about the author of The Awakened, Ms. Abigail Black. Yes, that would be me. The way I figure it, if you don’t know me, then you really won’t understand how thoroughly this story reflects my life. Or maybe I can just write this spontaneous compulsion off to a typical night of insomnia and a frustrating degree of writer’s block that is refusing to let me be productive. Either way, I hope you are entertained.
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• I think running is the greatest thing that was ever invented.

• I am slightly obsessed with college football.

• I trust people way too easily and pretend like I don’t.

• I’m not allowed to watch the news when politics of any sort come on. When this happens, random objects like shoes or remote controls are known to get launched at the TV.

• I can’t stand shopping with women.

• I have a debatably unhealthy addiction to Underoath.

• Selfish people are lame, and every time I come across one, I feel a sudden urge to kick them in the kneecaps.

• There are few things in life that excite me like the rain.

• I have the two greatest brothers in the world.

• I’ve noticed that I’m not a very easy person to be indifferent to. Once people get to know me, they tend to either really, really love me or really, really hate me. No one ever seems to fall in between.

• I squeal like a little girl in thunder storms.

• I literally redefine the term “OCD.”

• I can’t relate to females. It has always been easier for me to relate to guys, and I’m not even sure that my having two brothers and no sisters is the reason for that.

• I could live in the mountains. Everything about them makes my heart come to life.

• Artistic creativity was not neccessary in the creation of Kyla James. Other than her physical life circumstances, she is me in just about every imaginable way.

• I have been known at various times to be a little more than slightly abrasive. I’ve gotten better about it, but most people still don’t know how to handle that aspect of my character.

• Most things that women find romantic make me gag.

• Rap music, spicy food and the ACLU are the worst things in the world.

• I think mirrors are stupid, and really wouldn’t mind living the rest of my life without them.

• I hate horror movies.

• I believe in the power of love and the necessity of grace.

• Santa Monica is the best place on earth.

• Never ask me about my dreams. They are a frightening place.

• I don’t like church.

• I love broken, messed up people.

• I make a daily effort to be as politically incorrect as possible.

• I have a love/hate relationship with writing, dreaming, and Jesus.

Through the Dark Teaser Scene Two: The Rescue

A few of you may recognize this from the first version of The Awakened that I wrote, but either way, I thought I'd put it up here for temporary entertainment purposes.
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It was a little peculiar, standing alone on top of a skyscraper in downtown Denver, but not nearly as peculiar as it should have been. Kyla had come to expect this sort of thing in her life recently. Maybe not the skyscraper part, but the absurdity, yes. She never knew when she would be blessed with one of these, “This cannot be my life,” moments, but she was beginning to think they reserved themselves for absolutely the worst times possible.

She’d kept count tonight. She was on number five.

Getting down into the hotel by way of the fire escape was thrilling, to say the least, but the fact that Kyla had to pull it off in four-inch heels was really the clencher.

No one would ever believe this, she thought to herself. She could say that about a lot of things.

In the past few weeks, madness had become more normal to her than normality had ever been. At this point she almost expected it. What she didn’t expect, however, was to come face to face with a cleaning lady that didn’t speak a word of English upon her entrance into the hotel.

Smiling at the woman nervously, Kyla darted past her before she could ask questions that Kyla wouldn’t understand. She got into the elevator quickly and exhaled for the first time in five minutes when the doors finally closed, trying to make herself breathe as she descended story after story. Somehow it didn’t work out like she’d hoped.

Maybe if her life weren’t so completely insane, it would prove a little easier. Maybe if her date hadn’t left her on the roof of a thirty-eight story building.

Maybe if her boyfriend didn’t have wings…

Ugh, she thought again. This cannot be my life.

And that made six for the evening.

Slipping into the ornate lobby with its marble floors and fancy red area rugs, Kyla fished around in her purse for her cell phone. And then for the next hour and a half, she pretended to be engrossed in the text messages she wasn’t actually getting and the games she wasn’t actually playing.

It was quite possibly the most awkward hour and a half of her life, and the looks the forty-year-old man with the creeper-stache at the front desk kept giving her did not help the situation at all.

Then, when a boy with shaggy brown hair and a band shirt with the words “For Today” scrawled on the front of it finally walked into the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, Kyla felt her heart jump. Seeing Caden, she was so happy she could have kissed him, but then she caught sight of his expression and thought better of the idea. Somehow she didn’t think he would go for that right now.

There was no doubt that her best friend loved her, enough to drive from Woodland Park to Denver to rescue her from God-only-knew what he was thinking after her last phone call to him. But even Caden had his limits.

He stopped about ten feet in front of her and stood there, eyeing her from her oversized earrings to her bright red pumps. Kyla could have died.

“Caden…” she started to say, but he cut her off.

“Are you okay?” he asked her coldly.

She nodded and cast her gaze to the rug, the pattern of which she had memorized in intricate detail.

“Come on,” he said. He turned without waiting for her and headed back out the entrance.

Walking out onto the 16th Street Mall, Caden marched without hesitating through the meandering crowd, not even bothering to turn around and see if she was following him. Kyla took a deep breath before did, dreading the car ride ahead of her.

And she thought abandonment on a skyscraper was bad.

Neither of them talked until they pulled onto I-25, but Kyla would have been fine with the silence lasting the entire way.

“What happened?” Caden asked her point blank as he merged with the Denver traffic.

She stared out at the lights of the city, wishing he could have started with something easier. Like… “Hey, let’s have the God talk,” for example. It figured that this would be the one time he’d opt out of that one.

Kyla had been racking her brain for the last hour and forty-five minutes, trying to come up with an explanation for this whole mess (which to Caden could only look really, really bad) but she had nothing. Apparently an hour and forty-five minutes wasn’t enough to explain away insanity.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said.

Caden laughed at her. “Well that’s too bad, Kyla, because I do.”

She made a face and turned her head away, but she didn’t respond.

“Is this about your blonde-haired, Ducati-riding sleepover buddy?” he asked her. There was an undeniable edge of spite to his mockery that she tried to ignore.

“No,” she said flatly.

Caden mumbled, “You’re a terrible liar,” and she wrinkled her nose.

He didn’t say anything after that, just put on some music that would drown out his anger and make any attempt at conversation completely impossible. Caden decided Devil Wears Prada would do the trick tonight. He was right.

Neither of them spoke a word until he pulled his Jeep up Ponderosa Way and parked outside the condo at the far end of the block. Kyla cringed when he killed the engine.

Sighing tensely, Caden kept both of his hands on the steering wheel, something he didn’t even do when he was driving.

“Kyla, I need you to talk to me,” he said.

She kept her eyes fixed on her neighbor’s house.

He waited for her to speak, and when she didn’t he dropped his hands from the steering wheel and leaned back in his seat. He was trying to be calm about this, but Caden was every bit as impatient as she was and three times as stubborn.

“Did something happen to you?” he asked her.

She shook her head.

“Yeah, okay, let’s go for the truth now,” he said. “Is this about Nathaniel?”

She flinched at his name and Caden saw it.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he muttered.

Kyla looked at him when she realized he’d taken that wrong. “He didn’t do anything,” she said.

Caden exhaled sharply and swallowed hard, clutching again at the steering wheel with one of his hands. She watched his brow furrow in the frustrated way it always did when he was fighting back emotion that he deemed unacceptable.

“Where is he?” he asked a little too tensely.

“I said he didn’t do anything,” Kyla reiterated.

Caden’s voice practically shook, “But he took you to a hotel and left you there?”

She kept her mouth shut tight, determined not to say anything since she knew there was nothing she could say that wouldn’t make this worse.

“Honestly, Kyla, how do you think that looks? If I’m wrong here, please tell me.”

It hurt her, the assumptions he was drawing from this, and at the same time she knew it was stupid to feel that way. If their roles were reversed she would think exactly the same thing.

“You believe whatever you want,” she mumbled. “I’m going inside.”

She started to open the door and he grabbed her by the wrist. “Kyla, talk to me…”

She whipped around and glared at him. “What do you want me to say, Caden? That I had sex with him? I mean honestly, is that what you think?”

She couldn’t remember another time she had ever seen her best friend more upset. He was actually shaking now, and his grip on her wrist was getting tighter. It was cruel; Kyla knew it was cruel to say that, but if cruelty kept Caden from the truth, then that was what she was going to use.

“And even if I did,” she said harshly, “who are you to judge me? What right do you have to question what I do?”

Caden answered her slowly. “When I’m the one you call to bail you out of whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into, I have the right.”

Silence. She couldn’t respond to that even if she wanted to. She couldn’t say a word because she knew he was right.

“Fine,” Caden said, letting go of her wrist. “You wanna play the quiet game? Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll just sit here until you decide to be honest with me.”

Kyla tried for the door again, and for the second time he stopped her. She scowled and leaned back hard against her seat, crossing her arms in front of her and knowing she looked twelve.

“Just tell me,” he sighed.

She was cold in her answer. “What do you want to know?”

“I want to know what happened,” he said. “I want to know why.”

Before she could stop herself, Kyla muttered under her breath, “Yeah, join the club.”

Caden shot her a look. “What was that?”

She pressed her lips together, determined not to go there.

“You don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled. It was just enough to spike her emotion again, too.

“Why did you leave me?” Kyla blurted out suddenly.

He stared at her confused, obviously not having expected that. Caden didn’t seem to know how to respond to the question and Kyla didn’t blame him.

“What?” he finally asked.

She was burning with anxiety and anger now, too much to hold it back. “You didn’t ask me,” she said. “You didn’t even ask me if I would be okay.”

Caden looked baffled. “What are you talking about?”

“I needed you Caden!” she screamed at him.

She didn’t want to do it. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him, but at the same time it was the only thing she wanted to do.

Before he could respond with a single word, Kyla got out of the Jeep and slammed the door. She didn’t tell him anything she wanted to, she didn’t even thank him; she just went straight to her room, sat down at her desk and put her hands to her forehead. Then she stayed like that until she was finally able to glance out the window. As soon as she did, she regretted it. The sight of Caden sitting in his Jeep with his hands on his head in the exact way hers were was too much for her.

Kyla dropped her hands and turned away from the window. Then she pulled off her stupid red heels and threw them across the room.

This cannot be my life.

Awakened Accessories

A collection of pictures I found of the more significant items that appear in the story. Not all of them are exactly as I envisioned, but they are pretty dang close.



Nathaniel’s Dagger




Donovan’s Dagger




Samantha’s Necklace

Through the Dark Teaser Scene One: Prologue

Just so I don't go insane while editing The Awakened, I have to play around with book two every once in a while to get me excited about where this story is going. And since none of you will be reading book two for a while, I thought I'd do spontaneous teaser posts of scenes that will be incorporated into it. This is for your enjoyment as much as mine, so please tell me if you like it.
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One...two...three...!” Caden Howell’s voice echoed loudly through the woods as a dozen pairs of feet scampered away from the tree that his face was pressed against. Giggling could be heard in the first few seconds of the game, but soon even the most excited of the kids running away from him fell quiet.

Hide-and-Seek was a time-honored tradition for Caden and his friends. At least as time-honored as anything could be when you were ten years old. But none of them were as good at it as Kyla.

Sprinting on her tip-toes with a grin on her face, Kyla James ran as far her legs would take her before she heard her best friend reach forty-five. Then she worked her way up into the branches of the most climbable pine tree in the woods around her. Caden had never been as good at climbing as she was, so even if he saw her up here, she knew he wouldn’t be able to tag her.

She was highly impressed with herself as she steadied herself securely on an upper branch and waited for the “Ready or not, here I come!” that Caden called out loudly in the distance. She saw him start off in the opposite direction from where she had hidden and forced herself to sit still, knowing she had to wait for the exact right moment before she bolted back to base.

Kyla waited excitedly, but then she realized her excitement was keeping her from being still, so she calmed her breathing and made an effort to line it up with the still evening air.

Kyla was very patient; more patient than most nine-year-old girls. That was why she was so good at this game. But patience didn’t always account for everything. Sometimes things happened that couldn’t be controlled…things that couldn’t even be explained. And when one of those things happened while Kyla was positioning herself carefully in the branches of that tree, no amount of patience could do anything to keep her calm.

Just as she positioned herself in a way that she could climb down easily and with the necessary speed, there was a shift in the air, in everything around her, enough that the smile fell from her face. Kyla felt a tinge of cold hit her skin and she looked down at her arm, seeing that it was covered in goose bumps.

That didn’t make any sense. It was the middle of summer.

She heard a noise behind her and whipped her head around. That was when she saw a flash of a shadow slip past her vision. Kyla didn’t know what to make of it, but it so startled her that she was knocked backwards out of the tree; too fast to fight it, too shocked to scream…too terrified to even breathe.

By nothing short of a miracle, she managed to catch herself on a lower branch. Sucking in sharply, she gripped it with her hands, hearing a snap and feeling it crack, though it was somehow able to hold under the weight of her seventy-one pound body.

Holding the branch tightly with her feet dangling beneath her, Kyla finally found her voice. “Caden!” she screamed.

At the exact moment the branch snapped off completely, her best friend broke through the trees and slid underneath her. Without hesitating for a second, he threw his arms open to break her fall.

Kyla shrieked in terror, her body weightless as she flailed through the air. Time wasn’t something she was able to grasp anymore; all she could do was scream and wait for it to be over. But when she collided with the boy on the ground who had thrown himself in her way, the impact jolted her silent.

Crashing into Caden, her breath was knocked out of her, and the branch that had fallen with her slashed across his forearm. It cut a deep searing gash into the skin just below his wrist.

Kyla rolled off of him quickly, gasping for breath and panicking when she saw that he was hurt. Crawling back over to him, she helped him as he struggled to sit up.

“Caden…”

He looked down at his arm and then back up at her. “Are you okay?” he asked her. He sounded twice as afraid as she was, but not about the blood that was pouring from his arm.

He was afraid that she’d been hurt.

Kyla didn’t answer him, mostly because she didn’t know how. She certainly didn’t feel okay. Holding the wound on his arm closed with her hands, she called through the woods for help. This would be so much easier if she hadn’t run so far off from the others. Blood poured through her fingers as she stared down at Caden, and flashes of the shadow she had seen in the tree reappeared before her vision. Kyla stared forward unmoving without the coherency to blink, and when Caden saw this, he became even more worried.

“Kyla…” he said, trying to shake her from her daze.

She didn’t answer him.

“Kyla!” he tried more loudly.

She didn’t even hear him. The third time he said her name she gasped and looked up at him, straight into his chestnut brown eyes.

When her gaze locked with his, she knew Caden could see the fear in her.

“What happened?” he asked her frantically.

Kyla felt herself shaking. “I…I saw something.”

“Just close your eyes and breathe a minute,” he told her when she didn’t blink for a full ten seconds.

She did what he said, but it didn’t make it any easier.

“What did you see?” he asked.

Kyla shook her head, trying to shake the image from her mind. But even more than the image, it was the feeling…the fear that had hit her when the shadow had passed.

She never wanted to feel that again.

That was when another thought hit her. Re-opening her eyes, she looked at Caden in question. “How did you get over here so fast?” she asked him. “You were on the other side of the woods.”

Caden hesitated and bit his lip. “I was already running,” he said.

Kyla stared at him for a long time, not understanding how that was even possible; but then as she watched his eyes and let the truth behind them hit her, she fell to a familiar awe.

This wasn’t the first time something like that had happened to them. It wasn’t the first time Caden had been able to feel her like that.

It clicked in her suddenly, something like a survival instinct; only she wasn’t the one she was worried about surviving.

“Come on,” she coaxed him, tying to get him up.

He put his best effort into it and collapsed back to his knees. Kyla swallowed hard. She couldn’t let her fear get the best of her now. She had to try again.

“Come on, Cade,” she said again. “We gotta get you home.”

He nodded in agreement, but she could see by his expression how disoriented he was. His eyes weren’t focusing right and his head was moving in subtle, concentric circles like everything was spinning around him. Kyla thought he might throw up, and she was a little surprised when he didn’t.

Getting brave, she looked down at her hand, moving it away slowly and cringing along with Caden when she saw that it hurt him. But when she saw how deep the laceration went into his arm, suddenly he wasn’t the one she was worried about throwing up anymore.

“Oh God…” she breathed. She could feel the blood leave her face and she clamped her hand back over the wound again, determined not to let it go.

It was much worse than she realized.

Caden could see how freaked she looked and he tried to reassure her. “It’s okay,” he told her, but she could tell that he was afraid.

That was such a lie. This was anything but okay.

Kyla called out through the woods for help again, but none of the others could hear her. She had run too far in the opposite direction from all of them.

Why had she been so stupid?

She tried one last time to help Caden up and move him in the direction of his house, but he collapsed to the pine-needled floor.

Kyla held her breath. This wasn’t good.

Kneeling down beside her best friend, she stroked his back comfortingly. His head was down and his hair hung limply in his eyes, and by the look on his face he was already defeated.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized to her.

Still holding his wound closed, Kyla wrapped her free arm around him. “It’s okay,” she told him. “This isn’t your fault. It’s mine.”

Caden shook his head and the gesture made Kyla furious with herself. He had always done that; tried to take the blame when it clearly fell on her. She knew she was the reason they were stuck out here in the woods with no one anywhere near them. She also knew that whatever happened to him, it would be her fault.

No, Kyla wasn’t about to accept that.

Looking up and all around her, she prayed under her breath, “Help me, God.”

Her eyelids fluttered as she waited, feeling a heat surge through her, a strength that wasn’t her own. And once it came into her fully, Kyla knew it was time to try again.

“Hold on, Cade,” she told him, grabbing him securely by the arm and hoisting him up so she could drag him.

She was a little afraid that he might pass out on her since she wasn’t strong enough to carry him on her own, but he was fighting it enough that she thought they just might make it. She also felt a strength and a grace to be able to carry him that she shouldn’t have felt.

Caden tried to hold up his weight so he wouldn’t put the burden on her. He stumbled and staggered, but he tried his best, and the two of them managed to push their way through the brush. Then, as they approached a very distinct point in the woods where the trees looked stranger and the ground looked darker, Caden started to tremble.

Kyla noticed it when she felt him physically shaking against her, but she tried not to be afraid. “You okay?” she asked him.

No response.

“Caden?” she asked a little more firmly.

He couldn’t pass out now. They were finally moving in the right direction.

“Caden!” she snapped at him.

The boy sucked in a sharp breath. “Something’s not right,” he said. “I don’t feel safe here.”

Kyla was grateful to hear his voice, but something about the way he said it made her feel uneasy. “You’re almost safe,” she said, trying to reassure him. “I’m getting you home.” But she knew that wasn’t what he meant.

When they passed through a grove of aspens, there was one tree in particular that caught Kyla’s eye. Caden followed her gaze to its base and he winced at the sight of it. She wasn’t sure if that was from the pain in his arm or the strange-looking symbol that had been carved into its bark. Kyla didn’t recognize it. She wasn’t sure if she should have, but even in its unfamiliarity, the symbol made her shiver. Something felt strange about it. She didn’t know why, but whatever it was, she didn’t like it.

Then something else happened that she liked far less.

No sooner than she saw this symbol, another flash of black came before her sight, almost identical to the one she had seen in the tree she had fallen out of. Kyla froze in her tracks when she saw it. It jolted her, paralyzed her by the same fear she felt in those branches.

Caden asked her frantically, “What’s wrong?” but Kyla didn’t answer him. She couldn’t.

“Kyla!”

His voice shook her from her trance. Blinking hard, she pulled him back away from the tree and told him, “Come on. I’m getting you home.”

Caden looked like he wanted to press her, but he also looked as afraid of the symbol on the tree as she was. “Yeah, okay,” he agreed. “Let’s get out of here.”

He struggled through his dizziness and the blood he had lost and all of his own weakness and did everything he could to help her get them both out of there. By some unseen miracle, Caden’s strength had started to come back to him, enough that he was actually able to help her.

It made no logical sense, but then prayer rarely ever did. Kyla knew it was nothing less than that that enabled him to put his arm around her shoulder and move with her as fast as he did through those trees.

She felt a cold fear flood her veins as they pushed through the woods. The darkness she felt surrounding them was like nothing she had ever felt before. It wasn’t even like anything she had ever heard of. It felt as if they were surrounded by a swarm of beings…dark beings that couldn’t be seen, only felt. And she felt them all around her. They wove in and out of the trees as phantoms, moving swiftly through the steadily falling night.

And then suddenly, they were seen.

They were flashes Kyla saw out of both sides of her vision; dark shadows that whirred past her, moving through the trees in every direction.

She screamed at the sight of them and Caden shouted at her, “Don’t stop! Keep moving!”

Kyla started hyperventilating.

“I can feel them too,” he told her. “Whatever you do, don’t stop!”

Kyla screamed at him in a panic, “I don’t just feel them! I see them!”

Caden grappled with that for a moment before he finally told her, “Don’t look at them, Kyla! Keep running!”

As they bolted for Caden’s house, the darkness increased around them as they ran, and Kyla’s fear along with it. She saw other symbols; some on trees, some laid out in sticks on the ground like an upside down star. And she almost threw up when she saw a rabbit that had its blood drained and spilled around it in a circle amidst the symbols.

“Don’t look at it!” Caden yelled at her. Then he steered her in the direction they had come. “Just run straight for where we came from!”

Kyla blocked everything else out of her mind and ran, telling herself over and over, Don’t think. Don’t stop. Don’t breathe. Just run. Don’t stop running until you’re safe.

The Awakened Teaser Scene Six: Huntress

Forewarning on this one: It gets a little spicy. You probably shouldn’t read any further if you are easily offended, particularly by seductive witches and evil in its every depraved form.
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Val Linley was not in a good mood. Working any miserably long shift at the coffee shop with the girl she despised more than life itself tended to have that effect on her, but it wasn’t her merely working with Kyla James that had her so upset tonight. It wasn’t what had happened that day, but rather what hadn’t that was worrying her…and what she hadn’t been able to find out as a result.

As Val made her way down a long dark alley in Manitou Springs, her lace-up black stilettos clicked against the pavement. She had made sure to put on her tightest black dress before leaving her apartment, to pin her dark silken hair up in dramatic swoops and to don an unnaturally red shade of lipstick. She was not going to take any chances tonight.

Checking her phone, she saw that she was three minutes early, which was far better in this situation than being three minutes late. Her nerves were on edge as she waited at the end of the alleyway, and she had to remind herself for about the tenth time to calm down. Val knew anxiety was not going to help her right now.

Suddenly, she felt a hand slip around her waist. Turning slowly, she looked up at Donovan and smiled deviously, trying not to let it show on her face what she was really feeling.

“Hey there,” she greeted him in a low sultry voice.

Donovan slipped his arms further around her waist and pulled her close to him, a gesture with which Val immediately complied.

Breathing quietly into her ear, he whispered, “Did everything go as planned?”

She tried to keep her composure, knowing how easy it was for him to discern any change in her emotions. “She’s being stubborn,” Val pouted.

Donovan loosened his grip on her waist. He didn’t look happy.

“Meaning what?” he asked tensely.

She had to keep him calm.

Val knew the last thing she needed was for Donovan to lose his temper. Tilting her head to one side and sliding her hand up his arm, she told him softly, “Don’t worry. I can handle Kyla James.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “And how exactly are you handling her?”

Val moved closer to him again, close enough that she was breathing onto his neck. “Trust me,” she whispered. Then she pressed her lips gently to his throat.

Donovan faltered slightly, but not nearly enough. It troubled her, the extent to which he was able to resist her tonight.

“And for what reason, exactly, should I do that?” he asked.

Val knew she had to lay it on thick if she was going to successfully divert his attention right now. “I have something for you,” she whispered.

He looked into her suspiciously again. “And what is that?”

She smiled as she kissed the side of his face. “You’re gonna like it.”

Sliding her hand up his stomach beneath the black trench coat he wore, she could see by the look in his eyes that she was getting to him.

“Tell me,” Donovan said.

Val looked into him with her emerald green eyes. “I’d rather show you,” she spoke to him softly.

She bit his lower lip as she kissed him on the mouth, and it was when she did this that Donovan finally broke. Grabbing her by the waist with both of his hands, he picked her up so she could wrap her legs around him and slammed her up against the brick wall behind her.

Val became ravenous, breathing heavily as he kissed her, knowing full well what it did to him when she did that.

Every time, she thought to herself as his hand slid up her leg.

He could have beaten her. He could have killed her…or at the very least denied her the standing in the coven she had been promised.

Such depth of power, such impenetrable evil…and yet the Nephilim were still so impossibly easy to manipulate.

Kinsey's Report

One of the very first people to ever read The Awakened decided to write a book report on it for her high school English class. I so loved this that I decided to pull some of my favorite quotes from her report just to share with all of you.
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“The Awakened is a story that stirs fire in the hearts of those who read it, capturing the essence of what it means to have destiny, courage, love and righteous defiance.”

“At this point Nathaniel obeys orders without question. Even when he knows something is not quite right or his mission is pointless, he never questions authority. However, all of that changes when he meets Kyla James, who makes him feel like he’s never felt before. Passion and fire ignite when they are together, making Nathaniel question who he really is and why he is really doing this.”

“Everything is becoming more complicated by the minute, with Nathaniel’s loyalties torn between protecting Kyla from the growing threat of the Alliance and protecting his standing in the Resitore, and the urgent pull he feels to follow his heart.”

“But (Nathaniel) simply cannot let go of Kyla, walk away and face the rest of his life without her.”

“Kyla James was more powerful in the spirit than even she knew. Donovan fears her gifts more than God Himself, because in her spirit she holds the power to set hearts on fire, to awaken and see what no one else can.”

“Who is Nathaniel Blake? Kyla knows he is hiding something, but for the life of her she cannot figure out what it is.”

“There is no explanation to the fire that ignites in (Kyla’s) heart when she is with (Nathaniel.) Even when she realizes that he is the reason Donovan has repeatedly attacked and threatened her, she still can’t stay away from him.”

“(Kyla’s) life hangs in the balance of a war she refuses to acknowledge exists anymore.”

“What (Kyla) refuses to admit, however, is that she is a torn and bleeding child of God who needs only to be protected and shown what it means to truly love and be loved.”

“(Kyla) begins to realize that some things are worth risking everything for.”

“This story brings to life the reality of what love and hate can do. The choices we make affect the destinies we are called to, and like this story, sometimes we are called to act on the extraordinary, to defy all reason in the name of love. Love conquers all, and it will always find a way. For, ‘Love is as strong as death, its jealousy as cruel as the grave. Its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the flood drown it.’ (Song of Songs 8:6)”



Miss Kinsey Kouma

The Awakened Teaser Scene Five: Edlowe

This is one of the more high-intensity scenes from book one. You definitely won’t want to read this if you aren’t into spoilers.
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Kyla couldn’t remember a time she’d ever run as fast as she ran from the cemetery that night. She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever had to. Cross Country races were one thing, where she competed for a cheap piece of ribbon with some silver scrawled writing on it, or maybe just the pride of knowing she could beat everyone in her division. But running in a race, even a race where she gave it all she had didn’t compare to what this was. A desperation for escape, a flight for survival. The vain hope of evading the reality on her heels.

It was fear that propelled her, that pushed Kyla’s legs to move harder and faster than she even knew they could. Like a jolt of adrenaline being shot through her veins, released by the thing she hated most in this life. But if fear could be used now to put distance between her and Nathaniel Blake…this liar behind her who wasn’t even a man, Kyla was going to take it, and take as much of it as she could. Whatever it required for her to get away from him, that was exactly what she was willing to do.

Running down the road away from Donovan that night…the night that had since become blurred in her memory, Kyla thought she knew then what it was like to feel a blur take her vision, to be disoriented and confused, but to keep pushing forward in spite of this. Whatever she had felt on Majestic Parkway, it wasn’t at all what she felt right now. This was worse. Much worse. Not because Nathaniel had tried to hurt her like Donovan had, but because her fear was no longer founded on speculation.

It wasn’t just an idea in her head or a prodding question at the back of her spirit telling her something wasn’t right. Nathaniel’s own words had confirmed her fear. He was the one who told her he wasn’t human.

It was a surreal feeling when the condo came into view, but at the same time it caused a hollow suspicion to rise in her. Kyla knew that Nathaniel could have easily caught her by now. If he’d wanted to, he could have had her by the arms again in a matter of seconds. She had seen the way he could move, and something told her that what little she had witnessed didn’t do justice to what he was really capable of.

Kyla shoved the thought from her mind and picked up her knees to push the last fifty meters up the inclined road. She usually despised the last fifty meters of a race, but tonight, she didn’t mind. She didn’t waste time going inside, realizing as she neared the condo that there was nothing Loni or Matthew could do to protect her. The last thing Kyla needed was to be somewhere she could be found, because logic told her (despite how senseless logic seemed at the moment) that no shoddily-built structure could keep her safe from Nathaniel Blake. She doubted even prison bars could do that if he really wanted her.

No, her family couldn’t help her right now. There was only one person who could.

Kyla raced to the driveway and jumped into the Civic before she let herself breathe. Pulling the spare key down from the visor, she attempted to start the engine, but it took her four tries to get the key into the ignition. When she finally got it, she threw the thing in reverse, slammed her foot down on the pedal and tore out of the driveway.

It wasn’t until she’d passed Paradise Circle that she realized she left her phone on the deck, but there wasn’t a chance she was going back for it now. She just had to get to Caden. She had to get where she would be safe.

Trying to shake the thought away of what she knew she couldn’t deny (but wished with everything that she could) Kyla trembled as she gunned the accelerator and sped up the road. She tried to calm her breathing, but the full mile of sprinting she’d just pulled off coupled with the fact that Nathaniel Blake apparently wasn’t human made that completely impossible.

It had never taken her so long to drive up to Edlowe Road, and that was even with her pushing twenty over the speed limit. Or at least it felt that way. Thankfully the cops that kept the highway patrolled at night didn’t catch her, which was oddly fortunate in itself, considering that they were usually all over the place.

Couldn’t make this situation much worse if they were, Kyla thought. She wasn’t sure anything could.

But then something happened that reminded her why it was a bad idea to think something like that, even if she didn’t actually say the words out loud. As Kyla wove her way swiftly through the canopy of trees and drew nearer to Skyline Drive, she had a brief moment where relief filled the place where her fear had been kept, like oxygen in the lungs of a suffocating man. She was close now, so close she could almost feel him. Even as she saw the road up ahead, she could imagine the safety of Caden’s arms.

And then it happened.

Suddenly, so suddenly she couldn’t make sense of what she was even seeing, a dark, black…thing flew at the Civic and crashed against the windshield. It flashed in her mind like a picture from a nightmare, a hideous creature with jet-black wings; red eyes, fangs bared…no trace of humanity in it despite that it held the face of a man.

It didn’t click in Kyla’s mind that what she was seeing was real. This whole night felt unreal to her; now more than ever. It seemed to move in slow-motion, like time had slowed down so the image could be deciphered, so her terror could be felt as it seeped into her heart…so the horror of the real could bring death to the relief she had almost felt, crushing in one final blow whatever might have remained.

Eternity couldn’t capture the length that it felt, though she knew it all happened in the blink of an eye. There was nothing about time that was right anymore; nothing about logic or the hope of escape. There was nothing but a shattered windshield, a monster with black wings and a sheer, unadulterated terror that clutched like death itself at Kyla’s throat.

Shrieking at a higher decibel than her voice had ever reached, she swerved off the side of the road, plunging the Civic into an embankment beneath the trees. She cracked her head against the steering wheel at the collision, hard enough that she was momentarily disoriented. Blood dripped down her face from a gash over her left eyebrow; Kyla felt it as she struggled to right herself. Pulling her hand away, she saw red on her fingers, and as she locked in on the image, all she could remember were those red glowing eyes.

Jerking away from the door, she tried desperately to work her way to the other side of the car. She just couldn’t do it fast enough.

Right when Kyla reached it, the driver’s side door was ripped open. A hand grabbed her first by her arm and then by her throat, yanking her out of the car.

Kyla tried to fight it off…whatever that thing was, but her vision was too blurred and her senses too confused for the attempt to be effective.

She could feel the sharp gravel scraping up her legs as she was mercilessly dragged by this creature up the road. She screamed in pain and struggled to free herself from its grip, but it was no use. It wasn’t about to let her go.

In a matter of seconds, the pain reached an intensity her body couldn’t bear, and Kyla began slipping in and out of consciousness. This went on for longer than she could determine, and even in the few brief times she would finally come to, she still couldn’t lock in on what was happening to her.

The next thing she was distinctly aware of was her body being thrown to forest floor and the wind being knocked out of her on the impact. It was so painful Kyla thought she might suffocate; and when she considered what was being done to her (or what was about to be done to her soon) she couldn’t help but question if that was really such a bad idea.

Her eyes shot open when she hit the ground and she gasped for breath, becoming frantic when she couldn’t catch it. She wanted to look around her and see where she was, but when the air wouldn’t come, Kyla knew her current location was far less important than her ability to get oxygen to her lungs. It took thirty-five of the most terrifying seconds of her life, but finally the air began to trickle in.

She remembered something Caden told her when she was nine years old, after she’d fallen out of a tree and she couldn’t catch her breath. “Take slow, small breaths,” he’d said, reassuring her the whole time that she was going to be okay. “Don’t try to get the air. Don’t be afraid. If you calm down, your breath will come back.”

Kyla remembered that now as she struggled in a panic just the way he’d said not to, and it was when she listened to the words he had told her all those years ago that it started to work; at least enough to enable her to figure out where she was.

Jerking her head back and forth and all around her, Kyla tried to take in the scene. She could tell she was somewhere on the mountain, but that was about it. She had no idea how long it had been since she was pulled from her car or how far her attacker had dragged her into the trees. All she could see was the black…threatening and thick, closing in around her moment by moment and cutting off any chance of escape she might have otherwise had.

It was the darkest night she had ever seen, the darkest feeling she had ever felt, and as she lay there petrified on the forest floor, all she could think was that this had to be a nightmare.

Slowing her confusion and ignoring the pain, she looked deeper into the dark and her vision began to adjust. It was clear she’d been dropped in the thick of the forest, just as she’d suspected, but that didn’t mean she knew where she was. All the woods looked the same around here; the towering pines, the moss-caked remains of dead, fallen trees. And they all smelled of pungent evergreen, which didn’t do much to help her navigate her way.

She could have been anywhere, and though that thought certainly concerned her, it wasn’t what drove her raging pulse right now.

Slowly, her vision began to adjust further. She squinted into the dark to look for a way out, but just as it started to come clear, a tall looming figure appeared in her sight. Screaming, Kyla crawled backwards away from it…away from this man who was cloaked in shadow.

And it was then that she knew who had brought her here.

“Donovan…” she breathed in a furious whisper. Recognizing his cold twisted grin, Kyla felt like she was going to throw up.

Donovan’s grin widened at the sound of his own name. Taking a step forward, he pulled a black, jagged blade from beneath the trench coat he wore. “Hello, Kyla James.”

His eyes held her in arrest through their horror and beauty, spellbound by a force she was unable to comprehend. She was captured by them…by the flame that existed beyond the windows of his blackened soul. And it was then that she realized, then that she knew what she should already have known:

Those eyes were not human.

The Awakened Chapter List

The official finalized chapter list for book one of the series.
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1. “…through gates forbidden.”

2. “…some are made of stone.”

3. “…the dangerous leadings of loose-leaf paper.”

4. “…there are no shades to black and white.”

5. “…Donovan.”

6. “…behind sapphire eyes.”

7. “…when defiance is justified.”

8. “…heroes don’t always come with swords.”

9. “…playing doctor.”

10. “…phone call.”

11. “…thicker than blood.”

12. “…lying isn’t always the easiest thing.”

13. “…in the name of science.”

14. “…what wakens in you when you least expect.”

15. “…if the stars could talk.”

16. “…to risk the sight of those who see.”

17. “…the huntress.”

18. “…some truth looks better from a distance.”

19. “…cat and mouse.”

20. “…if only in your mind.”

21. “…the arms we run to.”

22. “…nightmares.”

23. “…they burn like fire.”

24. “…and the truth shall set you free.”

25. “…Aria.”

The Awakened Teaser Scene Four: Coven

And now it’s time for us to get into one of the darker scenes of the story.
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It was dark in the Coven chambers. Buried deep underground between the ancient cliff dwellings of Manitou Springs and the cavern structure that ran for miles beneath those mountains, it was always dark in here. Torches hung along the adobe walls, guiding the thirteen figures cloaked in black that made their way into the ritual room.

Normally these meetings were planned. Tonight’s was not. That was why every Coven member was currently uneasy, questioning what Donovan could want at a moment’s notice, knowing that anything their lord ever wanted at a moment’s notice usually cost them blood.

Balak stood along the wall with his arms folded across his dark, barreled chest. He didn’t like this. Meetings in this place were tense enough as they were, but having to call this one himself (especially when he didn’t know what it was that Donovan wanted) was enough to put even his nerves on edge.

He could see the fear in the eyes of every witch that filed into the cavern. The only eyes he didn’t see fear in were the one that should have held it; the girl who stood at the edge of the wall, not yet allowed near the ceremonial fire at the center of the room, not yet inducted as an official member of the Coven. She was the thirteenth member in waiting, and one that Donovan was particularly fond of.

And right now, her eyes were set on Balak’s.

Balak shifted uncomfortably beneath her gaze, not wanting his lord to notice. If he did, Donovan might be tipped off as to the reason for his tardiness earlier that evening when he was supposed to be on watch.

Fortunately, Donovan didn’t notice. He was much too distracted as he entered the chamber to pay attention to the green-eyed beauty along the wall.

Everyone froze when he entered, clasping their hands in front of them and keeping their heads down. Their hoods were pulled in a way that their faces weren't shown, and they kept their eyes fixed on the fire, but when Donovan stepped up and addressed these that had made a covenant to serve him, it was apparent in every one that they feared the worst.

“Our plans have been altered,” he told them. “It seems we have been met with resistance a bit earlier than expected.”

The others didn’t react, at least not outwardly.

Donovan went on. “We will need to realign our strategy to deal with this…issue. That is why I have called you here tonight, so that we can take care of this matter quickly.” He looked up and directly to the girl who stood against the wall.

The gesture made Balak nervous.

“Step forward,” Donovan commanded her.

Immediately the girl complied, walking gracefully across the stone-floored chamber to stand before him. Donovan lifted her chin with his fingertips, smiling as he looked into her porcelain face.

“I have an assignment for you, my dear.”

Her emerald eyes glowed brighter in anticipation, illuminated by the light of the fire. She was excited. Even in her working to hide it, Balak could see that clearly. He knew what this one looked like when she was excited.

It always made him uncomfortable when Donovan touched her…when he looked at her like that. They were a lot alike, those two. Their eyes held the same hollow darkness, the same blackened fire that burned for the blood of the awakened ones. Still, as evil as this black beauty was, Balak knew she didn’t compare to Donovan.

The bloodlust of a witch was one thing. The maniacal drive of the Nephilim was another.

Transportationalish Fun

Okay, so I thought it would be fun to put up some pictures of the different vehicular devices that are used by our main characters in this story. I am an extremely visual person, so this sort of thing helps me out a lot. It might be completely pointless, but at least I will be entertained. And that is what matters, after all.
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Caden’s Jeep




Kyla’s Civic




Nathaniel’s Ducati

The Awakened Teaser Scene Three: Road

Here is a short and sweet teaser scene I think you might particularly enjoy. Oh, Kyla, when will you stop getting yourself into trouble?
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Kyla’s feet pounded against the road in a frantic rhythm, matching with her heart and the throbbing in her head. She knew she’d lost too much blood. She could feel it dripping down her back as she ran, but she was determined to make it home before she lost enough to pass out.

Everything spun around her in a disoriented blur, and she was halfway convinced that nothing in the past five minutes had really happened the way her mind was telling her it had. Then, just as she ran past the green Falcon’s Rest road sign, she was jolted at the sound of a voice shouting behind her.

“Kyla!”

She screamed and spun around in a panic, not knowing what she would find and not having the coherency to imagine it. But when she saw the blonde-haired boy tearing down the street toward her at full speed, Kyla instantly felt equal waves of terror and relief.

He sprinted over to her much quicker than she knew he should have been able to. Grabbing her just as her knees gave out, Kyla collapsed involuntarily into his arms, yelping in pain when her back fell against his chest. She saw Nathaniel’s eyes grow wide when he pulled away from her carefully and turned her so he could look at it. By his silence, she could tell what he was thinking…and by the blood that was left on his shirt when he pulled away. But she wasn’t concerned with that right now.

“Are you okay?” she blurted out frantically.

Her excessive bleeding obviously worried her, but at the moment it wasn’t her primary concern. Her thoughts were still set on the nightmarish wrestling match she’d just witnessed on Majestic Parkway, and this mysterious boy who had thrown himself into harm’s way in order to save her from that sick, demented man.

A man he appeared to know…

Without even knowing what she was doing, Kyla started to ramble out a string of questions she was far too dizzy and emotionally raw to articulate.

Nathaniel didn’t answer a single one except the monotone, “I’m fine,” he gave her before he lifted her in his arms.

It sent a shock of pain through her body when he held her like that, but Kyla was far too weak and confused to work her way out of his grip. He carried her up the street without a word, and though she wasn’t conscious enough to see where they were going, she did take notice of the enormous castle-looking home that he brought her to the front door of at the top of Falcon’s Rest.

“Where…” she tried to ask him.

Nathaniel didn’t let her finish the question. “Shh…I have to get you inside. Try not to talk.”

Kyla didn’t understand where they were or what had happened or why she was being carried into this mansion of a home, but she didn’t ask him again. Instead she clung to Nathaniel’s chest and told herself this was all a dream. It had to be.

Things this crazy didn’t happen to her anymore.

My Heart on The Awakened

Several people have asked me about my heart on this story and why I ever started writing it in the first place. Granted, there is a lot more to it than what I’m about to tell you, but I think this might be a good place to start.
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It is my personal belief that the greatest deception we (as the human race) face today is that God will not bring His judgment again to the earth. Keep in mind, this is just my opinion, but it’s screaming at me now in a way that I can’t shut it up. I think it is this, our ignoring that He is coming, that the climax of this story is reaching toward. The whole thing is wrapped up in truth, every word that I write in it, which I find ironic since it’s usually in the times that truth is so tainted to me that I am able to write these things.

I see it in every battle, in every struggle that Nathaniel and Kyla and Caden face…everything they are fighting for coming down to this point: That the Son of Man will come again. Even if you don’t believe it. Even if the thought doesn’t make you feel good. He is still coming.

The truth beyond what we want to hear is that everything that can be shaken will be, and only those who recognize Love will be unmoved. I want to challenge the idea of “How can a God who is Love bring judgment?” and show through this story (both to the readers and to myself) how there is love in His judgments, love in His fire, love in the shaking…that this is what it means for the King of all that is to be consumed with zeal for His bride.

I might not understand it yet, but I know there is a violence to the love of God that in a human picture (or a not so human one) is like Nathaniel’s love…like Caden’s love...like Kyla's love. His heart evokes violence over His bride, and there is nothing He will not do to have her; nothing He will not tear down to make her His. Because it wouldn’t be love if He didn't.

That’s the point I am reaching for in the end, that it wouldn’t be love if His fire didn’t come. It wouldn’t be love if He didn’t do what He said…if He didn’t war on behalf of the ones He calls His. Those who wear the seal on their heart, who have been awakened to the reality of who He is. Not who the world says He is or who the church says He is…not even what history claims.

But who He is.

I want to establish that this waking, this theme of sight that is carried throughout the story isn’t something that is marked on a chosen few, but rather that it is only few who choose it. The choice is there, given by blood…because freedom can only come by sacrifice. Whether it is the freedom over a nation by the blood of its sons or freedom for mankind through the blood of the Son, freedom has to be purchased by blood.

I want to write it out plainly: This is the cost of freedom. This is the cost of love. If you want it, you have to bleed for it.

Maybe this is a fictional story, but there is so much truth to it that it sometimes frightens me. That's why I refuse to sugar coat it and make people think that having their eyes opened to the spiritual realm is some fun thing they can be a part of. Like, “Accept Jesus into your heart and you’ll feel happy and tingly inside and everything in your life will get awesome.” That would feel like deception to me, and the deepest kind of betrayal if I were to do a thing like that.

I want to lay it out clearly that if you aren’t willing to lose it all for Him, you are not worthy of Him, and it’s Caden who really drives that across. I haven’t actually written it yet, the part where that theme comes fully into play, but I have seen it in visions. I’ve heard Caden's voice in my head and felt the power behind it, and it honestly takes my breath away. It would be impossible to explain the point he is brought to, the heartache and the conviction and the intensity behind every word. But the way he says it is like this:

“If you aren’t willing to give Him everything, then you aren't worthy to call Him your King.”

Maybe that might sound a little harsh or some people might take that as offensive, but having been at that point myself, I really don’t think it is. Because humans weren’t made for sissy love. It’s in our genetic makeup to have something worth sacrificing for. We want a reason. We don’t want something that’s just handed to us clear and free, that doesn’t come at a price. It might be easier, but love isn’t love if it doesn’t cost you something...and people know that!

In an uncharacteristic moment of vulnerability, I will be honest with you about this:

I fight with God more than anyone I know. Truth to me tends to blur from black to white to black again, but it’s the times it falls to grey that I hate the most. I know God exists, and that there’s a good chance He’s not a liar, but I do not know how to trust Him. I used to love Jesus more than my life, to the point that I wouldn’t hesitate to die for Him, but I shut off my heart after it got broken, and it's taken a really long time to heal. I do not know how this story ends, but through everything I used to be and all I have become, I am struggling alongside it to see the revealing of truth. And if there is one thing I can guarantee, it is that I will not be the one who determines the ending.

Needless to say, writing Kyla isn't a stretch for me.

In light of what I just admitted, I know I probably seem like the last person who should attempt to write this kind of story, but I could no more deny this than I could deny who I am. (And yes, I realize that on both accounts I try to repeatedly.) That still doesn’t change what plays out in the end. Not because of all the people who have continually spoken to me of the success I will know and the favor I will have; not because of the countless times I’ve been told that I would write a story that would change what love is to the world…not even because of the promises I have been given over it that have kept me alive. But because I believe in something.

I believe I am supposed to do this.

The Awakened Teaser Scene Two: Donovan

This is an excerpt from Chapter Eight, the point in the story that actually starts to get good.
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Peering through the sparsely needled branches of a pine tree by the road, Donovan’s eyes locked on the girl who emerged from the last blue-roofed condo on Ponderosa Way. She had her auburn hair pulled back tonight, away from her face so it wouldn’t bother her when she ran, and by it he could see the crease in her brow that suggested her frustration. Nothing unnatural there. This one was often frustrated.

He adjusted his position as she moved, careful to keep close to her and yet far enough away that his presence wouldn’t be discerned. It was easier than it used to be, given the girl’s refusal to engage in the sort of behavior she used to anymore. Convenient, truly, that her father had died. Kyla James was always such a headache for him before that.

Donovan grinned to himself at the memory. Such a shame, he thought as he watched her now. All those logs careening out of control, with no one there to stop them from crushing dear Daddy into the ground. It may as well have been a steamroller, but then that wouldn’t have looked much like an accident.

And he needed it to look like an accident.

Watching Kyla run up the road with her long, evenly-paced strides, Donovan thought how much easier it would be if he’d been able to take care of her that way. Not nearly as fun as watching the agony it caused her, but if he’d been able to kill her back then, he wouldn’t be here now watching her like this, trying to figure out how she ever found Nathaniel Blake.

Still, Donovan couldn’t have killed her then and he knew it. She was too protected…just like the boy. It was that sickening joy Kyla used to have that made her all but untouchable to him, guarding what she possessed so he couldn’t get to it. It had almost driven him mad.

But that was the brilliant thing about humans: Steal their joy and you had an open target to their heart. Take the shot and you’d strike them down. And when they were left there writhing in their own blood, in the broken pieces of what they used to have and who they used to be, it was in that moment that they made the choice; either get back up or lose their soul.

Kyla didn’t get back up.

Donovan could have killed her after that if it hadn’t been for the boy; his constant covering over her, his ceaselessly warring on her behalf, sending those to keep guard over her life that so continually guarded him. Caden must have known that something wanted her, even if he didn’t know what it was. As far as Donovan knew, Caden didn’t even know of their existence…of anything of the Coven or especially the Alliance. But he did know enough about the realm of the dark to be able to tell when something was wrong.

Donovan’s inability to kill Kyla James after that was really more of an annoyance than anything since she was no longer moving in the power that threatened them. Still, it was an issue he wished could be resolved. The Howell kids were one thing, but Kyla wasn’t like them. Before she had decided to abandon all she was and run from that power, she had posed a far greater threat to the Coven’s purpose here. A greater threat even than the boy.

Fortunately, Caden Howell was gone now, and there was no other means by which Donovan suspected her capable of being re-awakened.

At least that was what he’d thought before he saw her with Nathaniel.

Glaring forward as Kyla pumped her long runner legs and charged up the hill, Donovan questioned again how she had found him. Suspicious didn’t begin to describe one like Nathaniel Blake just so happening to come into her life. It had to be more than chance. It had to be more than Eli.

In the world of the Nephilim, coincidence did not exist.

It had been over a year since Donovan had watched her like this. Kyla had grown far more beautiful since he’d seen her last summer, and her soul had grown darker as well.

Donovan quivered at the thought of her.

To have access to one like this, with such raw power and such raw beauty, he would kill for such a thing.

He would kill for far less.

Kyla may not be moving in it anymore, but that power was still there. He could feel it as he drew nearer to her. It never really left the ones who were marked by it, this power that ran deep in their blood. Some of them just chose to deny it.

Dancing at the edge of his mind, a thought came back to Donovan that had been toying with him for the past twenty-four hours, daring him to trust in a scenario he knew was too perfect to believe. But if it were true (or if it could become true) that Nathaniel would have a reason to protect this one, then Donovan could use her for more than he had realized.

That was the theory he was operating under now. He had to think positively, too, or he would have to admit he’d been placed in a position of disadvantage with the Resitore. And that was simply not acceptable.

Donovan shuddered at the thought.

He would not let Seth win this. This was his war…or at least it would be before the end. The brotherhood was not going to stop what he had worked so hard for, shed so much blood for. They were not going to stop anything because he would stop them first. And he would do it by turning their own against them, the strongest among them to the dark they so avidly resisted.

He would do it by turning Nathaniel Blake, whom he could feel here even now, watching the girl.

A grin spread slowly across Donovan’s face at his discernment of Nathaniel’s presence. It seemed fortune, after all, had found him again. And he knew exactly what he was going to do with it.

The Awakened Teaser Scene One: Prologue

Alright, kids. Time to kick off our Awakened teaser scenes with the Prologue of the very first book. Hope you like it.
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Rachel Blake trembled as she held her son’s hand. “Just a little farther,” she whispered to him. She tried to sound optimistic, even flashed him a smile, but her efforts were wasted. Nathaniel could see right through her. He had always been able to see through her like that, or through anyone for that matter, to a measure that was sometimes unsettling.

Just one of the many things that made him different than other nine-year-old boys.

Clutching his mother’s hand as she dragged him through the woods, Nathaniel tried not to be afraid. He didn’t know how she managed to navigate her way so swiftly through the trees, but he had yet to question her on it. He may not have known why they were running or where they were going or why his mother was so frantic she was shaking, but he did know this: He trusted her with his life.

Nathaniel held his breath in the eerily still night, which was darker somehow than it should have been. Even if the clouds overhead hadn’t veiled the stars, there was a depth to the dark he had never seen. Or maybe it only seemed that way. Maybe the darkness he felt pressing in on him came from someplace he couldn’t see. Either way, he didn’t like it.

Brushing limp blonde strands of hair from his eyes, Nathaniel pushed himself to run harder, determined that they would not slow down on his account. He could feel the urgency that pulled his mother forward, as if death itself were on her heels.

Rachel skidded to a halt in a move so abrupt her feet kicked up dirt in Nathaniel’s face. He immediately started coughing and she grabbed him in response, covering his mouth and whipping her head back and forth like she expected to see someone…or something leap out at them from the forest.

She wasn’t breathing normally, Nathaniel noticed. He looked up at his mother while her hand was still clasped over his mouth. She was even more afraid than he realized.

“Quick,” she told him.

Rachel dragged him off the trail in an attempt to find cover, and as she pulled him with her into the woods, a jagged rock tore through the knee of Nathaniel’s jeans. It sliced cleanly into his skin, but he didn’t make a sound.

Another of the many distinctions between Nathaniel Blake and others his age was his uncanny ability to ignore pain; something that proved quite beneficial in a situation like this.

Rachel directed him to the hollowed-out shell of a rotten tree. “In here,” she said.

Nathaniel realized she didn’t know he was bleeding. He also realized that this tree, though a very effective hiding place, was not big enough for the both of them.

Looking back at her, he told her flatly, “No.”

Rachel looked down on him with a pained expression. “Baby, please,” she begged. “I need you to hide…just for a little while. I’ll…I’ll come back to get you as soon as it’s safe.”

Nathaniel clenched his jaw stubbornly. “You’re not leaving me here.”

Running her long slender fingers through her strawberry blonde hair, Rachel tried not to cry. He was making this worse for her, Nathaniel knew that, but he wasn’t about to give in to what he could see behind her eyes.

“Who are we running from?” he asked her point blank.

Rachel’s eyes softened helplessly as she touched his face. “I can’t explain that now,” she choked. “Nathaniel, please…tell me you trust me.”

Her words stung deeper than the gash in his knee.

“Baby, look at me,” she whispered when he avoided her eyes. She took his arms in her hands and rubbed them softly.

Nathaniel’s face was tight as he met his mother’s gaze, but still he couldn’t force the words.

“It’s going to be okay, sweetheart.” She tried to hide from him that she was terrified and failed at it miserably. “I promise he is not going to hurt you.”

Nathaniel’s voice quivered as he spoke, out of anger as much as fear. “Who isn’t going to hurt me?”

Rachel hesitated and looked behind her again, then quickly back to her son.

“Don’t leave me, mom,” Nathaniel whispered, pleading with the sapphire eyes that were a mirror image of his own.

Grabbing him with shaking hands, Rachel held him so close that her tears spilled onto his face. Nathaniel couldn’t move. He just stood there frozen as she kissed the top of his head, paralyzed by the truth he didn’t want to see.

“Mom…” he choked.

She took his face in both her hands. “I love you, Nathaniel,” she told him. “More than I knew I could love anything.”

Tears burned in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall.

“Be strong, baby. Be strong for me, please.”

With his jaw still tensed, Nathaniel whispered in a shaken voice to the woman who gave him life, “I trust you.”

Rachel swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “Forgive me,” she whispered. Then she squeezed his hand and disappeared into the forest.

Nathaniel knew exactly what she was doing. He just wished that he didn’t. Shaking as he hugged his knees to his chest, he pressed his back against the rough, rotted bark, attempting to stay as hidden as he could. It was dank and musky in the hollowed-out tree, the air so thick he could hardly even breathe. He could feel things crawling all around him on the inside of the wood, but there was no telling what they were…or what waited for him on the outside.

The forest was hauntingly still when his mother’s footsteps faded, to a measure more disturbing than Nathaniel had ever felt. Waiting there in the dark for the fate he could feel pulling at the edge of his soul, he breathed hard and kept his eyes open. He had never known a fear like this. It constricted him in a way that his lungs weren’t even able to fill with air. But what he felt in that moment didn’t compare to what he felt in the next.

A shrill scream sounded that split the silence, piercing the darkness that hung all around him. Nathaniel went rigid at the sound; eyes wide, heart frozen, the blood drained completely from his face. He felt a shock of fear and a wave of nausea, and an impulse to run despite what he was told. But he didn’t listen to his instincts; he listened to his mother, to the words she had spoken which he knew would save his life.

His breath was hollow and the night air was thick. Everything spun and twisted in different directions, distorting reality so Nathaniel didn’t even know what was happening anymore. He didn’t know if he was still in the mountains or if somehow he had hallucinated all of this, but he knew he wasn’t dreaming. He only wished he was so he could deny this now.

He only wished he could deny that unmistakable scream.

There was a shuffling in the distance, and low muffled noises that he couldn’t make out. His blood stopped cold when the sound grew nearer. Someone was out there. They were looking for him, and with every step they took they were getting closer.

Nathaniel sucked in his breath and held it fast, keeping his eyes open as he peered through the tree. His mother knew what she was doing in hiding him here. He was covered by the dark, kept safe in its bitter embrace…protected by the very thing that was his enemy.

Again, the forest fell silent. Nathaniel stopped breathing so he could listen for a sound, but all that reached his ears was the same empty nothing he felt ripping through his soul.

That was all it took for him to bolt from his hiding place. Springing from the tree, he tore through the forest, guided only by the light of a dimly lit moon. The clouds broke over it now, just enough to let its light reflect down on the trail, like a beacon to guide him to the place where hope died.

Nathaniel slammed to a halt and his whole body froze. His eyes grew wide in sickened horror. He knew it when he saw his mother’s lifeless body lying broken on the trail. He knew it before he even touched her, before he checked her pulse or tried to see if she was still breathing.

He knew that she was gone.

Nathaniel could feel it in the absence where he would have felt her spirit. It just wasn’t there anymore; that permeating warmth, that depth of love, the promise of safety that only a mother could give. None of it was there. All that was left of Rachel Blake was a body…an empty shell of who she really was.

Collapsing to his knees, Nathaniel’s hair hung down in his eyes.

This couldn’t be real. She couldn’t be gone. This woman was the only thing he had in the world.

Brushing several strawberry-blonde curls away from his mother’s face, Nathaniel jerked his hand back quickly when he saw the blood. The laceration was deep, at least several inches.

Someone had cut her throat.

It was a knee-jerk reaction, his crawling backwards away from her. He was frantic as he tried to distance himself from what he didn’t want to see, but at the same time he couldn’t look away from it.

That was when the silence of the forest once again broke away. They were footsteps Nathaniel heard, and they came from somewhere in front of him, but it was too dark for him to see a thing. The clouds that blanketed the moon made that completely impossible. But then the footsteps sounded again, slowly this time, and the white glowing orb in the sky broke past the clouds, opening up just enough light for Nathaniel to see.

He froze at the sight of the figure that emerged, paralyzed in fear at the man’s approach. Nathaniel squinted hard into the dark, attempting to make out the newcomer’s features, not that it would matter what this stranger looked like if he was there to kill him.

The man looked young, probably in his early twenties, but his presence was commanding. And there was something Nathaniel felt from him that left him completely terrified.

The stranger looked down at Rachel’s body robotically, emotionlessly. Even though Nathaniel could see his eyes by the light of the moon, he couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He couldn’t understand his expression at all, which alarmed him even more than this man’s approach.

Suddenly, the stranger turned to face him. “Do not be afraid,” he said. “I am not here to harm you.”

“Who are you?” Nathaniel asked in a shaky voice.

“My name is Seth.”

Nathaniel swallowed hard. “What do you want from me?”

The stranger named Seth didn’t advance, just looked down knowingly on the frightened boy on the path. “I am here to protect you, Nathaniel.”

Nathaniel’s face went white. This man should not know his name.