As Angels Fall Quotes

This is just a short dialogue, not a full scene. But as I wrote it, it did something to my heart and I felt compelled to share it. Hope that’s okay with you.
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“We’re not having this conversation,” Kyla told him.

Caden didn’t hide how frustrated that made him. “We need to,” he said. “You need to understand that there’s more involved here than you're willing to admit. And just because you’re mad at God and angry about what happened to your dad, that doesn’t mean you can keep ignoring that.”

Kyla glared at him. “Don’t bring my dad into this,” she warned him.

“I’m not trying to hurt you, Kyla, but we have to lay everything out in the open here so we can see what’s really going on. I mean how can you keep running after all you’ve seen?”

The idea obviously baffled him.

“Because I have to,” she said.

Caden looked pained. “Why?” he asked her desperately.

She answered him in a rigid voice. “If I stop,” she told him, “if I turn around and look at this God you still want me to believe in, then I have to face the fact that the one thing I loved more than anything in my life let my father die. I would have to accept the fact that there is no safety, no promise or assurance of hope. That He doesn’t protect those who love Him. He doesn’t guard those who fear Him.” She took a deep breath when she realized she wasn’t breathing. “My dad was the best man I’ve ever known,” she said. “He was faithful his whole life, and he believed in those things. Trust me, Caden; you don’t want me to believe in God. If you make me face Him now, you will be forcing me to become His enemy.”

Val and Kyla

So I came across this picture of my cousin and her best friend, and the second I saw it, I honestly had to laugh. Other than the fact that they clearly don’t hate each other, how much do these two look like Val and Kyla? Seriously!

Through the Dark Teaser Scene Seven: Alexa

I know I owe you guys a fight scene (and I have an amazing one in the works) but unfortunately, it isn’t ready quite yet and I don’t want to rush it. So I’m putting this one up to tie you over in the meantime.
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Nathaniel kept himself hidden as long as he could. Watching Caden and Kyla where they stood in front of the waterfall, he had expended whatever self-control he possessed. The time had passed for self-control; that was over the moment he saw what Caden was after.

The first thing Nathaniel noticed was the boy’s nervousness. It wasn’t hard to see it; he didn’t even need to use his discernment for that. But it did make him uneasy. If something had Caden this nervous, there was little chance that this secret meeting had been staged to exchange pleasantries. Hell, even if Caden hadn’t been nervous, Nathaniel still would have been skeptical just by how it had been done.

Not that he could blame him. He hadn’t exactly left the boy with options.

As soon as Caden mentioned Nashville, Nathaniel felt a tension in his chest. He didn’t know what he was talking about and he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Nathaniel knew it was probably a mistake for him to step out into view the way he did. After following Kyla to this place called Rainbow Falls, he had set up the perfect hiding place for himself that would never have allowed them to know he was there. But as soon as he realized what Caden was doing, Nathaniel had to put a stop to it.

He watched Kyla’s face drop when he walked up to them, and saw about a dozen different emotions play across her eyes.

None of them were happy.

The first emotion that marked her was surprise. Genuine surprise; strong enough that it might even be described as shock. Then she looked confused. She stood there for a moment staring at him, trying to fit the pieces together and understand how it was that he was even there. Then she got mad.

That was the one Nathaniel was least anxious to deal with.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped at him. “How did you know where I was?”

Nathaniel gave her a patronizing look and Kyla rolled her eyes. “Right,” she mumbled.

“I need to talk to Caden,” he told her.

She and Caden both looked surprised by that.

“You need to talk to Caden?” she asked him.

Nathaniel affirmed to her, “Yes,” emotionlessly. He kept his eyes on the boy, and was surprised when Caden wasn’t afraid to look back at him.

“You know, we were kind of in the middle of something,” Caden said. There was tension in his voice that he didn’t attempt to hide.

Do not hit the human boy, Nathaniel told himself. You can be civil about this.

As Kyla looked back and forth between them, it was obvious that she was afraid. No doubt, images from the first time he and Caden had ever laid into each other were flashing through her mind. Nathaniel couldn’t blame her for that, either. He knew she wanted to yell at him; Nathaniel could see it in her eyes. But at the moment, she seemed more concerned with keeping the peace between him and her best friend.

“Cade, maybe you’d better talk to him,” she said. “We can always do this later.”

Caden looked a little thrown when she said that. “Okay?”

“I have to get to work soon anyway,” she told him.

Nathaniel could tell that she was disappointed and he hated that, but when she turned to look him, Kyla gave him a firm look and said, “I will deal with you later.”

Nathaniel winced internally, but on the outside he showed no fear.

Caden looked about ready to snap, but even in his anger, Nathaniel could tell that he was holding back for reasons beyond the obvious. They both watched Kyla drive off in the Civic, and once she was gone, they turned back to face each other.

Nathaniel didn’t waste any time being subtle. “I know what you’re trying to pull,” he said, “and I am not okay with it.”

Caden scoffed at him, completely unfazed by his threats. Instead of responding to him, he shook his head and started to walk away, but Nathaniel grabbed his arm. Caden glared at him furiously and Nathaniel could see that he was trying to hold back his anger.

“Let go of me,” Caden spoke in a measured voice.

“Or what?” Nathaniel asked.

Caden tried to steady his breathing, tried to keep himself calm. “You don’t want to mess with that, Nathaniel,” he said. Then he gave him a look that made Nathaniel question just how much this boy knew.

It startled him, what he saw in Caden’s eyes. He could see that there was something he knew, more than Nathaniel realized, and it caught him so by surprise that Caden was able to break out of his hold and leave.

Nathaniel stared after him as he drove away in his Jeep. “Damn it, Kyla,” he muttered under his breath. “What else haven’t you told me?”

Nathaniel flew up to the mountain to cool off and get control over his anger, but it didn’t work out as well as he’d hoped. He tried to think of any truth he could, anything he could cling to that would help him to release this, but it was so powerful. He tried to resist the dark of his fear, his jealousy, his hate...but finally it pushed him to the point where he couldn't deny it anymore.

Nathaniel left in a fury, ready to re-confront Caden Howell despite his knowing it would be a mistake. He wasted no time making his way down to the Howell’s property, and when he got there, he headed straight for Caden’s bedroom. Nathaniel pounded on the glass sliding door, not even bothering with discretion; but it did him no good since the boy wasn’t even back yet.

That was when Nathaniel heard a voice behind him.

“He’s not here.”

Slowly, Nathaniel turned around to face Alexa. She stood expressionless behind him, unfazed by his door-pounding and his angry demeanor.

“Where is he?” Nathaniel asked her.

“He isn’t going to stay away from her,” the girl told him bluntly.

Nathaniel was taken aback, but he didn’t respond to her comment. He felt a fire flare up in him again, but he knew he couldn’t get angry at this child. That wouldn’t be right. Still, he didn’t like Alexa Howell very much, and at that particular moment, he especially didn’t like that she was a seer. This was one obstacle he would have preferred not to have to work around.

Nathaniel put his hand on his forehead and tried to control his anger. His head was throbbing, so he pressed his fingers to his temples, hoping to dull the pain. “Does he know?” Nathaniel asked her.

Alexa was quiet.

“Does he know what I am?”

“Yes,” she finally said. “Kyla told him everything.”

Through the Dark Teaser Scene Six: Rain

This is the very first scene I ever wrote for this story. Kinda weird that it ended up being in book two, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. Only problem is I have to completely re-do my outlining of Through the Dark to keep this scene as is. I still haven't decided what to do on that end yet, but I'll let you know when I figure it out.
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Kyla woke with a start, clutching her pillow in a death grip and struggling to breathe. She looked frantically around her, trying to figure out where she was, but it took her a moment to remember why she wasn’t in her bed. It had been so real, the nightmare she’d just woken from. It was dark and blurred and almost impossible to distinguish, but something about it was so vivid and lifelike she didn’t know that she’d been dreaming.

The feeling from it lingered on her as she sat up in the loft. She remembered the terror she had felt in it…the dread. And she remembered Caden.

All through the dream, she was being torn away from him, and somehow she knew that once he slipped away, she could never get him back.

The familiar stabbing in Kyla’s chest that she had lived with the entire time Caden was in Nashville, it was back again. It took a moment for her to realize it was just a nightmare, but the pain was too familiar. She couldn’t shake it off.

When she couldn’t take it anymore, Kyla threw off her covers and climbed down from the loft.

Scampering barefoot in the rain across the flagstone around the Howell’s pool, she ran for Caden’s bedroom before she gave herself the chance to think about what she was doing. She told herself five distinct times in a thirty-yard stretch to turn around and go back to the house, but her feet weren’t listening to her head. They rarely did.

Ignoring whatever sense she should have possessed when she reached the glass sliding door, she knocked on it quickly and then hugged herself in a failed attempt to keep warm. It may have been summertime, but the mountain rain was cold at night.

Kyla peered into the room through a gap in the curtains, trying to see if he’d woken up. It was too dark for her to see anything, though; in there or out here. The only light she had was coming from the blue glow of the pool. So she knocked a little harder.

This time she saw Caden sit up in his bed at the sound of her knocking, looking somewhat confused and disoriented. He rubbed his face with his hand and looked over at the door, and as soon as he saw her, his fatigued expression fell to a scowl. Kyla had seen that look on him a lot lately. It didn’t make it any easier seeing it now.

Shoving off his covers and getting up out of his bed, Caden made his way angrily across the room. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he had on some long black basketball pants; a fact for which Kyla was grateful. When he jerked the door open, she wasn’t sure what she expected him to say, but he only ended up asking her, “Are you serious?”

“No, I’m joking,” she replied sarcastically. “I just felt like freezing to death out here for kicks. Are you gonna let me in or not?”

He stood there as if to debate it for a moment, so Kyla shoved past him and walked into his room. Caden scowled and slid the door shut behind her. She was still hugging herself and looking away from him, not to mention drenching his carpet as she scanned the room compulsively and stood there in a sopping mess.

“Do you have some sort of defect in your brain?” Caden asked her, clicking on the lamp by his dresser. “Some sort of trigger that gets set off at the worst possible times that drives you to do stupid crap like this?”

Kyla told herself not to retaliate, but she couldn’t just stand there and let him insult her either. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say when she turned back around to face him, but whatever it was, it left her the moment her eyes fell on him. She already knew Caden wasn’t wearing a shirt; that much was obvious when he’d gotten out of bed. It really shouldn’t have surprised her, either. In the hundred times they’d gone swimming together in the summer, or played basketball or worked out or been on ten-mile runs…or sometimes when Caden just didn’t feel like wearing one, there were always occasions that arose which left him running around half-clothed. Kyla had never been bothered by it. It was normal for her to see him like that. It just wasn’t normal for her to see him like this.

Back then, he was still a scrawny little kid. Now he, well…wasn’t.

Kyla remembered the last day they spent together swimming in his pool last August. That was the day before he left her. She distinctly recalled teasing him and telling him he needed to “beef up” because he was so skinny. Apparently he had listened to her.

Kyla didn’t realize she was staring until he snapped at her, “What do you want?”

She forced her eyes up to his face again. “I want to talk to you,” she said.

Caden glanced at the clock by his bed and then back at her. “At two in the morning?”

“Well maybe we wouldn’t be doing this at two in the morning if you would stop screening my calls,” she said defensively.

“Can you really blame me for that, Kyla?”

“Yes, I can!” she said.

He scowled and turned away from her, and she was instantly struck with the memory of her dream. She still remembered what it felt like when he was ripped away from her…this boy who stood in front of her now that she could hardly convince herself was really there. And as she stared at him, trembling, she realized what a mistake it would be for her to get defensive right now.

“Caden…” she tried to say.

He snapped at her, “What?” and she tried not to choke up on her words.

“I miss you,” she said quietly.

That was all it took.

Pressing his lips together in frustration, Caden wrinkled his forehead and tried to resist her. She could see what he was doing, how he was trying to act calloused and tough and throw up walls so he wouldn’t have to feel whatever it was he was trying not to feel. But then he dropped his head and looked down at his feet. “Damn it, Kyla…”

Slowly, she uncrossed her arms and took a cautious step closer to him. Caden responded to the gesture by looking up and directly at her for the first time since she’d pushed her way into his room. His eyes started to soften and he tried to fight it when they did, but he didn’t pull them away from her after that. He swallowed hard when he saw that she was soaking wet and shivering, and though that was the least of her concerns right now, Caden obviously felt differently.

Without a word, he grabbed her and pulled her close to him, rubbing her arms up and down as he held her to his chest. He was so warm…so safe. And though she didn’t know why, the second that he touched her, Kyla had to fight off the urge to cry. Something about him holding her again, letting her back into that place he’d been keeping her out of, it came dangerously close to breaking her.

“You know, you’re an idiot for running out in the rain without any clothes on,” he told her.

Kyla laughed and leaned her head against his chest, biting her lip to keep back the emotion that was about to choke her off. Caden’s heart picked up speed when she pressed closer against him. She could feel it in the way he held her, in the way his grip on her tightened, how he was divided against himself. There was a fierceness behind it that she wasn’t used to feeling, like he wanted to hold her…possibly more than he ever had. But then he’d fight himself on it and start to let go, putting the guards back up again that she so utterly despised.

“I’m sorry,” Kyla's voice trembled.

Caden was still angry, but there was a weakness in him that wasn’t there before. He kissed the top of her head as she clung to him, and he stayed there like that for longer than she expected him to. “I’m sorry, too,” he told her.

She wanted to ask him why. She wanted the answers she had come here for, but she wasn’t willing to lose what she’d found instead. Nothing was worth more to her right now than this.

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

“Yeah?”

Kyla shuddered at the thought of going back to the house. “Can I stay with you tonight?”

He hesitated, and suddenly she felt the need to explain herself.

“I just…I need you, Cade.”

He didn’t answer her. Instead he let her go and walked over to his dresser, pulling out the black Sleeping Giant shirt she’d bought him at a concert they went to last summer and tossing it to her one-handed. Kyla caught it shakily, the lump in her throat trying to get back at her.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Caden still didn’t respond; he just grabbed another shirt for himself and moved back over to his bed.

Kyla turned around so her back was facing him and pulled her soaking wet shirt over her head. The strappy black sports bra she wore beneath it was soaked equally as much, but that, she would just have to deal with. Tossing her shirt on the ground, she slipped the one Caden gave her over her head; then she turned back to face him.

Caden was sitting with his back against the wall, pressing his fingers to his forehead like he would if he had a headache. Without even asking him, Kyla crawled across the bed and curled up next to him, resting her head on his chest.

Caden sighed and pulled his blanket around her, holding her with one arm as he laughingly whispered, “What are you trying to do to me?”

Kyla smiled and whispered back, “Keep you.”

She looked down at his forearm and her smile started to fade. Then she gently traced his scar with her fingertips, the same way she’d done a hundred other times. She felt his breathing stumble as she lay there in his hold, touching his arm, remembering the past, reminding them both of the first time he’d saved her life.

“Caden?” she said in a small voice.

He swallowed hard. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” Kyla told him.

Then she fell asleep.

Through the Dark Chapter List

Our preliminary chapter list will be as follows. Please note: As I continue to write and edit this book, chapter titles are subject to change. Pretty sure I’m gonna keep them generally like they are listed here, but we’ll see.
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1. “…cover-up.”

2. “…in the city of London.”

3. “…say I love you with a switchblade.”

4. “…swimming in the dark.”

5. “…to hold her and let her go.”

6. “…at the Red Rocks.”

7. “…the one who starts to dream.”

8. “…skyscraper.”

9. “…even heroes fly away.”

10. “…following Alexa.”

11. “…a messenger.”

12. “…trust your enemies, not your friends.”

13. “…what happened at Stonehenge.”

14. “…over the edge.”

15. “…airport.”

16. “…so this is what it means to risk everything.”

17. “…when it rains.”

18. “…I’d rather you just stab me.”

19. “…return.”

20. “…the morning after.”

21. “…playground.”

22. “…crossing lines.”

23. “…the truth about Rachel Blake.”

24. “…from the grave.”

25. “…into the woods.”

Woodland Park Adventures

There is nothing like traveling to the places where stories are written, especially when writer’s block has been biting at your heels so long you don’t even remember what it’s like not to have it. That’s why I love that The Awakened is set so close to home for me, because I can make decisions on a whim like road-tripping to Woodland Park to get inspired for Through the Dark (which I should have made much more progress on by now.)

So here is a collection of the pictures I took on the last such spontaneous trip I embarked on to do exactly that. Note: The successive posts after this one will most likely reflect the inspiration that resulted from said adventures.
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The Catamount Trail.



Entrance to the cemetery.



The James’ Condo.



Woodland Cemetery.



The Blake Estate.

Through the Dark Teaser Scene Five: Punching Bag

This one's really short, really rough and just for fun. I don’t know what I love so much about it; maybe that it’s the first point where Caden really starts to come unraveled.
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Caden was in his parents’ garage wailing on a punching bag that hung from the center beam when Alexa came out to see him. He had sweat pouring down his chest, despite the crisp mountain air that lingered from the night, but he didn’t even care to wipe it away. Nothing was going to stop his momentum right now. Not even his little sister.

Alexa waited patiently, watching him nail the bag over and over, but she didn’t make a sound. After she had waited long enough, Caden finally asked her, “What do you want?”

His tone was short, which was a typical way for any brother to talk to his little sister. Just not for him. Alexa didn’t appear fazed by his tone, but Caden knew better than to trust her outward appearance.

“What happened?” she asked him.

He gave her a look like she was playing some kind of game. “What?” he asked sarcastically. “You didn’t see it?”

Alexa’s eyes narrowed a little, but her voice remained flat. “No, I didn’t.”

“He came back,” Caden told her.

Alexa looked surprised by this, and seeing that startled him.

“You really didn’t know?” he asked her.

“You know I don’t see everything,” Alexa said.

Caden looked away from her. “Had me fooled,” he muttered under his breath.

Alexa seemed disturbed, like she didn’t know what to make of the way he was acting. Not that he could blame her for that. Caden wasn’t doing either of them any favors by holding back what he really wanted to say and taking out his aggression on her in this petty, inadvertent way. So he decided to give them both a break and get blunt with her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked her. She stared at him, completely unresponsive. “Why didn’t you tell me what he is?”

Finally she understood. Alexa looked down and said quietly, “I didn’t know if you would believe me.”

Caden sneered at her, unable to decide if that more hurt him or angered him. “When have I ever not believed you?”

Alexa wrote the question off to being rhetorical, though he’d hardly meant it to be.

“How did you find out?” she asked him.

He didn’t answer her.

“Tell me what happened, Caden.”

He hit the bag again, hard. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he mumbled. “He has her now.” Caden gave the bag a solid left jab. “And she’s in love with him.”

Alexa went rigid. “What?”

His expression morphed into a sickened grimace, but Caden didn’t respond to the question. He was only capable of thinking one thing right now, and it happened to be the last thing he wanted to.

He couldn’t get Val’s words out of his head.

“I have to get out of here,” he muttered. Then he threw off his gloves and went back to his room, leaving his little sister standing there looking paralyzed.

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.