Alexandra Christian shares Naked (Phoenix Rising #1)

Naked (Phoenix Rising #1)

by Alexandra Christian

Genre: Sci-Fi/ Paranormal Romance

Librarian at one of Earth's last paper libraries, Phoebe Addison is about to have a romantic and interplanetary adventure wilder than anything she's ever read.

OUT OF THE STACKS

Librarian Phoebe Addison has lived her entire life within a seventy-five mile radius of her small Louisiana town, but when she receives a strange medallion from her adventurous, off-world sister, reality tilts toward the bizarre. Everything Phoe thought she knew is…well, wrong. Dead wrong. But bone-numbing fear has no place in this brave new world—nor by the side of the dangerous, exquisite man who saves her life.

…AND INTO THE FIRE

Following the tragic slaughter of his family, operative Macijah “Cage” St. John understands evil in a way no man ever should. He traded happiness for a magnificent and terrible power, and fate isn’t done with him yet. He wasn’t looking for comfort. He didn’t need tenderness. But today he’ll play hero to a damsel in distress, and his quest will deliver him to the uncanny Martian colony of New London—and his heart to the demure Phoebe Addison. The bookish beauty’s hidden talents and deep abiding love just might save Cage from himself.

Get the first chapter of Naked for FREE!

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EXCERPT:

“Hey…” she sighed, taking the curve of his jaw in the palm of her hand and raising his eyes to meet hers. “I’m okay. You saved my life. For like… the millionth time.”  He didn’t move, so she didn’t pull away, finally able to observe him. His jaw was set, tense as he stared at her with those dusky, changeable eyes. But Phoe could feel a tremble there. A fear lurking underneath that she would never have expected a man like Cage to possess. “I’m fine.”

“And what in hell were you doing?” he said, snapping his head up to glare at her. “I told you to run away and you did exactly the opposite of what I said! You could have been killed! Or worse, bitten! You just… you don’t understand, Phoe. I’m supposed to protect you, and I didn’t protect you. I can’t lose another…”  His words trailed off. She could tell he wanted to say more but wouldn’t. She held his gaze, but he looked away, as if he were hiding some weakness he couldn’t stand for her to see. There was some trauma lurking there.

“What are you talking about?” she said. “Help me understand.” 

“I can’t,” he said, pulling back and shaking his head as if to clear it. “I won’t.”

“But why…”

He rolled back on his heels and rose quickly, his shoulder brushing against the bedside table and nearly toppling the glass of tea, an uncharacteristically clumsy movement. “Just leave it alone, Phoe. My demons are my own.”  The weakness was gone, and now that hard-edged, barely contained anger returned. She knew if she pressed him that he would lash out. She was starting to understand, to be able to read his moods that had seemed so random and mysterious when they’d first met. There was a scab, healed over but still burning. “Rest up,” he said, turning to walk away. “We’ll leave at sunset. Addie has a car.”

Swallowing her nausea, she threw back the blanket and stumbled out of the bed toward him. “Wait… Cage…”

He stopped but didn’t turn.

“Look, I don’t know what’s happened to you in your past. But we all have demons. Some of us, more than most people. I get it.”  She lay a hand on his shoulder, feeling the tremble of muscles pulled tight. The sensation of gentle touch had evidently become a foreign concept, and his first reaction was to flee. His head turned, staring down at where the cool, pearlescent flesh of her fingertips rested against him. Such a profile, his eyes gazing downward and just the faint glisten of a single tear resting just under his eyelashes. Phoe’s heart broke for him. “You can trust me.”

“I do trust you, Phoe.”  She slid her arm along his shoulder, and he turned, enveloping her body in a gentle embrace. He brushed a hand over her brow, smoothing back the stray locks that fell around her face. Being so close to him, she felt small and skittish. If he loosened his grasp even just a little, she feared she would retreat. He took her hand, bringing it to his lips and then pressing her palm against his cheek. Instantly his body relaxed, as if her touch were some sort of calming drug. Phoebe could actually feel the tension melting from his embrace. His eyes were full of fire and his breathing labored. Phoe couldn’t believe that it was her doing this to him. That all of this was for her. “I don’t trust me,” he went on. She was mesmerized by the curves of his lips as he spoke and without even realizing, she’d moved closer. Only a breath between them, and then their lips touched. He kissed her, lightly at first then more insistent. Phoe was stiff, the sensation so unfamiliar as his sumptuous mouth caressed her lower lip, worrying it gently, teaching her what to do. She melted into his embrace, and he teased the crease of her mouth with the tip of his tongue, coaxing it open before taking possession. Cage stole her breath and then offered his own. His arms tightened around her waist as he pulled her in against him, letting his hands rest on her hips as their kiss went on and on. When he let her go, Phoe stumbled, holding her dizzy head. A fluttery feeling rose in the pit of her belly, and all she wanted to do was kiss him again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexandra Christian is an author of mostly romance with a speculative slant. Her love of Stephen King and sweet tea has flavored her fiction with a Southern Gothic sensibility that reeks of Spanish moss and deep fried eccentricity. As one-half of the writing team at Little Red Hen Romance, she’s committed to bringing exciting stories and sapiosexual love monkeys to intelligent readers everywhere. Lexx also likes to keep her fingers in lots of different pies having written everything from sci-fi and horror to Sherlock Holmes adventures. Her alter-ego, A.C. Thompson, is also the editor of the highly successful Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series of anthologies. 

A self-proclaimed “Southern Belle from Hell,” Lexx is a native South Carolinian who lives with an epileptic wiener dog and her husband, author Tally Johnson. Her long-term aspirations are to one day be a best-selling authoress and part-time pinup girl. She’s a member of Romance Writers of America and Broad Universe—an organization that supports female authors of speculative fiction.

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SM Schmitz & Lisa Blackwood join forces to launch Vengeance For the Dominion Rising BoxSet.

S.M. Schmitz on co-writing and launching a new sci-fi romance series in Dominion Rising

In 2016, bestselling urban fantasy author, Lisa Blackwood, and I began talking about co-writing a sci-fi romance novel that could potentially become a series with as many books in it as we wanted to write since each would follow a different warship. The original idea for Vengeance, the first book in the Warships of the Spire series, follows the story of an artificial intelligence whose sentience controls not only the warship but a number of sentinels and drones—including a partly organic humanoid cyborg. Ven’s story, while definitely be filled with the action common to space operas, is a familiar one to romance readers as well, because it’s also a novel about love and loss. And even AIs like Ven can fall in love.

When we joined the Dominion Rising project in the fall of 2016, we decided to write and launch Vengeance as part of this exciting box set. All twenty-three novels are new and written exclusively for Dominion Rising, and we’ve been honored to work with some of the most talented indie authors in science fiction and fantasy. Lisa and I also discovered that we work well together because we have such different writing styles and strengths—she brought high intensity action sequences to our story, and I focused on relatable dialogue and emotional connections. Ultimately, we hope we’ve created a story that brings all of the elements readers love from space opera and sci-fi romance to the pages of Vengeance.

The best part? We’re already planning book two. Citadel will be launching in the Spring of 2018, so grab your copy of Dominion Rising for the launch price of $0.99, and ward off that dreaded book hangover…because with twenty-three novels, there’s plenty to fall in love with. And you might just find your next boyfriend in the pages of Vengeance, book one of the new Warships of the Spire series.

Purchase Dominion Rising at any of these retailers:

Kindle: http://smarturl.it/DominionKindle

Nook: http://smarturl.it/DominionNook

Kobo: http://smarturl.it/DominionKobo

iBooks: http://smarturl.it/DominioniBooks

GooglePlay: http://smarturl.it/DominionGooglePlay

Learn more about all of S.M. Schmitz’s science fiction and fantasy titles at www.smschmitz.com.

Excerpt from Vengeance:

Aboard his warship, Commander Lisk barked, “Vengeance, report!”

Renee had just boarded one of his transports so she could reach the warship currently engaged in battle with two determined opponents. Warhawk and Wolverine, the Nuallan warships, were busy with their own battles. Vengeance was particularly concerned about Warhawk. The smaller battlecruiser had sustained substantial damage to seventy-nine percent of his hull with breaches in sixteen locations. His port side engine had been completely destroyed, and his shields were almost depleted.

Vengeance was faring better, but his own opponents were keeping him hemmed in, unable to help Warhawk without leaving the planet and evacuation ships more vulnerable than they already were.

Commander Lisk barked again, “Vengeance, report!”

“Link Renee is now safely on one of my transports, and my drone is taking a squadron of sentinels to fight the enemy units converging on the school,” Vengeance answered using the ship-wide comm.

Commander Lisk grunted in acknowledgment then shouted for more reports about what was happening on Nualla. The last enemy weapons fire had knocked out his close-range sensors so the energy webs were only displaying warnings and error reports to the crew.

“Large parts of the city and spaceport have sustained damage. The evacuation is still underway. Twenty-three ships report that they are already accelerating away from Nualla. The enemy ships show no interest in following them,” Vengeance reported.

Commander Lisk leaned forward in his chair. “For now. We’ll make sure they don’t have a chance. Have the individual fighters flank and provide escort for the—”

A blast from an enemy’s cannon penetrated Vengeance’s shields and struck his hull. The bioskin absorbed and dispersed much of the impact, but Vengeance still rocked hard to the side before thrusters matched the force.

“Sustaining rapid-fire pulse cannon damage. Port side energy admitters have failed causing the foremost shield arrays to weaken. Diverting power from all other admitters to compensate. Shields holding at twenty percent,” Vengeance told his crew. “Returning fire.”

“Vengeance, can you identify what models are attacking you?” Lisk asked, his voice tense.

“Birth stamps on hulls identify them as Basilisk, Warlock, Relentless, Danforth, Agrona, and Warhammer.”

“Look out for Warhammer,” Lisk advised. “He has energy harpoons.”

“He’s bringing them online now,” Ven replied.

“Don’t let him sink his claws into your shields,” Lisk ordered. “It’ll hamper your maneuverability too much and weaken your shields.”

“I’m aware of that,” Vengeance snapped.

Flashes of weapons fire lit up the screens, revealing glimpses of the enemy ships against the darkness of space. Two seconds after Warhammer released his harpoons, Vengeance returned fire with secondary weapons’ arrays. While Vengeance was battling Warhammer, fire from the three enemy ships made Vengeance shudder under their attack.

Enemy fire began to breach his shields where energy harpoons had latched on and diverted the shield’s resonance. As his shields continued to weaken, his hull shook under the impact. His sentinels remained upright, but the crew was getting knocked around.

They were likely to get far worse if the tide of battle didn’t swing in his favor soon. However, since he was much older than his two opponents and had been built during a time when the Spire was less peaceful, he had one weapon they lacked.

“Bringing main fusion cannon online,” Vengeance announced. Deep within his engineering section, just a few decks above his primary core, his secondary power station came online and diverted power from the rest of his extremities.

“Vengeance, no!” Lisk protested.

All over the ship, lights dimmed and screens went dark. On the bridge, the energy webs blanked out, plunging the room into darkness.

“Diverting all remaining power to main weapons’ array,” Vengeance told his crew.

“Damn it, Vengeance!” Lisk yelled. “You can’t fire on them while we’re this close!”

Vengeance knew the risks, of course, but if he didn’t do something, Nualla could be lost. And he couldn’t lose Renee or Hayley.

Vengeance’s voice drifted out of the darkness. “Main Fusion cannons at eight-five percent and climbing. Nine-five percent.” His exposed hull continued to take a battering, but he was a Neit Class warship and had been designed to take more punishment than the newer, lighter models.

“Targeting Warhammer. Firing main fusion cannons. Full strength, continuous ten second burst,” Vengeance announced.

During the initial blast, Vengeance was blinded by radiation and battle damage but within seconds, his other systems normalized, and his shields and sensors both came back online. “Assessing damage.”

Throughout the bridge, energy webs flickered back on. Their feeble glow grew stronger, weaving lights and colors together until the space battle was pictured once more. Danforth, Relentless, and Basilisk were still engaged, but Warhammer was dead, the deep wound in his hull still bleeding fluids and sparks of energy.

Warhammer’s corpse rotated slowly in space, drifting toward the planet’s surface in a decaying orbit.

“Warhammer destroyed. Radiation levels inside my hull are minimal. Scrubbing commenced where shields were insufficient,” Vengeance said as he locked on to the next target.

Lisk may have thought Ven’s decision to employ the fusion cannon was madness, but Hayley was on this planet. And if he had to, he’d destroy every last Warship of the Spire to protect her.