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Lex Talionis by R.S.A. Garcia

I’m so excited to introduce you to the debut novel from R.S.A. Garcia. We are in a writing group together and I’m so thrilled for her first novel, Lex Talionis, a science fiction mystery. I have an interview with her below, as well as all the details on Lex Talionis.

1. What is your favorite place to write? 

If I had my way, I’d write where I had a view through a picture window to water, mountains or trees. However, my computer is in the spare bedroom in my house, so I go there. It’s got the advantage of being quiet, so it’s my favorite place.

2. Tell us a little about your writing process.

I’m a dedicated pantser. I go in knowing the beginning and the end and a bit about the middle, but I don’t like writing scenes out of order. I get inspired by kernels of ideas and usually bury them deep. They can take months or even years to germinate a story. Once that story idea has reached a point where I have to sit down and tap away at the keys, I’ll generally keep going until it’s done.

I don’t usually write more than one book at time, but I’ve recently developed that skill out of necessity. I’ve also realised it might be a good idea to start doing plot outlines and keeping lots of notes rather than storing the entire book in my head and flipping back over the text when I need to remember a small detail, like the colour of someone’s eyes. LEX TALIONIS was written this way, but I’m looking to try different methods. I’m exploring Scrivener at the moment.

3. If you could be any fictional character, who would you be?

That’s a huge question! Why do I have to pick one? I’ve never been able to narrow down anything I love to just one favourite. So for now, I’ll just say there was a time I wanted nothing more than to be the captain of the Enterprise, or Xena, or Buffy. But deep down I think I just want to be Spock.

Or the woman that ends up with Shane Gooseman of the Galaxy Rangers.

What? A girl can dream.

4. What is the best writing advice you’ve been given?

You have five senses. The more you use them to build a scene, and by extension your story, the stronger your writing will be. Lots of writers–myself included–have vivid imaginations and a great love of film. This leads us to write amazing visuals, but your writing can’t immerse the reader until you can make them smell, taste and touch the world you’re introducing them to, as well as see and hear it.

About Lex Talionis

A battered young woman wakes from a coma in a space port hospital with no memories of her past. The only thing she remembers are two words: Lex Talionis—the Law of Revenge. To discover her identity, she must re-live the nightmares of her past, and face the only survivor of a terrible massacre that connects her with her abductors.

You can download Lex Talionis in all formats from Dragonwell Publishing. You can purchase the paperback from Amazon, with the ebook joining it on May 30.

Excerpt

Death is the breath between one Life and the Next.
—  Message of the Will, Book of the Seven Holies, Ancient Dak Scripture

I

Death came for Michael while he slept.

He woke, gasping and trembling, from a dream of being pushed out the airlock. His fingers were cold and numb; the weight of his head on his arm had cut off his circulation. Michael sat up, wiping sweaty strands of hair off his forehead. Shifting his feet out from under him, he cursed as pain lanced up his leg.

Shit. I fell asleep. I can’t sleep. How long was I out?

Michael crawled along the vent to the grille that covered its entrance, stopping once to catch his breath. Despite having dozed, he was exhausted and cold. The air in the vent left a metallic taste in his dry mouth and he couldn’t stop shaking. The wound in his leg, which he’d bandaged with cloth ripped from his pants, made a white-hot line down his shin.

God, it hurts. If I don’t find some meds soon…

He had to figure a way out before he was incapable of going on, or lost consciousness again–maybe for good. Michael pulled himself onto his knees, inching his way toward the harsh light that shone through the grille. Dust motes danced in the path of square patches of illumination.

Then he heard it.

Faint, a mere whisper: the brief sound of air being expelled from lungs. And it came from outside, from the corridor below the vent. Despite the fact that he was freezing, sweat broke out all over his body.

Fuck. Oh, fuck no. Please, no.

Michael strained to hear, ignoring the pain in his wounded leg, which had become twisted beneath him. There was nothing but the impossibly loud sound of his own breathing. Seconds ticked by, then minutes. He blinked as sweat dripped into his eyes.

Still nothing.

Heart tripping, he decided he must have imagined it all. He began to shift his weight in a careful movement.

Tap, tap, tap.

All the air left his lungs. The grille wavered and darkened before his eyes.

Tap…tap…tap.

The sound came from right below him, on the wall just under his hiding place.

Tap, tap, tap.

He recognized the rhythm. It had been centuries since anyone had used it on a military vessel, but everyone had studied the same vids in their naval history holobooks during basic training.

Three short, three long, three short. SOS. Save Our Souls. A cruel jibe. The only soul left to save was his, and the very thing he tried to escape stood right outside, mocking him with the ancient distress signal none of them, least of all him, would ever be able to send.

The tapping stopped. Michael stared at the opening in front of him, seeing the grille being yanked off like paper as if it were already happening, seeing the light falling fully into the narrow vent, revealing him where he crouched, helpless and too terrified to move.

Not that he would be able to escape even if he could.

The silence pushed at his ears. The grille in front of him continued to filter the light into shapes on the inside of the vent. He waited, certain he was a dead man; wanting it to be over now, because he was tired, so very tired.

Eventually, it dawned on him that it had been silent too long. It took a few more minutes before he worked up enough courage to make his way to the front of the vent and look down to see the empty corridor stretching out on either side.

After he opened the grille and slid down from his hiding place, his legs gave way below him and he crumpled to the floor.

I’m still alive. I’m still alive.

But not for long if he just sat there. He had to find medication. That meant Med Bay–and the bridge.

He shuddered, his mind shying away from the endless corridors that waited for him, lights flickering while darkness edged their walls.

Don’t think. Just go. Go now.

Leaning on the wall, Michael pushed himself to his feet. He started limping down the corridor, slow at first, and then faster. The way to the bridge would be long and dangerous, and if he was right, he had very little time to get there.

II

Desmond Obuki was not particularly kind or generous. He gave to charity for the tax breaks and avoided fund-raisers like the plagues they were usually trying to eradicate. He was a businessman, not a meal ticket. But he was also something else.  

Human.

And if the shoe on the unmoving foot he had spotted told him anything, it was that the Elutheran had a human down on the ground. It kept lashing out viciously, its muscular proboscis waving between its short, sharp beak as it chirped away to itself. The feathered red ball of its body rippled every now and again, as if caught in a stiff breeze. It was at least knee-high; definitely an adult.

After that, he couldn’t very well walk away. The warren of alleys surrounding Bradley was dangerous.  Not so much for a former soldier like himself, but even he wouldn’t be here now if he wasn’t trying to beat the clock.

He had no idea how the Elutheran had managed to overpower the human, but a mudsucker couldn’t be up to any good in an area like this one. The guy had probably fallen asleep drunk in the gutter, and the Elutheran must have come across him. Humans were few and far between in this part of PortCity; the least he could do was drive off the little mudsucker and help the poor bastard up out of the gutter.

He didn’t need to check the dim street for friends of the alien. The alley finished in a dead-end beyond the spot where the Elutheran had the human backed up against the building. The smooth seventy-foot walls of the ore factories on either side offered no hiding places.

“Hey! Get the fuck off him!”

The Elutheran panicked. It sucked its feeding tube back into its head, rolled across the narrow alley, bounced along the lower edge of the wall and shot past Obuki before the man could grab hold of it. Shrugging his shoulders, Obuki walked over to the gutter and bent over the shape clad in a dark jumpsuit and a pair of spacer’s boots. There was a faint smell in the air–like rust.

“Hey, you, wake up. This is no place to sleep off…”

He rolled the body over and sucked in his breath.

His hands were wet.  He looked at them and it dawned on him that the top half of the jumpsuit was not red. It only looked that way because of the blood.

“Oh, shit.”

He’d lost his comm panel on the flight back. Hadn’t thought much of it at the time as he had a replacement at the office, but that wouldn’t help him contact the police now.

He looked at the battered face again and sighed. It had to be a woman. And she was still breathing.

Well, he thought, no good deed goes unpunished. He would be late for sure now. Grumbling under his breath, he picked up the unconscious woman and strode out of the alleyway.

You can download Lex Talionis in all formats from Dragonwell Publishing. You can purchase the paperback from Amazon, with the ebook joining it on May 30.

Find more from R.S.A. Garcia on her blog, Twitter and Facebook.

Finding Esta by Shah Wharton

Finding Esta is the tumultuous tale of one extraordinary woman’s journey of self-discovery within a supernatural underworld.

Excerpt

If you wrote those words, I doubt you could hurt me. His eyes shone, tears lingered, longing for release. Great swaths of grey grief poured from him and pierced my chest. I winced at the sting of his need, his loss.

Is it you? Did you ever find your Esta?

Despite the possibility of immense pain, I now longed for him to touch me. It made no sense, but I needed it. Perhaps to prove him real, not a hologram? Perhaps to see if I could? And like he’d heard my desires, he raised his hand towards my cheek again. This time I made no attempt to block him, I simply braced myself, the cloth of my outfit in my fists at my sides. I clenched my jaw and held my breath, but my eyes remained open; I had to see him, his reaction.

We stared at one another, waiting for the touch that might even kill me. His fingertips made contact with my cheek and a cool, soft, and electric stimulus passed through my skin.

Immense emotion poured from them, into me. But no pain followed, nor visions to flood or cripple me, no agonies of histories. When he saw me relax into his fingertips, he cupped my cheek fully and I felt, for the first time in my life, the absolute wonder of painless flesh on flesh touch. My hand flew to hold it in place. I never wanted it to end. And from his chest passed the purest of all emotions … love.

Is that for me? But …?

For a perfect moment, I thought if I died right then, it wouldn’t be too bad.

Tears of my joy soaked his gentle palm, and I forgot about the razor, the house, the loss of Flo and Ada, my mysterious loitering stranger with his messages, dreams and unspoken intent. Even the blood’s allure dissolved, somewhat.

We remained in this odd position for what seemed like hours. Until I coughed, feeling more and more weak. He removed his hand and licked my tears away with his blood soaked tongue. This broke my reverie and reawakened my hunger for blood.

Hovering above me, his face now over mine, I lay admiring him and the blood colouring the otherwise white glare of his complexion. The smooth glow of his flesh shone through a midnight blue, sheer woollen sweater. I imagined my tongue licking vanilla ice cream and finding his flesh instead. I wouldn’t have minded.

My head buzzed, stomach churned with physical attraction and mounting hunger, an intoxicating blend I found increasingly hard to resist. He sunk towards me, still suspended by some magical force.

What the hell am I feeling?

I should have screamed, fought, fled. But the tranquil aura circling us, overflowing with soft light, filled me with a sense of love, true or false. It oozed from him like blood from a wound. He was the most arresting being I’d ever encountered, other then Abby. Unashamed, transfixed, and willing, I lay yearning in silence beneath him. Overcome, my tears continued to dribble and my lungs stretched with held breath.

The fantastic finally killed all reason. He lowered further still, until a droplet of blood fell from the razor onto my cheek, then another fell between my lips. My autonomic response was to lick it, savour it, drink it, which of course horrified me. But the taste was too divine to deny myself. My hunger multiplied, my body screamed that I needed it. The blood raced through my veins, moistened dusty pathways, cleansed the drought.

“Ah …” I adored it, right up until my vegetarian conscience asserted itself, and as much as I’d savoured its taste, reason said to spit, choke, vomit. I turned my head to do so, but the demon grabbed my face to stop me.

He sliced the razor across his tongue, gasped in pain until his lips found mine and luscious blood flooded my mouth.

He delivered my first kiss and I sucked, licked, and drank him in.

No pain or visions interrupted the sensation of his unadulterated passion, which rode into me on each blood cell.

My body sang the sweetest sonnet. Such a kiss reached way beyond the famous Charlie Brown kiss I’d dreamt of as a child. I soared through midnight starry skies like an Apollo spacecraft, right up into a completely new dimension. I zipped around glorious moonbeams and chatted with the man on the moon … I mean this was epic.

My mind called out to anyone who might hear it, hoping that my Shadows shared my frequency, even if I couldn’t share theirs.

“If I die today, now, know that I died one happy lady.”

To read the rest of Finding Esta, you can download it from Amazon.

Find more from Shah on her website, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.