celiabreslin

Hi Blog Friends,

As promised, I have an excerpt from my new Halloween story for you. I had so much fun writing this modern fairy tale. Like The Night Hag, it’s a part of my Forbidden Royals of Faerie series. The heroine, Ariana Owens, is an average teenager living in the California wine country, doing the usual teenager things, such as hanging out at a Halloween party, when wham!, a tree starts talking to her…

Happy Reading,
xoxo,
Celia

The Lady of the Oak Excerpt

“Ow! Crap!” Her foot was wedged between a couple of gnarled roots thicker than her thighs. And her palm hurt like a giant murder hornet had stung her.

Greaaaat. I am definitely a critter meal in the making.

A dull ache pulsed in her palm. In the dim light, a long gash on her thumb pad registered as a dark slash. Blood seeped from the wound, and dripped in rivulets along her skin, disappearing under the long bell sleeve of her dress.

She hissed in pain. “Gross.” Must have cut myself on some pointy bit of tree root.

A throbbing on the side of her thigh, a few inches above her knee caught her attention, joining the pain chorus in her body.

She pulled up her hem with her good hand and squinted at a three-inch slice on the side of her stuck leg, where apparently another sharp bit of bark had ripped right through her thigh-high stocking and precious skin.

“How the heck is that even possible? And ow, ow, ow!”

This is bad. She had no first aid supplies, nothing to clean and disinfect her wounds.

“Fantastic.” If she didn’t die out there as an animal’s dinner, then she might die later of some horrible bacterial infection from dirty cuts.

Could tonight get any worse?

A coyote yipped.

Yes. Yes, it can.

She jiggled her imprisoned leg in frantic tugs.

“I have to get out of here. Let me go you stupid tree, let me go!” she yelled at the oak, heart pounding so hard her chest hurt. “I want to go home!”

The tree moaned.

Ariana screamed.

The coyotes howled.

“Offering accepted,” a bass voice boomed from behind her.

She shrieked and whipped her head around. No one there. Nothing but the tree trunk…

Which had groaned at her.

Okay, clearly someone dosed her water at the party. She had to be hallucinating, and yet she found herself replying to the freakin’ tree, “Wh-what offering?”

“Blood of the witch,” Mr. Blue Oak rumbled.

I’ve lost my damn mind… “What witch? Me? I’m not a witch. I’m a teenager!”

“Blood of the witch, blood of the seer, blood of the magus…”

As if that explains anything. “I’m none of those things, you big bunch of bark.” As insults went, not her best work. But who could blame her? She was flippin’ arguing with a tree!

The oak let out another great grumble from deep within its trunk. “Offering accepted,” Mr. Blue repeated.

“But I didn’t…I mean I’m not bleeding all over you on purpose. I got cut on your–”

Three coyotes trotted up to her, halting a few feet away.

Ariana froze…

You’ll meet Ariana again, several years later, in her full-length novel in the series. I’ll release her story to online stores before the end of the month. If you’d like the gift copy (plus The Night Hag, too), instead, sign up for my newsletter here, then follow this link to claim Ariana’s story.

Stock up on science-fiction romance!

Includes books by: Sharon Barrington * Bella Blair * Kyla Breene * Celia Breslin (Hi! 👋) * Leslie Chase * Tracy Cooper-Posey * Heather Fox * Lucee Joie * Kassie Keegan * Keri Kruspe * Skye McKinnon * Glori Medina * Stephanie Morris * AK Nevermore * Eva Priest * Lara Roth * Selena Sky * Kate Rudolph * Juno Wells * Jacqueline Westwood * and more!

Prices range from free, free with Kindle Unlimited, to 99 USD pennies and up, through the end of the month.

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