Excerpt!
He hurried to Nyana’s side and felt her forehead again.
Hotter than before.
He ran a hand over his chin, a familiar fear echoing in the caverns of his heart. He’d lost Nyana to Calle. And then to Liam. He refused to lose her to death, too.
Perhaps a half-hour passed before a knock at the door startled him.
Joel lurched to his feet and threw open the door, only to face a short, old man with a long, graying beard and light, dusty blue eyes. Cian carried a satchel over one shoulder, his gaze serious as he peered around him.
“Nyana?” the old man questioned in a scratchy voice. When Joel nodded and moved aside to let him in, he sighed. “I assumed as much.”
As Cian shuffled inside, Joel pulled up a chair and watched him sit before digging through the satchel. “I’ve seen to Nyana several times in the past few years.”
Needing something for his hands to do, Joel knelt beside the sofa and dabbed at a few flecks of dried blood on Nyana’s chin. “Has she been sick?”
Cian’s hands paused, his expression becoming sorrowful. “No. Liam was…a cruel spouse. I tended to her injuries. She hasn’t been the same since he beat her hard enough to lose her last child in the womb.”
Joel squeezed his eyes shut as he took Nyana’s limp hand and pressed it to his lips. He truly did not understand the extent of the horrors she’d faced. “I didn’t know that.” After taking a steadying breath, he dared to speak again. “Is this some sort of complication then?”
“I don’t know. It happened a year ago.”
Several long, torturous minutes passed as Cian checked her fever, her ears, inside her mouth, and felt along her throat. His frown deepened with each new assessment.
“What is it?” Joel whispered, squeezing Nyana’s hand harder as anxiety rolled across his heart like thunder. “What’s wrong with her?”
The old man shook his head. “I can’t find the source of her infirmities. Unless…”
Carefully, Cian pulled on the collar of Nyana’s dress to expose the skin just below her collarbones. And paused. A look of horror twisted the wrinkles around his eyes. Joel followed his gaze, the blood draining from his face. Black, shadowy veins crawled across her skin, centered just over her heart. The black tendrils pulsed like a living thing, writhing like a consuming fire.
Cian released a long breath. “This is nothing I can heal. It’s dark magic.”
Author bio:
Sydney Winward is a fantasy and paranormal romance author who dabbles in the occasional historical fiction. She loves building complex worlds filled with magic, strong characters, and emotional stories that can make you laugh and cry.
Sydney is the author of The Bloodborn Series and the Sunlight and Shadows Series. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, thinking about stories, or going on adventures with her children. She lives in Utah with her husband and three amazing kids.
If fate gives you a third chance, would you take it?
Joel Harrington has been in love with the same woman for as long as he could remember. But he had to watch her court his best friend, and then marry his king. Now that she’s once more unattached, he refuses to let her slip through his fingers for a third time.
Darkness torments Nyana’s memories, and even after her cruel husband is killed, he still haunts her from the grave. When her past refuses to leave her alone, it puts not only her, but her daughters in danger. She has no choice but to lean on the man she has called a friend for the past eight years, a friend whose charms she tries hard to resist.
But along with the growing threat to her family, she keeps an even more dangerous secret—a secret that could change her life forever.
Check it out on Goodreads!
Buy your copy from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or Google Play
Author bio:
Sydney Winward is a fantasy and paranormal romance author who dabbles in the occasional historical fiction. She loves building complex worlds filled with magic, strong characters, and emotional stories that can make you laugh and cry.
Sydney is the author of The Bloodborn Series and the Sunlight and Shadows Series. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, thinking about stories, or going on adventures with her children. She lives in Utah with her husband and three amazing kids.
This sounds like a really good book and series. Very pretty cover.
ReplyDelete