{"id":3399,"date":"2009-10-06T00:00:33","date_gmt":"2009-10-06T04:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shilohwalker.wordpress.com\/?p=3399"},"modified":"2009-10-06T00:00:33","modified_gmt":"2009-10-06T04:00:33","slug":"candy-houses-now-available","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shilohwalker.com\/website\/2009\/10\/candy-houses-now-available\/","title":{"rendered":"Candy Houses…now available…CONTEST…."},"content":{"rendered":"

Want an excerpt?\u00a0 of course, if you just want to buy…<\/a> *G*\u00a0 Details for contest listed below! <\/span>Contest has ended… thank you! Winner to be notified!
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\"Candy<\/a>
Candy Houses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Blurb:<\/h3>\n

So you think you know fairy tales? Guess again.<\/em><\/p>\n

Grimm\u2019s Circle, Book 1<\/em><\/p>\n

Greta didn\u2019t get her happy ending her first time around. And now that she\u2019s a Grimm\u2014special kind of guardian angel and official ass-kicker in the paranormal world\u2014romance is hard to find. Besides, there\u2019s only ever been one man who made her heart race, and the fact that he did scared her right out of his arms. Now Rip is back. And just in time too, because Greta needs his help.<\/p>\n

On a mission he knows is going to test all of his strengths and skills, the last person Rip expected to see is the one woman who broke his heart. Working together seems to be their only hope. But, when faced with a danger neither of them anticipated, the question is, how will they face the danger to their hearts\u2014assuming they survive, of course.<\/p>\n

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It came at me, a silent rush of death. At the very last second, I spun out of the way and felt the blast of air as it swiped out at where I\u2019d stood only a heartbeat earlier. The thing\u2019s hands ended in claws that measured close to three inches long.<\/p>\n

The skin along the back of my neck prickled as I once more started to circle away from the bocan<\/em>, weaving around it in nonsensical patterns. It made another rush and this time, instead of moving aside, I went down and sliced upward. Black, bitter blood covered me as I managed to break skin. It shuddered, but I figured out very quickly that while I\u2019d hurt the demon, I hadn\u2019t slowed it down. It slashed out as I scrambled away. Those claws got closer that time.<\/p>\n

And then again. This time it caught me. I bit my lip to keep from screaming as the claws managed to get me in the belly, slicing me open. Blood flowed.<\/p>\n

Shit\u2014<\/p>\n

A hand came out of nowhere and grabbed me, hauling me aside.<\/p>\n

Dazed, I fell against the crumbled rock wall at my back and watched. I was in a state of shock, I think. I didn\u2019t recognize the man at first\u2026well, not consciously. My body probably would have, if I hadn\u2019t been losing huge quantities of blood through the gashes in my belly. I whimpered and shrugged out of the blood-soaked jacket I wore and balled it up, pressing it to my wounded stomach.<\/p>\n

The flesh was already knitting back together. I could literally feel it, deep, deep inside. It was a bad injury. If I was still wholly human, I\u2019d be dead already. As it was, I was losing a lot of blood. Even us pseudo-immortals get weak when we lose too much blood.<\/p>\n

Sinking to the ground, I watched as the man fought the bocan<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He was a lot more equipped to handle the thing than I was, that was for sure. The bocan<\/em> tried to gut him with those lethal claws but the man moved away, quick as a wish. I saw one hand disappear inside the long coat he wore\u2014something about that coat, the way it stretched over his shoulders, tickled a memory. I wouldn\u2019t look at his face. Thinking about it now, I know why I wouldn\u2019t look, because I knew in my heart who he was, and I needed to prepare myself a little bit more before I actually looked<\/em> at him.<\/p>\n

Instead, I focused on his hands\u2026and on the very awesome weapon he\u2019d drawn from inside that long, black coat. It was a black cylinder, maybe two, two and a half feet long. Yeah, I know, that doesn\u2019t sound too flashy. It would do some serious damage to a human, probably even a number of manifested demons.<\/p>\n

But a nine-foot-tall bocan<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Nope. Right up until he twisted it, I wasn\u2019t impressed. But then he twisted it. I heard the whisper of metal as two edged blades appeared, one out either end of the metal cylinder.<\/p>\n

Now it was five feet long, and bladed on both ends.<\/p>\n

He used it like an artist. He moved like a dancer of death. The silver flashed through the air. His body barely seemed to touch the ground before he was moving off again. Eerie, deadly and oh so lovely to look at. In a rather morbid way, of course.<\/p>\n

Black blood stained the metal as he sliced through the bocan<\/em>\u2019s scales.<\/p>\n

The bocan<\/em> hissed.<\/p>\n

The man just laughed. That laugh. I knew that laugh.<\/p>\n

Rip\u2026<\/p>\n

Just before I passed out, I finally let myself look at him. I found myself staring at his familiar profile. An ache settled in my heart and it followed me as I went under.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Rip had problems.<\/p>\n

He had all sorts of problems. He had one dead demon on his hands. He had one unconscious, young adult female on his hands. He had one unconscious, not-so-young adult female on his hands\u2014and she was injured.<\/p>\n

His body screamed at him as he crouched beside Greta. Along his left arm, he had a series of gashes, three of them, each one of them a good seven inches long and deep. Very deep, because they weren\u2019t healing fast. The bocan<\/em> had managed to tear into his muscle, and the muscles had to knit together before the skin could. So he was still bleeding.<\/p>\n

But not as bad as Greta.<\/p>\n

She was pale, even paler than normal. That milky, fair complexion was ghostly and even though he knew she couldn\u2019t die from the injury she\u2019d taken, his heart skipped a few beats and then took up residence in his throat. To reassure himself, he laid a hand on her neck, felt the warmth and the life of her.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t help much.<\/p>\n

He was going to relive the night\u2019s events a thousand times over in the years to come\u2014the nightmare of seeing the bocan<\/em> come this close to gutting her, and he had been too far away to do a damn thing.<\/p>\n

What were you thinking?<\/em><\/p>\n

She had faced down a bocan<\/em> with pretty much her bare hands. She\u2019d had a knife. A paltry blade in her right fist as she\u2019d circled around the demon. Bocans<\/em> were too fucking big, too fucking strong, and that hide of theirs was like armor. Knives just didn\u2019t cut it.<\/p>\n

He shot the dead creature a nasty look and wondered where in the hell it had come from. Bocans<\/em> were uncommon in the world because they didn\u2019t have the abilities a lot of other demons had\u2014they couldn\u2019t manifest, couldn\u2019t possess. They just killed.<\/p>\n

A bocan<\/em>. The paraisei<\/em> he\u2019d faced earlier. Something weird was going on. Demonkind didn\u2019t ever gather together in one place for long\u2014it attracted too much attention, the sort of attention that ended up them being sent back to the netherplains.<\/p>\n

What in the hell was going on?<\/p>\n

Greta shifted under his hands. Under her breath, she whimpered quietly and Rip, without even thinking about it, bent over her and pressed his lips to her brow. \u201cHush, angel. You\u2019re safe now\u2026you\u2019re safe. Sleep\u2026heal.\u201d<\/p>\n

His heart broke a little as she burrowed close to him.<\/p>\n

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buy<\/a> (looks like it’s live at Samhain’s store front now)
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If you have an Amazon kindle, you can preorder now<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Updated…<\/em><\/span>I’m not going to be home today so I can’t do much to promote the book.\u00a0 But here’s a quickie contest…<\/p>\n