Gears of Brass
Page 29
I blink. “What?”
“We had a prophecy about you. Some of us were trying to reason with you. But you never listened. You killed them.”
My gut tightens. I’m a monster.
“Kill me,” I breathe.
He looks at me for a second, then shakes his head. “I can’t.”
I turn my head up at him. “I don’t understand. I… I… killed your family.”
He bends down, cradles my face with his rough hands and moves closer to mine. “One will seek revenge, but when face to face with the slayer, beauty will claim him. Love will fill him and he’ll never leave her.”
My cheeks warm as his breath touches my lips. I open my mouth slightly to ask a question, but his own crashes against mine. My heart swells and butterflies swarm inside my stomach. I’m home.
From here on out, Colten is mine to protect, not hunt. Mine to love, not hate. And one day, hopefully, people like Lance will understand. Until then, we decide to hide among the trees, in the mountains, across the land as they search for the last of the giants.
Jordan Elizabeth, more formally known as Jordan Elizabeth Mierek, is often lost in a dreamworld.
You can read more about Amethyst Treasure in the Treasure Chronicles series.
Her other books through Curiosity Quills include Escape From Witchwood Hollow, Treasure Darkly, and Born Of Treasure.
You can contact Jordan via her website: JordanElizabethMierek.com.
Lorna MacDonald Czarnota is an award-winning storyteller and author who has delighted audiences in schools, libraries, festivals and conferences throughout the United States, Canada, and Ireland with traditional and original stories since 1985.
Her work features historical presentations, storytelling, writing workshops, and motivational presentations. She specializes in work with at-risk youth, Celtic folklore, and the use of music and song to enhance story. She is the author of Breadline Blue, Medieval Tales that Kids Can Read and Tell, Legends, Lore and Secrets of Western New York, Wicked Niagara: the Sinister Side of the Niagara Frontier, and has stories in other anthologies and magazines.
Her book and guidebooks on using story to mentor at-risk youth is due for publication in 2014.
Lorna holds a Bachelor in Creative Studies for Young Children, a Masters in Special Education, and certification in Trauma Counseling. She is the founder and executive director of Crossroads Story Center, Inc., a not-for-profit for reaching at-risk youth through story.
Christine Baker has been writing on and off for twenty years. Her most loyal fans include her two Shih Tzu, Tonks and Darwin. Whenever she’s writing, there’s sure to be snackems around.
She currently resides in the dusty town of Winnemucca, Nevada, and one day hopes to live where there are real trees (The kind with leaves, not needles) where she can ride her motorcycle year round.
Her husband Jeramie has yet to complain of less than appetizing meals when she’s on a roll, and her three boys know when to tip-toe through the house.
W. K. Pomeroy is a third generation writer who has published more than 60 short stories, poems and articles. He has written stories for all the volumes of Adirondack Mysteries and Other Mountain Tales.
He writes in genres as diverse as Horror and Romance. Recently, he has been concentrating on longer projects, including a Science Fiction novel and a collection of “Christmas Stories”.
He served as President of the Utica Writers Club for 6 terms in addition to terms as Treasurer and Vice President. He always attempts to support the art of writing.
Eliza Tilton is the author of the YA Fantasy, BROKEN FOREST, published by Curiosity Quills Press, and blogs author media on YAstands.blogspot.com.
When she’s not arguing with excel at her day job, or playing Dragon Age 2, again, she’s writing. Her YA stories hold a bit of the fantastical and there’s always a hot romance.
She resides on Long Island with her husband, two kids and one very snuggly pit bull.
Heather Talty is a writer from NYC. You can find her work in Enchanted Conversation and other places on the internet.
She likes stories of all kinds, but always seems to come back to fairy tales.
Grant Eagar is an Aircraft Design Engineer who enjoys writing young adult fantasy, romantic comedy, vampire stories and steam punk in the evenings.
Over the years, he would take the stories he told his children at bed time and transform them into books.
A graduate of the Philadelphia Writers’ Workshop. He is published in the San Diego Writers anthology.
He currently resides in Layton Utah.
Natalia Darcy is an avid reader, tea drinker, and Zumba aficionado who enjoys playing cards and washing her hair with ice cold water.
Clare Weze is a biologist currently dividing her time between editing scientific publications and writing fiction.
In 2012 her book The House of Ash was shortlisted for the Commonword Children’s Diversity Writing Prize.
She has worked in the fields of biomedical and ecological research, and has published several scientific papers.
Her literary influences include David Almond, Philip Pullman and Peter Hoeg, and she lives in North Yorkshire, UK, with her husband and two young children.
In 2010, Clare Weze collaborated with friends to self-publish a collection of short stories and poems designed to raise money for two children’s charities.
S.A. Larsen is a wordsmith, book cover designer, and avid reader. Her quirky and altered view of life urges her to create unique worlds for exploring the joys and angst of the young adult years, the awkward middle grade years, and the curious younger years of picture books.
She is represented byPaula Munier of Talcott Notch Literary.
Her vineyard-set YA Paranormal Fantasy MARKED BEAUTY has received numerous offers of publication and currently remains on submission.
Her published work can be found through sources such as Vine Leaves Literary Journal to Martial Arts Magazine to numerous local newspapers.
She’s the creator of Writer Support 4U – a Facebook writer support group, and co-collaborator for Oasis for YA – a young adult site.
She lives in the land of lobsters, snowy winters, and the occasional Eh’ya, with her husband of over twenty years, their four children, and a playful bich-poo Gracie.
J. Million loves to read, write, spend time with family, and loves the feel of sand between her toes and the sound of the ocean.
She enjoys adventures, which usually means long road trips, where she can sing along to the radio.
Now that you have completed this book, we hope you will leave a review so that other readers may benefit from your perspective. Authors live and die by your reviews, after all!
Please visit http://curiosityquills.com/reader-survey/ to share your reading experience with the author of this book!
Broken Forest, by Eliza Tilton
(http://j.mp/1nw1zyw)
A seventeen-year-old boy goes on a desperate quest to rescue his kidnapped sister who’s been taken to a mystical place thought only to exist in fables, but the closer he comes to finding her, the harder she falls for her enigmatic captor—and he has plans to doom them all.
Nefertiti's Heart, by A.W. Exley
(http://j.mp/HeSkp0)
NEFERTITI’S HEART is a historical adventure with a light steampunk twist that consistently ranks in the Amazon bestseller lists.
London, 1861. Cara Devon has always suffered curiosity and impetuousness, but tangling with a serial killer might cure that. Permanently.
After the death of her father, Cara searches for his collection of priceless artifacts. Meanwhile a killer stalks among the nobility. Cara crosses paths with the murderer, both of them in pursuit of Nefertiti’s Heart, a fabled mechanical diamond said to hold the key to immortality. Cara needs to find the artifact, before she becomes the mad man’s last victim.
Curiosity Quills: Primetime
(http://j.mp/17GwEbg)
Curiosity Quills Press brings tog
ether bestselling authors like J.R. Rain, Tony Healey, A.W. Exley, and many more to create a spine-tingling, mind-blowing, quirky collection of short stories in their first ever, annual Curiosity Quills: Primetime Anthology.
10% of every purchase will go straight to animals in need. The CQ team has selected humane societies on both the East and West coast that spend well and do not stray from their “no-kill” policies.
The Actuator 1.5: Borderlands Anthology
(http://bit.ly/1liDudN)
When the Actuator breaks the earth into a patchwork of altered realities, the remaining Machine Monks begin looking for the Keys to put it back. In the meantime, everyone in the world has been transformed without knowing why. This collection tells about some of the people struggling to deal with the change.
Curse Breaker: Guild Assassin, by Berley Kerr
(http://bit.ly/1gVvGCw)
Wendy Magdalena Braca’s privileged upbringing falters when after the death of her father and the murder of her mother at the age of twelve, she is shipped away to Greenleaf Asylum for Troubled Girls and lives there for years until she is rescued by a strange guild that shows her their world; the world of Guild Assassins.
Automatic Woman, by Nathan L. Yocum
(http://j.mp/1hoIlLa)
The London of 1888, the London of steam engines, Victorian intrigue, and horseless carriages is not a safe place nor simple place… but it’s his place. Jolly is a thief catcher, a door-crashing thug for the prestigious Bow Street Firm, assigned to track down a life sized automatic ballerina.
But when theft turns to murder and murder turns to conspiracy, can Jolly keep his head above water? Can a thief catcher catch a killer?
Escape from Witchwood Hollow, by Jordan Elizabeth
(http://bit.ly/ZiZ6m5)
“Honoria lost her parents in the 9/11 attack, precipitating the move by what is left of her family to Witchwood Hollow, a place she’s meant to heal in - but also one, where there hides a patch of woods supposedly haunted by a witch. As the legend goes, once you go in, she traps you. But who believes old legends?
Switching perspectives between Honoria; the witch (a noblewoman from the 1600’s, dealing with finding a place to feel at home); and Albertine (an immigrant from England in the 1880s who becomes trapped in the hollow by the witch), ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW seeks to show us that maybe not every old legend ought to be discounted. Not if we want to make it out alive to share the tale.”
Appetizer:
Book Cover
Copyright & Publisher
Title Page
Main Course:
Introduction
A "Steamy" Note
A Clockwork Dollhouse, by Jordan Elizabeth
Zeus' Fire, by Lorna MacDonald Czarnota
Clockwork Wolf, by Jordan Elizabeth
Lana's End, by Christine Baker
The Clockwork Monkey, by W.K. Pomeroy
Treasure's Kiss, by Jordan Elizabeth
Autumn Rose, by Eliza Tilton
A Princess of Zephyris, by Heather Talty
The Key Girl, by Grant Eagar
A Clockwork Beast, by Jordan Elizabeth
My Golden Anabel, by Natalia Darcy
The Archive Room, by Clare Weze
Time Spun Souls, by S.A. Larsen
Clockwork Dwarves, by Jordan Elizabeth
Last of the Giants, by J. Million
Dessert:
Thank You for Reading
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