The contest of wills broke when, with his usual vigor, Oscar leaned past her and yanked on the vines. Vegetation shredded, bruised leaves drifting abandoned to the ground. Bold and savage, her statue faced forward, a sentinel frozen in time, waiting to be awakened.
She swore that Oscar instinctively knew what she wanted and made sure she never received it. In her peripheral vision, she watched him circling the stone, but once he disappeared from view, he disappeared from her thoughts as well.
One step forward, then two, she stood only inches away from temptation, her palms itching for just one touch. She stole a quick glance at the statue from under her lashes, then forced herself to turn away and put him...it out of her mind. The urge to linger pulled at her sense of duty. The simple task to turn and walk away was surprisingly hard, especially since she’d dedicated her life to her work.
“You know what it is.” Oscar’s low growl didn’t have its normal bite, yet the tone stiffened the muscles of her back.
Caly refused to face him, refused to let him see the fear in her eyes. Fear for the stone man. She swallowed past her painfully dry throat. “A statue.”
“Don’t be a fool. You know it’s a demon, one of the cursed guardian statues. Just pray that your blood isn’t human enough to wake him. If the blasted thing wasn’t mounted in granite, I’d have it smashed.”
The lash of his words stung, but the threat to the statue sent a surge of terror through her. And that pissed her off. She opened her mouth to protest when a jungle cat’s roar rang out and echoed in the treetops.
Caly whipped her head around, her eyes narrowing at the undergrowth. At first she didn’t see anything. After a moment, two eyes blinked lazily, staring back at her as a big ass cat licked its muzzle. A chill crept down her spine. A twitch of muscles betrayed her abhorrence of the creatures.
There was nothing behind those eyes but pure predator. No hunger, but a need and desire to kill for the pleasure of it.
“Skins!” Possessions were when a demon took over a body. Skins were when demons forced the actual soul out of the body and used them as indestructible suits that only a beheading would free the demon and allow it to be killed.
Even as she bellowed the warning, the guides screamed like kids and took off. A streak to the left broke her concentration, and she saw another animal, a black panther, bound after the two men. Their bloodcurdling screams were cut off abruptly, leaving no doubt to their fate.
The other panther slowly slunk out of its hiding place, its eyes locked on her.
A sound to her right had the big cat’s head swing in that direction.
“Run!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stacey Brutger lives in a small town in Minnesota with her husband, son and an assortment of animals. When she’s not reading, she enjoys creating stories about exotic worlds and grand adventures…then shoving in her characters to see how they’d survive. She enjoys writing anything paranormal from contemporary to historical.
Watch for her next paranormal romance called BloodSworn
or her next urban fantasy called Electric Moon.
Visit Stacey online to find out more at www.StaceyBrutger.com
Table of Contents
Table of contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Sneak Peak –Electric Moon
Sneak Peak –The Demon Within
About the Author
Table of Contents
Table of contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Sneak Peak –Electric Moon
Sneak Peak –The Demon Within
About the Author
Electric Storm (A Raven Investigations Novel) Page 33
