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 Exclusive Bewitching Excerpt

“Clyde!” Ashley yelled from across the room and dashed toward him.

He grinned, loving the way she said his name, loving she’d come close, loving more the smile brightening her face.

“Jake’s going to let me see him turn. Isn’t that awesome? I can’t—”

His heart dropped, smile faded. He didn’t think, just decided, “No.”

Ashley took a step back. Simultaneously, Jenna smacked him across his shoulder.

He couldn’t blame her. The way he’d said that, how he’d sounded, he’d been too angry, no, infuriated.

“Oh boy, Ash. Get ready.” Jocelyn said, her voice coming from beside them where she stood, her sidetucked against Landon.

Clyde hadn’t noticed when Jocelyn joined the conversation either. Seems he didn’t have it in him to pay too much attention to anything other than Ashley. His every thought, action, everything focused on Ashley, right then on making her understand why she had to listen to him.

“It’s dangerous. You can’t be near…” Jacob. Damn that demon.“I’ll kill him.” Hestalked toward Jacob.

“Clyde, don’t,” Ashley pleaded.

Jacob materialized a foot away and smirked. “Is there a problem, angel?”

He hardened his jaw. “You aren’t turning anywhere near her.”

“Clyde, please, don’t—” Ashley said, now standing beside him.

Jacob unleashed his anger, letting it circle them. “It’s up to her.”

He narrowed his eyes to slits. “Do you have a problem listening? I said no.”

“But I want—”

He faced her. “It’s dangerous. I’m not having you around turned demons, ever, especially him.”

Her face fell, and her eyes pleaded, “But Jenna and Joce—”

Without losing her gaze, he jerked his head side to side. “I don’t care.”

She widened her eyes a split second before she narrowed them and snapped, “You can’t tell me what to do.” Cheeks flushing, she squared her shoulders. “I’m an adult, and this is between Jake and me.” She then turned and stormed off.

He stayed there, dumbfounded, staring at where she’d been until Landon spoke.

“I thought you said she never got angry.”

“She’s related to me.” Jocelyn grinned. “Of course, she gets angry.”

“Come on, Clyde.” Jenna rolled her eyes. “You know better than to try to control an Elemental.”

He narrowed his eyes at her then sliced his glare to Jocelyn. “She’s been spending too much time with these two.”

Jenna shrugged. “Yeah, whatever. Believe what you want, but no woman likes it when a man tells her what she can and can’t do.”

Lucas wrapped an arm around Jenna’s waist and hauled her until he’d pressed her front to his side. “You better fix it, quick. The longer you let her stew, the worse it’ll be.”

Right.Not wasting a second, he materialized near the elevators, inches from her. “Angel, please—”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m mad. You aren’t allowed to call me that when I’m mad.”

“Why?”

“Because…” She bit her bottom lip and dropped her arms to her sides. “I can take care of myself. Besides, Jake’s not going to hurt me.”

He shut his eyes, fighting to ignore the flare of jealousy that knotted his gut every time she said the demon’s name. “His name’s Jacob.”

“He doesn’t care that I call him Jake.”

She didn’t have to tell him something he knew. Clamping his jaw tightly, he admitted, “I don’t like it.”

“Why?”

Didn’t she see? Furious, he blurted, “Because it’s a step away from an endearment and you haven’t given me one.”

She stilled. Her eyes widened and a split second later softened. “Oh…”

He parted his mouth, intent on saying something, anything, but before he managed it she got on the tips of her toes, leaned into him, and pressed her lips to his. Instantly, he wrapped an arm around her waist, cupped the back of her head with the other, and dove into her mouth, deepening the kiss. 

Magnificent.

J.L. Sheppard was born and raised in South Florida where she still lives with her sons.

As a child, her greatest aspiration was to become a writer. She read often, kept a journal, and wrote countless poems. She attended Florida International University and graduated in 2008 with a Bachelors in Communications. During her senior year, she interned at NBC Miami, WTVJ. Following the internship, she was hired and worked in the News Department for three years.

It wasn’t until 2011 that she set her heart and mind into writing her first completed novel, Demon King’s Desire, which was first published in January 2013.

Website: https://www.jlsheppard.com

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EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT:

Ash walked haltingly toward Maddie. Beneath her fear, he could smell the sweetness of her dreams and her stories; laced with magic and dark twists and turns, they all had one thing in common—a happy ending.

Something he wasn’t sure he believed in anymore.

With one hand, he cupped her face. Did she tremble at his touch, did she recognize the gentle brush of his flesh against hers, or was that his imagination? The not-full moon hovered at his back, her silver light singing in time with his own poetry, reminding him how much he longed to harvest, how long it had been since he had eaten anything but the old dreams. Sage had been right, though Ash would never confess it to her or to any of his clan.

The old dreams of Lily, those he kept in a secret cache, had become like poison. With each one he grew weaker. If he kept this up, he would soon become a phantom, trapped between worlds. He would become the ghost he had pretended to be for so many years and he would forever haunt Ticonderoga Falls.

Unless his appetite could be once again be stirred.

Ash winced at the thought, his old wound causing him to curl over, bending at the waist. He almost lost control of his Veil and it began to melt around the edges, silver flashes of light growing nearer as the magic collapsed in upon itself.

“Be still,” he murmured, his strength failing as the pain waxed full. The Veil responded, staying just strong enough to continue holding all three of them motionless.

Woman. Boy. Dog.

Ash leaned closer to her, fighting the temptation, though it was near impossible when the phantom mists of someone else’s dreams still drifted through the forest. His lips rested beside Maddie’s ear and he whispered.

“Stay,” Ash said, speaking the words he had longed to say from the moment she had entered his territory. “Stay in Ticonderoga Falls for one more day. Then you’ll be free to go. I give you my promise. I only ask that you stay for the Hunt. Please.”

With a great reluctance, he pulled away. Maddie was caught in that still and silent world between breaths, and there are rules about how much you can tell your prey to do.

Rules bound their worlds together, held the moon and sun in place.

He knew that now. Wished he had known it long ago.

With a leap and a mighty surge of wings, Ash broke his spell and he soared away from her, into the heavens, high above the trees. Where he could resist her fragrance once more.

Multiple-award-winning author Merrie Destefano writes lyrical tales of magic, mystery, and hope. Her traditional books have been published by HarperCollins, Entangled Teen, and Walter Foster, while her indie imprint is Ruby Slippers Press. Her novels have won awards in both the science fiction and fantasy categories.

She worked for Focus on the Family, The Word For Today, Engaged Media, and PJS Publications, and her magazine experience includes editor of Victorian Homes magazine, Zombies magazine, Haunted: Mysteries And Legends magazine, American Farmhouse Style magazine, Vintage Gardens magazine and founding editor of Cottages and Bungalows magazine. Her co-authored art books include How To Draw Vampires, How To Draw Zombies, and How to Draw Grimm’s Dark Fairy Tales. Her edited books include The Man God Uses by Chuck Smith, Oil Pastel Step-By-Step by Nathan Rohlander, and The Art of Drawing Fantasy Characters by Jacob Glaser.

Born in the Midwest, Merrie now lives in Southern California, where she runs on caffeine, and shares her home with rescue dogs and cats. And although she dearly loves science fiction, in her heart of hearts, she still doesn’t believe airplanes should be able to fly.

WEBSITE: http://www.merriedestefano.com/

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This excerpt from This Morbid Life was inspired by a tour I took with Near Escapes, a small local company that visited cemeteries, "backstage" at the grand hotels, the Stanford Linear Accelerator, San Quentin Prison, and much more. This was the first tour I took with them.

Burning Desire

At the back of the warehouse stood the cremator itself. The Neptune Society used British equipment, which was acclaimed as top of the line. A computer controlled the temperature and length of burning time. The cremator had four doors, two above and two below, so that bodies could be cremated simultaneously and their ashes commingled. Before anyone could ask, Steve assured us that California state law prohibited cremation of more than one body at a time, so that ashes couldn’t get mixed by accident.

The “ovens” themselves were built of fire-resistant brick. A metal rack slid out, onto which the body was placed. Before the operator inserted a body, the cremator would be preheated to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit. As we toured the building, the ambient temperature rapidly became torrid. The ovens were warming. Apparently, at 1800 degrees, the inside of the oven glows red-hot.

Natural gas was used for the heating process. A human body provides its own fuel and will burn on its own at a high-enough temperature, so the cremator was preheated, the body placed inside, and the gas switched off to prevent overheating. Toward the end of the cremation, the gas was turned on again until the bones became calcined and brittle.

Someone asked Steve how they knew when a body was done. He recommended sticking it with a fork. Sobering up, he added that, on average, it took between one and two hours for a cremation at the Neptune Society, with an additional half hour for the oven to cool down enough to remove the cremains. All bodies burned differently, due to their levels of fat or moisture. Both cancer and AIDS deplete the body’s fat reserves, so victims of those diseases had less fuel value. Those bodies required more gas and a higher heat and might take longer to reduce to ash.

The different compositions of people also produced a variety of colors as the body burned. Sometimes the flames turned green or blue, but generally they were orange or red.

When the cremation was complete, human remains were white and very brittle. Any other discoloration implied that the cremation was unfinished. The bones might have shrunk or twisted, but they were still quite recognizable. The cremains were scooped out of the retort with a tool like a hoe. They were placed in a machine with a drum like a clothes dryer that used heavy iron balls to pulverize the remaining bones. The process was complete when the remains fit through a sieve.

I asked if I could see real human ashes. With a shrug, Steve found a beige cardboard box that was maybe five inches on a side. Inside a plastic wrapper, the cremains looked like Quaker Oats and weighed as much as an old-fashioned solid-body telephone. No one else in the tour group was interested in holding the box. In fact, they all took a step back when I held the box out to them.

Continued in This Morbid Life