A thief, a cop, a Greek god’s pawn shop: Excerpt 2

Have another shot of my Leverage + Warehouse 13 mashup! Greek Gods Bearing Gifts, $2.99 in Kindle, Nook, and other retailers.

After two quick breaths to make sure she wasn’t going to vomit, Liberty crossed the room and knelt beside her brother. “Frank, I swear if you die, I’m going to kill you. Even if you live, this mess…” She didn’t even know what to say about the trouble he’d gotten them into.

She couldn’t fight the tears of relief when Frank stirred. “My phone.” He tried to shift but winced with the movement.

Liberty reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “I’ll call for an ambulance.”

She had the first number punched when Frank said, “No police. No ambulance. Call Annabelle.”

“Who is Annabelle?” Hurt, possibly dying, Frank was asking for a woman she’d never met. Instead of an ambulance? It made no sense.

Frank tried to take the phone away from her to do it himself, but Liberty gripped it tighter. She was about to ignore him and finish the call when he squeezed her hand. “No police. Annabelle. Then hit the panic button.”

Liberty did her best to ignore the way her hands were shaking, punched the button, and waited half a second.

“Where are you?” The husky woman’s voice was dead serious, and Liberty was encouraged by the gravity in her tone. She needed help. Now.

“Titan Pawn. Frank’s been shot.” The phone’s hard edges cut into her hand, but she couldn’t loosen her grip.

“Apply pressure. I’m on the way.” The beeps that signaled the ended call shook Liberty out of her panic.

Excerpt 1, Greek Gods Bearing Gifts

Greek Gods Bearing Gifts (Click for the back cover copy and Buy links!)

Before Hannah could breeze on to the next part of the tour, the old familiar scratchy intuition telling Liberty to seek and find unfolded in the center of her chest. She slowly walked one aisle, vaguely aware of Frank saying, “No sense in trying to stop her now. She’s in the zone.” The jumbled aisle of laptops, small appliances, and school band instrument cases was a black blur. Bright lights above stung her eyes. The cold chill down her back slowly warmed with each step. Ignoring the pull in the past had meant headaches and sore muscles. Giving in was easiest.

At the end of the aisle, she paused in front of an old bank vault door.

When she touched the door, nothing happened. Normally she could feel…something…when she located whatever it was that drew her. Had being separated from the real world, locked away in a small spot filled with the bare minimum, erased her skill? Liberty couldn’t decide whether that would be good or bad news. She wouldn’t be who she thought she was anymore, but normal would be worth learning to live with the change. “The pawnshop has a vault?”

“Well, not really.” Hannah’s smug tone was replaced with an insider’s excitement.

Instead of slick polished metal of today’s high-tech vaults, this one was bronze and covered in artistic icons: trees, flowers, woodland creatures. It was beautiful, clearly one of a kind.

Hannah pressed her thumb against an intricately engraved rose, then stepped back. “I guess you’re ready. Whatever you do, don’t touch the spindle wheel. The alarms you would not believe.”

Instead of opening out, the door swung soundlessly in. Liberty took two steps forward to see another immense bright white room lit by fluorescent lights and filled with more shelves.

“Here we’ve got one big safe filled with special pieces. There’s another computer system for these.” Hannah tapped a beat-up laptop perched on a stone table. “Before you start exploring back here… Well, I should come with you the first two or three times, until you’re comfortable. Some of these items can be unpredictable.” Hannah smiled encouragingly before she shifted Liberty back and closed the door. Immediately, the ache building behind Liberty’s eyes and faint nausea faded. She wiped clammy hands on her rough jeans.

Living with this every day would be a misery. And so dangerous. Anything the gods wanted to keep hidden had to mean danger.

“What have you gotten us into now? Why don’t you seem amazed by this magic vault and hidden room with ‘unpredictable’ items, Frank?” Fear and anger made her heartbeat loud in her ears. Their whole lives, their father had warned them to keep away from the gods. Hide from the gods. Hide from police. Stick together.

All she wanted was normal.

This was a whole collection of crooked waiting to happen.

Greek Gods Bearing Gifts (May 5, 2015)

Greek Gods Bearing Gifts

A thief. A cop. A Greek god’s pawn shop.

Liberty Smith is certain putting two thieves in charge of a pawn shop is a terrible idea, even in Olympic View, tourist attraction and home to some people with unusual skills. Fresh out of prison, Liberty’s ready to go straight, all the way to Omaha if necessary, and take her baby brother Frank with her. Organizing the junk passing for inventory at Titan Pawn and the employees who aren’t all what they seem was never part of the plan.

Justin Barrett is a fine cop, just like his father before him. His only weak spot? The girl he put in prison who now has blood on her hands. Literally. To save pain-in-the-neck Frank and free Liberty to leave Olympic View, Justin joins a very strange mission. To 1983. With an odd watch and Liberty in the shortest red dress it’s been his pleasure to see.

Greek Gods Bearing Gifts is reunion-story, sexy paranormal romance (75,000 words) featuring the charming god of thieves, two people who never stopped loving, and the underworld’s all-you-can-eat rib buffet.

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BN: http://bit.ly/1EQCZQG

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Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1HHCvyh