About This Book Title:
The Singer Author: Elizabeth Hunter
Series: Irin Chronicles
Publisher Date: May 6th 2014
When you've lost everything you love, how do you fight the darkness? Ava left Istanbul with a new identity, new name, and new magic she could barely control. Laid low by Malachi's sacrifice, she searches for help from the fabled Irina. But will the secretive women of the Irin race welcome or shun her? Ava's origins are still a mystery, and her powers are darker than any they've encountered before.
The Irin world hangs in the balance. And as the children of angels battle their own demons, ancient rivalries among the Fallen threaten to wreak havoc on earth. Thousand of miles away, a warrior wakes with no memory of his identity or his people. Stumbling though the dark and twisted schemes of fallen angels, ravenous Grigori, and even his own leaders, he must find a way back to the one thing he remembers. A single voice calls him. Malachi has one mission. "Come back to me."
THE SINGER is the second book in the Irin Chronicles, a contemporary fantasy series from Elizabeth Hunter, author of the Elemental Mysteries.
EXCERPT:
Ava. The name fell
into his mind and filled it. It brought the memory of air tinged with cloves
and roasted hazelnuts.
“Who
is she?”
The old man looked
at him, pity in his eyes. “She is your mate.
You remember nothing of her?”
“My
mate?”
Not
a wife. More than a wife.
“Your mate. Your reshon.
It is a sacred union.”
“Reshon?”
“Your
souls were created for each other. And when you marked her with magic, they
bonded.”
“Where
is she?”
Evren and Rhys
exchanged a look. Rhys said, “We don’t
know, but we’re
going to try to find her. We will find her.”
She
wasn’t here. He felt as
if he were stumbling through the dark, looking for something just out of his
reach.
“Malachi,”
Evren
asked. “When
you woke, you were like this?”
Malachi
frowned. “I was by the river. There was nothing
around. But I followed the water and found the farm.”
“The
old retreat,” Evren said. “He
woke near the old retreat. I think when he came back, he was reborn in the
exact place he was born the first time.”
Rhys
said, “You
think Ava—”
“It
must have been. I don’t
know how, but it is the only explanation.”
“No
Irina has the power to—”
“No
Irina is like Ava. She has no training. She has never been told what she may not
do, so who knows what she is capable of?”
Malachi
broke into their quiet conversation. “You’re telling me I
died?”
Evren
and Rhys turned to him.
“I died?” he
asked again. “Truly? I died. And I came back to
life?”
“What
do you remember?”
“Nothing.
I remember nothing. Just her voice on the wind and the stars overhead. I’ve been getting flashes here and
there, but I don’t
remember her. How could I forget her?”
He
felt torn. Incomplete. And it wasn’t
just the memories he was missing. “And
you think she did this somehow?”
Evren
said, “We don’t
know. Not really. But there is no other explanation. Your brothers saw you die.
Saw your body turn to dust. Your mate saw you die—felt
you die.”
“But
why would Ava be able to—”
“She
said the words,” Rhys
said. “The
words she had heard her whole life. From the souls of everyone who mourned. She
came to me before she left. Asked me what it meant. Vashama canem. Come back to me.”
He
turned to Evren. “I had no idea. How
could I?”
“There
was no way of knowing she could do this, Rhys. No way—”
“Wait!” Malachi
felt a chill creep along his skin. “You’re telling me she spoke this command
and I answered. Even from beyond death?”
“He’s telling you words have power,”
Evren
said. “Ava
asked you to come back to her. And you did.”
“It’s been seven hours, Malachi. That’s enough.”
“Not
finished…”
He
knew—an
ancient, aching part of him knew that this magic only touched the edge of what
he’d once owned. He wanted
more.
More
power.
More
strength.
More.
“Enough.”
Leo
squeezed again, and Malachi finally paused. “Enough,
brother.”
“Enough
for now,”
Malachi
said, finishing the last character on a spell that he knew would help him see
more clearly through deception.
“Fine.”
Leo
sounded amused. “Enough for now. And you better
not eat anything for at least a day. You’ll be
sick from it. It’s well
past midnight. Go lie down and let your system even out.”
Malachi
knew what he needed and, though his skin was still bloody and raw, he’d never wished more fervently that his
mate was nearby.
Evren
must have come back to the ritual room sometime in the previous hours. He took
one look at Malachi’s
expression and raised an eyebrow.
“Shower,
then lie down. Leo’s
right. You’re
flush with magic. How do you feel?”
Malachi’s voice was rough. “Strong.”
And hungry. He’d
never felt more hungry.
He
rose and put one hand on the wall to steady himself. His left arm ached where
his new talesm
shone, glowing in the candlelight. The spells had reached halfway up his arm
before Leo stopped him. He slowly walked toward the door, leaning against the
wall for another moment to let a wave of dizziness pass.
Leo
laughed and slapped his right shoulder before he hefted an arm around Malachi
and led him toward his room.
“This,
my brother, is as close to intoxicated as we get. Enjoy.”
All
Malachi could think was he’d
enjoy it a lot more with his soft mate under him.
He
managed to make it into his room and get cleaned off before he fell into bed,
exhausted, wired, and aching.
“Come
to me,”
he
whispered before he fell into dreams.
He
didn’t speak. He simply picked
her up at the waist and walked to the edge of the wood, laying her down on a
bed of leaves that appeared before him. She opened her mouth, but he covered it
with his own, catching her gasp as he spread her legs and lay in the cradle of
her body.
He
kissed her over and over again. Her fingers twisted in his hair and dug into
his neck, pulling him closer. Her legs wrapped around his hips.
“More,”
she
murmured when his mouth left hers and he buried his face in her neck, biting
the soft skin there as she arched beneath him. “More.”
“Yes.”
About this author:
Elizabeth Hunter is a contemporary fantasy and romance author. She is a graduate of the University of Houston Honors College in the Department of English (Linguistics) and a former English teacher. She currently lives in Central California with a seven-year-old ninja who claims to be her child. She enjoys reading, writing, travel, and bowling (despite the fact that she’s not very good at it.) Someday, she plans to learn how to scuba dive. And maybe hang glide. But that looks like a lot of running. She is the author of the Elemental Mysteries and Elemental World series, the Cambio Springs series, and other works of fiction.
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