Silver Silence - excerpt #2

Silver Silence, book 3 of my Druids of Avalon trilogy is in bookstores Tuesday Oct 27. I'm celebrating with excerpts, lost scenes, an interview and a week-long contest!

To enter, just comment on any post put up between Wed Oct 21 through Friday Oct 30. Two lucky readers will win autographed copies of both The Grail King and Deep Magic, as well as an autographed copy of Romantic Times BOOKReviews magazine November issue, featuring me on the cover!

Please consider including your email with your post so I can contact you quickly if you win! And if you don’t…check out more chances to win at www.joynash.com.

By the way, if you're planning on buying Silver Silence, I hope you'll consider picking it up close to the Oct 27 release day, as any book's opening week sales are the most important to an author's publisher.

Thanks and good luck to all!

And now, Silver Silence excerpt #2:

The power answered. Light and shadow played across the pond's surface. Dancing. Merging. Separating. She concentrated on a memory of Rhys's face: high brow, clear gray eyes, harshly angled cheekbones. Her breath hitched a notch. Great Mother, but she loved him so.

She imagined his strong jaw, stubbled with his close-cropped beard. He wore his hair short as well. The color, an unusual shade of white-blond, was perhaps his most distinctive feature. He looked very much like his sister, Gwendolyn, Avalon's Guardian. Gwen and Rhys were twins, after all.

The light and shadow on the pool shifted, creating the illusion of substance and depth. There was a pulling sensation deep in Breena's belly. A scene formed on the water's surface, as plainly as if it were happening at arm's length, rather than miles and miles away.

Rhys strode a muddy road, his leather pack slung over one shoulder. Breena's chest eased. He was alive! Thanks be to the Great Mother.

He was alone. That was not unusual. Rhys most often traveled alone, save for Hefin, th e small merlin falcon that was his companion. Ah, yes. She caught a glimpse of brown wing and speckled breast sailing overhead.

She returned her full attention to Rhys. His breeches were rough and torn, his old line n shirt frayed at the collar and sleeves, his cloak spattered with mud. He'd gone perhaps a sennight without a razor. He wore no sword, but he looked more than a little dangerous nonetheless.

And that was no illusion. Rhys was a powerful Druid. Beneath his facade of genialit y, he was, without doubt, the most dangerous man Breena knew.

She'd meant to break the vision once she'd seen him. But the longer she looked, the faster her good intentions crumbled. Rhys's tread was weary, his shoulders hunched as if against a chill wind. He'd just entered a village. Well, perhaps “village” was too generous an assessment.

The settlement was little more than a handful of ragged structures clustered at a crossroads. Mud and rubble walls supported roofs of sagging thatch. Weeds crowded thick against the unkempt dwellings. A ragged chicken pecking in a garbage heap looked hardly worth the trouble of plucking.

The thin rays of the setting sun slanted into Rhys's face. He looked as tired as the village. The lines around his eyes and mouth were deeper than she remembered. His usual easy gait had become heavy and plodding.

She watched as he approached the largest building of the small group, the only one that boasted an upper story. A hostelry, Breena thought. Rhys shoved open the door.

The public room inside was hazed with smoke from guttering tallow candles. A poor establishment indeed, if the owner could not even afford oil for proper lamps. The ceiling was so low that Rhys, who was very tall, had to duck under the blackened ceiling beams.

Two long plank tables, dark with scars, boasted three disreputable-looking patrons. Celts all, and male. A stout matron delivered mugs of cervesia, the bitter Celtic beer few Romans—including Breena—could stomach. From the looks of the establishment, Breena doubted whether a cask of wine had ever crossed its threshold.

An idle barkeep leaned his beefy arms on a waist-high counter. He looked up as Rhys entered, and a wide grin instantly appeared on his ruddy face. Rhys gave him a half smile in return. Crossing the room, he sank down on a stool opposite the man, and lowered his pack to the ground. The barkeep was already filling a mug with ale. He shoved it into Rhys’s hands, at the same time shouting something toward an open doorway that Breena assumed led to the kitchens.

A young boy of about ten years appeared almost immediately. The lad’s eyes lit up when he saw Rhys, and Rhys smiled in return. The barkeep spoke to the lad. The boy nodded and dashed between the tables, and out the front door.

Rhys’s lips moved. The barkeep leaned on the counter and answered. Breena expelled a sigh of frustration. How she wished she could hear his voice! But it was an inconvenient fact that Breena’s visions—the unbidden night terrors as well as those she called deliberately—were always silent.

Ah, well. At least she’d learned what she needed to know. Rhys was well. She should allow the vision fade and try to forget she’d violated his privacy. But, just as she prepared to speak t he Word that would have dissolved the vision, a woman emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands on her apron.

She was not young. Her clothes were patched, her hands reddened. But even worn and work-weary, she possessed an earthy, sensual beauty that caused every male eye in the room to swing in her direction.

She beheld Rhys, and her eyes took on an eager light that disturbed Breena in a way she did not fully understand. The woman’s lips formed Rhys’s name, then curved in a slow smile. Rhys looked up from his mug, and nodded a greeting. In reply, the woman leaned across the bar and kissed him full on the mouth.

Rhys did not protest. Far from it. He threaded his fingers though the woman’s hair and plundered her mouth for several long moments. A hot knife of pain sliced through Breena’s chest. The blade twisted when the woman came around the table and slid in to Rhys’s lap.

The barkeep guffawed. Breena’s fingernails bit through the linen of her skirt and into her thigh.

Stop looking, she told herself.

She couldn’t.



Excerpt #3 coming on Monday! All the best!


Joy
www.joynash.com