Generation of Vipers
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo -- EXCERPT: My eyes snap open. There’s no disorientation, even though there should be. Between stone walls and wallpaper older than my three decades, the cold air isn’t a surprise. But what does scare me isn’t the new setting or the snoring of my sweet husband but the feeling that something just left. Like I’d been watched and only noticed after it ended. Or—okay, well that’s crazy. Though, I don’t know if I was dreaming or if something external woke me up. Milos’s breath is soft, even if it rumbles in the back of his throat just a little. And I’ve slept next to it for years without jarring awake like this. As another creak sounds, followed by a tiny clunk, I know I’m right. Maléfique has old bones, and they must protest changes in temperature as we take our trips around the sun. Though… The little noises aren’t really enough to have woken me up either. I don’t think so anyway. Still, whatever the reason, I’m up now. Wider awake than I was when we were taking in the newness of our manor earlier. My eyes flick to the clock Milo insists on bringing with us every vacation, and I correct myself. It was now yesterday that we bought this beautiful space, considering it’s three in the morning. And I’m fucking wide awake. I’ll never get back to sleep right now. So I slip out from under the comforter and let my toes touch the chilly wood of the floor. I move slowly, quietly, even though I doubt Milo would wake up for anything less than my screaming. Heaviest sleeper I’ve ever met. Which he proves with a snort as he moves to face the other way, still very much unconscious. And as I move toward the huge window of our new bedroom, I roll my eyes at Milo for the second time in the last twenty-four hours. It happens without forethought, and of course I feel instantly guilty after. That’s when a kinder smile touches my lips just before my fingertips, then my forehead, touch the thick glass, as I lean against the window and look down at the greenery of our property. Well, it’s all shades of gray and black at the moment, with the moon behind the clouds. I can still make out plenty, though. The woods just beyond an overgrown garden, a path starting just between two picturesque weeping willows—the kind that beg for a swing, or a hammock strategically placed for reading. I can see all of it well enough, but when the moon peeks out between two wisps of cover, my eyes scan harder, searching for something. I’m not even sure what. Maybe for what could have woken me up if it wasn’t Maléfique. And I’ve all but given up as the tall grass waves in a darkening breeze when something sparkles and pulls my eyes back to the opening of the track, the archway between hanging branches. Though, not something. No. Someone.
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