Author Spotlight & Contest with Linda Robertson

We are absolutely thrilled to have friend and author Linda Robertson on our site today. Linda Robertson not only writes, she is an artist, plays the piano and electric guitar, composes and was in a super-cool rock band four children ago. Now that her four sons are older, she’s looking for a new band. Originally from Mansfield, Ohio, she’s a graduate of Ohio State University and currently lives in Medina, Ohio. She loves sci-fi action movies, her boyfriend says she’s a geek, and she firmly believes there’s never a bad time to eat ice cream.

Us to Linda! Keep reading for your chance to win a signed copy of either Hallowed Circle or soon to be released Fatal Circle (in stores June 29th, 2010).

Name:  Linda Robertson

Porn Star Name: Brandy Stewart…or Fluffy Stewart.

(This would be the name of your childhood pet along with the name of the street where you grew up.)

Website Address: www.wolfsbaneandabsinthe.com (it’s getting re-vamped for the release of FATAL CIRCLE so go check it out!!!)

Writing Age:

I’m not certain how to answer this so, guessing, if we start with “infant writing” being what I wrote in elementary school, then “toddler writing” was in middle school, and “child writing” was in high school. “Tween writing” would be everything up until I got published, and “teen writing” would be what I’ve done since. I’m equating being published with getting a driver’s license here—instead of the state permitting me to drive on the roads, the publishing industry has allowed me to put my books on the shelves. That’s where I am now. I’ve learned SOOO much from my editor in this process. Paula Guran ROCKS! I don’t think I could claim that “appropriately mature” stage until I’ve done this professionally for ten years or so, like being tenured in.

First Published Work: VICIOUS CIRCLE

Current Release: FATAL CIRCLE

INSPIRATION AND MUSE

If you could live in any fictional universe/world what would it be?

The Star Trek world!!!! I’d have to be in Starfleet…I LOVE Klingons.

If you could have lunch with any author dead or alive whom would it be and why?

I had to think about this, but the Bronte sisters would surely lead an interesting conversation.

If you were locked in a room for 48 hours and forced to watch one TV show the entire time, which television series would you choose?

True Blood because I’ve only seen the first season!

What is the most outrageous or bizarre thing you have done in the name of “research”?

Tromped around Cleveland late at night taking pictures…some through the chain-locked doors that opened just enough to snap a picture of the service tunnels under the rail system. Mwahahahahaha.

What is your latest release?

FATAL CIRCLE

What inspired you to write said story/book?

It’s the third in the series, so it’s the natural outgrowth of what the characters have dealt with in the first two. I wanted to raise the stakes—for all of these destined people. So I looked at them all individually and asked: What would push them? What would hurt them? And how can I weave those answers together? The weaving is the fun part.

Fab Five

• Coffee or Tea? Definitely JAVA! With chocolate and peppermint, of course.
• Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate.
• Vampire or Werewolf? BOTH!!!
• Meatie or Veggie? Meat.
• Salty or Sweet? Sweet.

Last but not Least

Three words that describe you:  goofy, creative, semi-introverted.

Win a signed copy of Hallowed Circle or Fatal Circle!

Once again, a big thanks to Linda Robertson for joining us at Wicked Jungle. Ask Linda a question and you are  automatically entered into drawing for a free signed copy of either Hallowed Circle or Fatal Circle! And yes, international contestants are eligible.

To get you started, here is a sneak peak of Fatal Circle.

My living room clock read two-forty-six a.m. It was no longer Hallowe’en night, but All Hallows Day. Or, as some called it, All Saints’ Day. But it was no saint who held me in his arms—it was a wærewolf.

“I think you’d like my apartment, Red.” Red. That’s me. Persephone Alcmedi to the rest of the world. Seph to some. Red only to Johnny, my not-exactly-Big-Bad-wærewolf. “It has that open-living concept.”

I wasn’t fooled. “It’s a glorified dorm room, isn’t it?”

“If, by ‘glorified,’ you mean it has a private bathroom, then yes.” Johnny sniffed, affecting annoyance. “Something I sacrificed when I moved in here.”

I’d had to forfeit my home’s vampire defenses three weeks ago to save a friend’s life, Johnny had temporarily moved into the third-floor attic room—for protection purposes only. In the three weeks since, those defenses had since been reinstated, but he’d remained. Being the epitome of “tall, dark, and handsome,” I hadn’t complained.

“C’mon.” Johnny’s deep blue eyes glittered seductively. His voice dropped low. “Nothing’s more romantic than a bachelor pad.”

We’d both had a hell of an evening. Words like “hectic” or “demanding” didn’t begin to cover it. I must have been the only one suffering from fatigue.

Read More Here

ENETER THE CONTEST

Each person who posts a comment will get one entry in the contest.

You can get an additional entries by doing the following (note these are in addition to posting a comment. You must comment first to be qualified).

• Option A: Tweet about the contest on Twitter (you must include @wickedjungle for your tweet to qualify each tweet will get you an additional entry).
• Option B: Become a follower of our blog (only new followers joining between the time of the contest will be counted).
• Option C: Promote the contest on your blog (you must include a link below to your blog post to be counted as an official entry).

Contest Ends Sunday July 4th at  Midnight (Eastern) !!!

Author Spotlight: S. A. Swann

Name:

S A Swann/ S Andrew Swann

Porn Star Name:

Critter Hampshire

Website Address:

www.sandrewswann.com

Writing Age:

Given the amount of sex and violence, probably Mature.

First Published Work:

Forests of the Night (as S Andrew Swann)

Current Release:

Wolf’s Cross (as S A Swann, Spectra, July 2010)

INSPIRATION & MUSE

If you could live in any fictional universe/world what would it be?

Maybe Zelazny’s Amber universe(s), if I could be a royal uninvolved with all the backstabbing.

If you could have lunch with any author dead or alive whom would it be and why?

Stephen King— so I could pitch a collaboration that would make me rich, and if he doesn’t take me up on the offer, he still gets to pick up the tab for dinner J

If you were locked in a room for 48 hours and forced to watch one TV show the entire time, which television series would you choose?

I’m a great fan of Lost, but I actually did this one time with the entire run of Twin Peaks.

What is the most outrageous or bizarre thing you have done in the name of “research”?

Probably have to take the fifth on this as the statute of limitations hasn’t run out.

What is your latest release?

As I mentioned above, the medieval werewolf novel Wolf’s Cross is due out this July.  The last book was the middle third of my Apotheosis Trilogy space opera, Heretics, which came out last Feburary from DAW books.

What inspired you to write said story/book?

Wolf’s Cross was inspired by a combination of things; an interest in medieval Polish history, the mythos established in the prior novel, Wolfbreed, and Little Red Riding Hood. Heretics and Apotheosis Trilogy is a development of my thoughts about the spiritual implications of the technological singularity (the “rapture for nerds” taken literally.)

Fab Five

• Coffee or Tea? Diet Coke.
• Chocolate or Vanilla? White Chocolate.
• Vampire or Werewolf? See latest book J
• Meatie or Veggie? Kill it and eat it.
• Salty or Sweet? Large grains of salt.

Last but not least…three words that describe you: Things go boom.

Contest: Win it before you can buy it!

S.A. Swann was kind enough to offer us a sneak peak at his next release: Wolf’s Cross. Read below for an excerpt and comment to win your very own advance copy.

Interlude : Anno Domini 1333

Her name was Lucina, and she didn’t remember who had named her.  She lived in the deepest woods east of Gród Narew, and lived mostly ignorant of the humans dwelling there.  The people who lived on the fringes of these woods, especially those whose families had spent generations in its shadow, knew of her and her kind.  Lucina’s ancestors haunted the tales that had been spoken of in hushed tones ever since the land had become Christian.

However, it had been a long time since Lucina had family.  And a long time since her kind haunted these woods in any numbers.  She was alone, and the tales of the old folks about wolves clothed in human skin had become less urgent, less of a deterrent for hungry men who needed to hunt for their family’s larder.

Lucina would watch these men as they made their weak attempts to hunt.  Sometimes she would watch with the eyes of a wolf, sometimes with the eyes of a raven-haired maiden.  She would watch them come into her wood, and more often than not, return empty-handed.

She watched, not out of any malice, but out of curiosity and a deep loneliness.  She was the last of her kind in these woods, and she thought perhaps the last of her kind anywhere.  These men who came to find game, they all had a home to go to.

Home was as alien a concept to Lucina as having to trap her prey or shoot it with an arrow.

Each winter, her despair grew deeper.  She would always be alone, and she envied these human women who sent their men out to parade in front of her.  Why?  What could these frail human women give that she could not?  She was stronger then they were, faster, and a better hunter than these poor men. . .

It was not long before she decided that there was no reason she couldn’t have what they had.  When she decided this, Lucina studied these men with a new eye, looking for someone she could love, and could love her back.  She watched how they moved, how they hunted, how they carried their kill.

And only days into the winter, when the snow barely dusted the needle floor of her woods, she saw the man who would become her mate.  This man had broad shoulders and a stature above all the others who braved her forest.  He carried a masculine scent that made Lucina lick her lips in anticipation.

This was the man who would free her from her solitude.

Read More Here

Win a signed copy of Wolf’s Cross!

Once again, a big thanks to S.A. Swann for joining us at Wicked Jungle. Share your thoughts or ask a question and you are automatically entered into drawing for a free advanced copy of his current book Wolf’s Cross.

Each person who posts a comment will get one entry in the contest.

You can get an additional entries by doing the following (note these are in addition to posting a comment. You must comment first to be qualified).

• Option A: Tweet about the contest on Twitter (you must include @wickedjungle for your tweet to qualify each tweet will get you an additional entry).
• Option B: Become a follower of our blog (only new followers joining between the time of the contest will be counted).
• Option C: Promote the contest on your blog (you must include a link below to your blog post to be counted as an official entry).

Contest Ends TUESDAY June 29th, 2010 at  Midnight (Eastern) !!!

Wolf’s Cross by S. A. Swann

Maria lives a simple life in a small Polish village, working for the lord of the nearby fortress. Motherless since birth, Maria has been raised by her father and stepmother. Around her neck she wears—as she has always worn—a silver crucifix, to protect her from the devil. Or so her father tells her.

But when a contingent of badly mauled Teutonic knights, including a handsome and gravely wounded young man named Josef, ask for succor at the fortress, Maria’s quiet and comfortable world shatters. For the knights are Wolfjägers, an order dedicated to the extermination of werewolves, and Maria, unknowingly, is one of the creatures they hunt. Only the crucifix about her neck prevents her body from changing into a lethal killing machine.

When Maria meets Darien, a wolfbreed bent on exacting a terrible revenge on humans, she will learn the truth about herself, and find her loyalties—and her heart—torn in two.

Read the Excerpt

Interlude : Anno Domini 1333

Her name was Lucina, and she didn’t remember who had named her.  She lived in the deepest woods east of Gród Narew, and lived mostly ignorant of the humans dwelling there.  The people who lived on the fringes of these woods, especially those whose families had spent generations in its shadow, knew of her and her kind.  Lucina’s ancestors haunted the tales that had been spoken of in hushed tones ever since the land had become Christian.

However, it had been a long time since Lucina had family.  And a long time since her kind haunted these woods in any numbers.  She was alone, and the tales of the old folks about wolves clothed in human skin had become less urgent, less of a deterrent for hungry men who needed to hunt for their family’s larder.

Lucina would watch these men as they made their weak attempts to hunt.  Sometimes she would watch with the eyes of a wolf, sometimes with the eyes of a raven-haired maiden.  She would watch them come into her wood, and more often than not, return empty-handed.

She watched, not out of any malice, but out of curiosity and a deep loneliness.  She was the last of her kind in these woods, and she thought perhaps the last of her kind anywhere.  These men who came to find game, they all had a home to go to.

Home was as alien a concept to Lucina as having to trap her prey or shoot it with an arrow.

Each winter, her despair grew deeper.  She would always be alone, and she envied these human women who sent their men out to parade in front of her.  Why?  What could these frail human women give that she could not?  She was stronger then they were, faster, and a better hunter than these poor men. . .

It was not long before she decided that there was no reason she couldn’t have what they had.  When she decided this, Lucina studied these men with a new eye, looking for someone she could love, and could love her back.  She watched how they moved, how they hunted, how they carried their kill.

And only days into the winter, when the snow barely dusted the needle floor of her woods, she saw the man who would become her mate.  This man had broad shoulders and a stature above all the others who braved her forest.  He carried a masculine scent that made Lucina lick her lips in anticipation.

This was the man who would free her from her solitude.

#

When Karl met her, a light snow was falling.  Lucina stood in a clearing, white dusting a red cloak she had stolen from a cottage close-by to the woods.  She smiled at him from under the hood, smelling him, watching him.

She stood between him and a dead hart.  The freshly killed animal lay sprawled in the snow, slowly leaking blood from the wound Lucina had torn from its neck.

“What is this?”  He asked.  “Who are you and why are you alone in the woods?”

“My name is Lucina,” she said, her voice horse from so long without speech.  “These woods are where I live.”

“It is dangerous, the animal that killed that deer may still be about.”

She walked up to him and placed a hand on his chest.  When the cloak parted, it became obvious that the cloak was the only thing she did wear.  His breath caught, and in his scent Lucina could tell he did not dislike what he saw.  She leaned forward and whispered, lips brushing his ear, “The kill is mine.”

He didn’t move, didn’t speak, as her hand found its way under his shirt.  “Do you wish some of it?”

“That is your kill?”

“I smelled it, tracked it, and tore its life-blood free with my own teeth.”  She licked his ear tasting his sweat, smelling the first hint of fear.

“What are you?” He asked.

“You know,” she said, “these are my woods.”  She caressed him, running her hand down the side of his chest.  “Do you want a share of my kill?”

“What are you asking?”

“A leg perhaps?  The meat would feed several mouths.”

“You would give that to me?”

She brought her face around in front of his, their lips a finger’s breadth apart, “In return for something.”

“What?”

Her hand traveled lower, into his breeches.

“Respite from my loneliness,” she said before she kissed him.

I may have been fear, or shock, the thought of a hungry family, or simply the heat of Lucina’s skin so close to his own.  It may have been the fact that her loneliness was manifest in every word she spoke.  It may have just been the fact that Karl was a man, and men are weak.

Whatever the reason, any or all, Karl did not pull away from Lucina when he could have.  He tasted her mouth, and let her place his hand on her naked bosom.  Her cloak fell away and she led him down to the snow-covered earth and buried him under the weight of her solitude.

He came to her many times that winter, and each time her heart grew fuller at his presence.  To him, she was a secret vice, a spirit that lived in another world of trees, and snow, bloody carcasses, and lovemaking in the snow.  To her, he was a reason to live, a joy, a lover and a husband in what sense she could understand the term.  They spoke little, he walking in his dream, she drinking in obsession beyond words.

There was no doubt in Lucina’s growing heart, that the next time Karl came to embrace her, he would tell her that he would stay.  It was that hope that carried her trough the depth of winter.  And it was that hope that slowly died in the spring.

As the snow melted, and the ground softened, the men who braved these woods stayed upon their plots of land to till the soil and grow the harvest that would keep them and their people through the next winter.  There was no one to explain this to Lucina, for all the watching of the men in the forest, to all the listening to their language, she didn’t understand.  All she knew was that as the first buds grew, her Karl did not return to her.

Many times she stood, in her red cloak, next to some beast she had taken.  She attacked larger and larger prey, as if Karl might be enticed back; bucks, a bull elk, a mountain cat, a bear.

As the months passed, her heart shrank, and her belly grew.

And as summer became verdant, and Karl’s seed grew large within her, her heart grew black and cold.  She had been cast aside in worse isolation than the loneliness she had thought to escape.  As gravid as she became, it became impossible for her to change, to run as a wolf does.  Hunting became difficult, and she became gaunt.

When she gave birth, it was with blood and screams and the rending of flesh.  However, she survived, as she could bear far more injury and insult than any human woman.  Three children she had, all girls.  And as she licked the blood off of Karl’s daughters, she decided that Karl would have to come help care for them.  And that meant she had to take away any reasons he had for staying away.

#

She found Karl’s farm in the midst of a horrible storm at the end of harvest season.  Ice fell like needles from a sky boiling and black as ink.  The wind howled and bit with a force that felt as if it could tear flesh from bone.

Her howls were louder than the storm, louder than the thunder.  Karl heard her cries as he huddled with his family around the fire in their cottage.  At first he didn’t want to admit to himself that he knew what made those terrible, terrifying sounds.

But he knew.

Even though he had never seen his dreamlike winter lover in other than her human guise, he knew.  Just as he knew that his trysts were no dream, and the wood where they had happened no fairyland.

He had bought more than meat, and at a much dearer price.

Karl took an axe and told his wife to protect their young son, to bar the door and shutters, and let no one in before morning.  Not even him.  Then he left the cottage to face the beast that cried for him in the storm.

She stood in front of the cottage, waiting for him.  She was naked, but no longer human.  Lips that had bore his kisses were curled in the lupine snarl of a feral she-wolf.  The hands that had caressed him were now dark-furred and long-fingered, ending in hooked claws.  The legs that had straddled his body were now the crooked legs of a wolf.

He didn’t want to know her.  He wanted this apparition to be something new and strange to him.  But he looked into her eyes, and he knew who he faced, and what.

“You left me,” her voice, always rough from lack of use, came out of her lupine throat as little more than a growl.

“I had to tend the harvest.”  The words were empty in Karl’s mouth.  She had come to him, true.  She had been the one to place her lips on his— but he never pulled away.  He had never said that he had a family, a wife, a son.  He had pretended that because the situation was unreal, that it wasn’t real.  That because she wasn’t human, it didn’t matter.

And the horror he felt was more for what he had done than for the monster standing in front of him.  She panted, steam rising from her muzzle as lightning carved highlights from black ice-matted fur.

“You left me alone, with child.” She growled and took a step toward him.  His axe dangled impotent from his hands and he shook his head, trying to deny the truth of the allegation.

“I didn’t know,” he said finally, as knives made of falling ice scoured the tears from his cheeks.

“I birthed your whelps, alone in a cave, and swaddled them in the skin of a bear I had killed. . . for you.”  She stood before him, barely taller than he, and starvation thin, but still seeming to loom over him.  He felt her breath on his face as she growled lowly.

“I didn’t know,” he said, as if those were the only words left he knew.

“You will care for our children.”

She stared into his face, the head of a starved she-wolf, ice matting her fur into spikes, muzzle wrinkled into a snarl.  But the eyes were hers, and in them he saw the pain, the loneliness.

“Yes.”

The creature before him froze, as if she couldn’t quite understand his words.  Her muzzle lost its snarl as she pulled back from him.  “You will come back with me.  To your daughters.”

“I will go with you,” Karl said.  He thought of his wife and child, barricaded in the cottage.  He couldn’t leave them to the anger of this beast.  Better that the she-wolf received what she wanted, what he implicitly promised her.

“You will come back?  With me?”  The voice softened in her inhuman mouth, and her eyes shone from more than melted ice.  In a flash of lightning, Karl may have seen one side of her mouth pull up in a melancholy smile.  “Our children are beautiful.”

“Take me to them,” he said, all the time thinking of his wife and son, in the cabin.

In a moment of fear and weakness, he glanced back.  He knew it was a mistake as soon as he turned his head, because he could hear Lucina growl.

“Liar.”

He turned back and said, “No I—”

She backhanded him in the chest, a blow that knocked him rolling into the icy mud of the path.

“Liar!”  She shrieked at him, jaws snapping at air.  When the lightning lit her face, he saw nothing but fury.

He raised a hand, hoping to pull back the thread of hope he had seen in her eyes a moment ago.  “No, I will—”

She pounced on him, knocking him to the ground, pressing his shoulders to the ground with her massive clawed hands.  “You will tire of me, like you always have.  You will come back with me, but you will leave.  Like you always have.  You will always come back here.”

“No, not this time.”

In another flash of lightning, he saw her lupine mouth smiling again, but this time it was the rictus grin of death staring down at him, dripping saliva onto his cheek that burned in contrast to the icy needles of the storm.  She bent down so her muzzle was next to her ear, lips brushing him as they had the first time they met.  “No,” she whispered, “not this time.”

She leapt off of him, growling words that had lost their meaning in her fury.  To his horror, she ran to his cottage.

His wife.  His son.

The sudden threat drove all thought of his own guilt away.  The woman Lucina had been was wiped from his mind as he saw this atavistic shadow bearing down on his family.  As she attacked the door, slamming herself against the splintering wood, he pulled his axe out of the mud and ran after her.

Strong as she was, she had been weakened by her troubled childbirth and months of hunger.  Were she the same Lucina that greeted Karl in the woods, naked under her red cloak, the door would have given way with a single blow, but now she splintered one board at a time, reaching in with a furred arm to cast aside the bar sealing the door.

Karl came upon her as her shoulder pressed against the hole she had smashed between the planks of the door.  She turned her head to see him, and as the axe came down on her neck, he saw resignation in her eyes.

The first blow was grave, an awful wound tearing through her neck, spilling her life out over frozen black fur.  Had she run then, she might have survived, healed from even such a massive insult.  She didn’t run.  Instead, she used all her strength to say to words to Karl through her damaged throat.  The words came in a froth of blood.

“Our children.”

The second blow came down before Lucina’s weakened body could begin to seal the damage from the first.  The third took Lucina’s life.  The fourth was just the formality that completely removed her head from her body.

#

Karl left his wife, and son, and his dead lover, to find his daughters.  He slogged through the ice storm, deep into the dark woods, to the clearing where he had made his trysts with the wolf.  As he searched he raged and cried, cursed himself, and Lucina, and God.  As he stumbled in the dark he selfishly hoped for the peace death would bring him.

Then he heard an infant’s cry.

He found them in a shallow hollow in a hillside, wrapped in the raw hide of a bear that smelled foul with decay.  For two infants, it was already too late.  Their bodies were blue and cold.  The last child was pink, and healthy, and screamed as the ice bit its skin.

He brought all three home, the tiny corpses slung across his back in their rotting bearskin.  His one living daughter he carried tightly inside his shirt so she would have his body for warmth.  When he came home, the storm had broken, and a cold dawn had begun chasing clouds from the sky.

Writer’s Bio

S A. Swann is married and lives in the Greater Cleveland area where he has lived all of his adult life. He has a background in mechanical engineering and— besides writing— works as a Database Manager for one of the largest private child services agencies in the Cleveland area. He has published over 20 novels over the past 17 years with two more coming over the next year.

For more fun reading check out the Author Spotlight on S. A. Swann.

Author Spotlight: Marcia Colette

Today’s guest blogger is Marcia Colette. Marcia was born in upstate New York and holds a bachelors degree in biomedical engineering and a masters degree in information technology. She is now living in the south again, in the lovely state of North Carolina, with her mom and beautiful daughter. Marcia is a member of the Horror Writers Association, Paranormal Mystery Writers, and Romance Writers of America. The best place to find her is on her blog (marciacolette.wordpress.com) where she loves connecting with readers and other writers. Conferences/conventions where sci-fi, fantasy, and horror reign supreme are a good bet, too, along with the occasional romance conference. Welcome Marcia!!

Author Profile

Name: Marcia Colette

Porn Star Name: Whiskers Schuyler  (Wow.  That’s so not sexy.)

Website Address: www.marciacolette.com

Writing Age: Appropriately Mature and very naive.

First Published Work: HALF BREED

Current Release: STRIPPED Read more

Stripped by Marcia Colette

Alexa Wells wants her life back. She’s just not sure what that life was. The memories inside her head—a stripper’s—aren’t hers, and before she humiliates herself onstage one more time, she sets out to collect the scattered pieces of her mind. The trail leads to Boston, charges of identity theft and murder, and the real bombshell: a forgotten werewolf lover who insists she’s a werewolf hybrid.

Matt York doesn’t care that she looks at him like he’s been smoking crack between court cases. Now that he has her back he’s not about to let her go it alone, even if she can easily kick ass and take names all by herself. Amnesia only scratches the surface of her problems, and like it or not, she’s stuck with him.

She’s also stuck with Robert Gamboldt, a venture capitalist who’s not above murdering his way to the top. He’s not about to lose his prize possession without playing dirty. It’s a simple enough offer. Be his personal assassin, or go to jail.

With options like that, it’s enough to make a hybrid go full-blood.

Warning: Delicious sexual tension with a werewolf who’ll wait as long as it takes for his hybrid werewolf mate to come around.

Free Excerpt: Stripped

Matt’s wild scent came through like fresh cologne. I smelled him all the way over the railing and into the bushes where he had disappeared.

Woods enveloped my surroundings. I leaped over large boulders and rotted stumps, following his trail. Strange that I honed in on it among the woodsy scents. I could even pick out the fresh rabbit trails and deer that had left crisscross paths along the ground. When I came to a small ravine, I slid down the incline and splashed into the frigid brook at the bottom. Matt’s scent had disappeared, but I continued in a straight line anyway. There was no reason why he’d head downstream unless another animal was after him and he wanted to lose the scent. Grabbing a thick root, I climbed up the opposite side of the hill.

I stopped and whiffed the air. Still, no male wolf smell. Damn. Maybe my senses were wrong after all.

Stupid as it sounded, my instincts urged me to go down on all fours. It was a good thing I was in the middle of the forest or I’d never have lived this down. After dropping to my knees, I pressed my face close to the earth and sniffed around for a scent. I must have looked like a wild woman raised by dogs, pushing my way through leaves and twigs.

A smell hit me. On the smooth surface of a small rock, I found a piece of Matt. Excited, I continued searching, picking up more and more until I found the right direction again. I hopped to my feet and darted through a thick copse.

Branches and twigs snagged my sweats and pricked my calves. Twice, I tripped on rocks and thick roots, but they didn’t stop me. I needed to find him before that maniac hunter put a bullet in his ass. I was sure he wasn’t hurt or I would’ve smelled blood on the air.

Something about this experience brought back pieces of my dreams with me running through the woods. I half-expected a pack of wolves to filter out of the shadows and run with me. They didn’t, of course, but in a way, I wished they had. At least those shadows were friendly. Heaven only knew what awaited me out here.

A black wolf leaped from a band of thick foliage. I stopped and threw my back against the nearest tree, cold bark biting into my back.

Matt—my gut said it was him—growled. His ears flattened on his canine head and his lips peeled back to reveal a set of serrated teeth. The only signs of his human half were in his mahogany eyes. However, with the searing hatred burning through them now, I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure about that.

He lunged.

I ducked to the right and threw my fists in front of me, ready to fight him off. I guess I was wrong about anything human behind those eyes once he had turned into a wolf.

Matt landed somewhere behind my tree. A man screamed and stumbled backward. The wolf’s powerful jaws remained clamped around his assailant’s arm. Jerking his head from side to side, he hung on until bones cracked like a person biting into an apple. The yanking had turned into a pull as he tore the arm off and let it fall to the ground. Matt lunged at the man’s throat, silencing his horrific screams.

The savagery of his kill bothered me, though I knew it shouldn’t. If my dreams were correct, I had killed a few werewolves of my own, only I didn’t have sharp teeth to do it with. However, that cute butt and those adorable dimples didn’t seem cute anymore. Part of him was human, but full acceptance meant choosing the beast inside him too. That scared me. I didn’t want to be a savage like that.

Matt stumbled away from the unmoving body. In fact…he stumbled a lot.

Any doubts I had left me. I ran to him and dropped to my knees.

A whine came through his closed muzzle as he walked with a slight limp. Whenever he stopped moving, he lifted his left paw off the ground or barely let it touch.

“Come here, you big baby.” I snatched him by the scruff of his neck and buried his head between my breasts. That might be just the thing he needed to calm down. “Let me see.”

He groaned and pulled away. I got rough with him this time. Matt tripped into me, so I wrapped one arm around his neck and held him still. He was a powerful animal, but I held my own and examined his shoulder. Maybe this was the best way to respect the wolf side of him. Through power and strength, seeing as he seemed to understand that most.

Blood matted his fur. At first, I thought it was from the man he had killed, but even after I cleaned it with my fingers, more appeared. Jagged pieces of skin about the size of a quarter kept pooling with blood. It looked like a graze, which meant he’d be okay. If he were human. Being a werewolf, I couldn’t be sure.

“You need to change,” I said. “You up to it?”

This time, Matt pulled away and settled down on his belly. His head lowered between his front legs and he closed his eyes.

His fur rippled. Seconds later, something began slithering underneath his bubbling coat. Several cracks jolted his legs and back. His tail was the first to go. It began receding into his tailbone until it disappeared. His face broke in several different spots just as his pointed ears began to round off and shrink back to where they were level with his eyes. Clawed paws elongated into fingers, thumb pressing out on the sides. With the exception of his head, his black hair had thinned out like a man balding on a time-lapse camera.

Minutes later, a naked man lay on the ground with one leg bent and the other one sticking straight out at me. Had the circumstances been less urgent, I might have sat there and admired the view.

I got to my feet and hurried to his side. The graze on his shoulder was just that. Although it looked like a nasty burn, at least he’d live. The sissy. He was probably faking just to get my attention.

I combed my fingers through his sweaty hair. More sweat covered his body, glistening under the half-moon sky. Human or werewolf, the man was gorgeous. Not only that, he had saved my life.

Matt mumbled something. His head lifted and he looked at me with a lethargic gaze.

Paranormal author Marcia Colette was born in upstate New York and holds a bachelors degree in biomedical engineering and a masters degree in information technology. She is now living in the south again in the lovely state of North Carolina with her mom and beautiful daughter.

Marcia is a member of the Horror Writers Association, Paranormal Mystery Writers, and Romance Writers of America. The best place to find her is on her blog (marciacolette.wordpress.com) where she loves connecting with readers and other writers. Conferences/conventions where sci-fi, fantasy, and horror reign supreme are a good bet, too, along with the occasional romance conference.

Read more of Stripped! Buy your print or ebook copy today on Amazon.com.

Day 13: Best Were Series

Continuing a super duper month of giveaways here’s your next chance to win some cool Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy goodies. Remember rules of the game change daily, so be sure to check back often to see how to enter and whether or not you won!

Day 13 : “owww, werewolves of London…”

The next few contests are going to be open polls! Meaning we are looking to find the best, most beloved books around in the genre. Today, you have the opportunity to nominate your favorite “Were/Shifter” book or series. We will use the full list to do voting in June!

THE RULES

1. Type the name of your nominee into the comments below.  Include the full name of the book or series along with the full author’s name. For tracking purpose, please only put one nominee per comment.

2.For each NEW nominee you add to the list, you receive an entry into today’s online contest.

3. You can post as many times as you want. Please NOTE: Werewolves, shifters, or “Were” creatures of any nature must be central character’s in the book (not minor or supporting roles). We will have other opportunities for other books later! YA Books are included.

4. As always, you get an additional entry for promoting the contest on your website, blog, facebook or twitter. Just be sure to include the link in the comments. If using twitter include @wickedjungle in the tweet!

5. The contest is open from now and will close at 12PM Eastern on Thursday May 27!

The PRIZE:

Each daily winner will have the option of choosing an autographed copy of the following books:

• C.T. Adams & Cathy Clamp–Touch of Darkness
• L.A. Banks –The Forbidden (Selected by previous winner)
• Mary Janice Davidson–Undead and Unwed (Selected by previous winner)
• Mary Janice Davidson–Undead and Uneasy
• S.J Day–Eve of Darkness–(Selected by previous winner)
• Devon Monk–Magic to the Bone (Selected by previous winner)
• Devon Monk–Magic in the Blood (selected by previous winner)
• Kat Richardson–Greywalker (Selected by previous winner)

or an un-autorgraphed copy of one of the following books:

• Rachel Caine–Kiss of Death
• Jocelynn Drake–Nightwalker (Selected by previous winner)
• Angie Fox–The Dangerous Book of Demon Slayers
• Richelle Mead–Succubus Blues(selected by previous winner)
  
• Linda Wisdom–Hex in High Heels

Each book is also paired up with a swag bag, which contains buttons, postcards, bookmarks, and posters (some signed, some not).  Each bag varies and winners will not have the option of pre-selecting the swag-bags.

Winners of the daily contest will automatically be entered into the grand prize drawings (winners to be announced May 31st).  This includes the RT 2010 Tote Bag, Strange Brew Anthology (signed by Jim Butcher), signed posters, books, swag and your choice of a $25 gift e-gift cart to borders.com, bn.com or amazon.com. (Second place winner will receive similar package with signed poster, tote bag, and $10 gift card).