Release Day Event ‘Rising Ashes’ by Annie Anderson

West Carmichael is not my real name.

It is the name I pulled from thin air over five hundred
years ago. I don’t come from royalty—I come from the dregs of the ethereal. As
the King’s assassin, I have more blood on my hands than most. I don’t deserve
her. I don’t deserve anyone.

But I will keep her safe.

Even if I die trying.

Evangeline Black.

My name sounds like the heroine of a historical romance
novel – not that I read those or anything. My life so far: Dead parents? Check.
Broken heart? Check. Evil mistress of darkness, hell-bent on power and thirsty
for my death? Big. Honking. Check. But this mess won’t get cleaned up by
itself.

I’ve got a job to do.

As these two reluctant hearts fight their pull, they must
decide if they want to fall apart in the midst of the chaos swarming around
them or yield to their hearts…

and rise.

This book is available on Amazon US, Amazon AU, Amazon CA, Amazon UK, iBooks and Kobo.

West

You would think people would know by now.

But they don’t.

People as a whole are dumb, lazy bastards only out for
themselves. Maybe it’s just Wraiths that are like this. Maybe outside factions
see us as the cockroaches of the ethereal because of the way we act. I think it
is probably a few ruining it for the rest of us.

Welcome to the ethereal! Where we don’t give a shit what
color you are, but if you have powers we don’t like, well, then fuck you.

I silently chuckle a little to myself. Yep, the game show
host in my head has lost his nut. Good times.

I stay in the shadows, not too hard up here on the cliff
top, crouched in the darkness of a yawning crevasse and watch as Wraiths in
fancy funeral dresses and tuxes prepare to fight a battle they can’t win. A few
haul long-range precision rifles from narrow, padded gun cases.

I guess they aren’t fucking around anymore.

They are dressed very differently from me. While they
look refined and out of place as they spoil for a fight, I look right at home
with the prospect of a good, old fashioned blood bath in my black fighting
leathers and body armor.

Luck favors the prepared, so the saying goes, and I am
very, very lucky.

I travel from the cliff top to a nook on the roof of the
house overlooking the gorge where I think Ian might be hiding. It still pisses
me off that I’ve never been able to find him. Ian possesses an innate ability,
making him almost impossible to find if he decides to cloak himself.

“You looking for me?” Ian asks as he appears in front of
me as if from thin air. One second there was nothing, and the next he’s lying
supine on the rooftop looking through the scope of a fifty-caliber sniper
rifle, his dark skin midnight in the moonlight. I’ve been looking all over this
roof for the last ten minutes, and he’s been there the whole damn time.

Dick.

“Are sure you’re not half-witch instead of half-human?” I
ask, my voice gruff from disuse. I haven’t spoken in the last day – not that I
speak much to anyone but Evan… Or, at least, I did. My girl could talk your
ear off, and I’d never tell her, but I love her chatter, her life. She has kept
me from sliding into the darkness.

She is air and light…

I miss my light. I miss my Angel.

“Who knows? Dad did get around,” he quips as he adjusts
the elevation dial on his scope, and it pulls me back into the moment. His tone
is laced with a hint of derision, and it dawns on me that it might be a sore
subject.

Oops.

About the Author:

This event was organized by Paging Through The Days