Soul Masters: The Hunting Grounds Soul Masters Book One by K.R. Gastreich - Paranormal Romance - He wants to claim her soul. But can she capture his heart? - Guest Post
Excerpt:
Then everything froze. Joni, the customers, the cars outside. All movement simply stopped. The chime on the front door sounded. My throat went dry. Somehow, I knew what was happening. I knew who had arrived, though I didn’t understand how or why.Twisting around, I peered over the rim of the booth. Standing in the doorway was the man from my hallucinations, a creature of the dark plains. Tall and slim, broad-shouldered, dark in aspect. That same man had beheaded a snake in my kitchen. Not my kitchen, I reminded myself. The illusion of my kitchen, part of the same hallucination of an impossible world. The Hunting Grounds, he’d called it. Where we go to hunt souls.
My mind spun with the impossibility of what I was seeing. He couldn’t be real. Yet here he was, in Joni’s shop. Except, he looked different. His hair was peppered gray instead of black. His skin seemed a shade darker. Or maybe lighter? It was like wrapping my head around a mirage, trying to remember what he looked like in my nightmares. But the simple force of his presence, the quiet luminescence of his spirit, was unmistakable. That was him.
Without so much as a glance in my direction, the man stepped into the shop and started toward the counter. Everything stirred at once. Several people looked his way. Joni let go a long, low whistle.
“Well, I’ll be!” she exclaimed. "We haven’t had anyone that drop-dead gorgeous walk in here since…Well, ever!”
She kept staring, mouth agape, as he ordered coffee. Then her face lit up, and she jumped into action, wiping down the table next to me.
“I’ve got an idea,” she said. “I think you should go for him.”
“What?” I croaked.
“He’s totally your style.”
“I don’t date men in suits.”
“What are you talking about?” She laughed. “Look at him! It’s fate. I can feel it.”
“Joni –”
“Sir!” She called. “Sir, we’ve got an empty table right over here. Next to the windows.”
Holy crap! I sank deeper into my seat. “I’m serious, Joni! Send him somewhere else.”
“Straighten up, beautiful.” She patted me on the shoulder. “Give it a shot. What’ve you got to lose?”
Then she was gone. I cast about frantically for an escape, but there was no back exit from the booth. Unless I wanted to crash through the window. Could I do that? Crash through the window?
Yeah, I could do that. But I’d have to leave my insects behind, and –
And there he was, taking the table next to me. His chair scraped against the floor. His clothes rustled as he settled in. Minutes passed while my heart pounded inside my chest. I kept my face turned, pretended to stare out the window, wondered whether it would hurt to feel the glass shatter against my skin.
Idle talk filled the coffee shop. Customers came and went, orders were taken, steam forced through frothing milk.
Still the man said nothing.
I snuck a glance in his direction. Damn, he was handsome. Heart stoppingly so. Desire tugged at my gut, a strangely familiar sense of attraction, as if we’d known each other before this moment. As if I’d been bound to him in a time before memory.
Guest Post
What drives your antagonist? Is there back-story?
The
antagonist of my novel is Nathan. He is a soul master.
Soul
masters are supernatural creatures that rule the afterlife. They build their
realms by claiming souls. The more souls a soul master acquires, the greater
their power.
Nathan
is relatively young by soul master standards. He was born just a few centuries
ago. He lived the first decades of his life as a mortal in the mountains of
northern Italy, unaware of his true heritage.
When
Nathan’s supernatural mother arrived to claim him, he had to make a choice.
Become a soul master or be destroyed. Nathan chose the path of the soul
masters. Nathan’s mother, an ancient entity, trained him and oversaw his
metamorphosis.
As
a soul master, Nathan can assume a number of forms, including a shadow form, a
battle form, and a form that resembles humans. Nathan acquires souls by
tracking their mortal vessels in this world and hunting souls of the dead in
the next.
There
is no driving struggle between good and evil among the soul masters. Their
world operates like a feudal system where lineage matters. Their primary
currency of power is the soul.
When
Nathan meets the protagonist Mayela, he recognizes in her a power that could
secure his place among the soul masters. All he must do is convince Mayela to
grant him her soul without losing his heart.
And
Nathan has no heart to lose.
Or
does he?
Find
out whether Mayela can outwit (or out-seduce) her immortal foe in this epic
tale of love, vengeance, and captive souls.
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