Enjoy this trailer for the first novel in the Sacred Breath Series by Nadia Scrieva.
An excerpt from chapter 38 of Drowning Mermaids:
“Why are we here, Brynne?” Trevain asked,
leaning against the wall angrily.
“I wanted a snack,” she said, rummaging
through the cupboards.
“I didn’t.”
“Well, you need to eat dinner,” she said,
with her mouth full. “We’ve been fishing all day.”
“I’m not hungry. Look, Brynne, is there a
reason you haven’t left my side this whole trip? Do you think that I’m emotionally
vulnerable because Aazuria left me and I’m going to fall into your arms or
something?”
“Here, just relax and let me cook something
good for you.”
“I appreciate your concern for my health,
but I already told you that I’m not hungry…”
“Why is there sound coming from this bag of
rice?” Brynne asked, putting her ear to the bag. “That’s weird. It sounds like
a clock.”
Trevain frowned and moved over to the bag
of rice to listen.
“Reminds me of that story about the captain
and the crocodile—he could always tell the crocodile was near because it had
swallowed a clock, and he could hear the ticking…”
“Shut up, Brynne.” Trevain said, pulling a
knife out of a drawer and slitting the bag open, causing rice to spill out all
over the floor.
“Hey, you’re making a mess!” Brynne
scolded.
“Where the hell did you get this?” Trevain
yelled, staring at the strange homemade bomb which was nestled in the rice.
“A blond woman on the docks gave it to me…”
“Dammit!” he cursed. “There’s no time.”
“No time?” Brynne asked in confusion.
Trevain grabbed her hand and was pulling her into the next room. “What are you
doing?”
“Get in the bathtub, Brynne!”
“What? Why? I’m not into kinky…”
“Down, now!” Trevain grabbed Brynne and
dived with her into the bathtub, covering her body with his and waiting for the
sound.
The next second, all that they heard
was—nothing. The sound of the explosion was so deafening that there was a moment
of intense pain in their ears before they lost the ability to hear. They felt,
however. They felt the pressure of the bomb exploding. They felt the heat of
the explosion burning their skin and singeing their hair. They felt the bathtub
being ripped from the ship, and pieces of debris colliding with their bodies.
Trevain felt large objects colliding with his head and back, before he was
aware that they were surrounded by water.
It was several seconds before the heat
subsided to the cooling water, and he was able to open his eyes. He could
barely make out the scared expression on Brynne’s face in the darkness. There
was debris everywhere; pieces of the broken ship. Trevain was completely
disoriented. It was difficult to figure out where they needed to swim. He could
tell that pieces of the ship near the surface were burning. He looked around
for the other members of his crew, trying to get his bearings.
The flames were growing stronger. The
ship’s diesel was leaking from the ruptured gas tank. They could not swim to
the surface, or they would be burned. Brynne’s face was lit by the flickering
firelight as she panicked and tried to communicate with him, but they could not
understand each other. He appreciated the need for sign language more than ever
at that moment. Brynne was freaking out and she began swimming off in one
direction. He was sure that was not where they needed to go. He tried to reach
for her, but he was feeling dizzy from the lack of oxygen flowing to his brain.
He looked around, trying to figure out where to go and what to do. He was
panicking too.
Trevain tried to swim away from the flames,
but he could not get very far. He needed air badly. He realized he was going to
drown. He could not breathe underwater; he did not have the ability. He did not
know how. What Aazuria and his mother were talking about—he wished it was all
true, but it was not. Not for him.
He knew that he was about to die. His lungs
painfully begged him to take a breath, but he knew that the moment he did, he
would drown. Although he had almost wanted something exactly like this to
happen to him when he had set sail earlier, he now realized that he had been
fooling himself. As demented as he had been feeling, as self-destructive as his
intentions, it had all been just a farce. He did not really want to die.
He tried as hard as he could to hold onto
his last few moments of life.
A flash of white caught his eye, and he saw
that an exquisite creature was suddenly before him. Long white hair fanned out
around her face, and the purest sapphire blue eyes stared at him. The lovely
phantasm was smiling, and reaching out to take his hands; he knew it was an
angel.
It was his angel. He knew her, although she
looked nothing like before. She was his Aazuria, his mythical heroine. In the
dancing glow of the oil blaze, she was simply too dazzling to be real and he
knew that he must be dying. As she hovered in suspension before him, her skin
and hair were almost luminous in the dark water, almost phosphorescent. Perhaps
she never had been real. It did not matter—she was firmly grasping his hands,
and it sent a feeling of comfort and tranquility through him. He knew that she
loved him.
He could see forgiveness and acceptance in
her expression. None of the turmoil between them mattered any longer in this
pacific moment. In her benevolent gaze, he could finally forgive himself. He
smiled at her, although his vision was fading, and the world was disappearing. He
tightly gripped her hands to thank her for coming back for him. He could not
bear the thought of letting go; he did not want to be robbed of her touch. He
tried to keep his eyes open for as long as possible, to keep looking into her unfamiliar
ultramarine orbs. So this was what she really looked like, in her element. He
wished he could have known her true form. It was mystical.
Trevain could imagine no better way to die.
No better sight to see the last time he closed his eyes. A peaceful smile
descended on his face, and the captain’s tired eyes closed for what he knew to
be the last time ever.
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2 comments:
Sounds great! I love that you have mermaids in your story ... that's a twist I haven't seen before in romance.
How exciting! Thanks for sharing your excerpt!
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