National Redhead Day: Miriam Diaz

It's #nationalredheadday! I thought I'd celebrate by sharing an excerpt from Eastside Faerie, featuring my favorite redhead besides yours truly. It's rough and will likely change in the final draft, but here's a sneak peek:

Phyr jerks back, pulling me with him. Something zips too fast for my eyes to track through the space where my head had been a moment before. Its whine and the disrupted air the only evidence it had been there at all. The forest rolls and my vision blurs as Phyr heaves our weight, unseating us from the horse.

Pain jolts through my elbow as it connects with a rock. Phyr lands on top of me. I can’t cry out because the wind is knocked out of me by his weight--he is thin but dense with muscle. My cheek mashes into grass and loam as his hand presses against the side of my skull. The scent of dirt fills my nostrils and I sense his alarm superimposed over my own fear. He’s not afraid in the general sense. The words fae weapons stand out among his thousands of flittering thoughts as he parses out who is attacking us.

I squirm because I want to see what’s happening.

Stay down!

Our erstwhile horse whinnies and shrieks. There’s a whir of activity around me I can’t see because I’m too busy eating dirt and plotting ways I’m going to murder Phyr if he doesn’t get off me and let me fight.
A roar overshadows the din. The loud whoosh, whoosh, whoosh of wings follows. A blast of heat and blinding light sears my vision.

Stay down until I give the word! The command rattles in my head as Phyr rolls off my back. The scrape of iron against leather follows--a sword unsheathed.

Instead of staying down, I, of course, don’t listen and scramble to see what’s happening. Niamh is nowhere to be seen, her dragon circles above. The flash of fire must have been a distraction to give Velushat and Niamh time to escape. Lance and Rhiannon aren’t so lucky. The rock witch is on the ground and unconscious. Lance has shifted to werecougar form pacing around Rhiannon protectively.

A look of utter calm washes over Phyr’s face and the mask of bored insolence returns. He raises his sword high. The metal glows blue. The whorls and ruins of his armor and his eyes shimmer with the same light.

Come to my side, bondmate. This is about to get interesting, your siblings are here.


Written material ©TJ Deschamps