A Labor of Love

Happy Labor Day everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the day. I was busy pretty much all day, and my work isn't over yet.

As promised, today I have an excerpt from my newest release, Icarus Rising, available TODAY at Liquid Silver Books!

WARNING! The following is an R-rated excerpt.

Every nerve in Caleb’s body burned. White hot flames seemed to emanate from the point just below the nape of his neck where the symbion had plunged its siphon into his spinal column.
This was supposed to be safe and painless! His panicked brain supplied only snippets of his conversations with Raymond Danson and Arilani.

The average Icarian is ten years of age when they are joined to a symbion. The process takes only a few moments and appears to be completely painless. Danson’s words echoed, mixing with Arilani’s assurances.

The siphon pierces the sheath around the spinal cord of the host and creates an instant connection. Within minutes, the young Icarian gains control over the symbion wings and launches into the sky for his or her virgin flight.

Through a blurry haze of shock, Caleb registered the feel of hands on his body, turning him over, wiping sand from his eyes and his lips.

Someone shouted his name. Danson. Bastard. Caleb wanted to wrap his hands around the man’s throat and choked the life out of him for this. Fortunately for the geneticist, Caleb couldn’t so much as control his own breathing at this moment or he would be homicidal from the pain.

“Don’t move him. Let his body and mind adjust.” Jidar’s deep voice cut across the jumble of worried exclamations that filled the air. Was that Zara crying? Caleb tried to look for her, but all he managed to do was flop his head to one side and spit salty liquid into the sand. Blood. Had he bitten his tongue? Or were his insides dissolving from the fire racing through his veins?
Vaguely, he registered movement on each side of him. The violet-tinged gray wings of his symbion flapped ineffectively, throwing wet sand in all directions. A naked Icarian female held one of the quivering limbs in her hand and administered an injection.Caleb felt it. The slim needle pierced flesh and muscle that had only moments ago belonged to a separate being. He screamed again as ice flowed from the injection site, numbing the wing and that entire side of his body.

Someone sat on his legs, and he couldn’t imagine why until he began to convulse. His body heaved against the half-dozen people now holding him down. Each movement stripped his nerves raw as though he were being flayed alive.

The sand under him felt like a million diamond-hard blades. The salt breeze stung his eyes like acid.

A gentle caress on his thigh brought him instantly aware in a different way. A surge of desire spread through him, tightening his abdominals as female hands slid over his skin. Pain became pleasure so intense he moaned and shifted his hips toward the sensual touch. He smelled her arousal, a willing mate so close he could see her, yet his eyes refused to focus. His brain told him he needed her to complete him. He needed her body wrapped around his, eager to receive the seed that drew up inside his cock, and pulsed to a shuddering orgasm... Hot semen spewed over his belly and his legs and in his ear Zara’s sweet voice whispered to him.

The violent release left him temporarily weak and light headed. His body ached all over from the exertion brought about by no more than her fingers brushing the taut muscles of his leg.
Oh God. Oh God. He’d just come in front of every single member of the research team.
“We’ll take care of you. You’ll be all right. We’ll make it stop.”

He wanted her. He wanted her so badly that he would die without her. “I nee ... I need...”
“Give him air. Let him talk. Caleb, what are you feeling?” Danson’s voice grated like screeching turbines in his ears. He snarled a response, and some of the hands clamped over his limbs loosened their grip.

Something in the back of his mind told him it was time to fly. Being held against the ground was unconscionable torture. He had to get away. A burst of raw power erupted from somewhere in his ravaged brain, clearing the numbness from the left side of this body. For an instant he was invincible.

He tore at the hands clutching him and heaved himself up on shaky legs. Figures crowded around him, Icarian and human. They blurred together in one homogeneous threat.

Only Jidar was smiling.

Caleb spread his wings. His wings. They’d always been his, and they always would be. He crouched, and before anyone could make a move to stop him he launched himself into the air. The alien part of his brain rejoiced. “We are free!”

“We are finally free,” he agreed. “And they will never control us again.”

He circled the beach once, swooping low just to hear the startled exclamations of those assembled. Some scattered, others ducked. The Icarians only stared, expressions of triumph and curiosity blending on their faces. At the edge of the crowd, though, one figure stood alone.
Tears glistened on Zara’s face as she pressed two fingers to her lips and raised them into the wind.

He wanted her. And when he returned, he would finally have her, but for now he had to go as far away as he could or risk taking revenge on the people who had tried to kill him.

To find out more about Icarus Rising, visit Liquid Silver Books today!