Official release day celebration!
A man too dangerous to live. A woman whose survival depends on forgiving him.
The Phoenix Institute, Book 2
Philip Drake is immortal by virtue of a psychic power that heals all but the worst injuries. He’s needed every bit of it as a black ops agent, a life so violent that the line between pain and pleasure is tangled up in his head.
When he walks away from the CIA, the last thing he expects is to discover someone stole his DNA to create a race of super-healers. And that the expectant mother is a woman from his past who’d consider it her pleasure to spit on his grave.
One moment, Delilah Sefton is listening to a seriously hot, seriously deranged man giving her some half-baked explanation as to why she’s pregnant with no memory of how she got that way. The next, armed men swarm into her bar, and she and Mr. Sexy-Crazy are on the run.
Safety at the Phoenix Institute is only temporary, but it’s long enough to put the pieces together. A madman plans to steal her son in a plot to take over the world. And to stop him, she must learn to trust the baby’s father—a man she blames for her greatest loss.
Warning: This novel contains fast cars (that are driven), numerous guns (that are shot), a hero who prefers pain over love, and a heroine determined to fight for those she loves.
And excerpt for you! I like this one because it shows the contrast between Philip Drake and Alec, the hero of Phoenix Rising:
As he dressed, he strapped on his ankle holster and slipped a knife into his jacket to go along with the Sig Sauer nestling in his waist holster. The lightweight jacket would conceal that well enough. He gathered up a small pocketful of tech toys, including several micro-bugs. Alec was right to want the place bugged.
He took a look at where he’d jammed the shard into his palm. The shower had washed off the blood, and the wound had fully healed already.
Pain and the rush of healing after it were all that had made him feel alive in the last few months. He’d always had a high tolerance for pain and had known that tolerance sometimes slid into pleasure. But now it was as if he needed that rush. Even his careless one-night stands had been unsatisfying unless the sex had been rough. Beth would have much to say about that, if she knew. He had no plans to tell her.
Philip drove the Charger with Alec providing directions, but he didn’t need them. He knew that area. The lab was located next to a rundown area in Passaic, just over the town line in an industrial zone of warehouses, offices and laboratories. It was accessible via the highway but Philip planned a less obvious route. Just in case, again. He didn’t know who could be watching, but that was the point. One never knew.
When he explained this to Alec, the boy shook his head. “Appreciate the security lesson, Drake, but that seems extreme.”
“You need lessons in extreme.” The firestarter was powerful, smart and he wanted to do the right thing. He’d changed the name of the Resource—which he’d inherited from his adoptive father Richard Lansing—to the Phoenix Institute to signal a new start for the place that had effectively held him captive all his life.Alec intended to find and help children like him use their power responsibly. It was an excellent, noble goal. But Alec had been raised in a vacuum, essentially isolated from the rest of the world. It made him more than naive on a few subjects.
“Someone is using your DNA to create a race of superbabies, and you think taking an undocumented driving route is extreme? Not to mention the CIA might be monitoring me or you. Whoever kept this genetics lab running after Lansing’s death could be doing the same. And there’s still the matter of those watchers out there from an unknown source that you sensed on the container ship job. Aside from the one mention in Lansing’s notes, there’s no other information. Which tells me Lansing knew something but thought it was too volatile to write down. That’s never good.”
He paused to let the words sink in. Alec shifted in his seat, clearly uncomfortable.
“If you want to survive to do all this good you talk about, then you have to assume enemies are watching. All the time.”
Alec stared at the car’s dashboard for a while instead of replying. Perhaps the young man was considering what he’d just been told. Or, given his sheltered upbringing, he was checking out the car. Alec loved cars.“I hate having to think that way.”
“If you want to live long enough to accomplish your aims, you’re going to have to learn.” And you damn well better learn enough to keep my daughter safe.
Alec nodded. “What if my kid is out there, Drake? Not a situation I’ve been trained to handle.”
Philip realized that the boy was truly looking for advice this time. Like it or not, Alec was a permanent part of Beth’s life. Which meant the question should be answered rather than ignored. No one had told him giving advice to a man sleeping with his daughter was part of fatherhood when he’d volunteered.
But here he was.
Onto the contest! We’ll try something different this time and instead of asking about books or characters, I wanted to talk about cars, in honor of Philip’s 1967 Dodge Charger. (My brother once owned one just like it so hopefully I have all the dashboard controls right or he’ll kill me….)
To enter, let me know your favorite classic car in the comments below.
CONTEST CLOSES AT MIDNIGHT, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18TH. YOU MUST MAKE SURE TO LEAVE AN EMAIL SO I CAN REACH YOU.
