Friday Fragment – 5

Friday Fragments are my way of counting down to the release of MAGIC ON THE HUNT on April 5th.  Every Friday until then, I’ll post an excerpt or deleted snippet or alternate scene from the Allie Beckstrom books.

Also, I am giving away three advance reader copies (unproofed, un-fancy-covered) of MAGIC ON THE HUNT on Wednesday, March 9th.  Just click here to leave a comment.

Today’s snippet comes from MAGIC ON THE HUNT.  I don’t think it gives much away.  But  if you’d rather wait until the book comes out, (or until you win an advanced copy) or if you haven’t read MAGIC AT THE GATE, you might want to click away now.  Thank you for reading!  I hope you have a great weekend!

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To set the scene a little, this begins with Allie, Zayvion, Shame and Terric outside Allie’s apartment.  Allie’s talking on the phone with Victor.  This bit happens not long after the first chapter, so if you’ve read the snippet in the back of MAGIC AT THE GATE, you can probably guess why Zayvion is….well…you’ll see.

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What the hell? I held the phone out for Terric. “He wants to talk to you.”

Terric frowned. “This is Terric.”

I could hear Victor’s voice but not what he said. Something about gates and dangerous and injured. Also something about Zay. Terric glanced up at Zay, who was standing, arms crossed over his chest, scowling toward the street. He looked like he was begging for someone to pick a fight with him. I mean, he was even giving the nice old granny pushing a baby stroller the evil eye.

“Got it. Bye.” Terric thumbed off my phone, handed it back to me.

“What’d he say?” Shame asked.

“He doesn’t want us to engage. If we find Dane, we call in for backup before confronting him. We want to get Dane alive and the disks whole.”

“Doesn’t hardly seem worth it. I was hoping for some blood.” Shame cracked his knuckles and then pulled his keys out of his pocket. “I’m driving.” He started off toward  his car.

Terric stared at Zay’s back. “He told me to tell you not to take him down, Zay. Not to kill  him.”

Zay took a long moment to consider that. When he turned toward us, his face was blank, unreadable, but his eyes burned gold. “Don’t need to kill him. Yet. I’ll just make him wish he were dead.”

Zay took a step, and Terric stood in front of him, blocking his way to Shame’s car.

“He told me to stop you if you got out of line.”

Zay seemed to finally notice that Terric was speaking. He tugged at his beanie and gave Terric a sideways look. “Do you really want to put yourself between me and my goals, my friend?”

“Doesn’t matter what I want. What matters is what the Authority needs. And it needs cool heads. From all of us.”

A slight smile curved Zay’s lips. “There’s a war going on, Terric. I promise you, I won’t do anything without considering the consequence.”

Terric held his gaze, then shook his head and stepped aside. “I’d hate for it to come down to us fighting it out. Again.”