I was confused. I’d been walking, running for hours. I was walking right now. I took a deep breath and again felt that sharp, strangling pain I’d taken to be my heart breaking. Careen ran her hand along my jaw and up to my temple. “You probably have a concussion too.” Her words seemed far away. I felt fine. I focused on the shadow man.
He was silent, too silent, and it bothered me. I took the torch from my pack and walked towards him, my legs jabbing out from under me like they weren’t my own.
“And who’s this?” I asked suspiciously. Something about him didn’t sit right. I flicked the torch on, the stream of light blinding. His eyes were tightly shut as the brightness showered his face. I lowered it a little so he could see. So I could see him.
He opened his eyes and smiled nervously. I drew in a breath and it poisoned me. My heart refused to beat.
Finally, I held the missing piece of the puzzle. But as I placed it in its rightful spot, the picture shook and changed. Old realities shifted, confusion dominated. Suddenly, half my life made a whole lot more sense but just as surely, the other half of my reality split open spectacularly.
He blinked and opened his mouth to speak.
Don ’t speak.
Shadows darkened and light penetrated. Could you feel insane with rage and full of joy at the same time?
One blue eye and one brown.
The world was spiraling down or I was plummeting through the earth—I couldn’t tell. But as I fell to the ground, shock and exhaustion pulling me under, one thought pushed its way to the surface like an oily bubble and burst.
My life, my whole life…
My father was a Spider.
This book is for every woman who’s been beaten down, has got back up and said ‘this is not going to define my life’.
It’s for those of you who had the strength and courage to say ‘it was not ok’ and I won’t let it happen to anyone else.
And for those who aren’t there yet, just know you are strong enough; you can do it, and one day if you want to and when you’re ready, you will.
It takes enormous strength to endure and strength to fight back, I am in awe of each and every one of you.
Daughter of a Malaysian nuclear physicist father and an Australian doctor mother, Lauren Nicolle Taylor was expected to follow the science career path. And she did, for a while, completing a Health Science degree with Honors in obstetrics and gynecology. But there was always a niggling need to create which led to many artistic adventures.
When Lauren hit her thirties, she started throwing herself into artistic endeavors, but was not entirely satisfied. The solution: Complete a massive renovation and sell their house so they could buy their dream block of land and build. After selling the house, buying the block and getting the plans ready, the couple discovered they had been misled and the block was undevelopable. This left her family of five homeless.
Taken in by Lauren’s parents, with no home to renovate and faced with a stressful problem with no solution, Lauren found herself drawn to the computer. She sat down and poured all of her emotions and pent up creative energy into writing The Woodlands.
Family, a multicultural background and a dab of medical intrigue are all strong themes in her writing. Lauren took the advice of ‘write what you know’ and twisted it into a romantic, dystopian adventure! Visit Lauren at her website:
www.LaurenNicolleTaylor.com.
Other great books by CTP authors
Guarding Brecken Shaefer—a dark and dangerous rebel—is harder than it looks.
Death was nothing like sixteen-year-old Alisa Callahan thought it would be. Resting on pink, fluffy clouds for eternity with her gram and best friend sounded like a dream come true. After all, enduring one torturous experience after another in her short life deserved some kind of reward, right? Unfortunately, eternal rewards aren't given out so freely when you take your own life.
Required to pay the debt for committing suicide, Alisa must become a guardian. It sounds easy enough, but not when the boy she is forced to protect has a dangerous secret and wants absolutely nothing to do with her.
Brecken Shaefer isn't any normal teenager. He has special gifts that are sure to make Alisa's afterlife miserable. When feelings develop between them, everything spins out of control. Not only must Alisa face her own demons— but to protect Brecken, she must face an evil so heinous that it threatens to destroy their souls completely. Alisa is tired of hiding from her past.
When the easiest thing to do is run, can Brecken give her the strength to stay?
Rising
.
In a war between the humans and the inhabitants of the sea—humans will lose. Xanthus Dimitriou—the most lethal Dagonian to rise from the ocean—is on a mission to save mankind from annihilation. But first there’s one small thing he needs to do… kill a beautiful young woman in a wheelchair.
Killing her doesn’t start out as part of his plan. He entrenches himself deep in the human world. Aligning himself with his enemies, he prepares to send them to Triton to face their punishment. Then Sara Taylor rolls onto the scene. Xanthus knows at once she’s a criminal. And her crime? Being born. She’s a human/Dagonian half-breed, an abomination. Killing her should be an easy job. All he has to do is break into her apartment, slit her throat, and feed her body to the sharks. Simple, right? Wrong. If only she weren’t so beautiful, so innocent, so sweet...
Saving the world may have to wait. It appears Xanthus has a woman to save. But protecting her may cost him his own life.
Wind Warrior
THE EARTH GIVES WAY TO THE SEA,
THE SEA BOWS BEFORE THE WIND,
THE WIND FEEDS THE FLAME,
THE FLAME BURNS THE WORLD OF MAN DOWN TO THE EARTH.
The sleepy town of White Halls harbors a dangerous secret. On a picturesque street, two houses down from a lovely little park, in a quaint little home with a wraparound porch, lives a family that seems rather normal. Sure, their twenty-year-old son, Xander, still lives at home, but he’s going to college and dating the leader of the schools top sorority. It’s all very…normal.
However, when a man is miraculously saved from being hit by a bus, Xander’s life turns in to the living embodiment of the tornadoes he can suddenly create with a flick of his wrist. Whether he wants this gift or not, Xander must learn to use his new ‘super power’ quickly if he wants to survive. For his kind is a dying race, and when this sleepy town has a sudden influx of new, blonde, fire wielders, no one is safe, especially Xander. It doesn’t help that one of these blondes happens to be the most beautiful girl he has ever seen. Xander can’t deny the instant connection he feels to her so, when she tries to kill him, it certainly makes things complicated.