by Jade Kerrion
“Isn’t that what you came to do?”
“Do you actually want to die?”
He waved his hand to encompass the breadth and width of the impersonal room. “I’m not sure this should count as living.”
“But you’re not human.”
“No,” he agreed, his voice even. “No, but I am alive…just like any other human. This isolation drives me crazy. I know this is not the way others live. This isn’t living.”
He looked away. His pain was real, his anger compelling. In spite of it, she had seen him smile a few times and wondered whether his twisted half-smile could ever be coaxed into becoming something more.
Galahad turned his back on her and walked to his rattan chair. He seemed tired, emotional weariness draining his physical strength. He settled into the chair, drawing his legs up beneath him. He had chosen to ignore her, tuning her out and finding solace in the few things he had left—a worn chair and his own company—trying to get through each cheerless day and lonely night.
Outside, a rabbit, safe from predators in the falling dusk, emerged from its burrow and hopped across the small patch of grass in front of the large windows of the suite. A faint smile touched his face, transforming it. His personality seemed wrapped around a core that was equal parts weary indifference and controlled bitterness, but there was still enough left in him to savor the small crumbs that life threw his way. If his quiet strength had amazed her, his enduring courage humbled her. He had won the battle he had wanted, so badly, to lose. He had proved his right to live, even though there was no purpose in living in a place like this. He knew that fact intimately, and so did she.
“Zara, we’ve got trouble.” Carlos’s voice cut through the silence of her thoughts, his habitual calmness edged with tension. “Lots of vehicles incoming. Purest Humanity logos. Could be a protest forming; they look seriously pissed.”
Scowling, she took a few steps away from Galahad. “They’re about two days too early. They’ve been gathering on Christmas Eve each year.”
“Well, looks like someone had a change of plans. I’m estimating about forty…fifty cars, at least twice as many people.”
“They won’t get through the gate,” Xin said. “It was designed to keep out APCs.”
“Uh…The gate just opened…Por dios…They’re driving in!”
“What?”
“No kidding, I swear to God.” The tension in Carlos’s voice escalated. “Someone must be screwing around with the security system.”
Zara suppressed a hiss of irritation. “Find that person, Xin, and disable his access. I don’t want to have to fight my way out of here.”
“I’m on it, but I can’t guarantee they won’t get to you. If they’re already through the gate, they’ll be pounding on the front door in seconds. You don’t have time; get moving. And Zara, if you don’t take Galahad with you, he’s as good as dead.”
Zara’s mind raced through the options available to her, the possibilities. She shrugged, dismissing the many logical reasons why she should not do what she was about to do. “He’s coming with me. I’ll get us out of the building. Carlos, stand by for an extraction.”
“Copy that.”
She looked at Galahad. “You need to change into something else.” The thin cotton tunic and pants he wore would not provide sufficient protection from the chilly night air. Besides, his clothes looked like something issued to long-term residents of mental hospitals. Something with fewer negative institutional implications would work better at keeping him as inconspicuous as possible.
He blinked in surprise, her voice jerking him back to reality. “There is nothing else to wear,” he said. He released his breath in a soft sigh, his gaze drifting away from her to the rabbit outside the window.
Nothing else? A quick search of the suite confirmed his words. The only pieces of clothing in the suite’s large and mostly empty walk-in closet were several pieces of identical white cotton tunics and pants, a subtle but effective dehumanizing strategy. “We’re leaving anyway,” she told him as she returned into the living area of the suite. “Get up. We’re going.”
He stared at her in bewilderment. “Going?”
Zara reminded herself to be patient with him. “I’m getting you out of here.”
A glimmer of understanding tinged with wary hope swirled through the confusion in his sin-black eyes, but he still did not move from the chair. “I thought you came to kill me.”
Not precisely, but perhaps it was not a bad thing if he kept believing it, especially if it would make him more tractable. Things were complicated enough; an uncooperative captive would heighten the stakes and the danger of their situation. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“Changed your mind?”
“It’s a woman’s prerogative,” she said. A smile curved her lips and her tone softened. As huge as this step was for her, it must seem even larger for him. “I want to help you. Will you come with me?”
He met her gaze, held it for a long moment, and smiled. “Yes.”
The simplicity of his answer staggered her, to say nothing of the heart-stopping power of his smile. “You trust me,” she said, “but you don’t even know my name.”
“It would be ungracious not to trust someone who has already passed up on several opportunities to kill me.” He uncurled from his chair and stood. His manners were at least as exquisite as his looks. He made no mention of the fact that he had beaten her in a fair fight and then refused to follow up on his advantage.
Maybe he considered it irrelevant. The important point was that she did not. The fight she had lost had, after all, been the critical turning point. She smiled up at him. His dark, fathomless eyes did not seem nearly as distant and empty as they had several minutes earlier. “I’m Zara Itani.”
The warmth from his smile lit his eyes. “Zara, I’m Galahad.”
Continue reading PERFECTION UNLEASHED.
Urban Fantasy and Science Fiction entwine in the world of the DOUBLE HELIX
“The Double Helix is the kind of series you’d expect to see with a movie deal. I loved, loved, LOVED it. I fell in love with the characters and will be reading all four books again in the future…a treat I reserve for my favorites.”—Full Time Reader, Amazon Reviewer
“I wish I could award more than 5 stars. This phenomenal series continues to astonish and delight.”—Hillel Kaminsky, Amazon Reviewer
MIRIYA
Thirty years into the First Genetic Revolution, society’s tolerance for human derivatives is wearing thin. Clones and in vitros are regarded with suspicion, and mutants with resentment. Yet in spite of the hostile environment, some alpha telepaths—like Miriya Templeton—have thrived.
Her luck is running out.
Destiny has set her life on a collision course with Danyael Sabre, the alpha empath who can kill with a touch. Whether he becomes friend or foe, whether he and she live or die, will depend on the choices she makes. On her decisions hang the outcomes of the Second Genetic Revolution. Miriya, however, does not believe in destiny, nor want any part of the revolution. It is up to the enforcer, Jake Hansen, to convince her otherwise, and he is running out of time.
PERFECTION UNLEASHED (Double Helix #1)
Winner of six literary awards, including Gold Medal, Science Fiction, Readers Favorites 2013
He shares a face with the perfect specimen. Together, they’ll reshape a divided nation… or shatter it completely.
Years as an assassin taught Zara to steel her heart against weakness. But she believes no creature deserves to be caged and prodded… much less the man who embodies human perfection. Against her better judgment, she ditches a recon mission to spring him free. She wasn’t counting on an irritating empath joining the chase.
Doctor Danyael Sabre hides his healing powers in plain sight. With tensions between unmodified humans and mutants intensifying, the empath vows to stay clear of the coming storm. But when his doppelgänger—a top-secret genetic experiment—escapes the lab, he is yanked into the
fray. His only choice is to team up with his lookalike and the cold-hearted assassin who can't stand him.
As they fend off enemy forces and puzzle out the mystery of their past, Danyael faces an impossible dilemma. Should he use his healing powers to inflict pain or will he risk a lifetime in a cage?
PERFECT BETRAYAL (Double Helix #2)
1st Place, Royal Palm Literary Award 2013
Danyael Sabre, an object of desire, would much rather not be. An alpha empath by birth, a doctor by training, and an empathic healer by calling, he is stalked by the military that covets his ability to kill, not heal. Bereft of two days of memories, he goes on the run under the protection of an assassin, Zara Itani.
The more he uncovers of his lost hours, the more he doubts everything that once anchored him. He knows only that he endangers those around him and that he is falling in love with Zara, who hates him for reasons he no longer remembers.
As forces—both powerful and ruthless—threaten those he cares for, Danyael has only two options. He can betray his values and abandon the path of the healer, or he can wait to be betrayed, not by enemies, but by his friends.
ZARA
1st Place, Royal Palm Literary Award 2016
The alpha empath, Danyael Sabre, languishes in a maximum-security prison. His life sentence should spell emotional freedom for the assassin, Zara Itani, but true to her contrary nature, she travels the solitary and hazardous path from hate to love even though it is far too late for her and Danyael.
Meanwhile in her hometown of Beirut, international political conspiracy simmers on the brink of renewed military conflict. Zara’s loyalties will be tested; her beliefs challenged. She could start a war, or she could stop it.
Tell me who you love and I will tell you who you are....
Zara will finally discover who she is, but what will it cost Danyael this time?
PERFECT WEAPON (Double Helix #3)
An alpha empath, Danyael Sabre is powerful, rare, and coveted, even among the alpha mutants who dominate the Genetic Revolution. Betrayed by his friends and abandoned to a life sentence in a maximum-security prison, Danyael receives freedom and sanctuary from an unlikely quarter—the Mutant Assault Group, an elite mutant task force within the US military. Physically crippled and emotionally vulnerable, Danyael succumbs to the warmth of friendships and the promise of love he finds within their ranks.
Friendship and love, however, demand his loyalty, and Danyael rises to the challenge of training and leading the assault group's genetically modified super soldier army. The super soldiers are faster and stronger than the military's human soldiers; their animal instincts spur ferocity and fearlessness in battle. Who is the perfect weapon, though, the super soldiers or Danyael, the alpha empath, who can, with a touch, heal or kill?
Adversaries swarm like vultures around carrion; the pawn is once again in play. The threads of betrayal that sent Danyael to prison spin into a web, ensnaring him. When a terrorist group strikes Washington, D.C., how far will Danyael go to defend a government that sent him to prison to die?
SILENCE ENDS
2nd Place, Royal Palm Literary Award 2013
When you choose your friends, you also choose your enemies.
Seventeen-year old Dee wants nothing more than to help her twin brother, Dum, break free from the trauma in their childhood and speak again, but the only person who can help Dum is the alpha empath, Danyael Sabre, whom the U.S. government considers a terrorist and traitor.
The search for Danyael will lead Dee and Dum from the sheltered protection of the Mutant Affairs Council and into the violent, gang-controlled heart of Anacostia. Ensnared by Danyael’s complicated network of friends and enemies, Dee makes her stand in a political and social war that she is ill equipped to fight. What can one human, armed only with her wits and pepper spray, do against the super-powered mutants who dominate the Genetic Revolution?
America, nevertheless, is ripe for change. Exhausted by decades of belligerence between humans and their genetic derivatives, the clones, in vitros, and mutants, society is on the verge of falling apart or growing up. Which path will it choose, and can a mere human, her sassy attitude and smart mouth notwithstanding, light the way to a better future?
In her quest to help her brother become normal, Dee will learn what it means to be extraordinary.
CARNIVAL TRICKS
1st Place, Royal Palm Literary Award 2015
In a world transformed by the Genetic Revolution, Kyle Norwood is an honest-to-God human and proud of it. His deadly skills come from hard work and not genetic sleight of hand. An easy mission to protect two Proficere Labs scientists turns into a shoot-out that leaves a scientist and a federal agent dead. Worse, the research data the scientists were carrying disappears.
In a world where human derivatives are hated and feared, Sofia Rios is almost human. When a fight during her waitressing shift turns fatal, a dying scientist launches her into the shady world of scientific espionage. The unwilling trustee of research that people would kill to obtain, Sofia turns to the man who steps out of the shadows to protect her, even though he appears as dangerous and disreputable as the people who hunt her.
Together, Sofia and Kyle must unravel the truth behind the illicit information she carries before one or both of them are killed. Their mutual attraction sparkles, but the spark could just as easily become an explosion if Kyle ever finds out that Sofia is a despised telekinetic.
SICARIUS SOUL
Some grudges live forever, and the worst enemies are the ones you didn't know you had…
Alpha empaths are dying, executed by an assassin who leaves no psychic trace. Zara Itani derides the mystery as sloppy investigation until Danyael is injured by the assassin's bullet. If he died, his empathic death throes would have driven everyone within ten miles to suicide.
The only solution is to imprison Danyael beyond the reach of assassins, damning him to physical solitude and emotional isolation. Zara, however, bets on her ability to use Danyael as bait to draw out the murderer. Kill the assassin, end the threat, right?
But nothing is ever easy in a world transformed by the Genetic Revolution. Sins of the past transcend decades and centuries to coalesce into a threat no one can contain. A vigilante driven by hate demands absolute vengeance—the suicide of millions of innocent people—and it will begin with Danyael's death…
PERFECTION CHALLENGED (Double Helix #4)
An alpha empath, Danyael Sabre has survived abominations and super soldiers, terrorists and assassins, but he cannot survive his failing body. He wants only to live out his final days in peace, but life and the woman he loves, the assassin Zara Itani, have other plans for him.
Galahad, the perfect human being created by Pioneer Labs, is branded an international threat, and Danyael is appointed his jury, judge, and executioner. Danyael alone believes that Galahad can be the salvation that the world needs, but is the empath blinded by the fact that Galahad shares his genes, and the hope that there is something of him in Galahad?
In a desperate race against time and his own dying body, Danyael struggles to find fragments of good in the perfect human being, and comes to the wrenching realization that his greatest battle will be a battle for the heart of the man who hates him.
XIN
3rd Place, Royal Palm Literary Award 2016
When the trail of Danyael Sabre’s stolen blood exposes illegal scientific research at a Chinese laboratory, it unleashes a designer drug with terrifying side effects and imperils the decades-long peace between China and America.
NSA analyst Mu Xin, the clone of a Shang-dynasty queen, steps into the fray to stem the chaos, but in a land where ancestral worship and beliefs in incarnation exist alongside cutting-edge genetic engineering, will Xin find herself trapped or liberated by her past?
THE DOUBLE HELIX COLLECTION
Finally available as a single collection, the books in the Double Helix series have gathered over 100 Amazon reviews with an average of 4.5 stars.
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sp; “Higher octane than Heroes. More heart than X-Men.”
His genetic code sourced from the best that humanity offers, Galahad embodies the pinnacle of perfection. When Zara Itani, a mercenary, frees him from his laboratory prison, she offers him a chance to claim everything that had ever been denied him, starting with his humanity.
Perfection cannot be unleashed without repercussions; Galahad’s freedom shatters Danyael Sabre’s life.
An alpha empath, Danyael is rare and coveted, even among the alpha mutants who dominate the Genetic Revolution. He wields the power to heal or kill with a touch, but craves only privacy—an impossible dream for the man who was used as Galahad’s physical template.
Galahad and Danyael, two men, one face. One man seeks to embrace destiny, and the other to escape it. But destiny has a name. Zara. Assassin.
The multiple award-winning Double Helix series, consisting of Perfection Unleashed, Perfect Betrayal, Perfect Weapon, and Perfection Challenged, will defy your notions of perfection and humanity and plunge you into a world transformed by the Genetic Revolution.
Aeternae Noctis
ETERNAL NIGHT
1st place, Fantasy, Royal Palm Literary Award 2014
No one spins unexpected stories and unforgettable characters like USA Today bestselling author Jade Kerrion. Now in a thrilling, award-winning fantasy series, enter a city of eternal night ruled by demons and vampires. When fear exceeds understanding, nothing is as it seems…
For a thousand years, humans cowered beneath the rule of the Night Terrors, but Jaden's five-year-old sister, the child of prophecy, is destined to end the eternal night. To protect her, Jaden leads a rebellion against the Night Terrors, but when he is captured in battle and dragged before the demonic queen Ashra, he realizes that he has seen her face every night in his dreams.