by G. Bailey
“I think you better fucking leave this house before you aren’t going to be able to walk away,” Dominic says coldly as Drew climbs to his feet. I watch as Drew stares at Dominic and wipes the blood off his face.
“I’ll be seeing you, Ellie,” Drew says before turning to walk away and Dominic comes to my side.
“No, you won’t,” Dominic says to him and Drew’s cold eyes meet mine before he gets in his car. The only thing I see is the man who never loses at anything.
Author’s Note
Hello and thank you for reading Strip for Me (Part Two).
A review would be amazing and I would love you for it.
Thank you to all my amazing fans for their support. Most of all I want to say thank you to everyone that brought this book, you guys or gals are amazing!
A special thank you to Carol, Taylor and Anna.
The next part is up for pre-order and one new part will be released once a month.
I also have a newsletter, an easy way to keep up with new releases- http://eepurl.com/cV3BBb
Come and say hello on my Facebook page, Twitter or my website listed below. I post teasers, new covers and some giveaways on my Facebook group, Bailey’s Pack.
Facebook---Twitter---Website
Read on for an excerpt from Call of Winter, a reverse harem serial by Skye MacKinnon…
On birthdays, my parents usually wake me up together, with a cup of tea, a plate of pancakes and a candle.
It's been tradition for so long that when I wake up by myself, alone in my dark bedroom, it feels very wrong. I switch on my nightlight and look around. Everything is as it should be. No scary monsters under the bed (I hope, I didn't actually check). I look at my phone and sigh. It's five in the morning. Time to go back to sleep again.
"Happy Birthday, Wyn," I whisper to myself and switch off the light.
And gasp in shock.
My body convulses. Every muscle tightens and suddenly I'm in the foetal position, my limbs locked around my torso. White hot pains floods my mind, but I can't open my mouth to scream. I can feel my fingernails burying themselves in my palms and I know that I've drawn blood. My chest hurts and I can't breathe. I try to gulp up air, but my lungs refuse to obey. I'm locked into myself, screaming inside, the pain threatening to drown me. Am I dying? Is this the end?
Without warning, my muscles relax, and with a rattling sound in my chest, I can breathe again. I take a deep breath, savouring the cool air flowing down into my lungs. My body hurts from the involuntary exertion. I lie on the bed, not moving, trying to calm down my breathing. What the hell was that? Was that some kind of physical illness or is it my magic going amok?
My throat is parched and I feel a little dizzy. I slowly get up and make my way through the dark flat until I reach my kitchenette. Pouring myself a glass of water and downing it in one go, I lean against the counter. My heart is still beating too fast. My hand holding the glass is shaking slightly. I am scared. Should I wake my parents? But then, maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe it's nothing.
Wrong.
I collapse to the floor, my body going limp. I'm not fainting, my mind is fully aware, but my body refuses to move. At least this time there's no pain. But I can't feel anything. No warmth, no cold, no tingling. Nothing. It's as if I'm completely separated from the body that's lying crumpled on the kitchen floor.
Then the clattering starts. It's coming from the kitchen cupboards: rattling, knocking, shattering. One of the cupboard doors above me flies open and out float four wine glasses, trundling in the air, gently knocking against each other with the most beautiful chime. They're followed by my mugs. Another cupboard opens. With a bang, a plate flies out and crashes against the wall opposite, breaking into a hundred pieces. More plates destroy themselves kamikaze style, and shards are raining down on me. I don't even know if they're cutting me; I still can't feel anything. The banging in my drawers gets louder until they fly open, releasing my cutlery into the air. The knives are flying around in a swarm, while the forks seem to be line dancing. This must be a dream. Only in a dream forks can dance.
There's a loud knock on my door, and I can hear my father shouting, but I can't respond. I'm trapped within my body, surrounded by flying crockery. The knocking turns into banging, and with a crash, the door flies open. A second later, my parents are standing at the kitchen door, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. It must be quite a sight.
"Wyn?" my mother asks, her voice trembling. "Why aren't you moving?"
Suddenly, the knife-flock turns in the air and assembles in something that looks like an attack formation, directed at my parents. My large bread knife spearheads its brothers. They tremble, then the first one shoots forward, aiming for my father's head.
NOOOOOO! I shout inside my head, and with a gigantic crash, they stop in mid-flight and fall down to the floor, together with the rest of my crockery. A plate hits the ground next to my face and a shard buries itself in my cheek. It hurts like hell, but it's a good pain, because I can finally feel again. I wiggle my fingers and slowly, they comply. But with movement comes the pain. I feel like I just survived a meteor shower. I am covered in scratches and my clothes are shredded by glass and porcelain shards. The one in my cheek seems to be the deepest wound though.
My parents are still standing in the doorway, staring at the carnage that was once my kitchen.
"Wyn?" my dad croaks. "What was that?"
"Are you alright?" mum whispers.
I just nod, not yet ready to speak. And I don't have any answers anyway. Usually, my telekinetic magic allows me to lift one plate at a time. If I concentrate really hard, I can lift two, but only for a few seconds at a time. This is crazy.
I slowly stumble to my feet, brushing the debris off my ruined clothes. My cupboards are empty, their contents now lying destroyed on the floor. The only thing left on the counter is the glass of water I drank from earlier.
My eyes fill with tears as I look at the destruction I wrought. I'd always known magic could be dangerous, but not like this. What if the knives hadn't stopped? What if my parents had been hurt, or worse?
Tears are running down my face, mixing with the blood trickling from the cut on my cheek. I look down and see that my shirt is already drenched in blood, both from my cheek and from other, smaller wounds.
A sob escapes me, and a second later, my mum takes me in her arms, holding me as I cry. She isn't asking any questions, and for that, I am unbelievably grateful. For now, I just want to be sad. Maybe a little self-pity will make this better.
But it’s not over yet.
This time, it’s a headache. But not any kind of headache. A burning, splitting, all-destroying headache.
I feel my knees wobble and just manage to whisper "Get away from me" to my parents. If another magic attack is happening, I don't want them anywhere near me. I almost killed my dad once already, and the sun hasn't even risen.
They step back and I gently fall to the ground. This time, my body remains under my control, but with the aching pain in my head, that doesn't matter. I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to keep all light away from my senses. I've had migraines before, but never this bad. My head is being ripped apart and there is nothing I can do to make it better.
"Wyn!" I hear from afar. "Wyn, you need to stop!"
I don't know what he means. I can't look, I can't hear anything, all I feel is the pain and the rushing of blood in my ears.
"Wyn, please, look, you need to stop it!"
Their voices are becoming more desperate but I'm lying on the ground, my entire being encased in agony. I can smell something, but my mind isn't aware enough to figure out what it is. My parents' voices are getting quieter until they disappear. I'm on my own, alone with the pain. A roaring has started all around me and the smell is getting more intense.
Burning. I can smell burning. With all I've got, I manage to open my eyes a little. The light almost makes me pass out. It's bright, too bright. It shouldn't be this bright in my flat. It takes me a moment to pro
cess what I'm seeing.
Fire.
Lots of fire.
Without warning, the pain disappears and my eyes fly open, my senses fully aware again. I am surrounded by a circle of flames; so high they're licking at the ceiling. Somehow the smoke of the fire is kept outside of the circle around me, otherwise I'd likely be unconscious already. I concentrate, the way I usually do when I try to make a flame appear. But all I can do is light a candle; I've never tried to extinguish it.
Stop, please stop, I beg in my mind, but nothing changes. If anything, the flames are getting stronger. My kitchen is no more and I through the haze, I can see how the fire has spread through the rest of my flat. I am surrounded by a sea of flames. Even if I knew how to leave this circle, I'd never make it out alive. I just hope my parents got out in time.
"Mum! Dad!" I shout, but the roaring of the flames swallows my cries. I step forward, hoping that the circle might follow me. Instead, I singe my fingers on the fire wall. Sucking on them, I try again to concentrate on the flames. Stop. Extinguish. End.
It's not working. The ceiling above me is creaking; soon it will collapse, burying me under it. At least fire moves upwards, so maybe it hasn't spread to my parent's flat below mine yet. Maybe the floor won't collapse. Maybe they'll still be able to live in this place once I'm gone, once I've burned it all and myself.
Sooty tears are streaming down my face. How could everything get so out of control? Did my birth mother know? Why didn't she warn me? Why didn't anyone warn me my magic could do this? Had I known, I'd spent the night somewhere else, in some remote field where I couldn't hurt anybody.
Even though I have no control over the fire, I can feel how it's draining the energy out of me. It's using my energy to fuel its hunger. My legs wobble but I stay standing. I don't want to die on the floor, pitifully lying there, awaiting my end. I'd rather stand and look death into the eye.
The circle around me is slowly becoming smaller. The fire walls are closing in on me. The heat is becoming unbearable and I can smell my hair burning.
I guess this is the end.
I prepare myself. Once, they burned witches at the stake. Now, I'm burning myself. My magic is killing me. Oh what irony.
I feel faint, but if I fall now, I will fall into the flames. Need to stay strong.
Voices in the distance.
Then, figures, four dark silhouettes walking through the fire, unharmed. The flames are avoiding them - all except for the fire wall around me. When they stand close to my fiery prison, I can see that they are all young men, larger than average, but their features are hidden behind the smoke.
One of them is saying something, but I can't hear him through the flames. I try to raise my hand to my ears to show him that I cannot understand him, but the fire has crept closer again and I burn my hand, screaming. He shouts again, and then they're walking around the fire column until they stand in a circle. Four men, in symmetry, like a compass.
I feel something in the air, like a soft, gentle breeze that strokes my cheek. Then something is ripped from me, and I pass out.
Darkness.
About Call Of Winter
Call of Winter is the first episode in the Winter Princess serial. You can find it on Amazon (and free on Kindle Unlimited): http://books2read.com/winter1
As a demi-goddess, Wyn has always stood out from the human crowd. And now, on her 22nd birthday, her magic finally surfaces with a bang. A Big bang. She’ll need the help of not one, but four (sexy) guardians to control her destructive powers. Her mother, the Winter Queen, waits for her in the Realm of Gods, but Wyn has enemies, even if she doesn’t know it yet…
A reverse harem serial with one sassy demi-goddess and four hot guardians.
Strip For Me Serial
Part One
Part Two
Part Three (Coming October)
Part Four (Coming November)
Part Five (Coming December)