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Saturday, June 22, 2013

Dragon Fight! ~ Sweet Saturday Sample


My Sweet Saturday Sample is a morsel from my latest release, an epic fantasy romance, Staurolite: Enchanted Bookstore Legend Four. This is the fourth of a 5-part series.
 
Available at Amazon.





In this scene, Lyra and Cullen engage in a massive dragon battle between the Imperial Dragon's good Alliance and the evil Dark Realm. They are riding on the back of a blue dragon fighter, a senior guard named Yord. Cullen is the Imperial Sorcerer for the Alliance. He and Lyra are engaged to marry. Her powers, as the only Scribe, are unique, allowing her to kill the most dangerous dragon, the cimafa, but doing so takes a tole on her health.

“Yord, cover us for a minute,” Cullen called to the blue dragon before he twisted in his seat to face Lyra. He took her wrist and paused. “Rapid, but not erratic. Your aura isn’t flowing as smoothly as it should, but the pulses are only slight. Good enough.”
Her gaze darted all around them. While understanding the importance, she felt uneasy with him taking a break in the middle of the fighting.
He turned back and alerted Yord, who responded with an immediate sweep into a snarl of fire and magma drakes that formed a ring trapping two blue fighters with two ice drakes in a death match.
The Imperial Dragon rocketed toward the opposite side of the circle from high above.
Tension materialized a powerball in Lyra’s hand. She worked to hold it in place.
Yord gave a slight nod, signaling to her.
She braced herself, contracting her thighs even tighter around him.
The senior blue charged—faster than Lyra had ever experienced—straight for the circle. His mouth opened wide, but the Imperial Dragon beat him, firing a fraction of a second earlier.
The leader’s golden flame licked up the backs of several drakes, their agonized contortions silhouetted in the light.
Yord hurled a wide swath of lightning at those closest to them. Red bodies of fire and magma drakes darted up and down, fleeing the area.
From beside him, Yasqu shot a wide flame, injuring many who fled too late.
When the lights of fire dimmed, only one blue fighter with a badly torn right lower wingsail remained in the center of the decimated ring. The other plummeted to the ground, out of sight in the pre-dawn shadows. The injured dragon uttered no cry, which made Lyra uneasy. A knot formed in her stomach, wondering whether he’d died instantly or merely worked to not display his weakened state.
Cullen threw his body weight into another powerball that zinged over the heads of fire drakes, saving its strike for an ice drake who threatened the injured fighter.
Lyra’s skin crawled, an unmistakable sickening feeling that shot straight to her gut. She looked up and from a sky dotted with red magma sparks, she picked out the ringed red eyes of a cimafa stealth dragon. Its sinuous black body absorbed the light. Only patchy reflections of red hues from its surrounding allies marked its form. It glided into the fracas without notice. No aura permeated its outer surface. But Lyra had fallen under its shadow too many times not to recognize it. The density of the darkness beneath the beast signaled her that it was about to strike.
She forced additional power into her hand while checking her aim. Her other hand dug into Cullen’s side, and he looked up just as her arm drove the powerball into a wide arc over their heads.
His hand clamped onto hers. His aura throbbed along her skin as darkness flooded her vision. The shrill, pained cry of the wounded cimafa hit her ears. She smiled even though tremors shot through her body. She slumped against Cullen’s back.
The rhythm of Yord’s flight gradually changed from jerkiness, dodging the hazards of battle, to a more regular pattern. Sounds of fighting became more and more distant. The smooth flight made Lyra feel sluggish.
A sudden impact caused her to open her eyes. “Where are we?” she choked out, her throat rough and constricted. Suddenly, hit with a blinding white light, she grimaced.

Staurolite: Enchanted Bookstore Legend Four

Lyra McCauley, current Scribe of the Alliance, is the only one who can decode magic hidden in the recently retrieved ancient texts written by her ancestors, the first four Scribes. Information in those writings can help Lyra locate the four missing keystones, which will restore power to the Alliance and allow overthrow of the Dark Realm. With peace restored, she and her beloved, Cullen, could finally marry.

Time is short with the Black Dragon’s Dark Realm increasing attacks to avenge the death of his heir. Many innocent lives are lost. Alliance residents are forced into hiding. Magicals and blue dragons follow leadership of the Imperial Dragon and the other three Guardians into battle to defend the Alliance.

While Lyra unlocks the ancient magic, she opens herself up to scribal powers from her ancestors. She alone can fight the deadliest of the Dark Realm’s forces—the cimafa stealth dragons—but at a cost. The energy flux threatens her health and ability to learn where to find the missing keystones. Can Lyra overcome this shrewd tactic of the Black Dragon to decimate the Alliance?

About the series~
The Enchanted Bookstore Legends are about Lyra McCauley, a woman destined to become one of five strong women in her family who possess unique magical abilities and serve as Scribes in Dragonspeir. The Scribes span a long history, dating from 1200 to present day. Each Scribe is expected to journey through Dragonspeir, both the good and evil factions, then draft a written account. Each book contains magic with vast implications. 

Lyra was first introduced to Dragonspeir as a young girl, when she met the high sorcerer, Cullen Drake, through a gift of one of those enchanted books. Using its magic, he escorted her into the parallel world of Dragonspeir. Years later, she lost that volume and forgot the world and Cullen. These legends begin where he finds her again—she is thirty-five, standing in his enchanted bookstore, and Dragonspeir needs her.  

When Lyra reopens that enchanted book, she confronts a series of quests where she is expected to save the good Alliance from destruction by the evil Black Dragon. While learning about her role, Lyra and Cullen fall in love. He is 220 years old and kept alive by Dragonspeir magic. Cullen will die if Dragonspeir is taken over by the evil faction…Lyra becomes the Scribe.

Purchase Links for previous books in the series:

I'm looking forward to seeing what sweets some of my fellow authors on this hop will serve. Be sure to check them out on the main blog page for Sweet Saturday Samples.

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Marsha A. Moore is a writer of fantasy romance. The magic of art and nature spark life into her writing. Read her ENCHANTED BOOKSTORE LEGENDS for adventurous epic fantasy romance: Book One, SEEKING A SCRIBE, Book Two, HERITAGE AVENGED, Book Three, LOST VOLUMES, and Book Four, STAUROLITE. For a FREE ebook download, read her historic fantasy, LE CIRQUE DE MAGIE, available at Amazon and Smashwords.

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