Excerpt: THE WATCHER, Book 2 in the Crossing Realms Series, coming November 30th!

Hello, and thanks for stopping by! It’s great to be here. Thank you so much, Coffee Time Romance, for hosting me today!

My name is Rebecca E. Neely, but you can call me Beckie. I write romance, of the paranormal and suspenseful variety. 🙂 This is my second post today – if you missed the earlier one, here’s the link. 🙂

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Today I’m sharing some of the questions I’m often asked as a writer, along with an excerpt from THE WATCHER, Book 2 in the Crossing Realms paranormal romance series, coming November 30th! So excited to share Dev and Meda’s story!

So, what’s the Crossing Realms series about? In a nutshell: Sacrifice or salvation? A chosen psychic few may be both. As Keepers battle Betrayers to save the human race, all’s not fair in love and war.

I’m often asked… where did you get the inspiration for the series? I wish I knew! <grin> I actually started out brainstorming with this one idea – what if a woman who had a phobia on the interstate was carjacked and forced to drive the criminal across state lines? It just sort of morphed from there. How? I don’t know. I actually filled up a legal pad with ideas in just two days. Good and evil play a big part in the book, as does the psychic element. I believe we all have a ‘sixth’ sense. So I had fun with that! These characters have ‘sixth’ senses on steroids.

A little bit about me…My father was an English teacher, and I grew up discussing Poe, Shakespeare and Jack London at the dinner table. My mother is a voracious reader, and because of her, I grew up reading Clive Cussler, Agatha Christie, Dean Koontz and Stephen King. Love to use a dictionary to this day! I’ve loved to write all my life, and I’ve freelanced for over 15 years. My favorite movies include Bram Stoker’s Dracula, When Harry Met Sally, The Terminator (all) and Under the Tuscan Sun. I live near railroad tracks, and I love to hear the whistle and the rush of the train.

Questions? Comments? Please post ’em – can’t wait to hear from you!

And now, here’s a special sneak peek from THE WATCHER, Book 2 in the series – coming November 30^th!

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THE WATCHER ~ EXCERPT

Eighty-three days earlier, Dev Geary died.

On the dawn of the eighty-fourth day, he clawed his way up the south face of Mount Verdant. The early morning sun shone with only the promise of warm. The Watchers’ realm, unlike the human one, lacked seasons. After the mists had lifted, he’d discovered every day was the same. Not too hot. Not too cold.

He hated it.

Grunting, Dev dug his fingers into the crevices between two jagged rocks a foot above his head, shredding the already raw tips. Blood trickled along the backs of his hands, mixed with the coating of sweat and filth. Scowling, he watched them bleed, took perverse pleasure in it. Did nothing to stop it. They would heal soon enough in this realm where, with a high octane quarry of energy nearby, he need not wear a Vitality stone.

Not that he had one anyway. It too had been stolen from him.

Shifting slightly, he repositioned his six foot two frame against the unyielding boulders. Beads of sweat leaked past his soaked bandana, fashioned from the third ‘standard issue’ uniform shirt he’d ruined this week. Squinting, his vision burning, the shirt’s tail dangled at the back of his neck, teased the space between his shoulder blades. He raised his one hundred eighty odd pounds another painstaking inch.

The ledge crumbled slightly beneath his bare heels, showering the froth of greenery below him. The sound was acute in the massive stillness, save for the birds and wildlife beginning their day and the thud of his heart.

He looked down, thrilled, terrified by the heights separating him from the ground. On this ledge, an inch to the left, to the right could end him. And it was between those inches where he felt alive, achingly so.

Here, on the edge of death. His drug of choice.

Always, it could go either way. Clinging madly to the excitement, he embraced it, quashed the fear on this tightrope walk. It didn’t matter the means–Mount Verdant in this realm, his Harley, the scaffolding he’d used as a carpenter in the human one–only that he got where he wanted to go.

Between the inches.

In that sliver of space he could even pretend to claim a shadowy glimmer of his former self, his former life. A life, just like his Vitality stone, that’d been stolen from him.

But he would exact his revenge. For his death. And more.

His vow only served to sharpen the oily undercurrent of darkness that’d skittered along his roughened edges most of life and now, openly mocked him. A war of rage and fear festered in that darkness, in his soul, as thick as the mists that nearly suffocated the Watchers’ realm a few months ago. And it’d grown every day since the life drained out of him. Since Libby had killed Haenus, the bastard who’d ended his life.

Since eighteen years and counting.

He grimaced. Always he wondered if the Keepers, the Watchers, knew what a fraud he was. The darkness haunting him spat on the very foundations governing his clan, his existence for the last twenty-five years. In the human realm, he supposed he’d done well enough keeping his Vista under wraps. Here, in the Watchers’ realm, all bets were off. He figured the ‘Wise Ones’, as he’d termed them, could see past it and then some. It was a darkness no self-respecting Keeper or Watcher should feel, or be capable of feeling.

But he was no longer a Keeper. And he sure as hell was no Watcher. Nor did he want to be. Oh, they’d slapped a label on him, ‘Working Watcher’ and uniformed him like the others. Only he knew better. He wasn’t like the others. Never had been.

And he’d spent the last eighty three days making sure the Watchers knew it too. He’d been dutiful enough, showing up for instruction when he felt like it, paying half-hearted attention. He ditched when the opportunity presented itself, or not, openly defying their authority. He didn’t choose this. They had.

Dammit! He was supposed to be in the human realm, rocking his Compulsions, jamming to Cold Play or with Nick on the guitar, him on his harmonica. Or riding his motorcycle, a hot, willing woman wrapped around him on the back. Or sawing and hammering alongside Nick in the sun, making plans for camping trips and cold beers.

Instead, he spent his days being schooled in things he had no desire to learn, spending time with old fogies who’d had their fun, who’d sown their oats and lived their lives.

Sweat dripped down his nose. Gritting his teeth, he tasted briny frustration. In this place he was closer to certain things than he’d ever been, but still realms away. He had no desire to accept or eventually become resigned to his situation. To…anything. So he fought. Much as he’d been fighting all his life it seemed.

Here, there were no hammers, no Harleys. Hell, there weren’t even any weights. Ever resourceful, he’d taken to climbing Mount Verdant and lifting boulders, fiercely determined not to lose the strength and the muscles he’d invested years in, on top of everything else.

Perched on this jagged precipice, those muscles bulged, flexed, gleamed in the rising sun. He narrowed his eyes. They served–not to impress, though they often did–as a personal and powerful victory. Hours in the gym, thousands of reps, strain and rigor had yielded cut abs, granite thighs and strapping biceps, as well as a mind and body where weakness had no place. And that same mind and body could, and had, defended, the weak.

Those muscles were a testament to a lifetime of fighting the darkness, of finding those inches, of preparing for battle as a Keeper, for the ones he saw coming. And the ones he didn’t.

Especially the ones he didn’t.

All that, and for what? So he could scale mountains and learn skills he had no business learning? Nor any desire to learn? He’d asked the Watchers–demanded–to know why. Why? The gods knew he wasn’t one to keep quiet. They’d only responded with the same timeworn phrase that hadn’t satisfied twenty years ago, and didn’t now.

They worked in mysterious ways.

“F*** their mysterious ways,” he grumbled. “And f*** this.”

Another chunk of the ledge subsided. His heels swayed, and he dug in with his toes. His right foot slipped another inch. Lingering for perhaps a moment longer than was wise, he tightened his grip on the rock above him. Again he stared down, sickly fascinated at the ground crumbling beneath his feet, at the ravine stories below him, its kaleidoscope of color ready to swallow him whole.

Or what was left of him.

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Want more of THE WATCHER? Stay tuned – you’ll be able to pre-order it on Amazon very soon!

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