There’s nothing I love more about writing than beginning a new story. It’s analogous to the heady days of a new relationship. That heart-throbbing dance between two lovers—will he, will he not? Is this one going the long haul? Or will it be a novella? Since I’m a pantser, even if I’ve outlined a vague plot, those first three chapter are my version of opening three presents, a little bit at a time. I thought it might be fun to share the whole writing experience for Prymal Passion with everyone.
The way a new book usually happens for me is this way. While I’m doing something else, for Passion I was in a Zumba class and a gym bitch knocked me down. While I scrambled to standing amidst moving bodies and attempted to make eye contact with Ms. Bitch (coward went to the other side of the room), I thought, “Bandit would’ve escorted her out of the room pronto.”
For the rest of the Zumba session, I was in Bandit zone. By the time the class ended, I had my first chapter for Prymal Passion mapped out in my head. Hey—not once have I ever claimed to be normal.
When I got home I sat down and wrote this:
Excerpt – Prymal Passion, Prymal Book Three: Release Date: December 4, 2014
Target sighted.
Adrenalin torpedoed through Bandit.
He let loose the beasts in him. His intensified hearing caught the minutest of movements including the slight crunching of pebbles. He followed the sound and spotted a Two-Striped Garter snake belly-rippling past his booted feet to climb the narrow gorge to the left of the rock crevice in which he crouched.
The earthy scent of a burrowing creature wafted to his nostrils. The odor came from up-wind, and Bandit’s heightened wolf vision honed onto a mound of fresh dirt that signaled a Pocket Gopher’s den. A grin lifted his lips and he traced the snake’s pursuit of its prey.
His peripheral vision trapped a fluttery skulking.
Bandit pressed his cheek to the cool stone and laser-focused on the spot where the noise originated—a jagged outcrop a good five feet below him and at a forty-five degree angle from the top of the two boulders he was sandwiched between. A normal human being wouldn’t have noticed the furtive change in the gloaming patterns, but to a Rogue shifter with both wolf and big cat DNA, the prey’s slight stirring acted as a homing beacon.
The shadow he chased froze.
Bandit relaxed his muscles and concentrated on dropping his escalating pulse. The lion in him relished toying with his quarry. Especially when said quarry became aware of being hunted. Like his did now.
His target’s sixth sense had kicked in.
Too bad it wouldn’t work in his favor tonight.
Fan-f**King-tastic. Now the real fun began.
Bandit couldn’t stifle a quick smirk.
This quarry’s illusiveness grated his craw. His fellow Prymal pack members ribbed him without mercy each dawn when he returned to Prymal’s headquarters with sweet dick all to show after several nights of stalking the intruder. That a lone interloper eluded his famed tracking and scenting skills both irritated and peeved him.
Not that any of the others, including a majority of the either active or retired Navy SEALs proved more successful. His cell vibrated. He checked the text sent to him by retired UFC fighter, Kydd Kolton, who manned Prymal’s underground security center. Two codes, the first indicating no human or shifter heat traces within the immediate vicinity aside from him and the target below. The second encrypted symbols and numbers specified that no living beings occupied any of the nine empty prefab cottages dotted about River Ranch.
For seven nights in a row, the interloper he tracked evaded his snares and booby traps. Bandit suppressed a snort. Hah! Not only did the f**Ker remain free, but he now had some food, water, and a blanket, all stolen from the bare-bone essentials stored in one of the cottages—the one he’d picked as his own.
Yippee-ki-yay motherf**Ker. You’re going down.
Bandit shifted, maintaining his transformation at a sloth’s pace. His double animal genetic makeup resulted in his transmutation into a creature with a lion’s mane and the sleek body of a gray wolf, but the claws and paws of a monster cat. He used feline stealth to creep to the apex of the boulder. Flattened his body to the curve of the rock and chased the murkiness for a ghost of change in the scenery below him, a nervous twitch, an unexpected noise, a hint of a different fragrance in the still atmosphere.
An infinitesimal flicker.
Bandit ran his coarsened tongue over the point of one canine. His fangs ached. He tested the air sifting the various night aromas carried by a sudden, but lackadaisical draft. The heavy pungency of rotting flesh dominated the regular nocturnal fragrances so prevalent in the hills overlooking San Diego. From the direction and rankness carried on the wilting gust, he guessed the dead animal lay on the other side of his canyon.
Minutes ticked by.
A half-moon breached the mountain summit to the east casting silvery beams on the opposite hillside. The blackness of the arroyo remained unabated, but not for long. Within minutes, bright beams would illuminate the gloom where the target hid. His quarry faced two choices, a sprinted escape or full exposure.
He felt rather than saw or heard his victim tensing. Zoned in on a flashed glint of steel and sneered at the puny, serrated blade clutched in a small fist. The hunter in him went full-frontal. His predatory instincts snapped into control and he absorbed the target’s position, back dug deep into loose dirt and pebbles, knees drawn, hands on either side of tensed hips.
Bandit drew his hind legs into attack position. Readied, jammed the pads of his paws into the rock, and pounced. He shifted the second his legs cleared the stone, the change instantaneous.
The shadow sprang forward. Leapt the narrow coulee, landed back-first, and slid down the loose dirt and gravel.
In mid-air, he watched his quarry scramble and fumble and raise both fists. Too late, he spied his victim’s other weapon, a pocket pistol.
Bandit rolled sideways and tucked.
The bullet whizzed past his ducked head.
Pffff!
Honed reflexes had him analyzing the sound even as he twisted and jerked into strike stance—the unmistakable sound of a wet suppressor on maybe an FMP .45.
Seconds before hitting his prey, he roared, and stretched his legs and arms wide in a spread-eagle posture.
Grinned with satisfaction when his full weight crushed the interloper into emitting a winded grunt. The impact jarred the pistol out of his target’s grip. Bandit followed the gun’s pinging freefall down the gulley.
For a second, his victim didn’t budge.
A sharp lance bit Bandit’s right shoulder.
F**K.
Surprise blunted Bandit’s reflexes when his target stabbed his shoulder again. He caged the attacking f**Kwad and jammed his fist into the asshole’s solar plexus.
Heard the gasp as the breath was sucked out of the f**Ker. Took advantage of his prey’s stunned state, seized the f**Ker’s bony wrists with one hand, and yanked them high above his captive’s head.
The dick-head refused to yield and tried to knee him in the groin.
Bandit rotated and just managed to avoid the blow. As he bore down on the slight form beneath him, and trapped the frantically squirming body with his pelvis and thighs, a whiff of an enticing aroma pooled heat to his groin.
What the f**K?
Shocked by his body’s response to the scent, he lifted to one side to study the person beneath him.
The little shit bit his earlobe.
Hot blood trailed down Bandit’s nape. He inhaled and froze for a heartbeat, the perfume radiating from his victim at once tantalizing and tempting. His dick stirred.
What in f**King hell?
Bandit had total control over his sexuality. Never got an unwanted boner. And now he had a jones for a f**King male? He clenched his back teeth and willed his idiotic f**King shaft flaccid.
Hope you enjoyed.
Cheers,
Jianne
