Illicit by Cathy Clamp (spotlight, guest post, excerpt, and GIVEAWAY)

It is my pleasure to share a guest post by author Cathy Clamp...


CC:  Hi, all! Your lovely host asked me to drop by today to give all of you some encouraging advice about my journey to become published.

ILLICIT (Goodreads link) is my twenty-second novel! Wow! It’s been an amazing journey since I first started writing back in 2000. Sixteen years in the industry has taught me a bunch and I’m here to share with you one of the most important tips I’ve learned on my journey.

While you’ve read it a thousand times, let me say it one more time: It’s all about the writing! While you can have an amazing story, with vivid characters and an incredible plot, it means nothing if you can’t convey what’s in your head to the readers. I’ve coached and been a mentor to a bunch of aspiring authors and the one recurring theme I hear I have to dispel right away. It’s: “Writers write. Editors edit.” I say to that: BUNK! (Or other similar words that I won’t post on a family site. Heh...)

Yes, writers write. Yes, editors edit. But if a writer thinks that saying that somehow turns an editor into the “fixer of all things,” they’re dead wrong. Not only do editors working for New York publishers not have time to be the fixer of all things, they don’t have the budget. Why is it a budget issue? Because salaries cost money and a set percentage of an employee’s salary is designated to that book. If it takes longer to edit YOUR book than the next person’s, they won’t take it on.

You, the writer, need to learn to edit. Word choice, grammar, composition, punctuation: all have to be as spot on as you can make them before you send it for review. I didn’t start writing until I was 35 and frankly, I’d forgotten as many of the grammar rules as I remembered. So I visited Amazon and picked up a copy of Strunk & White and a copy of the Chicago Manual of Style. While they’re not the choice of every publisher, they’re the choice of many and, it turned out, the choice of the publisher I wound up with---Tor Books (a division of Macmillan Publishing, which is one of the Big 5.)

I slogged through them more than once. It’s tedious and boring. But the proper use of a semi-colon is equally important to the proper use of ‘to, two, too’ and as important as the plot and the characters.

Equally. Remember that.

Most of the other “rules,” whether it’s head-hopping or voice or tense, they change. But conveying your meaning to the reader for a satisfying reading experience? That never changes.

Go forth. Bend all the rules of writing you choose. But do it in a way that makes the editor’s job easy. An easy edit will make you the ‘go to’ writer of choice of the publisher and give you more contracts and more money than you can imagine.

My best advice to aspiring writers is learn, learn, learn! Don’t learn to write good. Learn to write WELL. (First lesson: go look up the difference.) That’s your path to publication! Any questions?


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Illicit
(A novel of the Sazi: Luna Lake)
by
Cathy Clamp


In Cathy Clamp's Illicit, when a border dispute between two bear clans destabilizes shapeshifter relations throughout Europe and threatens to reveal their existence to humans, the Sazi High Council orders both sides to the negotiation table. The peace talks take place in Luna Lake, the American community where all shifter species--wolf, cat, bird, bear, and more--live in harmony.

Diplomats, their families, and security personnel stream into town, among them Dalvin Adway, a Wolven agent. Dalvin is startled to find Rachel Washington in Luna Lake. The last time he saw her, they were children in Detroit. Then she was kidnapped and, he thought, murdered. But Rachel became an owl-shifter as a result of the attack and has avoided family and old friends ever since, knowing they would not understand her . She's stunned to see Dalvin and learn that he, too, is an owl-shifter.

Their wary friendship is on the brink of becoming something more when conspiracy and betrayal cause the peace talks to break down. The fight between the bear clans will be settled through a form of traditional challenge--a risky tactic that might lead to full-blown war. Rachel is determined to prevent that, even if it means taking up the challenge herself!


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EXCERPT

CHAPTER 1

Moonlight struggled to shine through clouds heavy and swollen with rain. The breeze, once light enough to be held back by the towering spruces, became a steady wind that swayed the trees and turned the mist coming off the Drina River into icy daggers. Dalvin instinctively tried to fluff his feathers to warm himself, but he was in the wrong form for that, so he flipped up the collar of his leather jacket instead.

He wished the collar went high enough to cover his ears and mute the jackhammer snoring of the delegates sleeping in the cabin nearby. Maybe earbuds would be better. But he wasn’t certain even the loudest rap could drown out the reverberating bass thrum.

Babysitting bears on the ground. Hell of a waste of a Wolven agent who can fly. I should have been the one they put on aerial patrol.

Branches cracked in the distance, and his senses went on high alert. The peace talks were contentious, objected to by both sides and by who knows how many other packs. He had to check out the sound. Dalvin slipped through the trees, keeping his footsteps light on the carpet of needles. After a few hundred yards, he blinked, concentrating, forcing the pupils of his eyes to completely dilate. The trees took on an almost surreal texture as fragments of light turned the darkness into a million shades of gray. It was easy to make this change in owl form, but it always earned him a splitting headache when in human form. Still, being able to see better usually helped him ferret out thugs pretty quick, which made the pain worth it. He forced himself to slow his breathing, to listen and sniff.

The scent of fruity perfume intensifying an underlying musk of sweet raspberries revealed the intruder moments before her pale face popped out from behind a tree. Another false alarm—just one of the delegates. “Hello, Dalvin. I thought you might be out here.” As usual, her low, sultry voice seemed to make his pulse pound.

Tonight she was wrapped in a fluffy lamb coat dyed dark brown, nearly the color of her fur in bear form and her hair in human.

He didn’t move closer, though he wanted to. Really, really wanted to. “You need to go back to the lodge, Larissa. I’m on duty. I have to get back to the cabins.”

Lips that would put Naomi Campbell’s to shame dropped into a pout. “But it’s so cold out here. We could stay warm … together.” Larissa opened the front of her jacket to reveal next to nothing underneath. As the chilled mist touched her skin, she gasped and let out a little moan, somewhere between pain and pleasure. Her body swayed under the thick fur, but she didn’t close the coat.

He bit at his bottom lip, almost unconsciously. Tempting. So very tempting. In the distance, the snoring continued, loud even this far away. It would keep going until dawn, just like the six previous nights. Plus, the framework of the agreement was already done. The negotiators were working on the last fine details.

When Larissa started to walk forward, her open coat revealed a long line of light brown skin that led down to a tiny yellow thong that didn’t cover much. Wide black eyes beneath lids coated with golden shadow transfixed him. It was wrong to get involved with one of the delegates. Dalvin knew that. But Larissa was hard to resist, and she had been flirting with him for days. Rubbing up against him, blowing in his ear, running painted nails along his arm when nobody was looking. It had been driving him mad.

I need to stop this. This is wrong. But he didn’t step back, didn’t stop her when she glided barefoot along the forest floor and wrapped those fur-covered arms around his neck. Her mouth found his, and he couldn’t help but kiss her back. When she pushed him against the tree and pressed her hips against his, his hands lifted and glided over her chilled breasts, and he felt his arousal grow.

Their kiss deepened and her hands began to roam over his body. When she started to unzip his pants, he realized he was losing the battle.

A pair of cries of alarm, in rapid succession, made Dalvin’s head turn back toward the cabins. He tried to pull away, but Larissa wouldn’t let go. She wrapped herself around him and started using raw magic to keep him steady, trying to pull his erection out of his pants.

It wasn’t the time for fun. He had to get back, was already kicking himself for getting distracted. “Larissa, stop it!” He pulled her hand away, pushed her back, then headed toward the cabins as shouting in several languages filled the air. He hopped a few steps, trying to get his trousers zipped up and realized her scent covered nearly every inch of his clothing. The only way to keep people from knowing what he’d been doing was to change forms.

Dalvin jumped high into the air, summoning enough raw power from the full moon hidden by the clouds to burst through his clothes. Now in his preferred form as an eagle owl, he spread his wings wide, caught the wind from the leading edge of the storm, and rose quickly above the tree line.

The same airflow that lifted him tried to tumble him end over end. He fought against the quickly shifting wind as rain started to rocket out of the clouds like icy daggers. Before the rain got any worse, he opened his eyes fully and tried to take in the situation. People were moving around the cabins and the lodge, running with purpose. The bad weather kept him from making out faces, but could see at least one stretcher being carried toward the cabins. He let the wind take him higher to see who was trying to leave the scene. His first circle around the area didn’t reveal anything during the brief flashes of lightning, so he made another loop.

Wait—there! Something running away from camp! Whatever it was, it was too big to be a rabbit or a deer, so perhaps a person? Narrowing his wings and tipping into a sharp dive, Dalvin spun and danced through branches being whipped by the storm.

Soon he was close enough to see that he was chasing a man who was dressed all in black, including a stocking cap and gloves. Somehow, the runner realized he was being pursued and turned to face Dalvin, revealing that a black face shield covered his features. The man pulled something from his pocket—all Dalvin could tell was that it wasn’t a gun or crossbow—and made a sharp movement of one elbow.

The owl shifter heard no sound over the howling wind and thunder, but pain erupted in his wing and he let out a screech, twisting in the air. A second missile from the weapon barely missed Dalvin’s ear; he could hear a sizzling sound as it passed. Suddenly things added up: the man was using a slingshot!

The attacker was good with it … really good. As Dalvin tried to get behind him, his enemy turned and fired again, striking him on one clawed foot and sending a bolt of pain up into his chest. Getting clumsy. Stay focused. He dove quickly and tried to grab the man’s face mask with his good leg.

Maybe if he was closer in, the slingshot wouldn’t be as effective. When he tried to swoop nearer, the man produced a knife the size of a machete and slashed at him, only narrowly missing.

Another dive, another flash of the blade across his path.

When Dalvin tried to gain altitude again, he realized the second slash hadn’tmissed—the blade had cut a hunk out of several feathers on his right wing. Tufts of white, like cotton candy, soared across the forest on the wind.

Tightening his wing to limit the disruption, he went around again. The man wasn’t holding the knife anymore—had he dropped it, or did he have some other plan?

Better play it safe.

Diving, at the last second Dalvin twisted sideways, reaching for an arm. It wouldn’t be easy to lift the man in black with a bad wing, but maybe Dalvin could get him high enough that being dropped would stun him.

Once again, his opponent was ready. With speed that marked him as a Sazi of high alpha level, he grabbed Dalvin’s leg and used the owl shifter’s own momentum to spin them both around. When he let go, Dalvin shot across an open space in the woods, completely unable to control his flight. A massive tree rushed toward him. Twisting, he just barely managed to avoid knocking into the trunk skull first, but his body took the full force of the impact. Gasping for breath, in pain everywhere, he dug his talons deep into the wood, clinging desperately to the tree.

He scanned the nearby forest without success. The attacker had escaped. Damn it!

Letting go of the tree and flapping for all he was worth despite the bad wing, Dalvin tried to rise above the tree line and find the man’s trail. But it was no good. With his wing clipped, he couldn’t get enough altitude. Frankly, he was lucky he was still airborne at all. Breathing was a struggle. Every inhale felt like fire burning him from the inside.

The icy rain became a heavy, drenching downpour. It was hard to see; even closing his inner lids didn’t help. He knew his only option was to return to base. When he finally got back to the camp, his wings were completely numb and he was exhausted. He could still barely breathe. The entire episode had been humiliating.

When Dalvin fluttered to the ground, fellow agent Tamir Marovik, a Russian black bear, raced to greet him. Tamir’s hands and sleeves were stained with blood.

“Where the hell have you been, Adway? We’ve got a dead negotiator on our hands. Drugged, then stabbed. Each sloth is blaming the other. Who the hell managed to get past you? I thought you were on perimeter duty.”

Dalvin honestly intended to tell the truth and apologize, but when he opened his beak, to his own surprise, a half-truth came out. Displaying his wounded wing, he said, “I heard an intruder and gave chase. He damned near cut my wing off and I lost him when I tumbled. I thought you had the inside covered.”

Tamir stared at him for long moments, eyes narrowed, sniffing the breeze, scenting for falsehood. What Dalvin had said wasn’t a lie, not completely—it just wasn’t as expansive an answer as it could have been. Tamir’s reputation wasn’t good: it was well known that he handed out harsh punishments, including death, to Wolven agents who fell down on the job. Dalvin had no desire to die over a moment’s inattention.

The owl shifter tried not to breathe or move as Tamir stepped forward.

Copyright © 2016 by Cathy Clamp

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GIVEAWAY


One lucky U.S. resident will win a copy of Illicit! Please leave a comment with a valid e-address and answer what kind of shifter you would like to be and what characteristics of that form that would be most desirable to you. A winner will be chosen using Random.org after November 14, 2016 and an e-mail will be sent. If there is no response within 72 hours of the message, a new winner will be chosen.

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My review is pending because I am still reading the book, but it is a wonderful addition to the series and very entertaining thus far!

Forbidden by Cathy Clamp (guest post, excerpt and review)

I have the pleasure of having a guest post by talented and prolific author Cathy Clamp, who shares her journey...

Author Journey

by 

Cathy Clamp 

My journey to the release of Forbidden, which is my 20th novel since I started, is somewhat odd. So it makes sense to tell you a little about it.

Back in the mid-1990s, I was working at a law office in Denver, Colorado. A temp employee started working there and we became friends. Cie Adams was a writer. She had been writing novels and stories her whole life. While I did a lot of writing for the law firm, I’d never thought about writing fiction (or anything else for pay.) But the more we talked, the more I realized it might be fun. I actually started in magazine articles. My first article was a retelling of a funny camping trip I took with my husband. I read up about query letters and figured out what it needed to say. I sold the story after a few tries and started busily writing other articles and sold more of them. Fiction wasn’t on my radar for another year, but once the bug bit me, I started spending all my nights and weekends writing my first novel. It was a fan fiction novel in the X-Files universe.

At the time, Cie was writing a novel about shapeshifters who lived in Boulder, Colorado—just north of Denver. It was a very fun world, and I asked if I could create some characters in the world. She let me build a story in another city and I submitted it to an electronic publisher (remember this was the 1990s, when epubs were in infancy!) An editor loved the story, but wanted it to be a book. Except it wasn’t a book. It was a short story. When she said she would buy it if it was a book, I was sold! It took some months to come up with more of a plot, and a few rewrites to get it to where the editor loved it. But she did and the publisher agreed to publish it.

Fast forward a few months. The publisher closed shop after only editing 7 chapters! Talk about my heart stopping! Fortunately, my editor came to the rescue and called some friends and talked up the book. Another publisher agreed to look and eventually offered a contract. And then folded! Good grief! The book was cursed! Publisher #3 came to the rescue. We got all the way through edits and had a cover and then . . . you guessed it, rumors of closing started to rumble through emails. But the publisher swore they would stay open and get the book to the virtual shelf.

At about the same time, while I’m getting all excited to have a real book in my hands (and inbox), Cie and I went to a book signing for our favorite author, Laurell K. Hamilton. While we sat on the floor in line waiting for the author to arrive, we chatted with the person next to us. We told her all about the book we’d written and that it would be published soon. She asked if we could print out a copy of the manuscript so she could read it. We said “Sure!” and sent it the next day, by mail.

Fast forward a few months. The rumbles at the publisher were growing and making us nervous, but we kept getting assurances everything was fine. One morning, I opened my email and found an email from Laurell Hamilton! Eep! Turns out that the charming woman in line next to us was Laurell’s personal assistant, and had insisted her boss read the book that she’d fallen in love with. Laurell proceeded to tell us that she loved the book too, but thought it needed some serious editing and we really needed to get the book to a bigger publisher. So, she “hoped we didn’t mind that she sent the book to her agent to read.” (!!!)  Um . . .wow! Sure!

Fast forward a few weeks. I get a phone call from a real New York agent, who also loved the book but wasn’t sure why she had it, since it was already being published. I said I didn’t know either and maybe it was to sell the next one in the series. The agent explained that it didn’t work that way, but if I could get out of my current contract, she could sell it very quickly to a New York house.

We really did have to think about it.We hadn’t had very good luck with the book until then, but the chance of a REAL agent and a REAL publisher was too much to pass up.

The agent was as good as her word. It wasn’t more than a few weeks that we had an offer from Tor Books. I’ve been there ever since and wouldn’t change a day of the journey. It’s been an amazing ride and has always been an inspiration to me, to never underestimate the random chance meetings in life. Sometimes, being friendly and outgoing makes all the difference. Oh, and study. I would never have made it to the point of that second book if I hadn’t listened to all the people telling me the rules of the game along the way. 

Forbidden (Luna Lake) hits the shelf just a few months after the 10th Anniversary of the release of that first book, Hunter's Moon—which will be re-released in a special edition this fall. Pick it up too and see how it all began. :)

Forbidden (Luna Lake)

Cathy Clamp

A Tor Trade Paperback

ISBN: 9780765377203 / 0765377209

352 pages / $14.99 US

eBook: 9781466854604

Pub Date: August 18, 2015


Excerpt:

 

CHAPTER 1

Fear wasn’t something Claire Evans thought she’d ever feel again, but an all-too-familiar buzzing filled her ears while bile rose into her throat. Adrenaline raced through her veins, and her muscles flexed involuntarily, as though striking at an invisible foe. The sensations were hardwired into her from that time, long ago. But now she was just a passenger in a car in rural Washington, with no enemy that she could feel or smell. Yet she was alert and wary.

“You feel it too, don’t you? The dark tightens around your throat like a hand.” Danielle’s tremulous whisper beside Claire made her start and turn her head to look at the lovely African-American woman driving the car.

She tried to shrug it off. “I’m a Sazi … a wolf. The dark doesn’t scare me.” So why is my heart pounding like it’s going to leap out of my chest? She stared out the windshield where the bright headlights barely held the night at bay, looking for something … anything that would explain what she was feeling. Analyze the fear, Claire. Force it to reveal itself.

Danielle Williams’s laugh held just a touch of hysteria. “It’s not the dark, girlfriend. It’s what’s in the dark. Strange things live in the forest here. Stuff that even scares those that hunt at night. It’s why I’m the one driving you tonight.”

Claire turned in her seat to face Danielle more squarely. “Come again?” Before the other woman could open her mouth to respond, Claire took a deep breath through her nose and knew abruptly why fear had been tightening her throat. It wasn’t her own fear filling the air … it was Danielle’s. Underneath the thick scent of feathers that she expected to smell from an owl shifter was the unmistakable sour scent of near-panic. An owl scared of the dark? That was wrong on so many levels. There had to be something deeper at work. “What’s wrong, Danielle?”

A long pause followed. Claire let it grow until the other woman couldn’t stand the pressure anymore. “It’s my … little sister and … brother.” The words were choked out with long gulps of air between. Claire didn’t have to ask their names; though she’d just met Danielle tonight, she’d done her homework on her host family. Nineteen-year-old Danielle was the oldest biological child of John and Asylin Williams. Ten-year-old Kristy was the youngest and fourteen-year-old Darrell was in the middle. But the Williamses weren’t content to raise only their own children. They’d opened their home to more than a dozen orphans from the plague and raised them as their own. Many “after-plague siblings” of various races, families, and shifter species had come and gone through their massive, hand-built home during the last decade, making it the perfect place for Claire to stay and to gather information. Danielle snuffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Kristy and Darrell have been missing for three days now. Nobody knows where they are. I left college to come home and help search.”

“Oh, man! What happened?” Three days? Why hadn’t she been told yet? Or did Wolven not know about the disappearances?

“Kristy was supposed to spend the day at a friend’s house. When dinnertime rolled around and she hadn’t come home, Mom sent Darrell to get her. When neither one made it back after another hour, Mom called Isabelle’s family. They hadn’t seen Kristy all day. Hadn’t seen Darrell either.” Danielle drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Claire felt the speed of the car increase and began to push magical energy out in a wave in front of the car to hopefully warn any prey animals to avoid the roadway. The last thing they needed was to hit a deer and wreck the car.

Danielle kept talking, the words tumbling over themselves in a rush. “Mama should have called me that day. I would have come to help look for them. But she didn’t want to bother me. Damn it! Kristy’s only ten and Darrell’s not much older. They haven’t even shifted for the first time.” Tears glistened in the orange light from the dash. Danielle wiped them away with an angry hand before clutching the wheel again, wrapping fingers around it like talons around a snake.

Claire reached out to touch the other woman’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Danielle. I understand just how you feel.” In fact, she understood more than Danielle could imagine. She had once been one of the missing. Worse, to many in her hometown, she still was. It’s why she was the perfect person to send here to investigate.

I wonder if there have been other disappearances. Is that why nobody is talking to Wolven? She was young to be part of the Sazi law enforcement branch, and only a few people even knew she was active. But the agent on duty in Luna Lake didn’t seem to be sending in reports of anything abnormal … or at least, nobody admitted to getting them. She was being planted in the town by the Sazi Council to find out what was happening. Her primary task was to find out why people were missing from the official reports, even though the town leaders claimed everyone was accounted for. While it was likely just a clerical error, it could be dangerous if someone was hiding something. Thankfully, because she was bound to the Texas wolf pack, she could mentally contact her pack leaders, Adam and Cara Mueller—Wolven agents and police officers both—in a crisis. She had to work hard to make the connection work and it gave her a bad headache, but it was better than nothing.“Is there anything I can do? Once we arrive, I mean.”

Danielle put up a helpless hand. The wet scent of sorrow filled the car, smothering the sour panic. “I don’t know. Maybe. We can use every set of eyes. Maybe, as an outsider, you’ll see something the rest of us are missing.”

An outsider. It seemed strange to be considered an outsider in a town that was all Sazi. No shifter should ever be considered an outsider. That was the whole point of the encampments that had been formed after the plague: to welcome and protect Sazi of all species. Claire tried hard to project confidence into the car. The gift of empathy was still new to her and she wasn’t very good at projecting emotions yet. But the healer back in Texas had told her it could be a valuable tool for investigating once she was more skilled. She only knew she was succeeding when the hot metal scent of determination rode up over the musty damp smell of fear.

“Anything I can do,” she said firmly.

They went back to watching the dark landscape slip by in a blur while Claire struggled to keep Danielle’s fear from overwhelming her. She couldn’t afford to become an amplifier of someone else’s negativity. She tried to concentrate on the bits of roadside that were highlighted in the headlamps for brief seconds: a speed limit sign, which they were presently exceeding by at least ten; then red and yellow leaves that whisked into the air, swirling around the hood and over the roof; even a bright bit of metal in the grass, shining silver before disappearing. But it was no use—the more silence that passed, the more time she had to dwell on possibilities, and the greater the fear grew. Claire needed to take Danielle’s mind off the situation. “Tell me a little about Luna Lake. Where might the kids have spent the day if they didn’t go to their friends’?”

Danielle shrugged. “I’ve been wondering the same thing. There’s not much to the town. There’s no arcade or anything and no mall. The nearest town is Republic, but it’s too far to walk. There’s an ice cream store but that’s the first place Mama checked. S.Q.’s a sucker for little kids with wide eyes. Gives them so many free samples that they wind up sick in the morning. Of course, that means every kid in town hangs out there.” She must have realized Claire didn’t know the people in town, because she explained. “S.Q. Wrill … with a W … owns Polar Pops on Main Street. She’s a nice lady but you’d think a falcon would have more brains. I swear she’d forget her head if it wasn’t attached.”

“S.Q.? That’s her real name? Just initials?”

“It’s sure what I’d call myself if I had her given name. Everyone blends the letters and calls her Skew. Her mama should have been ashamed.” Danielle shook her head as the road slipped by. She didn’t continue until Claire prompted.

“Which is?”

“I’ll have to spell it. S-e-n-s-a-b-i-l-l-e. Her middle name is Quille, with an e at the end. I mean … really? Her mama must have been high as a kite when that poor girl was born.” She tsked, clucking her tongue like a chicken, and then sighed.

Claire struggled not to laugh out loud. Wow. Sensabille … Quille … Wrill. No kidding, poor girl. But this was all great stuff. Not only would learning about the people in Luna Lake keep Danielle occupied, but Claire would learn a ton about the town. Already the scents in the car were lightening. “Interesting. What else is there to keep kids occupied? Is there a playground?”

“Oh, sure. Back behind the school. The whole town pitched in to build it. Monkey bars, teeter-totter, swings … even a climbing wall. But they keep it fenced off so nobody uses it after school.”

Claire let out a small laugh. “Fences never kept me out when I was a kid. I’d climb over, slip under. Nothing could keep me from the swings. Made me feel like I was flying.”

The owl shifter flicked a glance her way. “Oh, swings feel nothing like flying. Trust me.”

There wasn’t anything to say to that, and Claire was grateful beyond measure she would never know. Her life would have been totally different if she’d gotten wings instead of fur. Totally, frighteningly different. She fought to keep from shuddering. “But the kids had never shifted, right? So they couldn’t just hop over the fence?”

“Puleeze.” Danielle’s voice held scorn. “Sazi designed the fence. We have birds of all sorts, cats that can jump two stories high, wolves that can dig through near-solid stone. You can’t just hop over. It’s no ordinary fence. You’ll have to see it to understand.”

Danielle slowed the car, flipped on the blinker, and made a turn onto a much narrower paved road. There were no shoulders and no striping. But there was a sign, the only indication of where they were. They would arrive in Luna Lake in ten miles.

Claire asked, “Why bother to block off the playground? It’s not like the kids will get hurt. They’ll heal.” It was the long-standing saying among their kind. Nearly anything would heal. No wound was too bad. Head and heart both had to be damaged to kill.

Danielle’s voice was surprised, but the underlying scent that rode the air to Claire was haunted, filled with sorrow, fear, and pain. “Nobody heals since the plague. Where have you been? Hardly anyone heals better than full humans. We’re really cautious because we lost our healer last winter. We don’t know why she died.”

Wow. Claire struggled to wrap her mind around that. When the Sazi were attacked, nearly a decade ago now, by family members who had created a magically-charged chemical that “cured” shapeshifters and made them human again, it became a plague, devastating their kind. Exposure to the cure was like a toxin and had killed many and caused madness in others. But what would it take to kill a healer short of major injuries? “In Texas, the kids run around like wild animals. It’s a rare day someone isn’t digging cactus spines from their legs and arms, or getting treated for snake bites.” Like Luna Lake, the Tedford Compound was remote, but they had the luxury of several healers nearby and most of the pack was healthy. “Have you applied to the Council for a new healer?”

Danielle let out a snort as she turned on the wipers to knock a layer of dead bugs from the windshield. “You must have some sort of magic potion down there then. That’s not how it works up here. We’ve applied for a new healer dozens of times. I don’t think the Council even remembers we exist. We haven’t had a Councilman visit or call in years.”

Again Claire felt a moment of shock. A member of the Sazi High Council was through her town every few months. Was it really that different up here, or were the townsfolk in Luna Lake being fed a line? She couldn’t smell or sense any deception from Danielle. On first impression, it appeared she really believed that they had been set adrift by the Sazi hierarchy.

“Of course,” Danielle continued. “It’s not that different from the human government. The area struggles. So we have to be pretty self-sufficient. We’re on the only road close to town that doesn’t need repairs. You need a jeep for some of the back roads. We do the best we can with the money we have.” She paused and then sighed. “But it would be nice if we could get a doctor. We can’t take the kids to the hospital in Republic. What if they did a blood test?”

We’ll check into it. Count on it.

Claire faintly heard the voice of her pack leader, Adam Mueller, in her mind and it made her feel better to know they were there and could still hear through her ears, even though the contact made her temples throb sharply.

She knew both Adam and Cara would take action on what she observed. But Danielle … in fact, none of the people in Luna Lake could know it was being worked on. She steeled herself for the pain that made nerves scream through her skull and replied to her pack leaders the same way. Please be discreet. Otherwise, it did no good to send me here.

One word rang through her mind, bearing the distinctive Tejano accent she’d come to know from her surrogate mother. Duh.

It nearly made her laugh and Claire had to struggle not to let her amusement show in her face or scent. So she immediately concentrated on what it would feel like to have a child in the house who was injured where they couldn’t go to a human doctor, and a Sazi one was days or weeks away. “Sorry to hear about your healer. Are there a lot of elderly in town? How many kids?”

Danielle nodded. “A fair number. We just have one school in town, K through twelve. There’s about fifty students. There’s probably two hundred total Sazi in and around Luna Lake, scattered around. About half of the adults are over forty. It was bigger right after the first attack, but not everybody’s suited to life up here. The people who came from big cities wound up moving to other compounds, closer to sewer systems and grocery stores.”

Claire nodded in agreement. “Yeah, same problem at the Tedford Compound. Not everybody is up for the heat and cacti, or boiling well water to drink and wash in, or using outhouses where we can’t even put in septic systems.”

A flash of light outside the car caught Claire’s eye and she pointed out the windshield. “What in the world is that?” The green glow seemed to pulse with a life of its own. It swooped and danced in the black sky like dragon dancers at Chinese New Year. It disappeared and reappeared through the towering treetops along the road.

“Ooo!” Danielle slowed the car and moved to the side at a spot where there were fewer trees and they could see the sky. “It’s the northern lights. We don’t see them often, and they always seem to be green when they appear this far south.”

Claire had seen videos of the northern lights, but had never seen them in person. It was surreal. Once the car was fully stopped, she opened her car door, which made Danielle nervous. “We can’t stay more than a second. We really need to get to town soon.”

“A second is all I need. I just want to see it without the glass.” The image drew her, pulled her to stand up, one foot still on the floorboards of the car. The scents of the night hit her nose in a rush, adding to the frozen moment. The air was so incredibly clean. Crisp, powerful, filled with pine and apples, and with a hint of far distant snow on the wind. A variety of animal scents made her turn her head this way and that, but she never took her eyes off the dancing lights. Deer in the deep brush, birds in the trees, along with musky plant eaters she had no name for yet. Possibly elk or moose. Or maybe even bear. She’d never smelled them before.

After a few moments, she was satisfied and started to get back in the car. But movement in the darkness caught her eye. Whatever was pushing against her senses was large—as big as the car, at least. But though she tried, flaring her nostrils and inhaling deeply, she couldn’t smell a thing. It was as though the rest of her senses were lying to her. Claire hadn’t been born a Sazi; she’d become one after she’d learned to rely on senses other than her nose. And what her eyes and the prickling hairs on her neck told her was she needed to leave. Now. She slid back inside the car, grabbing her seat belt on the way down. “We need to go. Hurry!”

“Wha—” But apparently the look on Claire’s face, her scent, or maybe she’d accidentally pressed onto the owl shifter a bit of her own urgency … something was enough to silence Danielle. She slammed the gearshift down and hit the gas, hard enough that it threw Claire back against her headrest.

The car lurched sideways when something impacted the back door on the driver’s side. Danielle let out a small screech and tightened her grip on the steering wheel until her knuckles were white. The car leaped forward. Claire felt her own fingers tighten on the armrest. She kept checking the rearview mirror, but there was nothing to see in the darkness behind them. That didn’t stop her heart from racing or a low growl from building in her chest. The wolf part of her wanted to turn and fight. The human side knew that anything capable of making a moving car swerve was nothing to mess with. She glanced at the instrument panel. Their speed was sixty and increasing. The little car’s engine wasn’t very powerful and eighty was the best they could hope for. That should have been plenty fast enough to outrun any animal on the planet, and any Sazi short of a Council member.

It wasn’t.

The tires squealed against the pavement when an unseen something hit the back bumper, pushing them forward and then sideways. Danielle turned into the skid as though on an icy road and they shot forward again. They were only a few miles from town now. Most predators, human or otherwise, wouldn’t risk continuing an attack where they could be seen. “C’mon, c’mon. Move, you piece of junk.” Danielle was whispering but the words seemed loud to Claire.

The landscape whizzed by as seconds passed. The sour, bitter scent of panic burned her nose every time Claire inhaled.

Just when the lights of the town appeared around a bend, an unearthly howl filled the car and the world upended in a rush of metal, glass … and pain.

Copyright © 2015 by Cathy Clamp

Amazon

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My Review

4.25 out of 5 stars

Forbidden by Cathy Clamp is Book One of the ‘Luna Lake’ urban fantasy series.  The story features Claire Evans, who has traveled to Luna Lake, in Washington State, to investigate disturbing occurrences.  She is handicapped by her unfamiliarity with the rules and rituals in the town, but she has resources that they don’t know about as well.  Unfortunately, the Sazil have had significant changes, and Alek Siska is still striving to deal with the repercussions.  The last thing he expects is to not only be teamed up with Claire, but to be drawn into the complications that accompany her arrival.  There are many dangerous undercurrents in Luna Lake, and if they’re not careful, both Claire and Alek may not survive the evil that threatens all of the residents.

This inventive and fantastical tale resumes the saga of the Sazi, in a very different world.  The rich history that these shifters have shared has faded as their powers and alliances have altered and things are strangely dark in this part of the world.  This is an intense and sometimes uncomfortable tale, with disconcerting violence and evil in both the present and the past, that captures one’s attention and draws one into the complicated world that has a plethora of intriguing individuals—who are closely linked to their animal natures.  There are surprising twists to the relationships that form, and threads that link to the past and establish a framework for even more tales about these compelling beings.  It would be nice to have a little more depth to the characters and I am not thrilled with the acceptance of the way the omegas are treated, but I definitely enjoyed following the mystery as it unfolded. The world presented is intriguing, and will appeal to those who like intense and somewhat dark paranormal tales that involve strong determined individuals who are not afraid to challenge evil and fight for those weaker than they are, but be forewarned, this is definitely not a tale for the squeamish.

A copy of this story was provided to me for review.