Thursday, May 24, 2018

Chaos Conspiracy (Sacrificial Magic, Book 1) by Holly Evans

Release date: May 17, 2018
Subgenre:  Urban Fantasy

About Chaos Conspiracy

 

Wren Kincaid, blood witch.

It’s a shame I can’t put that on my résumé. Mercenaries with magic or supernal blood have a much easier time landing jobs. Unfortunately, if anyone finds out about my blood magic, I’ll be executed in twelve hours or less. Blood witches were eradicated a century before I was born, deemed too dangerous, or so everyone thought.

My life wasn’t too bad. I had to wrangle more drunk pixies than I’d have liked, and it was far from luxurious. I struggled to pay my rent, but I wasn’t complaining. Not too loudly, anyway.

Cue the Council and Dante Caspari. The Council are the people who will execute me if they find out what I am. Dante Caspari is the sexy-as-sin guy they hired me to work with so I can find out what happened to the missing supernals in Bucharest.

It sounds great working with a sexy guy, right? The problem is, his father’s a demon prince and his mother’s one of the most powerful witches in the Americas. If anyone is going to trip me up and hand me over to the Council, it’s him. So, I have to find the missing supernals, save the day, and try not to get killed doing it. Funny, those drunk pixies I was complaining about don’t seem so bad now.

Set in the same world as the popular Forged in Blood series

 

Excerpt:

 

Things were not going to plan. Redcaps were dumb. I was supposed to open his arteries, he’d bleed out, and we were done. Nice and easy. Instead, we circled around each other again, and I wasn’t finding a hint of weakness in his movements. Given my lack of size, I depended on my speed and wiles. I wouldn’t do well in a long, sustained fight.  A redcap would normally be slower, almost lumbering, but he was as nimble as a sidhe or a feline shifter. Something was very wrong there. Had I been set up? He rushed me again, and I slashed at his throat, but he pulled away and my blade slipped through thin air. He wasn’t giving me any room to dance away, not that time. He had his arms out and a manic grin on his face. I tried to duck under his arms, but he grabbed onto the back of my jacket.
I tried to stab him in the groin, but his arms were longer than mine. He leaned in, and his teeth grazed my throat. I tried to slash at his wrist to free myself of his grip. He dropped me, only to dive forwards and pin me against my own alchemical barrier. I should have known that was a stupid idea! 
He licked my cheek, and I fought to free my arms so I could cut off that awful grey tongue. His rancid breath filled my nose and threatened to make me vomit.
“Ever heard of breath mints?” I asked. 
He held my arms firm as he inched in closer, his teeth aiming for my neck. A quick glance around showed that we were still alone. Non-magical people wouldn’t be able to see inside of the alchemical circle, but supernals would be able to. I couldn’t afford the trap that made us entirely invisible, and really it would be good for business if supernals saw me kicking ass. I mentally reached inside the redcap and wrapped my consciousness around his blood. It felt so damn good to use my magic. If the Council knew I had it at all, they’d kill me. Blood magicians were outlawed for being too dangerous a century before I was born. As I held his blood in my mind’s eye and made it boil within him, I wondered if, perhaps, they had a point. 
The redcap screamed and flailed as he clawed at himself, tearing great chunks of flesh out of his arms and stomach. Then he went poof. The black gunk that formed when a fae died rained down and coated me. It smelled like rotting meat and fresh blood. It was going to take forever to get that smell out of my hair. Thankfully, the gunk would dissolve soon enough, but that damn smell was going to linger on my skin and hair. 
I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair, trying to get some of the gunk out. At least I’d earnt enough to pay rent. Ok, so it was three days late, but better late than never, right? The bone-deep tiredness that came with using my blood magic started to slip in just as the alchemical trap dissolved around me. A hot guy chose that moment to walk around the corner and see me coated in black gunk and looking frazzled from chasing that damn redcap for three days. I gave him a big friendly smile and a little wave before I realised I still had my blood-coated dagger in my hand. His eyes went big and he swallowed hard before he turned on his heel and walked very quickly the other direction. I had to give him points for not running, I supposed.

 

Amazon

 

About Holly Evans: 

Holly Evans is an urban fantasy author with an unhealthy fascination with blades, a deep love of hellhounds, and would love one day to wake up as a fae. When she isn't wrangling rogue characters and trying to tame her muse, she's researching shiny new ninja moves. During her spare time she fights crime and rights wrongs on the streets of County Kerry.

 

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