It’s Mid Week Tease time again, hosted by the delicious Sandra Bunino!

The tease below is from my brand new WIP: the second book of my Stronghold series. I’m calling it Dusk, after the hero, Solomon Dusk.

In the scene below, Sentry Solomon Dusk calls Lucy at work, the girl he helped to heal in the first Stronghold book, Dark. Neither of them are particularly sure of each other. 😀

TEASER:

“I am sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you at your job,” he said, voice going low. “I’ll leave you to finish your day.”

“No, wait!” Lucy exclaimed, sensing he was about to hang up. “Wait.” She listened to him draw in a breath and hurried to speak before he disconnected. “Solomon. I have to ask you something.” She tried out his name for the first time. It felt weird, to be talking to him as if he were an ordinary human. He wasn’t. He was near-immortal. He was over two centuries older than her. She was twenty, barely an adult, and he was older than everyone.

“I’m here.”

She swallowed, gathering her courage. “We’re safe, aren’t we? I mean, there aren’t any more Spiders on Earth, right?” She had to ask. She couldn’t help it, even if she sounded like a little girl. The nightmares came too often for her to ever fully forget what had happened all those months ago. She rubbed at her arm again, then forced herself to stop. When the Spiders attacked her and Eva in early summer, the only thing she clearly remembered in the midst of the blistering pain was Solomon Dusk’s light brown eyes, specked with silver. He’d stared at her, wordlessly reassuring her that everything would be all right.

How she she’d seen him, she didn’t know. Eva told her she’d passed out when one of the aliens had burrowed into her arm, hooking onto her nerves and destroying her from the inside out. It had felt like someone had poured molten lava into her body. She vaguely remembered Eva’s Sentry, Greyson, taking her hand. She could sort of recall him murmuring to her, but Solomon’s eyes staring calmly into hers was what truly kept her sane through the entire, wretched experience.

“You are safe, Lucinda,” he said quietly. “I would never allow the Spiders to harm you. Not ever again.”

After that extraordinary statement, the faint click on the line told her he’d hung up. Lucy stared at the phone in her hand, then slowly tapped the icon to dismiss the call.

Here are some other Mid Week Teasers for you: