Hi everyone. Today I am featuring "Kindred Spirit" by Julia Firlotte. Check out her sneak peek in the post below and read to the bottom to enter a special giveaway.
Mankind’s day of reckoning is coming; A young Wicca must learn to harness the elements and reconcile old friendships if she is to save mankind from Mother Nature’s wrath.
Kindred Spirit
by: Julia Firlotte
Genre: SciFi Dystopian Romance
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I manage to haul myself out of the bath on one leg, wrapping a towel around my shoulders and another around my waist. I rub my body dry, avoiding my tender multicoloured ribs where I was kicked. My eyes fall on the small window as I towel dry my hair. It’s quite high up, and to see through it, I’d have to stand on the chair, but despite my throbbing ankle, curiosity gets the better of me. Using the wall, I manage to pull myself up on one leg and peer outside.
The view is otherworldly. I’m higher up than I’ve ever been in my life. I gulp in a deep breath and barely stop myself from reeling back in shock. Edging closer to the window frame, I see the ground far below and vehicles of varying sizes silently passing by the window in every direction. Vertically, horizontally and diagonally, they weave in and out of the tall buildings. Shivering, I clasp my hand over my mouth, trying not to panic and reminding myself that this was what I wanted, to come to the city and learn about medicine.
Far below, I see people scurrying like ants. There are more people on this one street than in my whole village. I see a network of connecting streets stretching out in all directions, like sections of a spider’s web. I cast my eyes upwards, wrapping my arms around myself in an attempt to fend off this chill inside my chest. How the hell did I ever think I could do this alone? I have no idea where to start to try to find the hospital, and what Drew said about drones arresting me frightens me. What the heck is a drone, anyway?
Vehicles whisk people along high overhead in an ever-moving line, seemingly closing in on me from all angles. People and technology are everywhere.
A circular shape speeding past the window stops dead, then rotates mid-air. It’s a grey object with a single red light rotating around it, and the light stops to shine in my eyes, just a short distance away from the glass. My muscles bunch and freeze, paralysing me. I open my mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. A flash of light fills my vision, and all I see is white. Then the shattering of glass and rush of freezing air engulfs me, toppling me from the chair. The room spins as I smack down onto the hard floor, closing my eyes tightly as the pain from my ankle blocks out all other sensations.
A bucket of water empties over my head, and the most awful mechanical screech fills the room. I hear Drew cursing as he enters the room, and then a strong hand squeezes my shoulder.
‘Cady? Are you all right?’ his voice is urgent and unnaturally tight.
I open my eyes, and he exhales audibly.
‘Did you get glass in your eyes? Damn it, Cady, are you hurt?’ he asks, firing questions at me.
I stare around the room and see it’s soaking wet, the walls, the ceiling, there’s water everywhere, and the bath is almost empty. Shards of glass from the shattered window are spread around the room, and the grey sphere that blinded me is smoking and spinning uncontrollably on the floor in the water, lights flashing in all directions.
I back away from it, shuffling back on my bottom and clutching my towels to my chest.
‘Fuck!’ Drew mutters before he calmly places his hand on top of the machine, and it stops spinning. That’s when I notice four other identical objects, all hovering silently outside the window frame, with various lights focussed inside the room, primarily at me.
‘Don’t look at them. Look at me!’ he growls. ‘Are you all right, or not?’
Finally, my eyes turn to focus on his and I shake my head, more than a little dazed, ‘My ankle hurts.’
‘Anything else?’ he demands, his eyes pinching tight.
I shake my head.
‘Thank God!’ he mutters, breath leaving his lungs in a rush, ‘At least, that, I can fix.’
My eyes return to the window. ‘What happened? What are they?’ I whisper like I’m scared they’ll hear me.
Drew’s hand slides behind my shoulders in reassurance, and it sends pleasant tingles through my stomach. ‘Drones, don’t worry, I’ll get rid of them.’
He turns to the window, frowning and shaking his head like he’s having a silent conversation.
‘Are you talking to them?’ I whisper, shivers wracking down my spine, making my voice hoarse.
‘I’m telling them you have a permit and to leave you alone,’ his voice is tight, and then he picks up the damaged machine in both hands and holds it out towards the open window. A bright blue light fixes onto it, and the object is lifted from his hands and floats outside before Drew waves his the palm of his hand over the window, and it merges seamlessly back into the smooth wall.
I can’t move. I’m fighting it, I want to move, but I can’t. I just feel the need to pee and hope to the Lord and Lady that I don’t.
‘What happened?’ I finally ask him, my eyes drifting from the wall back to his face, and that’s when I realise, instead of the concern of a moment ago, the anger emanating from him is palpable.
‘What happened? You’re asking me that? Jesus, Cady!’ he explodes, waving a hand around the room in indignation. ‘What the hell did you do?’ he hollers, eyes riveted on me.
My heart jolts, and my throat tightens, preventing me from replying. I don’t know who Jesus is, nor why he’s adding the name to mine, but I shake my head, pointing at the space where the window had been.
‘There was this flash, then the window exploded, and I fell…,’ it’s not just my head that’s shaking now, it’s also my hands. Drew takes a step towards me, his frown deepening.
‘So, it took a scan of you, and the window exploded? Don’t lie to me, Cady! You could have gotten yourself killed!’ he steps closer, almost on top of me now, and I feel a pressure in my chest as if my heart is being squeezed.
‘Back off, don’t touch me. I mean it!’ I hiss at him, fear seizing my stomach in a tight fist.
His frown remains, his eyes appear surprised, and his shoulders flinch. I shuffle further from him, ignoring the glass scrapes on the backs of my bare legs.
A mist appears between us, at first transparent like a light fog and then thickening like a wall of water, glistening with the shards of glass still caught in it.
BLURB:
A plague for a plague, to make the human race pay
For the destruction of a planet which was not theirs to slay
Mankind’s day of reckoning is coming and all hopes lie on the shoulders of one young Wicca. Only Cady Leigh can harness the elements and reconcile old friendships if she is to save mankind from Mother Nature’s wrath.
Set three hundred years in the future, the impact of global warming has divided the nation into two opposing societies. Cady Leigh’s family are Wiccans and the healers of their underground traditionalist community, so when a craft from the opposing technologist’s society crashes near her home, Cady saves a wounded technologist teenager Drew Kemp and brings him to live with her family.
Like all technologists, Drew has a nanochip implant and uses it to spy on the traditionalist villagers to root out the terrorists who attack the metropolis he calls home. However, he falls in love with the independent and spirited young Wicca, Cady. When he reveals the truth to her, she feels betrayed and rejects him, so he returns to his city alone.
Some years later, due to the damage inflicted on the Earth by humans, mother nature unleashes her displeasure on mankind in the form of a dangerous virus. Passionate about healing, Cady travels to the technologist’s city in search for a cure. But in a world of science and fact, Cady’s Wiccan roots start to reveal themselves at the worst time and her paranormal abilities to harness the elements evokes fear and oppression in the technologists around her.
When Cady discovers her abilities are more significant, that she is in fact the final hope to redeem mankind, she must turn to Drew to help her navigate this new world and find a cure.
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Julia Firlotte
After a lifetime of reading romance novels, Julia Firlotte started writing her own novels in 2018. As soon as she started, she knew she'd found her passion.
Julia is inspired by the world around her, often coming up with the opening scenes of a novel and the characters in them and then later developing a plot line. Julia's stories always have a focus on the role trust plays in a relationship and the twists and turns love takes when this is brought into question.
Julia is also a romance blogger and reviews books on her website.
Her favourite authors are Jaine Diamond, Sylvia Day, Chrystal Kaswell, EL James and Kendall Ryan.
Please do subscribe to her mailing list on her website and be so kind as to leave reviews. As a self funded / self published author, the role readers play in supporting new authors is crucial to allowing them to write more books and reader support is valued above all else.
When she's not writing, reading, blogging or editing, Julia works at her day job in Logistics, shipping other people's books all over the world. Julia is married with two children and five fur babies and lives in West Sussex, Southern England.
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The excerpt sounds good. Thanks for sharing.