Epic Thursday...

It's Epic Thursday again, and this week I'm hosting CP Extrodinare Tristina Wright!

Her Bio: I write YA. I love Urban Fantasy, Steampunk, Mythology, and kissing. If all of that is in one book, you’ve won my heart forever. Anything else you’ve read about me on the internet may or may not be true. If it involves ferrets, crochet, baking cookies, tweeting too much, toddlers, video games, or wine it’s probably true. I live directly above the center of the earth with my amazing husband, precocious daughter, ridiculous dog, a few horses and a growing baby belly.

Visit Tristina at www.tristinawright.com!  

This week's excerpt comes from THE GIRL WITH THE PORCELAIN WINGS:

Eighteen-year-old Rumor never imagined the flawless statue of a young woman in shackles at the museum could be alive. But the statue is more than an object of art—she’s a Gargoyle princess imprisoned in cold marble and the victim of an ancient war between the Nightworld and the Council of Nine.

He agrees to help free the princess in exchange for protection and answers regarding his dark past and prophetic visions. While Rumor doesn’t much care for politics, he cannot deny his growing fascination with the mysterious and beautiful princess, even if siding with her kind marks him for death. But while a fierce and deadly war rages around him, revelations about his bloodline and his gift make him more crucial to the Nightworld than anyone realizes.

So without further ado, Tristina's Epic Tragic Love.

She shakes her head, dumbfounded. "I cannot believe you can rationalize this so easily. Look at you. Look at what you have become. You gave up your soul." The last sentence comes out barely above a whisper.

The muscles on the side of his jaw bulge then smooth again. He crosses the room, grabbing her shoulders and pinning her against the door. She swallows a cry as her wounds scream in hot pain and glares at him, silently daring him to try anything.

"I did this for us. For this family," he snarls.

"Family? What family? We haven't been a family in over four hundred years. There is no family. You made sure of that." Her body, ever traitorous, responds to his touch as if it had only been one day apart. A hundred images fly through her mind. In alleyways. On rooftops. In his home. In her room. In his bed. His hands exploring her in wonder. His eyes staring at her in disbelief. His hair twisted in her fingers. His lips scorching her skin. His smile. His laugh. His voice. His emotions. Everything for her—for the light he found when his future looked bleak.

His grip tightens on her shoulders. His fingers dig into her skin. A low growl rumbles in his chest, more animal than human, his eyes boring into her.

Her eyes narrow.

His mouth collides with hers so forcefully it parts her lips. He releases her shoulders and pins her to the wall with his body. She shivers as his cool palms trace the curve of her waist and the flare of her hips. His fingers find where the cloth of her shirt gives way to bare back and dig into her skin, his thumbs slipping under her shirt along her stomach.

Her hands slide around his neck of their own volition, clutching at him. The room shifts, and something comes unhinged inside, turning her ache into a need and that need into heat and that heat spills out of her in a riot of color that circles back into her and becomes fire. His body is hard and cold, the muscles corded and tensed like a bowstring. She runs her fingers over his shoulders, down his arms and up his chest, knotting his shirt in her hands. Hot against cold. Light against dark. Soft against hard. Curves against straight lines.

His lips betray a fevered urgency, almost desperate, as if he is trying to prove something to her or to himself; she cannot tell which. He presses against her harder, making it impossible for her to draw breath. She gasps into his mouth and wedges her palms over his heart—

Nothing but cold and silence. She stiffens.

With a growl, he pulls away, his hands dragging through his hair. She rearranges her features to block the torrent of emotion swirling around her as heat pumps through her veins, pooling inside her like hot wax. Her lips burn with icy heat, swollen and raw. She clutches her arms, suppressing a shiver, and berates her own lack of self-control.

"Do you still love me? Or am I now merely an obsession?" she whispers.

He glares at her. "How can you ask such a thing?"

"That's not an answer. Do. You. Love. Me." She presses her palm to his cold chest. "Here. Do you love me here? Do you love your son here?"

He gazes at her, his eyes endless pools of nothing. She drops her hand and moves away to the window. "I thought as much."

He turns to the door, then stops, his hand on the door frame. "I don't need a silly, little organ flopping about in my chest to tell me I love you," he whispers before he abandons the room, slamming the door behind him.

And don't forget, it's never too late to volunteer some of your own Epic writings.  Contact me at amclites@gmail.com.