Many times in
romance novels, the Alpha male has a deep, dark secret. Something from his past
he does not want the heroine to know. Something that makes him feel unworthy of
the heroine’s love. He may go to great lengths to hide his fall from grace, but
usually secrets like that have a way of seeping out, of rising to the surface,
of magically appearing at the most inopportune time.
In my novella,
Abra Cadaver, Keane Malson is an ancient
Celtic warrior, cursed to roam the streets of the modern world, bring people
back to life, and capture demons. He meets Holly Brimmer, fifth grade teacher,
when she crashes her car on a rain-slicked road. Keane would very much like to
keep his fall from grace hidden, but he’s reminded of it every time he has to
save a new person, every time he has to take down an unruly demon, every time
he looks at Holly and knows he wouldn’t be good for her.
Here’s the tale
of his fall from grace:
A cruel curse. A
gift,
the wretched hag had called it. She must have had a twisted sense of humor to
go along with her witch’s candles, crystals, and potions. Keane would have
willingly died from the sword wound across his stomach. To die in battle,
fighting for his Celts and defending his homeland, would have been the highest
honor.
Instead, here he remained. A constant. A wheel that no
longer turned. A creature that looked like a man, but did things no sane man
would ever do. A murderer for the sake of keeping others alive. True, he only
killed demons, but when their blood stained his hands, it was hard to remember
he was keeping the demons from hurting anyone else.
He’d tried to refuse the witch’s attention, but when one’s
intestines are spilling out one’s lower abdomen in a warm, crimson coil, clear
thought is impossible. The pain he had been in at the time his soldiers brought
him to the crone had rendered him speechless, near death—a death he was ready
to accept.
However, his brother and second in command, Eliah, begged
the sorceress to save Keane. Eliah wept for Keane, his only brother, and though
it broke his heart to hear his brother fall so deeply into desperation, he did
not wish for his own life to be unnaturally lengthened. He’d accept his time to
leave this plane and go with dignity. To die a warrior’s death.
As he’d mustered up his final shreds of strength to decline
the hag’s offer of dark magick, Keane felt Eliah’s hand clamp over his, great
tears streaming down his brother’s young, battle-scarred face. Keane’s words
strangled in his throat looking into his brother’s eyes, and the witch took his
silence to mean he wanted her to work the spell. To pull him back from death’s
precipice.
Before he could stop her, the crafty sorceress had tossed
her chant, her dark magick, into him. His entrails healed, his skin mended.
Aside from a scar stretching clear across his stomach from the base of his
ribcage to the opposite hip, he was returned to his original state before the
slice of an opponent’s long-sword. A swipe that had ripped him from his horse
and brought him to the blood-soaked
battleground.
“You are saved, brother.” Eliah had helped him to his feet
and threw his arms around Keane’s
shoulders. “We will have many years together. We will finish
the fight. The Celts will be victorious!”
His soldiers had thrown up a cheer loud enough to rattle the
very ground beneath their feet.
Unfortunately, he was around to witness the Romans defeat
the Celts. At that moment, however,
seeing his brother’s joy made it hard for Keane to be angry
at being cheated out of his honorable demise.
“Thank you,” Keane had told the crone. She had given him his
life back.
“Truly a wonderful gift I’ve given thee. Your service will
be thanks enough, warrior.” The cackle she released into the candlelight
frightened him more than facing an army of fire-breathing dragons.
“My service?” He towered over the withered witch, but her
power leaped off her cloak-covered
fragility, and he staggered back.
Eliah caught him before he hit the ground again. “What do
you wish from us, witch?”
“I wish nothing from you, dear, but your brother owes me a
debt.” She ran her crooked fingers along
Keane’s bare arm and when he looked down, his bones were
visible beneath his flesh. She’d given him
a glimpse of the death he’d avoided.
“I asked you to save him.” Eliah stepped between the witch
and Keane. “I will pay for your
magick.” He plunged his hand into the coin purse at his
belt.
The hag put her hand over Eliah’s, and he froze, his eyes
wide with terror. Keane would never know for sure what the witch had done to
him with that touch, but Eliah slid his hand from his money pouch and let the
coins drop to the ground like golden hailstones.
“Only you can pay the debt.” She pointed at Keane, a nasty
smile on her cracked lips.
“Fine. How?” He was tired of the games. He had more homeland
to protect.
“I give you the abra cadaver, warrior. With it, you shall
save many as I have saved you tonight.” She angled a gnarled finger at Keane’s
arm focusing her cloudy, gray eyes on his flesh.
Standing amongst his men, Keane suddenly keeled over,
gripping his bicep as something seared his skin. The burn was incredible, as if
someone branded him with fired iron. When he pulled his hand away, an inked
serpent spiraled its black body around his bicep, and the witch’s voice echoed
in his head.
Marked with the snake,
in you I wake,
the power to shed
death from the dead.
With those words still whispering in the air, the hag
disappeared into the darkness of the night. He
had walked away, but instead of continuing the fight with
his men, he’d kept walking until he was
compelled to kneel beside an enemy soldier dying in the
carnage Keane’s army had unleashed. He’d
placed his hands over that soldier’s chest and brought him
back from the Dark Place.
From that point on, century after century, he’d been saving
people and killing demons to keep them
alive. He could barely call what he had a life. People weren’t
meant to live as long as he had. People
weren’t meant to do what he did.
All Keane Malson
wanted was an honorable death among his soldiers. He got something very
different, but maybe he’ll find love despite his curse. Pick up
Abra Cadaver today and enjoy!
Toodles,
Chris
