Merry Christmas!

May your Christmas be filled with laughter and joy! And your hearts open to love.

On such a beautiful day I decided to post another one of my deleted scenes. Actually, this is more like an extra scene, since it was never meant to be put in my book. It's just something that popped into my head when I was writing Forged in Fire.
I hope you enjoy it!

The following scene happens just before the events in Till Death and Beyond start. 

“Would you hurry up, please,” Ciaran all but growled at his sister, who sat curled up on a window seat reading a book and showed no signs of stirring from her favorite spot. “Or will I have to leave you here?”
He wouldn’t, of course. And she well knew it. The problem was—her dallying cost time. Time he didn’t have.
He glanced at the clock and cursed. They were late. His uncle and aunt were probably already gone, off to help the king—a little tidbit he knew only because he happened to walk in on the conversation. Not because he was invited.
The invitation wouldn’t have mattered, he would have invited himself, but leaving his sister, or Amira for that matter, was out of the question. Especially with Amira’s penchant for disappearing.
If he was not fast enough, she would vanish once again. He knew it. He hated living in constant fear that something might happen to her. The country was full of witch-hunters and the members of the Order sniffing around. It was dangerous.
The thought brought him back to the image of his sister Natalie twisting her long golden hair around her finger. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn she was stalling. Only it didn’t make sense.
Natalie and Amira had no friendship lost between them. If anything, it was fear chaining his sister every time she was near their cousin. Which actually made him realize the reason for the delay.
Ciaran had to admit Amira had a certain way about her. An aura, or probably a spirit. As if she had the whole world on her shoulders. He had the strangest feeling every time he glanced at her lifeless eyes. Something he couldn’t name, or even begin to comprehend.
Natalie had once told him she had chills crawling down her spine every time she came in the vicinity of her cousin.
It seeps through her pores, had been Natalie’s exact words. And even if Ciaran didn’t have a clue about what she’d referred to, Amira’s gaze sometimes unnerved him too. Only he refused to succumb to that feeling.
“That’s it,” he barged into her room, prepared to drag her if needed. “I would like to leave this house before I turn eighty.”
“But--”
“No buts. Logan is waiting and I wager Amira is not.”
Natalie lifted her chin. “But I haven’t finished the book!”
Ciaran grabbed for the thing, intent on returning it to her when they were in their uncle’s mansion, but the picture on the cover caught his attention. He looked at the bloody dagger, his eyes narrowing.
“Haven’t you already read this?” he asked, convinced he’d seen this dagger before.
Instead of answering him, she gritted her teeth in irritation. “I’m about to find out who the murderer is.”
Her words jogged his memory and suddenly he knew— “The duke. It’s always the duke.”
Not only had she read the book a few times already, but she’d also told him the plot. In detail.
“Ciaran!” Natalie exclaimed. “You just ruined it!”
“You’ll live,” he shot back. Gods help him to be that lucky after a week with Amira.

I loved this little glimpse into Ciaran and Natalie's interactions (pre-TDAB), especially since I got the opportunity to witness Ciaran's journey in Forged in Fire, and now I'm writing Natalie's story.

​Once again - I hope you enjoyed it. And Merry Christmas!