WiP Wednesday (Blood)

Wing is coming out in ten days; sign up for my newsletter if you want a chance at a free copy.

I haven't done WiP (Work in Progress) Wednesday before, but I'm going to give it a try.

Here's a scene from the next book after Wing, the book I'm working on now--Blood, Book 6 of The Unfinished Song.

Not Umbral, but another villain, even more vile, sees Dindi:

A new taste touched his tongue.

He coiled the thread of light around his pinkie and licked his finger. The magic was… fresh. Whose?

He did not move; only his eyes followed the thread backward from whence it had darted from the maze of dancers. The familiar bodies, the expected strands of light, in monochrome and polychrome, nothing out of place, nothing in excess of his plan…until his gaze came to rest on the human girl.

The human girl had magic.

How had he not seen it before? How had he looked her in the face and not seen her before?

She was young, almost a child, and far too pretty to be bright. Prettiness and stupidity marched together in humans. For them, experience always resulted in ugliness, as their reality, mortality, stomped over and over on their features, squashing spotless faces into a mash of scars and wrinkles and rotted teeth. As with all young fools, though, she was already reaching for the affairs which would ruin her. Her guileless face was betrayed by a sly smile, lips slightly parted. A bit of clown paint from earlier in the day had been inadequately smeared away, leaving a smudge on her cheek, and about her eyes. Raw, yet full of sexual need, as human females always were, she flexed her body like a she-cat in first heat. Her hair tumbled freely down her back. Dark hair she had, burnt umber, except where the dyed tips of those tendrils ended in the color of fire like live coals. She panted as she danced. She had allowed one sleeve of her garment to slide down, to expose the roundness of her shoulder and draw notice to the dip between her breasts. Sweat sparkled in the cleavage. She had unlaced her legwals to display her legs all the way up the side of her thighs. When she whirled, the material spun upward, goading him to search for the enchantments underneath. Every provocation was artless and artful: perfectly planned spontaneity.

He forced his stare onto her like a weight, as a wrestler pinned down an adversary beneath the whole of his body, willing her to acknowledge his mastery.

She looked up, directly into his eyes. For a moment, their gazes crossed the chasm across a slender cord of mutual defiance. Nothing tainted that bridge of attention. It was pure. She was obsessed with him; he could taste it. Unlike Vessia, this woman feared him. She feared him more than any other person or pack or power in Faearth. His body tingled with satisfaction.

Again -- If you want to know when The Unfinished Song (Book 6): Blood will be out, make sure you're on the newsletter list.