Darik: A Badari Warriors Scifi Romance Novel (Sectors New Allies Series #4) By Veronica Scott – Guest Post with Excerpt

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excerpt, guest post, scifi romance, series, Veronica Scott

Are you among the number of readers that has been enjoying Veronica Scott’s Badari Warriors Novels?  If so, you are in luck.  Today, Ms. Scott is back to introduce her latest addition to the series: Darik.  Welcome Veronica Scott!

Thank you so much for having me as a guest today! (And thanks for your support of scifi romance too…)

I’m having fun with my first ‘real’ series, the Badari Warriors, about genetically engineered soldiers of the far future and the human women who love them. It’s been interesting to write each book and keep the storyline fresh, plus advance the overall arc of the series itself but my Muse seems to be enjoying the challenge so far. And equally importantly, the feedback from readers has been so encouraging.

My hero this time, Darik, is really a self-confident guy, which is understandable since he’s 7’, with fangs and claws and muscles, and a lot of military training and experience. I mean, who or what is going to tangle with him? Well actually, as the story progresses, it turns out a Badari warrior doesn’t necessarily always have the upper hand. Darik is in for some rough times.

The heroine, Nicolle, is a tough human woman (because I really can’t write any other kind of leading lady – sorry not sorry) who doesn’t realize how strong she really is in her own way. She also has some unexpected attributes that help her and Darik as the action unfolds.

And then there’s MARL12. Readers of the series know that in book one, MARL a stranded alien Artificial Intelligence who was around 10,000 years old was discovered. Grateful for being rescued from his predicament, MARL decided to throw his lot in with the humans and Badari as they fight the alien scientists. Now in this book Darik has been ‘honored’ by being sent on a mission with the first ‘mini MARL’, to see how well they can work together. Problems of course ensue!

The blurb:

Nicolle James is far from her home in the human Sectors, kidnapped by alien scientists to be the subject of horrifying experiments. Her only hope might be a mysterious soldier she’d glimpsed outside the laboratory fence. She’d managed to sneak a few words of conversation with him when her captors weren’t watching but now the aliens were taking her inside the lab to begin the experiments.

Darik, a warrior of the genetically engineered Badari pack, is on a solo recon mission to check out a mysterious new lab high in the mountains. His orders are strict – do not engage. But when he has a chance meeting with the woman who might be his mate, he vows not to abandon her, orders or no orders.

Can he get inside an underground lab, find Nicolle and rescue her without getting captured himself? And when he learns the lab’s deadly secrets, can he get word to his pack about the new dangers?

Because the ruthless alien scientist running the experiments wants to get her hands on him too and will stop at nothing to achieve her goals.

The excerpt: (MARL12 has refused to disrupt the force barrier around the zoolike outdoor area of the installation so Darik can rescue Nicolle, although he did drive away a huge predator threatening her. MARL12 gets the last word at the end.)

Darik took a step forward, halting abruptly as a harsh buzz emanated from the barrier, as if the power was building to repel or punish him. “I’ll do my best to get you out, I swear.”

Cringing as another wave of torment washed through her nervous system, Nicolle said, “That and a credit will buy me a cup of coffee, soldier boy. I don’t think Dr. Hidamarr is going to give us up easily. She said we wouldn’t ever leave her lab once we were taken inside.” Brushing tears off her cheeks, she stumbled into a clumsy run, heading for the prisoner shelter. Anger, fright, and regret battled for top spot in her roiled emotions. How could he stand idly by, knowing what he obviously did about the Khagrish, and leave her and the others to their awful fate? Darik sounded like a good guy, but his inaction left her livid. Even if the robot or whatever-it-was had authority over his actions, he’d indicated he could place a call to others for help. So why didn’t he? I wish I’d never met him. I wish he’d let the bearbeast kill me.

Darik watched her go, his own adrenaline and anger raging at his inability to help Nicolle. His heart pounded so hard it felt too big for his body and all the primitive battle instincts coded into his DNA urged him to fling himself at the barrier to get to her side. Letting her walk away from him while he stood and did nothing was like a Khagrish lash striking his exposed heart.

She’d obviously been angry and bitterly disappointed over his apparent refusal to help her. She must hate me right now. Even if he’d had time to explain matters more fully, her opinion probably wouldn’t have changed and the knowledge stung. Leaving others to suffer at the hands of the Khagrish ran totally counter to his deepest instincts. His self-revulsion applied doubly to failing Nicolle, for reasons not entirely clear to him. They’d barely exchanged a few words, he knew next to nothing about her. But I want to know everything.

The realization was unsettling and so unlike him that he drew a deep, shaky breath.

The Great Mother could not have been so cruel as to send him the woman who might be his mate under these dire circumstances, could she? But why else would he have this unreasoning, bone deep fury riding him?

He had to fight to keep his fangs and talons from deploying. There was no adversary for him to battle. He turned his head as MARL12 cautiously approached, its overall colors pale green and yellow. Darik bit his lip to avoid swearing at the AI or begging it to make a hole in the force field, enabling him to go after Nicolle. I never expected my ally to become an impediment. The primary MARL unit had willingly accompanied Jill Garrison and assisted her in freeing humans and Badari alike. So what was wrong with unit 12 causing it to constantly refuse to assist him in a rescue?

As he paced into the forest, sticking to the shadows, he pondered. Maybe the smaller units were equipped with a less agile intelligence pack, not as able to recalculate when conditions in the field took a radical change. Oh yes, his final report was going to be blistering, and he hoped he got to confront MARL’s main unit itself.

If MARL12’s recalcitrance cost him the chance to find his mate, then the AI wasn’t going to make it back to sanctuary valley.

But none of these iron hard resolutions would help Nicolle today. Giving up on her was not a choice he could bring himself to make. There was no way he was walking away from her but he had to be cagy if he was going to get MARL12 to do what he wanted.

“I’m going to retrace our path, maneuvering to where we can see the entrance to the lab,” he said casually after a few more minutes passed, and they were quite a distance from where he’d left Nicolle. “I want to observe while the humans are taken into custody, see if I can glean any useful intelligence about the staffing here. More data for our report home.”

“But we will not intervene.”

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Links

Add Darik to your Goodreads shelf:

Purchase Darik:

Amazon          iBooks          Nook

Google          Kobo

Purchase books 1-3 in the Badari Warrior series:

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About the Author

USA Today Best Selling Author

“SciFi Encounters” columnist for the USA Today Happy Ever After blog

Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything. When she ran out of books to read, she started writing her own stories.

Seven time winner of the SFR Galaxy Award, as well as a National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, Veronica is also the proud recipient of a NASA Exceptional Service Medal relating to her former day job, not her romances!

She read the part of Star Trek Crew Member in the audiobook production of Harlan Ellison’s “The City On the Edge of Forever.”

Find Veronica Scott at:

Blog: https://veronicascott.wordpress.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vscotttheauthor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Veronica-Scott/177217415659637?ref=hl

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Meet Sir Rupert from Lost Valyr – Guest Post by Pauline Baird Jones – With Excerpt

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excerpt, guest post, Nyssa Juneau, parrot, Pauline Baird Jones, Pets in Space, Project Enterprise, series

Regular WWMB readers know that I am a fan of the quirky humor that is abundant in the books of Pauline Baird Jones. But ever since the Pets in Space phenomenon, I am even more of a fan. So I asked Pauline if she would like to feature Sir Rupert today.

Nyssa Juneau – Artist

Guest Post by Pauline Baird Jones

I commit random acts of plotting, which results in random acts of writing. When I decided that my pet for Embrace the Romance: Pets in Space 2 was going to be a parrot, I had no clue what role he or she would play in the story. Possibly because I had no clue what the story was going to be about. I knew one thing about the story.

I knew that Briggs, from The Key and Girl Gone Nova would be the hero.

Readers had been requesting a story about the gruff, older Sergeant Major who was almost as mysterious in many ways, as the Project Enterprise expedition.

Choosing Briggs as my hero created an almost insurmountable problem for me. He was currently stationed in a highly top secret location in another galaxy equipped with alien cloaking technology, so no one could ask for directions or get in very easily.

Not exactly the location for a coffee or dinner date.

Plus, for a short story, I needed the “meet” with the heroine to happen fast and for them to be relatively isolated from other sources of help.

And then something mystical happened. I “saw” my heroine and she had a parrot on her shoulder.

Why? Who was she? Where was she going?

I remembered a rebel time travel organization from Nebula Nine and suddenly I had a plot percolating inside my head for what was to become “Time Trap.” Eventually, the story spilled onto the page and I learned a lot about Sir Rupert, my parrot. But there was still a lot I didn’t know about him.

So when he strolled onto the scene in Lost Valyr, I was excited for round two with this sentient—and in my humble opinion—very funny parrot.

No surprise he added some challenges to the writing.

He’s a very strong personality.

He doesn’t just nudge, and occasionally shove, Rachel, he also made his presence in the plot known in some interesting and surprising ways.

He had some goals that weren’t always compatible with Rachel’s.

And, as we learned in “Time Trap,” he has some abilities that can be helpful—but also dangerous for him if they become widely known.

While Sir Rupert gets a partial resolution to his story in Lost Valyr, there are still threads that could be picked and explored. So I have a feeling that we will meet up with Sir Rupert again.

Here’s an excerpt featuring my wily avine:

“The ticking is bugging me. And the music helps me concentrate.”

The other brow rose. “Concentrate?” His expression asked how that was possible.

She grinned. “You have to feel the beat, get into the zone.” She started to move her upper torso to the beat of “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress.” Something she’d never be, but it had a great beat. She kept the moves subtle and then held her hands up, flexing the fingers. “Rock’n roll. You rock to it and the inspiration rolls.”

She turned to the console, laced her fingers and gave them a nice stretch, then dove in. The music changed to a mellow version of “Twist and Shout.”

“It feels less loud if you feel the beat,” Sir Rupert said, moving his head in time to the organ solo. Rachel gave him a thumbs up and noticed Valyr trying not to look incredulous. Though he wasn’t trying very hard. The edges of his mouth were twitching again. All the best heroes had a sense of humor, in her opinion. Not that he was a hero, well, he wasn’t her hero. He might even be her downfall when she presented him to Doc.

“It helps to move,” Sir Rupert told Valyr, adding a few hops to his routine.

Her gaze lifted just in time to meet Valyr’s—and a flicker of heat flared in the yummy brown depths. And then it was gone, and she wondered if she’d imagined it. Probably imagined it. Her sense of humor prompted her to tease him just a bit.

“Just a small shoulder shake?” She wriggled hers, sort of surprised at herself. Maybe it was the red shirt? When his brows arched and his shoulders didn’t, she gave him an impish smile.

His lips twitched again, which she took as a positive sign of…something. He crumpled the wrappers from her former lunch, stuffed them into the brown lunch bag and looked around for some place to put them. If there’d ever been trash cans in their room, there wasn’t now. He finally set the bag on the floor and drank the rest of the water, then set that bottle by the bag. It bothered him, which was curious. She filed it with all the other curious things about him. She should get to work, but her eyes stayed glued on him, even as her body kept time with the song.

He rubbed his temples, then with an interesting reluctance, looked at the Urclock. She couldn’t see his face, but there was a lot of tension in his super straight back. He lifted his hands, flexing them as if he wanted to do something with them, but wasn’t sure what. Her inner physician noticed that he was getting more flexible and his color was better. Nothing in their research indicated this swift of a recovery from cryo-stasis. His brows drew together in a scowl, and his hands curled into fists. So small at first, she wondered if she imagined it, his shoulders twitched. When they did again, right on the beat, she had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. The heart of rock and roll was hard to resist. She ticked the volume up just a little.

To her surprise, Sir Rupert began to sing along. He leaned his head toward hers and, well, it would have been rude to an important ally not to join in. Valyr swung around to stare at them as they—and their voices—rose in the final crescendo.

She grinned at his dropped jaw—which he snapped shut—and said, “We could take our act on the road.”

Sir Rupert lifted a claw for her fist bump. “Indeed.” He looked thoughtful. “One could make the case that we are on the road—and off-road.”

Rachel laughed. “And running into the ditch—” She met Valyr’s gaze and forgot what she was going to say. His head tipped to one side, and well, she didn’t know what his gaze said. Other than it curled her toes in her expedition issue boots. She was a genius, but also a girl. She’d observed attraction, both the good and the bad. She’d wondered what her type was. She had not expected it to be a thousand-year-old, recently defrosted alien.

About Lost Valyr

She’s a scientist in the wrong galaxy. He’s an alien in the wrong century. Can their love reset a terrifying future?

Dr. Rachel Grant knows her way around the Garradian tech on the Kikk Outpost. But the technology she encounters in an alien medical lab stumps even her brilliant mind. With a little help from her scheming parrot sidekick, she manages to push the right buttons and transport them to an uncharted planet…where they find a recently defrosted alien, who heats up Rachel.

Valyr wasn’t going to warm up to the bright-eyed scientist anytime soon…not after she pried centuries of cryosleep from his cold fingers. But waking up in the wrong century is nothing compared to the robots targeting his still-frozen team. And their situation only gets worse when he discovers the spiderweb of destruction trailing in the robots’ wake. With their backs against the wall, Valyr is blown away by Rachel’s determined passion in the face of impossible odds… but they’ll need more than a chemical reaction to survive what is headed their way.

Lost Valyr is the seventh standalone book in the explosive Project Enterprise sci-fi romance series. If you like heart-pounding chemistry, ragtag bands of misfits, and action-packed space battles, then you’ll love Pauline Baird Jones’ rollicking romance.

Buy Lost Valyr to defrost a fast-paced interstellar love story today!

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Links

Add Lost Valyr to your Goodreads shelf:

Pre-Order Lost Valyr:

Amazon          Ibooks          Kobo
B&N          Google

Purchase Time Trap from Pauline’s website:

Purchase other books in the Project Enterprise series:

 Purchase Nebula Nine:

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About the Author

USA Today Bestselling author Pauline Baird Jones never liked reality, so she writes books. She likes to wander among the genres, rampaging like Godzilla, because she does love peril mixed in her romance.

Find Pauline at:

Website: http://www.paulinebjones.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorPaulineBairdJones/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paulinebjones
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/247227.Pauline_Baird_Jones
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/perilouspauline/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulinebjones/
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Pauline-Baird-Jones/e/B000APFS0M/
Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/pauline-baird-jones
Youtube (Dead Author Live Videos): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC246_a-liiXa_Y_uRlSQZgQ

Where Do Dreams Come From by Cecilia Dominic – Guest Post

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Cecilia Dominic, dreams, guest post, parnormal, series

Today’s special guest is Cecilia Dominic.  She has a new book releasing today, Tangled Dreams.  It is part of a her new series, Dream Weavers and Truth Seekers, which is near and dear to the author’s heart. Want to know why?  Read on.

Welcome Cecilia!

Where do dreams come from?
by Cecilia Dominic

Thank you so much for hosting me today, Riley!

I’ve always been a vivid dreamer, and as a sleep psychologist, I sometimes talk with my patients about their dreams. My new urban fantasy series, Dream Weavers & Truth Seekers, allowed me to bring some of my knowledge into one of my imaginary worlds, which was so much fun!

In this series, including today’s release, some of my characters enter the Collective Unconscious, or dream world. Just as with regular dreams, it’s a strange place filled with magic, legends, and weird juxtapositions like skyscrapers on top of medieval storefronts. Sometimes there are rules, and sometimes there aren’t which keeps my characters guessing.

So where do dreams come from? This is a question that humanity has been trying to figure out for a long, long time. Due to their bizarre imagery, people have associated our nocturnal wanderings with supernatural occurrences. One example of this is the stories in ancient texts such as the Bible about divine beings communicating with people through dreams.

Then, in the early twentieth century, Carl Jung came along. He was a student of Sigmund Freud and, some would say, father of dream psychology. He is the one most associated with the term Collective Unconscious. He writes:

Naturally, if we ask someone why he had such and such a dream, what are the secret thoughts in it, he cannot tell us. He will say that he had eaten too much in the evening, that he was lying on his back; that he had seen or heard this or that the day before – in short, all the things we can read in the numerous scientific books about dreams. (C.G. Jung, Dreams, p. 6 – full reference below)

He goes on to say that, per Freud, the dreams are a reflection of psychic “constellations,” or images that have the most connections to other images because they have the strongest emotions associated with them. They’re also a reflection of “repressed wishes.” You know there had to be repression in there somewhere. So, the dreams are going to be expressions of things you want, but don’t want to admit you want because it’s too painful to think about not getting them, and your brain is going to use images that are emotionally meaningful to get your attention.

So what, exactly, does the brain do during dreaming? Imaging studies have shown that as the brain goes to sleep and into REM sleep (our primary dreaming sleep stage, although it can happen at other times, too), the frontal cortex powers down. You can think of it as the logical, strict parent going to bed and leaving the teenagers awake with an unlocked liquor cabinet, or even better, with Pandora’s Box.

When the sleeping brain opens Pandora’s Box and starts dreaming, what happens? The more advanced parts of the brain that cause movement turn off so you won’t act stuff out or respond physically to what you’re dreaming about, but some of the ones deeper in the brain turn on, which contributes to the feeling of movements in dreams. This is also what happens when your dog or cat starts dreaming since we share some of these “less advanced” structures.

The imagery itself is likely coming from an area called the visual association cortex. During the day, it gets its input from sight and imagination, but at night, it’s all about memory and imagination, which explains why it pulls in images you saw during the day but also makes up weird stuff. This may also be why dream imagery fades as we get competing input through our morning. The theory is that the visual association cortex communicates with the anterior limbic structures, which contribute to the experience of emotions. And anyone who’s woken from a nightmare or stress dream is very aware that emotions are involved in dreaming.

As you can see, dreaming is a complex process that involves several different parts of the brain. I think it’s interesting that so many of the structures that cause and interpret our daytime experiences are doing the same in our dreams, but without us being aware of it or remembering most of it. As for messages, it’s likely that our brains sometimes use our dreams to get our attention, but the meanings of specific images will differ between individuals.

I love hearing about dreams, so please tell me… Are you a vivid dreamer? What’s the weirdest one you can remember?

Note: The Jung quote comes from a translation of a compilation of a bunch of his works. Or maybe it’s a compilation of a translation of his works. Either way, here’s the reference:

Jung, C.G. (1974). Dreams. (R.F.C. Hull, Trans.). New Jersey: Princeton/Bollingen. (Original works published 1916-1945).

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About Tangled Dreams

When the walls between reality and the dream world crumble, sleeping with the lights on won’t save anyone from their nightmares.

Restaurant reviewer Audrey Aurora Sonoma’s life is like a steakhouse meal: utterly predictable, comfortable, and just exciting enough to satisfy her independent streak. But when odd characters from her dreams show up during daylight hours – were-bats and a vegetarian dragon, of all things! – the menu goes from familiar to fusion. When she learns the job she accepted in her dream is real, well… Who would have guessed the goddess Persephone exists? Finding her – and figuring out why the walls between reality and the Collective Unconscious are slipping – seem to be impossible tasks for a mere mortal.

Damien Lewis turned down promotions to keep his life orderly and predictable. He has enough challenge with real-life hassles like eating regular meals. And forget dating. But after encountering three naked, delirious Jane Does on consecutive nights, he suspects more than drugs are behind their appearances, and he soon becomes much more involved than he’d like.

As the walls between the Collective Unconscious and real world continue to erode, vampires, demons, and, of course, were-bats come through to prey on those who get in the way of the god who is masterminding it all with human help. Can Audrey and Damien face their biggest fears and work together to stop the waking world from being overrun by creatures that no human has dared to dream of? Or will their nightmares become real – and permanent – when the pathways open for good?

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Links

Add books in the Dream Weavers and Truth Seekers series to your Goodreads shelf:

Purchase Tangled Dreams or other Dream Weavers and Truth Seekers series books:

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About the Author

By day, clinical psychologist Cecilia Dominic – her pen name – helps people cure their insomnia. By night, this urban fantasy and steampunk author writes fiction that keeps her readers turning pages past bedtime. She prefers the term “versatile” to “conflicted” and has been published in short story and novel-length fiction. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with one husband and two cats.