Excerpt & Giveaway: Sins of the Warrior by Linda Poitevin

Today, one my favorite authors is here today with an excerpt from her newest book and a giveaway to celebrate its release. Linda Poitevin writes both contemporary romance and dark urban fantasy thrillers. I always enjoy chatting with Linda on Twitter and reading her blog and FB posts. The woman is the Energizer Buy on steroids, I swear. She exhausts me just reading her posts. :D

Linda Poitevin is a writer possessed of both a light side and a dark one. On the dark side, she’s the author of the Grigori Legacy, an urban fantasy series featuring a hard-as-nails cop caught up in the war between Heaven and Hell. In her lighter moments, she writes the sweet and funny Ever After contemporary romance series. And when she’s not plotting the world’s downfall or next great love story, she’s a wife, mom, friend, coffee snob, gardener, walker of a Giant Dog, minion to the Itty Bitty Kitty, and avid food preserver (you know, just in case that whole Zombie Apocalypse thing really happens).

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Alex emerged from the bathroom to find Michael waiting for her in the hallway, back against the wall, arms crossed. She held up a hand. “Don’t,” she said. “Just...don’t.”

She brushed past him and made her way to the kitchen, any hope of sleep long gone. Perhaps for good.

Michael followed her. “We need to talk, Alex.”

“No. We don’t.” She took the coffee pot from the machine and filled it with cold water. Poured it into the reservoir. Replaced the pot on its element. Scooped coffee into the filter.

“You can’t just give up like this.”

Her hand jerked, dumping coffee grounds across the counter. She rested fists on either side of the mess and closed her eyes. “I’m not giving up. I’m facing reality. That Fallen One didn’t even hesitate. She pushed aside that sword as if it didn’t exist. As if I didn’t exist. I don’t care how much practice I get, I can’t fight that, Michael. I could never fight that.”

“Alex—”

“Stop it. Please.” Alex set the scoop on the counter and turned to him, folding her arms over her belly. “I’ve promised to help you with Emmanuelle, and as long as you’re able to keep me here, I will. But beyond that, we’re done. You don’t have to pretend you want to help me anymore.”

“I wasn’t pretending. I thought—I wanted—” Michael’s brilliant green gaze met hers, equal parts ferocity, pity, and guilt glittering there. His jaw flexed as he compressed his lips. “You’re right, I do need you to help me with Emmanuelle, but I wanted to give you something in return. You almost killed Seth with that sword once. That should have been impossible. No human hand should be able to wield an Archangel’s sword at all, let alone with enough force to wound one of Heaven or Hell. I honestly thought...”

“What? That I was special? Well, I’m not. I’m nothing more than what Caim said I was at the beginning of all this—a pawn in some fucking cosmic game I have no control over. As for the sword, Aramael was still alive when I used it against Seth. Did it ever cross your mind that that was why I could do what I did?”

Michael braced his hands against the island counter. “Even if that’s true, it doesn’t explain how you summoned me across—”

“Don’t you get it?” Alex snarled. “Whatever you think, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. I get that you’re trying to give me some kind of hope I can escape this”— she waved a vague hand—”but we both know there’s no point. There never was. Unless you’re willing to end my life when this is done, there’s nothing you can do, Michael.”

There. She’d said it. She’d asked.

And now she waited for his answer.

“You know I can’t,” he said.

Self-righteous fury boiled over in her chest. The one thing she asked for in all this, the one thing she needed, and—

Pain tugged at the corners of Michael’s mouth. The fury in Alex hesitated. She took in the shadows in his eyes, the rigid line of the wings he kept tightly furled behind him, the bleak, hard planes of his face...

Something inside her folded. Crumpled. She blinked back the sting of tears. What the hell was she doing? This magnificent being—aggravating though he might be on occasion—was doing his level best to hold the universe together, and she accused him of not caring? Dared to ask him to go against everything he stood for, everything he was? The slap of clarity made her inhale sharply. Was this what she had become? What Seth had made her into? She slumped into the corner where pantry met countertop.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Shoulders that carried the weight of two realms still managed a shrug. “You have every right to be angry. None of this should ever have happened.”

None of it. Not Aramael or Seth or Lucifer...

Not Jen and Nina.

She swallowed. “But it did.”

“Yes.”

Silence drifted between them, a vast ocean filled with the knowledge that she would spend eternity with a divine being she both pitied and despised. The certainty that neither her soulmate’s sword nor Heaven’s greatest warrior himself could stop it from happening. The realization that it no longer mattered. Not in the grand scheme of things. Not when it was one life measured against billions; her life against the world’s very survival.

Eternity.

She couldn’t even fathom the concept.

**************************************

Heaven and Hell are at war

The clock is ticking

Homicide detective Alexandra Jarvis’s niece is missing and pregnant with Lucifer’s child, her sister has descended into madness, and the human race has begun a relentless spiral toward self-destruction that Alex is desperate to stop. Now Michael, the Archangel she holds responsible for Earth's plight, has returned—and he's demanding her help to track a missing god.

Heaven is losing

Fighting for the very survival of his own realm—and that of humanity—Michael’s only chance to defeat Hell lies in returning Heaven’s long-lost daughter to her throne before it’s too late. But first he’ll have to convince Alex to help him—and to keep her out of Seth’s clutches long enough for her to do so.

There can be no right choices

In a desperate bid to save both their worlds, Alex and Michael must put aside their animosity and find a way to work together in the face of increasingly impossible decisions…and unimaginable sacrifices.

*******************

“An epic battle story of good and evil” —Fresh Fiction

A kick ass storyline that keeps on moving” —Heroes and Heartbreakers

Publisher: Michem Publishing
Series: The Grogori Legacy #4
Format: ebook, paperback
Release Date:  September 18, 2015
Buying Links:  Amazon* | Kobo | Barnes & Noble | iBooks* | 
* affiliate links; the blog receives a small commission from purchases made through these links.

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