Blog Tour ~ "Soul Avenged" by Keri Lake

First & foremost, I'd like to give a shout-out to lovely Keri Lake, for the opportunity to be a part of this Tour! You're awesome, Keri! :)

Keep reading, and you'll find the Soul Avenged blurb, buy links, excerpt, Keri's Bio, amazing "Fire & Ice" Giveaway, aaaaaand (as Keri is such a great lady) there's a purrfect Wrath brothers theme post - yep, just scroll down, and there's Logan for y'all! Hope you'll enjoy it as much as I have.

Oh, another thing - stop by tomorrow, and you'll find my (five star) review of Soul Avenged! 

Now, let's begin...

Title: Soul Avenged (Sons of Wrath #1)

Author: Keri Lake

Release date: February 6th 2013.

Genre: Adult Paranormal Romance/Dark Urban Fantasy

ISBN: 978-0-9848517-3-7

Number of pages: 533

Buy Links: Barnes & Noble | Amazon (paperback) | Amazon (Kindle) | Amazon UK (Kindle) | Smashwords

~ Book Blurb ~ 

Passion is blind in vengeance and love … 

Ayden’s suburban home was invaded by a pack of Lycans.

The brutal attack is the only memory she carries of her former life.

Now, one motive burns in her soul:

KILL THEM ALL.

The Sons of Wrath—a brood of vengeance-dealing warrior demons—band with Ayden to hunt the Lycans on Detroit’s most deadly feeding grounds.

Kane Walker should’ve been her easiest kill.

Unfortunately, the newly bitten Lycan has something she wants—clues that may finally lay her past to rest. To reach them, she must be willing to submit to the sensual pleasures awakened by his touch.

Time is running out.

In seven days, Kane will become what Ayden despises most. She can halt his transformation but the antidote requires the ultimate sacrifice. As the beast takes hold, Kane becomes more of a threat.

Ayden must choose between her lust for revenge, or surrender to her enemy and discover a horrible truth.

~ Excerpt ~

CHAPTER ONE 

Ice water.

The frigid sensation sliced through Ayden’s veins, leaving a numb trail in its wake as she stepped through the remains of the abandoned factory—one of many havens for the crack addicts and prostitutes. The old Packard Plant had become no more than a ghostly haunt for tormented souls.

Shitholes were cropping up everywhere, much more rapidly than ever before. Detroit, once a thriving city, brought to ruins. Gray and lifeless like the suffocating overcast that loomed during daylight.

A vile stench assaulted her nose, a potent blend of piss, sex and rotted meat, as garbage crunched beneath her boots. Foundation had collapsed all around where she stood, crumbled as if the building would fold into the depths of hell.

The graffiti spattering the walls gave the impression that gangs were the real threat—‘We don’t die, we multiply.’

Right. Like gangs own any part of this city, anymore.

A Beretta, loaded with silver bullets and a silver parrying dagger rested at one of Ayden’s hips, a silver bullwhip at another, as she moved past comatose bodies and decaying corpses.

Feeding grounds, like a bait pile.

Deadened eyes slowly tracked her movement in the darkness, squinting, as though craving the light that hers didn’t need to see. Humans so strung out on drugs, they failed to recognize the half-eaten carrion were once their own kind.

Not that knowing would stop them. They’d apparently chosen to face danger rather than kick their addiction, roaming the streets every night in search of their next high.

Lambs.

They were already dead. Death just hadn’t come to collect yet.

The blissful sigh of a hopped-up junkie reached her ears. She snarled her lip. “Enjoy it while it lasts, asshole.”

It’d be one thing if they were homeless. Hell, she might’ve fired a warning shot to evacuate.

The homeless didn’t come here, though.

Neither did the police—making it the perfect spot to get wasted and hustle some money.

Shots fired would’ve been nothing more than a momentary distraction before their minds slipped back into their ignorant state of euphoria.

Screw ‘em.

For any other girl, the place promised very bad things—an opportunity for a sadist to live out wild fantasies without ever getting caught.

For Ayden? Humans posed no threat. Their fragile bodies would shred like paper dolls against the work of her hands. Luckily for them, she sought something else to sate her thirst for bloodshed, something far more threatening than their most psychopathic criminal—and she’d tracked it right to the surrounding cornucopia of human flesh.

A thin, black mesh hoodie beneath her jacket concealed her face while the shiny black leather covering her body acted as a beacon in the moon’s light.

Full moon.

It didn’t matter.

Contrary to the fairytales and movies, they didn’t need a full moon to change.

Werewolves, some called them—like a supernatural Bigfoot on the loose. Nothing more than fodder for the tabloids, not to be taken seriously.

Lycans is how those ‘in the know’ referred to them.

The bastards could transform at will. In the middle of the day, if they wanted. Though, like a true predator, they’d evolved throughout the centuries, eluding humans by hunting them at night, catching their prey in their most vulnerable state.

Ayden reached a door in a darkened corner. The stubborn panel held stiff against the push of her palm, giving way only beneath one heave backed by exceptional strength. Beyond, a spiral of stairs wound above and below. Visuals flashed through her mind as she imagined the stairwell bustling with men in suits who passed each other with carefree visages—every one of them ghosts that roamed the destruction.

A quick scan showed no movement.

She tipped her head back and inhaled the repugnant scent the beasts had left behind.

They’re close.

Her feet took light steps, hardly making a sound against the concrete as she descended further into the pit of hell otherwise known as the lycan’s lair.

With each step, she wished her heart would pound wildly in her chest, or that her pulse rate would surge—both human reactions to fear. Neither of them did.

What fragments of her human soul remained had been stripped bare the night the Alexi made her one of their own. Even that, as tortuous as the unrelenting pain that seared through her body while it underwent its transformation, was a memory she could hardly summon anymore. Only a silent blackness dwelled in the place where snapshots of her life would have roamed free, a void that she couldn’t see beyond, separating her present from past.

She’d become one of them: an Alexi soldier. A cold and remorseless killer designed to eradicate in one sweep.

A noise piqued her sensitive ears.

Two flights below.

It could’ve been the skittering feet of a mouse beating against her skull like a base drum.

The thirst for blood moved like a dark storm cloud through her veins, a mix of raw adrenaline and something else—the something that came with her transformation.

Destroy.

Her feet moved on impulse, carrying her closer to whatever it was, rendering it nothing more than a thread-width away from its death.  

In the corner of a landing, he sat hunched over on himself, body convulsing.

A grin skated across her face as she approached her first kill of the night.

~ Keri Lake Bio ~

Keri Lake is a married mother of two living in Michigan. She writes paranormal romance, urban fantasy and loves a good, tragic love story. Though novels tend to be her focus, she also writes short stories and flash fiction whenever distraction manages to suck her in to the Land of Shiny Things.

When she isn’t toiling away on plots and protagonists, she enjoys reading, music and travel. If she could create mystical powers for herself, she’d have the ability to flash to anywhere in the world. And if she could flash to anywhere in the world at this very moment, she’d be staring at the ocean from her adirondack chair on the shores of North Carolina.

Keri Lake | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon Author Page

Wrath Brothers Guest Post ~ Logan

Mother Nature's twisted torture.  The steady drip of rain fell against Logan’s face as he crouched behind a dumpster, eyes locked on the three lycans huddled in the back of the alley feeding off of their most recent kill.  The madness of trying not to squint every time large droplets hit his skin and traveled down his cheek had him on a razor’s edge. 

Hard to tell from where he sat whether the ravaged body on the ground was male or female—the only part still intact was an arm that stuck out between two of the wolves’ haunches. 

The beasts’ bodies jerked with quick spasmic movements as though the task of pulling the meat from the bone might leave them with one less bite to devour. 

They’d been working the carcass before Logan had arrived on scene and he could’ve easily taken a broom to their asses, wiping them out in one quick sweep, boom, boom, boom.  Dead.  But what the fuck was the fun in that?  Better for them to see it coming—to know their minutes on earth were about to be severed—just like their heads.

The arm was snatched up and dueling growls alerted a fight.  Logan cracked a grin as the two wolves faced off, leaving the third to feast on the crimson rack of ribs where a human used to lay.  Poor bastard.  A junkie, no doubt.  Addicts roamed the streets of Detroit like zombies at a brain surgery convention—always the first to kick it when the wolves came out to play.

The russet lycan swiped a claw and snapped its jaws at Gray fur.  Back and forth the two went until Gray bit down on Russet’s throat and thrashed the wolf against the brick building.  A yelp coupled with the bloody slab of meat that hung from Gray’s maw assured submission. 

Russet grabbed hold of its wound with a claw, and as if realizing it’d been overcome, moved to the opposite side of the body, cowering its head as the beast leaned in for a bite.

Hairs on Logan’s nape bristled and he twisted quickly, dagger drawn and pressed against his brother, Zeke’s, throat.  Logan lowered the weapon and frowned.

With a shit-eating grin, Zeke crept forward and crouched beside him. 

“A muscle twitch saved your ass from death.”  Logan spoke low.

“What the fuck’s the hold-up?  Females are waiting to ride this.”  Zeke grabbed himself through his jeans.

“Piss off.  I got this.”

“What gives?  Take them out and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Logan kept his gaze fixed on the wolves—the way they moved away and came back to the carcass—their impatience suggested unsated hunger.

“That’s the difference between you and me.”  Logan rubbed his jaw.  “Hope makes the blade shrewd.”  He could sense Zeke’s scowl beside him in the silence that followed. 

“Not only are you, like, a serial killer sick fuck, but you make no sense.”

The wolves padded down the alley on all fours toward them.  Logan leaned in to his brother.  “All three of them.  Mine.”

Zeke rolled his eyes.  “Just hurry the fuck up.  My balls feel like they’re about to explode.”

Logan stood up from his crouch, pulled his black hoodie over his head and positioned himself in the center of the alley, his hands resting against the silver daggers at each hip. 

The wolves stopped, lifted their muzzles and sniffed.

All three of them rose up on their haunches, each standing about eight feet tall, with matted fur soaked red.  Damn those growls that tickled Logan’s fancy like a crescendo before the shit-hits-the-fan forte.  He unsheathed his dagger, flipped it in the air, caught it by the blade and opened his palm, balancing it there. 

Zeke quietly groaned beside him.

As if pissed by his circus antics, Gray curled its lip and charged, pounding pavement like a locomotive ready to barrel Logan’s ass right off the planet.  The other two wolves flanked Gray, eyes wild as if the oncoming slaughter might earn them the magnum opus of ass kickery.

Logan jogged forward, blood pumping, muscles flexed, exhilaration blanketing his insides.  He ducked below a thrown claw, thrust his dagger forward and caught the beast at its right quarter, gutting the wolf’s recent meal.  The lycan curled in on itself and fell away. 

Lunging back to his feet, Logan unsheathed the second dagger and hurled it square in Russet’s chest, presumably where the bastard had a heart.  The lycan stumbled back a step, grabbed hold of the hilt and snarled its lip.  The silver would only hold it a minute or two.  Whoever came up with the bullshit fairytale that silver killed werewolves, never stood in a rain-slick alley with three on his ass.

The third wolf bared a maw full of bloodstained teeth as it bounded toward the demon.  Logan skirted to the side and swung his leg around, snapping into the broadside of the beast and sending it flying across the width of the alley into the brick.  Blocks burst and crumbled with the impact and a yelp signaled a damn good hit.

Russet came up on him quick and knocked Logan in the mid-section.  A pansy grunt escaped him as he held the beast back, his boots sliding along the wet concrete. 

Zeke’s snort hit the air and grated him.  Clearly the wolves were far too drool-happy to notice his brother crouched in the shadows.

Like shit wasn’t embarrassing enough, a set of gray claws wrapped around his body, catching Logan from behind in a bear hug and lifted him up off the ground. 

Son of a—

Logan kicked out his boots, knocking Russet in the face, then flexed his stomach, letting the momentum drop him to his feet.  Hunched forward, he twisted in his captor’s furry grip and swiped the blade across Gray's neck in one fluid movement.  The head hung by black tarry fibers and Logan chopped it to the ground. 

Third wolf leapt and caught his leg, knocking Logan square on his ass.  It straddled the demon and rained teeth.  Two guns strapped across Logan’s chest would’ve made a nice geyser of blood … if he’d ever used the damn things.  Instead, he seized the wolf by the neck and carved a goodbye note with his dagger into its flesh, then signed it with a big fuck you later to the brain.

He threw the dead-weight off of him and jumped to his feet, ready to finish off Russet.

The trickling of water across the pavement and the stillness of mutilated wolves stirred anger in his gut.  Logan swung around, dagger still in hand, as Zeke tossed the last of Russet’s limbs to the ground.

“My fucking kill, remember?”  Logan’s jaw ticked.

“Get over it, brother, I’m not sucking up blue balls all night so you can dance with wolves.”  He gave Logan a once-over.  “You wanna pick up a female? I suggest you wipe the blood off yourself and drop the fava beans and a nice chianti shit.  Creeps the ladies out.”

Chest heaving, Logan scowled, swiped a thumb across his nose and his gaze fell to the wolf on the ground beside him.  He picked his second dagger up off the ground and wiped the blood against his damp leathers.  Ordinarily they’d burn the bodies after a kill.  Droplets tickled his cheek and he grit his teeth.  Goddamn rain.

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