HER SHADOW WARRIOR   

Excerpt:

Elena picked up her step, wanting to reach the beach house before the rain came. Another gust of wind moved past her, followed by the reverberation of more thunder. The storm neared. But there was something more. An uneasy sensation moved through her, causing the hairs at the back of her neck to prickle. It was the all too familiar feeling of being watched.
 
Panic set in. What if her ex had finally figured out where she'd gone to? Had he followed her there to finish what he'd started a year earlier? An inward shudder moved through her as she looked around the deserted beach.
Her relief at finding the expanse of white sand around her empty did nothing to ease the pounding of her heart.
 
She stopped and closed her eyes, forcing herself to take a deep, calming breath. Just as the therapist she'd gone to a few months back had instructed her to do whenever she was feeling anxious. And she was beyond anxious at that point.

"No one knows you're here," she reminded herself. That meant her fear of her ex having followed her to the coast was irrational.

Tell that to the gooseflesh that had risen up on her arms.


Fingers sank into the flesh of her bare upper arm, drawing a startled gasp from her lips.

The grip tightened painfully.

Defending herself was a reaction that had long since become instinctive within her. Fight or risk dying; the later of which she'd come far too close to doing at the hands of her abusive husband. Tears blurring her vision, Elena jerked free and spun around, drawing the sandals she clutched in her hand back to use as a weapon against her attacker. Only no one was there.

Heart pounding even faster, she scanned the empty beach. If not for the intense, throbbing pain in her arm, she might have believed it was her mind playing tricks on her.

"Excessum…"

Death. She stiffened as the Latin word drifted past her in the wind.

"Who's there?" Elena demanded as the moon slipped behind the clouds, casting an eerie darkness over the beach.

Silence greeted her.

Then it came again. That unsettling sense of being watched. Stalked. Hunted for pleasure.

"What do you want from me?" she screamed.

The moon emerged from behind the wall of storm clouds, casting its glow across the beach around her just as something darker than the night itself came towards her, bringing with it an icy chill. Eyes, silvery-black and deadly met hers.

She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.

The clouds shifted over the moon once again and everything around her faded beneath the cover of night. Trapped in the darkness, her mind raced and her legs trembled wildly beneath her. Suddenly, something brushed past her, a rush of warm wind trailing behind it.

"Don't look in his eyes," a deep voice commanded. "And whatever you do, don't move."