Another reason to be proud!
Filipina author Kate Evangelista is releasing her first international novel at the end of this month. The cover alone is beautiful and very intriguing.
I will be posting my review soon so until then, enjoy this:
At Barinkoff Academy, there's only one rule: no students on campus after curfew. Phoenix McKay soon finds out why when she is left behind at sunset. A group calling themselves night students threaten to taste her flesh until she is saved by a mysterious, alluring boy. With his pale skin, dark eyes, and mesmerizing voice, Demitri is both irresistible and impenetrable. He warns her to stay away from his dangerous world of flesh eaters. Unfortunately, the gorgeous and playful Luka has other plans.
When Phoenix is caught between her physical and her emotional attraction, she becomes the keeper of a deadly secret that will rock the foundations of an ancient civilization living beneath Barinkoff Academy. Phoenix doesn’t realize until it is too late that the closer she gets to both Demitri and Luka the more she is plunging them all into a centuries old feud.
Excerpt:
I sat up and followed Calixta’s gaze
upward. I rubbed my eyes. I didn’t know what I was seeing at first. A statue? My
brain refused to snap together coherent thoughts. I didn’t realize I’d fallen so close to one of the garden
benches until I stared up at the boy that sat on one. He was strikingly
beautiful. His tumble of blonde hair curled just above his sculpted cheekbones.
He wore a silk shirt and a loosened cravat, like he’d become bored while
dressing and decided to leave himself in disarray. His ivory skin and frozen
position was what had me mistaking him for something carved from marble by
Michelangelo. Then he sighed—a lonely, breathy proof of life. If I had to
imagine what Lucifer looked like before he fell from heaven, the boy on the
bench would certainly fulfill that image. My brain told me I had to look away,
but I couldn’t.
“Luka,” Calixta said again, her voice
unsure, almost nervous. It no longer contained the steel and bite she had
threatened me with, which made me wonder who the boy was.
He leaned on his hands and crossed his
legs, all the while keeping his eyes fixed on the night sky. His movements
spoke of elegance and control. I’d encountered many people with breeding
before, but his took on the air of arrogance and self-assuredness of someone
used to getting what he wanted when he wanted it.
I only realized I’d been holding my
breath when my lungs protested. I exhaled. My heart sputtered and restarted
with a vengeance. Luka tore his gaze away from the stars and settled it on me.
I’d expected pitch-black irises, like the other Night Students, but blue ice
stared back at me.
“Human,” he whispered.
He reached out, and with a finger,
followed an invisible trail down my cheek. I stiffened. His touch, cooler than
Demitri’s, caused warm sparks to blossom on my face. He lifted his finger to
his lips and licked its tip. He might as well have licked me from the way my body shivered.
Luka’s curious gaze held mine. “Leave
us,” he said, but not to me.
“But—” Calixta protested like a spoiled
child.
He spoke in a language I hadn’t heard
before, remaining calm yet firm. The words had a rolling cadence I couldn’t
quite follow, like rumbling thunder in the distance. They contained a harsh
sensuality. The consonants were hard and the vowels were long and lilting.
Footsteps retreated behind me.
Luka reached out again.
It took me a minute to realize he
wanted to help me up. I hesitated. He smiled. I smiled back timidly and took
his hand, completely dazzled. Even with my uniform soaked from melted snow, I
didn’t feel cold—all my attention was on him and the way his callused hand felt
on mine. Without moving much from his seated position, he helped me stand.
“What’s your name?” he asked. He had a
voice like a familiar lullaby. It filled my heart to the brim with comfort.
I swallowed and tried to stop gawking.
“Phoenix.”
“The bird that rose from the ashes.”
Luka bent his head and kissed the back of my hand. “It’s a pleasure meeting
you.”
My cheeks warmed. My head reeled, not
knowing what to think. I couldn’t understand why I felt drawn to him. And the
strange connection frightened me.
From behind, someone gripped my arms
and yanked me away before I could sort out the feelings Luka inspired in me. I
found myself behind a towering figure yet again. Recognizing the blue-black
silk for hair tied at the nape, relief washed over me. Calixta hadn’t come back
to finish me off.
Demitri’s large hand wrapped around my
wrist. Unlike the night before, no calm existed in his demeanor. He trembled
like a junky in need of a fix. The coiled power in his tense muscles vibrated
into me.
“What are you doing here?” Demitri
asked.
I didn’t know he’d spoken to me until I
saw his expressionless profile. I sighed.
“Phoenix.”
I flinched. The ruthless way he said my
name punched all the air out of me. “You owe me answers,” I said with as much
bravado as I could muster.
“I owe you nothing.” He glared. “In fact, you owe me your life.”
“I don’t think so.”
Ignoring my indignation, he faced Luka,
who’d remained seated on the bench during my exchange with Demitri. “Why is she
with you, Luka?”
“I wasn’t going to taste her, if that’s
what you’re implying,” Luka said. “Although, she is simply delicious. I wouldn’t mind if you left us alone.”
There it was again. Taste. The word that
kept coming up between these Night Students and I was connected to it in an
increasingly uncomfortable way. To taste meant to sample, but what? My flesh?
They had to be joking because the alternative wasn’t funny.
“The sins of the father …” Demitri left
his sentence unfinished.
Luka’s smile shifted into a snarl.
“Obey my command.” His chin lifted. “Kneel.”
Demitri’s stance went rigid. His grip
tightened around my wrist.
Okay, weird just got weirder. Why would
Luka want Demitri to kneel before him? I thought back to Eli and the others
bowing to Demitri when he questioned them, but they didn’t kneel. Seriously?
Were they all living on a different planet or something?
“Kneel.” Luka’s detestable smirk
made his features sinister rather than angelic. The real Lucifer: a fallen
angel.
Without letting go of my wrist, Demitri
knelt down on one knee and bowed his head, his free hand flat at the center of
his chest. “Your command has been obeyed,” he said formally.
Luka nodded once.
Demitri stood up and pulled me toward
the school without telling me where we were going. Not having the time to thank
Luka for saving me from Calixta, I risked a glance back. Luka smiled at me. His
smile spoke of whispers, secrets, and promises to be shared on a later date
Author's website: www.kateevangelista.com
Twitter: @KateEvangelista
On Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/13484226-taste
Taste is being published by Crescent Moon Press
Alec is no ordinary boy. He is a Grigori, an angel whose purpose
is to find and if necessary, kill Nephilim, particularly The Fallen, or
Nephilim gone bad. But after years
of serving blindly, he has gone AWOL and has decided to try being normal, which
means living like a human and going to school as a teenage boy though he is
more than a hundred years old.
